Meg is becoming an athlete!

At the beginning of this program I asked that everyone keep a journal of their workouts, their diet and their thoughts going into a new program that was sure to change them physically and mentally. I have to say that the women who have been the most successful have kept up their journaling in all three of these areas.

Here is a excerpt from Meg's journal back at the very beginning of June on the 2nd day of the program. She thought deeply about what this program meant and answered the question, "Who are you becoming?".

I was an exceptional graduate student up until the moment my program told me to specialize; far from the department's idea of stepping into deeper waters to expand my knowledge & help me think and study more profoundly, I felt the directive aimed at closing doors on me, and shutting down myriad avenues of inquiry. My response -- refusing to consider their reasons, let alone consider acquiescing -- was immature and unproductive, but I learned something powerful in that refusal. I am a creature of potential, and I love seeing what I might be able to do more than I love actually doing those things. In seeing potential, I don't have to face fear or failure, and my imagination has always been stronger than my will to succeed.
This summer I am un-coupling my thought and imagination from my pursuit of the infinite, and focusing on physical activty, on literally diving in to anything and everything. This is a new pattern for me, as even my previous flirtations with fitness, or really any kind of activity, have been intellectually grounded and rationalized. I used to work out because a healthy body makes for a healthy mind, and now I am working out because a healthy body is just that: a healthy body. My sole goal for this program is to learn to trust not thinking, to learn to trust instinct, habit, intuition, motion, and motivation, to learn to bypass the incredible heights to which my imagination can soar and the incredible depths to which it can drop and just do something without that constant prophesying.
I want my body to become as worthwhile to me as my mind, not only as a tool, but as an end in itself. I made a list of things I wanted to learn when I left graduate school, and I was astounded to see how physical those goals were: for a woman who's lived her entire life in her head, I've got some serious desire to become an athlete and to connect to the world with my body. The list is long and contains musical and creative pursuits (drums, mandolin, pastry, pottery), performative pursuits (aerial silks, juggling, capoiera), and practical pursuits (driving, gardening, carpentry) and more. All of these are skills that require physical learning and capacity that I hve spent my life too scared to acquire. While I can't promise that I'm done with fear, I can promise that I'm done accepting and rationalizing my fear. I am becoming an athlete.