The Fortune Cookie That Keeps on Giving....

A few posts ago I mentioned a fortune cookie fortune I received. At the time it really was perfect. So I stuck it in the back of my iPhone case and every once in a while I look at it.
It said: You don't need to know where you're going to know you're headed in the right direction.

That is so true for me. It's been an interesting week. A trying week. And now, more than ever, I believe two things to be true.
1) You don't need to know where you're going to know you're headed in the right direction.
2) Everything happens exactly as it's supposed to.

This could be a long blog. Go grab a drink.

Okay, long story short. Well, part of it. Despite what I was told by the owner of the gym where I am a member and where I auditioned/interviewed to work as a trainer, which was that I'd start in January, I'm not starting. And I may never start. Why? I have no idea. The only answer I can get from anybody is at some point in the future I can re-audition. Awesome.

I took this hard. VERY hard. Why? I think there are many reasons. As somebody who has a hard time giving herself any credit for accomplishing anything, actually working as a trainer was going to be how I really believed I had accomplished something.

Another reason is that this whole process took a lot of me pushing through everything I have ever believed about myself. It was not an easy thing to do. As a result, I put in a lot of myself emotionally. Probably 90% of myself. To feel like it was all working out, only to have the rug pulled out from under me was tough.

So I've spent much of the last week crying, or trying not to start crying, moping around, berating myself, wondering what this was all for. Was this some sick joke?

I pulled the case off my iphone a couple of days ago and looked at that fortune. It was shouting at me. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO KNOW WHERE YOU'RE GOING TO KNOW YOU'RE HEADED IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.

I started to think about the possibilities of training other places. That concept is unnerving. And while I still truly believe a snowball has a better chance in hell than I have of getting a training position at my current weight, the bigger issue is my imprisonment in my comfort zone. After everything that's happened with the gym, forcing me to consider other options, I really started to own up to the fact that, while I get a perfectly good workout at my current gym, it IS my comfort zone. And maybe, just maybe, part of this whole fiasco with the training position there has helped open my eyes to the idea that it's time to venture out of the comfort zone. If I don't, I'm at a huge risk of stagnating. And I don't want to do that.

One of my friends commented recently on my tendency to "cave in on myself". Another friend asked me to not use this disappointment as an opportunity to put my walls back up. They are both right. Part of my comfort zone is to cave in on myself, largely by lots and lots of negative things I say to and about myself. It's easier for me (in a twisted logic) to run myself into the ground mentally first, before anybody else can do it, because when they do, it'll hurt less. And throwing up walls is definitely an uncomfortable comfort zone. People can't hurt you when you shut them out.

But I have worked so hard to try and change those things. And I don't want to go back to the completely caved in person I used to be. Or the girl whose walls were really much more like a nuclear bomb shelter. I'm going to fight myself to not do that again.

Tonight I took a class at a new MMA fitness center. I've always wanted to MMA. kick boxing, that kind of thing. But it was just one more thing I figured I would do "eventually". When I was thinner. Or fitter. Or my hair was a different color.
But I took the free class. And then signed up for a membership. Why wait? It will help me become thinner and fitter. Not a whole lot of help with changing my hair color, though. I'm taking away from this experience several things. One of those is to let this adversity be an opportunity to challenge myself. So I did.

So as disappointed as I still am, I believe everything happens exactly the way it's supposed to, as long as I take something away from my experiences, even the bad ones, that will help me become a better person.