Eleven years ago, we opened a CrossFit gym because it was Jeremiah’s dream, but the catalyst to signing that first lease and going all in on it together was that I was in a battle for my health and I was desperate. Inside the walls of our gym I lost 145 pounds, and I literally got my life back. But along the way, another thing happened that I never saw coming … I became a walking before and after picture. My physical transformation was crazy and people noticed which led to me getting to share my journey with hundreds of thousands of people through interviews and online articles. That was amazing, and I loved sharing this hope with other women that if I could change my life then so could they. After years of hard work and dedication, I had reached my goal weight and I felt invincible and strong and confident and seen and then 2020 happened.
In case you haven’t heard, 2020 was rough. And I wasn’t one of the people who picked up a new hobby and organized closets.
I hit a point where I thought I might never feel joy again. It was after I had dealt with crippling anxiety and panic attacks following the closing of our gym and the uncertainty of 2020. But I had been healing and processing and I was feeling hope again … and then my dad died. I was like a boxer who was losing but not willing to quit, using every bit of strength I had to stand up and steady myself. I was upright, but my legs were still wobbly and my head was still spinning from all of the previous hits, when, seemingly out of nowhere, the crushing blow of losing my dad landed and I melted into the floor. It didn’t just knock me down, it knocked the hope out of my lungs, and I thought I might be pinned to the floor under the weight of my grief forever. As I grieved my dad, that loss seemed to open up flood gates that I didn’t know I had built up around my heart! So suddenly I found myself grieving the loss of our gym and everything else that had been taken away in that season. But worst of all, as I laid there, unable to stand back up, I began to believe that maybe I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was, and I grieved the loss of everything that I would have told you made me … me.
I could write a book about what it took to get from the floor to standing in front of an empty warehouse contemplating how to turn it into a gym again, and maybe I will, but that’s a story for another day. For now, as we open the doors to our new gym, it’s on my heart to share this:
I’m coming back to fight again, but this time it’s not for a number on the scale. It’s for joy. I’ve seen and experienced the goal weight that I thought made me feel worthy and happy, but I lost my grip on that. I haven’t seen that number on the scale in 2 years, but I found something that was better to stand on than a scale. I found what matters.
I want to be healthy and strong and capable, yes! But any idea that being a certain size would ever matter has been sifted out of my life. It turns out that having an amazing before and after picture doesn’t sustain you in the midst of a global pandemic and loss. But that’s not to say that everything that was built in me through our old gym and through my weight loss journey was worthless. Quite the contrary! Because the things that pulled me up off of the floor on my hardest days were things that Parakaleo CrossFit gave me.
First, Parakaleo gave me my people. It was the people that we had spent time with in the gym who were the people that we did life with when the world shut down and who stood beside me and carried me when I couldn’t carry myself. People. Real friends. My family. They were the only thing that got me through. I was being crushed by anxiety until I finally opened up to a few of my closest friends about what I was going through. Having people around me who would check on me and pray with me and tell me that it was all going to be ok was what made it all ok. When my world fell apart, I found out that real, deep, doing life together community was the only thing on earth that mattered.
And second, Parakaleo gave me hope. In my 10 years of running a CrossFit gym, I developed a very strong belief in people’s potential for change. Through personal experience and through watching it happen over and over again in the lives of others, I came to the conclusion that ANYONE who wants it can experience transformation. So even when I was at my lowest low, deep down I still believed that change was possible. And believing that something is possible is what hope is. And hope was the only thing that kept me going on some of my hardest days. I’m not going to lie, I never dreamed in a million years that I could ever hope for Parakaleo CrossFit to open up again because that required a bigger transformation than I had ever witnessed before in my life in Jeremiah, but that’s also another story for another day.
So I’m coming back different. I’m coming back with a different perspective on what matters inside the walls of a gym. I’m not here to crush PRs or lose 10 pounds. I’m here to do life with people and to give people the same hope that saved me. I don’t honestly know if that sells memberships or not, but I know it is what I was made to do. I’m still really happy to talk about nutrition, but I’ll also tell you about ways to feed your soul. I’m SOLD OUT on the life giving power of transformation, and while that definitely includes bringing strength and healing to your physical body, the heart of transformation is found in discovering the person that you were born to be, and the road to transformation is lined with people who will come alongside you to encourage you and fill you with hope that you already have it in you to be all that you were made for! That’s actually what Parakaleo means; to come alongside to encourage. We had that name before and we experienced it to some degree, but this time I’m ready to live it out loud.
Living Parakaleo 