The email...

Reaching out to others can be a powerful experience.  Walls come down for one person, while the other one helps in ways they probably don't realize.

Back in September I signed up for CrossFit.  After my first day I was strangely mortified and excited at the same time.  First of all I was thrilled that I had stepped out of my comfort zone and even went by myself.  I was mortified because of how far out of control I saw I had let myself get.

This when I got to meet Blair Morrison.  He is the owner of CrossFit Anywhere and he was so nice to me that I almost wanted to cry.  Actually, everyone there was so nice I wanted to cry. How could they be so nice to me when I was so hard on myself?  I really give props to Blair for creating an environment that anyone, at any level of fitness, could feel welcome and feel like they belong there.

I left that day and sent him an email thanking him and his response had a very big impact on how I was thinking about this journey of fitness.  I share it below because I think it apply's to anyone who is afraid to begin to workout because of feelings of inadequacies.

He may not know what kind of impact taking 10 minutes to write an email to me really had.  I look at this email often when I feel like I can't continue, when I retreat to a place of doubt about my ability, when I am overwhelmed with how far I have to go, and it helps me know that those feelings are not unique to me, but how I overcome them is.

What I really like about his approach is that he tells me I am not alone in how I feel.  He doesn't feel sorry for me.  He says it's up to me.  I feel empowered every time I read it.

On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 4:00 PM, Jenny Misirli wrote:

Hi Blair,

I just wanted to say thank you for helping me today.  It is a humbling experience for me who likes to do everything at a high level to not be able (yet) to do what others are doing.  It was a big decision even buying the groupon, but I am glad I did.

I just wanted to say thank you!  I will be there tomorrow at 6pm with my husband.

Have a great day…

Hi Jenny, sorry for my delayed response... My computer got sent to the apple store for repairs and I have been off email because of it.  A nice reprieve, I admit, but now I'm scrambling to catch up. 

 

Anyways, humbling experiences of any sort can be hard to process, and physically humbling ones even more so.  I'm glad you are willing to embrace this because it is honestly the only way to progress.  Fitness is hard because you have to fail to improve.  People that always stop short of their margins never get better because their body doesn't get the signal that it needs to anything different than it's already doing.  Logically this is easy to understand, but practically it feels like you're just constantly being humbled and that gets tiresome.  I've been there as an athlete, I've coached people through it as a personal trainer, and I've seen people succumb to it and continue on the road they were previously on.  It's not an easy thing to overcome.

 

The best way to succeed is to surround yourself with people who have decided to take on similar burdens.  No two goals are exactly the same and neither are two starting points.  But the intention and dedication can be.  It helps to know there are others experiencing similar struggles.  This is why CrossFit is special.  Everyone at the gym is doing something they're uncomfortable just about every day.  The things I ask of my members are challenging physically and mentally... this is meant to bind them together into a community that supports one another through harder times.  It works and you will see progress if you can stand the growing pains.

 

I hope to see you in again this week to continue the Onramp classes.  Please let me know if you have any questions or issues I can help with.

 

All the best,

 

Blair

Life changing video for the perfectionist/control desiring/overly guarded folks.

What's Your Story?

Every Heart Has a Story to Tell

A video made by my friend Kris Plachy: author, life coach, and all around amazing woman.  This video reminds me that my story is still being written, and so is yours.

400 meters

I'm a pretty brave person.  Here are the facts:

• I moved out of my moms house at 18.
• I drove a uhaul all by myself to San Diego and checked myself into college dorms.
• I backpacked Europe when I was 21 alone.
• I joined the Peace Corps and spent two years in Romania.
• I fell in love with Altug after a night out drinking on St. Patty's day in Istanbul, met his family that week, let my friends return to Romania so I could stay behind with him.  
• I've been to Serbia and Croatia.
• I married Altug after 3 months of knowing him.
• I am responsible for leading 80 plus people in my job and making big decisions daily.

I am currently terrified of the following:

• Running
• Not eating bread 
• Cartwheels, handstands, and front rolls
• Running
• Box jumps
• Running

Up until yesterday I avoided running at all costs.  My first warm-up at Crossfit I almost panicked when I saw the words "Run 400 meters."  I did my best, but I couldn't even get to the 50m mark without feeling like I was going to pass out.  I came back in and Blair, the owner, told me, "You know,  just run to 200m so you don't overdo it."  Overdo it?  Overdoing it at this point was walking up the slight incline when I would walk into a movie theater.  This was different.  

I learned that Blair updated the next days workouts nightly so I could scope out what I was in for.  If there was running, I was having a REST DAY!!  Then, sadly...I broke my toe.  I emailed Blair immediately (even before I went to the dr),  "Blair,  I think I have a broken toe.  Too bad I won't be able to run for 6 weeks."  In my mind I was like, YES, no running for 6 weeks!!  Woo Hoo!!

Well, six weeks have passed.  Time to face the facts, it's time to learn how to run.  Up until Monday, the farthest I had run was the 400m mark on our trail.  It's at the top of a hill and in my mind past that marker was no mans land.  The land of no return. The land of heavy breathing and embarrassing failure (this is all in my head, but I was SURE it was true).  I would need to conquer this one in the comfort of my own zone,  just to make sure I could do it.

Here is what I did: At around the 4 week broken toe mark I thought it was time to face this fear.  I drove my car around my block and calculated what a mile was.  I parked the car and without hesitation I started running! Even better, I finished it and was amazed at how my body actually went father than I thought it would. I was proud, crazy proud.  If you could hear the thoughts in my head it would sound like his:

"OMG Jenny.  You ran, well ran/walked, but hell..you moved one foot in front of the other.  I didn't pass out or keel over on a neighbors yard asking for someone to call 911.  Maybe it's a fluke.  Maybe I measured the mile wrong.  OMG, I just ran a mile!"  It can be pretty back and forth at times me and myself.  Confident Jenny and scared Jenny don't always agree.  I'll have to say my confident side is winning the arguments lately.

Last week, I was feeling good on a Monday night till the Tuesday workout was updated online.  "Run the hill, 1.8 miles." Damn, why is Blair doing this to ME!!!!???  Doesn't he know that there are mountain lions on trails in Folsom?  Hmmnn, I know what to do...REST DAY!! Well, even though I avoided it,  I shared my thoughts with my friend Mary and she said, let's do this together!  We were off on Monday, so after the workout we were doing the run together.

Yesterdays WOD (Workout of the day) was great, but the run was looming in my head. I have to admit I thought about how I could get out of this commitment.  But I just didn't want to,  I made a commitment to Mary and to myself and we were going to do it.  And we did!  We even had another friend join us and it was a beautiful experience.  We were very proud of ourselves and I was thankful for their support. And there we no mountain lions, only a regal hawk and beautiful deer. 

And then, I show up to the gym this morning and the WOD included running 1 mile.  WTF!  I wasn't ready for this?  I didn't prepare for this!  How could I leave??? Um, no Jenny.  You are ready for this.  You have never been more ready.  Time to do this and cross into no mans land after the 400m mark.

I have a surprise for you readers and I am going to kill the suspense.  I survived the run.  It was actually not that hard.  There is some beautiful scenery after that 400m mark and I had people cheering me all the way as they passed me and passed me again.  It was okay, there will come a day when I'll get to their pace.  Today I was on my pace and loving every minute. 

Moral of the story: 

What ever your 400m mark represents is really not as scary as you think.  It's probably way better than you could have ever imagined.  The gift of crossing it and seeing the view from the top is a way better feeling that avoiding it, even if it's not easy.  The 400m is still not my favorite thing in the world, but I won't fear it anymore.  I won't dream about it and make it change my workout plan for the week.  Today was another step to reclaiming me from the grips of my running monsters. 

The Time is Now

My life is changing and I feel it.  It's one of those magical times when everything seems to come together smoothly, not perfectly, but smoothly.  Things are making sense and ideas are becoming clearer to me.  This isn't one of those "It's January I am changing my life" type deal.

It's more like I have been working on this for a looong time and I think I am beginning to understand that there has been and will alway be one hinderance to my success and happiness in this lifetime, my huge addiction to my fearful thoughts. It's been a wild love affair that's ending and I am realizing I've been in an abusive relationship with myself.  Go figure.  It's me.  Not you.

Back in June I had a trip to the doctor and weighed more than I ever had and more than I ever thought I would.  I'm talking Biggest Loser show, FIRST weight in.  I went back to work mortified and I did something I would never do before.  I reached out for help.  To a skinny person.  To someone who I knew would help me.  To an employee of mine.  To a lifesaver.

Imagine this:
Jenny:  Can I see you in my office?
Friend: Sure.
Jenny:  I need your help.  Can't do it anymore. Help Wanted.

Without hesitation she signed up for the job and the journey began.

There have been a lot of moving parts up to this point of today which I will share another time.  But the important thing that I can see that in asking for help,  love showed up.

I heard recently on the Gayle King talk show during an interview was a comment about the thoughts we have in our heads and how harsh hey can be to ourselves.  I was in the car just leaving a hard workout at my gym (Crossfit Anywhere) and was really proud of myself.  Gayle said, "You know, those thoughts are really like little monsters that live in our heads."

It hit me like a ton of bricks. FEAR, afraid, terrified, scary...they are all just thoughts that are screwing with our minds which lead to fearful actions (or in my case inaction).  That moment I knew I would write a blog about me challenging my fears called "I'm Not Afraid of Monsters."  That was last Novemeber...I've been too afraid to begin to write it  for the following reasons:

• What if people hate it and, 
• I embarrase my family, or 
• What if no one reads it, and 
• I probably won't have anything to write about anyway!
• I'm a bad speller, what if spellcheck doesn't catch it,
• These things are permanent and what if I am applying for a job in the future and my employer reads it and think it's unprofessional...

DO YOU GET IT?  I am FULL of crappy, fearful thoughts...And GUESS what...I don't think I am alone.

So, here I am writing it.  Facing the fear head on.  

Here's the deal, I am working on facing my fears and I want create and encourage others to do the same in this forum.  It's time we all stop limiting ourselves and start loving ourselves.  I plan to utilize this blog to update my fear facing adventures and to share stories of the same.  I love to share great articles and video's that I find so you'll see those here too.

Most of all, I want to do the thing I have wanted to do for years.  Write. Share.  Grow. Life the life that I have dreamed up and God has granted.  

Who wants to join me?