I remember it like it was yesterday. A beautiful weekend morning in Brooklyn, the sun coming through my curtains at just the right intensity, some strong coffee brewing in the kitchen. This was going to be a great day.

Then I got up out of bed and WHAM! Every muscle in my body started screaming at me. Holy Crap!

I sat on the edge of the bed and thought for a minute or two. The day before, I’d played pickup football in the park with some friends for a few hours. This was nothing new, I’d done it a million times. Football, basketball. long runs. But I’d never been this sore before. Perhaps there would’ve been some wisdom in choosing to be the guy throwing the ball instead of the one running to catch it…

As I look back with bemusement on that morning, I consider that it was the first of many inflection points for my physical self. The guy I’d been the day before didn’t get sore playing football, the guy I’d become that morning in Brooklyn did. Months later, the guy I’d been the day before took an extra lap around the block at the end of his runs and the guy I’d become the day after didn’t. And so on.

Most of these shifts happen like breezes. You stand up in the wind and look up the next morning to see that the leaves in your backyard have been shifted around some. You don’t feel the happening but you’re confronted with the aftermath.

And because the memory of who you used to be is often so fresh, so stark in relief, you can get to thinking of yourself as an opponent. The person you were stands there like a taunt, like a challenge. Can you find me again? Or is it too late, buddy boy?

But what if we don’t look at it this way? We’ve worked with hundreds and hundreds of people at Woodshed who simply wanted to get back to doing many of the things they used to do three or four years ago. Maybe what they used to do ten or twelve years ago.

And what we can tell you with certainty is that when that process is covered in reclamation and love, it happens. That person in your memory isn’t an opponent, after all. It’s you. It’s an invitation.

Will you love who you are today enough to find yourself again?

You don’t need to go to war. You just need to start moving.