Lunges & Someone Else's Problem: It's Called Growth
I was nearly finished untangling myself from the TRX bands dangling above my head, trying to impress my personal trainer who no doubt thinks I am an escaped house cat that someone will come looking for sooner or later, when she walked up.
The 9:30AM appointment who hadn’t shown for her time slot walked right up to us with her water bottle in hand, ready to roll.
I continued on with my lunges-that-for-some-reason-also-included-an-arm-raise and tried very hard to disintegrate into small bits and maybe even achieve invisibility. But as always, no such luck. I simply had to continue to heave and haw and let the awkward happen right in front of me as our trainer engaged in a ballet of firm sympathy.
“Oh, no. You put our appointment into your calendar at 10:00AM? That stinks because you were actually booked in the app at 9:30AM. I tried calling, but no answer.”
Now I switched the fancy starfish lunges to my left side and fought the urge to give up my 10:00AM appointment that I had successfully booked with my own two thumbs in order to make the awkward stop.
I tried to imagine every strong person in my life, unencumbered by a childhood of appeasing others. I pictured them shouting at me with megaphones and gusto that this person’s problem was not my problem. Only my problems are my problems and this problem is not my problem because it is her problem and also the ocean isn’t really blue it is just a reflection from the sky or something like that, did you know this??!?
I kept lunging, and stressing.
“That’s so strange,” said 9:30AM whose problem it was, “I even checked my calendar last night and I wrote 10:00AM.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t charge you for the missed session.”
I held my breath at this new standoff and then remembered that doing so would still technically be absorbing her problem as my problem and so I exhaled and continued flailing with purpose as instructed.
Our shared trainer said she would see her next week and that all was well, but the lady whose problem it was said that she would be traveling for the next two weeks and she therefore wouldn’t be able to get in another session for two or three Sundays from now.
My quads burned and also somehow my shoulders, which was maybe part of the plan, and I side-eyed my trainer to see how she would address these new stakes.
She offered to show the lady whose problem it was the workout for the day if she would like to flail on her own, and the lady said yes and then did so. She wandered purposefully around the gym with her notebook and did all of her assigned things and I did too, just with our trainer.
This, my friends, is called growth.
And it rocks.
If you do not have a brain like my brain that comes with a supersized tendency to make haste and roll out the carpet for others, this whole interaction probably sounds like a load of hooey.
But if you do know what this appeasing and pleasing and “please don’t escalate further I don’t like to feel scared” feelings feel like, then you’ll know just how proud of myself I was that I did not thrust my TRX bands in her face and assure her it was “no big deal” and that I “didn’t need the appointment” that I had scheduled because I obviously have “way more available time” than her to reschedule.
And even though all those reasons would be fake and I would know it to my core, I once upon a time would go about the pleasing and bowing and retreating and denying anyway, because that’s what I learned to do to deescalate big people when I was a small person and it takes a lot of undoing to undo it.
If you find yourself doing the things even when your brain is screaming, “Not my problem! Her problem!” and you are in a loop of frustration and disappointment, know that it takes time. It takes awareness and lots of self-forgiveness when you do the thing you’re trying desperately not to do.
But with each “failed” attempt - with each obedient moment - you’ll learn and you’ll strategize for next time. Then soon you’ll notice that you do it less and interrupt this survival skill faster than you used to, and live a little bit more for you every single day.
Breathe, and keep lunging forward.
You’ve got this.
Your honorable 10:00AM,
Emily Rose // Miss Magnolia
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