I found this video at the CrossFit Central Women blog, and thought it would be awesome to show you the place I go many mornings and the sorts of things I do. My workouts are nothing like the one Chris does in this video (mine are scaled way down and take me much longer to finish!) but it’ll still give you a rough idea.

Chris, by the way, runs the CrossFit workout I have on Wednesday mornings. His classes are awesome. “Christine” is the name of the workout he’s doing. Check out the look on his face when he’s almost finished and has to (maybe!) convince himself to keep pushing.

The way he seems to have his shit together is something that’s going to stick in my mind the next time I’m almost done with a workout. For some reason, that really resonates with me.

Right now, I’m at CrossFit Central three days a week, Tuesday through Thursday. My Mondays and Fridays got interesting, so I dropped back from the five days a week just for a month or two. I’m still getting a HELL of a workout. And I’m sure gonna miss these while I’m in Vegas!

It continually amazes me that I’m still actually doing it, loving it this much, considering everything going on in my life and various experiments (especially food experiments) that make CrossFit particularly challenging. A few years ago, I doubt I would have stuck with it. Exercise was important to me, but it was still way at the bottom of my list—and something as hardcore as CrossFit would have fallen off the bottom fast. It’s a real pleasure to know these people. I can’t wait to go back to having classes every weekday. Dude.

Can you really believe that something this badass has made such a positive impression on me? That thinking about it makes little happy hearts and rainbows fly around my head? Stars. Lights. We’re talking tinsel, people.

Human beings are complicated and wonderful.

This is just a smattering of Social Work prn posts that have gone up in the last month or so. Enjoy. ;}

Social Work and the Power of Belief
My usual routine, most Tuesdays and Thursdays, is to wake up at 5:30. I stumble through finding clothes and brushing my teeth, grab some small breakfast, take my vitamins, pin up my hair and go to the gym where I CrossFit five days a week. When I get done, I’m woozy and exhausted—but by the time I get home I’m starting to get my brain and my energy back. I wash the grit off my hands and sit down at my computer—still relatively filthy from the mats—and post my Social NetWorker entry for the morning. (Read more…)

Hunting That Elusive Internal Motivation
I’ve told you about CrossFit, and I’ve told you about my sometimes-favorite strategy for personal change (that is, gettin’ coached!). There were great allegories for social work there, but there’s an obvious and important aspect that I didn’t mention: The coach can’t always be there. (Read more…)

Authenticity and Better Business in Social Work
I learned early on that in order to be a good businessperson, I had to pretend to be someone other than myself. I had to pretend to be “big business”—or at least “bigger business”. I had to stay aloof and withdrawn from my clients, so they would know I was “professional”. I had to use words like “we” and “us” to talk about my company (even though I was a one-man band, back then). And no personality—not in the business world! I had to be slick and sere and professional at all junctures. At networking functions, I had to have a canned approach (as a response to everyone else’s canned approach) and there wasn’t going to be any of this banter about issues unrelated to business. (Read more…)

Mental Clarity and the Power of Now
I’m four or five chapters into Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, a book that seems to have temporarily rescued me from myself. Ever get that voice going in your head? The one that won’t shut up? (Note: I do realize that I’m writing about the voices I hear in my head to an array of mental health professionals. No, this does not bother me. Well, at least until I hit “publish”...!) (Read more…)

The Social Work “In”: Create a Positive Environment for Ideas
When you’re running a business, you want lots of ideas. Every new idea is an alternative option you can take advantage of to make everything better, so the more options, the better. You want to create a positive environment for new ideas and you want to engender a mindset in yourself that takes advantage of new ideas when they float through your head—instead of rejecting them without really thinking about them. I think many of us are actually conditioned to this kind of instant rejection. We’re so used to our lives as they are, we often fail to notice subtle opportunities to change our lives dramatically because we’re simply not expecting to see them. (Read more…)

Fear, Listening and Opportunity in Social Work
I was inspired to riff on Bob’s post yesterday when I read the following: “One of the most common reasons is that they don’t want people to talk about them because they are afraid of what they might hear.” He’s right, folks—it is too late. Everyone you make an impression on (good or bad!) has an opinion of you that they’re reasonably likely to share whether you see them do it or not. The great part of this is that you, as social workers, and every individual and company under the sun have the resource you need to change all your word of mouth for the better: Your Ability To Listen. (Read more…)

I am absolutely filthy. Covered in dirt. No hugs. ;}

This was my fourth week doing five CrossFit classes a week—Monday through Friday—so I decided to celebrate by doing one more day, and making this week six. There was a free boot camp this morning, under the bridge downtown near Town Lake, so Marty and I hustled down there around 8. Push-ups on the ground meant we all ended up covered in dust and dirt and little leaves, and all the sweat meant it stuck. It was awesome.

I should mention, too, that I’m still the last one back from the run (apologies to my teammates at the end there), but unlike my starting situation in May, I can now do real squats, like a person with… muscles. In their legs. Holy cow. It seems like a little thing until I remember exactly how weak I felt when I started doing this. What I’m experiencing is progress.

So I’m sitting here writing this entry, covered in dirt (at least it’s not mud, right?), and the only clean thing on me is my hands. Because I washed them. And while I wait for my breakfast to be ready, I figure, I have to say something about these people. Because these folks really watch out for me, and it means a lot, and furthermore it says something—about Crossfit Central in Austin, about the kind of people who work there, about the folks coaching their classes.

Zachary Thiel taught us CrossFit Elements when we started out—it was fantastic. Now, I have Chris Hartwell Mondays and Wednesdays and Lance Cantu Tuesdays and Thursdays. I drop in on Carey Kepler’s Monday-Wednesday-Friday women’s class on Fridays (which Jen Cardella helps coach), and it’s the only class I have that isn’t a beginners’ class. All of these classes kick my ass, and I don’t know how I lived without them before.

This isn’t like grade school gym where the teacher is frustrated with the slow kids, and mostly ignores them. This is something else entirely. This is a whole different motivational ethic, and I love it. There’s tons of encouragement to go around. No one gets forgotten. That’s something I was really sure would happen, the more behind I was—I was worried I’d get forgotten.

Never happened.

These coaches all go out of their way to be helpful and share advice as needed. They’re friendly and they know their shit. They have senses of humor, good hearts—and high standards. I walk out of these classes feeling so proud of myself, feeling this enormous respect for what I’m doing even though I can’t really do it any better than anyone else (and, uh, far from it). But I still leave feeling amazing. Competent. Adult, not just because I’m 28 years old and “legal”, but in a true sense of what it means to be responsible for yourself and your own well being.

In my conversation with Marty this morning, we decided that it wasn’t the exercise we liked, specifically. It wasn’t even that we were doing something that would be good for us, result in better health and flexibility and longevity—though those are all great effects. It’s that we like the way we feel when we do these things that are hard. It raises your self-esteem to know that you did the thing when most people wouldn’t have bothered. It feels good to have made the extra effort. It feels good to know you can do it, no matter how far you still have to go.

It makes it all even better that Chris always has a warm smile and Lance always has a word of encouragement and Zach has a friendly hey when we walk in, and Carey cheers us on and Jen cackles when I lose count (Jen is awesome, and yes, I probably should have been using the 20lb dumbbells. Next time!!) and that they all adamantly push us to do our best, every minute. I love seeing these people every morning. Man, I can only imagine what a hardcore gym workout every day could have been. What I got was so much better than I imagined. Jesus, if I can do this, who couldn’t?

And crap! Exercise isn’t my thing—it’s never really been my thing. It’s not that I was born to do this stuff or that I’ve gravitated towards it all my life. I’m a freaking couch potato. So it has to be something else. It has to be the challenge and the play of it, and the environment, and the people.

Hell.

It’s probably just CrossFit Central.

Thanks, guys. :}

Do you know what’s terrifying?

THE WHOLE WORLD.

The whole world is a scary, horrible, terrifying place that gives no quarter in hours of stress. You can’t run away. You can’t hide. It is always out there, waiting for you. You are expected to just put up with it and be brave and be strong and so you put on a chirpy happy face and pretend everything is okay even though you are SHITTING YOURSELF in terror.

And there is nothing more terrifying than getting your fat measured by your svelte CrossFit coach on a Sunday afternoon.

NOTHING.

So I go to get my body composition measured because it’s happening today and I want to know if the measurements I took on my own were correct.

I’m pretty sure they weren’t, but I’m hoping they aren’t worse.

They can’t really be higher than I think they are, can they?

First I write down some goals (very nice goals, I think) and then we measure circumferences of limbs and things. I stand there and pretend it’s completely normal. La la la, nothing much, just getting my FAT MEASURED by my CrossFit coach! Ho hum, lazy Sunday afternoon, let’s see what my body fat percentage is today, I look over his shoulder as he writes it down, FORTY PERCENT?? There’s a plus sign, what does that plus sign mean? OVER FORTY PERCENT!?

Much higher than I thought. A part of me dies quietly of horror, and the rest of me makes pleasant conversation. “Ha ha, it was such a coincidence that you were doing body composition today, since I measured myself exactly a week ago and expected to do it again pretty much now,” ha ha, what SERENDIPITY! THAT’S SO FUNNY! Would you like more fat to measure? HERE’S MY BUTT, LET’S MEASURE THAT!

I was going to write this post a few weeks ago, when I started the instructional classes. I was going to write it then because, while I have maintained my internal composure excellently in the days leading up to CrossFit classes and in the spaces between them, I have rediscovered every single class how absolutely fundamentally terrifying it is for me to be there. Just to be there. And I finally wrote this post today because on the way home from measuring my body composition I remembered how very much I wanted to hyperventilate into a paper bag just thinking about it. Why, Megan? Why should this be terrifying?

Well… here’s the problem.

I don’t really believe I’m meant to be there.

I don’t really see myself as ever occupying the same universe Emily does, with her 125 pounds of muscle and 10% body fat. I can’t imagine how I can possibly belong at CrossFit. There is a small part of me who is waiting to be kicked out. “You can’t do these things,” they will say. “You’re not good enough. You’re different. You’re just not capable of them.” And I won’t be allowed to attend classes anymore. Maybe they won’t even refund my money! Because I’m not like them, not worth bothering with.

Every little indignity rubs the terror in, even though they haven’t kicked me out (yet, something says to me)—that I’m not like them, and not good enough. I needed to be in the beginners’ classes instead of the regular CrossFit classes. I can’t keep up with the run. I can’t do a fake, easy pushup. I run out of oxygen so fast when we’re doing anything. And apparently my body fat is ten percent higher than I thought it was. O GOD, the VIOLENCE done by NUMBERS!

Why is it that I think I’m “not like them”? Well, I’m just not capable of the things they’re capable of. I have to make excuses for myself—oh, I hurt myself easily. I can’t move that fast. I’ve never been able to do regular pushups. Whine, excuse, complain. Every time we learn something new, I actually have to STIFLE THE REFLEX to take someone aside and let them know that I need to do something different because I’m not like everyone else. I’m supposed to be an exception. A weaker exception. My whole life, I have made allowances for myself. It’s okay, you just can’t do what they’re doing. That doesn’t make you a bad person.

BUT IT DOES. IT DOES, it DOES make me a bad person. It makes me a bad person BECAUSE THOSE WERE ALL LIES!!

BIG FAT STINKING LIES!!

My whole life I’ve been lying to myself saying that I can’t be like that, I can’t be strong, I can’t be fast, I can’t feel good, I’ll never be able to climb a tree or run a race or fight evildoers with my bare fists, I have completely exempted myself from those categories, and I’ve been telling myself these LIES for SO MANY YEARS that NOW I FINALLY BELIEVE THEM. I believe them so powerfully that the very act of attending a CrossFit class—completely separate from the fear of being physically unattractive, of not being liked, of having spent money on the wrong solution—the very ACT of participating instills an enormous amount of terror just because I’m afraid I don’t belong there. Afraid that if they really knew who they were dealing with, they’d reject me out of hand. And wondering when they’ll find out, wondering how long I’ll last before they do. WHEN WILL THE OTHER SHOE DROP? Will they yell? Will they be disappointed? Will they be disgusted with themselves for not having seen it sooner?

How long before they realize I’m not capable and exile me to a special country for incapable people? How long? How long do I have? Because the incredibly perverse part of all of this is that with all of the effort, and the grunting and the sweating and the exhaustion and the struggle to have enough oxygen to breathe and the embarrassment of consistently being the very last person back from the 400 meter run, with 98% of visible participants slimmer or prettier than me, with Marty being insanely stronger and more conditioned than I am and better at all of it, even with everything else I’ve mentioned, with the sheer impossibility of ensuring my appearance when my hair is pinned up and my clothes are soaked in sweat…

With all of that…

All those things, the perverse part is…

I actually… LIKE IT.

I want to do it.

I don’t want them to kick me out. I don’t want them to tell me that they made a mistake, that I can’t really do this thing after all. I don’t want Em to IM me someday and say, You know, it might just be better if you did something else instead…

I am so afraid that someone will make me stop, when part of me is absolutely certain that I don’t deserve to keep going. And I like doing it so much I could CRY, because it scares the HELL out of me to go.

The world is like this.

The world is a fucking terrifying place with bad monsters and a perceived ability to hear all the negative thoughts in people’s heads when they look at you and situations that are hard and the frequent discovery that you’re worse than everyone else at the thing you thought you were good at.

The world is hard and scary and awful.

But you have to keep living there ANYWAY. You have to keep trying. You have to chip away at the thing, you have to change yourself. THIS is not an opportunity, this is not an obligation, this is a FACT. Opting out produces no results. No one can change you FOR you. You have to make the hard things happen because you’re obstinate enough to push and push and push until they do. You can’t just stop because something is scary. You have to be scarier. You have to be stronger and braver.

THAT is why I’ll go to every freaking CrossFit class. I will go five days a week as soon as they’ll let me in June, and I will love every minute of it. I will go to free workouts on Saturdays. I will voluntarily get my body fat measured and I will do it with a smile on my face, month after month after month. I will do the pushups I “can’t do” and I will run that 400 meters every time even if I’m way behind because that’s the only way for any of it to get better. Inside my head I will cry and scream and insist that I CAN’T and think of ways to trick them into letting me stay instead of making me leave, and I will sweat and pant and be afraid and keep going anyway.

Outside, I will look brave and determined and continue to do everything I’m supposed to do to get through this. I will keep going when it’s horrible, when it’s hard, when I can’t figure out how it ends, I have to keep going because NOTHING ELSE WILL GET ME THROUGH. Because the only alternative is to stop, and that’s no alternative at all.

Just wanting to feel better won’t make me strong. Pretending, lying to myself, won’t make me strong. Talking about it won’t make me strong. Being a pansy and getting away with less than my best won’t make me strong. Making excuses won’t make me strong. ONLY DOING IT WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

So god help me, I’m going to do it.

Red-faced and terrified, I will conquer the world.

I recorded this yesterday, but wanted to give Athena a little more airtime—so I held the video post for today.

After an exhaustive search, I found the series in question: The Secret of the Unicorn Queen. I can’t find a really good primary link for it, but here’s the search in Amazon, and a fan listing of all the books in the series. Apparently the books were out of print, but they’re coming back (with all new, nearly-unrecognizable covers).

I wish I knew where mine were; they may all be in a box in Ohio, for all I know. But after making this video, I’d probably read them again happily, kids books or not! They were fantastic, at least from what I remember.

My CrossFit class today—my first real class ever—was amazing, incidentally. And I got through the whole thing.

Day-After Update: Marty listened to this video and walked wordlessly out of the room in the middle of it—I didn’t even notice. He came back five minutes later with this book, absolutely coated in dust, the pages yellowed, but otherwise in reasonable condition. I asked aghast where he had found it, and he said it was just in a pile with some other books he’d noticed the other day. It’s the only one we know of that I have with me in Austin, it’s the first book in the series, and I had no idea it had moved with me from Ohio.

It’s going on the shelf with the rest of my Really Good books—the motivating ones, the inspirational ones, the ones that really mean something to me. Well-deserved, I’d say, if accidental. ;}