Learning To Sail My Ship

After a week of off and on rain and thunderstorms, we were blessed with a beautiful day today.  Sunny skies and a gentle breeze graced our coast and I headed out to Topsail Island to my family's beach house with the top of my car down and my hair in the breeze.   It helped to soothe my spirits which had been unsettled mid-week when our trainers announced that we as a group had not been as compliant with the program objectives in this first week of our new challenge as they expected us to be, and thus if our performance doesn't improve in this coming week our program would be canceled early.

This announcement brought with it the expected wave of emotions throughout the group and it weighed heavy on my heart.  Having graduated from the initial round of the program six months ago, I have now become used to doing this on my own, but I have been looking forward to working with the current group, gaining a possible bonus month back with my trainers, and being accountable on the scale again.  This news also made me fearful for my friends in the program who are newer in their transformation journey than I am, wondering what this would do for their self confidence.

Sitting on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean today in a tidal pool that Mother Nature had so graciously made for us, my sister, future sister-in-law and I were rocked back and forth with the crashing tides. It was all you could do just to keep your seat, so to speak.  The waves kept knocking us around and I finally took to making a crab-like death grip with my legs and arms sunk down into the sand. It was then that I realized that I wasn't just out "turtleing" in the water on a nice summer day, I was getting a workout.   I also reflected back to a time in my life when I was so much heavier and unable to walk from our sound-side beach house to our beach walkover and down onto the shore because I was in such bad shape.  These past two summers of a healthier me have been amazing and every time I'm on the beach, I look around me at our beautiful surroundings and know that I will never again take it for granted.   It is a blessing that I revel in.  It was as I had these thoughts today that I realized more clearly that I ever have in this journey my own strength and willpower and the fact that come what may in our program at the gym, I will be successful and I am able to stand on my own.    For months during the end of our first program and immediately afterward I worried that I wouldn't be successful when left to my own devices, but my friends and I have proven that we can do this.

It is inevitable that the tide is going to rise.  It is a guarantee that calm seas will again turn turbulent with waves that crest overhead and an undertoe that looms to drag you away from your current location.  Sunny skies can swell with angry clouds in a matter of minutes.  It is this way in nature and this way with long term endeavors, but to quote Louisa May Alcott, "I am not afraid of storms,  for I am learning how to sail my ship."