What's life like to you...
I had this blog written last night and was putting the finishing touches on it at 11:00pm when bam, the whole thing disappeared. I am a big one for lessons, so my lesson here was to make sure and save everything in a Word document going forward.
Anyways…Hi everyone. My intro paragraph was a little different last night, but after it went MIA, my heart took me in another direction…the gym and gym life is weighing heavily on my heart this week and here is what my heart is wanting to say.
Last night in the gym we had to hold a strict press, for those of you that don’t know what that is, it’s holding a barbell above your head with weight on it; arms locked out and you had to accumulate 2 whole minutes within a 4 minute time cap. While I was holding the weight up a lot of things were running through my head and then an analogy came to mind (I really do my best thinking in the gym)...
Life is like a barbell (unless you’re Forest Gump and then it’s like a box of chocolate), on top of that barbell lies all of our relationships and responsibilities…we balance if for awhile and then things start to change, at times, some relationships fall off leaving us unbalanced and at times responsibilities and relationships start to load up weighing us down. While we try our best to keep the weight level, sometimes we have to set it down, deload, ask for help and pick it back up again. If we don’t take the time to set it down and we continue to rock back and forth trying to keep the weight above our head, eventually everything comes crashing down and not only are the things we were holding suffer, but we crush ourselves as well. Holding the weight above our heads shows strength, but learning when to set it back down and start again is what truly makes us stronger.
Be kind to yourself, be understanding that you aren’t required to carry it all, all of the time and know when to ask for help. I do believe Forest Gump was right, life truly is like a box a chocolates, you never know what you are going to get; but life is also like a barbell, the lessons it holds unlocks the very best of you.
Lion King
Sometimes we like to hold Dewey up like they do with Simba on Lion King, these are the nights Dewey hates the most.
TUNE INTO MY HEART
Celebrating Great Music
I love this song. Life is all about perspective. What you see and what I see are going to be quite different and there is a whole lot of beauty in the different views we have. Listen, enjoy and appreciate the differences we all share!
Kennedy's Korner
A year ago, I had my son make mac and cheese. He doesn't like to cook so I thought he should learn. As he got to the milk part, he opened the refrigerator and asked if it means white or chocolate. Hahaha. This was the last time I pushed the issue. This last weekend he said he wanted to cook for the family, with some reservation, I said "okay", told him to pick out a recipe, we will go grocery shopping and he can make it. The next day, he texted me a recipe for stuffed rigatoni. He has been watching the Sopranos and thought an Italian dish sounded good. I thought this will be a perfect time for Kennedy to do what she does best and critique his homemade meal. We shopped for the ingredients, he asked if I could get him cigarettes so he could smoke while cooking like they do on the show of which I said no and we went home to prepare. 100 stuffed rigatoni, much regret and three hours later, the meal was served. We patiently waited our family's critic to give her seal of approval and after a couple of spoonfuls, she gave it an 8.5/10...she's pretty hard on her brother, so that was a remarkable score. If you are looking to kill a Saturday and you too want to be like a Soprano, here is the link for the recipe (I read this aloud to her and she said I could have read it with more emotion, she gave my narration a 5/10...hahaha! this kid)...enjoy https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/a23480995/stuffed-rigatoni/
The One Where Shea is Grateful...
I think that it is easy to forget where we came from. It’s easy to forget when things aren’t going quite right, the goodness that our life is surrounded by. We sometimes get so unhappy with where we are at, that we start pointing fingers at everything trying to find ways to make ourselves feel better.
A couple of years ago, I made the brave decision to walk away from my comfort zone and try something new. While the thought of going somewhere I wasn’t familiar with scared me, I knew it was something that I had to do to become a better me. I have great memories and incredible people that I met at my old gym, but my unhappiness internally was preventing me from being at my best and I knew that I needed to do something. The moment I walked into High Vibe, I knew it was where I was meant to be. The diversity of the people, the incredible love that was shown and the “at ease” feeling I felt was something I had never experienced before.
This last month I took some time off from the gym. I had so much going on and I used time as an excuse. I felt off for a month, not like myself at all. I went on vacation and came back and decided to hit the gym again, I walked back through those doors and instantly knew that this is what I had been missing. The workouts are grueling, but there is something about giving it your all amongst people that I not only look up to, but love, that just fills my heart like no other.
I know amazing people in all of the gyms in town and am good friends with a lot of them, when talking with them it always comes up “why do you workout here or there” and we all have our reasons for working out where we do; some for convenience, some for friends, some because of rates, etc. but we all respect and love the fitness community that we are a part of.
A couple of weeks ago, we lost an amazing human. He was a personal trainer of mine for about 6 months at my old gym and someone I greatly respected in the community. It was a tragedy losing a great human at such a young age and he will be someone I think about for the rest of my life. I will go back to my old gym this weekend and be surrounded by some of the most incredible humans I have ever known celebrating one of the best humans to ever walk this Earth.
We all have our experiences; good, bad or indifferent, but without all of them, we would not be the people we are today. I’ve done a lot of finger pointing in my days, trying to blame everyone, but myself for my unhappiness. I tried like Hell to make everyone I meet save me, until I realized it was me that needed to do the saving. Thinking back on the memories I shared at my old gym, I smile from the good ones and I am humbled by the “bad” and I know I wouldn’t be me without all of them.
This weekend will be filled with all the emotions. I will forever be grateful for my old gym and all that I got there including meeting this incredible young man that we will be celebrating and I will be grateful for my brave step to save myself in my new gym. Both my old gym and my new hold memories, people and experiences that allowed me to become the person I am today. While it will be nice to go back, I know there is no place like home and to me High Vibe is just that!
I tried my best to intertwine a lot of thoughts I have been having, but I think if you take anything away from this, it's to remember that everyone throughout our life impacts us in one way or another, be grateful for whatever it is that they brought to you life. Things happen, people move on, but the impact that each of us have on each other is something our hearts never forget.
" Live with a grateful heart."
Nothing Butta love for you all!