Tonight was a conditioning night. That means that it's a small group instead of my usual one on one training. Groups make me nervous. I'm not a group sort of a person; which is the second reason I force myself to go to these conditioning classes. The first reason is, well, I need better conditioning, duh.
I go through what I need to do, but there's always the part of my demented brain that worries if I look dumb, awkward, weak. I always feel like the weakest of the bunch so I intentionally pick weights that others don't. Believe me, that's bitten me in the ass more than once. It's all part of the insecurities of a damaged mind. A mind that has never had much self confidence and the little spurts that it gets now invariably lead to feelings of guilt; guilt for being vain or proud.
So tonight, as I was doing my dips, thinking thoughts that ranged from "don't give up, someone is looking at you" to "holy fuck, i'm doing dips" to "shit, was that 13 or 14?", I was quite surprised when the woman next to me said "you make this look so easy".
I took a chance and spoke, knowing full well I was about to trip over every word. I told her and another woman there how it wasn't maybe a couple of weeks ago that I was struggling to get 10 in a row and they weren't a very good ten either. Now, dips aren't so bad. I told her, at first, everything looks impossible and then one day, it looks awesome.
That one person, with that one comment made my night. I forgot to get her name, but I will and I'll thank her. Maybe I'll see her again at one of the classes. She made me realize that I have a tendency to look at myself not in a true mirror, but in one of those curvy, fun house mirrors. My faults are amplified and exaggerated; made grotesque and unflattering, and it turns my stomach. But what I see isn't truly reality. This woman saw someone who apparently didn't seem to have too much trouble performing the nights tasks, while in my mind, in that fun house mirror, I thought I looked like a 3 legged epileptic kangaroo with a cramp in it's foot.
I'm not saying that my mindset is totally changed and I'm just so proud of the pretty ballerina I've become. However, I will now admit that maybe I'm not as bad as I think and that maybe I'm good enough for some people to actually admire in certain regards.
If I can motivate or inspire one person in my life then I will be happy. But, what if, that one person that I inspire is myself? If I can inspire myself then I'll be damn near unstoppable. And if I become unstoppable, I'm bringing as many people as I can along for the ride. It's a win/win.
Tonight's lessons were big and they sprang from such a tiny place. The web of wyrd is constantly being woven and our strands overlap with countless other strands of countless other people. We all affect not only our lives with our thoughts, actions and words, but the lives of everyone else as well. So make your thoughts, actions and words positive and active, uplifting and encouraging. You never know whose mind you'll change.
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