Broken Buddha

PERSPECTIVE 🦿 Lately, I’ve been feeling quite judgmental about my physique and level of fitness. I’ve been beating myself up because I feel heavy and quite honestly been feeling like I’ve been failing. 💀 Body dysmorphia is a real thing. You look in the mirror, and no matter what you see it’s never good enough. You spend all your time focusing on the things you don’t like, or what you consider to be failures instead of focusing on all of your successes. Instead of focusing on how far you’ve come. You not only drown in self sabotage, but you steal any joy you have by playing the comparison game between you and anyone else. Goals are a great thing until they become toxic. 🪷 Today was the first day in a very long time that I felt proud of my journey, my accomplishments. Over the past year, I’ve pretty much rebuilt my body. I recovered from major back surgery, an L4 – S1 laminectomy with rods and screws. During that time I gained over 20 pounds where I ate my feelings as I recovered and crawled my way out of depression and trauma-induced burn out. Oh, and I’m turning 50 years old soon. ⏳ This picture shows a 20lb difference from just 10 months ago. I worked my ass off for that 20lbs. I’ve created a new level of discipline, a new level of sacrifice. Not to mention lifting the weights in the gym has lifted my weighted thoughts on my soul. 🫶 Today, I just wanted to create a memory to remind myself to be proud. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl045XaOFxj/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

TRIGGERED + Emotions are a funny thing, especially when they slap you in the face. I’m not sure I like using the word triggered to define these waves, but triggered seems befitting. During my workout today a song played on my playlist that hit me hard in the feels. + My 3-level laminectomy was 16 months ago. During the worst of my recovery my days were spent just breathing through a lot of pain. During those first 2 months or so I spent a great deal of time sitting in a rigid chair in our living room with my TLSO brace strapped to me. Walking from the chair to the kitchen was a chore and going upstairs required a rehearsal of movements to try and keep myself from passing out from the pain. I passed a lot of time watching TV show reruns. During a particular rerun episode I heard a song I liked, so I searched, found and added the song to my Spotify playlist. + Up until today I hadn’t heard that song for the better part of the past 8 months. I drowned in a flood of emotions as the song started playing during my workout. I had flashbacks to all the pain, to all the discomfort, to the limits I had placed in my life because of surgery and my injury. I had flashbacks to life before my surgery with the unending claudicating pain to my back and my left leg, and I was reminded of how I couldn’t stand or walk more than a couple minutes before my left leg would go numb from the knee down. I was so miserable. + Then I lept forward to present day remembering how much I’ve been beating myself up for not “pushing harder” and for not “being better.” Thinking about all the self-sabotaging thoughts I’ve had in recent weeks because I’m not in “better shape.” + It was a crisp moment of clarity all brought on by a song. I cried. The universe is amazing sometimes. In a world of over-thinking and over-connectedness, sometimes all we need is a simple song to remind us to feel the ground beneath our feet. To be grateful. To never forget what it took to get you to this point, and that you’ve fought pretty damn hard to stand where and how you’re standing. + I’ve been spending a lil too much time fighting for the next level that I forgot to enjoy the level I’m living in.