How do you repay a debt that can't be repaid?

(Day 28 came and went, but I haven't been able to finish writing this post... there is so much to say and so few words that can really say it...)

This is it. Day 28... Wow. Really? Already?

I've been thinking this last week about how to say "thank you" and how to repay the debt that I owe to my teachers, to Ellen, to my friends and family who never wavered in their support for me... How do you repay a debt that can't be repaid? The depth of gratitude I feel humbles me in a way that I have a hard time articulating. My life is fundamentally different than it was 28 days ago... I am different. I began these 28 days with the word "fearless" tattooed on my heart. And I never could have pushed myself to explore what that means in my life without the constant vigilance of the beloveds in my life. My friends and teachers (who are all really one and the same) created a wide open space for me to push what I thought where the boundaries of who I am, to take leaps of faith and fall off cliffs, to fall apart and pull myself together again, to be completely broken... and then remade. How do I say thank you for that?

To my teachers at the studios:
How can I thank Natalie for being an exquisite model of grace and beauty? How can I thank Hilary for the gentle, warm encouragement that touches my heart at the very moments when I am most vulnerable? How do I thank Susie for the gift of her spirit and generosity of heart? How do I thank John for modeling commitment and perseverance? How do I thank Jason for being the kind of man who brings the best out in me? How can I thank Elizabeth for her quiet and unassuming strength that sets the bar so very, very high? How do I thank Claudine for teaching me that workouts can be fun as well as kickass? And Ellen... how do I thank Ellen? I am at a complete loss for words...

The opportunity that Ellen gave me is the kind that people dream of being offered... the opportunity to remake themselves. We can all do it - truthfully we could all do it at any time - but Ellen saw me, right where I was, as I was... struggling, fighting for something more from myself - and made a safe space for me to do that work. She committed her time and invested her heart in the work of me. What words are there to possibly express my gratitude?

And everyday my beloved friends and family were (and are) my greatest cheerleaders and believers. I cannot even describe the feeling of waking each day knowing in every cell of my body that I am absolutely loved with a ferocity that could light the world. It is humbling to be loved that way - by the mother who gave me life, the daughter who makes my life worthwhile, and the friends who make the days of my life full to overflowing.

So, how do I repay a debt that cannot be repaid? I'll have to pay it forward. I'll have to bring my whole self and full heart to everything that I do and share what I have with anyone who needs it. Some days I will fall short. And I'll miss the mark. And when I do, I'll look back on these 28 days and be inspired to keep working... pushing... growing. My friends, family and teachers will be there.

Wahoo!

I’m still floating from my weigh-in last night: I've lost 75 pounds!! (11 of which I have lost in the last three weeks working through this twenty eight day challenge.) I have been working towards that number for so long – stuck it out through a 9 month plateau where I couldn’t lose an ounce – and there it is. 75 humongous pounds. That’s the weight of an entire human being: 1 ½ of my daughter. That’s 15 bags of sugar. That’s 9 gallons of water. It’s a 75 pound bag of personal demons, sadness, disappointment, and self-hatred. Gone. I won’t carry that anymore. Any of it.

I left my private with boot camp session with Ellen yesterday completely spent – totally exhausted. But not broken, not even close. I can’t really even describe the joy that accompanies this particular exhaustion. As tired as I am I still feel like I can take on the world. What is there that I can’t do? All those platitudes that people throw around that I tend to dismiss because I hear them so often suddenly have very deep meaning to me: “What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?” “Believe in yourself without compromise”. “Your only limits are self-imposed”. It’s true. All of it.

And what’s failure anyway? Even if I hadn’t lost a pound in the last three weeks with Ellen, it wouldn’t have been failure. I have pushed my body, my heart, my spirit right to the edge – some days we even went right over that edge – and I didn’t give up. It didn’t even occur to me. When I was sad, I sat with it. I didn’t eat to make it better. When I was tired, I pushed through it. I didn’t sit back and wait to feel inspired – I went to the studio and inspired myself, letting my beloved teachers help spark the blaze. I surrounded myself with people who believe in me without comprise so that when I started to waiver, their support helped set me back on track.

So, I’m starting my last 7 days of my 28 day challenge. I can’t believe that I’m almost at the end of something that won’t really ever end.

Feelin' good and lookin' good

Yesterday was my third private ass-kicking session with the goddess I call Ellen. We've been laughing a lot lately - sometimes I look like a elephant in tap shoes trying to move gracefully through the series of booty shapin' exercises she gives me. Let's take my jumping jacks for instance. Um... er... seriously. I wouldn't want a video of that posted on Youtube. That's all I'm sayin'. But they are improved since week one, by a lot, so I'm confident that with my continued hard work and perseverance, they'll be graceful, strong, and awesome soon.

I can't believe I am 2 weeks into this 28 days already! It's going sooooo fast. Too fast. I don't even really have time to digest all that I am doing or assimilate all the changes in my body. Friends say they can see the difference - I can't - but I feel, well, crazy awesome! I need a t-shirt that says "I AM FIERCE" because that's how I feel. And it infects all the other aspects of my life, too. What happens in the gym definitely does not stay in the gym. I feel more confident to take on new challenges in my personal life, i.e. dating (yuck!), and at work I'm a little bit more bold.

I know that I'm still too stuck on the scale - I think Ellen may physically escort me from the building if I don't get past that soon - so there's work for me there; To let go of the scale, of the results (or not) that show up there. What I'm doing for myself with this challenge is so much more than that. And it will come. Ellen keeps telling me that it will happen after the 28 days is over. So I have to keep bringing myself back and reframing my assessment of "success". I feel successful. Right now. Not in 5 pounds. Not in 50 pounds. Right now. I feel like I have accomplished something so huge that there really aren't words. But here are four: I haven't given up.

Body blues

My stomach has hurt for the last 2 days and I'm headed in to see my primary care doc this afternoon. My right knee has been tight and painful for the past few days, too. After having had my left ACL reconstructed, I don't want to play around with my knees. It would just about kill me if I had to stop working out right now. I'm trying to not freak out - I'm planning on her telling me that a little ice and some ibuprofen will fix everything.

Tough Days Don't Last Forever

Rereading some of my posts makes me cringe. I can be really hard on myself and as one friend who loves me a lot pointed out, "You wouldn't let me talk about myself that way." Then she asked if I was a closet perfectionist. :-) The only one I expect perfection from is me. Which presents a fairly big problem as I am most certainly not perfect and will never be. In fact, when I really think about it, perfection doesn't really seem all that fun or interesting.

And I caught myself in the mirror this morning and thought, "Hey, cutie." That's new. And fun. And about damn time. I was mulling over the heartache from yesterday and trying to digest all the loving and supportive advice from my friends and realized that I am surrounded by people who want me in their lives. Whether I lose weight or not, whether I work-out or not, whether I fit into those smaller clothes or not. They hold a place for me to figure what I want for myself, not asking me to be something other than just what and who I am. I'm held up everyday by people who offer me glimpses into how they see me... and frankly, she's pretty amazing.

So, I think it's about time for me to sift through some of those old tapes rattling around in my head about who I am. Many of them that are complete garbage. These 28 days are so much more than about changing my body - and I want all that comes with work. I'm asking for this change and I'm up to the challenge of letting go.

Ellen said to me in our last session, as I'm sitting the wall and my quads are burning "This isn't happening to you, Zephyr. You are making this happen. You are asking for this. " She's right. I want this. I'm in charge. My body is my ally and we're working together, a team. That's a pretty powerful feeling. I'm not a victim of the burn in my muscle when I push to the limits - I asked for that, I made that happen. As for the tapes that play like background music in my head, well, I'm in charge of those, too. I'm gonna turn up the volume so I can hear them clearly and burn the ones that don't serve me. There will be days like yesterday when that's hard to do, but luckily, tough days don't last forever.