From zero to hero 💪🏻

Last year, I signed up for gym group sessions for a couple of months. It was a wake-up call, and not the gentle, birds-chirping kind. I found myself doing interval and strength training, and let's just say, I wasn't setting any records. Picture this: there I am, struggling to lift a barbell that women way older than me are tossing around like it's nothing. It got to the point where the trainer stepped in and handed me just the pole to work with, no weights attached.

There was one exercise, though, that I didn’t even attempt. It was a brutal high-intensity workout called burpees where you had to jump down on your hands and feet and jump up again. Just the name was too much for me. It made me think of having to burp after being seriously winded, and I was quite sure that was what would happen if I even tried them.

So I didn’t. I went for the easy option where you could do wall pushups (did I mention that I don’t like real pushups either?)

Fast-forward to last week, when I found an old favourite workout of mine on YouTube (Billy Blanks’ Boot Camp) and decided to give it a try. Halfway through, there they were…the dreaded burpees. I realized then that I’d always skipped that part of this workout.

But this time, something felt different. I think it was because I’ve started doing a lot of things I thought I couldn’t do and the realization that I’m tired of letting my fears dictate what I could and couldn't do.

So, I decided to face my nemesis head-on. I would try a burpee. Just one. It didn't have to be perfect, and I certainly didn't need to look like those effortlessly athletic individuals in the video. I put my hands on the ground and tried to jump back up.

It was probably the most awkward burpee ever in the history of workouts. But I did it. I managed to push myself back onto my feet, panting, my heart racing, and with a sense of accomplishment that surprised me. I had faced my block head-on and come out the other side. Yes, I had to pick myself up, both literally and figuratively, but I did it.

The next day, I did two burpees, the following day, three, and so on. Yesterday I did ten. They’re still pretty slow, but I’m starting to come off the ground with more ease, and I don’t feel like I’m going to die after each one.

I’m too embarrassed to post a video of me doing burpees but I’m getting there and this is how I feel each time I do them.

So, what’s this got to do with post-separation abuse?

No, you haven’t stumbled into a workout newsletter, and my burpee story isn’t just a brag. As I was doing my ten burpees yesterday, I thought about how much easier it’s gotten since I started. It’s like that with anything we do, whether it’s a dreaded exercise, communicating with our ex, or documenting abusive messages from our ex.

At first, it’s a massive effort just to start doing it. You look at those Yellow Rock pros you know, those people who manage to set down strong boundaries with their ex and don’t fall apart every time they get a text from their ex, and think, I’ll never get there. They’re just good at writing. They’re stronger than me. It’s not so bad for them. They have more time than me. They’re more organized than me. They’re … (fill in your own reason here).

Then, one day, you think, you know what, I’m going to give it a try. I’m tired of being the only one who can’t do it. I know I can do it too. I just have to start, and do it slowly and one day I’ll be yellow rocking like a winner too.

So, when the next message from your ex comes in, you take a deep breath and remember what you were going to do. And instead of falling apart, you go to ChatGPT, take half an hour to type in your story and tell it what kind of response you want it to spit out, and you tweak and polish the response for ages and then second-guess yourself for a few hours before you finally decide to copy it into the response field and click “Send”. And then you feel like you want to die. That you’ve made the hugest mistake in the world.

It’s that hard the first time, but each time you do it, it gets easier. You stop using ChatGPT because you’re a pro at this. You know you’re addressing the judge, and you need to look like you’re the reasonable one in the room. Before you know it, you’ve become one of those super-strategic Yellow Rock pros, and someone else is looking at you and thinking, “I’ll never get there.”

It’s the same with documenting

Getting yourself started with documenting all the abuse and harassment is hard too, especially if you’ve got years of evidence. But guess what—you don’t have to document EVERYTHING. Perfectionism is your enemy here. The fact that I couldn’t do 30 perfect burpees blocked me from doing even one and it’s sometimes like that with documenting.

If you want to get started documenting, and you’re struggling to do it, then how about starting with the tiniest, most manageable step? For me, that was getting into the habit of doing it. The actual quality or quantity didn’t matter. Since I started my daily fridge-cleaning habit (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out last week’s newsletter) I’ve kept it up every day. One day last week, all I could manage was fishing out a mummified piece of onion in an open bowl from the back of the fridge. It was still cleaning my fridge.

Even if it were just opening my fridge, looking inside, and then closing it, I would still consider it done. What matters is that while before, I dreaded it and it never got done, now I’m doing it regularly because I’ve created a little box for it in my morning, and I don’t dread it because I don’t have to do anything about it outside that box.

I fitted my fridge-cleaning habit into my morning routine because that’s when my energy is at its highest. I do everything in the morning. For you, documenting could be something you can do in the evening when the kids are in bed because you’re a night owl. Whatever time you decide, look at something else you do around that time. And link your new documenting habit to that other thing. If it’s a glass of wine after supper, stick a post-it note on the wine, to remind you to work on your documentation instead of slumping down in front of the TV.

And then, just do something that has to do with your documentation. It doesn’t matter what you do, or for how long. It could be 30 seconds where you create a folder on your computer and give it a name. All that matters is that every day you do SOMETHING at the same time. Before you know it, that 30 seconds is going to be half an hour and also before you know it, you’ll have a pile of relevant documentation to hand to your lawyer when they need it.

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Resources

Stephanie Land’s first book, Maid, was a runaway bestseller and was made into the 4th most watched Netflix series of 2021. Class continues her story as a full-time student, single mother, and victim of post-separation abuse. This book, like Land’s first one, is inspiring in so many ways. I saw myself in her as she struggled to juggle completing her studies with her many jobs, looking after her daughter, and dealing with miles and miles of red tape and a hostile ex who was still trying to control her even after she’d moved thousands of miles away from him.

Land’s story shows that those moments where it seems like we’ve failed can be the seeds for huge success that we can’t even imagine. It’s a must-read for anyone who feels like life is beating them down.

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