The person that lives in my head

Okay so there's not really a person that lives in my head, but who is that constant annoying voice that is always making lists, judging people (including me) and telling me what I should be doing. From the books that I have been reading, I call this "voice" one of three things: my Ego (from A New Earth), My Lizard brain (from Linchpin), or my Story (lululemon development). I personally don't really think it matters what we call it, I think the important thing is that we acknowledge it, separate ourselves from it and rewrite thoughts that are beneficial to us not harmful. We are not our thoughts, yet our thoughts most definitely manifest our reality. In that sense our thoughts create our life so controlling them and being aware of them is extremely important. On Friday my Ego won.

The WOD of the day was:

For time:
30-25-20-15-10-5 reps of
Pull-ups
Thrusters (45/33)

My Ego says, "Shanna you can not do 105 pull ups, use a band" I listened and asked if I could scale the WOD with a band. To which my coach says "No you can RX it or you do jumping pull-ups" Jumping pull-ups is like a step backward for me....so I say "Okay let's do this thing" Yet the story in my head is saying "This is going to take you forever, you can't do this, you're not strong enough yet, do half and switch to jumping....."

I have this mental block with pull ups, and yes its a story I tell myself but this Friday I felt strong before I let my Ego take over. Since my hands usually end up like this after 10 pull-ups:

I was terrified of what 105 would do to my hands so I made some tape grips following this guys advice:


Taping your hands for pull-ups from CrossFit Los Angeles on Vimeo.

and I took Muscle Fuel, which makes you have superhuman strength:

I felt confident that I could get through the WOD with a small tiny little band......but the band was a crutch, it was a satisfying treat for my lizard brain. When it was denied that simple pleasure it tortured me and I gave in. I did the first 75 pull-ups on my own, the whole time comparing myself to others and worrying about not being strong enough to finish, and then I gave into what my ego wanted from the beginning and switched to jumping. Yep, with 30 left to go I quit. And on the board as a constant reminder of who won, it says "JPU" not "RX" next to my name and time of 28:34. I could have finished RX, but I didn't. Not because I wasn't strong enough, but because I let my thoughts tell me how it was going end. The worst part is that WOD was my chance to bury my fear of pull-ups forever. Will, my coach, kept saying "keep going Shanna, after this every WOD with pull-ups will be easy" He was right.

On a good note my hands ended up in pretty good shape:

Right after the WOD

24 hours after the WOD

Those grips rock! I'm excited to overcome my fear of pull ups and now that I am aware of my Ego's sabotaging behavior I will kick its ass when it starts deciding my future for me again. I have a crossfit compeition coming up next week called the Nuclear Winter and one of the WODs is max pull ups. I'm going to win that one.




Here are some eats from the last couple of days:

Paleo Pizza! Crust made out of a huge portabella mushroom, organic bacon, ham and salami, marinara sauce and topped with a little raw cheese. Yes a little cheat but you only need a little tiny bit and its better option than soy.

That stuffing Jere made went a long way...I used the rest of it to make meatballs, a spinach salad, and a very small sweet potato. Another small cheat on the ranch dressing...its make from greek yogurt and we only use it in small quantities.

What's going on in your head?