Bring Back You: Building Strength, Rebuilding Self
#MindBodyConnection
“Fitness can rebuild what's broken. It can make you feel powerful, help you love yourself, and affirm your worth. It can teach you self-care and how to offer yourself a gift when you most need it. It can help you re-learn autonomy when you've forgotten. Most importantly, it allows you to shed old layers of yourself that no longer serve you so that you can become the person you are meant to be.”
I’ve returned to movement for my mental health many times. Rock climbing, kayaking, and dance. An eclectic mix.
When life feels steady, the mind-body connection is easy to take for granted. But when life stalls, my body follows. Energy slips away until I’m sluggish at the time I need strength and self-care the most.
My weekly fitness routine has been changed, out of my control. Class days, times, and instructors have been shuffled by The Y, and I feel disoriented. What I can control is the rebuild. I think of it as the infrastructure. (That’s my engineer husband’s influence.)
Part of the infrastructure is my independence and physical health—the mind-body connection. Another part, just as important, is my social world.
When I switched to the new gym schedule, I didn’t realize how much reconnection mattered. I faced the new classes head-on. But my familiar group of friends? Not automatically familiar anymore. The social aspect didn’t carry over.
For around two years, we’ve seen each other several days a week. Quick check-ins. Birthday teasing. College football scores. I had good friends who worked alongside me in rebuilding—and it appears I must rebuild my social connections once again.
What I know is this: Movement gives me clarity. Friendship gives me courage.
This post is dedicated to Don, Desney, Robbie, Cathy, Roger, Cindy, Mary Ann, Rebecca, Ann, James, Wayne, Harvey, and many more. Friends who kept me accountable. Who made me laugh. Who reminded me that my fitness infrastructure isn’t only about strength, but also about the people who remind me I have it.
🐥~ The Hippie Chick Behind the Words • I’m happy you’re here, share a thought below.
