“I see you up there lifting. Deadlifting, throwing weight around, in the zone.”

It took me a hot minute to visualize myself like that anymore – because no matter how badly I’ve been searching for the part of me…she’s been pretty hard to find lately. Well for years.

When I started back weight training, I honestly worried that I lost that love of the lift. I wondered if I’d ever feel powerful inside of my body again.

It’s been a long long long journey of hard things, all of which I’ve handled like a champ but it’s different than feeling powerful and capable in your own flesh and bones again.

My brain always feels that way – my body doesn’t always follow suit.

I stopped lifting for roughly 3 years as I put my focus on healing parts of my body that have ailed me for 15+ years and in the process, I learned how to trust my body and for my body to trust that I wasn’t going to put it through hell anymore (if I could help it at least).

I started to establish a rapport of compassion for the first time between my systems.

It’s been a long road and I’m so grateful I’ve found the right professionals to surround me and help me get this all sorted out.

So when I started back in the gym with stritch plans from my doctor I trusted my new trainer to write out plans that would serve me and what my body needs during this part of the healing process.

The workouts were things I wasn’t good at, things I didn’t enjoy doing.