A Womanifesto -- No CrossFit Math for Me

Not the usual way I enter a new community: writing a womanifesto of what I needed for the leaders to help me help myself.

About a month ago, I took the dive into a CrossFit gym close to where I work. I figured that when my busy semester hits this spring, I’d have a new routine and a gym to swing by on the way home. I also knew I wanted to reclaim my levels of physical activity that always seem to wane when amidst other things I love to do with my life—circles, teaching, sacred listening-companionship, etc. ... I do have an inner athlete, after all. I discovered her in college when I joined the college women’s soccer team during my junior year. It was an unusual time to join the team—halfway through—but they needed a goalie and I took the dive then too. ... The heady parts of my work and married life, even, do not often allow her much expression these days, so I thought perhaps CrossFit would be a good fit for right now.

And it really is. I’ve been in regular classes now for about two weeks, having done the intro-sessions with Matt, one of the coaches, during late August. I’m learning which classes have which kinds of energies. The 4 p.m. class is a bit snooty and competitive, with folks just off their jobs, working off steam before heading home to family lives. 8 a.m. is led by the other coach, Melissa, and has a much gentler feel to it, plus more one-on-one coaching. More often a women-centric class too, though a husband and wife team was there together once when I was there. The Saturday open-workouts for the community are probably my favorite so far—more body-as-weight kinds of sets because the number of folks can be high. My work life may require me to go to the 4 p.m. class; my sense of well-being values the 8 a.m. class. I’ve not tried the noontime or the 5:30 p.m. class, though I suppose I will in the days to come.

After the third ‘regular class,’ I realized that one of the practices of CrossFit was beginning to distract and shame me: CrossFit math. Matt would ask each of us what our time was, writing it up on the white-board amongst the list of names for each day. I wasn’t here to keep time or compete for a fast time. My focus from day-one has been technique and form, intensity of workout, regularity of showing up. I could feel the dread building in me for everytime I had to gather my things to leave, hoping to avoid the question. By the fourth class, I knew I had to take a different approach than sneaking out.

A day of Columbus meetings, the first in an Upper Arglington coffee shop, I set to writing the draft of an email to the two coaches. I was sure to begin with a huge list of gratitudes and what I was showing up for… I am really glad to have taken this dive, after all, and can feel myself growing, re-focusing my life in healthy ways. 

I did try to give some context for this invitation-demand of them: This message is to help you help me in flows of energy I'm guessing you'd have no reason to know anything about... I cannot imagine you've had much reason to delve into the motherwound or the long histories of bodyshaming that religious traditions exact upon their young--perhaps you have, and you simply hold it differently for yourselves--but CF is the apparent place for me to redress some of this in my own body...

I was pleased to name for them, and for myself, what I was intending and striving for: What I am coming for: the regularity, the intensities deepening, the circle of companions also working out and pushing into their best reps, time etc. I need to have invested at this level in order to show up in the overwhelm of my work life(lives). So far, I'm getting all that I need there, entering in slowly...

I was proud of myself for then getting concrete and specific:

All that said...The whiteboards, the reporting, the numbers/CrossFit math are not going to be good for me at this stage in my body journey... They distract me, my long history of body-shaming and internalized self-hatred are simply too tender for the post-workout-give-the-number routine that is part of your/CF community practice. You can cancel my reservation for the thing on the 7th. Not good for me, at this stage. I don't actually care where I'm starting in the masculine-driven, body-image way of being in human bodies. I finally know how to name what I need and so this is your invitation to help me deepen engagement in the ways<I>need. ...you make your suggestions, but I need you to not put my name up on the board, I need you to not ask me, and I need to find my way into these flows of movement in my own way. Guided and pushed by you, sure, but listening inwardly always first. Maybe someday down the road, I'll enter in this way; maybe not.

I was most delighted by the ending of the email, the opportunity to name what it’s taken me so long to name: I'm happy to flow in and find my way amidst different classes as these next weeks beckon. It's taken me 50 years to love the body I have, just as I am, knowing I've needed every fuckin' cell to do the work I do...so my desire and goal is simply to move into deeper and deeper movement, health, well-being, as I know from the inside alone. Thanks for reading this far. See you tomorrow and more,

A woman-i-festo indeed. I felt immediately lighter upon sending it. I felt the waves of self-doubt and fear too, but I knew to expect those. It is really hard for a woman to name so clearly what she needs and not collide inside herself with the need for outside approval, the need to not take up space, the need to not be too pushy or too much or 'a bitch' or too…something. I could feel some reverberations within me as I eased into new classes. Did they share my words with others there? Did other CrossFitters not want to partner with someone like me? Ultimately, I allowed it to be whatever it needed to be for them, confidence growing in me that I had done what I needed for me to feel most safe and most engaged.

And yesterday, at the start of a full day of ‘mental health care’ for me, I entered into the 8 a.m. class with seven other women. I partnered with a woman I'll call Jaime, a slim buff-honed athlete woman, with ease. I learned how to begin with bench-pressing the yellow bar (35 pounds). I walked out, feeling like myself, on a journey I’ve wanted and needed for a while. I'm a new member of a local CrossFit community, feeling her way in as she needs to.

In our world today, it always seems to take a womanifesto to get there. So be it.

My CrossFit Journey Begins...

When I first heard of CrossFit years ago, I knew at some point I was going to want to try it. I was well into circle-way things by then—Red Tent, Women Writing for (a) Change, Conscious Feminine Leadership Academy—and watched my own trainer, Natalie, get involved with a CrossFit community in Centerville. I benefited from her enthusiasm, her own formation in that community’s ethos and practice. Our workouts became tinged with CrossFit learnings, paced for me in my one or two workouts a week with her. At some point, I said to myself, I want to try that. A loosely organized circle-way, athletic community, aiming for a collaborative ethos that challenges into competition...? Sounded like a balanced feminine-masculine kind of thing, in my ears.

About 18 months ago, I’d guess, I visited a CrossFit in Beavercreek. A morning workout that included burpees and squats, among other things. The warm-up was with a jump-rope, which did not go well for me. I hadn’t jumped with a rope in over thirty years, perhaps forty, and my body did not remember this rhythm. It was frustrating and I felt foolish for not knowing something so elementary. I remember trying to pace myself, slow myself down, but the energies of the group did push me in a way I liked then. My body cried out for probably four days afterward, however, so… Good for me in the end? Not sure. I did realize that there was little chance of me driving that direction several times a week, alongside my work 40 minutes in the other direction, and circle two evenings a week. The coach I spoke to there was nice enough, but I never went back.

Come more into the present, and I’m finishing up a coaching call, August 1^st, maybe. A Wednesday. In conversation with her, I awoke once again to how I’d become motionless, stuck in the energy flows of those around me, unable to choose what might be for me, for me alone. This is an ancient pattern for me, unclear origins, but one I’ve redressed again and again in my nearly fifty years. I felt foolish to have been swept up into it again, though I know the pattern always serves its purpose in the end. I hung up the phone, got out a Julia Cameron book, did morning pages, and made a list of things I’d wanted to try but hadn’t started yet. I researched a number of CrossFit communities in the Dayton area and chose one close to my work on campus. I scheduled myself to come to the Community Open Workout that Saturday, and dove in. Amidst two intensive commitments that month—teaching a week on campus and a retreat with 17 other women—I scheduled the intro sessions with Matt, one of the coaches, and last week, my first week of ‘regular workout classes’ began.

The timing of this feels significant to me somehow. I turn fifty this next March, which doesn’t feel a big deal to me but is to many human beings around me. I’ve loved every birthday these last 10-15 years, enjoying the climb up the numbers without a sense of forboding many women feel. My anam cara soul-sister, Lisa, is facing double-hip surgery this fall, a journey of hers that has yet impacted me greatly. I began to go a little tharn, truth be told, as this journey unfolded for her. I grew still inside, not wanting to startle the wildlife in her, facing down something that feels (and is) a pretty big deal. I began to know a deep gratitude for my morning walks with Nala, aware of my body’s capabilities as distinctive, unique, my own. I began to know a deep sadness too, a belly fear, about what needed to happen for her own health to be restored. I wanted her body journey to be easy, relieved…and it’s been painful and limiting. I probably felt a little guilty too, being able to move in my body in ways unavailable to her. Illogical, I know, but plausible in how I feel connected, my body to hers.

Unsure and incapable of easing her own body’s journey, of connecting in like we often have, I turned my full attentions to CrossFit and the invitations there. Might as well, I figured. Fear I could face. Fear that was my own. And greater movement, greater intensity workouts, greater energy output…all felt invited and welcome.

CrossFit Dedication, the community I’ve now joined, is a family-friendly place that’s been around for five years now. They just celebrated their Five Year Anniversary with a party August 25^th. I was on retreat with my circle of women, so could not join in. They seem to offer challenges for those seeking to enter competition-level CrossFit and create a space for folks like me who simply want to workout more, with like-minded folks, creating support and structures for more healthy living.  Matt handles more of the intake and business responsibilities, so I have worked with him the most, just to join. I attended the 8 a.m. class that his wife, Melissa, coaches this past week. It’s a smaller class, so the coaching is more personalized. I really appreciated her style and attentiveness to my own form and process.

For now, I think my invitation is to try different classes, to get a whiff of what each feels like—time of day, number of people, walks of life, etc.—and tend to my own body’s language as I deepen my capacities. The first fruit, just from the month so far, is that movement is fun again. And fear is less present, as I move in the flow of a circuit workout or a slated set of exercises in rounds of repetition. I look forward to going, and I’m tickled to be diving into something that called to me years ago.

The Dance of Gauze & Gaze

I feel wrapped in gauze, looking through clouds at everyone and all who tries to peer inside. The Marley-shaped hole in my heart is an obvious focus of grief, loss in the felt-sense of who I am, but I suspect the relinquishing of CFLA, the transition from a full, rich summer into the institutional-rhythms of fall, is underneath all of this too. I feel far away from myself, or others feel far away from me. There is a certain gloomy comfort that comes with this feeling. Anything that might come close to touch me cannot…which means I won’t feel the loss of it/her/them afterwards. A plausible defense mechanism, if not who I am, at root.

The stories I tell from this feeling are old ones, and not necessarily true to my realities today (unless I cannot find a way out of the gauze, I suppose). I have hesitated to even give these stories/strands voice, hesitated to write for days, because I know they are the old strains, the old whiffs of story that held me at bay for so long. I’m weary of these stories, and wish them gone. They have been in these days the domineering strands of my thoughts, however, even though I attempt to resist them each step of the way.These are not the dominant melodies of my life today. So why DO they return?

Perhaps it is worthwhile seeing them on the page after all, to release them to be seen, to befriend them once again. Can I just say, though: I am SO weary of befriending them. J

A familiar one, from nearly four years ago…being left behind, losing, being lost. Lis and I are both in the busy start-up season that autumn brings. Church, seminary, Ignatian Retreat in Daily Life, circles, family, more…each bringing its abundance as well as its energetic heaviness inside. Her husband’s church calls her into certain exchanges, interactions, as does mine. Each of these Invitations are specific to her, to me, but they DO come also with the energetic strands connected to a husband’s calling. The celebration I note in this season of flurried start-up is that fears that were SO huge years ago hardly flutter within me. They DO flutter, I can still tell, but almost as residuals: fears of being left behind, of always being second choice to the church (or something else), of losing, being lost. These flutter within me, occasionally flaring into full-blown fear, but mostly quietly fluttering. 

[First full-blown flare, Saturday after Week Two CFLA ended, Megan and Lis down by the river. Second full-blown flare, a week ago Friday when no spaces opened for even a short voice touch. The voices said: She’s lost herself; she is out of reach, cannot be reached, does not want to be reached. You are no longer necessary or desired in her life.] I cringe to see the words on the page, because I KNOW they are not true. I yearn for quiet spaces, as does she. I need to be in my own rhythms, once I find them again that is J, as does she. I yearn for my relationship with Brian to be its own private abundance, as does she with Chris. These are what I KNOW. And yet seeing and sensing the rise of family energies, the images of husband and grandchildren rise over her own self, her own wild self, the voices in me rise, sending my energies into a swirling hot mess. ‘Her time of individuation is over. She doesn’t want the tumultuous adventure of river-kayaking-worms-digging anymore. She doesn’t want to draw close to that Flame anymore. My presence in her life is fading, or needs to fade, or...' These words then ‘have me’ until I’m worn out, decide I won’t care anymore, attempt to release all attachment…

And then devotion and awareness of Lisa-Lisa rises in Her time, and I rest, I remember, I know who I am inside of me and inside of her again, trusting Lisa to do what she needs and desires for herself, weaving me in as is holy and fitting and wise. My spirit-selkie-skin remains tender, stretched and pulled by my own sensations of loss, of fear, yet it is also moistened and strengthened to remember, be Reminded. Everything needs to flow in its own rhythms, nothing can be grasped or held onto or it will die. Everything I need is right here for... words that rise in my awareness from within, not as a pushing-away from her... They really are true words...when my selkie skin is strong enough to hold all of me.

The stories around Brian are not as activated as the ones with Lisa. I fear it is because the gauze has been around us for much longer, and we’ve gotten used to it by now. But our rhythms are gentle with one another, and attentive. Honoring (for the most part) what each needs to do to grieve the loss of ‘our girl.’ My dive into the Whole30 has been a huge relief for me, if a sense of irritation for him. Fascinating to see the ripples of this simple choice become so huge in our ‘us.’ My inability to emotionally-eat, for instance—or at least much less of it than ever before—mirrors to him his own reliance on food for emotional comfort. I feel a sense of loss, a being-useless around him, as he looks to food instead of to being present with me, in his own pain. But he’s resisted holding his own deep feeling, just as I have…do…which means the food holds it instead of my having to hold it.  For now, that IS better than my holding his pain FOR him. We’ve not really learned how to each be with our own new selves (these last few years), vulnerably, in the presence of the other, without expectation that the other ‘should carry our pain’ or such an encounter ‘should be’ something in his mind or in my own. Being present with what-is has never been our inheritance, after all, though we may be eventually invited into its depths, sometime down the road. Maybe this is what we could learn now, if we stick with it, without a dog, for a while. Or maybe not…maybe a new dog would invite us into a sense of ease, to learn this new vulnerability with one another gently. Perhaps he will need this new dog to stay with his emotional self... I wonder...

The stories I would often tell myself here are mostly quiet. I don’t get triggered when Brian has to rush over to church for something like he did last night, or disappears into his cave for whatever reason. I trust he will come out when he’s ready, and I lean into the quiet that is afforded me. Unless voices about someone or something else rush in…but for the most part, I’ve learned to keep my balance amidst the energetic needs of his congregation, his job. The HUGE gift of this change can almost not be overstated. Huzzah to my Shalem journey, huzzah to Spirit’s tenacity with me, Amma’s nurturing rhythms of touch and care.

So the gauze is whatever it is, I suppose… I yearn for the spacious gifts of the Gaze, a re-opening of my tender self into the holy flow, the Oneness I’ve/we’ve been Given to know. But I yearn for it without ‘nicking’ the raw sense of loss I know and feel now. I yearn to touch and be touched, yet without ‘nicking’ the raw sense of loss I know and feel now. I yearn for the creative drive in which I feel I can give into the world, yet this raw sense of loss I know and feel now holds me at bay. It feels like this crying, whimpering part of me that cannot be left behind, yet cannot also be fully present with those I love. This tender part of me that yearns to be seen, still without getting seen. This tender part of me hoping not to be ‘nicked’ somehow, being reminded how deeply Love roots within us when we allow Her to AND how deep the hole is when a beloved leaves her body…is no longer able to be touched, held, kissed…no longer able to touch, hold, kiss me. This tender part of me feels like this image I will forever carry—Marley falling asleep, still trying to lick our hands, yet getting so sleepy…reaching out even as she was leaving…  I have been introduced to this part of me that simply desires to leave with her, to not feel this loss and separation, to finally leave behind me this being left-behind, this losing…

And yet I know an incredible life of abundance here, calling, yearning for me too…

to love deeply

to birth, nourish and nurture

to release, encourage and cheer onward

to celebrate, mourn, cherish

to re-enter the Flow with my beloveds

to create with my anam cara, in the Flow we’ve been Given

she and I, Lisa-Lisa, the mystery of double-goddess power

in One, for the world

to re-enter all of it, in my time, when time…

which will be…

the moment when it comes, again and again…

What IS it about Princeton...?

Events in my life have returned a recurring question to me from multiple quarters: What is it about Princeton that affects you so? 

I have struggled mightily for years to have a compelling and convincing answer to this question. It’s a trope by now in my family that I have a highly cathected relationship with Princeton Theological Seminary. I can understand their familiarity and weariness with it, given my 10- or even now 20-year journey to move from 

• attachment (ego-grasping of established success in higher education and professional endeavors, with doors opening because of association with the name-education of Princeton) and then 
• aversion (fair critiques against the ironies and paradoxes of such a place, i.e. a place to train Christian ministers to be disciples of a Jewish carpenter whose life/ministry bears little resemblance to the values of Ivy-League privileged education) 
• into the wisdom of non-attachment, gratitude and relinquishment, even forbearance. 

It has surely been a journey of forbearance for these, my intimates, as the energies of this question have worked their way through my mind, my body, my spirit. And with what result or product? After all these years, I still struggle to offer a compelling and persuasive answer to this question, What is it about Princeton that affects you so? It has been a journey with seemingly no resolution, a cycle of discourse or conversation in which they are now bound as well. For that, I do feel regret. For that, I feel sadness at being continuously unheard, unseen, both for my inability to articulate/persuade and our shared captivity to such distracting energies for what is life-giving in this world.

It dawns on me this morning that perhaps the issue lies in the question. Perhaps it’s not the right question to be asking. Just maybe, the question needs to be “Why aren’t more of us within ecclesial Christian traditions befuddled, frustrated, irritated, even enraged by an institution like Princeton Theological Seminary?” Why aren’t you bothered by institutions of higher (theological) education rife with such debilitating and damning paradoxes? If I/we were to try to answer that question, how would we proceed? I have been feeling my way back into some of these energies, not at my instigation but at the impetus of bemusing providence. 

The tendrils of Princeton's gift and burden in my own journey began back in 1992, when I had opportunity to visit the campus in a "Prospective Student" weekend. One could argue they began earlier in my Midwestern upbringing--folks in the Midwest have huge respect, even awe, for ivy-league institutions, almost without any awareness of them as they are. I matriculated for the Masters of Divinity degree in 1993, completed it in 1996. I was accepted into the doctoral program there in 1996, so pursued the PhD in practical theology, completing it in 2001. In the midst of that, I got married to my first love from college days, who then came to Princeton to do his Masters of Divinity degree. He finished in 2003, but we both stayed on one more year--I, to get a Lilly Endowment grant off the ground; he to serve as interim-chaplain at the Westminster Foundation at Princeton University. We were finally granted 'reprieve' in summer 2004 as I entered into seminary teaching and he entered his first installed call as a pastor of a local church. Eleven years' of Princeton Seminary (de)formation in overwhelming privilege, beautiful-souled people, 'establishment' and the version of 'community' that comes with incredible wealth, privilege, and high literacy/intellect. 

These next ten years have been spent in an environment of great felt-contrast, though still incredible privilege, beautiful-souled people, and the paradoxical challenges of community in the 'community' of higher theological education. Christian koinonia and institutional decline & grief are impossible bed-mates--economics and competition are interwoven irreparably into the relational yearnings of consumerist, implicitly 'class-oriented' human beings. Rarely are people seen, truly seen. Rarely are their voices heard, truly heard or invited. Structure and form dominate how human beings interact and even conceive of what they want, who they are in themselves. Given these things, I have spent these ten years doing the hard work of differentiation from Princeton Seminary and its establishment, institutional, high-privilege, class-conscious way of living into Christian discipleship. I have strived to express my heart-felt gratitude and receptivity to all the gifts my years at Princeton offered me, without question or condition. I could not do what I do today without my years there. I have also strived to release my own ego-attachment to the things Princeton instills as values, success, achievement. To release the yearnings for outward success, larger public affirmation of my work, signs of 'proof' that what I do matters to those within the hallowed halls of my (ironically stated) alma mater. And, as the journey of awakening has unfolded, I have also struggled to relinquish the aversion and anger, the sense of betrayal of my holiest yearnings that were woven into institutional and intellectual matters with little connection to the radical claims of compassionate living. The Buddhists are right, after all--aversion is the negative/shadow side of attachment. To have deep aversion is simply the reactive form of a remaining attachment. And I was making really good progress on that front. No longer yearning for what Princeton is perceived to offer, no longer angry or reactive to its way in the world, I was able to say with equanimity that I was thankful for being there and thankful for my journey to have taken me here. End of story.

Until my cousin's husband became the seminary's next president. The Seminary freakin' married into my family. Plopped back into the swirls of privilege, political back-talking, supposed strivings to be seen within the Princeton family once again, I watched as my soul's energies went through their paces once again. Attachment to the ease of being-invited into high-privilege places. Anger at how blind the 'community' is to the larger world and what 'reality' means to the 99%. Well-seasoned recognition of folks connecting with me not because of who I am but because of who I know, love, as my family. All of it arose again, until it eased in practice, in welcome, in acceptance of simply what-is. 

The ten years of practice shaped the days of awareness leading up to and completing the Inauguration Day festivities with a sense of peace and relinquishment. Yes, I had really done the work. Yes, life is funny in how it brings things into your life so as to give opportunity once again to practice, even to see how far you have come. And yes, the question is no longer the right question for me: What is it about Princeton that affects you so? The secondary question, the one that arose this time, Why are not more of us irritated, befuddled...? The further I travel along my way, with spirit-friends and heart-companions, more of us are not irritated, befuddled, etc. because none of all that really matters to this 'more' of us. None of that bears resemblance to the world that does beckon, that does yearn for our gifts. There are so many mysterious, beautiful, and challenging things welcoming this 'more' of us into the world that little time or energy is left for the story that had shaped so much of my own awareness, spirit, for so long.

It is my story, and it will always be with me. I will continue to learn from it and awaken to the things that drew me into the gift and burden of Princeton. I will continue to offer gratitude for all that has been made possible because my story is as it is. And I will continue to smile and breathe into the reality of what-is within Princeton's bounds, accepting the paradoxes so plentiful within them. All those who are drawn to those bounds can have a listening-heart companion in me, if they so choose. Sacred Mother can now do with this journey whate'er She may, as I offer it to holy purpose. Wait and watch. God alone. Blessed be.