Saturday, March 28, 2020
Impromptu Photoshoots
Up until this past year I pretty much hated being in pictures and refused to take pictures of myself. I have always wanted to wait until I liked (forget loved) what I saw in the mirror, I want to be skinnier and have a more defined muscular physique. What I refused to acknowledge was the reason I hated taking and being in photographs was the lack of self-acceptance and self-love rather than how I fit in the frame. Do I want to be healthier and fitter? Absolutely! But I'd also like to have memories along that journey and enjoy the fun things I do during this time still creating memories. Another classic anxious thought that runs rampant in my mind especially during my travels is that everyone-or at least someone is watching me take these photos, and seeing me be out of my comfort zone. I have this somewhat loud irrational fear that everyone around me will see me do something "silly/weird". Instead of just going with the flow with what feels good and fun to me I have this internal voice that tries to shut down any comfort and enjoyment of myself at the moment. In turn with the figuring out more of the weird twisted thoughts in my mind I try to challenge these thoughts, I had a chance to do this on a family trip to France to visit family this past winter we were walking by a Christmas tree and water fountain and my sister asked me to take some photos of her, I did and enjoyed being the photographer but then decided to push myself and get her to take some photos of me. Posing felt awkward of course as the internalized voice saying why are you moving your body, why are you smiling, who are you trying to copy or look like. I tried to shut that voice off and just smile and enjoy the moment with my sister trying to laugh the internal awkward feeling away. So do I love my body and the pictures without noticing the flaws? No, but I try to enjoy the photos and my body for what they are and where I am in life. Do I feel this weird internalized feeling of being super touristy and taking posey photos in Europe? Totally! But I love the memories of pushing myself way out of my comfort zone and having a great experience with my sister, and moving my body a bit and taking shots and freezing memories of a trip in time. Looking back at the photos, I like how far I've come in accepting myself and where I'm at enjoying and loving the moment. Hopefully, my evolution of self-love will continue and I will have photos to remember it by.
Tuesday, March 3, 2020
2020's Forgotten Dreams
I wrote the draft for this post right when I got back from a trip to my grandparents in December. For a variety of reasons, I haven't posted anything for a bit before that. Classwork got intense at university and till last week I was super busy with finals. I've been in a fog since then and I knew a decent amount of it was locking up my emotions and thoughts trying to just focus completely on schoolwork. So now to the actual topic at hand, Toyota ads in the Zurich airport and the wave of emotions I completely forgot I had regarding 2020.
"2020" For years I had an imaginary finish line that I wanted to cross at "Tokyo 2020". It was a somewhat elusive sports goal of making the Paralympics after my paralympic dream for 2016 fell apart for a variety of realities that combined to remove the goal from reach. When I returned to Israel in 2016 my focus changed from being consumed by sports dreams and goals trying to be achieved through workouts and pretty much eating, sleeping, and breathing sport, to focusing on university and Israel and the process that entailed to make it there. I worked on myself, mentally and physically in different ways trying to balance the idea of working out without focusing on a paralympic dream and goal. Throughout these past three years, I went through a variety of hospitalizations, between a voluntary in-patient program at an eating disorder clinic for a couple of months, where I gained new tools and friends. I started wheelchair tennis only to end up with a few different short stints in the neurological unit of the hospital where I got much less help and made no friends. The lack of explanation and ability to solve the pain and loss of sensation, led to pressure being put on me to do fewer sports and working out less in hopes that the pain and loss of sensation would disappear. In that my paralympic hopes and dreams seemingly disappeared from my mind completely and the focus turned to university and a job. Of course, my body and mind sometimes what I feel conspire to make me take a step back and between trying to work 20 hour weeks, falling and spraining my wrist the first week of the semester and getting incredibly sick, by December of 2018 I was at one of my darkest places I had been in a very long time and ended up suicidal in a psych ward needing to hospitalize myself for proper mental health care. Forget dreams of Paralympic medals I didn't want to wake up the next morning. A large focus in the care was focusing firstly on just the day to day and then just basic monthly goals, no need to focus on big dreams and goals as they can overwhelm and send you back down the dark spiral. This all made sense and for a while, I was ok with just focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and slowly but surely get back to university and while getting into the basic grind and doing it well is great, at the end of the day I'm still a hopeless dreamer regardless if I always share the dreams and goals. There is a constant inner fight in my brain of wanting to just be an elite athlete and push my body to the extreme and blank out the racing thoughts and the mandatory other parts of life that I need to achieve. So I had thought that I completely turned off the inner clock and timer to "Tokyo 2020" I'm not training in any sport that has any relevance for me at the Paralympics at this time, so why this wave of emotions in response to seeing the symbols and words? It brought back to the forefront of my mind this clock ticking down to the Paralympics that I thought I turned off completely but it turns out I seem to just have hit snooze enough times. It's not like I forgot I still love to compete and push myself to my physical limits but considering I had literally no training in any sport at any level even close to being relevant to the Paralympics, I almost didn't believe it was something that I still considered a dream. So after figuring out that it is still a dream, I am working on balancing my mental health needs, university and work needs and physical needs, while believing that dreams are important but creating the small achievable goals for now and as my path through life evolves hopefully I will be able to bring the paralympic dream back into my life. For now, I'm focusing on growth and evolution, and maybe I'll be able to cheer on others at Tokyo and maybe not, but now at least I know where I'm at and have actually processed what I wished and in the back of my mind hoped for some kind of paralympic dream. Heres to me owning the year 2020 regardless of if my dreams were gold medals and now they are good grades.
"2020" For years I had an imaginary finish line that I wanted to cross at "Tokyo 2020". It was a somewhat elusive sports goal of making the Paralympics after my paralympic dream for 2016 fell apart for a variety of realities that combined to remove the goal from reach. When I returned to Israel in 2016 my focus changed from being consumed by sports dreams and goals trying to be achieved through workouts and pretty much eating, sleeping, and breathing sport, to focusing on university and Israel and the process that entailed to make it there. I worked on myself, mentally and physically in different ways trying to balance the idea of working out without focusing on a paralympic dream and goal. Throughout these past three years, I went through a variety of hospitalizations, between a voluntary in-patient program at an eating disorder clinic for a couple of months, where I gained new tools and friends. I started wheelchair tennis only to end up with a few different short stints in the neurological unit of the hospital where I got much less help and made no friends. The lack of explanation and ability to solve the pain and loss of sensation, led to pressure being put on me to do fewer sports and working out less in hopes that the pain and loss of sensation would disappear. In that my paralympic hopes and dreams seemingly disappeared from my mind completely and the focus turned to university and a job. Of course, my body and mind sometimes what I feel conspire to make me take a step back and between trying to work 20 hour weeks, falling and spraining my wrist the first week of the semester and getting incredibly sick, by December of 2018 I was at one of my darkest places I had been in a very long time and ended up suicidal in a psych ward needing to hospitalize myself for proper mental health care. Forget dreams of Paralympic medals I didn't want to wake up the next morning. A large focus in the care was focusing firstly on just the day to day and then just basic monthly goals, no need to focus on big dreams and goals as they can overwhelm and send you back down the dark spiral. This all made sense and for a while, I was ok with just focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and slowly but surely get back to university and while getting into the basic grind and doing it well is great, at the end of the day I'm still a hopeless dreamer regardless if I always share the dreams and goals. There is a constant inner fight in my brain of wanting to just be an elite athlete and push my body to the extreme and blank out the racing thoughts and the mandatory other parts of life that I need to achieve. So I had thought that I completely turned off the inner clock and timer to "Tokyo 2020" I'm not training in any sport that has any relevance for me at the Paralympics at this time, so why this wave of emotions in response to seeing the symbols and words? It brought back to the forefront of my mind this clock ticking down to the Paralympics that I thought I turned off completely but it turns out I seem to just have hit snooze enough times. It's not like I forgot I still love to compete and push myself to my physical limits but considering I had literally no training in any sport at any level even close to being relevant to the Paralympics, I almost didn't believe it was something that I still considered a dream. So after figuring out that it is still a dream, I am working on balancing my mental health needs, university and work needs and physical needs, while believing that dreams are important but creating the small achievable goals for now and as my path through life evolves hopefully I will be able to bring the paralympic dream back into my life. For now, I'm focusing on growth and evolution, and maybe I'll be able to cheer on others at Tokyo and maybe not, but now at least I know where I'm at and have actually processed what I wished and in the back of my mind hoped for some kind of paralympic dream. Heres to me owning the year 2020 regardless of if my dreams were gold medals and now they are good grades.
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