Like a Ton of Bricks (a reflection of "grief spells")

So many times in the last three years*, grief has brought me to my knees… My legs no longer able to support me. Doesn’t seem to matter if it’s sun or rain, night or day, it just comes like a sudden wave, or piano falling out of the sky next to a Manhattan high rise. The phrase “like a ton of bricks” seems apropos.

I wish those of you who didn’t know Marcus, could have known him, and experienced him and us together...

Witnessed what I only have now in memory… The memory of the experience of being loved, accepted, adored, embraced, celebrated on a daily basis. The relationship felt... easy. Shocking but true. I felt heard. Seen. You know what I mean? I often said the hardest part of our relationship was that he had kidney failure. Our daily interaction and experience of each other was... easy. Flow. Fun. Connected. It was truly a profound experience. Somehow I feel that more now, being in the world and learning about people and their relationships... Apparently what we had was the anomaly, the exception, the unique thing. If you have something similar in your life and relationship, wow! I celebrate you!

There was no honeymoon period... perhaps the newness wore off within the first 6 months but somehow it actually got better. We we’re together 8 years 8 months. No 7 year itch. No boredom. No love lost. It grew! More trust. More connection. More love. Lovemore. Marcus Lovemore!

What’s even more amazing... I’m not the only one. I might have been the closest to him the last 10 years of his life, but his friends, family, students, clients... so many experienced him this way on some level. Like or comment with your experience of this man.

This is my view from my workout this morning. Still feels so good to move my body, strong & alive... thanks for teaching me the ultimate fitness program, babe.

Hi, Duluth!

*I say three years even though it’s been 1 year 10 months since he passed (Nov2017) because that last year of his life was filled with hope & despair, grief & triumph, fear & challenge... I can’t tell y’all how many times I cried driving away from the hospital... pulling over because tears blurred my vision... so it’s been... 3 profound, difficult, transformational years of grief.

Make Momentum Your Best Friend

"Momentum is mass in motion and only applies to objects in motion. It's a term that describes a relationship between the mass and velocity of an object, and we can see this when it is written in equation form, p = mv, where p is momentum, m is mass in kg and v is velocity in m/s."

Momentum

Funny, I learned this word in physics as a teenager and didn’t equate it to thoughts, choices, behavior, actions, life…

But momentum is one of the most important aspects of crafting a life we want, a life we enjoy, a life we love. Lovemore Life.

Think about it? Please.

If and when you’ve been on any kind of binge - be it streaming Game of Thrones or State fair food or even sex and love… isn’t part of what keeps you going most easily described as momentum?

We can use this to our advantage.

We can use momentum to help us start or keep doing something. We can hack our minds with the knowledge that momentum is real, scientific and applicable to our inner worlds, thoughts, behaviors, choices...

(Calm negative or discouraging thoughts using a simple retort, “I’ve got momentum on my side…” and just be.) 

Do. Go. Have… the life you want. A life you love.

Whenever anyone starts a new fitness, health or nutrition program, the beginning feels hard. The adage “change is hard” is all over our society, and especially evident in anthropology and psychology, as our biological programming to survive encourages reticence and caution to change.

But then once you’re going… once you have momentum…

Flow.

Enjoyment.

Fun.

Ease.

Grace.

Things feel familiar. There's muscle memory. There's improvement or modification of technique... Expansion. Growth. Evolution.

Sometimes there’ll be some difficulty or resistance months or years in… that’s just a hiccup (and likely a physiological shift that’s imperceptible but shows up as resistance)… but stepping back into that stream or river…

Hmm. I like this idea of momentum as a flowing river. Once in a while we might get out. Life events. Injuries. Tragedies. Changes in home or family or friends… But once you’ve been in the river, been in the flow… and have come in and out of it many times, it becomes easy… to get in and get out. Fluid. The flow itself can become fluid! (Haha! Does the river have to think about flowing?)

What can be accessed this way? Perhaps we've seen evidence of it.

I love experiencing (watching, hearing, feeling etc.) really excellent and talented people do what they love to do. And we love stories that connect and teach us about ourselves and each other. That's why we love spectator sports, movies, theatre, dance... These people have harnessed the power of momentum, whether they know it or not.

Use it. Do it. 

Make Momentum Your Best Friend.