Picking Up The Pieces

Dearest readers,

I write to you with a heavy heart and leaden fingers as I begin today’s post. An attempt to crawl out of the hole and back to the land of the living. I’ve been having a rough go this past month, haven fallen back into my pattern of vices following five months of hypomania that led to a crash. Burnout, depression, darkness. I turned to substances to self-medicate and relapsed into addiction. As I write to you all, I am newly sober from alcohol, and the sobriety is touch and go, as fragile as the petals of a dandelion. I feel strong, but I am no where near out of the woods. I choose instead to escape to healthier outlets, like hot yoga and writing and reading, to release my deluge of fickle emotions. On Thursday, I’ll be embarking on a four-day online silent retreat, which I see as an “atomic bomb” for my mind– a giant reset button that will leave me born-again pure. Mind and body rested, relaxed, clear, centered. Ready to return to work on June 9 after a two-week medical leave of absence. Yes, friends, it has come to that. Because of my crash, I needed to request two weeks off group fitness teaching (I still kept my private clients) to take care of my health. Old Belicia could never have dreamt of taking time off work to tend to something has soft and snow-flakey as mental-emotional health. Bel of 2025 begs to differ. For without health, we are rendered impotent, non-functional, miserable.

This break has been a watershed moment in many regards. An itemized list of revelations I’ve come to thus far:

1. Is group fitness teaching really for me? Could this hiatus mark the end of one chapter and beginning of another? I’ve been teaching group fitness for four years now. That’s longer than the time I spent in college. I’ve reached the peak of the mountain in this career path and established myself as a great fitness instructor in the Bay Area. I’m a big fish in a small pond, so it isn’t really that big a feat, but an accomplishment, nonetheless. At my busiest, I was teaching at 8 different companies all across the Bay Area. Work was abundant, and everywhere I taught, I had full class enrollment. That’s something to celebrate. But I am someone who relishes a challenge, lives for novelty, has a low boredom threshold. After hustling for the first five months of this year, I burned out, and I began to resent going to work. What was once the highlight of my day became my biggest dread. I was no longer thriving and giving my best energy to my students, and the quality of my teaching suffered. That’s when I knew I needed to take a break and reevaluate my next steps. Next Tuesday, I go back to work. I’ve reduced my workload by nearly 50%, which should free up a lot of time for me to grow my online business and brand, work on my podcast, write my books, read to my heart’s delight. My ultimate goal is to transition to fully online teaching on Venture True Wellness, teach mostly private fitness and dance lessons, and save my body in the process.
2. Bipolar, my lifelong frenemy. I had been stable for several months before being rudely reminded that the bipolar is here to stay, and that if I’m not careful with my lifestyle management, I WILL fall back into an episode, which may lead me to self-medicate with substances. I’ve caught glimpses of stability here and there, some periods of peace lasting longer than others, and those are moments I relish before my mood takes a turn. My therapist told me that I’ve always put work and achievements first in my life, when really, bipolar needs to come first. In her expert opinion, I have “severe bipolar 1 disorder”. Even though I’ve been doing a stellar job at managing my diagnosis, and I’ve somehow avoided being hospitalized, I still cannot ignore the fact that my moods and mental health are brittle and need a whole lot of tending to. Who cares if you’re a millionaire when your health is failing? I will try to take her advice to heart and ruthlessly prioritize my mental health, moving forward. Get enough sleep. Stay away from substances. Limit stress levels. Eat well. Surround myself with sober and supportive people. Cut out those who are bad influences on me. That’s the only way I have a fighting chance at stability.
3. I struggle to say no and walk away from opportunities. This is something my boss observed about me. He told me he was the same way at age 27… filled to the brim with energy, hungry to make money and build a solid career, eager to make something of himself. But I need to find more balance in my life if I am to be happy and healthy. I need to make time for a social life (sober style), time for self-care (yoga and hot springs, I see you), time for rest and self-reflection. I can’t be thriving while working 60 hours a week teaching physically intensive classes. Because I’m good at what I do, I will always have work opportunities knocking on the door. I am blessed with the gift of options. But with options come the added responsibility of discretion– choosing your jobs wisely and logically. When I was first starting out in this industry, I would take anything and everything that came my way. I was overworked and underpaid, and I had to hustle with intensity to establish my reputation as a talented fitness and dance instructor in the Bay Area. I’ve earned my stripes then, and I have nothing more to prove to myself as a fitness instructor. Time to put myself first, even if it means saying no to opportunities that come my way.
4. I want to dance!!! Dance will forever and always remain my passion, though in my present low state, I haven’t done much of it. In fact, I haven’t danced in over a month. I was training for a competition in September, but that is most likely not gonna happen now. As a fitness instructor, it’s difficult to have passions outside of work that also involve movement, because you’re so physically drained from your job! After teaching 8 things in one day, I’d be hard-pressed to have energy to train, even for just 30 minutes. My dancing suffered, and by proxy, my spirit. If I am to resume my dance career, I need to slow down with fitness teaching. End of story.

There is more to be said, and more reflection to be done during my last few days of semi-vacation. But I’ll end this post here because I feel an itch to do some reading before hot yoga at 9am. Thank you for tuning in to my world of thoughts, and I’ll talk to you guys soon!