On January 22 I did this thing called, Suckfest

27 miles… 4080 reps… Just under 14 hours… broken down into 15 reps of two workouts followed by one lap around the building which is 2/10 of a mile… Are you do that 135 times and god damn you got a Suckfest

You can find out more about the ritual called Misogi on my Instagram post by clicking here

My mentor Bedros Keuilian would contextualize your brain during suffering, going to a place he would call the “other room”… That’s what all this is really about.

Now I can only imagine that the other room looks different for everybody.

And I wanted to take some time to walk you through what mine looked like, and I only realized it hours AFTER doing what I thought would take me there.

Now when you’re doing something like this, you’re aware but at some point your brain is going to go to that place,

you are going to feel that it’s sucks,

you’re going to hit that roadblock where are you sitting ask yourself “fuck am I actually going to finish this…”

What I discovered about myself was that I was very good at distracting myself, & there’s a term for this called disassociation…

Disassociation shows up, something like - when you are arguing with your partner,

when your parents are yelling at you,

when you’re locked in to video games, or work or writing,

And you find yourself able to tune out,

you hear your voice speaking to you over other voices, you know how to go to another place, and dodge the rocks coming right at you, literally or figuratively..

All out of fear of something hurting, avoidance of pain.

During Suckfest, it was listening to different podcasts, listening to live sets of concerts, and even at one point listening to real life scary stories… I can’t even explain that one🤷🏽‍♂️…

At one point my headphones were about to die, my phone was about to die, so it came time to mount it up and plug them both into the chargers and continue on without my distractions…

Now at this point, it didn’t quite start to suck yet, but let’s just say I was becoming more and more aware of the pain, the repetitiveness, and the excuses in my head…

It wasn’t until near mile 19, that the long-haul was over and the destination was in sight…

I realized that the taste of victory, the finish line was very near…

What I learned the hard way, is that when you’re near the end, when you’re so close to victory,

our natural instinct is to want to sprint towards the end…

What happens there is we begin to drop all of the things that got us to mile 19, the things that got us through the near completion..

I began to ignore my sweaty palms, my thirst, and my hunger, because I thought that I was so close to the end but I can just finish and move on…

This was a huge mistake…

It hit me like a truck, wether it was that early on or later on, Suck Fest was going to suck… And I hit that point right after completing mile 20..

I’m not sure if it was the thirst, the hunger, the miles with no headphones, but at one point I began talking to myself.. out loud..

Around this point one begins digging and searching for motivation in all places, like running down a hallway opening each door, frantically trying to attach yourself to some thought, or phrase, or “peaceful place” because shit starts to suck..

One place for me was thinking about my inner child… I have been reading the book How To Do The Work by Dr. Nicole Lepera and that was just the freshest thing on my mind…

So there I was, imagining that six-year-old boy walking alongside me,

and that it became my job to show him the man I’ve become,

the reason I was doing what I was doing,

and what kind of guy, he can expect to turn into…

Right at that point, the questions begin to roll out…

Is he proud of me?

Is he proud of the way I treat my woman?

Is he proud of the life I’ve created up until this point?

and with no excuses, I held his tiny little soft hand and we talked about why I was where I was…

All I can recall, was the conversations letting him know that everything will be OK, that everything you fear will one day mean very little, and that all the people that you will need love from, you will get…

and for a couple more miles, I began to fight back tears…

Not for any particular one reason, except the fact that I was doing something hard which only few, will truly understand…

and explaining that to him, was just a feeling I really enjoyed…

I eventually snapped out, with nearly 3 miles to go… Checked my phone, fully charged, plug my headphones back in, by that point my girlfriend Jeree and my best friend Shelby showed up to give me support in the last two miles…

Bombarding me with questions like,

“How do you feel?”
“Are you proud of yourself?”

and at that point the pain pain was nearly unbearable, and I barely mustered out a “yeah sure”…

I reached my final lap, Jeree and Shelby went inside to go and help clean up, while I took my final lap on my own…

And on the final lap, It was the only opportunity I had to revisit the thought of my inner child… But this time another guest showed up,

and that was my teenage self…

The cool guy, the swagga-licious youngin, the guy that acted like he didn’t need anyone’s approval yet yearned for it so deeply…

and there the three of us were, with my inner child on my teenage self’s shoulders,

we took one final lap around the building…

I told them stories, I told teenage me about the amazing opportunities I’ve been presented, and I imagined that they were listening very closely and that my teenage self would mentor my inner child from now on,

and that I would remind my teenage self, that you’re awesome,

that you’re greater than you think

and that you don’t need to wait for somebody to tell you to go and do awesome things…

BOOM, finish my last lap and sit on the couch in the lobby of the gym, the first inactive seat I’ve taken all day.

We go out to dinner, to celebrate,

Korean barbecue of course…

And after a couple of surface level questions, “how’re you feeling?”

”how’d it go?”

I said to them that I’m not sure if I can be proud of what I did or feel accomplished because I’ll always know that I could’ve done it faster,

I probably could’ve pushed a little bit harder or ran until I couldn’t walk anymore…

she explained that none of that comparison should matter and that it should only matter to you…

Shelby asked, “did you go to that other room?”

And I explained to her the story I just told you..

And after I told her the story of walking with my inner child my teenage self she said, “then I think you properly did Suckfest”

and I replied “I think I agree… “

Now it’s the day after, I creaked out of bed, took three minutes to get to the bathroom, with my tendons aching, my ankles tight, my hips closed off to the world..

I felt proud… And I even texted Shelby “I’m proud of mysel!”

and see that she replied “I love that for you”

What I realized is that every word of advice that I gave to my teenage self my inner child was a stretched boundary that I now have to live up to, and that I’ll take them with me wherever I go, for the rest of my life. And I think to myself, to make them proud.

I seek their approval, nobody else’s.

I carry with me the wound that says

“nobody motivated me when I was younger”

“I had nobody to make proud”

“I was verbally, physically and emotionally ensured to believe I didn’t matter”

that “I was always somebody’s second choice”

that I was “unconsidered…”

And it took 27 Miles & 4,080 reps, to realize that the only people I need to make proud are the ones I hold close to my heart today, the love of my life and eventual wife, and those two boys that did my final lap with me just the other night

The “other room” isn’t a place you should live, but it’s definitely a place you should visit from time to time.
I can’t tell you what that “other room” would look like for you, but I encourage you to go and find out. You might be surprised at what you find.

Peace out, Talk soon