Get A Grip - By Letting Go

What happens when a group of people who were inspired enough to do what it takes to transform their bodies and lives get together for a weekend? More inspiration.

Tony Horton, the trainer of Power 90 and P90X, held his annual Santa Monica fitness camp this weekend. This is where he and thirty people get together to share their experiences with his programs, actual customers get to train in person with "the man" and celebrate living a more active, healthy-minded life. It's a cool thing to witness when he fills a room with people who are proud of themselves and proud of each other.

These types of events happen all over the country - there have been Beachbody get togethers in Chicago, New York, Portland, and others. The Hawaii trip we hold each fall is invitation only and is probably a favorite, our Super Bowl of get-togethers.

Anyway, this Saturday's group had planned a morning at a rock climbing gym called Rockreation. Since I did not have specific plans to meet up with them, I decided to bring Ava (my 5 year old daughter) to "hang with the kids" from the walls at Rockreation.

It was amazing to see those familiar faces and extra special to meet the new success stories that the last wave of leaders held accountable to succeed through their support within the MyBeachbody system. And while I appreciate every "thank you" I get from people who appreciate what we put into these programs and the overall mentality that is "Beachbody", it is they who continue to impress me with what's possible. Every one of these folks had seized onto the simplicity of Tony's programs, and literally found what it takes to turn their lives around. Now I was watching them scale walls, dangle upside down from ropes, and embrace life with an enthusiasm most of us left behind in grade school.

Predictably, Ava was my special highlight. She stepped right up to the excitement, asking to climb once she saw Tony go inverted. So we suited her up, and I belayed her up the wall. Then this crew showed me what "extended family" means, as they turned to applaud my daughter as she explored this new adventure as if they were blood relatives. After she came off her first ascent she had to find Tony; "I did it I did it I did it!" And moments later she was back on the wall, hunting for a grip, finding a toe hold. She was total focus, her little tongue twisting through her lips as she stretched for each step higher.

At one point as Ava came off the wall, I looked over to see Ronda Hendrix, a person I met in Hawaii last year, now climbing twenty five feet in the air, hanging from her fingertips to get another foot or two up the wall. The group had turned to cheer her on. My story with Ronda is beyond this blog, but I have a great deal of pride and affection for her and her family. And to see this woman, who two years ago was carrying 60 extra pounds, straining to reach the top of an otherwise-pointless climb up a wall leading nowhere, actually choked me up. You couldn't tell that from her determination that she had ever been anything but fit and courageous, which goes for every other person in that room that faced their own demons and fears to give it a shot. I wish every one of our Beachbody customers, or all those gym members out there, and of course frustrated fad dieters could have seen the enthusiasm being shared by these people. I wish everyone could see what is on the other side of ignoring the excuses or your history of failure, and truly achieving transformation.

When/if you happen to be in the midst of your own fitness or weight loss program and you are struggling with motivation, these are such great examples of real motivation you can turn to. This is the foundation from which you can "keep pushing play" when the pull of a great AFTER photo is not doing it for you. That's because these are examples of how amazing it can be to bring joy into your life if you let go of the baggage that is trapping you in your own patterns of abuse and thus limiting your enthusiasm for what lies ahead. When you just let them go, when you stop judging the present by looking back, you can experience what is being presented to you right now. When you are stuck, check yourself for the guilt, fear or blame that is crowding your ability to live a moment the way your REALLY want to live it. You simply can't carry a grudge on your back and experience the joy of climbing a wall of rocks. The only way to get a grip, is to let go.

And even when you accomplish the kind of transformation we've seen in so many before and after photos, it's possible for the grievances to creep back in. This is a never ending process of cleaning house. Patterns will find their way back, which is how you can find yourself staring in the mirror at a brand new "before photo". But the best part about square one is, you know you are never without hope. You know what it takes to turn things around. And if you really do let go of blame, guilt, and shame, you will find it a smooth transition back into the healthy lifestyle, and more important, back into a mindset that will support a happier existence.

The good stuff is all there for your own inspiration, whether it's Ava's courage to take on the wall at five years old, or Tony M's ability to climb back into the program that helped him once (and find that the first trip wasn't a fluke), or Gregg and LeAnn Steele's bottomless pit of gratitude and zest for life, or Ronda's ability to face trauma and not abandon her life or the potential of the rest of her family -- or so many other inspirational stories available from every member of the Beachbody family.

Set backs happen. Accidents happen. Trauma happens. And that's when guilt, blame and thus fear, can happen. I am convinced that my own job in all of it is to manage how I react. My job is to let go of the past and pay attention to now. Let life happen. Everything else works when I succeed at letting go. That is what I learned while watching my daughter, a trainer, and thirty almost-strangers as they celebrated their success together on one Saturday morning in Santa Monica.