Rea Frey's Blog, page 2

The One-Year Test: Name Your Calling

Can you keep a secret?

I really have no clue what I’m doing with my life. 

There.

I said it. It’s out.

I used to know. (I think.) I’ve always felt that my life boils down to two categories: fitness and writing. But somewhere along the way, I became closed to other possibilities and ways of living. I shut the door on really responding to choices instead of blindly making them. I let myself rest on my laurels, not daring to really get my hands dirty and escape my comfort zone.

I became…average in my execution.

And there’s just so much out there. Sometimes, it feels like too much to do, see, touch and be. Sometimes, it feels like sitting behind your computer is the new normal.

Well.

Screw that.

I’m tired of sitting.

See? This is me, getting up.

We’ve all been asked those life questions that are supposed to wake us up and spur us in a different direction when we come to a crossroads: If you won the lottery, what would you do? If you were to die tomorrow, what would you do today? If you got cancer, how would you change your life? Go! Answer! Do! Be a unicorn! Live!!!!!!!!

Basically, it begs the question: How would you live life differently if you could?

In the most recent book I’m reading on my quest for figuring-everything-the-fuck-out, the authors of Work Reimagined help you uncover your calling in many different ways.

One of the simpler way is through a short, repeated question we’ve probably heard time and time again: If you had only one year to live, how would you live it?

Which got me thinking: How many people would not change a thing?

Probably not many, right? Who is out there, really living on purpose? Understanding that good days will come with bad, that there is no perfect job or relationship or moment? That it’s all collective and cumulative? That it’s all for a greater good? They drink their green tea and do their yoga and nod patiently when their toddler throws books at their heads. They have zero pores and long legs and perky boobs and a hefty savings account.

But most of us back in the stumpy leg, droopy boob, dwindling checking account world feel that work is just work. Days tumble into night and back into morning, gaining momentum like snowballs. It’s hard to stay present. Chores pile up. Laundry explodes. Dishes crust. Bills gather. Resentments build. We have arguments instead of conversations. We close up. We break down. We stop sleeping. We medicate. We eat. We drink. We react instead of interacting.

We stop looking up.

What struck me most about this question is that I couldn’t quite pinpoint how I’d change my life. I didn’t have a list at the ready, eager to pounce.

Because honestly?

I’m really tired of thinking so much.

And doing so little.

I do know I’d like to live somewhere that inspires me. A place that pulls in the city girl and the mountain girl and the water girl and rolls her into a city-moving, nature-loving doer, who is working from a place of absolute passionate necessity. In this place, I do not deal with Nashville drivers or endless summers or fast food chains. (Or Republicans.)

For me, once my environment is right, it’s easier for the pieces to fall into place. You use less energy on complaining and more on seeing clearly.

As the authors stated: “The good life is living in the place you belong, with people you love, doing the right work, on purpose.”

There. That’s it. A summation of the holy grail of living. And doing. And working. And being.

But do you ever notice the things that you absolutely love to do, like swimming or eating or having sex, you can’t sustain for eight hours at a time? But we work for eight hours a day…every day. At least.

Which is a hell of a lot of time if you’re not doing what you are called to do.

So, why is it so hard to figure out what our calling really is? Because if we have one year to live, that’s still a lot of hours to fill, right?

How do we fill them to feel, well, fulfilled, at the end of every day?

Think of an activity you love. An activity where time passes by, and you are simply unaware of anything. You’re not thinking about how hungry or tired you are, or your to-do list. You just feel excitement and joy and inspiration.

What is that activity to you?

Does it apply to the one year test?

If I had just one more year, I know I’d be doing a lot more of this. I’d be spending ample time with my daughter, traveling the world, showing her how other people live. I’d eat ALL the food. I’d swim in all the oceans. I’d laugh a hell of a lot more and be kinder to my body. I’d take more photographs. And carry more journals. I’d make time for the people, places and things I adore and just cut out the rest.

But I’d also do some other things, I think. For instance, I really love overseeing design. Like a lot. I also love cycling. And spending time in libraries. And going to museums. I love sharing inspirations I’ve found. I love baking. And coffee dates. And eating breakfast. And writing letters. And exploring new cities. And reconnecting with friends.

So why don’t I do those things more often? Why don’t any of us do what we want with more consistency?

Maybe we get it in our heads that we will do x, y and z once we get things in financial order. We’ll take the vacation after we buckle down. We’ll buy the plane ticket if we save a little more. We’ll do what we want if we just wait a little longer. Because we have children. Because we have jobs. Because we have responsibilities.

Once, after, if, just, because.

Excuse. After. Excuse. After. Excuse.

But this is what a responsible life looks like, right? Besides, glamorous lives are reserved for twenty-something Instagram sensations.

We aren’t falling for that.

We decide who we want to be.

And then we just go be that person.

Because this might be the one year we have to change our lives, if we want them to be changed. Maybe that’s as simple as deciding to be happy. Finding the joy in your work. Asking the girl out. Having the baby. Taking the trip. Quitting the job.

Whatever it is, find it. Do it. Get clear about your intentions.

And then, like anything you finish, act. Go. Do. Be.

Stop waiting around to see who’s going to give it to you. (No one).

Stop waiting for the perfect time. (There is none.)

Stop waiting to win the lottery. (Not going to happen.)

Start controlling what you can control, which just so happens to be everything in your life. 

Make the new path. Or reinvent the old one.

Just get clear about who you really are and what you really want.

And then go after it.

Because this is your year, your life, your moment.

Find the urgency.

Examine the will.

Identify intentions

Do the honest thing.

Whatever that is for you.

Find your calling.

And then answer it.

Like you are running out of time.

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New Year…Still You

Do you remember being asked: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

I remember spouting off answers as a child: a veterinarian! An astronaut! A librarian! It never dawned on me to really think about this question: what it meant, and how it was always related to career.

What if I just wanted to be happy? Could I get paid for that?

Despite my better judgment, I found myself asking my 3-½-year-old this very question the other night.

It went something like this: “Sophie, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

She looked at me and shrugged. “I don’t know. A window.”

“You want to be a window? When you grow up?”

Shrug. Sweet smile. Head nod. Stabbing of fork into food.

“Okay, well, what do you want to be right now? Like, in this very moment?”

She stopped playing with her science experiment of a dinner and smiled. “Just Sophie,” she said.

I could feel goosebumps prick my flesh.

“Well,” I said, sitting up straighter, my heart beating wildly. “I couldn’t think of anything better to be.”

She grinned and stuffed a forkful of quinoa into her mouth. The moment gone. The next question, conversation and memory in her life ready to take hold and then vanish like steam.

But for me?

Light. Bulb. Moment.

Of course she wants to be just Sophie. Why wouldn’t she? Sophie is all she knows how to be. Why would she want to be anything or anyone else? Ever? And why would she want to construct a career or a life around being anyone or anything other than herself?

In school. Out of school. On the playground. At home. In relationships.

She should just be, always be, only be herself.

I let these thoughts sink in, the wheels beginning their familiar spin.

Why would we want to be anyone or anything else other than who we are? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because EVERY AD, SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT OR TV SHOW/COMMERCIAL/MOVIE tells us to be something else or someone bigger, better, thinner or more beautiful than we already are? Work harder. Give more. Stand up straighter. Hold on just a little bit longer. Work your way up. Stick with it. Try, try again. Do more. Be more. Be kinder. Be stronger. Be softer. Be quiet.

Look the other way. Don’t look so hard. Don’t look at all. Be selfless.

How about this?

Take a good, long look at yourself.

Who do you see?

Because we all offer amazing skills. We are all different. What if the point of comparison didn’t even exist? What if all of our careers were constructed around being exactly who we are?

What if our professions and our lives only made us go hell yes, let’s do this, I can’t wait to do this, let me do this!!! Because isn’t that the point? To be exactly who we are? To carve our lives out of our own interests and passions and not someone else’s? To have our own set of faults and flaws and peccadillos and strengths, and to place those on a tenuous, interesting landscape we call life instead of checking off our skills in boxes on a social network?

I was scrolling through LinkedIn the other night, floored at all the titles and accolades. I’m a content manager, a content strategist. I can edit, blog, write, train and perform circus acts while doing the dishes. Do these “skills” make me better than anyone else? Do these “skills” make me a more desirable candidate for life?

Is who I am as a trainer and as a writer different from who I am on my own?

I’m a writer, sure. But while I went to school to make stories up, what I really like to do is try and figure things out.

I write to process. This digital paper is my very best friend. I like it. No, I love it. I love it more than most things. Which brings me to a glorious sentence I stumbled upon while reading recently:

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Say what?

What do I do that I’m good at but don’t necessarily feel that fire-in-the-belly pit that tells me to go, go, go?

Um, how about a lot? More than I probably should?

Since my hubby and I are mid-life and boring as fuck, we read every night, rubbing elbows in bed and taking turns interrupting each other to one-up our “inspirational” self-help mojo dejour we’re into. I read him this quote. We talked about it; about all the things we do that are really time fillers. The things that detract from the other, shining lights in our lives.

And then he read me this:

“If it’s important you, you’ll find a way. If it’s not, you’ll find an excuse.”

“Say that again,” I said, immediately taking stock of everything in my life I’ve ever come up with an excuse for, even if I was good at it. (Try this exercise: It’s beyond enlightening.)

Important versus not important. Going versus bailing. Obstacles versus excuses.

Oh shit.

With all of this self-reflection, it’s hard to even find the time to stay the course. But, as Byron Katie wrote: It’s not your job to like me; it’s mine.

It starts here. With you. You as an infant, a wobbly toddler, a gangly child, a teen, a twenty-something, an adult, a senior. Are you there for yourself? Do you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, tell yourself it’s okay? Or do you need friends, family or partners to do the dirty work for you?

Are you ever any closer to figuring it all out?

At some point, you have to do what you want to do. You have to decide that what you think about yourself matters more than what anyone else thinks. Strip the job away, the physical appearance, the materials, the family and the outside influences.

What’s left? Who is staring back at you?

You have to decide what you want to be when you grow up. You have to do what’s important to you. For you. You have to say no. A lot. You have to change your reactions to stress or darkness or worry.

You have to shut out the voices and do what’s easy. (Yes, really.) Do what comes natural to you.

Find a way. Find your way.

And then lean all the way in.

The post New Year…Still You appeared first on Rea FREY.

Let Go: Dare to Be Unbalanced

Balance.

We all want it. It’s the Holy Grail for parents, career mavens and single people everywhere.

Balance is that thing other people have, while we barely hang on to our last overly-stressed-shredded-hasn’t-been-washed-in-at-least-two-months thread.

Sound familiar?

What about these refrains?

“I just need more balance in my life.”

“I’m just trying to find the balance.”

“I just want that work-life balance…that’s what I’m really looking for.”

If. Just. Then. If. Just. Then.

How about…never?

Because I’m about to say something (semi-)revolutionary: Balance doesn’t matter.  

It’s an illusion. Really it is.

Know what else? You want it to be.

Why? Because nothing great ever came from balance. Of course, peace of mind is great. Stressing less is great. Giving up some things for others is great and often necessary too.

But true greatness, soul-satisfying greatness, success, achievement and even personal gratitude comes from one thing and one thing only: figuring out what you want. And then acting on it.

And guess what? That usually means balance has to get the fuck out of the way.

Think about the greatest times in your life. Have they been when you spent equal times as a parent, an employee or friend, dividing your time into clean thirds like percentages on a pie chart?

No way.

Think about falling in love. Do you feel well-balanced? Unless you’re “falling” horizontally, then hell no. Think about having a kid. Balanced? Ahaaaaaha. Ha. Ha. Never. Think about making a career change, a move or giving up that stable job and 401k to start your own company…

Balanced? Not so much. Living on purpose? Absolutely.

While our lives may be budgeted and scheduled and balanced, our passions and feelings usually are not. We need different things at different times.

Because sometimes, life is truly all about career. Other times, it’s about family. Or health. Fun. Rest. Play. Travel. Hobbies. Art. Children. Yourself.

It’s about committing to, diving in, then pulling yourself up by your boot straps and  just doing it. Whatever “it” may be. Not talking about it all the time. Not striving for it one day. Just making a declaration.

And going all in.

This concept – that balance is not only an illusion but not a very useful one – is like chucking the heavy weight of expectation to the wind.

Take me, for example.

I am not a balanced person, but I live a full life. Why is it full? Because I say it is.

I eat too much. I love too hard. I’ve never had a typical job. I change my mind constantly. I start a lot of things I don’t finish. I change course. I love to exercise, but I also love to be really, really lazy. I can binge watch TV and read books for hours. I can wear pajamas all day and go an exorbitant amount of time without human contact or makeup. I love sex. I love exercise. I drink too much coffee and worry too much and eat way too many cookies. I am sometimes all in, and then sometimes I’m all out. I’m ecstatic one day and moody the next. I make promises with myself and then I break them in the same day. I’m predictably unpredictable.

This lack of balance is the balance. It’s the way life is supposed to be: tilted, charged, still, heavy, light. Malleable. Thick.

Unexpected.

Your life is a pattern of beautiful mosaic, tile and wooden mismatched steps. Each one leads to a different destination on a different day at a different time. But these steps are the transportation of your life.

Treat them well. Love them just as they are. Climb them. Skip a step. Slide down the entire staircase on your butt.

Get creative.

Stop making your life fit in a bunch of checked boxes. Please. It won’t fit.

Because the journey is crooked. The journey has highs and lows. The journey will never look like a page on Pinterest (unless you’re one of those people; in which case, we don’t like you very much, so go away). The journey is tortured and beautiful. The journey is long and much too short.

The journey is well-rounded.

Realize there is no end goal. There is no “happily ever after.”

Because number one: That’s boring. And number two: We don’t live in a Walt Disney fairytale.

So stop striving for something that you’re never going to get.

Be free from balance.

Start small, and then expand. Ask yourself:

What do I spend the most amount of time doing?
What do I spend the most amount of time wishing for?
What do I spend the most amount of time dissatisfied with?
What do I spend the most amount of time worrying/obsessing about?
What do I spend the most amount of time being happy/grateful for?

Are they they same things? Are they different? Is one category grossly tipping in a full or empty direction? Okay. Fine. You’re tilted. So fix it. Don’t “balance” it. Just eliminate, change or slice it off cleanly and move on to the next thing.

Try this every time you want to find balance: Break up with your dissatisfaction. Replace it with something joyful instead.

Continue down the line until your life is a series of patched, layered, more interesting stories.

Just trust yourself. Always come back to the process – your lovely, unbalanced, disheveled process. Burrow in it, wallow, get comfy.

Because it’s just you and time and this unimaginably expansive masterpiece we call life.

Start creating something that is yours. Be messy. Color outside the lines.

Tip the scale. Get unbalanced.

Collect stories like coins.

And then share them. Remember them.

Let life in.

The post Let Go: Dare to Be Unbalanced appeared first on Rea FREY.

Inspiration vs. Motivation: Letting Go of Fear-Based Living

Once upon a time, I had a dream. It went something like this:

Don’t die.

Every night, I’d lie in my room, barricaded by cheap stuffed animals, wishing and praying for angry men not to break into our house and take me away from my family. Later, it was the Wicked Witch. Then a house fire. Or airplanes. Or having a bodily malfunction and dying before I’d reached my full potential. Now, with a child, it’s literally everything.

Take me, that’s fine. But don’t you dare let my daughter grow up without a mother. Not. Happening. I will live forever, dammit. Watch me.

This doesn’t seem much like a dream – wishing not to die. But the amount of attention to detail I’d pay to this singular dream showed me one thing: perseverance. Even in the face of fear. Every day I didn’t die was a victory. Ta-da! I’m aliiiive! Good job me! 

That’s the funny thing about dreams. Sometimes, they aren’t actually dreams. They are fear-based goals – and, like mine, are completely out of your control no matter the amount of wishing or hoping or praying.

Which got me thinking: What am I inspired by, and what am I motivated by? What are my actual dreams, not my fear-based goals?

And is there really a difference?

It turns out that yes, there is definitely a difference. And I’ve been completely confusing the two.

I’m someone who needs daily inspiration. Maybe it’s the writer in me, my natural gypsy nature, etc. I’m the girl who sees a movie, reads a book or glimpses something incredible, and I want everyone to see it, read it or feel it too. Have you read that book? It’s life changing! Have you seen this movie? It’s the best thing EVER! Have you tried this remedy? It’s made of magic fairy dust and will cure you of all potential diseases!!!!!

No matter what the impulse, I want people to feel that same jolt I’m feeling, even if you are a completely different person and could give a shit less about X, Y or Z.

I get lost in the excitement. I want you to get lost with me.

As a motivated person, I’ve always taken joy in collecting accolades like dusty trophies on an out-of-reach shelf. I was motivated by the end result, by tacking these “experiences” on to my life story, so I could talk about them one day.

But was I inspired? Were these past achievements and failures and successes moving my life forward in some way?

Yes and no.

Because goals change. Motivations change. Dreams change. And inspiration is a different beast entirely.

Motivation: I need to work out so I can eat the ten cookies I’m going to make later.

Inspiration: I just watched an athlete with one leg run an entire marathon. What the fuck have I been doing with my life?

Motivation: I need to make $6500/month to support my family.

Inspiration: I want to be invested in the kind of work that keeps me up at night, even if that means a lower bottom line.

Motivation: I work so we can keep a roof over our heads and my daughter can go to her overly pricey, ridiculously ridiculous Montessori preschool.

Inspiration: Walking around the city, taking a vacation and talking to extraordinary people exposes me to different ways of life and pushes me to be a better writer, a better mother and a better human being. 

See? There’s a difference.

As we get older, it’s easy to bury our inspirations and instead only buy into our motivations, which, unfortunately, can seem shallow and unfulfilling if we really take a closer look.

What inspires you? What motivates you? Where is the dividing line?

If you want to lose five pounds, ask yourself why. Is it to look better, to feel better or to accomplish something?

If you want to make more money, is it to impress someone, support your family or because you genuinely love what you do?

Strip away some of the layers to find out where your inspiration comes from.

Are you trying to prove something to someone else?
Do you care what other people think?
Are your inspirations/motivations yours or someone else’s?
Do you resist resistance? (Resistance means change is coming; we can’t accomplish anything without it. Don’t give in.)
In your life, where does inspiration live?

So much of what we want is in taking the time to sit down and ask yourself the hard questions, especially when it comes to goals, motivations and inspirations.

I did this exact exercise recently and was shocked to discover I’ve been leading with the wrong motives. I’ve been working on someone else’s dream. I’ve been motivated by the bottom line.

And somewhere in the process, I stopped writing. I stopped searching for myself. 

I stopped listening.

Because I’ve learned one valuable lesson thanks to tuning in (and The Desire Map): Even dreams can have expiration dates. Sometimes, change is essential for growth. Sometimes, letting go is the key.

If the goal becomes unenjoyable, if you are following someone else’s dream, if you are constantly hit with road blocks and “stop signs,” or if you’re just generally exhausted, it might be time to veer right instead of left.

You have to know when enough is enough.

But how do you know?

When following any goal, dream, motivation or inspiration, Danielle LaPorte suggests asking:

Is this moving me forward?
Do I feel more like myself?
Does this clear the way for more good stuff to show up?
Will I sleep peacefully tonight?
Am I proud of what I’m doing?

We don’t often take time to answer the important questions. Life moves too fast, there’s not enough time, we’re so busy…We can’t keep up with the pace.

Before long, we don’t even feel in control of our lives or have any clue what we really want to do. We fall into our routines. We stay busy.

We stop watching the sunrise.

We’re lost in a different sort of dream, which can sometimes feel more like a nightmare.

So figure it out: What are your inspirations? What are your motivations? What goals do you set for yourself that are fear-based versus something that’s just in you?

As you start to do the work, you will start to receive the answers. They might be different answers than what you were hoping/seeking.

That’s okay.

They might be pleasant surprises or uncomfortable urges.

That’s okay.

They might even make you forget that lifelong fear of dying – because you’ll be too busy living. In every moment. In every second. Even through resistance. Even because of resistance. Even through fear.

That’s okay.

Push through your uncertainty.

Dream a new dream.

Give up the ghost.

Live.

The post Inspiration vs. Motivation: Letting Go of Fear-Based Living appeared first on Rea FREY.

The End of Goal Setting

I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection lately. (Like a lot.) See Exhibit A.

This includes not blogging regularly (#sorryisuck), reading, parenting, sitting, discovering Grey’s Anatomy 10 years after its inception, doing yoga, eating way too much peanut butter, ditching goals and running myself into the ground.

Here’s the truth:

I have two jobs. And I’m tired.

Boo-hoo, right? We all work tirelessly, especially if we are parents (and even if we’re not). But in the spirit of honesty, I’m getting real with myself and my feelings.

I. Am. Tired.

Me = tired.

And it’s not just because of the work. I love to work. I think it’s because I’m not working from a soulful place. I’m not working with intention. My work doesn’t excite me the way I need to be excited. My work doesn’t keep me up at night, ruminating over the next big idea. My own ideas do. My desires do. But my actual work feels, most of the time, like work.

So how did I get here?

With tonight’s billion dollar Powerball drawing, I saw a post suggesting that if you take that amount of money and divide it by every person, everyone would receive $4 million. Poverty solved. (This is actually incorrect, as everyone would receive only $4.33, but that’s beside the point. Let’s just go with this far-fetched scenario…) Which got me thinking about money no longer being a factor in daily life.

Like ever again.

Let’s just imagine that for a second: You never have to worry about making money. Your days aren’t tied to a bottom line. Boom. You’re free!

So what would you do?

This seems easy at first. I’d travel! I’d buy shit! I’d make it rain dollar bills, y’all! I’d sleep until noon! But if you really start to look at what you’d do and how you’d live your life, you might find that after the initial rush of freedom, you want to settle into work again – a fulfilling kind of work, maybe even in the same field you’re in today. Work that pads your soul, not just your pockets.

What would daily life feel like if you “got” to do something instead of feeling like you “have” to do it?

Ruminate over that concept. Write it down. Ponder. As you do, you might find that fulfillment for you simply means including more daily activities into your life: time with friends, time outside, time with family. Having adventures in your own city. Or, it might be a complete career shift, a relationship change or a cross-country move.

Whatever it is, figure out tangible steps to get there. Remember: It’s not really the goal we’re after. It’s the feeling we get when we accomplish that goal.

So, how do you want to feel?

Contemplate.

Identify.

Engage.

Then live your life by it.

So, back to that exhaustion. Lately, I’m on a mission to clear the daily clutter from my life; the type of clutter that turns my brain into chaos. This means less texting, less social media scrolling, less mindless TV, more movement, more face-to-face conversations, more organization and more alone time.

Remember it’s more than just your job that can drain you. People drain you. Circumstances drain you. Relationships drain you. Complaining drains you. It all has a cumulative effect.

What do you complain about the most?

Once you identify these “soul suckers,” it’s a lot easier to figure out what gives you energy.

Along these lines, I’ve identified some active steps I can take to make my life…better. These aren’t goals. These are immediate actions that will allow me to make space for what it is I really want. They are tools to use in this exploratory process. They are helpers.

Remember:

Identify the clutter.

Clear the clutter.

Feel better.

Check.

Immediate Steps

Remove FB from my phone. This one is simple, immediate and effective. Have I already gone to my phone in “down times” to mindlessly click on the button? Sure. Have I now reclaimed an ample amount of time in my day that I don’t waste scrolling through news feeds? Absolutely.
Get a record player. We were with friends this weekend in their awesome loft in Cannery Row, listening to New Orleans jazz. I watched my daughter sway her hips as she ate food and scribbled on paper, the record crackling in the background. Thoughts of Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald and Charley Patton began to bubble in my brain. I want a record player on my desk while I write. Stat. Every damn day. Thank you, Amazon for making my dreams possible.
Read at night. I always read at night, but now I’m really reading and absorbing and going to sleep with positive feelings for the next day; thinking of all the things I want rather than what I don’t want or “have” to do the next day.

Journal often. It’s been a while since I’ve journaled. It has brought me back to myself in ways I didn’t know I missed. Whether it’s a quick haiku or pages-long ranting, it’s something I need in my daily life.

 Stop making goals. I’ve realized that while I’ve accomplished a lot of things, I’m not a great goal setter. The moment I set a goal (usually related to career, health or personal well-being), I break the goal. Like in five minutes. Case in point: The first time I went on a juice cleanse, I made it two hours before stuffing my face with toast, coffee and eggs. It’s my rebellious nature. Because sometimes, in your journey, goals change. You may set a goal and realize, “Wait, this feels awful! I don’t actually want to do this!” And THAT, to me, is what the journey is all about. Discovery – not achievement.
Empower women. In my work, I come back to one thing again and again: empowering women. I want my daily work to reflect this pressing passion. Whether it’s with words or some revolutionary idea or business I haven’t yet devised, I will get there with a gaggle of brilliant ladies by my side.

This is big stuff – this life examination. But the beauty is in being present, staying accountable and figuring out how you want to spend this precious, finite life.

I feel I’m getting closer, one wobbly step at a time.

“When the resistance is gone, so are the demons.” – Pema Chödrön

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The Heart of the Matter

Have you ever tried to define yourself—really define yourself—with just one word?

Go on. Try it.

I played this game with my husband and family over the holidays, and it was insightful. I knew what my own word was for myself: strong. But what would my husband call me? (Please don’t say dictator, please don’t say dictator. He’s going to say dictator! I’m so not a dictator! I swear, if he says dictator…)

I realized I was giving more thought to my reaction to my husband’s word for me than the word itself. Because sometimes it’s easier to react than interact.

Asking someone to sum you up in one word is pretty ridiculous, right? Just like those questions of what your favorite book is (Um, how about all the books?), who your favorite band is (Impossible! Next!) or what your “five year” plan might be. (Dumbest. Interview. Question. Ever.)

Life isn’t singular, and neither are our traits, experiences or desires. How can we possibly be reduced to just one word?

Apparently? It’s not too hard to be reduced to one word. My word for Alex? Calm. His word for me?

Charged.

I sat there, rolling the word around in my mouth like a mint. “Huh,” I said.

Translation: What did charged mean? Was I like a battery, always ready to go-go-go? Was I juiced, angry, energetic? Ready to pounce? I called him calm, which is basic. He called me charged, which is layered. Am I a basic person? Did he give this more thought than me? Is he smarter than me?! Can I redo my word? What’s a better word for calm?

Charged. Calm. Charged. Calm.

I began to see the beauty in our differences. Alex wasn’t just calm. In that calmness is his tenderness, strength, patience, resilience, understanding, creativity and the ability to handle any situation. All the time.

charged, adjective – filled with excitement, tension or emotion

Yep. Nailed it.

Bastard.

I thought about this all day. Did I feel charged? And what did I desire to be called?

I’ve been thinking a lot about desire lately… a lot about the direction of life. About habits. And thoughts. And goals. And repeated patterns. (It seems I repeat a lot of patterns.)

But mostly? I’ve been thinking about feelings.

I’m someone who’s always been in touch with her feelings. Some might call me serious or disciplined or intuitive. (My mother’s word for me? Intense.) After having a child? Some might call me really fucking brain dead.

But I love myself as a mother, because I’m stripped down. Bare. Less cerebral and more…pajama-clad. I’m brutally honest. Interested. Curious. Comedic. Life looks different. Days look different. Intentions are different. Drama is different. (Seriously: You don’t know “drama” until your toddler locks herself in her room on the daily and proceeds to tear it end from end because you had the audacity to suggest she have toast for breakfast. Her rebuttal? “I want popsicles!” Your rebuttal? “Um, how about no?” Hers? Total fucking mayhem.)

So.

Despite all of this daily joy and mayhem, I’ve realized there’s one thing I’ve been missing lately, and that’s this: I’ve forgotten how I want to feel on a daily basis.

It’s no surprise that I like getting things done. While I’m mostly introverted and love to observe, I also love getting shit done. Like really love it. If someone says “deadline,” I squeal with delight. Give me an impossible project, and I practically begin salivating over the due date. I love challenges. I love to-do lists. I take excessive glee in crossing things off my crooked, scribbled column of demands, slashing my pen across each item for the day. My husband even designs my own personalized pads. They are divided into different categories: Work. Sophie. Personal. Gym. Workout. Other. These are the categories of my life. We all have them. And we tick the items off—as if in doing so, we are keeping order. We are the ones in control, right? We are slugging through or rocking with the tasks in a specific order, moving time, moving from point A to point B, just moving.

One foot in front of the other.

Heading toward the finish line.

But are we doing it all…happily?

How do all of these categories—work, errands, personal life, relationships, health—make us feel?

How do I feel?

Sometimes like this:

Who’s frazzled? Me frazzled?

Mostly, I feel joyful; grateful; inspired; intense; happy; daring; brave; hopeful; motivated; excited.

But a lot of the time, like this:

I swear I’m not crazy; I swear I’m not crazy…

Bored; lacking; resentful; agitated; uncertain; tired; negative; critical; wavering; bored again; annoyed; charged (there’s that damn word!); frenetic; impatient; confused; confined.

And when I look at my daily actions (wake up, work out, drive, teach classes, prepare lunches, meetings, drive, more meetings, eat, teach classes, drive, pick child up, make dinner, repeat, repeat, repeat), I can understand why. I know where my triggers are (driving) and where my releases are (movement).

It’s everything in between that gets a little fuzzy.

Where’s the satisfaction that allows me to fall asleep at night and think, Yes, this is exactly where I want to be. I am doing exactly what I am meant to do, even if every moment isn’t perfect. I am living my life on purpose. Thank you, magical unicorn universe, for delivering my wildest dreams. 

It should be that simple, right?

Well.

It’s not. And it is.

Because I do want to fucking feel good. I want to feel great. About work. About life. About health. About my family. About the city I live in.

About everything.

I want to stop living in limbo, waiting for great things to happen to me and start making great things happen.

So, I’m stepping in. I’m getting messy. I’m dismantling my life and rolling up my metaphorical sleeves and am about to do the hard work to get to the heart of the matter. Because guess what? Living an intentional life is hard work, and it’s never going to be easy.

What fun is easy anyway?

Growth happens in the work, and that work isn’t consistently good or bad. It’s good and bad. It’s hard and easy. It’s beautiful and ugly. It’s happy and sad. It’s joyful and miserable.

It’s…life.

And once I come to terms with the fact I’m not going to have rainbows shooting from my fingertips every five seconds, I feel better. Like, immensely better. Because I know following every bad mood is a good one. After every failure comes success.

Even if it’s small. Even if no one notices at all.

Remember: You can’t live a one-dimensional life. You have feelings. Lots of them.

And I’m tuning in.

Which is why I’m reading this.

The Desire Map by Danielle LaPorte is the kind of book that changes things. Two of my soul sisters I work with, Denise Senter and Jessica Zweig (both of whom are pretty much the most amazing female entrepreneurial bad asses I know), suggested it.

Listen. I’ve read a lot of books in my life. I’ve done a lot of yoga. And meditation. And gone to life-changing seminars. And spent a lot of time helping others and helping myself. A lot. And sometimes, if I’m being honest, I feel as if I’ve done some of these things wanting the light bulb to go off and my life to change forever, but the concepts or the intentions just felt…general. Temporary. They weren’t personal or applicable to my life at that particular time. I’d get inspired and then forget what I even read, did, promised or heard.

But I think, mostly, I just wasn’t ready to listen.

To really listen. Hard.

Because this shit is personal. It’s core-defining.

And guess what?

Now, I’m ready. I’m listening.

Truly listening.

Finally.

And I can’t wait to dive in.

What you seek is seeking you. – Rumi

The post The Heart of the Matter appeared first on Rea FREY.

5 Ways to Lose Your Resistance

The other day, I had an epiphany: Resistance rules my life.

Quite literally, in the gym, I’m resisting…against weights, the ground or myself. With work, sometimes, I resist. I don’t really want to do project X, but I need the money. I don’t really want to stack my schedule like Y, but I have to. I’m not at liberty to say no.

Or am I?

Our lives consist of habits and routines. This is true of the daily grind, and this is true of your thought patterns. We tend to think the same way, even if we stumble upon something truly inspiring. We might vow to be different, to think different, to move different, but to be different is an entirely new ballgame.

How can we become different? It starts with pinpointing the biggest culprit in your life. What is the one thing that, if you changed it, would cause a snowball effect and fix X, Y and Z? Is it sleep? Is it dessert? Is it turning off the TV and connecting with your spouse? Is it letting go of fear? Find your biggest area of resistance. Sit with it. See how long it’s been part of your life. And then come up with tangible ways to let it go. (Or reach out to someone who can help, like yours truly!)

With so many of my clients, training isn’t the problem. It’s nutrition. It’s lack of sleep. It’s the job. It’s stress. It’s having kids. It’s having too many bills to pay. It’s that ever present “not having enough.”

But what is it really? What is all of it, really? Where does this resistance even come from?

It comes from the mind.

1. Stop using resistance in the way you speak.

While we certainly can’t micro-manage every thought in our heads, see how many thoughts revolve around resistance. How many times do you say “not,” “don’t want,” or “can’t” in your daily life? Try and catch yourself when you use negative words. If your friends constantly complain, just observe. Don’t chime in.

2. Identify your biggest resistance culprit.

Examine your daily life. Where does the biggest source of frustration stem from? What instantly puts you in a bad mood? When does your stomach turn into knots? When do you feel a source of anxiety?

3. Take small, measured steps to eliminate that culprit.

We are such an “all or nothing” society, but becoming balanced and healthy doesn’t usually work like that. Come up with a plan over a finite period of time to diminish your resistance and then eliminate it all together.

4. Do something good for yourself each and every day.

Time is really an illusion. It’s up to us the way we schedule out our days, the way we spend each moment of our time. People who don’t make time to get massages, work out, eat whole foods or even spend time with friends are simply choosing to spend their time in other ways. Choose the way you want to spend your time and make yourself a priority.

5. Get out of your own way.

Once you examine the largest culprit in your life, keep going. What’s next? Approach resistance as an ongoing, living thing that will change and alter just as you change and alter. Be flexible with yourself and get out of your own way. Intrinsically, we know what it means to live simply, to be balanced and to stay healthy. We just muck it up with too much conflicting information. Tune into your body and your mind.

Only you knows what’s best.

The post 5 Ways to Lose Your Resistance appeared first on Rea FREY.

Happy Holidays, I’m in Toddler Hell

Today, I couldn’t do anything right.

Despite waking up to a toddler munching on my breasts, and my head in a fog, after yet another blissless night of fragmented sleep, I still decided to be positive. We’re going to have a great day! I get to drink decaf coffee! What joy! And make a green smoothie! And exercise! Isn’t that awesome? Let’s go get dressed, Sophie!

This was my first mistake.

As I took Sophie back to her room, I chose the purple pants instead of the striped ones. They got bunched up and thrown on the floor. There was a cacophony of foot stomping and pterodactyl shrieks. In my deafness, I put her smoothie in the wrong cup. I made oatmeal because she said she wanted oatmeal, but she looked at me like an idiot and demanded eggs. “Too bad. You’re eating oatmeal.” To which she shoved the bowl across the table, where it toppled to the floor. And so the day progressed, with all its infinite peaks and valleys. And successes and failures. And cuteness and frustration.

But despite all this, I still feel like I’m (sometimes) the worst mother in the world.

My two and a half year old has become the puppet master. The puppet? My temperament, which dances up and down with its thin, spindly legs, its lanky arms, and angry, puckered mouth. I watch as it grows larger than life, seeming to bloom just as Pinocchio’s nose once shot phallic-like from his face—and then shrinks again, tap dancing on niceties during those rare moments where she isn’t acting like a complete psychopath. Blah, blah, blah. I know there are mothers out there who think this ridiculous post is nothing but complaining (you’re right!), who say my parenting must be wrong (debatable), who roll their eyes and say get over it. She’s a toddler. This is what they do. Savor it and move on because it all goes so fast. You might even miss this someday!

But guess what? I’m a first-time mother, and living with a toddler 24 hours a day is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Period. Harder than marriage, than brain surgery, than divorce. Because it’s constant. Because there is no break. Not really. Not ever. Because everything—from brushing your teeth to putting your shoes on to going grocery shopping to taking a nap to eating (Eating!!!! Something we must do a billion times per day and is the greatest thing ever!) is a hard-earned negotiation.

All of this is to say that lately, despite how much I love being Sophie’s mother (and I do—I really, really, really do), my temperament is winning. I remember watching my friends’ toddlers when I was childless, secretly smug that that would never be me. (Karma!) And if it were? I would never jerk my toddler from the table like that, or talk to them in such a stern way. Just get on their level, I’d think. Stay calm and rational! How could you not? (Oh ha ha. What an idiot I was.)

I’m not sure why toddlers are so irrational and out of control (Really, why? How? And just…why?). What’s the point? This is the absolute best time in their lives, and they don’t even remember it! All the sacrifices and hair pulling and sleeplessness from parents. All that damage to your body and your psyche and your sex life. And oh, pretty much everything else. And they don’t even deign to remember it!

All they have to do every single day is wake, up, get fed, play with toys, learn, run around outside, nap, eat, get their butts wiped, and have people ooh and aah at them all day long. How amazing could one life be? Instead of savoring this time, we can’t wait to grow up. We stop playing outside. We go to college and get serious jobs and sit behind desks all day. We get tired. We lose our energy. We aren’t as dazzling as we once were, despite the fact that we all still feel like children.

[And yet, we pay so much attention to our toddlers, is it any wonder we turn out to be narcissistic assholes? And this was before the selfie revolution. How will our kids turn out, when everyone is posting their photos and their nuances of everyday life everywhere?]

In the moments where my patience is tested (which is every 2.5 seconds), I try and remember what the books say, what articles I’ve read, how not reacting is the absolute best thing I could do. How to approach her with compassion and empathy. So I don’t react. For about 2.7 seconds. Until I do.

Last night, I yelled at my daughter. I screamed, “Enough!” a word that goes through my mind at least 997 times per day. Enough, enough, enough… I never even knew what that word meant, as it’s always been used for needing things. Do we have enough toilet paper? Do you think we have enough apples? Am I packing enough socks? But now, this, here. Sophie pushes me to the brink of “enough” on a daily basis.

So, I screamed it, once, after a particularly bad episode of her slamming doors and shrieking because she didn’t want to wear her third set of pajamas she insisted on wearing. I told her what she was wearing. I explained that she had three options, and I would now choose since she wasn’t going to, and bam. Rationale out the window.

What should be so simple—bedtime—has become my least favorite activity, as reading a story turns into her snatching the book away and insisting on reading it herself for twenty minutes, followed by a meltdown if I take the book away once she’s done. (No, you cannot sleep with a book!) Then there’s the getting into bed where she then says she has to pee, then poop, and then sits on the potty for exactly 20 minutes, talking to herself. Then there’s the arsenal of songs to sing—Hush Little Baby, Tiny Turtle, Itsy Bitsy, Twinkle Twinkle. Then there are the demands to lay with her, to nurse (no), to pat her back. And all of this is to say after we had finally “figured” bedtime out. The right hour, the right routine to get her to go down without a peep. We were on it. But lately, all of that has changed.

An hour later, my husband will come out of the room, or I will, but then she’s up and at the door, opening it and standing in the hallway staring at us like some silent killer. She steals the only time we have together. And my marriage is just as important as my child. (That’s another realization I’ve finally made—parenthood and child rearing do NOT go together. There’s no energy left to nurture your relationship. One of you is always dictating or doing chores or talking about the kid(s), so that you are simply desperate to get time with each other. And when you finally do, eighteen years later, you might realize that the only thing you have in common is your child. Sigh.)

My toddler, my wonderful, brilliant, stubborn, creative toddler is killing (feeding) my soul.

So last night, I’d had enough. As she slammed her door and wailed and whined, I put her firmly in bed and screamed in her beautiful face, “Enoooooouuuuuugh.” I held the vowels in my throat and screamed like I’ve never screamed before. I screamed so loud and so long that my voice went hoarse.

And then something miraculous happened. She completely quieted down. She rolled over and went silent. She didn’t move. She asked for Dada. And I left the room.

Not my finest moment in parenting, but yet something else I’ve realized: This generation is supremely afraid of their children. So much so, that we don’t even know what the word discipline means. We constantly say, “If we had acted this way, we would have been smacked/spanked/put in a dark corner to wither.” Because there has to be a balance between being a disciplinarian and being a loving, attentive parent, right? Do I believe in spanking? No. But do I think that kids sometimes need a good whack on the bottom to get their attention when nothing else works? Abso-fucking-lutely.

All of this is to say, I love my child. But I also love my relationship. And I love me. And I know that this short, trying period will soon be over and that my demanding toddler will grow into a demanding child who can better reason with me (and argue more effectively) in preparation for her demanding teenage years, where the term “real problems” will make this phase look like child’s play (which it is).

Perhaps I’m tired. Perhaps I have too many other things on my mind (impending book release, jobs, writing a new book, moving for the 100th time, etc.). Perhaps I just need a break.

But I don’t want a break from my family—I just want to go one day without the constant ups and downs of toddlerhood. It makes me feel crazy and leaves little room for anything else.

I want the space to love my child the way I want her to be loved. I want to hug her and hold her and drench her in kisses and read her poetry and let her run naked in the backyard and climb trees and make mud pies and eat food she’s grown herself and explore the world and stand in churches and worship animals and believe in the power of her own womanhood and teach her about love and show her that race doesn’t matter and sexual preference doesn’t matter and believing in something, especially herself, does matter and surrounding herself with positivity matters more than surrounding herself with tons of acquaintances and to put the technology away and to pick up a fucking book and to never let anyone dictate the way she feels and to love her body, to love it, love it, love it, every single day of her life, and that she can achieve anything and that yes, she is beautiful, but her brain is what makes her more beautiful, and her tender, challenging soul, and that she is perfect just as she is and that she will fall—a lot—and that falling is more important than success or even getting up sometimes and that judgment of people, places, and things is the biggest waste of time that we have and to never wait, just DO, don’t always be smart, take a risk, don’t just live an ordinary life, live the life she envisions, and to not weigh everything out but go, do, be, see, act, because this is it—we’re here and it’s amazing and she should soak up every minute, and I will be there when she needs me, always, for anything, no matter what.

No matter if I’m a terrible mother or the best mother in the world. Our relationship is ours and it’s special and messy and chaotic and deep, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. And yes, this is probably childish and narcissistic in even writing about it, but this is my release. This is the way I work it out.

To sum up: I have a daughter. She is tough to live with sometimes. (As am I.)

But we’ll get through it, together.

We will survive (thrive).

The post Happy Holidays, I’m in Toddler Hell appeared first on Rea FREY.

Hope is a Muscle

“Everyone has a plan until they get hit.” – Mike Tyson

March 1996

Christy Martin slammed her right hand into Deirdre Gogarty’s face. The woman’s jaw went slack and shifted to the left, hovering briefly before it snapped back into place. My family and I sat in our living room, screaming at the television. We were waiting for Mike Tyson’s fight against Frank Bruno. It was the first time I’d seen a woman box–this large, flabby fighter who was tearing her opponent end from end. The bell rang and Christy loped to her stool, where her corner men dipped into fat jars of Vaseline and squeezed water into her open, gasping mouth.

I sat on the floor, my fist in a bowl of popcorn. I turned to look at my father. “Did you know women box?”

“Sure,” my father said. “But people don’t like to see women get hurt, so it’s not as popular.”

I knew pain. I’d grown up doing flips, hurtling my body over the vault and balance beam. I’d squeezed into tiny leotards and spent most of my childhood suspended upside down, hoping my feet remembered the laws of gravity. I ran track. I danced. None of it appealed to me like boxing. I loved the blood and the knockouts; staying in on a Saturday night with my family, all of us obsessed with a sport that offered million dollar paydays for thirty-six minutes of action.

“How many women box?” I asked. On the television, Deirdre smacked Christy with an uppercut. Her nose opened up, suddenly spurting blood. It dripped down her exposed stomach and stained her white shorts that spelled her name in rhinestones.

“Not nearly as many as the men. They’re not as serious.”

“I could do that,” I said. “You think?”

“Maybe. But you’re only fifteen.”

Christy ignored the blood and kept fighting, easily overpowering her opponent. She raised her doughy arms at the bell, clenching a unanimous decision. She slung a gaudy belt over one shoulder. The crowd roared, photographers’ cameras popping loudly in the amped up room. I watched, this sport taking new shape in my mind. Girls could box.

I was a girl.

—

Four years later, I stood in the ring for my first boxing lesson. I was a freshman in college and had just joined Crunch gym. Despite the rows of equipment and free weights, the boxing ring was the focal point. Cages lined one wall, stuffed with gloves and mitts. Jerome stood next to them, expertly wrapping my hands. His gray hair was cropped short, his two front teeth marred by a slim gap, his mind sharp despite years of brutal pummeling. I watched as he draped the spongy fabric over my fingers. It felt intimate, this act; the way he took such care to protect my hands, so I could one day punch him in the face. He finished and brought over a set of gloves.

“You’ll want to get some gloves of your own,” he said. “These smell.”

I slipped them on, the insides still damp from someone’s prior workout. We entered the ring, and he went over the basics: jab, cross, hook, uppercut. He showed me how to stand, how it should feel to throw a punch, how boxing started in your legs and stayed there. I moved my arms, feeling the crisp pop of my fist into the cave of his mitt. Pain shot through my wrist. He corrected my form and made sure I was hitting with my first two knuckles and not my whole hand.

“Good. You’ve got to relax your shoulders, though. You’re too tense. Think about stirring a big pot of soup.” He moved his elbows around in a liquid motion. “Relax your fingers. Let the punches come naturally.”

I tensed and hit again. It wasn’t natural, but a rhythm began to develop. I relaxed into it, learning how to rotate on the balls of my feet with every punch, using my hips and abs.

We finished. I wiped my head with a towel.

“So, when can I start sparring?”

Jerome smirked. “When you learn how to punch. I think you’ll pick it up pretty fast. Just be patient.”

I nodded, eager to come back. I liked his unorthodox style, how he broke everything down, how he didn’t belittle me because I was a female. I think he preferred it. He had something to prove with me, and I had something to prove to myself.

In two months, I was sparring. My hands shook as I stepped in the ring, nerves making mush of all the things I’d worked on. Jerome stood across from me, his red headgear clashing against the yellow mouthpiece. He had morphed from teacher to boxer. He was about to hit me in the face.

“Come on,” he said.

I stepped forward and tried to relax. I shot out my jab and missed. The overextension ripped through my elbow. My face reddened. He popped me softly with a jab. I felt the crunching pain in my nose, like I’d just run into a brick wall. My eyes watered, but I shook it off. I threw a crooked jab to his body. It connected, and he smiled.

“Good. Now, add to it.”

I moved awkwardly, coming forward, throwing my arms without making sense of the combinations. The headgear was too big and fell over my eyes. My contacts were dry. My mouthpiece felt like an oversized chew toy. My hands were wrapped too tight. He hit me, once, twice, and soon the punches became a warning to cover my head, to move. I felt the tissues of my face swell for the very first time, as though getting smacked with a dodge ball again and again. As I concentrated on throwing and not getting hit, the pain faded. It would only get better, I thought. I could do this.

We continued for two rounds. In six minutes, I was done, sweating and proud.

“Good job, kid,” Jerome said, tapping my head with his glove. “You’re on your way.”

—

The Chicago streets were crowded, taxis weaving in and out of lanes during rush hour traffic. People in expensive clothing flocked to restaurants and dove into tall buildings, while I pedaled my bike toward the gym.

Inside, people dipped into the cages, fitting on gloves. Red and black hand wraps trailed the floor as they were worked over wrists and hands, the trails becoming shorter as fists fattened. The guys put on their equipment as though dressing for work: John, Trigger, Rick, and Jeff. I joined this ritual, which had become my routine over the past five months.

“Hey, you ready for today?” Rick asked. He stretched his dark, lanky arms above his head. He was covered in tattoos and small for his age. Three months ago, I’d watched as he’d tripped outside the ring and his kneecap had dislocated, plopping on the floor beside him. I’d ridden with him in the ambulance, his little fingers holding his kneecap in place. He still wore a brace and moved slower than he should have.

“Yeah, I’m ready,” I said. “The question is, are you ready?”

“So it’s going to be like that?” He slapped his gloves together in a vicious succession. “Let’s go then.”

We parted the ropes. The bell rang. Guys filtered around us, their arms draped lazily over the red cords of the ring. They shouted their instructions as I dodged Rick’s shots. My feet moved quickly, backward and to the right. I stopped, faked a jab, and landed one. Rick ambled forward, left leg over right, his punches like windmills. I shuffled around the ring as the leather inched toward my face. I contorted my body and slammed into the ropes in an attempt to defend myself.

“Hey, how about a little form in there?” Trigger yelled. “Hit her, Rick. She’s leaving her left hand down.”

I immediately picked my left hand up, leaned to the right, clocked him with an overhand left. I followed it up with three more shots. Rick kept coming forward, intent not on fighting but bullying me. I had the urge to kick him in his bad knee. I hit him with a left cross instead.

“Ooh, nice,” Trigger yelled, right at the bell.

After four more rounds, Jeff stepped in. He slapped Rick’s shoulder on the way out and turned to face me. I adjusted my stance, staring up at his six-foot frame. He hit harder than anyone. Our toes made dents in the canvas as I popped him with a straight left, knocking his head back like a pez dispenser.

“You’re accurate as shit,” Jeff mumbled. He pushed into me. One large blue paw landed flush on my forehead. I countered and landed a shot to his ribs.

Jerome watched from outside the ring. He nodded as I connected, smiling at the ease of it, this thing that took months to get, that was like dancing, that confused your feet, that left your shoulders in knots, that changed your body, that was like learning a new language. When it connected and you finally understood, it turned into something beautiful.

The sharp peal of the bell signaled the end of my ten round sparring session. I was drenched, drained, my face tender from hard punches. I stripped away my headgear. Pain tore through the left side of my head. I reached up and felt for blood.

“Am I cut?” I asked.

Jerome looked at me. He motioned for my head, and I bent over him as he picked through my sweaty hair. “Nope. No cuts.”

I left the gym. The headache shifted behind my left eye. After a week, I called the doctor.

“Why don’t you come in for a CAT scan,” a nurse said.

I set up my appointment and took a cab to the address scrawled on a piece of notebook paper. I changed into a tattered gown and sat in a white, sterile room. The technician sliced into the crook of my arm with a fourteen-gauge needle, his technique messy, his hand unsure. He pumped me full of medicine. It slid, razor sharp, through my veins. He slipped me back into the machine. I listened to the whir of the pictures and tried not to move. At home, I waited for the phone call.

“Ms. Frey, we’ve found something,” was all they said. I dropped the phone and locked myself in my bedroom. I glanced up at a poster of Muhammad Ali, the man whose mind had betrayed him, whose thoughts had gone slack before his body wanted to.

I stared at his dark face, spread smooth and flat against my wall. His hands would never again be in motion, except to tremor unwillingly, mocking him. His historic bouts against Foreman, Frazier, and Patterson would be played for years to come, but there would be sadness too, at how he had ended up. I tore my eyes from his face down to his hands; those lethal knuckles, flexed, all ten of them as large and rough as peanut shells. He was young then, his whole life ahead of him. Now, other people helped him dress in the morning. He moved at a snail’s pace. His tongue was no longer sharp. He could barely smile.

I closed my eyes, saw Ali’s face in my mind, then and now, heard the doctor’s words again. “We’ve found something.”

I opened my eyes and looked up at the poster.

“I’m like you,” I whispered. “I’m like you.”

—

The nurse was in my room again. I glared at her thick, boxy frame as she moved around me. She had a large head, and a permanent frown carved into the lower portion of her face.

“Why can’t I have something to drink?” I whined.

She yanked on my catheter and fussed with my I.V.s. I heard the squeak of her shoes on the cold linoleum as she walked out of my room and down the hall. I attempted to turn my head, but it felt as though it had been creamed by a semi. My body lay slack on the bed. My hairline was caked with dried blood and Vaseline. A surgical drill had scooped away small buttons of flesh from my forehead where the doctors had kept me immobile during brain surgery. My brow was bloated, enlarged. As a sort of consolation prize, however, the doctor had not shaved my head, instead making a clean incision down my scalp and parting it back, the hair still attached, dangling there like onionskins.

Beneath the skin, four titanium plates, shaped like snowflakes, formed a protective circle around my skull. Forty-two staples glittered at my hairline, which were covered with medical tape and bandages. I fingered the staples beneath the soft, white gauze, wondering what it would feel like when they were removed. Would they use pliers? Would it sting?

I couldn’t imagine getting hit in the head, couldn’t imagine anyone’s fist coming near me ever again. What if I couldn’t box? There would be no more sparring sessions where people crowded around to watch, or jaunts to the bars, or parties at the gym. There would be a gaping hole where the sport had been. Nothing could replace it. I would lose Jerome. I would lose my friends. I would lose everything. I dropped my hand, sighing. The mass was gone at least, probably kept for research in a jar somewhere.

The door opened and Dr. Getch entered. He looked crisp and clean in his white medical jacket, the hint of a paunch pushing from his belt line.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“More morphine would be nice.”

“Sense of humor intact. That’s good.” He sat on the edge of my bed. “Listen, I just wanted to explain a bit about what we did in there. Everything went well, but the mass was larger than we thought. We had to cut around a very aggravated vein to remove the cyst. You do have a few clipped veins, and this next twenty-four hours is critical to make sure we don’t miss any clots–but that’s not something you should be concerned with. It’s just routine.” He ran a hand over his face. “Um, I did put a few more titanium plates in there because your skull was so thin, so if you choose to be active, you’ll be protected.” He stood. “It’s great we caught this when we did. As crazy as it sounds, boxing actually might have saved you.”

I attempted to nod. “Thanks, Dr. Getch.”

“Sure thing. Get some rest.”

“I will,” I said.

—

Jerome held the mitts, leading me around the ring in a private lesson.

“This sucks,” I gasped. Sweat dripped from my arms and legs. My lungs burned. My hands shook, my body weak and heaving. It had only been a few months since the surgery, and I was back; back to the only sport I’d ever really loved. The sport that had quite literally saved my life. And I felt like an amateur.

“What if I can’t get it back?” I asked. “What if I’ve lost it completely?”

Jerome stopped moving. He placed his hands on his hips.

“You haven’t lost anything. We’ll get it back.”

I nodded. I wanted it back; wanted the assurance that this was worth it, that I belonged here. I could feel the tenderness at my hairline; the jagged scar that was still fresh and pink, a fat, bald line running the length of my head.

“I just feel so off,” I said.

“Hey, it’s just spilled milk, kid,” he said. “Spilled milk.” He smacked the mitts together and held them up. I nodded. I was here. I was ready. I focused on the target.

Jerome and I finished our session. He kissed the top of my head and gave me a hug. I watched him jump down from the ring, his body like a dancer’s. He shouldered his boxing bag and waved goodbye.

“See you tomorrow,” I said. He pushed through the glass doors, disappearing into the night. I could still remember walking into the gym for the first time, a naïve teen from Tennessee. I’d spotted Jerome at the edge of the ring, drinking a cup of coffee.

“Do you teach boxing?” I’d asked.

He’d turned to me, sizing me up. One hundred twenty pounds, a southpaw, probably agile, would need work on defense. “Yeah.” He’d slurped his coffee. “You interested?”

I’d stared at the men in the ring, their gloves thudding a curious melody against the pads. They seemed to know something I didn’t. I looked back at Jerome, surveying the gray eyes, the crooked nose, the defiant chin.

“Yeah, I’m interested,” I said.

Now, almost a year after I’d started, I had made myself into a boxer. I’d gotten hit and gone through surgery and fought my way back to the ring. I packed my bag and rested one hand on the ropes. I looked around the gym, almost bare now. I was often the last one to leave, and tonight would be no exception. My story wouldn’t end like Muhammad Ali’s. I wouldn’t be the greatest, but I wouldn’t be the sad story someone told twenty years later, sitting at a bar somewhere. I had more left in me; more to prove and more to learn. I was okay. I was back.

I was still here.

The post Hope is a Muscle appeared first on Rea FREY.

Rambling…

I love love letters. Whether handwritten, typed, or sent to an inbox, there’s something about that rush of emotions that makes my heartbeat quicken and my hands itch to write back.

I first found writing through letters…by composing them to friends, pen pals, boyfriends (oh, the boyfriends), or just thoughts to myself, tucked away in random journals that now sit gathering dust in an attic somewhere. I fantasize about Sophie reading them someday, unraveling the messy, dramatic moments of my life and hopefully relating on some level. They are there. Waiting…for her.

But poetry started it all. There’s nothing like sitting with a cup of coffee and a big romantic book of words, trying to dissect and absorb and make sense of someone else’s emotions. I’ve spent countless hours of my life curled up with authors who are gone and buried, trying so hard to understands their hearts.

As I comb back through some of my own, I stop on a few simple ones. Ones that remind me of another life, another time; of desire, of pining, of lost moments, of life.

Watching you

In your blue jeans

And ink

Ruffled my armor

And added some chinks.

I don’t say much

Because it’s all in my head

Insecurities blossom

With all that was said.

Tough man, soft heart

What do I say

You are the one

Who just keeps walking away.

Looking at you

Is a step back in time

A life so unlived

I should have followed the signs.

Who are you now

What’s the world that you see

Riding your bike

Always so free

Who are you now

Tough man, soft heart

I want all the pieces

Not only the parts.

******

He sits at his black organ,

the pearly teeth clicking like

plastic

beneath his practiced hands.

The nails bend back,

heavily curved and tipped with white,

as they skate across the surface

like raindrops on concrete.

He sways,

gums chewing

on these invisible melodies,

in this warm room

with the red walls

and large windows.

He sits with his draped cloth

and his music books,

his picture frames and his Italian novels

making music sound

like a balmy hereafter.

What technique

to be walking in the world

like it’s nothing;

when you can be holed up in this space

with two cocked elbows

and ten vibrating fingers

which dart like crab legs

to pinch and stab

and caress

the alphabet of keys.

Here he sits,

next to me,

with my poetry books

and my computer screen,

a glass of wine left half-empty on the counter.

His mouth dictates the pace

as he hums and swings,

as he knocks the flat pedal with his black sock,

eyes closed

playing Summertime

in summertime

for me…

for me?

His mouth compresses, opens, head wagging

as the world goes on

as the world fades out

while genius is at work

in this second story condo

in the south loop of Chicago.

I watch the white claws

do their thing

as they slap and flick

and produce singular

resonance.

He fingers the last note,

his head bowed,

and I am full

of his ideas,

infused with desire

to create something

equally as beautiful.

He turns and smiles.

The soundtrack continues.

Alone together,

we are.

At last.