155 Burpees later...

I just did 100 Kettlebell Swings and 155 Burpees. Am I bragging?? Yes. Give it a try. Then you'll fully understand where the bragging rights come from.

Let this be a shadowing of the brutal workouts to come in 2011. And me saying it in public will help me to fend off the excuses that I know will come my way throughout the year :)

For me, my fitness has a huge spiritual connection. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I became addicted to exercise about the same time that a lot of things started to change in my relationship with God. As the fear and manipulation that had held me so tightly started to fade into a better understanding of the Love and Grace of God, so did my fear of working hard physically.

So I've been thinking a lot about fear lately...that pesky little monster that doesn't always seem so little. What am I afraid of?

rejection
true intimacy
loss of pride
being viewed as prideful
being fully known
being mistaken for someone or something I am not
being right
being wrong
being heard
not being heard

It's funny how so many of these fears are exact opposites of each other. The truth is that we are so often captive to our own thoughts...thoughts that often don't hold any truth at all. We waste our time being afraid of something, and then when things change, we develop a new fear.

What's the worst that can happen if we let go of all of our fears and "what if's" and simply live our dreams?

we could lose a friend
or offend someone
or fail and have to start over.

But likely we will

gain a friend
encourage someone else to live out their dreams
and succeed.

I decided that I'm willing to take some chances. There's something burning in me. It's a trust that no matter how many times I fail, letting go of fear and pressing towards that mark (getting some courage from my good buddy Paul), that I will gain more by taking chances than I ever would by doing nothing.