Embracing the suck

Several months ago the owner of my gym was giving instructions on bear crawls. This animal movement involves walking on your hands and feet while attempting to stay low to the ground. As the group grumbled about having to work on this, Chris encouraged us to "embrace the suck". His rationale? It is only by doing things that are hard that will we ever get stronger. 

In order to be strong I must embrace my inner warrior princess!

The past week I've had to keep that mantra in mind.  It's not that it was all bad, but there were moments where I was pushed out of my comfort zone. 

Here are some examples:

Every morning I wake up without an alarm between 5:30 and 6 am. This week I woke up like I regularly do, but was so sleepy I refused to get out of bed until the last possible second. I embraced the suck. 

At work I had a day filled with a type patient that I don't normally see. I like to consider myself an expert at my job, so it's not easy floundering around with diagnoses that I have little expirience with. I embraced the suck. 

I had to own up to a mistake I made. Everyone loves to be right all the time, but that isn't always possible. When you're wrong it's best to say you're sorry. I embraced the suck. 

This weekend I spent a morning at the beach, but instead of working on my tan I was working on my fitness. The workout involved open-water swimming, burpees, push-ups and running ... While in my swimsuit! I embraced the suck. 

And now at the end of the week I'm a stronger, better person. I know I can get ready for work in <20 mins. I've added on to my work expirience with another patient population (maybe someday I'll even feel like an expert). I felt the shame of making a mistake, but also the support of the people around me. And of course I proved that I can get through any workout on land or in the sea!

Perhaps "embracing the suck" is easier when you live in Hawaii. 

BTW- Everytime I wrote "suck"  Blogger autocorrected to "duck" and I had to manually change it back. This would have been a completely different post if it had been about "embracing the duck"! Quack quack. ;-)

And now for the pic of the week:

What a great view for my drive home!

Want to know my guilty pleasure this week? I made crack crackers! Here's the recipe:

Crack Crackers

1 box mini saltines (or one sleeve regular)

1 cup olive oil

1 packet dry ranch mix

2 Tbsp chili flakes

- Preheat oven to 250 degrees 

- Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl & let sit for 10 mins

- Bake for 15-20 mins stirring once halfway through

- Enjoy, but be careful cause these crack crackers are addictive!

Mahalo!