Fitness Goals?
Talk about unexpected
Believe it or not, a deck of cards is where it sort of all began for me. April 2022 I had found myself on a plane from Washington state on route back to California - after a third stay with my brother for a bit of inpatient rehab, only this time - despite being clean, I had no idea who I was. The mental anguish was the most difficult part of the journey for me. Having been committed to a particular life for so long, I truly found myself in a place between psychotic and suicidal -looking back on it now. If one were to ask what it was I had experienced, the only example I feel I could suggest it felt like was a haunting. A decades worth of pain, suffering, hurt, and death all coming to an abrupt halt in my mind. So now that I’ve made it back into my folks house, what am I to do?
We’ve never been the type of family to express our emotions openly or lean on one another for eachothers support. You feel something? You either bury it, or get misunderstood, simple as that. On one side of the spectum you have my pop, whom has been hardened through his extensive career in the Military, and on the opposite end you have my mom whom is operating on an entirely different cultural timeline - having been raised in the Phillipines. The problem was, the home I had returned to wasn’t the home I’d once remembered - not that I was ever in it. Sure paints the same, driveway still parks cars, my mom’s still here, pops moved out, things are more grim than I remember.
Not knowing where or how to begin on this newly found path of progress from substance abuse, I had obviously found comfort with television. I’m almost certain, at one point, I had only traded one addiction for the other and television being the new drug of choice - until it wasn’t. As you can imagine it didn’t take long for me to run through every show, get familiar with every movie, and ultimately find myself worn out. I remember one afternoon staring at a black screen for what had to be at least 10 mins until a thought entered my mind - “There’s got to be more to my life than this.” So I began with my deck of cards. Each count from the deck was a count for pushups. King = 13 Queen =12 Jack = 11 and so on so forth. Flip a card, and get busy until that deck was completed. I never would have imagined what would blossom from that one simple new habit I was attempting to form. Soon after, I had found myself taking notes from various sources like the ones listed in the photo above. Quotes, speeches, tedtalks, meditation practices, psychology, neuroscience, and even the C.I.A’s Gateway Experience had caught my eye.
From that deck of cards stemmed activity. From consistent activity formed a new habit. With my new habit I learned accountability. It appears to me now anything - mind, brain, or behavior was at the forefront of my exploration - so I participated and made interesting discoveries along my course - a course I had no idea was forming the entire time. A path that was being revealed to me. Everything then was just so day to day. Hour by hour. What started as pushups and note taking to pass the time transformed into diving further into topics, exploring uncharted waters. The difficult part was having been an addict for a decade - who had only prioritized one thing for so long, I felt wildly shocked at how infantile my mind had felt. I struggled to read even the most simple of texts. I was battling with comprehension dilemmas, sometimes needing to reread the same page multiple times in order to grasp what I had just read 5 mins earlier. Identifying the words was easy, recalling the info, not so much. So what did I do? I realized I had to learn how to learn all over again. I never quit. Not only was this juvenile mind of mine - at 33 - interfering with my attempts at learning, but I was also struggling with cognitive behavioral issues (once made clear to me by a psychiatrist) only now - I wanted to take action. With the momentum created during those gloomy times, my life has completely shifted right before my eyes.
Fastforward to today, where I find myself having fitness goals. Fitness goals? I know, it’s just as odd to me as I’m sure it would be to the many who knew me at a time where I couldn’t weigh more than 115lbs soak and wet due to the lifestyle I was suffering from. Today’s bench milestone sits at 190lbs and according to StrengthLevelDotCom isn’t too bad for my age and current weight. And not to mention it’s always been a workout that I’ve legitimately hated and intentionally avoided. Like Goggins would say “Embrace the suck.”
Or what about this bad boy right here? Interesting to think about for myself. I never in a million years would’ve thought I’d be the type of person to be deadlifting anything - let alone having a weekly regiment. I now understand anything worth doing only required 2 simple acts from me. Partcipation and effort - they’ve brought me a long way from the person I could’ve been, or the version of me who could’ve ended up another statistic on one of these health sites displaying the overdose losses in the form of digits. Aside from the what-ifs or what could’ve beens, I admit I’ve never been more excited to be a novice at something. My deadlift max currently is at 240lbs . All in all I’m simply thankful for the opportunity to do so. I mean living life that is.