Thoughts About Pushing Through.
Does time actually heal everything? Is life as bleak as it seems? How can we move forward after a painful event?
When I reached for my phone after waking up last Friday morning, I accidentally swiped left and the daily news digest popped up on the screen alongside all of the other widgets I never cared about enough to curate.
Instinctively—breaking my rule of never reading the news first thing in the morning—I took a peak at the headlines.
A sad story sat sandwiched between Tom Brady-Giselle’s high-profile divorce and Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition. The CBS News title read: “At least 853 migrants died crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in the past 12 months–a record high.”I felt the need to fix my glasses.
Did I read correctly? I took another glance. A sudden sense of helplessness and disgust crept up on me, I quickly shrugged it off–selfishly.
I locked my phone and put it on the nightstand. I removed my spectacles and laid them next to the digital device as I silently sat up against the chilly wall, staring at the blurry empty space in front of me.
For some reason, there’s an entrance door in my NY apartment’s bedroom. We don’t use it, but I always found the decision to put such an architectural device in this particular location puzzling–why would anybody put two main doors in a tiny apartment?
I shrugged this thought off too.
My attention moved to the fluffy comforter covering my legs. Its cozy warmth tempted me to slump down and surrender to slumber.
I turned my eyes to the digital clock sitting on the shelf by the window, it was only 6:12AM. A bluish light filtered through.
Still sitting up, I closed my eyes for half a second; a whirlwind of unwanted thoughts began obfuscating my mind.
A series of cluttered “What Ifs” flashed before me in the darkness of my eyelids. I needed to break the pattern immediately.
I grabbed my glasses and chose to stand up against my anxiety. I wasn’t going to allow dark ruminations to affect me.
I yanked the covers off my legs and made my way to the kitchen for a cold glass of water.
As the cup filled up with tap water, I wondered how people can actually quench their thirst by drinking something that tastes so metallic and “wrong”. The bland flavor must grow on you over time, I assumed.
I noticed a yellowish beam of light shining through the cracks of the door of our home-office. I checked in with my boyfriend and decided to head back to the bedroom.
I stood by the bed motionless, listening to the sounds of the early morning: birds chirping, the sanitation department, muffled construction work in the building across the street.
I could hear the city wake up, but all of a sudden, the volume of the thoughts in my head cranked up.
I felt like I was standing in the middle of a print shop on Monday morning, the annoying hiss of busy printers churning out the day’s press bouncing off my forehead. Except, they weren’t spitting out sheets of flimsy paper, they were squeezing out my neurons.
To get myself out of this weird rut, I decided to go on a run. The physical pain would stop me from overthinking.
As I sprinted towards the park, a strong feeling of satisfaction pervaded me. I was satisfied with the fact that I didn’t let my anxiety take over and ruin a perfectly fine day. I pushed through.
Pushing through is a (good) concept that is often romanticized–and watered down–in today’s day and age.
Hoards of social media motivators use it to their advantage to monetize off anecdotal self-help techniques that lack real foundation, their yellow captions screaming at you through the screen, telling you how to dig yourself out of the hole.
These people often dramatize their success stories to win a spot at their local TedX conference, to show the world that if they could do it, everybody else can too.
“It’s not easy, but it’s doable” they say in a pitiful tone of voice aimed at stroking a compassionate chord in the audience, as they pace back and forth on the dimly lit stage waving their clicker in the air.
Some stories are truly inspirational, others just feel fabricated.
But given the unpredictable era we are living through–a time when we are bombarded with news of war, climate doomsday and detrimental political propaganda–it is not surprising that the Self-Help industry has grown into an extremely profitable business worth USD41.81 billions, and “is expected to grow at a rate of 5.5% from 2022 to 2030.”
Being the best version of yourself is not a bad goal per se, it’s indeed a rule everybody should live by.
It would definitely improve our way of life, create opportunities and pull people out of poverty faster than it’s already happening.
Unfortunately, though, this mantra has been co-opted by corporations, the media and internet charlatans, who–in the name of their own profit–force-feed fake dreams to those in need of a little push.
In a blog post that makes sense but is also sort of hypocritical given his background, Mark Manson–a NYT bestselling author, and I guess, life coach–wrote:
Self-Help Reinforces Perceptions of Inferiority and Shame:
Two types of people get hooked on self-help material: those who feel something is fundamentally wrong with them and they are willing to try anything to make it better, and those people who think they’re already generally a good person, but they have some problems and blind spots and want to become great people.
It is indeed hard to sieve through the readily available material without letting it consume you and make you feel even worse. Oftentimes, the stories offered by these self-declared life coaches omit some fundamental details to highlight the parts that are guaranteed to go viral and grant them fame and recognition.
But it doesn’t stop there.
Self-help has become a benefit offered by new-age companies run by millennial girl bosses and Ivy League bros who “care for the wellbeing of their employees”. Yeah, right.
For example, Spotify–one of the top ranking companies to work for according to The Economic Times–implemented a “Wellness Week” to help people detox from–what I assume is, given the name–a toxic work environment.
I guess extending their employees’ PTO didn’t sound woke enough, hence the holistic-sounding name.
As somebody who struggles with keeping anxiety at bay, I can see why so many of us fall trap to this trend and resort to feel-good quotes and superficial 60-second long advice between a bathroom break and another, but what does pushing through actually mean?
All the internet has to provide as an answer to this quite philosophical—definitely very abstract—question are tips on how to overcome physical pain in the context of gym exercise, but if we look at it through a metaphorical lens, the advice is actually pretty transversal.
How to Push Through the Pain
There are a great many tricks for pushing through that wall and squeezing every little drop from that workout1 and while everyone has their own way of dealing with these forms of muscle and endurance building pain, the most common ways to help yourself push through the pain are:✓Distraction-Have something else in mind to think about before you hit the gym, so you can distract your mind from focusing on the pain
✓Repeating a Mantra-Focusing on a mantra, such as “I can do this”, is a trick many bodybuilders use. Think of the Little Engine That Could, and you get the idea!
✓Think of the Payoff-Don’t attach negative emotions to pain. Replace them with positive emotions and thoughts, such as the payoff of reaching your goal
✓This Too Shall Pass-Keep in mind that pain is fleeting and that it will be over with quickly
✓Deal with It-People who believe that they can deal with pain always do exactly that. Tell yourself that it’s no big deal and you can handle it. It will surprise you at how this mindset can change everything
✓Do It with Purpose-Don’t focus on how much it hurts, tell yourself why you are doing it. “I am working hard because (fill in the blank)”
✓Break it Down-Tell yourself that you will stop after one more set or 5 more minutes. Breaking down the workout into smaller chunks makes it easier to tolerate pain
✓Picture a Reward-While you don’t want to undo your efforts with a hot fudge sundae, you can entice yourself to keep going by picturing a reward like a smoothie or a new book.
In times of worry, my Sicilian father uses this adage: ”Forza e coraggio che dopo Aprile viene Maggio” (translation: be strong and brave that after April comes May").
As silly and dismissive as it may sound, I feel like it summarizes painful moments quite well.
If we find the courage to move forward, time will be our doctor.
I repeat it to my friends—and myself!—to remind them that pain is temporary whenever they are going through something that is making them sad or demoralized. For the most part, it works. When it doesn’t, I take them out for a good dinner and fine drinks.
After all, the only way to move forward after a depressing event is to look for the silver lining.
Replace “workout” with whatever hardship you are going through.
Cool stuff I think you will enjoy too:
📖 This Article by Marshall Sinclair — For those like me who are pretty skeptical about corny Self-Help gurus
🗞️ This Twitter Account that lets you know about all the good things happening in the world! / They have an app too! Say goodbye to doomsday news!
🙋🏻♀️ One of my favorite things I ever wrote / I revisit it whenever I am grieving over my dead grandmother.