Shifting into the New...Knowing It or Not

[November 12, 2024]

So what is this space, if not a CrossFit reflection space? I am finding myself pushed out of specifically CrossFit-affiliated spaces...for now...

My entrance into CrossFit six years ago was incredibly unusual, I was reminded recently on a walk with a friend. I entered my first box owned and facilitated by a strong woman, physical-therapy doctor whose space-holding and coaching both invited me into my journey of relinquishing decades of ingested shame AND helped my overly verbal-cognitive self not hurt myself. Five years of affiliation there grounded me in CrossFit and nutrition-re-education methodologies (even including completing the CF Level 1 training), as well as convincing me of the power of community to sustain my new love of heightened activity, athleticism I knew I had but had long lost until 2018. I smile with another friend’s notion of late-onset athletics as a diagnosis. Duly diagnosed. I need intense activity at least 4-5 times a week to be a good human being, with other complicated human beings today.

Then in 2022, my work toward writing a book shifted my capability surrounding class-times with the affiliate, so I joined an affiliate much closer to my home whose schedule worked for my professional responsibilities and unfolding project (coming out late spring, Living on the Other Side: Sacred Bewilderment, Holy Rage, and a Freedom Beyond Forgiveness, Cascade, 2025). My home-box decided to relinquish the space and affiliation, closing in May 2024. Such a good choice given different life choices and age of sons and more…I was glad for them…and while I was sad too, I had this other box for my practice.

Which did provide excellent and more diverse coaching styles, as well as some ‘strategic offerings’ leading me toward strength-training/weight-lifting. I am thankful for what I learned there. This morning on a longish run I was treating myself to--not the HiiT or SiiT I've been exploring--I realized I never had felt like I belonged there. It's pretty cliquish, and partner workouts are emotionally charged, as pairs always work with the same people, so those of us who don't have a ready partner rarely find one without public "misfitting." And it's a highly mobile military crowd...they have an in-conversation and culture that us outsiders can never crack into anyway. I will miss the owner, and one coach--both older men who are seasoned enough to listen better and express more hospitality, compassion, welcome. It was weird to realize I never did feel like it was a community for me. Not really. So you can't lose what you never had.

I had never fully felt nor faced the reality that CrossFit, by and large, is hugely Republican/MAGA these days. It had not been my experience and I’ve been a bridge-builder for so long that I just walked into the notion that my presence could be transformative for Good there. I’m always a center-then-peripheral leader, after all. I join, commit deeply, finding a central energetic role, then move to the horizon of Good I sense, hoping others will come with me. Of course they rarely do, which pisses me off, so then I realize I’ve outgrown yet another space and then move on. I know I’m not an easy client-member-participant, but I am who I am. Drink of water at a fire-hydrant. I was never going to be welcomed anywhere close to the center of this one...living always on the periphery, without contact or connection, really. Or perhaps just at the depth and breadth I require. My bar for using the word friendship is very high, with no apology. I am friendly to all, as best I can be.

The events of the last week have clarified for me that I need to up-my-practices/offerings an octave or more. I am withdrawing from communities no longer in alignment with the value of all human beings’ flourishing (and I do mean all, even those I most dislike or who have wounded me). I am retracting from white male religious spaces, though my roots are deep in the world’s wisdom traditions. I have a strong sense of the transcendent, Sacred, all within all of this…so secular does not provide much for me. But my (now previous) CrossFit box is overwhelmingly white, male, Evangelical, military. 

I paused my membership, thinking I would think about it til January. I’m a bridge-builder after all. Then I discovered last night that my Wodify account had already been deactivated, though I had committed (so I thought) to the month of November. It felt like a shove out, when I got the notice. I went to all my shame, insecure, violently-male visceral experiences…until I double-checked my bank account. The owner had forgotten to charge me for the CF month at all. So I actually saved a chunk of change, and deactivating the Wodify app was the plausible action. When I realized it, I laughed aloud.

I guess I’m leaving, I said aloud to no one.

Then another dear spirit-friend, a woman with whom I have traveled into the depth, heights and beyond, suggested we meet twice a week at a local gym with a hugely diverse population and community-building ethos. (i.e. African-American, lower economic resourcing, welcoming, knowing way more about community resourcing and deepening than my white-ass often knows :)). 

And two days ago, in a fit of frustration with my Ohio neighbors, I committed to the six weeks of Empower, led by a hugely powerful women’s friendship team, with the author I’ve been reading for over 6 weeks now.

It all works out, just as it should. Even this sh*t-show in the States cannot repress the creative power of the F/feminine, as we reach out and create liveable spaces for all human beings, as best we can, learning along the way. 

But now I don’t know what to call my blog, as if it matters, but it does to me, word-smith body-soul in process.