The Gift of Defeat
Defeat is a curious experience that can push us down, take us out, or it can motivate us to reach deeper for something we were previously unaware of.
I love to compete in CrossFit competitions. I would like to leave you with the impression that I’m an incredibly talented and high-performing athlete, but the truth is very different. My athletic journey has been riddled with struggle. My journey in CrossFit started with me getting sober and searching for a way to shed excess weight and to restart my heart. A part of me had died in my active addiction and I forgot how to care about myself, but this post isn’t about addiction. What I want to say here is that I started this fitness journey ready to face my fears and to work through some painful challenges.
The Body Mind Connection
The body cannot be fooled by our pretense. You can’t fake out your body and pretend to be awesome and then hammer out a bunch of chest-to-bar pullups. Everything about my training has challenged my body and it has called me to tap into a mental grit I didn’t know I had in me. The work of an athlete is to train the body and the mind.
Walking into the CrossFit gym for the first time was a challenge, and everything after that has been painted in the same hue. The difference today is that I know I am capable of things I haven’t even comprehended yet. I also know I will be uplifted by a community of people who work hard and who want me to succeed along with them.
A moment of defeat
The photo with this blog entry is my absolute favorite comp photo. I never compete thinking I will win. My typical placement is somewhere in the middle—not first and not last. I can’t even tell you where I placed in most comps. Every competition is followed by a flood of professional photos released on social media, and many competitors search every pic for a capture of their awesomeness. I am not immune to the desire to find a photo making me look incredibly strong and athletic. This photo, however, was taken in a moment of defeat. Prior to the scene captured in this picture, I was hanging from the rig with my teammate working hard to get fifteen synchronized toes-to-bar.
I am going to backtrack to provide a little context for the reader. Toes-to-bar is a movement where you hang from a bar, swing your legs back, and then you swing them up so your toes touch the bar. Simple right? In this event, we just had to make our toes touch the bar at the same time. Prior to this comp, I had spent three years practicing my toes-to-bar, and I had never performed them synchronized with a partner.
Okay, back to the competition. I had failed 9 out of 10 attempts to synch our movements up, and my attempts were getting harder and less successful. I dropped from the rig, hung my head, sucked up my tears and my head was filled with messages about what I can’t do. I was convinced I was done, and I was failing in front of an audience of peers and strangers. Shame started to swallow me up and I wanted to run away. I mean really run away and hide so I could let the tears out.
Lifting another up —the power of two
With a little time left on the clock, my sweet friend in this picture dropped from the rig and came over to speak life into me. I was slumped over and trying to find the strength to pull myself up to the bar again. She put her hand on my back and came in close so only I could hear her. She said, “Look at me.” When I didn’t look, because I couldn’t make myself make eye contact, she said it again, “Look at me.” I locked eyes with her and she proceeded to say what I needed to hear. “Here’s what you’re gonna do. Get back up on that bar. You will swing back, swing forward, swing back again, and then use all your force to bring your toes up. Start the first back swing on my count of 3.” I just nodded my head and followed her instructions.
I would like this to be one of those stories like Rudy where I knocked it out of the park and we ended up winning. That didn’t happen, but this was a moment of victory nonetheless. I was no longer defeated, I believed in myself again, and I got back up on the bar. The shame was not winning, and I got at least one successful toe touch with my teammate. That was enough.
A power greater than ourselves
My victory here was not marked by a trophy or a podium picture. It was marked by a picture of a moment of defeat. You see, with defeat, we have a choice. We can allow it to stop us by convincing us we are done, or we can find something in us that we couldn’t see without experiencing defeat—the last bit of grit, the will to persevere, the refusal to give up. That day, the support of my partner was integral in me finding out what I was capable of. I see defeat as the gift that brought two souls together and shined a light on a power greater than ourselves.
When we stand alone in our defeat, we are faced with a battle between ourself and ourself. When we are with another, we become stronger and more capable than our bodies and our minds can comprehend. The connection between two souls carries great power, and it is where God can work miracles within us.
The moment in this photo reminds me that God is with me all the time, and He can breathe life into me when I feel defeated. He shapes our character through struggle and He uses our human connections to sharpen us when we have reached the limits of ourselves. He is good all the time.
“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17, NIV)
