Each morning when I awake, I reach for my iPad to get a glimpse of the world outside of my bed. Today on facebook, the CrossFit Games linked to a blog post by the ever-amazing Julie Foucher (for those non-CrossFitters reading this post, Julie Foucher is a beautiful CrossFitting machine and a soon-to-be doctor). Julie eloquently describes her experience of watching the play “Wit”, a story of a renowned English Professor who is battling stage four ovarian cancer. During the character’s struggle, she is stripped of her “busy self” (her identity of doing, accomplishing, earning and creating) and her “physical self” (her body which, ideally, functions on its own) and is left with what the author refers to as her “true self”.
Julie discusses the possibility of seeing one’s “true self” within the confines of a Crossfit box. As she says, once you enter your local box, things related to your “busy self” – your career, your salary, maybe even your family – become irrelevant because everything is about the WOD. And even though we are using our “physical selves” to perform the WOD, there are brief moments when our bodies say, “OK, that’s it – I’m done”, but we push on, in defiance of our body’s words, and go to a place where it is possible to see our true selves.
As I read Julie’s account, my eyes blurred with tears. I, too, know that it is possible to see your true self through CrossFit. As I thought back on the hundreds of WODs that I’ve performed, the one which exposed my true self was easy to recall. During my first Murph, there was an extended period during the second mile when my body told me I couldn’t go on. But after thinking about the heroism of the real-life Michael Murphy, the heaviness in my legs and the burning in my lungs became unimportant. My job didn’t matter. The weather didn’t matter. My extreme discomfort didn’t matter. Finishing was the only thing that mattered. And not only did I finish, but I finished strong.
I didn’t know it at the time, but my true self had come forth during Murph. And now, while I lie in bed, leg elevated, with my “busy self” put aside and my “physical self” immobilized, perhaps it won’t be so bad to spend some time with my true self. Because now I realize that my true self is a part of me worth knowing.
Back on Two Feet 