For Cheryl, CrossFit is more than exercise — it’s her reset button. She calls it her “moving meditation,” a space where she shows up at least four days a week to breathe, move, and quiet the noise of daily life. When she’s working out, her focus shifts to what’s right in front of her: her pacing, her breath, the proper mechanics of each movement. There’s no room for spiraling thoughts or internal anxiety—just presence and purpose. Cheryl didn’t find CrossFit until her 50s, but it quickly became a cornerstone of her mental health routine. She still has tough days and moments where she feels low, but the consistent choice to walk through the gym doors gives her strength, clarity, and a reminder that she can do hard things—one rep, one breath, one workout at a time.
Training the Body, Quieting the Mind
It’s no secret that regular exercise, good nutrition, and restful sleep are foundational factors when it comes to a healthy lifestyle here in what Elizabeth Gilbert likes to call Earth School. And that would be fine if the only class at Earth School were Physical Education aka P.E.
However, in my experience, P.E. is nothing without the classes in mental health and emotional well-being. What I love about CrossFit, and especially I.A., is that it covers the full curriculum. Which is one of the reasons I take my commitment to getting to IA at LEAST four (4) times a week as seriously as any aspiring [fill in the blank here – Olympian, Chess Master, spiritual acolyte, etc] for ONE reason. It’s a moving meditation.
From Overthinking to Overcoming
For the duration of a WOD, my overactive cerebral matter MUST focus: on breathing, and keeping all the body parts safe from harm. There is no room for the worry/anxiety/fears that often accompany eternal, internal questions like “how will I…?”, “what if this/that/the other thing happens…?”,”why did I…?”, “what was I/what are they thinking…?”, etc, etc., etc.. No matter how loudly that voice inside my head may be prognosticating BEFORE a Wod, by the time a WOD is over, it’s much quieter, and easier to dismiss with a sweaty grin.
From Eeyore Energy to Something Stronger
Anyone who’s known me for a while (and that might be a week, a month, a year or several) has probably heard me utter the phrase “I come from a mentally interesting family”. More specifically, think of mood disorders, running the gamut from those who dealt with Himalaya highs and Death Valley lows to those who walk around feeling like Eeyore more often than outward circumstances seem to warrant.
Yours truly falls in the latter category. CrossFit, which I discovered at the half century point of my life, coupled with the power of Brene Brown’s TED talk re: shame/vulnerability, Eric Kussin’s SameHere initiative, and other resources outside the gym, I feel healthier now than ever. Do I still occasionally feel “down in the dumpers” for no reason? Yep. Do I have a great set of tools that help? Absolutely! And I believe with every fiber of my being that absent CrossFit, you’d never be able to tell the difference between me and Eeyore!
