Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don’t fight them. Just find a new way to stand.

Oprah Winfrey

Down in the dumps, barraged by life, destroyed by anxiety, exhausted by depression, vexed by breathing, I was lost in a sea of sorrow. I know that the news from the hematologist wasn’t the usual death sentence this last visit, but the long term side effects of living an anxious life was starting to show on my mental status. A vicious circle that cycles through its various phases over and over again will devour the life right out of a person if you don’t seek a solution. You can be 100% physically healthy but lack a will to live in your head. We are our thoughts after all, and what we can accomplish almost always correlates to how we think.

I was very lucky, I was at this stage in life and I knew that I had to make a choice. I had been doing the work to push myself in the right direction by devouring every type of literature on motivation I could think of, and some of these influential idols that I found myself following did push me. I was in a lull with my physical health and I saw this time period, similarly to before at the start of the three month wait the first time, as a chance to make some progress. Unlike the last time though, I knew this was a crucial step in my long term mental health. I had to find a way to vent and get thoughts off of my mind. I had to find an outlet. Part of the reason that I had gotten so depressed throughout this process in the first place was my lack of working out once I found out I wasn’t going to live very long in the beginning. I stopped everything; all of the vitamins and protein that I took on a daily basis throughout college, all of it. I always saw weightlifting growing up as building for something; sports, competition, etc.. When you have nothing that you see on your horizon to live for, it is insanely hard to justify in your beaten-down point of view to try and build to be healthy. I wasn’t healthy, no point on building to be healthy anymore.

Although my outlook on weightlifting and working out had changed with this wake-up call in my gut, I needed it. I realized that there was definitely a reason that I was able to handle all of the stress in life that I had lived through up to that point and physical exercise was a constant throughout all of that story.

You live. You learn, and you upgrade.

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I started out very small, a cup of coffee and then a walk to the gym at my apartment complex every single day. I started with lifting, because it was what I knew, but then quickly started adding 30-60 mins of cardio a day to my regimen. The cup of coffee was a help with this. At first I was so very sore every single day, not having worked out in so long. But after a couple weeks of doing this every single day, it was becoming an addiction once again. I found myself going to the gym two times a day during this period of my life and it was just for that satisfaction I got from all of those good chemicals released in your brain during exercise. I didn’t go for any sport, I didn’t go for any competition, I just went because it felt good and I missed feeling that sense of happiness. I had to be in the gym and zone out the entire world. I had to ignore the people in the gym who were training for something important in their lives, an event. Every time the realization hit me, even if the future is unforeseeable, I had a lapse and breakdown. That used to be me…I would lift the weight, listening to one of many motivational idols of mine reading one of their books to me. I would lift the weight, listening to one of my own motivational recordings that I had made the night before. I went to the gym to be a student of life. I distracted myself from not being what I used to be, with how I could make the world a better place now. I started wanting to motivate and inspire at this time, but wasn’t in a good enough headspace to do it just yet at the capacity I wanted to. I made video after video telling people that they were cared about, telling them why they should treasure that day, that moment. I needed people to keep fighting through the daily battles with me, I wanted to help.

This turning point in my life is very important to me still to this day. This was the time, that I learned that the journey was what I should cherish. I didn’t have the ability to cherish the lifting competitions or football anymore, all I could do was cherish the time in the gym. I realized that there was no final victory that I was working for, but I was fighting for the long term battle. I tried to make this my mantra every day, “lets enjoy the battle today”. A campaign in war, just like life, is made up of daily battles every single day and I had to keep looking forward to every single battle. If I ever plateaued and stopped caring about the battle, I wouldn’t have much to keep living for would I? Its not about winning to me anymore, its about cherishing the battle, the process, the journey.

Of course, this thought process is difficult to maintain and I often have lapses even to this day. There are days when everyone definitely gets an extra dose of “feeling mortal”, and those days absolutely suck. But… As long as you get back on the tracks and do the battle, you still will be in the game of life, you still will be breathing. At this point in my story I still wouldn’t understand completely what was going on in my head with my mental health, but this got me through this three month stretch. I truly turned my sights to the areas of my life that I thought I could excel quickly in, not knowing what my future would be. The two that I knew I could be successful at was making lives better around me every single day and helping people within my community. I know many of you will say that I should’ve focused on myself during this time, but honestly it helped me knowing I was helping others. I wasn’t going to waste time, not helping people.

I cant wait to share with you what happened next in my life! Next we will reach that next three month check up and also how my working out affected it. I really missed writing to you all, I hope that you will keep reading and sharing this story with your friends and family that you think would benefit from reading it.

Peace, love, and all the above!

Love, your clotted Alex

Thank you so very much for being patient for this post to come out! I appreciate your patience, I was off getting married! Meet the new Mr. and Mrs. Negro!

Come and see our website at theknot.com/alexanderismeganithappen2021 to read more about our special day and check out my YouTube channel if you would like to see videos from the day! Still many more videos and many more pictures to come! Many have asked me for where we were registered at and the registry is still active on there I believe, or you can also donate to this cause!

Thank you all so much from the bottom of my heart for all of your support!

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