What it means to “take the season off.”

The weather felt warm for January when I stepped off the bus; I thought I might go for a run. I wasn’t sure of my decision, since I hadn’t run since mid-November, but the swim season was over and I knew I had no homework.

When I stepped inside my house at 4:20, and spied the bag of Krispy Kreme crullers, I made a choice: running or donuts? I picked the donuts, and with it, an afternoon of sitting in a desk chair writing.

So what happened to the health nut—the girl who ran compulsively, drank green smoothies every morning, and Daniel-fasted to start the new year*?

*The 2011 new year, that is. I never mentioned the fast publicly—it was mostly for spiritual reasons, but, you know, there was the added benefit of losing a few pounds. I drank nothing but water and ate no meat, dairy, added sweeteners, leavened bread, and deep-fried foods for almost three weeks.

This is what happened: she stopped looking for validation in her body. Upon becoming capable of receiving love no matter what she looked like or thought she looked like, she loosened the restrictions and lightened the pressure. As evidence by my brother who doesn’t understand why I’m willing to drink a green smoothie for breakfast yet ask for a second slice of cake for dessert, she let up maybe a bit too much.

Even in my sophomore year I used track to try to control my body. After the season ended, a revelation came to me upon reading Geneen Roth’s book When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair:

I’m tired of fighting my body; wrestling with my weight, both mentally and physically. I’m tired of trying to eat in a way that manipulates my mind and body into “health.” There is a world of difference between forcing my mind and body into submission on the track and enduring hunger (which I both fear and enjoy); and loving my body, being kind to myself, and treating myself right. It’s not about tiring my body and mind; it’s about being mentally, emotionally, and physically sound.

Do you see why I I can’t do track this year?

I don’t have the right motivation. I don’t want to race people, be competitive, be fast, be first. I just want a sound mind and body.

Track is something like AP Calculus: It’s something I’m expected to do based on my past performances and achievements, but it appears to be more painful than it is enjoyable. One activity is a mental challenge, another is a physical challenge, and both involve frustration and stress. I know track and calculus require sacrifices, and the benefits don’t seem worth it now that I can’t find validation in my brains or my body.

In short, I’m taking the season off because I need to find a way to manage my exercise habits, body image, and weight in a balanced, sustainable way. I don’t want to 18-hour days involving both a track meet and a synthesis essay. I don’t want two solid months of six-days-a-week, two-hours-a-day exercise. It’s kind of ridiculous.

More than midway through the track season (April 1, 2011), I wrote about the stress:

I want to sleep. To go home, rest. Relax.

But my inner drive calls out, “You’re eating but not exercising.”
I say, “I don’t care. I want to eat… lots of chocolate.”
I hear, “You can’t do this forever. You need to balance pleasure and rest with work. Have fun, but work hard.”

Rest and sunshine: I got it 4 weeks later at the beach.

I want sunshine.
I don’t want track meets that make me feel slow and out of breath and butterflies. Pain. What’s the use of it?

“Push through the pain. It’s so temporary. This is fun; this is what you do; what you love. The blue skies and chirping birds and taste of spring in my lungs. Strong muscles and a certain pride.”

But this is not for the glory. There is no glory reserved for me in these races: for neither how I look nor how fast I am.

The only merit—my only redemption in poor races—lies in the fact that at least I am there.

I’m at that point where I think, “How can I survive two more years of this?”

Why would I do something that I have to “survive”? No, this spring, I want to make habits that I can maintain the rest of my life; habits that make me feel healthy in mind, body, and soul. It’s not that I want to lose weight; it’s that I want to focus on more important things than myself, achieved by doing my best to maintain balance.

To that end, my dream is to train for a sprint triathlon (750m swim – 20K bike – 5K run), but there are transportation and money issues involved when I try to extract my exercise habits from the demands of a school sport. We’ll see. For now, I’m just working on extracting my value and identity from the confines of my pathetic abilities, for my only dependable source of worth is my Heavenly Father.

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Defining Success :: My Story, Part II

Last week, I was looking at my personal “yearbook” from last year. It is not my school yearbook, but one I designed myself, using pictures that I took of my own family’s and friends’ smiling faces, essays and journal entries, and other memories and markers from the year.

This is me literally on top of the mountain, around Thanksgiving 2010.

After looking at the pictures, I felt that I had regressed in comparison to this year. I thought:

"Success is deceptive, no matter how it is defined. My past haunts me, demanding me to do more and do it better, holding me to an impossibly high standard. I hate the feeling that I cannot break my PR in any area of my life.”

A PR typically refers to a race time, such as in cross-country. My coach believes in individual definitions of success, and so my goal for cross-country the past two seasons has been to stay relaxed and enjoy the season with my teammates. Staying relaxed, to me, means not obsessing over my performance. As long as I did that, success based on times was simply a bonus and a lack of such success was okay. Last year, I broke both my emotional and physical (times-based) PRs.

Extending that motto to the rest of my life, I often feel frustrated, and failure to meet even my own ‘expanded’ definition of personal accomplishment feels bitter indeed. The time I spend on schoolwork dominates my schedule, eating up time erstwhile filled with personal devotions, memorizing verses, cooking, bracelet-making, photography, graphic design, or blogging (all activities I enjoyed my first two years of high school). It dominates my thoughts, too; I often want to escape my own thoughts about homework and school, but even with my friends I find myself in a rut of concentrating on school. My mental exertion is just not balanced with every other area of potential growth: emotional, spiritual, physical, which are the remaining cornerstones of a solidly balanced lifestyle.

Even though I’m 16 with my life before me, a specter of past success flickers behind every bush and around every corner, because I always feel as if I must improve.

It appears that Mr. Jeff Goins and I are riding the same train of thought: speaking of viral success, he wrote, “No single creative success can be sustained. That’s why you can’t create solely for profit or accolades. In the end, it doesn’t work. Not if you want to be an artist, anyway. There has to be something more.”

There’s a reason this dreaded bitterness of failure keeps resurfacing in my life, despite my total aversion to “trying to be a good Christian”; despite my friends and family and God who love me no matter what. It has to do with self-esteem, part three of my story.

One Year of Healing

I’ll admit: I’ve been ignoring my blog for the past couple months. Much has been going on in my life, and I’ve been writing, but none of it has been very… public.

It’s good—good stuff has been going on. In fact, I’ve recently returned from a week-long vacay in North Myrtle Beach, and I’ve many opportunities to spend time with my favorite people. I’ve been fairly content, perhaps a bullet point for my lack of blogging, since my blog in its earliest stages was an outlet to express discontent. (Not every post, of course.)

I hope you acknowledged Earth Day on Friday, April 22. As for me, that particular annual celebration was far from my mind as I played the “last year…” game. Fireworks exploded along the shoreline, almost as if to celebrate the coming of this day: April 22. It fell on a Thursday last year (2010), and every moment of the evening is acutely imprinted in my memory. At JAARS youth group, I gave my ‘confession’ for the first time; my world was subsequently flipped upside down. It was “Praise and Worship Night” at youth group, meant for singing, prayer, and sharing of testimonies to glorify God.

Every evening for the past week I had outlined the details and history of disordered eating—cause and consequence—because I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Every raw emotion and awful detail was saved on my computer, and I definitely didn’t plan to share it. Yet that night, my whole spirit was consumed with the burden of my shameful secrets, and the Spirit pressed me to share. Every effort of my own to heal myself, break myself of habit, and find purpose in life had failed, and even though I loathed to shatter my image, I needed to bring my sins and failures to the light.

Since then, I’ve shared my testimony before my team in China, for elderly folks at a nursing home, and on this very blog. I’ve discussed it with some friends. Each time, I have marveled at the work God has done, and I’ve aimed to point all glory of my story to my Lord and encourage others. When speaking to my team, I was showing them that I needed their help, since I had just begun ‘recovery’ two months previous. One year later, I struggle with comparing my body to an ideal appearance in my head, and trying to turn to food for a quick “feel-good,” but food doesn’t dictate every thought, and I am much more aware of Satan’s tricks. And of utmost importance, I have friends! There are people that tell me they accept every bit of me and love me too (thanks, Mom!).

That was one of many highlights from the past week, but now school is back in session…

 

Most Influential Books of 2010

These books have transformed the way I live my life; they have altered and expanded my perspective.

TrueFaced by Bill Thrall

…I was living in the Room of Pleasing God, where one dons a happy-faced mask and then slowly dies on the inside. This is a result of trying to resolve your own sin in attempt to please God, taking matters into your own hands and failing miserably. Jesus already took responsibility in erasing your sin and my sin—we can do nothing.

…What’s the way out of this mess? It’s found in the Room of Trusting God. It’s taking the path of grace, maturity, forgiveness, love. It’s being authentic and accepting yourself—accepting who you were made to be.

from “Academic Pressure” – May 26

Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper

…finding happiness: John Piper’s life was transformed when he realized that God’s desire to be glorified and our desire for lasting peace, happiness, joy, and satisfaction are not at odds with each other. They are one and the same. There needs be no divide between what is absolutely right—pursuing God’s glory—and what seems absolutely inevitable—seeking our own happiness. Don’t you love that? I always hear that we are created for God’s glory and true joy comes from Jesus, but John Piper uses God’s Word to teach us how to apply those truths and live them out!

One of my fears is that I will waste my life. All I want to do is what’s best for the kingdom of God, but, good news!—what’s best for Him is intrinsically what’s best for me.

from “What is happiness?” – March 21

Mom, I Feel Fat! by Sharon Hersh

a book for mothers and daughters.

…fat is not a feeling.

…associations—lack of willpower and self-control, gluttony, ignorance, incompetence. …maybe everyone would think less of me for my body’s imperfections, or think me a failure.

…fat should not define you….We are humans created in God’s image, and everyone has been created a little differently.

…I was not unhealthy. In reality, I was unhappy. I diverted the focus from what made me unhappy to my body. I thought that if I achieved some ideal body shape or got rid of all that cellulite, I would solve my emotional problems. You can’t fix the emotional with the physical!

from “FAT: being vs. feeling” – June 9

Unreviewed

Blue Like Jazz	The Message Behind the Movie	The Birth Order Book
by Donald Miller (official website)	by Douglas Beaumont (book review)	by Dr. Kevin Leman (Amazon)

For Students

Do Hard Things by Alex and Bret Harris

…a rebellion against the idea that teenagers should be lazy, selfish, and non-productive.

…adolescence is a myth created by modern society—the teen years should not be wasted.

…Having a lot of things on our plate is both directly and indirectly modeled as ideal. Our education system recognizes those with excellent grades, many extracurricular hobbies and sports, clubs, community service, leadership positions, etc….

Do Hard Things encourages teenagers to do things well, not necessarily spread ourselves out thinly over every club and activity possible. It’s better to be devoted to schoolwork and make good grades, then to tack on an hour and a half of sports everyday which causes your grades to slide. Or, on the other hand, to under-achieve in sports because you had to stay up so late studying.

from “Do Hard Things” – March 31

 

How to Be a High School Superstar by Cal Newport

…investigates the lifestyles of so-called “relaxed superstars” to show how getting into college is not a chore…

…The message of this revolutionary book (“Do Less, Live More, Get Accepted”) comes to students like the Gospel—it promises salvation from the frenzied activity and stress endured by many college hopefuls.

…challenge the idea that I must invest more sheer work than anyone else to excel. I want to be creative and open to opportunities.

from “Get Into College Without Burning Out in High School” – Dec 20

Authentic Beauty by Leslie Ludy link: official website (Also read: “Ludy Critique”

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How the mighty fall: I have a cold.

I hope you are all having a lovely Memorial Day weekend! I’m out of school Monday (thank goodness), and then I only have 4 days of ninth grade left! (Not including my Biology exam.)

Anyway, I haven’t been sick since I can remember, but since Saturday I’ve been feeling under the weather. I have a sore throat and an occasionally drippy nose, plus a dull headache.

This comes after a week of occasional and mild exercise. Besides normal walking around at school, I went running once and biking once, just 4 miles both times. I really left exercise in the ditch this past week. It’s a problem: it’s so hard for me to find balance. It’s either the 6-days-a-week track workouts or nothing.

Ugh. Now I can’t run because of the headache. I pray that I will feel better soon (also for my mom, who’s also sick).

This is more than just a physical problem. It’s a shock to my health-obsessed self. I take pride in my lack of sickness, headaches, weakness, fatigue, and allergies. I credit it to my healthy diet and lifestyle, including sleep and exercise.

I have this desire to transcend the physical problems that everyone else seems to struggle with. I want to always feel alive. I love to run fast and strong. I hate weakness, because I fear it in myself.

So now I’ve been taken back down to earth. I’m human. I co-exist with bacteria and viruses that think I’m a wonderful host (not a compliment in this case, I’m afraid). I hate being sick!

Do you have any tips for helping colds? To relieve my throat, I’ve gargled water with about 8 drops of tea tree essential oil, and I have these great ginger chews. I’ve heard vitamin C and zinc reduce the length of the cold. Any other ideas?

Do you ever struggle with balanced habits or health obsession?

PS – What kind of pictures do you put with a post like this? Bacteria dividing in my throat? Tea tree oil? I hope you still read it without pics to catch your eye!