Love training my back...

Lifting does a lot more for me than give me nice biceps.  If that was the primary benefit it simply wouldn’t have been enough to call me back to the weight room again and again all these years.  I love the physical benefits, I love being able to lift heavy things. I love the muscles and curves where there once was nothing but bone, however the more important results are something that can’t be seen.  I call my workouts active meditation.  That’s how they function in my life.  Lifting is a discipline, a regulating force.  It serves to narrow my focus, force my mind to quiet and release that which is extraneous to the task at hand.  It frees me….

My perseverance with lifting reinforces character traits I want to underscore.  It tells me I’m reliable, I’m accountable, I can commit…only to myself, in this case but isn’t that where it begins?  Not another person in the world would know if I didn’t show up, if only went at it in a half-hearted way.  Nobody would know if I quit…..but I would know…and that makes all the difference. You have to be able to keep promises to yourself before you can be depended on to keep promises to others…and that is the one thing I’ve wanted most since I was a little girl, since I first gained the power of self-reflection.  I want the fortitude to stand when others cannot, In a critical situation I want to be able to help myself and still have enough in me to extend a hand to help another who may be failing.  I want to be strong.  Lifting is just one way of honing, sharpening and feeding that desire.  It’s practice…. and for that I love it most of all….