Deadlifting 418 Didn't Make Me Strong: Opening Up About My Healing Journey

It’s weird when you go through a spiritual transition that is so deep it changes you physically. This is the point I’ve reached. It started a couple of years ago. I was on a boat, getting yelled at because I had tangled my fishing line in a tree, and “this is why no beginners are allowed on the boat” was getting yelled at me. I was curling my toes, cringing inwardly, and wanted to cower and hide and cry my eyes out. At that exact instant, this giant spotlight shone on me, and I heard, clear as day, “Do you see the pattern???” and there I was, faced with the fact that I always gravitated towards the people who would ultimately hurt me the most. In that long, terrible moment, while water rushed by around me, I was faced with the fact that it had started with my father. He had yelled if I wasn’t on his schedule, gotten angry if I inconvenienced him, and acted as if the entire world revolved around his work schedule, because he was the provider in the home and that trumped everything. Suddenly, I saw why I had chosen an ex-husband who treated me in the exact same way. Something deep within my soul had stirred, and the cloud had been removed from my eyes.

I spent the next two years in a state of unlearning. My whole entire world view was uprooted, shaken, changed, and ultimately, nothing I said I had wanted, was real anymore. This affected my dating life most. Slowly, my tastes began to change. I started looking deeper than the “type” I had always fallen for and saw something profound: they were all repeats of my father. Controlling, with abusive tendencies, many wrapped in a visually appealing package. Most had addictions which contributed to their mental illness: alcoholism, drugs, porn, exercise, or even an addiction to the church drug. Slowly, I began to see things I hadn’t seen before. But it went deeper than only dating. It went to the very core of who I was.

I saw something else. This one, I didn’t want to see. It was my need to physically prove how strong I was. It was the need to constantly do more, lift more, keep the walls up and protect myself from those who wanted to help, because that was safe.

I began weight lifting when I started my divorce back in 2020. It helped me through hard times and for that I am thankful. In the recent years though, it did more damage than it did good. I was constantly in pain when I was lifting heavy, and always at the chiropractor. More than that, other issues began to come up. I was also so bulky that I began to physically feel un-attractive on some level. One day, about 8 months ago, I made the decision to take a complete break from the gym. It didn’t happen overnight, but slowly, I began to find my rhythm outside the gym. Hiking, yoga, and walking.

I am not saying everyone should give up the gym. I am not saying weight lifting is bad. I am sharing my experience. At some point, I plan to add the gym back in, but in a different capacity. For me, lifting was about more than being physically strong. As a woman, it had to do with an energetic standpoint, and one that revolved around building up walls for myself, trying to prove to myself that I was strong enough to do it all alone. And, while I proved to myself that I was, I also realized something: it’s a lot easier to let someone else in. It flows more when I accept help. When I swallowed my pride, that huge ego that we all develop when we are Earthside, I began to have more peace.

So, weirdly, that’s where I’m at. Freed from my own mental prison of thinking I have to do it all alone. Freed from my pattern of repeating the lessons I learned in childhood and my early twenties through abusive partners who mirrored my fathers patterns. Freed from having to prove how strong I am. Slowly learning to rely on others. Slowly opening up to what I truly desire. I am still learning, to be sure. But what I do know, is that I am a heck of a lot happier without all that pain. I know that our physical bodies and actions clue us in to where we are energetically. I know that what we do on a day-to-day basis, who we choose to spend our time with, date, have as friends, reflects either un-healed wounds, or healed and healthy parts of ourselves.

I went on a hike the other day and my kids took a picture of me. I didn’t have a bulky chest. It made me happy. My arms looked smaller and more girl sized. I knew it reflected the ways that I have allowed support into my life and the way that I am learning to simply exist, without the need to prove my independence. I knew that it reflected just how much inner strength I have built by releasing the need to be physically a hulk. And yes, I like to think I’m still strong. Strong enough to load the boat, smart enough to back it down the ramp on my own, and yet, I don’t need to deadlift 400 pounds anymore (yes, I deadlifted 418) to prove that to the world.

Thanks for coming to my weird ramble about life.

--S