Thread: Inner Work
I used to believe that progress was a straight line.
A disciplined line. A measured line. A well-documented line that moved forward if you were simply willing to suffer enough for it.
But nothing about this season has been straight.
It has been curved. Folded. Soft at the edges. Sometimes messy. Sometimes slow. Sometimes almost imperceptible.
And for the first time in my life, I am not trying to force that into something cleaner.
I am letting it be.
These days, “training” looks different.
Some mornings, the body feels heavy, and I allow it to move slowly.
Some days, the heart rate refuses to climb, and I don’t chase it.
Some sessions surprise me with quiet strength, and I don’t get attached to the feeling.
I simply notice.
The work is still there. The SkiErg, the rower, the bike, the sleds, the weighted movements, the careful layering of strength and endurance… none of that has gone away.
But my relationship to it has changed.
Instead of asking, How much can I get out of this?
I now ask, How carefully can I move through this?
Because I’m starting to understand something deeper:
Rhythm is not built by demand.
It is found through listening.
So I have been adjusting, adjusting, adjusting.
To the breath.
To the way my feet connect to the ground.
To the way the mornings feel.
To the way silence affects me.
To the way calm shows up inside my chest now — not as emptiness, but as presence.
There is a kind of intimacy in that.
With the body.
With the moment.
With time.
And strangely, with something else as well.
There is a quiet passion that has entered my life from a distance. Not something I hold in my hands, but something I carry in my awareness. A feeling that doesn’t demand attention, but softly changes the way I move through my day.
It has made me more patient in my training.
More deliberate in my recovery.
More protective of my heart — not in a fearful way, but in a reverent one.
As if my body suddenly matters in a new context, not just as an instrument of performance, but as a bridge to something meaningful.
And that changes everything.
I am no longer trying to get back to who I used to be.
I am becoming something different.
Not slower. Not weaker.
Just more aware.
More honest.
More alive.
The adjustments aren’t dramatic. No big declarations. No radical overhaul. Just small, frequent course corrections — the kind that happen when you stop fighting the current and start moving with it instead.
And in those small adjustments, I’m starting to notice a rhythm forming.
A new cadence.
A softer but stronger version of myself that doesn’t need to announce its presence.
It just exists.
It shows up quietly.
It does the work.
It feels the day fully.
And in the same way I have learned to listen to my body again, I am also learning to listen to my life.
To the silences.
To the spaces between effort.
To the things that don’t shout.
Those are the places where meaning has always lived. I just moved too fast to notice before.
Now, I notice.
Now, I am here.
Still adjusting.
Still learning.
Still staying in motion.
But in a different way than I ever have before.
And for once, I am not in a hurry to get anywhere else.