08/12/2011 Dinner With Mary

08/12/2011

I had a chance last night to have dinner with my former hiking mate Mary Murphy.  When I went to pick her up, I almost didn’t recognize her, she has clearly lost weight in the face, and midsection yet it wasn’t the physical change which was different, it was the fact that a haze had lifted from her, and that she almost had a glow about her. 

Mary is not one of those loud and obnoxious people who is always craving attention, she is warm and friendly without being obtrusive, and occasional will do something that makes you remember that this petite doctoral candidate was also an Army Grunt, like blowing a snot rocket on the Zuma Ridge trail, which still gives me random chuckles. 

I think the noticeable change which I saw in her was that she was genuinely happy, and energetic, I never noticed how blue her eyes were, it was as if the physical changes stirred in her an emotional awaking deepening the hues of blue in her essence. 

It was a fun night catching up with her, and sharing stories about other members of Van 5.  What became a reoccurring theme was the personal change that occurs with a physical evolution.  She mentioned to me how she didn’t realize how bad she felt before, because she always felt bad.

I share this sentiment as I have lost weight more than the physical well being, I feel.  I feel emotions.  I had reached a point in my life where all I felt was anger, hostility, and frustration.  There were days where I would ask myself do I remember what it was like to feel good, or feel happy.

How does one get to that point?

It’s easy, you find yourself in a spiraling life that repeats patterns which turn into habits, which eventually just is your life.  It might start with one bad day at work, which turns into a late night, which turns into a lack of sleep, which turns into craving shit, and repeating over and over until one day you wake up and you are 443 lbs. 

Going in the other direction I find it’s a similar process, but this pattern is riddled with pitfalls, so being constantly vigilant is now part of my life. 

Mary returned to the Biggest Loser Resort Malibu a couple months after the week we met, with her sister.  Mary’s sister is a high power executive at a major company, who Mary calls the pretty one.  Apparently the sister had a fall on their first hike, and had a significant injury to her face. 

Mary initially couldn’t understand the circumstances that lead up to the fall, or the state of mind her very determined sister was in being at the resort.  It wasn’t until she had spoken to another guest at the resort that she realized the level of fear that exists for most people who are there during the first week, and it was this fear which her sister had that caused her to take a misstep and fall down.

For Mrs. Murphy it gave her perspective, a deeper understanding on the first trip, and a clearer picture on her state of mind during that difficult first week, and a further understanding of the personal difficulties she dealt with a few years prior which put her in a place of forgetting herself.

The existence of fear is a state of mind, it is self generated, which means we can overcome it, if we choose to, I understand now that much of the consternation I experienced in watching many of the guests at the resort half ass everything was fear.  Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of the unknown, fear of a better life, and fear of putting your body through something it has never experienced. 

There is a healthy dose of fear which prevents us from killing ourselves, or doing something stupid like driving in the dark with no headlights, or prevents us from jumping over the fence in the zoo into the lion pit, but then there is that dangerous level of fear which paralyzes us. 

It makes us choose what is comfortable, so we stop challenging ourselves or striving for excellence.  Because clearly it’s easier to sit on the couch eat a bag of chips, than it is to get your ass up and go run a mile because it hurts.  Some how the fear of that pain prevents us from moving, when what we should really fear is the diabetes, and death around the corner. 

I realize after dinner last night that most of my life has been lead with constant fear, perhaps I put on the weight because I was somehow psychologically protecting myself from all the fears which I had.  It is fear that has prevented me from pursuing certain parts of my life, it is fear that kept me from writing for years, and its fear that caused me to lose myself and become a sumo wrestler.

It would be insane for me to say that I will no longer lead a fearful life but today I will choose to overcome my fear.  When I get down to 200 lbs (I’m trying to be courageous not crazy, I need to be at least an acceptable load) I’m going to do a tandem sky dive, I have had a fear of heights since I was a kid, but in my 20’s I overcame it by learning to rock climb, but today I again have this fear of heights.  For me overcoming this fear is part of my emotional evolution in being a self-determined person.

When you live in constant fear you always ask why?  Rather than just doing…

In meeting up with Mary I had no expectations other than to see a friend who has become a kindred spirit in my life, the joy I received in chatting with her was almost a bonus to the small epiphany I experienced. 

Life has a funny way of giving you friends of all different kind and varieties, I went to California looking to lose weight, I never thought I would gain a friend who has a son my age, and has a way of bringing out moments of truth within me.

08/12/2011 Daily Recap

 I worked out with Ian this morning, a few quick video clips.