Un-becoming.
"Maybe the journey isn't so much about becoming anything.
Maybe it's about un-becoming everything that isn't really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place."
Growth mindset.
Do the work.
Build the engine.
Make an impact.
When the weight started to come off, I started to engage with physical fitness. I found a deep connection to training, racing, and the simple act of moving my body. Movement became medicine. The discipline, courage, and grit required to face fear, the discomfort, the physical exhaustion that came with racing - These things, in combination with the drive to achieve, was validation for me. I already had these qualities. I just needed to wake them up.
PAIN IS A TEACHER,
NOT A PUNISHMENT.
The most painful experiences of my life became some of my greatest teachers. I learned to survive, adapt, and heal. I gained a depth of resilience, intuition, empathy, and self-awareness that profoundly shaped who I am today.
The skills I developed while navigating traumatic experiences - sensitivity, vigilance, perseverance, and the ability to deeply understand others - have transformed from survival mechanisms into some of my greatest strengths.
Love sorrow. She is yours now, and you must
take care of what has been
given. Brush her hair, help her
into her little coat, hold her hand,
especially when crossing a street. For, think,
what if you should lose her? Then you would be
sorrow yourself; her drawn face, her sleeplessness
would be yours. Take care, touch
her forehead that she feel herself not so
utterly alone. And smile, that she does not
altogether forget the world before the lesson.
Have patience in abundance. And do not
ever lie or ever leave her even for a moment
by herself, which is to say, possibly, again,
abandoned. She is strange, mute, difficult,
sometimes unmanageable but, remember, she is a child.
And amazing things can happen. And you may see,
as the two of you go
walking together in the morning light, how
little by little she relaxes; she looks about her;
she begins to grow.
- Mary Oliver -
