It’s 7am on a Monday morning, MLK day, and I have been awake since 5:30. As usual. 

Until recently, I’ve never been much of a morning person. As a matter of fact, I had a strict policy of not doing anything before 10am, and even that was pushing it. However, in recent months I’ve started waking up early to bring back a more disciplined part of myself that I murdered a few years ago.

Typically, I go to a 7:15am yoga class before heading to work. Not today. Today I am off of work, but I was still planning on going to class to get it out of the way, because you know, discipline doesn’t get a break on the holidays. 

Alas, that is not to be.

Let me run you through the circus in my brain to explain:

One of my sons had a couple of friends stay the night, at 3am they were still awake playing Call of Duty and my husband had to get up to deal with that. Which means he wasn’t happy and was awake most of the night. 
We also have a puppy who isn’t exactly cooperating with my leaving by 6:45 to make it to class on time. He’s literally making these screaming sounds and trying to jump into my arms so I don’t leave him. He’s very spoiled. On a normal work morning, my husband would usually take care of the puppy. He’s our puppy after all.  However, today I feel guilty waking him up to do this, because I know he was awake all night with the boys. So here I am, dressed for class, with my stuff all ready to go and I am literally pacing back and forth trying to decide what to do. I want to go to this class, but I also want to do what is necessary to care for my family. Finally, I had to throw in the yoga towel.

So here I sit, feeling guilty about not exercising, which in itself is crazy. I didn’t skip class because I was being lazy, I had a good reason. Plus, I know full well, that I have the opportunity to go to a later class today. I don’t have to work. I can make up for this later. I also know full well, that not exercising one day won’t kill me. I know that I won’t magically gain 20 pounds by missing one work out. Logically I know all of this. But for some reason, my emotions are running away from me. This happens to me a lot. I very rarely show these things on the outside. I always keep a calm exterior. I’ve had a lot of practice. I can actually put myself into a calm state when I need to. I don’t know how I learned how to do this. I’m sure it is a coping mechanism I gained as a kid, being able to compartmentalize my emotions, my stress, my pain and only show what I want the world to see. I can even make myself feel the calm that I am portraying. Sometimes, these are good traits to have. When I’m in a situation where one needs to have a level head, I’m your girl. I can stay calm, I can get the job done, I can reason my way through anything. However, as I’ve grown older, I’ve started to realize that I have gotten too good at this. I’ve used it as a way to never deal with anything. Over the past couple of years, I have started digging a little bit deeper into this skill of mine. The realization started with my feelings about exercise. 
I’ve used athletics of all types as a way to punish my body. The punishment started when I hit my teens. I really took that “no pain, no gain” motto to heart. I’ve had more injuries than the average person. Usually due to the punishment doled out to myself through exercise.
I realized over the past 2 years that I have a very unhealthy relationship with a healthy habit. 

At first, I was ok with it. I mean, at least I’m not an alcoholic or a drug addict. I’m not doing something that will kill me. I’m not hurting anyone. I was anorexic when I was younger, I got over that. I never starve myself anymore. So, at least I’m not doing that. I’m good.

What I failed to realize through all of my rationalizations is that I am actually hurting myself and my relationships because of the way I have attacked this “healthy” habit in my life. I truly believe people should be tough and push themselves to reach new heights physically, mentally and emotionally. However, I also had a stunning realization about addiction. I come from a long line of addicts. 
I’ve never had a drug or alcohol problem. I don’t like substances like that. I don’t ever feel like I need it.  As a matter of fact, throughout my life, anytime I’ve ever felt like I needed anything more than food and water, I would deprive myself of it, caffeine, sugar, whatever it might be.

Exercise was my vice. I could justify this as healthy. I dove right in and I was rigid about it. 

I was pretty slow to make it to this point in my life where I actually realized this. 

My friend, who happens to be a personal trainer, asked me the reasons I exercise as hard core as I do. I sited the standard answers of being healthy blah blah blah.
She said, give me a break, you are obviously not making yourself healthy through this. You are running yourself ragged. You are sick all the time. You are so sore, you can barely do the things you need to do in your life to be a mom and wife. So, why do you do this?   

I was offended. Is she calling me a liar? Of course I want to be healthy! 

Her question shook me. I had to take a long look at myself. It took me a few weeks of examination and introspection. I had to face some hard truths. I wasn’t working out to be healthy. I was working out because I was running from my feelings. All of the things I had boxed up and compartmentalized throughout my life are always in danger of coming to the surface. I can’t afford that to happen. Exercising was my escape.
I also had an unhealthy obsession with attaining the perfect body. No matter how thin I got or how hard my abs were, I only saw the imperfections. I was never going to be good enough on the outside, because I knew all of the yuck that was on the inside.
At the time of this realization, I was recovering from my third knee surgery.
I was the heaviest I had ever been because I had been on my back for months. I was miserable inside and outside. In spite of all of this, I was still doing Crossfit 6 days a week, I was also still doing Jiu Jitsu, which is how I got injured in the first place, and I was dangerously close to another injury. I could feel it.
Please hear me, I don’t think Crossfit is bad and I love Jiu Jitsu, it changed my life in ways I don’t have the time to explain here. However, my relationship with these two things had become very unhealthy. I wasn’t able to do them in moderation.
In lieu of quitting exercise altogether, I started going to yoga more regularly. I remember at first I would cry through the whole class. It was very difficult but that’s not why I cried. I cried because I realized I have a problem. I haven’t ever addressed it, because I never saw it as such, but it was a problem nonetheless. I had to learn how to balance this healthy habit with my unhealthy attachment to it. More than that, I had to face things in myself that I didn’t want to see. I had to be quiet. I had to be alone with my thoughts. I had to be still. I had to face the yuck.

Which brings me back to this morning when I was beating myself up for missing my class. My mind has protected me by letting me hide from things I couldn’t deal with at times in my life, but it has also lied to me.
It has masked these unhealthy attachments and blinded me to the truth. It has been so busy that learning how to interact with my own thoughts and emotions has been like learning a new language.
I’ve only just begun on this journey of learning myself. I’m almost 40, but I guess it’s better late than never. I know I will always have this battle between healthy and unhealthy balance of things in my life. Today, I will take the emotions as they come. I may or may not make it to class later today. I might just decide to stay home and be present with my family.
Either way. I know I will be ok. Tomorrow is a new day with its own battles to fight. I will take it as it comes. 

Thanks for reading.

ChaceCee

I’ve never ever told anyone in my life this, as a matter of fact, I haven’t even really thought that much about it until recently. It’s astounding how something that you did every day as a child and teenager, and was a symptom of something under the surface in your soul becomes something that you never think about. Then some 25 years later, with no provocation that you can point to, you get slapped in the face with the force of a sledge hammer when you realize that you are a broken person. To be fair, I believe that most people are broken in one way or another; some in a tragic way and some with more fragile edges, some are more crushed, some have been broken and put together so many times that their scar tissue is actually what is holding them together. I’m not a mental health professional, but I am a pretty astute observer of people. It's been one of those survivor skills I've developed through the years. Unfortunately, I think I’ve spent so many years looking outward, I never took the time to look inward. I never saw my own brokenness for what it was. Yes, I have had traumatic things happen in my life. Haven’t we all? Yes, I’ve suffered loss of many types. Again, so have we all. My losses and my traumas are no worse than anyone else. I never thought I was a special person who deserved any kind of favors. I had developed enough coping mechanisms on my own, that I always managed to make due.

Then my broken epiphany happened.

I was doing laundry. That’s it. Just doing laundry. It was a normal day. I was at home. I wasn’t in any type of hurry. I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular. I was just moving wet clothes from the washing machine into the dryer when I had a flash back to my younger self with a loose tooth. It wasn’t my first loose tooth, but it was early in my tooth losing years. I remember that feeling of the tooth that unexpectedly shifts a little bit when your tongue bumps against it. I remember the iron taste of the blood as it touches my tongue. I also remember feeling a little bit lost because it was the first loose tooth I had had since my dad had passed away. Up to this point, he was the one I would be most excited to tell about this new development, just as soon as he made it home from work. He would always make a joke about getting his pliers or tying a string to it and the other end to a door knob and slamming the door. He would laugh and try to wiggle it a little bit. I could taste the saltiness of his skin that would linger on my tooth. Then he would tell me to keep wiggling it a little bit every day and then it would come out when it was ready. I would diligently do so until I finally got up the courage to pull it out. Then I would run to him with my bloody mouth and tooth in hand. He would make the obligatory tooth fairy remark and I would anxiously await whatever money I would have under my pillow the next morning. This time was different. Dad wasn’t there. My mom was and of course I told her I had a loose tooth, I was maybe 8 years old so there was no way I could keep that quiet. She would make some of the same jokes and she would be excited. But for some reason, this time was different for me and I did something that started to become a habit. My tooth was only a little bit loose. But I wanted it to come out. So, I would push it and pull it, push and pull, push and pull… It was painful. More pain than I, as a young girl, had ever felt but I wanted to see how much I could take. I wanted to be in control of the pain I was experiencing and I wanted to know how much I could take and so I did. I continued to do things like this. Don’t get me wrong. I never cut myself or did anything too drastic, but I did things on purpose to see how much I could take. I would sit in a squat until my legs would give out. Then I would do it again. I would allow my hand to get slammed in doors to see if I could take it without crying.
These images flooded my brain while I was standing in the laundry room with wet jeans in my hand.
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?? I thought.
Then I started digging a little deeper. I thought of the choices I’ve made in my life, knowing full well there was danger, knowing full well there would be pain. I did them anyway because in my head, I was going to be able to withstand it. I took a lot of pride in my toughness. I had two babies, they tried to give me drugs, but they would stall my labor, so I took pride in the pain. I would go without food for as long as I could to see how I would handle that. That turned into an eating disorder after the birth of my second child because I sure did like how skinny I got. I would run as far as I could as fast as I could just to see how my body responded. To see how much I could take even when I hadn’t eaten in 3 days.
I started doing Mixed Martial Arts at 28, specifically, I trained in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai. I was the only girl. I trained with a group of guys that I love like brothers. They beat the crap out of me. My toughness was confirmed because they would tell me as much. They would tell anyone who would listen how tough I was. And I was. I am. I always thought I would hold up well under torture. Which sounds like an odd thing to think about, but I did think about it and often.

Then I had a knee injury that required surgery.

I went into the first surgery with the blithe confidence of a moron.

I was a single mom. Two young kids. Right knee = driving knee… meh… that’s ok. I got this. Drug schedule? I got this too. Warnings from the doctor, “be careful not to miss your dose. Be careful not to fall.” Got it doc. I’m good. Of course I was good. I'm a battle hardened warrior. A surgery isn't going to get the best of me.

I woke up from surgery with a nerve block and heavily medicated. My foggy brain cheered, “Suspicions confirmed! You are a bad ass, tough chic. This isn’t bad at all!”

24 hours later my hopes were dashed around my seizing body. That’s right. I was in so much pain I had a seizure. Total fail.  Toughness was thrown out the window. I knew right then the idea of withstanding any type of torture was a foolish thought. I was not the bad ass I had previously assumed that I was.

6 weeks after this first surgery I had to have another one (remember when the doctor said not to fall? I did). Stubbornness and independence is a double edged sword. Not one to be easily deterred, I was back on the mats 8 weeks later. I was good at this fighting thing. Not only that, I loved it. My body craved it. It was the therapy I had been missing out on my whole life. I had this community of people around me that had my back and saw me as a vital part of them. I wasn't going to give that up.
When I was a child and someone would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say I wanted to be Mohammed Ali or Indiana Jones. Not that I wanted to be a boxer or an archeologist. I wanted to be those characters or a variety of others. Due to this break with reality, I was what you could call a late bloomer. By this time, I was in my 30’s and I still didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had had several jobs of all different varieties in my life and I was pretty damn good at them. I was a jack of all trades and a master of none. I had made it through what I thought was the worst injury imaginable and I was actually a better fighter now. Side note: I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. But that story is still in progress.

I was in a new relationship with the man who is now my husband. This perfect  for me man who is patient and kind and who never saw me as the crazy girl who needed to beat people up. He just saw me. This driven person who found something she loved. He wanted to support me because it made me happy. He always calls me “rugged”. He started calling me that when we first started dating and we were at a store and I carried ALL of the bags while he was putting his credit card back in his wallet. So, it stuck. I’m rugged. I accept that.
I’ve always prescribed to the adage, if a little is good, a lot is better. So, I started adding in CrossFit workouts in addition to the MMA.  Do you see a pattern here? Exercise addict? As an addiction goes, this one isn’t terrible, until it is.
Once again, I became a part of this wonderful community of people. My husband was doing Crossfit too so we got to do this together. I was doing at least 2 workouts a day, 6 days a week. Every part of my life was scheduled. Husband. Kids. Kids Sports and other activities.  Work. Workouts. Competitions. Weight cutting. It was a lot. People would always ask me how I did it. I always answered, “I don’t sleep much.” But I was so desperately tired. That was weakness to me though and I wasn’t weak. I was tough. Resist pain. Resist tired. Resist weakness. I would like to state for the record, that I don’t think this "toughening up" is always a bad thing. I think people in general should be tougher than they are. But there should always be a balance. Listening to your body is an important part of that.

Back to my laundry room epiphany: It was about 2 ½ years ago, that I had to have yet another knee surgery, the 3rd one in 5 years. This one was catastrophic. I chose that word for a reason because it was truly one of the worst things I have ever seen. When your knee cap is in your thigh and you can push it around because every ligament snapped at once, you start to re-evaluate life. It was awful. Physically, yes. But mentally it was a far more debilitating situation. I went through all of the stages of grief more than once. The denial and the anger hung on the longest. My doctor, who is a wonderful man, if not a bit brusque called me an idiot and said I would be lucky if I ever did yoga much less fight when I inquired about the time of recovery. He said it would be months if not a year before I would even be able to walk properly. This pissed me off and I let him know. I said, "well no offense sir, but you don't know me. I'll be back in 6 months." I mean, who did this seasoned orthopedic surgeon who treats professional athletes think he was talking to?? I'm Wonder Woman!
Surgery this time was worse in some ways than the first two, but better in others. It was worse, because it was a terrible injury and I was on my back for months. Fighting the mental battle from your back is torture. But it gives you a lot of fire in your belly to attack the world when you get back up. The depression was overwhelming. However, it was better than the first because I had a husband and a community of friends that came to my rescue. I was so supported. My husband had to carry me to the bathroom. He had to run the house and start a new job and take care of 4 growing teenagers. I was confined to my back. But he did it all. He loved me through the pain, the depression, the overwhelming mental battle I was fighting. The tears that would stream down my face for no reason. He loved me through the change in my appearance, the change in my attitude. He loved me through the anger and the frustration. The times I would be mean because I was in so much pain all I could do was scream, he loved me anyway. My friends came to my rescue in the form of food and wine and visits filled with their sweet babies and lots of laughter and encouragement. Little things like when they saw me without crutches, or when I did an air squat, the applause I received was heart warming. I had never felt so much love in my life. 
Now, if I was a smarter person, it probably wouldn’t take a 3rd knee surgery to get me to the epiphany that I’ve had a lifetime of control issues that I’ve managed by inflicting pain on myself. But like I said earlier, I was so busy observing others, I never took the time to look inward.
I started doing yoga as part of my physical therapy. I’ve always felt “other” in a room full of women. I had babies when I was 19 and 21. So I’m usually not in the same life place as other women my age. Before I married, I was usually working 2-3 jobs to make ends meet. I was alone most of the time. Doing it all myself. Walking into a yoga studio full of women, when I had no idea what I was doing was very intimidating to me. I don’t like not being the best at things.
But because I am tough and I’m not afraid of anything, I did it. It was so different from the types of workouts I was used to, that it took me a while to love it, but I was intrigued. The teachers at Hot Body Yoga in Frisco, Texas were so understanding and welcoming of me. They showed me how to be patient with myself and how to modify the poses to suit my injury.

Of course, I also went to my doctor and told him I was doing yoga just to rub it in his face. He doesn’t usually give me the response I’m going for, but it felt good to know that he knew. He smiled when he thought I wasn’t looking.

I attacked yoga like I attacked fighting and CrossFit. The hardest part for me, was staying in a pose and quieting my mind through it. Understanding that resisting the pain makes the pain worse and you don’t learn anything from it. Relaxing into it and breathing through it changes your perspective. This relaxing into pain takes a certain amount of grit. I thought I had this grit by resisting pain, but it takes more strength and grit to relax into it. I had to learn to be comfortable with discomfort. I had to learn to get myself into a state of calm and the ferocity that I need to take on life would take care of itself. I am nothing if not ferocious, but it was time to start spending that capital on important endeavors and not on everything. 

This was mind blowing to me. I felt like I had this new lease on life, but I also felt so foolish. I’ve been doing this all wrong. Once again, I felt like a late bloomer who takes years longer to figure out what most people learn early on in life. Do I still think there is a place for CrossFit and Martial Arts in my life? Yes, I absolutely do. But I’m learning so much on this journey of self-discovery and maybe it took me longer to get here than most people, but at least I’m on my way now. I’m happier. I feel better. I feel lighter. I see my time on my mat as a joy, not something I have to conjure up all of my discipline to do, but a privilege to have an hour to discover something new about myself. This, in combination with learning to mediate every day has slowly started to help me learn to be more present. Objectively looking at my life as an outsider and allowing myself to see my behaviors as what they are, a coping mechanism, self-preservation born from an immature spirit. I am trying to learn to look at my thoughts and my emotions as things that I can get involved with or not. They are living, breathing organisms that I can choose how to interact with. I’m trying to retrain my mind. I understand that the little girl with the loose tooth was trying to cope with a loss that she couldn’t comprehend and she didn’t know how to process. That little girl is still inside of me. She never really grew up, but she needs this grown-up version to protect her. She needs me to be healthy. She needs me to be strong in ways that don’t always require brute strength, but quietly strong. She needs me to be present for her. She needs me to aware of her, she needs me to be gritty in ways that I didn’t know how to be before. She needs me to be the mother to her that I am to my children. I know that this journey into my own life will be a lifelong one that will evolve and change daily, and I’m strangely comfortable with that.

Peace and love and resting ferocity,

Chace

The Slow and Constant Burn
Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it is to feel like you are constantly on fire?
I do.
Not physically of course. But it is a visceral feeling, real and tangible to me. Deep in my soul, I am constantly burning and I can’t quite put my finger on the reason why. It’s exhausting, both physically and mentally. Sometimes it’s overwhelming to me, to the point where I just want to do something about it. I run myself ragged trying to constantly achieve, but the burn never stops, it just burns hotter. Sometimes it overwhelms me in a way that makes me want to run away and rest. I have the urge to lie down under my desk, under a blanket, I want to be under something where no one can find me. Unfortunately, that is very rarely an option. It wouldn’t help anything anyway.
Is this normal?
Do other people feel like this?
Am I the only one?
I don’t know the answers to those questions for certain, but I don’t think I am the only one. It certainly feels very lonely though. The only logical reason that I have been able to come up with for this constant all-consuming slow burn, is that I haven’t quite found out what I’m supposed to do with my life. I feel like I am on an arduous quest for personal meaning, a way to make a difference; the way I am supposed to change the world. 
Simply writing that out makes me feel insane.
I have a very fulfilling life. I have everything I have ever wanted. But I still feel like I am missing something. I have this vision of time ticking away faster and faster while I hold on by a thread just hoping it doesn’t get away from me.
I feel like every day I am not fulfilling my purpose is a waste. Wasting time seems like the ultimate insult to God. I’m halfway through this life and I still haven’t done anything with it. I go to an office every day. I sit in a room with no windows trying to achieve a number that doesn’t matter to anyone else in the world, all for a few dollars more on a paycheck. Every day I pull into the parking lot of my office and think to myself, “I don’t know what I want to do with my life, but this is not it.”
I go home every night and I cook and clean and try to be an attentive mother and wife. I am responsible. I am caring. I am loving. I am loved. I go to the events my kids are participating in. I volunteer for booster clubs. I take care of the people who matter most to me. I offer guidance when I can. I love my family with ferocity.
These things soothe a certain part of my soul, but there is still that ache for more meaning, for more purpose, a longing that I can’t describe even to those closest to me.
People have said, you need another job, or you should go back to school, or you should find out what your passionate about and do that. I am receptive to those ideas, and actively pursue them. All the while I know in my heart that another job won’t make this burning stop. I’ll simply be in a different version of the corporate disease. Going back to school is fruitless if there is not a plan for what to study. Finding out my passion; well, that is certainly number 1 on my priority list, but I have yet to pin that down.
Recently, someone shared an article with me about how to find your passion. I read it earnestly and intently, more than once. One of the author’s recommendations was to look at the books you read and find a theme. I did that. Most of the books I read are about murder and crime. So that wasn’t exactly helpful. One of the other recommendations was to ask those closest to you about what you talk about the most. So, I asked my husband. His response, unflinching and without hesitation, was “Violence. Also reading, writing and anything fitness related”.  Two of my other friends said basically the same thing.  I must have really missed my calling when I didn’t become an assassin. I could satisfy my violent tendencies, make my own hours, make a ton of money and work out whenever I wanted. Sure, there is the downside to that life, mainly prison, but there are downsides to everything right? (All of that was sarcasm, just in case someone wasn’t aware).
After all those conversations I marveled at the fact that I have any friends at all and that anyone ever agreed to marry me.
The violence in my heart is not a frightening type of violence, although it can be frightening to those who do not understand it. It should be frightening to someone who is on the wrong side of it. It is a controlled ball of fire that lives inside of me. It is a righteous violence. Righteous because it was earned through battles fought alone and lonely through many years of struggle. Battles fought against men who tried to take what wasn’t theirs time and time again. Battles fought in the work place. Battles fought at home. Battles fought in my heart and mind. Battles fought against my body. Battles that made me a warrior. Battles that made me strong. Battles that prove that warriors aren’t born, courage is not bestowed upon a few lucky individuals through the luck of the genetic lottery. These traits are not gifts. Courage and bravery and the right to be called a warrior is earned through walking through fire and knowing what you are made of. 
Another thing comes out of that fire, grace. Grace for yourself and more importantly, grace for others because you recognize that everyone is fighting an invisible battle and we all need a bit more grace.
Sometimes I think to myself about the men and women who built this country, the farmers, the ranchers, the ditch diggers and the railroad workers. The men who forged the steel that built the buildings that dot our skylines to this day. The people whose names we won’t ever remember and the ones whose names grace colleges and libraries and monuments. I wonder if they got up every morning to till their land and drive their cattle and move their families from the known into the great unknown and understood that they were a part of building something amazing? I wonder if they thought about how their seemingly small insignificant lives were actually the building blocks upon which the families of our nation grew? Probably not. I bet that there were a great many of them that got up every morning to do what they had to do to feed their families and maybe they thought they were meant for something greater, they might have longed for a bigger life or a defined purpose. They had no idea that their small lives were so important to the big picture. They had no idea the impact they had on the future. 
So maybe I don’t know what my great purpose is in life yet? Maybe I won’t ever know? However, when I look back on the life I’ve lived so far, I know that I’ve been through everything for a reason. Maybe it’s to write? Maybe it’s to do yoga? Maybe it’s to be a mom and let my children be my legacy? Maybe my purpose is to be my husband’s wife, or my friend’s friend or my brother’s sister or my mother’s daughter? Maybe it’s to get up every day and chase the sales quota that’s always on my head to provide for my family? Maybe it is all of these things? Maybe the violent fire that resides inside of my heart is the spark that will start a revolution someday? Maybe it’s the force that will drive me every day to be better, to live better, to be more kind, to always be searching, to never be satisfied with mediocrity? Maybe it will inspire someone who speaks to me about my story to not give up? Maybe they will decide to see what they are made of? Maybe they will be the one who changes the world? In a small way, that will be part of my purpose and my legacy.
Until I know what is next, I won’t stop searching. The fire just gets hotter and it won’t let me rest.
Peace and Love,
Chace