Starting

 This was my first official week getting back into working out since Peter was born. 

I was glad to be there, but I was also sad to see how much progress I had lost in terms of my abilities in the gym. I always liked being a team member at Sisu and being an asset to the team, helping others reach the goal, and being willing to do more work in order to finish with my team. 

In many ways, the journey of this pregnancy and the postpartum journey have humbled me. Certainly, I have been humbled physically, and even now I am working out with certain restrictions on my abilities because of breastfeeding and a weaker core. I can't just dive back in with no holds barred. 

Whenever there's something in the way -- a roadblock, an injury, a realization that you need to focus more on technique before you can get stronger, constraints on time, reduced ability to recover -- ego can get in the way of mindset.

Ego seems like a friend at first. Ego is what pushes you to compete, to be better, to not quit. Ego says you should be able to do this, so get it done; skipping days and taking rests is not acceptable because it's not exceptional. Ego tells you that more is better. It tells you that if you didn't give it all, then you gave nothing. 

Before Peter, I relied on ego a lot. I wanted to be noticed as a team member. I liked to believe I was an asset. I pushed myself because being exceptional meant being valued-- it meant having value.

One of the journeys I had to go on -- by force -- was unlearning this form of motivation. 

So what replaced it?

Well, I'm working on it. But, when I was doing the conditioning workout on Tuesday (my first conditioning workout in over 6 months), I was very slowly completing some of the workout goals. I was winded, running behind my teammates. My movements felt awkward and I was just so aware of how much my body had changed and how much work I needed to do. 

As I was jogging around the pond, I wanted to stop and just go home and claim that my body wasn't ready, which honestly, is the truth. My body isn't ready. After the workout, I had a drop in milk supply that lasted about a day and a half, and I'm still not sleeping great at night because of Peter waking up. Tuesday's workout happened with less than 5 hours of sleep, compounded over multiple nights. I actually found myself nodding off between EMOMs. I'm coming into the workouts with a hand tied behind my back already; these restrictions would affect me even if I was in peak physical condition, which I'm not. 

In the past, this is where ego would step in with the usual message of work harder or you'll be inferior and you won't have value here. Lack of rest doesn't matter; stop making excuses for yourself. Don't be weak. 

Instead, I said, out loud in a very out-of-breath voice, "It's better not to finish than not to start."

Here I was, starting. Ego might not find that impressive, but is it really my goal to impress anyone? No. So, let's get started.