Looking Up From The Bench

I’ve kind of had a recurring struggle this week and I thought it would be super cathartic for me to share. Some people know I have a significant amount of anxiety and there are A LOT of factors that contribute to that. But one major one is that sometimes actions that are seemingly small or minor for most people can often have huge consequences for me in affecting my ability to work towards my goals. For example, a lot of people are five minutes late from time to time. Sometimes it might throw them off in some slight way, but oftentimes these five minutes mean virtually nothing in the scheme of their day. For me, if I’m five minutes late I could miss the train by just two minutes and my day could be impacted by over an hour. And furthermore, my mistake gets thrown in my face, as I now have to wait outside in the middle of winter while I wait for the next one. This makes it super easy for me to start again with those thoughts that aren’t true “I’m so stupid” “I’ve ruined everything” “I...

Sometimes, I question my goals and dreams and think to myself, am I completely unreasonable and delusional in what I hope to achieve? Up until this year, I didn't even allow myself to admit I had goals because I was scared I wouldn’t achieve them. However, like I said in my first post, I'm trying to mitigate that negative belief. This new found mental strength makes me want to attack my training and all things related to CrossFit and powerlifting full force. Ankle Injury 2013 However, this hunger to strive towards my goals without fear has been greatly deterred by injury. In 2013 I had a freak injury that left my ankle permanently immobile. In my opinion, this is the root of every subsequent injury I’ve had. The two major ones being a torn ACL (2014) and an aggravated herniated disk (2015).   In addition to the injuries, I also lost training time having two eye surgeries and dealing with vision loss at the end of 2015. Being injured literally half...

Snapshot I guess you could say the story that got me to this point of starting a blog began when I was born. Me, my brother, and one of my first pairs of glasses You see, I was born with congenital cataracts in both eyes, and subsequently developed glaucoma, complications that helped shape the course my life. After all was said and done treating these eye diseases, I was fortunate to be left with some sight leaving me pretty functional, but still dealing with a disability that wasn’t always seen by others. Due to the numerous surgeries I was lucky to receive during the first few years of my life to save the most possible sight, my physical development was below average. When I was 17 months old, the pediatrician told my parents that I was hypotonic (had low muscle tone) and would never be an athlete. I knew of the doctor’s assumption while growing up. Even though I participated in gymnastics and other “normal” activities for kids my age, deep down I think I believed what...