Hm where to start this, It’s been a minute. a very long minute
I recently heard that resilience is about connecting with and accepting oneself. This isn’t how I would typically define resilience. To me, resilience has been more about bouncing back from adversity, embodying grit and determination. The concept of connecting and accepting oneself as part of resilience feels overwhelming, especially when you’ve been dealing with an ongoing trauma response for 8 months.
The freeze trauma response can be extremely isolating, making it challenging to seek help or connect with others, let alone oneself. I’m not here to tell you how to manage it, as I’m still figuring it out myself. This blog is my journey of finding purpose in the world. Many of my previous posts have aimed to boost SEO for training inquiries or to present myself as having all the answers.
While I might possess some knowledge about fitness and health, I am ready to drop that façade. I am committed to being real and candid with you because I believe true connections and growth stem from authenticity and vulnerability. So, here goes nothing…
When I was a senior in high school, I won the Young Writers Festival organized by Geva Theater in Rochester, NY. Now, as I approach 35, I still consider that achievement at 17 to be my greatest accomplishment. Despite all the things I thought would make people like me or maybe me even like myself—magazine ads, supplement contracts that took me around the world, TV shows, book covers, national bodybuilding competitions, modeling for the NFL or Under Armor or owning a gym coaching and educating a number of great personal trainers.
Yes, I am very lucky to work with such cool people everyday, but through that journey and experiences, I realized that true success and fulfillment come from within…External validation aint it folks, its not others accepting you, its about YOU accepting yourself. It’s about finding your purpose and living in alignment with your values. And for me, it’s about using my voice to share my story and inspire others to do the same.
I emphasize resiliency because it has been a focus of mine for the past five years. For those familiar with Heart Rate Variability (HRV), you’ll know it’s a health marker that correlates with resilience. I’ll share my HRV chart from my Oura Ring over the last five years.
As you can see, my resilience trend has gone down every year. Despite what some would think that i’ve been “bouncing back from adversity” over the last five years, I have to question whether I truly have. Just look at how my body responds to stress—it’s clearly trying to tell me something. Yet, I’ve been too preoccupied with seeking external validation, and not feeling the pain of traumatic events that have occurred ( which I know is a trauma response in itself, i’m here working on that!) and ignoring the internal signals from my body that matter most.
I am going to stop writing here for the purpose of maybe someone is still reading, So at the end of this comeback blog really what I am here to say is, continue to read and follow these posts if you want to see a soon to be 35 year old discover himself and share it through writing purely because I love to write, not because I am trying to get likes, clicks to a website or hear “hey you’re pretty good writer”. I love to write, I love to help others, i’m still figuring it all out. Maybe we can learn something together.
Maybe see you again?
Kyle
