You Don't Need a Boyfriend Who Plans Dates

Just Pick Up Some Weights

I’d like to give gratitude, more specifically for the masculine. I think it’s easy to loose sight of what you have when you’re focused on what you want. Often times we’re pining for a specific shape, pathway, person or channel to deliver our desire. But with less pining and more presence it slowly dawns on you what you’re looking for is right in front of you.

Mina Irfan pointed out to me that the masculine container is everywhere and supporting us all the time. Often women (myself included) attempt to outsource the desire to be held, protected & provided for to romance. But in actuality there are many systems, people and routines that provide the experience of structure we’re looking for. I’d like to give thanks to a few men and a couple non-human forms of structure to share my gratitude and insight. I like long posts, but I’m challenging myself to shorten them and share one every week or so.

Dustin - my strength coach - After training myself and others in weight lifting for years, I was ready to flip the script. My desire was so clear, I need to flirt with the edge of my potential. I knew I wanted someone else to facilitate that for me. Ready or not, here comes Dustin, and before I knew it I became a power lifter.

The gym has revealed more to me about myself than just about anything else. It’s a mirror I can’t quite put into words. When I’m in the gym I uncover who I am under the weights and how that person shows up in the world. Dustin as a witness to this personal development is nerve racking and relieving at the same time.

He’s seen me, see me. And that’s been one of the most vulnerable processes to date.

Every other month he sends a text that brings me to tears, ranging from encouragement, to witnessing or asking a question that goes straight to the heart.

He pushes me without rushing me. He cues the shape of my body and ALWAYS tells me to lean into the sensation. Dustin doesn’t believe in rejecting discomfort, always embracing it and staying present in the body. I trust him with my thoughts, frustrations, perceived short-comings, anxieties and defeats. He facilitates my external strength but he’s done more for my internal.

Not everyone will find a personal trainer at the same caliber of Dustin. But I bet if you reflect on your life, there will be a masculine presence that accepted and encouraged your process to be something greater than you were. Someone who saw the “unobtainable deadlift” in you before you saw it in yourself.

And for all the men that allowed the process, guided the emotions and accepted every shape of the body, I give thanks.

You can support Dustin’s vision with his company Entropic here or keep up with him on his personal instagram. If you like learning, sarcastic humor, fitness inspo and incredible sunsets you won’t regret the follow.

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