Lately, I’ve been feeling sluggish and limited. I’ve had zero motivation. I’ve told myself a million excuses. And then I snapped the eff out of it.

The past year or so I’ve played the part of a wellness & fitness coach in my community.  I have helped people lose weight and find their specific formulae to loving themselves. It’s made me feel amazing. I love helping people. I feel called to it. I worked as a bartender for years while in college. What is a bartender, if not a life coach of sorts? Alright an enabling life coach, but you get the picture. Letting them hash out their life’s woes over a cocktail or two, I’d offer any advice a worldly 21 year old could. Sometimes all people need are to be heard. I realized that helping people made me happy. It took me many years to get my career back to where I found that purpose, but that’s a story for another time.

So, lately I’ve been feeling just…..meh. I haven’t been excited about my work. I haven’t been excited about my writing (something I’ve always loved to do) and I have been eating terribly. I’m talking, “I know that processed cheese dip is going to make my stomach pissed off at me, but I’m going to eat it anyway because….screw my stomach.” Yeah. Self. Destructive.

The reason behind all my…MEH has been my back.

When I was 21, due to riding horses my entire life, having a genetically bad back and a car wreck, I found myself unable to walk and basically missing a disc in my back–my vertebrae were rubbing together. I had surgery to fuse the two vertebrae.

As a result, a lot of pressure is being put on the vertebrae above my fusion and now that disc has degenerated too.
I also have a pinched nerve in the middle of my back.
I also have two injured and healed rotator cuffs (shoulders).
I also have a weak knee that aches on occasion.
Yep, I’m a total mess.

Dealing with this new disc problem has been weighing on me lately. Not being able to get to the gym in over two months is taking its toll. My stomach is bloated, my shoulders hurt and crunch, I feel sluggish. My stomach is in absolute disarray. My mind just isn’t there though. I COULD figure out a workout plan with specifics defined by my physical therapist and eat well to help my body. But I haven’t.

I’ve been feeling limited. And sorry for myself. I’ve gotten down on myself. I’ve been self destructive and I’ve been self pitying. I knew I needed to STOP IT but I’ve had that stupid little voice in my head telling me what’s the use? It led me to not wanting to work, not feeling capable of helping people because HOW COULD I WHEN I FEEL THIS WAY?! I felt like a fraud when I said things like “self love!!” while dissing on my own body.

Let’s look at how I snapped the eff out of it.

One night, Brian insisted that we get in the pool. I am not normally a pool person and I hadn’t wanted to get my hair wet or have to re shower or whothehellknowswhatotherexcuse. My back hurt too much. All I wanted to do was lie on the couch and browse Pinterest. But he talked me into it, telling me it would be good for my back. I knew full well he was right. When I got in, he came over to me and lifted my feet from the pool bottom. He held me there suspended in the water and the weightlessness I felt, that immediate release of pressure on my injured back…. I suddenly realized how selfish I had been behaving.

I bawled like a baby.

I’m starting to tear up even writing this. For one of the first times in months, I felt….nothing. No pressure, no pinched nerve, no pain. I was floating and it was amazing. I knew I should have done it earlier. I just don’t like pools and I made that my excuse.

I was too miserable being miserable that I was missing all the signs to STOP IT and GET OUT OF MY OWN WAY and give myself some relief. Brian knew I needed it. He’d known it all along. But I was so stupid and self sufficient that I didn’t need to listen to him. I was lost. I was hurting. I was continuously getting down on myself for feeling bad.

It’s a vicious cycle. I was down because I was hurting. And because I was hurting I didn’t want to go to the gym. And because I didn’t go to the gym I was down. And it made me hurt and not want to go even more. HOW STUPID. Even a fitness coach needs a reminder sometimes. Self pity is an easy cycle to get into.

I’m too this or I don’t have that. What you’re really doing is excusing bad behavior. You are justifying it to yourself. If you had a friend, would you be OK with them giving you these justifications?? That they just don’t feel like it?

Floating in my pool was the best thing I had done all week. Being there in the moment, enveloped in the arms of the man I love, I cried like a baby in amazement of not one thing hurting for the first time in a long time. Sometimes it takes a midnight swim to make you realize how stupid you’ve been acting. We are all capable of great, amazing, stupendous things, if only we’d get out of our own way.

So I’m approaching my business in a new way. As R.E.M. sang, everybody hurts sometimes. Instead of letting it control my life and my motivations, I’m taking the reins and using it to find new ways to get through to my clients. To maybe sing a different tune that will resonate with someone who my message hasn’t before.

I’m done being selfish. Let’s talk about your goals. I’m here to help you chase them down. Not quite sure? Let’s talk about your excuses, then. Email me, comment on this post, find me on Facebook.  Always remember, you’re worth it. I’m blowing up some floaties right now, I’m heading out to the pool… Because I’m worth it too.

So much love,