Finding Victory and Motivation: Sonja's Journey with a Punching Bag

Finding Victory and Motivation: Sonja's Journey with a Punching Bag

In this episode, Sonja discusses her reflections on a Thomas Merton quote about the necessity of confidence and hope for victory. She shares her personal struggles with staying on a food plan and the importance of support and celebrating small victories. Sonja finds motivation and a new form of exercise in a punching bag set up in her living room, which helps her manage her physical and emotional challenges. She and Patricia emphasize the power of intention, taking action, and the compassion of possibility as she navigates her journey to better health and well-being.

00:00 Introduction and Thomas Merton Quote

00:10 The Importance of Confidence and Hope

00:49 Challenges of Staying Abstinent

01:29 Introducing the Punching Bag

02:13 Physical and Psychological Benefits

03:36 Overcoming Barriers and Finding Solutions

07:32 The Role of Intention and Community

09:34 Grieving and Moving Forward

10:58 Compassion and Possibility

12:19 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript:

 Okay, guys,

I'm curious.

I shared this with my small group last night. . It was the Thomas Merton quote. . I was curious what people thought of it. Okay. In order to gain possession of ourselves, we have to have some confidence, some hope of victory. And in order to keep that hope alive, we must usually have some taste of victory. We must know what victory is, and like it better than defeat.

When we're in the middle of something, we're going to talk about the horrible things that are going on for us, the awful things that are happening, the things we're doing to ourselves, the horrible stuff we're saying. There's always another side to that coin about how far you've come and that you keep putting your feet forward. So in order to gain possession of ourselves, we have to have some confidence some hope of victory. It's one of the issues that I find so challenging about getting back on a food plan or trying your best to stay abstinent.

When we're abstinent, we have confidence that builds because we're doing it, but we also have our deep emotions and the stuff that's louder because we're not using food to numb ourselves. So it's important to be supported by people who are going to give you hope and a sense of victory and to applaud those victories.

My simple act of, oh god, I gotta share my picture. Where is it? Where is it? We put, we, I, put this up in the middle, as you can tell, hold on, I'm gonna share. This is motivating to me, okay? Some people might be like, Sonia, it's in the middle of your living room, okay? That's my new punching bag and right above it are my gloves.

I set my timer because I, once I put my gloves on, I can't, I set my timer for three minutes. It takes about 45 seconds to put my gloves on

and then I pound and I've done it twice and I'm so excited to get out there and do it again. It's in the middle of my living room right now. I don't know where it's going to land, but I built it. yesterday and I pounded twice.

Did it make any difference? I do feel it. Actually, I feel it in my stomach muscles and in my shoulders and a little bit in my neck. Okay. This is one of the areas that I always try to work on, because it had this business, this extra stuff. So I didn't realize that punching would actually support my neck and my gut, but it does.

So Yeah, I felt real. I can feel just going like that. My core muscles tighten. Yeah, and I did a bunch of different moves. I banged the, and then I went down deep. I bent over and I, yeah, pummeled into the thing. And yeah, it was very fun. And more importantly, psychologically, spiritually, the act of taking action with what I can do for movement when this was a dead end, that was a dead end.

This was a dead end because of. Problems with the body you went around it, and figured this out. And just taking action is so powerful, as opposed to going, Oh, there's nothing I can do. I'm, that's what makes me cringe when people say I'm getting older. When they quit because they're getting older, it makes me, I get triggered.

Sure, I get triggered because I don't want to stop because I'm getting older. That's, yeah Even though man, basically, I'm a lard ass. I don't want to do anything. It's not I was putting up what I call barriers Because swimming is a challenge. It takes X amount of time. I was walking through all of these possibilities and every one of them that required me to go to a gym was a real challenge for me.

If you look at my schedule, it's a little crazy. Yes, I could make changes. Yes, I could move things around. Yes, I could. But I also recognize that there's I was just, I was very hopeful. I had no idea that it would come about so quickly. And then I already had all the, everything here, except the gloves. Yeah, I was upset most of the weekend.

Friday, I went to physical therapy and she was like, we can give you like eight more sessions. Maybe we can talk them into 16. I already had 16 approved. But what she was basically telling me is we're not going to be able to help you. We're not going to be able to, we can strengthen everything.

That can be great, but it's not going to show up as improvement in their pain, right? So I felt like the only recourse I had left was to release the little, that was the only control I had is to release the weight that I had put on over the last several years. And who knows if that, Laura on my mastermind call pointed out, you haven't gained very much weight at all.

How can you blame that? And it's the only thing I have. It's the only thing that's different in my mind than what was so I wallowed in it a lot of the weekend I did. And after my mastermind call. I thought, okay, what can I do here? What can I do? How can I get cardi? I was willing to spend money to get some stuff shipped here so that I could do, I don't know, I was thinking of like the, this or, I couldn't do the rowing machine, because it would press on my knees.

I was trying to figure it out. So I called my friend, Chris, and they said, punching bag, Sonia. Not only did it solve the issue of my cardio, I needed 17 minutes of cardio every day. Now can I get it all at once? No, that would be, I would say nigh on impossible at this point, not impossible forever, but at this point I can't do 17 minutes of bag punching, but I can do two minutes.

What is that math? Eight times today. I can do that. I know I can. And what that does for me, this is the flip side of the whole thing is it reduces my excess ghrelin production. It dissipates the ghrelin hormone in my system that causes such hunger, which is the debilitating part for me of being aware, consciously aware of what I'm eating and lowering my caloric intake.

That has been the biggest struggle is the ghrelin, the debilitating hunger. And because I couldn't move since February the way I wanted to. I was between a rock and a hard place, and I was very sad about it. Come to find out, not only do we have a punching bag, I knew we had that, because I moved it around a bazillion times in the garage, but, We also have that device that I just showed you.

Wow. And Jackie has just never put it together.

I know, it's crazy. I love how it works that way, how it works that way. I know. I know, it's just it's like you had it there all the time. I could say. Dorothy, you had it there all the time. That's right. Click my red slippers. Yes. Absolutely. So I overcame a challenge yesterday.

Where's my hat? How do you feel about that? How does that feel? It feels glorious. It feels fucking awesome. It feels really good. It feels really good.

And is my punching bag going to stay in the middle of the living room like that? Maybe, at least through the summer and the heat. Cause that's the air conditioned room. Why would I put it in the garage with the interesting spiders?

Yeah, with an intention of finding another place for it. I believe intentions bring creativity. That's right. That's all creative. It's all creativity to let it go. It was in your intention. What can I do? I have to find something. And allowing it to and that belief in that, you have, and this is the catch 22 because you have to have been aware.

Oh, yeah, I did that before and it worked. I know it'll work. I can become aware of, oh, I need, you know what I need. I need an intention of, because I'm just complaining here and I need an intention of what I want. Then you see it manifest. Through I called a friend and they said punch a bag, and the punch bag was in the there, and then they all, she also had a holder for it, and you go, wow, that was my intention, and it came, ba boom, ba da bing, ba da boom, right in front of me, like it materialized, you have to have some of that.

Believe it. And and then you can remember, Oh, I need to intend something here because I'm not liking something, so I need to make an intention. That takes a lot of layers of moving through. And that's what being in the conversation. That's why AA meets every day. That's why they meet all the time.

Because the conversation has to keep flowing or it goes and amnesia sets in, have to be in it all the time.

That's why I'm excited about following up our course with the course. Because the conversation allows The continuity, because it's slow. Those layers build. They build and you can't get it. You have to build it

with hope.

Okay, I don't really see how this is going to happen, but I know that it can because I hear people saying it will. You just have to be in the community of it. And I needed to be able to grieve. I needed to allow myself to grieve. The idea that, I had told myself before the shots, the cortisone and the synvisc, that this was going to work.

I had no reason to not believe that. And I had no reason to not live in that space. Did it make Friday and Saturday more painful because I had spent that time believing that and the Sin Disc still might work. I need you all to hear that. He did tell me four to six weeks and I remember that. I'm aware of it.

The moment it's not though and that I needed to feel that pain. I needed to allow myself to go through that and then I got tired of it. I was like, this isn't fun. I don't need to feel. And maybe that, that, that grief slid away. Maybe those parts were like, Sonia, this is getting a little old.

Let's think about this for a minute. Because you were talking about it. You were present with it. You, it doesn't just go away. It has to be,

Yeah,

we all have things that are going on in our lives that we wish were different.

could you reflect instead of regret? I like that word a whole lot better. And it feels like it's forward thinking rather than backward thinking.

But we need to be heard also. Absolutely. Getting it out that we can start to hear ourselves. The interesting thing for me that that I wanted to share was not just that quote from Thomas Merton, but the concept that that Gabor Mate put out. The compassion of possibility

and how we can look at the circumstances that we have, but not focus on the bad or not focus on the dysfunction, but focus on the possibility. Our call last night was just so beautiful. Each one of them was going through something pretty major. And each one of them we can look at from different perspectives.

To be able to recognize and celebrate in the midst of this stuff. Like I said, I've just punched twice. But why can't I get excited about that? And why can't I get really? I've started plugging in my calendar in my head. I haven't put it on the calendar itself yet.

That would muddy the waters a little too much. But I've started plugging in when I can go. If I need to get 17 minutes. of heart rate cardio, and then I'm going to do it two minutes at a time. That's eight times in a day, right? Nine times. If I do nine, that's 18. I'll do that. And that sounds fun. My heart rate got up to 122 yesterday, twice.

Compassion of possibility. Give yourself some of it.

Goes a long way.

Ah, have a wonderful day, everybody. I'm going to go punch.

Bye, guys.