Rise of the Phoenix

“Rebuild, Redesign, Reclaim”

As the fires of the past have long burned out and the ashes remain, the land remains dormant and the surroundings are scarce. As the sun rises over the ashes, the flame reignites and out comes from the ashes of the past, a majestic flaming presence is ready to be reborn and create a new chapter. This symbolises the urge to make the world its own and to learn from days gone by.

This is the rise of the phoenix.

2016 was for lack of a better term, a horrendous year for me personally. It started with dealing with my perceived failures in my bodybuilding competition, followed by the end of my football career.
On May the 11th, my best friend and my pride and joy, my German Shepherd Mack died suddenly during a routine procedure at the vet. I have hurt people with my actions, I have had ended friendships and I have lost happiness along the way. I put on weight, I lost my passion for life and I lost myself.

I am not looking for a pity party. A lot of these things could have been prevented if I worked harder, prepared more diligently, mended broken bridges and atoned for my mistakes.

But I’m still standing. My heart still beats.

We all go through adversity throughout the course of our lives. We deal with the loss of loved ones, people leaving our lives, the end of strong relationships and the proverbial broken heart. Pain is something most of us deal with on a daily basis be it physical, mental or emotional pain. Pain can destroy us if we let it…but pain can also fuel us to make a change in our own world. We need to feel the pain of hardships to appreciate the beauty of life. There is so much good out there.

When it comes to your personal weight loss journey, a lot of you joined up from a feeling derived from pain. It could have been derived from fear, anguish, self-loathing, bitterness, resentment and regret but the reason you all joined is a simple one. You want to get better. You want to overcome the pain and grow and learn to be the best version of yourselves that you can possibly be. You have all risen from the ashes like the flaming phoenix at times and if you haven’t felt like your time has come, it will. Trust me on this. You will glow, you will flare and your inner fire will burn like the legend of the phoenix.

All you have to do is keep moving forward and putting one foot in front of the other. Learn something new every day. If you are not learning, you are not getting any better and therefore you are not living up to your potential. If you are in a rut, try something new. What you are doing up to this point is not going to get you to where you want to be. Do new things, meet new people and most importantly, do not take the people you love for granted. They are your crux. They are your biggest support network and your biggest fans. Tell them how much they mean to you every day.

It is hard to rise like the phoenix if we continue to stagnate and not make changes in our life or not accept change. Change is scary or change is an opportunity depending on how you look at it but there is one thing that will never change and that is change itself. Change is inevitable. We have a comfort zone that we love being in because it is safe. We rarely feel pain in our comfort zone but we rarely feel joy either because we are not willing to take a chance and make change when change is necessary. I guarantee you that you will learn more about yourself as a person while being out of your bubble for 1 day than you would learn being in your bubble for 1 year.

When it comes to making decisions in life, there are two ways we look at things and they are positively or negatively. In order to rise we need not to be weighed down by negativity. This can be in the form of negative people, people going out of their way to mess with you, negative self-talk, self-sabotaging behaviour and not being productive. Sometimes we do not have the courage to make necessary changes because of the fear of causing pain or sadness to ourselves or other people around us but if negativity is overpowering you, you must strive to get out of the bubble and make the changes in order to grow. These are some of the most intensely difficult choices that I have had to make in my life. Some are unforced and some are by choice but all have been excruciatingly painful and difficult to follow through.

In your journey in life, you have dealt with and overcome so many trials and tribulations and have become the person you are today because of the decisions that you have made. You always have a choice when it comes to happiness and only you can dictate that happiness. You can choose to live in the ashes of the past and engulf yourself in negativity or you can rise above it like the legend of the phoenix and strive for what you believe you deserve. We all have a choice and the choice is yours.

My choice is to rise up out of the darkness, spread my wings and shine like the bird of legend.

“Sometimes you must hurt in order to know, fall in order to grow, lose in order to gain because life’s greatest lessons are learned through pain”

                                                                            – Masashi Kishimoto.

Brad Carroll
Level 2 Mobile Personal Training Specialist
4 U Body Fitness