Off Season Training Recommendations: Enrichment, Renewal, & Joining A Cause Close to Your Heart

Winter challenges our wellness goals. Here are some strategies. First of all, surrender a bit to the hibernation inclination. Get refreshed. Take time to learn. Maybe enroll in a class. Read. Write. 2nd: Plan something: a project, new goals, an athletic event, or travel. Set some benchmarks toward achieving your goals. 3rd: Experiment with new recipes & better nutrition. What’s best for you: Low Carb, High Carb, Paleo, Vegan? 4th: Choose a cause that matters to you and get involved. Find the tribe(s) where other like-minded individuals are working on the same mission. Sign on and be a part of something greater than yourself.

Here's the Sporting Our Spirit mission.  Active Grief Relief has been a focus of mine for some time. What is it? Active Grief Relief is a program to help individuals set back by grief (all different kinds of grief) get back to really living life. Grief is about loss: the death of a loved one, a divorce, a job, friends, a lifestyle, health. Grief brings about some crushing setbacks to the way you used to live your life, to your natural momentum. Manageability of the grief process can be supported with sound fitness. That’s a fact!

The SOS program proposes fitness, good company, and nature as prescriptions against becoming “stuck” in sadness and sorrow. It works. We can & do help. We are different. We talk less and move more. Anything from walking around the block to an ironman is possible. For us, at Sporting Our Spirit- the key target group, the number one focus, is all those who have suffered the loss of a loved one due to suicide, and maybe even attempted suicide themselves. Survivor & grief support is not "trendy".  People don’t want to talk about it. Never mind talk, some can’t even think about it. Yet suicide and loss reside in and plague so many families. This is the day & age of endurance events.  Events for the cause of, grief relief and suicide prevention & survivor support are incredible rare. Do you know of any?

In the past, I have been discouraged (maybe just my ego) by the smallness of my tribe and the quietness of our voices. Let’s (together) remember, there IS such a thing as "the power of one". Well, for Sporting Our Spirit, make that the power of two. Josh Shadle, my Boulder, CO son, is certainly invested in SOS. Our goal is to bring hope through the same vehicle that gave us hope: move, get physical. Small steps progress to bigger challenges. And everyone at sometime is affected by grief. Want to help?

In review, this winter, consider: resting more, learning something new, trying new foods and recipes, planning future travel and challenging events and goals, finding & joining a tribe that is doing good for a cause you are passionate about. 

A Gift of Hope from an Airline Passenger

An airline passenger who brought me hope……

To be like a child can be a good thing. Why? I think it relates to trust, an openness to “possibilities” not limitations. When I fly, I often think of Jacob, my son who died in 2004. Lifted to puffy clouds in an endless sky ignites mystery and brings Heaven closer to Earth. Likely, this is a childlike mind-set that heaven is in the clouds. But the ritual of remembering gets me to thinking. This thinking about loss is tricky, especially of my son. More often than not, the Jake connection is likely to bring me to tears. Being a private person and in the airport sea of strangers, I do all I can to hasten along these thoughts, closing with a prayer to the Almighty Coach for encouragement.  “Get me through this. Make the thoughts happy. Help!”

Do be careful what you pray for. Here come-ith the lesson. This day, Oct. 25, I was flying back to FL out of my stopover in Chicago.  Boarding, I found my aisle seat and stood waiting for my seat mates to annoy, crowd, entertain, or enlighten or some combination.  A large, elderly (86 years-old) woman took the remaining middle seat.  Being a book lover, I am often curious about what others are reading, especially travelers.  Our chatting began then over the book she was reading. She told me a story that came  straight from her heart, and (I believe from) heaven. I am not sure what to do with it, so I am writing it down. Her conversation began about the book she was reading, Heaven is for Real.  The book was a best seller. It’s about a boy who almost dies, actually he may have died during an operation but lived. She said a relative gave it to her because she had a son who had died a few years ago.  At age 21, he had suffered a terrible accident was left paralyzed. So this mom took care of him for some 50 years. Here was her answer to my question” “To what do your attribute your long and healthy life? “Well,” she said, “God let me take care of my son all those years. I could not stand to think he might have had to live in a nursing home. He had tons of friends and a wonderful attitude. You know ,” she said, “he never complained about his lot in life. Well, just once….He banged his fist on a wall and yelled out, ‘Why me, God?’ I went to the wall, she said, and I pounded back, ‘Why me, God?’ She said, he laughed and so did I. He added , ‘You really do have it worse than I do, don’t you, Ma?.’” I grabbed my hankie with the peppermint and eucalyptus. It was all I could do to keep it together. I wanted to understand the pieces of her story as they related to me and to Jacob. What would my life have been like caring for him for the rest of his years? Would he have been able to laugh at life? Not likely. He had all he could handle even when his days were good. I know this woman beside me is/was a “presence”. Yes, on an earthly note, she takes up a lot of my already cramped airline space. But on the spiritual side, she has been gifted to me this day. Just as my heart was sinking remembering Jacob, my childlike mind prepared for a “possibility” and another angel appeared.  It happens quite often. “I’ve got him,” says my Lord. Yes, because I am an athlete, & because I do have a childlike imagination, I like to picture our Lord like a great outfielder. He will catch us every time, & most gently at our finish, He will catch us for all time. Indeed, He has my Jacob. I pause, I look over at her, this 86-year-old. I don’t know her name. Her book is down, as she quietly mouths the words to the Rosary, fingers working along a lovely wooden bracelet. Thanks  be to God. Let me remember you Jacob in the way that God always remembers each of us: full of love, goodness, and of course….Possibilities.

Sporting Our Spirit workshop presentation notes

Jacob Austin Shadle, B-7-12-78, D-5-15-04

Do you have any idea how much we miss you?

Sporting Our Spirit at The Compassionate Friends- Arlington, VA.

July, 2010 National Convention:   

Highlight notes to remember

Presenters:

Susan Kelly

            Contact info:

            Fort Myers, FL

            Email: Susan@SportingOurSpirit.com

            Web: www.SportingOurSpirit.com

           

Josh Shadle

            Contact info:

            Boulder, CO

            Email: josh@tri-massage.com

            Web:  www.tri-massage.com

Quotes and messages

Our ability to endure our experience of loss will tell us much. “I tell you hopeless grief is passionless.” Elizabeth B. Browning

“In the midst of winter, I found in me an invincible summer.” Albert Camus

“Trade with the gifts God has given you.”  Hilda of Whitby

“Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.”  Matthew 5:4

“It is the nature of Grace to fill the empty spaces.” Goethe

“Every morning I wake up saying, I am still alive, a miracle. And so I keep on pushing.” Jacques Cousteau

“You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase. Make use of suffering.” Henri-Frederic Amiel

“In a grand piano, 243 tight strings exert a pull of 40,000 pounds on an iron frame. It is

proof that out of great tension may come harmony.” Theodore Steinway

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” M. Kathleen Casey

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Viktor E. Frankl

“God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel his pleasure.” Eric Liddel (Olympian)

References (a comprehensive list for grief relief, fitness, spirituality, and nutrition):

http://www.sportingourspirit.com/resources.htm

Fitness:

Bergland, Christopher. The Athlete’s Way: Training Your Mind And Body to Experience the Joy of Exercise. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2007.

Grief Relief:

Hickman, Martha Whitmore. Healing after Loss: Daily Meditations for Working through Grief, (New York: Harper-Collins, 2002).

Nutrition:

Bean, Anita. The Complete Guide to Sports Nutrition: How to Eat for Maximum Performance. Guilford: Lyons Press, 2004

Carmichael, Chris. Fitness, and Life Plan for Discovering the Champion Within. New York: Rodale Press, 2007.

Harmon. Nancy. The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook: A Delicious Alternative for Lifelong Health.  Random House, 2008.

Fitness motivators. The basics: believe, breathe, hydrate, move.

Find a fitness buddy. Exercising alone is the number one reason why many individuals lose interest.

Join a gym and take classes.

Check your local parks and recreation or YMCA.

Join with other athletes exercising for a cause:

         Team in Training- Leukemia/Lymphoma

         American Heart Association

         Breast Cancer

         Arthritis Association

         Out of Darkness- Suicide awareness

         Medals for Mettle- athletes donating finish medals to cheer the hospital bound

         Christian athletic groups- FCA, (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) AIA (Athletes in Action Sports Ministry), CAC (Catholic Athletes for Christ)

         Join: Sporting Our Spirit club- be a part of putting faith in your fitness and sport in your spirit.

Notes to self:

Newton’s 1^st Law of Motion: Unless acted upon by an outside force, a body at rest tends to stay at rest, and a body in motion tends to stay in motion.

How many sports can you name where you could belong…as a volunteer, a spectator, or best of all…participant….competitor?  Let’s start with ping pong,

How will you start? 

Inspiration for the hard times. James 1:1-4

Has your heart ever been broken with great sadness? Have you ever faced a situation in life where you were sure it was more than you could endure?

Here is a good scripture for those hard times: "Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness (defined as: steadiness and loyalty in the face of trial and difficulty). And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." James 1:1-4.

It is yet another reminder, that we need to do the impossible. Not just to believe our way through the tough times, but to "count them all joy". Now that's really asking a lot: that we should count our trials as joys? Of course, by no means are we to seek out suffering. But when it comes, and few are spared its visit, pray for the strength to welcome it. For with faith, we can endure. Think about it: can anyone really know perseverance without the test? If you have never faced down the thing "feared" or the unutterable, terrible despair, how can you know the gift of fortitude? If you have never neared or hit the wall within, that internal gauge which reads "empty" with nothing in reserve, how will you know your potential to prevail? This is when the mystery of the Spirit becomes real.

Sustaining hope and joy in the face of adversity is the topic of exploration in Sporting Our Spirit. I hope to use the power of sports' metaphors and the virtues embodied in sports (athletes, coaches, games, spectators, and all) to reinforce great lessons of the Gospel: endurance, running the good race, lifting up others (our earthly teammates), and most importantly, trusting God, our heavenly Father, the ultimate Coach and Referee. Know that it is possible with His help to press on. God showed us the unsurpassable example of loving determination and commitment to His will through the life of Christ, His son, our Savior, the ultimate Olympian. Christ did give his all. He stayed the course....perfectly. In Mark 9:23, Christ asks the question of us... "If you can? All things are possible to those that believe." So "be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go"(Joshua 1:9).

The citation from the bible book of Joshua is fortifying and personally relevant to me. Joshua is also my younger son's name. We have in common our determination in life, quite likely a benefit derived from our athletic aptitude. We have also been scarred and transformed by tragedy. In 1999, we were a family of four. Over the course of 5 years, we would lose David and Jake, father and son to depression, substance abuse, and in the end, to suicide, both of them. Our hearts ache with grief. Most days we accept and live with the reality of our losses. Some days, the "why's" and "what if's" are brutal and exhausting. Our story is awful and one (usually by our own doing) that can often alienate us from others. Yet, together, Josh and I, though separated by lots of miles, have survived, sometimes even thrived. Neither of us deserves or desires any special credit for persevering. I believe it is by the Grace of God that in light of our tragedies, most days, we are optimists. The desire to help others by sharing the fruits of God's grace is my objective.

Please visit the Sporting Our Spirit website and feel free to share your feedback.

God Bless.