Learning To Trust Calm

Hey there. I talk a lot about peace these days. Not surface level peace. Not the kind you chase from one distraction to the next. I mean the kind of internal calm that starts to show up when you stop trying to prove your worth to everyone else and finally start trusting yourself. This is something I have been working through, and if you are like me, you might have spent most of your life feeling more familiar with chaos than calm.

In fitness, chaos can look like constantly changing programs, jumping from diet to diet, or obsessing over every weigh in and calorie. It shows up in the way we search for the perfect system or the perfect body that will finally make us feel enough. Outside of fitness, it shows up in our careers, relationships, and the quiet moments when we wonder if we are living the life we are supposed to live. Chaos becomes a pattern, and even when we say we want peace, we do not always know how to trust it when it arrives.

For a long time, my mind felt like a room where everything was scattered across the floor. Thoughts, expectations, memories, hopes, fears, and old stories of not being enough. It took time to even become aware of what was sitting there. I had to learn how to be still and sit with myself. Not add another task. Not try to hustle my way into worthiness. Just sit in the discomfort and notice what was actually going on inside.

That is inside/out work. It is not always pleasant. Sometimes it feels like untangling a knot that has been tightening for decades. But here is what I am learning. Peace is not the absence of problems. Peace is trusting that you can navigate what comes your way. Peace is knowing that you are allowed to put your phone down, take a breath, acknowledge the weight of things, and continue forward at a pace that matches the season you are in.

Therapy has been an important part of this process for me. Not just signing up for therapy, but building a working relationship with a therapist who can help me see the blind spots that I miss on my own. Sometimes they point out patterns I have repeated for years. Sometimes they help me sit with feelings I used to outrun. It is not always easy. Some sessions are exhausting. Some are freeing. The goal is not perfection, it is connection. Connection to myself. Connection to my own life. Connection to the calm that has been waiting beneath the noise.

I know some of you are working through similar things. You want to feel at home in your own body after years of fighting it. You want to feel like you belong in your own mind after decades of chasing approval and external validation. This is not a one time decision. It is a daily practice. Just like strength training. Just like learning to fuel your body instead of punishing it. We are rewriting patterns that have been running for most of our lives. That deserves patience and grace.

If peace feels foreign to you, you are not alone. If calm sometimes feels like laziness, or like you are not doing enough, you are not alone. You are learning a new way to live. You are learning what it feels like to trust yourself, maybe for the first time ever. Keep going. Keep practicing. And please remember that you are already enough. You always were.

If you are ready to build a calmer, more connected approach to fitness and life, I would love for you to join me inside The YLF Experience. This is where we take the inside/out process and make it part of your daily life. You can choose the level of support that fits you and get started today.
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