Going Deep

Originally written Sept. 2019

Author note, March 2024. Physical effort and human motivation are uniquely interesting to me. Growing up, a significant part of my journey was centered around athletics, physical training, and physical efforts. I learned a lot about myself, a lot about others and how they interacted with me, and how malleable and adaptable the human being can be. Some of my favorite efforts, and I think the most insightful, were endurance efforts. These were often trail running, backpacking, and summiting the beautiful mountains of the Pacific Northwest. They were often dramatic, beautiful, and exhausting at the same time. They allowed a level of introspection that I found really hard to replicate anywhere else. As someone who had to prepare for these sorts of efforts, I had to find ways to not only train physically, but psychologically. When I was climbing up a sheet of ice in the middle of the night to reach a mountain summit by sunrise, my mind was often a greater obstacle than my body. So this sort of reflecting often brought itself to my attention as I looked at physical efforts in a controlled environment as another way to delve deeper into my own physiological resilience.

When was the last time you went deep? Not scratching the surface, when you attempt something difficult and uncomfortable, and you merely endure it for a short while. But really deep. And stay there. Then when it gets uncomfortable, you face it and continue to go deeper. Where you are stuck alone with yourself, the voices in your head, maybe just the one, loud, constant voice. When you take away all other distractions, all other stimuli and inputs, and can face a more honest version of yourself. 

When did you last dig deep, to the point where you can’t ignore the voices or drown them out, because you don’t have the energy to silence them? How long can you stand it? How long can you be alone with yourself? Are you strong enough? I know there are days I’m not. Hell, I do my best to avoid those moments most days. Music, work, social settings, other thoughts swirling around in my head. They all work to drag me away from the internal monologue that slowly grows louder the longer I ignore it.

So find yourself. Take the bike, the rower, the treadmill. Turn it to face the blank wall. Don’t look away to either side. Headphones can go on. But nothing comes through them. You don’t get to distract yourself with music or a podcast. Now go. And keep going. Use the effort as a knife. First you have to cut away the bullshit you layer on top, day after day. The way you lie to yourself as much as you lie to everyone around you. Once that’s been scraped away, you’ll see yourself. And you’ll see all the things about yourself you can’t stand. You’ll find the things that you cling to, that make you stronger. You’ll see where you fall short, and where you want to be. Use the knife to cut away what you despise, cut away the deadweight, what is holding you back. Hold fast to the things that make you stronger. Hold fast to the things that make you better. And then dig deeper. This takes time. This takes effort, and a willingness to be uncomfortable. There are days when I love the process. There are days where it scares the hell out of me. Because as much as I hate parts of myself, the idea of change scares me. Change is uncomfortable, and internal change requires raw, uncompromising vulnerability. Forcing me to see the ugly, broken, fractured and hurting pieces that make up me. And yet that is the only way I can ever hope to heal, to cut away, or to move past those pieces. So I’ll go deeper, I’ll wield the knife with both the confident and steady hand, as well as the halting and apprehensive one. And maybe, one day at a time, I’ll become a better version of myself.