Reading Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins made me realize how differently I perceive my feminine and my masculine traits in terms of safety and acceptability, shaped by the world around me. Where does a healthy balance between the two lie?
The right place...
I have been wanting to read that book for a while now. Last time I desperately tried to download it on to my kindle, my amazon account failed me and kept on blocking myself out, until I gave up. “Fuck that kindle shit.” And I have never touched it since.
I had a few days in Zurich, between Arosa with G. and going back to Montreux. On one of my usual strolls by bike through town I stopped by at an open bookshelf and who looked at me straight in the face? David Goggins. “Hmm so I guess it’s time to read it now.” I am thinking, and start about the next day.
...at the right time.
My mood is strange in that moment. I am in Zurich and “being back there” hit me a lot harder than usual this time. I am still way too close to that life I am so eager to leave behind. And this time that hits me hard. I feel trapped. A bit useless. A few doubts are creeping up. What plays into account might also be the countless conversations with G. over the past month about contributing to other peoples life. And the question whether or not just being and enjoying things like slow breakfast and mountain hikes could be justified as leading a life worth while.
I feel torn between two worlds and a lot of different voices are getting loud in my head. Some telling me I was fighting hard, some doubting my whole existence, some pushing me to achieve more, some showing me how far I have come.
(I am starting to tell the story here, instead of feeling it. That’s what blocks me.)
Feeling it.
That book speaks to a part of me that I appreciate and fear at the same time. Something in me I am unsure I am allowed to say “That’s me.” Because “Do I really have enough proof of it? Or am I just trying to be though because it sounds cool?”
It’s a part of me that loves to fight and go for the impossible just to see how far I would get. A part of me very attracted to discipline and tight frames. In myself and in others.
That part is strongly connected to something much deeper. Something that has always been there. A feeling like it is unsafe to be soft, unsafe to be feminine. Sometimes that feeling surfaced as the wish to be born as a guy. Just focus on one task and fight it through no matter what, build the body, the business, the life with sheer discipline. Sometimes it manifested as me refusing any traditional relationship models. At least if I couldn’t be a guy I could fuck like one. As if that could just be a conscious choice made at any given day. But I was more comfortable suppressing my emotions, than sitting and feeling unsafe with them.
It’s a part of me that gets triggered when people, especially guys, share their emotions vulnerably. “Stop crying and just figure your shit out, like everyone else!” A voice shouts loud in my head. I get annoyed. And I indeed walked away from people many times after that voice showed up.
It’s a part of me that can run head first through concrete walls for the better and the worst. Where I can hold on and fight until the bitter end, for things that are long gone and broken. And also for myself in the darkest hours, reluctant to ever give up even if that means a constant uphill battle with no end in sight.
Being with F. made me cycle to Istanbul, the moment where I felt how much more I was capable of than I would have ever thought. Breaking up with F. made me fight for myself, for my life on never ending uphill slopes and push to my limits burning out every inch of discipline I could have ever imagined.
I feel like I switched between obsessing over that strong and dedicated part of me, to the point where I put discipline above all other feelings. And on the other side completely giving in to comfort, giving up any resistance neglecting my masculine side as much as the feminine, at least in that state they were equal.
Right now I am scared of both, as I am figuring out the middle ground. I am scared to drown in discipline again, build something out of hurt, destroying my own body along the way. And I am terrified to slip back into comfort, back towards the version of me who used to get up for a coffee and a cigarette in the morning and spend nights long drinking wine, eating whatever I felt like not granting my body the movement she was craving for.
There is something I find intriguingly attractive in that iron dedication into discipline. Something I am looking for in my life, and seemed to have started to provide for myself by myself as a response to lacking it in the people and frames around me.
One part comes from feeling unsafe in my feminine energy. Another part has its roots in my surroundings lacking that masculine discipline I am craving for. I couldn’t find it in friends, nor in men, teachers, relationships. The best I could do was project it into certain men and other projects. Or, in the end, just come up with it by myself.
But I am not a guy. And even if I was, the point isn’t burning it all down and out, overcoming every mental weakness, turning myself into a monster just because I can. That’s not how life flows.
It’s a balance, in the end. And balance doesn’t mean “normal”.
It’s balance and thriving for the uncommon.
Knowing that there are people out there who also refuse to just be normal. That inspires me. And at the same time it scares the fuck out of me, that I could ever become one to just be content with normal, to just be content with “good enough”.
What I want to hold on to:
(I still decided to list a few things, from the book because writing it down makes it stick longer, if that bores you just skip it.)
Ask “Why am I doing this?” before I get into it. So I am prepared for the doubts.
Tell myself the truth out loud, be radically honest with myself, talk to the mirror like it’s listening. (To mix up this book with the soft feminine positive affirmation music I was singing this morning going like: “...have been talking to the mirror like it’s listening.”)
“What am I capable of?”
My own self-protection will always use all it has to encourage me to stop, before I reached my full potential, my 100%. It’s my identity trying to find sanctuary, not helping me to grow.
Same is true for people who love me, they would encourage me to stay safe or stay as they know me. As a default, not because they are against me, they are actually trying to protect me or the version they know of me and themselves.
I want to be around people who think and live uncommon 24/7 not just when duty calls.
Backstops (fear), are there to tell me I am off road. Reassess the situation, instead of keeping racing in the wrong direction hoping it will return to right.
Side note scribbled on page 245: “Being both, appreciating the masculine frame of discipline & achievement and bloom with feminine intuition & sensitivity. Attract and build.”
Priorities have to be clear and it will be easier to stay dedicated to those priorities.
(Now I am getting bored...60 push ups later...)
Note on the side of the page: “When I’ll arrive I focus…” Focus anyways, right now, to the best of my ability. And: What attracts me in both of them (F.&G.) is the inspiration to “go for crazy instead of normal” and the most crucial point is, that that inspiration has to be backed up by action. That’s what I am choosing in myself first, then in others, in a partner.
Preparing my body and mind for opportunities that do not yet exist.
One thousand pull ups before breakfast. (Sounds sexy.)
Instead of getting angry at people for not being able to keep up, pick them up and bring them with you. We are all fighting the same battle.
Deciding the outcome is already mine, in that way I am working towards an inevitability.
Stories can be used to my advantage.
When you choose a life like this there is no finish line.
(Did I get bored yes. Did I manage, with a few push ups and music in between, yes. Are you getting bored?)
Last side note on the cover: “Choosing commitment with intention.”
And finally...
“What if it all works out?”
