Cru’s Letter

Everyone has that thing they’ve been struggling with for way too long. The injury, the food addiction, the weight that just won’t come off, there’s always something…

From age 18 to about 24, I had knee pain that wouldn’t go away no matter what I did. I watched every video on the planet about how to fix it, listened to podcasts about it, saw PTs, knee specialists, did every exercise in the book, and nothing worked.

I remember wanting nothing more than my knee to just stop hurting but the struggle was constant. The pain itself came and went but the fact that it ruled my emotions was all consuming.

When you struggle with something for so long, you get to the point where you’ve done “everything” to fix it, the advice people throw your way feels more like a slap to the face.

Now, looking back, I can see that any time my knee really started to feel better, I almost looked for it to hurt again. I’d lift harder and even do little squats throughout the day just to see if the pain was still there or in other words… make sure my identity was still in tact.

If my knee still hurt, my identity of struggle would be validated once again so even though I wasn’t better, at least I was right.

Truthfully, I think that most people would rather be correct than better because when your same old struggles keep you in a feedback loop, it’s wildly comfortable.

Now this sounds crazy but I did actually fix my knee problem and all it took was a harsh brake-up with the part of my identity that resonated so deeply with knee pain. The part of me that so badly wanted to be right. I stopped letting it consume my mind and define my daily life. I started treating it like it would magically go away the more I spent time getting back to the activities I love and well… it worked.

Sure, I get some soreness every once in a while because the physical body does play a role but a slight human pain doesn’t become my universe anymore.

That said, I need to ask yourself if you’re secretly in love with your struggle because despite the pain it causes, it’ll feel like losing a part of yourself to let it go.

If you want to actually be better, now matter what struggles you face, you must have the courage to make a genuine change at the foundation of who you are which simply comes down to being wrong.

-Cru

P.S. Check out my recent podcast: