So I’ve been working on my internal voice stuff. It’s been exhausting. Seriously the hardest thing I’ve had to do in a long time.
It came to a head a couple weeks ago.
I was at the gym, punching the boxing bag, putting in some work. As the rounds ticked on fatigue set in. At this point in time my tried and true method to make myself push through was to literally call myself ‘shit’:
‘Fucken punch the bag you WEAK cunt.’
‘DO IT YOU FUCKEN PUSSY!’
‘FIGHT! Punch you useless piece of shit.’
Yes, I know. That’s not good. We’ve already established my internal voice stuff needs some work; there is a point that I am getting to tho.
My point is, it didn’t work. It used to. But it didn’t now. I’ve spent a lot of hours and energy on a boxing bag. You develop habits. How you stand, your ‘bounce’, your ‘gait’, the way you inhale, the way you exhale. Every sportsperson has habits. One of mine has been to just give myself SHIT in the dying seconds of the last couple rounds to get myself over the line.
But it didn’t work. For the first time in a long time, it didn’t work.
I felt disappointed that I didn’t finish the workout strongly. But more than that, I felt a mix of two strongly contradictory feelings; one of loss and one of contentment. All of a sudden I felt like I had lost a part of me. This had been my driving force to make me dig in countless times and it no longer worked now. I was quietly afraid for myself because now there is a gap in how I do things. What do I do now??
I felt myself ask ‘was that part of me I lost really worth keeping anyway?’
I felt myself answer.
I didn’t answer that Q out loud or even in my head, coz I was attached to that part of me. It had seen me through some rough times. Some hard times on the bag, and some hard times in my life. It’s scary to acknowledge a big part of you is no longer the same or not around as frequently, if at all.
I knew what the answer to that Q was tho, in my heart.
‘That part of you wasn’t worth keeping, Josh.’
I’m not too sure what I’ll replace it with. But hey, one day at a time ay? One step at a time.