Bippity Boppity Boo

I recently received an email from my ex-trainer. He's now training a top-10 world heavyweight contender. I used to see him at least once a week and near the end it was nearly every other day. Pushed, exhausted and sore as hell I'd retreat to my cozy home and well-outfitted bed to rest my weary bones. Generally, I made a point to not be a big whiner when I went to train. At $75 a session, I needed to just accept that I wanted to be there... on some level. It took time and dedication to repeatedly return. Actually, I liked my trainer so much that I often went out of duty and loyalty to him. I'm like that - easier to keep my promises to others than the ones I make to myself.

While the sessions were always fun (I had a hearty laugh at myself every damn time), they could be really frustrating. Still, I went. My last sessions were back-to-back as I recall. One a day. There was something I needed to see before I departed, I was told. Everyday I went in and worked for a solid hour with a large ex-Marine standing over me. Though I was supposed to be seeing something, I had no idea what it was. Finally, at my last session, I asked just what the hell I was supposed to have seen. An hour of abs, then upper body, then lower body. There seemed to be no obvious epiphany there. Laughing, my trainer went to get the sheet monitoring my workouts. Still laughing he hands it to me and tells me to read what I could do my first session. Let's just say the things I could do when I started coming were numbered in repetitions, not hours, and you could count those on your hands. Similar story for weight.

I struggled a lot with those sessions, but they rank among the things I miss the most from my former life. Going forward, making progress, building something. Baby steps. Good pain. The knowledge that you were doing something tough, but for good reason and with good payoff. I've never slept better than those nights I trained. I've never eaten healthier. I've never thought more clearly. I've never had more energy than when I was getting my ass kicked on a routine basis.

I think of those sessions as I've been having trouble eating and sleeping and thinking. I'm tired so much that I run solely on caffeine at this point. I'm running, in every way, on E. What I put in my body and life is certainly a culprit, but - for me - what I've given so greatly influences what I take. I've developed a budding interest in Taoism and, from what I can tell it's partially based around the idea of a state developing from doing the opposite: strength from weakness, control from chaos, seeing the world by staying in and seeing yourself. There is wisdom in that and it functions on my favorite concept: the paradox. They are truisms that a friend lightly refers to as "Eastern hocus pocus."

I've recently explained to one of my organizations that the best way to solve financial problems is to solve all the other problems. The finances will basically fix themselves. Non-profit Taoism. I know from my past that my own answers lie in the same approach: solve by solving the rest. Solving by not solving. Everything feeds everything. Everything is connected. There are consequences, accept them. Easier said than done.

The key to progress, it seems, is finding nourishment and not seeking its rewards - just enjoying it. The training sessions were such a release and victory in themselves that I didn't concentrate on moving forward. My progress was not even much of a thought. It was achieved because I barely considered it - it couldn't overwhelm me because I didn't depend on it. Now, progress and rewards and measurements of success seem to be on my mind a lot. Yet they are not there. Same with personal growth. And fulfillment. Funny how that all works.