the difference between doing whats right and doing whats right for you.

There was once a time in my life not very far removed from the present moment where I felt that if I ever did anything then I would have to do everything with my life. It was an endless battle between the choices I wanted to make and the expectations that had been set up by for me by my family, friends, boyfriends, society... and most of all myself. For the longest time I just let all the pressures of life build up inside of me as I tried to live up to who I thought I should be... most of all I wanted to be everything to everyone and for a long time I felt as though I was doing a pretty good job of keeping that up. Yet People were able to see right through the act and straight to the core of who I am. The act after awhile left me questioning and doubting everything I had ever come to trust about myself.

Who is this person? This person is NOT PERFECT.  I know its a shock... and I can give you a moment to take it in... but unfortunately I can no more be everything to everyone than I can walk on water.

So what does this all mean? Well I means that some times its ok to just stop trying so damn hard. In my quest for perfection I never seemed to quite measure up.. everything I thought I wanted for myself always seemed to be just out of reach. I always let the seeds of self doubt and inadequacy get to me. I let them talk me into slowing down before I had even started the race. I set myself up for failure even though I though what I was doing was right. For an example there were times in my life with my ex where I felt like I didn't measure up to his standards. I wasn't pretty enough, or good enough, or smart enough... or enough of what he wanted.  So I did things to change that, I did things to change myself to become the girl I thought he wanted me to be.  It was partially the original motivation for why I started crossfit. So I could be good enough for him... I know stupid right.

While I received some benefits of becoming who I thought he wanted me to be, the game had changed... I changed in the process more than anyone could have imagined. What started out as being something I was doing to be good enough and change myself for someone else, for the world... became the catalyst and confidence builder I needed to remove myself from an unhealthy relationship with myself and those around me. It gave me the courage to realize no matter how many times you may think you are right for continuing to try to measure up to the expectations the world places on you, that ultimately it's a zero sum game there is no winner.

So I just stopped trying. It came down to a day many months later when a friend asked me "Sherris you do so much for everyone else, and you change yourself for everyone else... but what have you done for yourself lately?" In that moment It kind of dawned on me that all these things I thought I was doing for me to make me "better" were actually harming me in nondescript ways. That in trying to please everyone by doing what was "right" and acceptable I was harming myself.  Ultimately my relationship (the love i so despratly wanted to give) would lead to a lost, scared, needy little girl. One who felt the need to dis-empower herself to become what she thought was expected and wanted of her, one who would sacrifice herself and her morals...her very essence... for someone living in fear.

Through the course of my whole relationship, I lied to myself, and those around me because I thought it was "right". I thought I was expected to suffer in scilence and protect my significant other because I wanted others to see the "man" I fell in love with... and not judge him for his indiscressions which broke my heart on a daily basis. I did all of this out of fear... fear of loss...fear of judgement...fear that I really wasnt good enough, that everything I thought about myself was true. For the first time I had lied to myself so much that I actually believed for a second that I had it all that I could fix problem and live happily ever after. 

Sometimes "dreams" have to shatter into reality for you to realize that you were meant for so much more than a life of expectations, secrets, and lies. That its not enough to be what you think everyone else want's, because at the end of the day it's just you... alone. working through the images and feelings of what happened.


It was only after the fog was lifted and those who really wanted the core person below the facade remained that I realized something important...  what everyone else wants from me doesn't matter. The only Thing that does matter is what I want for myself.  Anyone who doesn't reinforce the strong, confident, amazing woman I've always been can just move out of the way.

At the end of the day I have to live with either the wreck or the masterpiece I create, the only difference is I am not doing it to please the world anymore.

A year and a million lessons learned...

I feel like I have been drafting this blog post in my head for an eternity. I guess it has been hard to put everything into words and I have been procrastinating a bit. Anyways, I am sorry for being such a terrible blogger... I will work to fix this, but no promises.

The real reason I am posting is because this month I celebrated a year living the crossfit lifestyle. While this may not seem like a big deal to most, I am celebrating because a year doing anything consistently is a LONG TIME.  My foray into crossfit has lasted a lot longer than most Hollywood relationships and honestly I am a better person because of it. I have never felt stronger... mentally as well as physically. More importantly I have never been more affected in a positive way by the people who surround me. Each person in this community that I have encountered (with very few exceptions) not only wants themselves to do well and crush challenges they never thought possible, but they also want everyone around them to do well and become the best person they can possibly be.

When I started I was amazed by the athletic ability of everyone around me. I was out of shape 60 pounds overweight and had just let myself go to the point of being apathetic and sick. I had not taken care of myself since my days of playing lacrosse. I was searching for a way to be better and no matter how hard I worked at the regular gym I wasn't getting the results I was seeking. That's when by chance I was introduced to Crossfit during a free Saturday class. I was hooked from the instant I tried it. The thing is I wasn't very good at it. I had a terrible squat, basic barbell movements confused me... and my clean was just plain ugly. Beyond the mechanics of it all I was just plain weak... which is a mild understatement. I had a lot going against me those first few months... no one would have blamed me for becoming frustrated and quitting. In fact that's what some people thought I would do. However, I maintained... I dove head first and tried to become the best I could possibly be because I wanted to excel at this... I actually enjoyed it. I started eating right and became a healthier version of myself.

What came with this outside transformation was a new found confidence. The Idea that I could do anything I put my mind to. I dropped 60 pounds in about 4 months. not only did I look good but I felt great too. Through diet and exercise I was able to completely transform my entire way of being. while I was not at the level I wanted to be at (because I am a very competitive person) I continued to thrive and grow in my movements.Workouts became more manageable... my crossfit life was marked by milestones, such as my first unassisted pull up, my first RX workout (which as it happens was fight gone bad), PR's on lifts, PR's on benchmark workouts... crossfit has become much more than a workout program but it is a way of life. I feel blessed each and everyday that I am in the best shape of my life at 26 but also that the world is no longer passing me by.

Ive had the opportunity to work with individuals who are passionate about this training as well, It is their stories and unfailing ability to encourage and put things in perspective that has kept me coming back day after day, week after week, month after month. While I may not be my best on any given day and I may be first or last on a particular workout, it is without a doubt the community of people who push me to be better.. no matter the result. For this I cannot be thankful enough. To be able to witness their triumphs and failures has pushed me to at least attempt my own. It is true what they say if you never try then you will never know.

In July I became crossfit level 1 certified, this was a big moment for me because I not only believe in this method for myself but I understand the potential impact on others... I have truly fallen in love with crossfit.

While it hasn't always been an easy road... in fact it is an uphill battle most of the time... I have persevered this year through, injury, heartbreak, and setbacks. I could not have made it without starting crossfit... without becoming a part of this community... because no matter where I stand on any given day I have been given the strength to test myself and overcome the obstacles. Win or lose, I never fail, a year later I am still learning and growing from this experience... to say that it has been a game changer would be an understatement... good or bad crossfit has saved me from my biggest enemy... myself.

Mountains beyond mountains

Remember when you were younger and it was okay to dream? I do I remember fantasizing what life would be like when I was all grown up. Who I would be, what I would do, and where I was going. it became a game for my friends and I. Inevitably life lead back to the idyllic American dream of the 2.5 kids, house, family, and the seemingly obtainable career... sometimes I was an actress, other times an adventurer.  It seemed so easy to know it all back then, to define a life without limitations.

Now that I reflect upon it i have changed my mind a million times in 26 years. I have come to the conclusion that in the beginning I started my path because it was what I should do, not what I wanted to do in actuality. It lead me to amazing places and discoveries, I went from wanting to be a doctor, to wanting to be a lawyer, to realizing I wanted to help the world. Yet somewhere along the way I lost the sparkle i used to see the world with. I lost the Idea that I could do, be, see anything I wanted. The world became grey and dingy and I learned the sting of disappointment and heartbreak... I lost sight of the mountain peak.

 This is an idea I have thought a lot about the past few months. Dreams and reality why cant they be one in the same? Why do we separate one as unobtainable, and settle for less? Ive come to the conclusion that its because Ive lost my sparkle. The way I saw the world when i was a little kid. Everything was new and obtainable. I was filled with ideas that i could do anything, that i was untouchable. Instead Ive become hardened to "reality", where I am forced to choose between dreams and life, should and want, passion and money. Yet I KNOW that this isn't all there is to life that it wasn't meant to be seen in black and white but rather a full spectrum of bright colors. That the mountains of life only look unscalable from the bottom.

The truth is the unscalable mountain is shorter than one might imagine. That dreams are closer to reality then we can even fathom them being. its all about taking the extra step to get there. Not settling for good enough but... for the best. While life will always be a series of peaks and valleys, happiness and heartbreak, disappointment and courage, conquering and falling, and every emotion and action in between... it is not impossible to climb the mountains of our dreams. For me its all about gaining that innocent sparkle I've lost, to stop controlling myself with all the should's in the world and embodying the will to see and be my dreams.

It is no longer about climbing one unclimbable mountain but mountains beyond mountains... there is no turning back or running away... envision it and it will be. Leave the darkness and take hold of the light within me to achieve the impossible. Dreams are no longer a measure of impossibility but rather a step towards the peak of the next mountain, they are the measure and light towards whats to come and what will be, my dreams are my future and my reality.

sometimes its ok to say enough...

So today in Tucson was the dreaded 5k run day at my crossfit gym and if you follow the main site its up there too. Normally I don't mind running, I'm actually pretty descent at shorter distances. I will fully admit I suck at long distance running yet I was actually kinda excited to tackle this beast in the heat. Well I was completely humbled today by a 5k run something that seems so natural yet so hard for so many people. I was able to finish a mile of the run before I just quit. My body literally told me NO. After the first mile my calves and lower back were seizing up so bad that each step felt excruciating, there was no way I would be able to do it two more times.

It pained me to walk away from a work out, It pained me to write DNF next to my name. Mentally I wanted to keep going, I wanted to move forward... but physically I just couldn't do it and honestly I don't need to hurt myself anymore than I already am at this point. The thing is that sometimes its OK to say when enough is enough, it is OK to tap out.

This is something I really need to work on.  Today was a step forward in terms of listening to what my body was saying physiologically. Then again I more than likely shouldn't have started the workout to begin with. While crossfit is about not giving up, it is about doing your best, it is about putting so much effort forward that you leave it all on the floor at the end. However, there comes a point when you have to say how much more can my body handle? Today for me it was only a mile run which I guess I shouldn't be disappointed in given my recent state. But, at the same time its extremely frustrating to start something you just cant finish. Mentally it is hard as well thinking back to all the times I shouldn't have finished but I did.

I can say that the entire experience is entirely humbling, what it has shown me is that I cant take anything for granted, that on any given day circumstances change. There is a difference between pushing through pain and pushing through weakness and today I listened to the cues i needed to be safe in my workout and my own skin. I am not proud about not finishing a workout in fact it will bother me until I do a 5k again. I am proud of listening to myself and realizing the difference between pushing my body and protecting it.

more to come...

"Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength."

It's Spring Time... No Really!

 Someone much wiser than I am once asked me why i was afraid to have it all, that person went on to assure me that it was okay to desire and have anything I wanted in life. At the time i just kinda swept that idea under the rug, like most things I'm not ready to hear or deal with, and i moved on ... back to my daily routine and didn't think about it again until today.

As of a few days ago it has been 6 months since Sean has been in my life.  This relationship had a profound impact on me. At the time I was shaken to the core, I literally was broken on the inside and it showed on the outside. Due to unforeseen events in the wake of this break up I suffered further. It got to the point where I desired nothing and no one. I just wanted him to suffer the same way I was suffering and feel the pain I felt on a daily basis. As time went on the pain lessened but the hurt was still there because I had never fully let myself feel it, instead it manifested inside me just waiting for an inappropriate moment to show it's self. 

I never really listened to the cues my body was giving me until a few months ago. I continued my routine post Sean because it was easy, it was just easy to hurt, and i beat myself up on the outside (over training, becoming highly obsessive about eating patterns, binging...etc.) to mask the real pain i felt on the inside. Yet nothing changed it was like I was a moment frozen in time, nothing got better, and nothing got worse life just was. 

In hindsight I can honestly say that this break-up was a gift. I have learned things about myself and who I truly am, I have been stronger than I ever thought I could be, and I have done things I never thought were possible. Most of all I have become closer to the most important person in my life... Myself. 

The past six months have become an interesting challenge to discover who I've always been. I learned the gift of loving someone else unconditionally from my relationship, but i had never put that into practice on myself. I am the kind of person who will consistently try to change to "fix" myself or become "better" because I've never really thought of myself as good enough. Self-esteem issues and self doubt have plagued me for most of my life. However an interesting concept that I have been thinking about lately is the idea that: I never needed to be fixed because I was never broken. Now this idea is something that I am still trying to wrap my head around and really understand.  Yet, I decided to dive deeper into this concept and I have since begun to learn and understand that truly loving one's self is a lot harder than it ever was to love someone else. The more I love and the more I try to listen to my body the more little epiphanies occur.  Its almost as if they are little rewards like the gold stars we used to get on our homework when we were younger. It has been these rewards that have been the most telling on this journey.

So back to the idea of having it all. Today feels like the first day of spring for me, its like the dormant flowers within me are blooming and bursting to get out. The past few days I have really felt my body, I have started to desire again, to actually want things and people in my life, to feel what its like to have those relationships. I think the most telling moment came today as I was driving home from the grocery store, I realized that my body never lied to me during my relationship. In fact I could take it one step further and say that my body is the one piece of this relationship that always told me the truth no matter how hard it was to listen.

Even though I always felt it was betraying me during my trips to see Sean, or his to see me, it was in actuality telling me he was wrong for me before I could mentally realize it for myself. So I tried to control it rather than listening to it taking massive amounts of hormones, including birth control to shift the balance back to what I thought normal should be. I thought for the longest time that this was some sort of betrayal i needed to change and fix, I cried and agonized over it. Yet since that time I have not had another occurrence of these issues. Being off all the medications i was pumping myself full of every time I was with him has been liberating. I know now that I was not broken that I was exactly who I always been, and that I have always been enough just the way I am.

In that moment I got it, I understood that I truly can have everything I desire in life. That the gifts of love may not be shown in the way I think they should manifest themselves but that they will always be there. I don't have to be anything more or less than who I am, and who I am is everything. Someone once told me that I already had all the answers I just needed to take the time to listen to them. While it hasn't always been easy -in fact i still doubt myself on a daily basis- and I haven't always gotten answers I wanted to hear and/ or listen to, this lesson of love has been the most rewarding journey I have ever taken ... and its only just begun.

This is real

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

So I have been thinking a lot about fear lately and how this word/ concept is so powerful to most of us. It blows my mind that so many people (myself included) use fear as a crutch to never truly experience life. Most of the time it is fear of the unknown that stops us from taking the plunge, all the what ifs lead to thoughts of failure, rejection, inadequacy, etc. so we never dare to venture to close to the edge of the proverbial cliff least we fall off and end up in an uncontrollable situation.

Even tasks that may seem simple to most can become a chore and a scary situation due to fear. For the longest time i was afraid of box jumps don't ask me why but moving up even an inch created this knot inside of me and made me so uncomfortable that i just couldn't make the jump without doing a step up or even without hesitating. In my head i had already given up before i even tried. I told myself i couldn't do it, because i was afraid of falling. The thing is that sometimes we need to let go of that control and let ourselves fall to experience something we never thought possible. Yes we might "fail", there is always a chance of that, but does the risk of failure outweigh never truly knowing what you could be capable of? Is it worth not experiencing all the possibilities?

In most cases I would say no, and even if "failure" occurs there is a lesson to be learned. I have become more educated from my failures in life than from my successes. That's not to say that I enjoyed the experience, or that it was an easy lesson to learn but it makes the successes in life all the more sweet. The moment your at the top and you know that you did it against your own best efforts to sabotage yourself is what continues to drive me on a daily basis.

At the end of the day fear and failure are two concepts that stop us from achieving the great things we were meant to take on in life. No matter how small or insignificant the action may seem from jumping on a box, lifting weight overhead, submitting that resume, or allowing yourself to love and be loved in return. It is the choice to go for it against the odds that enriches our lives. There is no "Can't" in this world only "Won't", but in reality you can and will do everything you put your mind to. It may not happen right away and it may not happen without tons of "failures" along the way but the moment your determination becomes reality is one of the sweetest feelings in the world, it is something that cannot be described... only experienced.

So the question I pose today is one of growth: Are you going to be the kind of person who faces fear and fights through it even if it means you fail? Or are you going to take the path of least resistance and back down to your own insecurities? Ill take the former please :)