Of Course You're Tired

Read at the end of six straight overbooked months. I've needed to read this since about halfway through, but better late than never.

...the truth is, we’re all tired. Every single one of us. By a certain age, we are all nothing more than an army of broken hearts and aching souls, desperately searching for fulfillment. We want more but we’re too tired to ask for it. We’re sick of where we are but we are too scared to begin again. We need to take risks but we’re afraid to watch it all come crashing down around us. After all, we’re not sure how many times we will be able to start over.

http://brightside.me/article/read-this-when-youre-tired-of-everything-20255/

On Vulnerability

Vulnerability is especially on topic for me lately, as I feel very too much so open to all the feels and all the emotions and lay my heart bare on a daily basis.

But Dallas claims it will make me stronger, and he's a genius, so.

Showing your friends and family only the parts of your life where you have it all together is like letting those people look at a book’s cover or maybe flip through it, but not letting them actually read the book… and then wondering why they don’t understand the story line. We are all too good at keeping a distance between us and others. We hide the ugly parts, the sorrows the fears. Especially the fears. We wear “emotional armor” in an attempt to protect ourselves from being hurt if someone rejects or hurts us. We keep our vulnerability to a minimum in order to prevent others from hurting us, but in doing so, we maintain an extra space between us and them. 

http://dallashartwig.com/vulnerability-stronger/

Fitness Industry: Do Work, Son

EFF YES. So much potential to change lives, so many instances of poor execution.

"Part of why people are anxious about exercising is because we are supposed to be sexy and physically perfect when we do it. We see images of women in tiny shorts and crop tops and this makes people feel inadequate," Adams says. "Research shows that the more we are exposed to images of physical perfection, the more depressed and angry we get. This doesn't motivate; it makes us feel worse and we want to hide."

At the other end of the spectrum, we're bombarded with unflattering pictures of fat people and 'public health' messages about how they're going to die untimely deaths. And as numerous failed anti-obesity advertising campaigns highlight, fear and shame don't help people make healthy decisions in the long term.

http://m.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/how-the-fitness-industry-turns-people-off-exercise-20150601-ghe05b.html

Radical Vanity

When a woman sees herself as ugly, fat, stupid, bad, unlikeable, incompetent, or unworthy, what she’s seeing isn’t the truth; it’s just the cognitive distortion she’s been practicing and refining her whole life.

That’s the key, though: Your self-image is the product of practice and refinement. It’s not something you’re stuck with.

It’s something you’re constantly creating. It’s based on what you train your mind to pay attention to, what you do and say, and how you choose to receive information about yourself. This means that your negative self-image, though encouraged at every turn, is something that you are actually doing to yourself. Surviving it requires Radical Vanity.

https://www.girlsgonestrong.com/blog/confidence/radical-vanity/

You Are Not A Giraffe

A fascinating discussion of anxiety from an evolutionary perspective.

On any given day, most of your choices as a giraffe—like what to eat or where to sleep or when to avoid a predator—make an immediate impact on your life. You live in what researchers call an Immediate Return Environment because your actions deliver immediate benefits. Your life is strongly oriented toward the present moment.

Now, let’s flip the script and pretend you are one of the humans vacationing on safari. Unlike the giraffe, humans live in what researchers call a Delayed Return Environment.

Most of the choices you make today will not benefit you immediately. If you do a good job at work today, you’ll get a paycheck in a few weeks. If you save money now, you’ll have enough for retirement later. Many aspects of modern society are designed to delay rewards until some point in the future.

http://jamesclear.com/evolution-of-anxiety

The Universe & You

I do love the idea that the Universe is working for you, you just have to ask, you need to vibrate at a higher level, you have to put out what you want to receive, etc. It reinforces my childish desire to love everything and believe the best of everyone, always, and good things will result.

But then, dammit, you learn too much about the universe and you understand that such talk is no different than the usual religious dogma about a supreme being that knows all.

Then you have to ask yourself, what if there is NOTHING out there caring about you?

Well.

Then I guess the only power "out there" that can change your life is actually inside me.

And, if the power is inside me, doesn't that mean I hold the reins to the life I want?

Isn't that BETTER than relying on some hopeful "out there" being or spirit or wave of light?

What are you so fucking worried about? 

You are here now. Eventually, you will be gone. You have but a nanosecond on the universal clock to do whatever it is you’re going to do. When that time is gone, it’s gone. Forever. 

That means that although what you do doesn’t matter to the universe, it should matter one hell of a lot to YOU. 

In fact, it should matter to you more than it currently does. If you knew how small you are and how short a time you have to do what you can, you wouldn’t waste time watching five fucking hours of TV a day. You wouldn’t waste time doing a job you hate. You wouldn’t waste the little time you have dealing with assholes, feeling sorry for yourself, or being timid about the things you’d really like to do.

Why do we waste so much of our precious, limited energy on such bullshit? Don't get me wrong: I do it too. I spend at least 90% of my time fetal-ed up in crippling angst about shit that Does. Not. Matter. But at least I'm aware, and at least I'm at 10%.

Join me in the battle to get to 100%. Let's go fly our own fucks.

http://johnnybtruant.com/the-universe-doesnt-give-a-flying-fuck-about-you/

One For The Males To Read

A post about the endless ways, big & small, that men try to control women. And it's written by a man.

She doesn’t owe you a smile, a wave, her phone number, a date, a second date, a kiss, a blowjob or a fuck. It doesn’t matter if you complimented her, bought her drinks, took her to dinner, gave her a ride or made her a mix tape. She doesn’t owe you shit.

...

Stop turning a blind eye. Believe what women say, and admit that rape culture is a real thing. I know some people call bullshit on that term, but after reading the comments in this piece what the hell else would you call it?

There are some powerful stories in this post.

Men, go read them. No matter what. Do it. Fucking DO IT.

http://www.bodyforwife.com/she-doesnt-owe-you-shit/

Women, go read them if you are mentally okay with stories of men overpowering women for no reason but that they can. If you have trauma you are still coping with, please don't read. You don't need any more of this shit. (Well, none of us do, but those of us strong enough may need some more reasons to fight.)

Athlete + Injury = Despair

I have been in these sad-sack shoes far too many times in my life, and I'm not remotely the world-class athlete Amelia is.

Muscles heal. Bones grow. It’s the mental part of injury that haunts us – that keeps us awake at night. It’s the demons and the voices in the head – the fear that we’ll “never get back” to where we once were, or we “threw away all that hard work and training” or that we were in the “best shape of our lives” and now can only sit by as first-row spectators to watch as we lose our muscle, our endurance, our speed, our V02Max, and, at the core of it, our sense of self and our confidence.

And, if you really, truly, love your sport, what eats at you day and night is the overwhelming sense of losing a part of yourself. You mourn those missed opportunities. Toeing that start line. The joy of a hard training session and the feeling of accomplished soreness. You feel…lost. A ship without an anchor. Or fries without ketchup.

http://www.ameliabooneracing.com/blog/rehab/identity-injury-and-the-athlete/

Side note: I actually met her when we were crewing BK out at Tahoe, and she was a chatty, friendly soul whose boyfriend was also racing. I had no idea who she was, but in talking with us she merely said her "background is in adventure racing" which cracks me up to this day. Modest, much?! She was on the motherfucking cover of Runner's World at that very moment!! She is the World's Toughest Mudder!

Anyway, this is a good read about how to deal when your life seems to crash down because you can't [insert your beloved hobby here].