When Your Weakness Is Exposed

What do you do when your weakness(es) are exposed. You know those times when it smacks you right in the face in a way that there’s no denying, no sidestepping or ignoring the shortcoming. And it doesn’t really matter if the weakness is made bare publicly or quietly on your own. You know it, and knowing it can become the central focus in your every minute, hour and day. How do you handle it?

I’m chock full of weaknesses. Yep, I gots me a plenty of areas I’m working on or just flat out know I’m falling short. They stare me in the face some days, and other days I can work out a blissful denial finding success in other areas in which I have strengths. I don’t think that’s all that unusual though, at least I hope I’m not the only one. We tend to focus on our strengths perhaps in hope those weaknesses will work themselves out or just stay in the shadows a bit. And for the most part, I don’t think that’s entirely healthy. Celebrate the good.

But then we also need to recognize where we need work and put some energy and conscious effort into working on those weaknesses so they can improve and perhaps even become future strengths.

Now I’m not necessarily talking just about physical weakness, though that’s always a good area to start. Emotional, spiritual, mental, physical, they all matter. Physical is probably easiest to talk about though. Our physical weaknesses are something more easily shared because we all have them in various forms, and maybe they are a little less embarrassing to us. But, to be frank, I’ve found in these last couple of years being honest with ourselves and perhaps close family and friends if not the world like I have been doing is a good way to work through whatever is on our mind and holding us back.

Monday I was reminded yet again of some physical weakness. I’m a whole bag of problem spots to work on that I’d be a bit self-conscious to list them all out. I’ve got old injuries and old man feeling problems a plenty. I was mentioning some areas of pain the other day - outside of that whole cancer thing - and my sister-in-law said “wow, you’re just a hot mess!” I had to laugh along and agree.

Some of those hot spots are giving me trouble despite and admittedly probably because of some of my fitness efforts. My hip has a nerve that grinds and shoots pain when I move from crouched or sitting to standing. My lower and mid back flare up with alignment issues and spasms on a regular basis. My neck has a degenerated disc causing neck, shoulder and arm tingling and pain. My right knee gets sore and locks up from old sports abuse, injury and later surgery. And, oh yeah, my core is still far too weak and not fully recovered from that surgery thing last year. Hot mess I tell ya.

So what do you do when you see and quite literally feel all that weakness from long term neglect and denial? Like I mentioned before, my tendency is to just push harder in areas where I’ve been finding some success, in a bit of continued denial but a hope that those other things will work themselves out. In the short term sometimes that works out ok, but the reality is it’s usually just pushing the problem down the road allowing it to persist and likely magnify.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately how I need to adjust my fitness efforts. I’ve had to lay off some of what I was doing a year ago, but I’ve stilled tried to keep a bit of balance with yoga and my cycling. I’ve realized I need more though. I reached out to a recently made friend I met working on the Organo cruise last fall Eric Higgins (Speed Health Online) He’s a fitness & health coach who not only exemplifies his efforts but shares with others his philosophies and techniques. While Eric is 7 time zones separated from me, enabled by today’s technologies he reaches out to people around the world and offered to give me some advice and training. I decided it was time to find some better balance and address those weaknesses.

Yesterday was the second of those sessions and boy howdy was I reminded of my weak spots. I showed a little teaser on Monday of our first session where Eric took a quick look at my poster via video conference and gave me a few functional exercises and movements to work on my problem areas. Monday my back flared up but thankfully through some quick icing and anti-inflammatories I got it under controlled. You all know I’m pretty determined so there was no way I was missing this next session. We did even more new movements and rather than feel like I was quickly making a difference, each one hit right in those weak spots reminding me I have a lot of work to do. 
 Funny how despite working so hard in some areas I can still be so very weak in others. This is what working out of balance can do. Again, I’m not just talking about the physical, this applies to all areas. We need that balanced effort, making adjustments along the way. But right now the physical is staring me in the face. So for now I’m reaching out to someone that knows a lot more and is willing to offer some expert advice. I’m embracing what’s hard and doing it despite it being much easier to just continue doing what I know I can do well and hoping the problems will go away.

This morning was one of those days where I wrestled with the weakness and maybe, just maybe giving myself a break and giving in to the temptation of easy excuses. I’m headed to Phoenix tomorrow on a trip that will involve some demanding physical poking and prodding as they do their invasive testing. I could use some rest. I’m tired and frankly sore in some areas I’ve been working hard. It’s ok to just skip a workout and take a break. I laid in bed for an extra 20 minutes letting these all too familiar thoughts run through my head. Finally I jumped up, late for my normal routine but determined to get back on track. And while my efforts ran short of normal as a result, I’m happy I showed up and put in the work. My day and how I feel is already better as a result.

So at least for now I can feel good in knowing I am working on a plan, planning the work, and working the plan. However that phrase goes. In this one area I know there are things I can do and now I need to do it. It’s a bit embarrassing to show myself in front of others my weakness, especially when what I should do doesn’t appear all that hard and I still can’t quite do it right. But like everything else I’ve tackled in the past I know I can only get better by facing it head on and making the effort. Each day I’ll get a little better and be better in in the end as a result.

Next up I’ll need to address some of those less obvious weaknesses and figure out how to make them better. But for now, this one is in my sights.