This week, I welcome Karen Love Lee to the show. Karen and I talk about how traumatic experiences like abuse, grief and addiction, even at an early age, can shape the way we look at life as adults. In this episode we talk about steps you can make to understand how it happens and some tips to help uncover it.
This week, I’ll be presenting a virtual masterclass on lifestyle change to a private community on Facebook. Seeing as how, that is our take on the term “revolution” (a dramatic and wide-reaching change), I wanted to share some of those thoughts with you this week. If you’re in a place in life where you need to change, I hope this gives you some ideas to work with.
Determine the “bottom”: If weight loss is your goal, you have to decide when you can no longer “be” in the place you’re in now. Clients who treat their goal as “it would be nice” if I lost weight aren’t nearly as driven to succeed as someone who refuses to be their current weight any longer. The number itself is arbitrary. For one person, being 20 pounds overweight is a deal breaker and that is their “bottom“. For another person, it’s 217 pounds overweight with a diagnosis of Type II Diabetes and the threat of an amputated limb. Between those two individuals is a myriad of examples of people who make the decision that where they are today is “as bad as it will get.” This is the bottom. Change starts here.
The bottom does not have to be a dramatic place or position. There was a meme floating around the internet sometime back that made the claim (I’m paraphrasing) that no one has ever made significant change in their life without getting tired of their own bullshit. While it isn’t always the case, change starts when we realize that we often sabotage our own efforts for success. Yes, outside influence can affect us and yes, sometimes those closest to us can be the greatest saboteurs. For some people, they need a health diagnosis before it shakes them back to reality to reverse their circumstances. For someone else, they need to look in the mirror on just the right day and state: “That’s it. I’ve had enough. I have a goal and I’m not going to stop until I reach it.” During my days as a drug addict, I had friends who found the bottom because of a jail sentence, a potential overdose or the loss of a job. Every person is motivated to change by a completely different set of circumstances and no two people will be alike.
“You’re not in enough pain to change”: This is a concept that even my therapist and I are on the same page about. If you are resistant to change, you may fault yourself for not being motivated enough or have enough willpower to resist temptation leading you off course. A counterargument is that you are not at the point where the pain you’re in is unbearable enough for you to start prioritizing different actions. Coincidentally, long before my therapist said those words to me, I had written a blog with the same sentiments.
Be uncomfortable. One of my favorite coaches in the industry, Leigh Peele, shared this thought on a podcast we did awhile back. I’ve always loved the way that Leigh views the world and works to meet people where they are on a spectrum of change. She believes (I wholeheartedly agree) that you need to get acclimated to the fact that the change you often want in life requires a great degree of consistent discomfort. Once you embrace that fact, change becomes easier to implement and stick to.
Find an outlet. There are some aspects of change that seem so simple in theory that we often overlook them. Many people, when struggling to improve areas of their life, often resort to outlets for stress and grief that are counterproductive to their goals. For instance, a person who has spent the better part of their lives in a cycle of a yo-yo dieting may only have food as an outlet for their emotions. So, when things go wrong (and they do), food is the comfort. It is the security blanket. However, the way food is being utilized here runs counter to a weight loss plan. Having a non-food related outlet for those emotions can be immensely valuable to this person. That may mean starting an exercise program to relieve stress or learning a new craft/hobby. 2020 has been a fantastic year for showing us how we handle stress under the consistent strain of a pandemic. Hopefully, it taught lessons of how not to react when situations are out of our control.
Get support. If there is one thing I constantly try to hammer home to my clients, it’s the fact that change rarely happens in isolation. We need help. If you need exercise in your life, you might need a personal trainer. If you have mental hurdles to overcome, you may need a qualified therapist. If you don’t know how to manage food, you might consider hiring a dietitian. Don’t discredit free resources like social media support groups or 12-step support groups. Having the influence and guidance of people who may have less emotional attachment to you can give you some valuable insight into how others made change work for them.
The tools evolve. If you embark on a life altering journey of change now, the tools you need to get started may not be what you use 6 months from now. Understanding that as your mindset and environment change around you, you will need different guidance and strategies to overcome the next hurdle is crucial for your success. Think of it like dieting. While the ketogenic diet might help you lose the first 20 pounds, you may need to experiment with plant-based dieting for the next 20 pounds and intuitive eating for the last 20. Believing that only one diet can solve the weight loss riddle in your life, with your specific set of challenges may be a short-sighted approach. Along the way, you’ll be learning things about food that show how and why certain foods behave in a specific way with your body.
Be patient. Be forgiving. I don’t like to lean to the side of woo but, any change worth making is going to take a while in coming to fruition. It’s one thing to make a conscious choice to change, it’s another to actually reach your goals. Some situations will never be removed from your life. If you’re learning how to overcome grief or trauma, you may always have to manage those circumstances so you can reduce the negative impacts they have on your life. If you have a significant amount of weight to lose, you may always have to be conscious of how your relationship with food affects your mind and your body. Since we always need food, a more caring approach to how you eat will be needed. When things don’t go as planned (which will happen more often than not), you’ll need to remind yourself that lasting change works on a spectrum that may feel like one step forward then two steps back. If you have a day where things go awry, a dose of forgiveness will trump a dose of shame any day of the week. We’re in this for the long haul and the journey towards self improvement (physically or mentally) constantly evolves.
Perfection is a myth. I wrote about this recently and I have to repeat it. At RevFit, we don’t coach perfect people, we don’t have perfect outcomes, and we don’t lead perfect well-adjusted lives 365 days of the year. We take people as they are and we help them understand that small changes matter, habits can be stacked and work in our long-term favor, and everyone makes mistakes. We try to keep reality and results closely intertwined. Long.Live.Progress.
There is not a day that goes by that I don’t credit the changes I’ve made and still make in my life that allow me to live something closer to where and who I want to be. No matter what changes you need to make, these steps can help.
And maybe, you’re someone like me and you know that change must happen because you’re a role model to someone out there who’s watching.
I welcome Lift The Bar’s Head of Education, Gregg Slater, to the show this week. I have been continually impressed by the work Gregg has committed to the Lift The Bar community especially since the virus has affected coaches and their clients across the globe. In this episode, Gregg and I talk about better strategies for a 30-day lockdown program and considerations for how and why to approach exercises to keep from losing ground if you can’t access the gym. It would have been nearly impossible to cover the breadth of information Gregg could have discussed. I highly recommend that you check out his work, and more importantly (for the coaches), join the LTB community to see more of what we discussed in this week’s show.
Ask any music fan the albums they can’t live without and you’ll find where their passions and sentiments (and a story) lie.
For me, my desert island listens aren’t necessarily by my favorite bands/artists. Truth be told, I couldn’t tell you I have a favorite band, the list is too long.
While my Top 10 is mostly consistent on any given year (give or take one or two which may rotate out of favor), my Top 3 remain unchanged and that’s only because I know that without them, I likely wouldn’t be alive to write this.
Music has always been profoundly important to me. I grew up with parents who, by their own right were both musical and music fans. My father was in bands in high school and college and would still tinker on guitar well into my adolescence and my mother was a singer. I grew up in a rock and roll household, so everything from Top 40 radio to folk and stadium rock would fill our house.
By time I was in the 6th grade, I had an allowance and enough of an opinion of what I liked to start purchasing cassettes or records with my own money and due to my obsessive leanings towards collecting things, I’ve always had a music collection (whether physical or digital) of note.
However, this article is just about those Top 3: the albums I wouldn’t be able to live without and why.
In the mid-90’s I was going through what would prove to be the most difficult years of my life. It started in college, circa 1996 and would reach something of a conclusion by the spring of 1998. This was when I was hospitalized 5 times for either suicide threats or suicide attempts.
Music was always there for me.
If a relationship went bad, I had music.
If I was struggling in school, there was music.
As I was writing and performing in bands, it was music that was in my eardrums inspiring me to keep writing, keep playing and to just stay alive.
In no particular order, if I were stranded on a desert island, I would need these three albums to get me through:
Jane’s Addiction-Nothing’s Shocking
Few bands, certainly of this era, successfully managed to combine rock, metal, funk and even jazz into something cohesive. While I do like all of the music the band has put out, I’m not sure that Jane’s would even make my Top 20 in terms of favorite bands. However, there’s just something about this album that has always blown my mind.
Like a lot of albums that came out in the 80’s, the mastering on it is quieter than I’d like, and I’d love a more dynamic version to come out that still keeps some integrity to the original quality of the music.
If you’re not familiar with the band, you may have heard either of the two “hits” from this album: Mountain Song and Jane Says.
Mountain Song, if memory serves, was my introduction to the band. I would have been about 13 years old when it came out. I’m 45 now which means this album has been a part of my life for over 3 decades (more so than the other two albums I’ll mention).
Perhaps because there are so many different styles of music on this album and it gives me at least a small taste of nearly every genre I already like, it’s nearly perfect in that regard.
Somehow, when The Smiths were still a functioning unit, I never paid attention to their music. While the original album, The Queen Is Dead, actually came out before the previously mentioned Jane’s Addiction album, it didn’t become a part of my life until 1992.
I remember walking into a music store around that time which carried new and used CDs (RIP Manhattan Music) and while I was perusing the recently acquired used section, there was a huge selection of Depeche Mode, The Cure and The Smiths CDs which had just been brought in.
I asked the associate why someone would want to get rid of all of those discs. He told me that the guy who traded them in had just gotten out of the psych ward for attempting suicide and he said that those albums completely depressed him so he wanted to sell them off.
“Hmm, his loss…my gain.” I remember thinking to myself.
While I can see that music like what those three bands were putting out was anything other than happy music, there was something about The Smiths that struck a different chord with me.
It was once I got to college, that I actually dived into the album, The Queen Is Dead, and more importantly, the song “I Know It’s Over.”
I know a lot of people who just can’t handle the singing or the writing of The Smiths former frontman, Morrissey. For me, I don’t know what I would have done without him. Yes, he’s dramatic. Yes, he’s mopey. And yes, for me, I needed to hear the words of someone who I felt was at a lower point than I was to help me see a light to get out.
And it was in that song, I Know It’s Over, where I heard the line: Oh, Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head.
Jesus, I thought. There’s a guy who’s clearly more miserable than me. Surely I can see my way out of my own mess so I don’t end up writing lyrics like that to my own music!
It was music like this, that somehow gave me hope. Hope that I could pull through and the feeling that I knew I wasn’t alone with all those muddled emotions. Someone else understood…
I think the entire album is awesome. Even today when I listen to it, I’m able to step outside of how it affected me some 25+ years ago. There’s the person who needed to hear those words back then and the person who has somehow evolved in appreciation for it now. Now, when I listen to The Queen Is Dead, it’s just great music.
Jeff Buckley-Grace
Coincidentally, it’s the last artist/album I mention who will have something of a link to The Smiths. Jeff Buckley released the album Grace in 1994. I was just about to start college then.
Like me, Jeff was also a Smiths fan and he’s got more than one cover version of the aforementioned song, I Know It’s Over, to his credit as well.
I have arguably turned more people on to Jeff Buckley than any other artist I can think of. Sadly, he accidentally drowned in the Mississippi River less than 3 years after the release of Grace.
The first song I ever heard from Grace was his single “Last Goodbye” and while I did like the song at the time, it didn’t exactly reach out and grab me.
What I did notice was that there were several critics talking about how much they loved the album, so I bought a copy for myself in 1995.
I remember being in my college dormitory working on homework one evening with Grace playing in the background. At first, I just let it be background music…and then Hallelujah came on.
I stopped what I was doing and just listened.
It was, without question, one of those unforgettable music moments for me. I played it back again and again and again.
Jeff, as many may know, covered Leonard Cohen’s original song but he was performing a John Cale version which had additional lyrics to it. Since then, it’s only increased in popularity, most notably by Rufus Wainwright’s version from the movie Shrek.
Once Hallelujah took a hold of me, I couldn’t be separated from my Jeff Buckley disc for anything in this world. I think every song on there has been a favorite of mine at some point.
Like the other two albums mentioned, I’ve probably listened to Grace hundreds of times and every time, I can find something “new” that I love about it.
With Jane’s Addiction and the remaining members of The Smiths (Morrissey and Johnny Marr, specifically) there is so much more music to dive into beyond what albums I referenced. Jeff only had one studio album that he was alive to see come to fruition. He died before his second album could be completed although a posthumous release still came out as well as many other live and assorted compilations have come out since.
While the album itself is basically flawless, Jeff was ridiculously good live (often better) than he was in the studio.
If you’re unfamiliar with any of these albums, I invite you to listen to them. You don’t have to like them. They obviously mean something different to me because of the period of life I survived while they were a part of me.
These albums, at my weakest points in life, were the reminders: You’ll get through, you’ll be ok, everything will be ok…
Music may have a different place in your life. Maybe you’re connected to what you were listening to when you got married, or you partied to in high school or what you open your children’s ears up to.
The music that shapes my life stretches far beyond these three albums. I like many things faster or heavier or more dance-oriented or catchier. I love music designed for subwoofers and music that makes you want to smash weights in the gym.
I love music that makes me think, makes me cry, makes me dance with my wife at night, makes my kids jump up and down, and reminds me why I exist in this world and what I lived through to tell the tale.
Music is peace.
Music is salvation.
Music is love.
Music is something I hope you’ll think about as you read this.
And if you have a moment, send me your Top 3. I’d love to hear how and why those albums matter to you even if they don’t mean the same thing to me.
Until then, I’ll be spreading the message to my boys, just like Sebastian gets to be a part of as you see below.
This week, I welcome Chris and Eric Martinez to the show. We cover how trauma in their lives influenced their path into the fitness industry. We also talk about how there are lessons to be learned in 2020 whether you are a fitness enthusiast or a fellow coach who is trying to navigate this year and still be successful in reaching your goals.
You can find out more about the work Chris and Eric are doing at:
For me, it’s been a stark reminder that nothing in this world is guaranteed, things that you’ve worked very hard for can be taken away from you by forces out of your control, and that no matter what you think you’re owed by your efforts, the work is never “done”.
Gratitude
Over the years, I’ve worked hard to be more grateful for what I have: my family, my business, my friends and my health. However, just being grateful isn’t always enough. There’s still work to do. I have to work to maintain balance in those relationships: with my wife, my sons, my clients, my body and my mind. They all work together, they all stand to benefit by my attention to them.
I am grateful that I have the gift of waking up each day with a breath of life to start fresh and refocus my attention on those things.
It’s never perfect.
I am never perfect.
But each day, I’ll try again.
Just get better…a little bit better.
The first question I want you to answer for yourself is:
What are you grateful for?
Sacrifice
I’ve learned that the things I want in life, whether they be within those relationships or with my health, require sacrifice. I must be willing to give something up in order to have something else that I feel is more beneficial.
As an addict in recovery, I’ve sacrificed a lot of myself to a master that could never properly serve me. It affected my mind, it affected my body. Learning how to change my body through strength training and consistency with exercise was a way to rebuild what drugs took away from me. Learning how to eat in a way that complemented what I needed exercise to do for me was the other piece to that puzzle.
Sacrifice, in this sense, meant I had to give up vices that took my eyes off the prize. The goal was better health. I’m closer to that goal now than I was 14 years ago when I got clean. That journey never ends.
When you consider what you may need to give up (permanently or temporarily) in your life, ask yourself:
What is a sacrifice worth making?
Compromise
Lastly, there’s compromise. My wife and I have been learning a lot about that this year. Things that used to really get to me in our relationship tend to bother me less now. There are certain battles not worth having and many things I could justify getting upset over just don’t seem worth it anymore or can easily be fixed by myself.
As a result, she and I treat each other differently now. We listen to each other differently and we respond to each other differently. It’s less about one person feeling like they won and more about both of us feeling like we’re winning (even in less than ideal situations).
As you can probably imagine, our marriage has improved significantly as a result. We’re still working out some of the hiccups but when you start from a place of respect, you end up with a much better result. (Hint: It’s taken a lot of years and a lot of misfires to get here).
Compromise, for me, also meant going back to therapy. There was a part of me, mentally, that felt as if going back to therapy was a regression in my life.
Why go back to something I haven’t needed in twenty years?
I felt I had conquered enough of my demons (trauma, addiction, and grief) that going back to therapy would have only felt like backsliding.
I was wrong.
I needed therapy over this past year more than I have arguably ever needed it. There were days where I hated the thought of unloading on my therapist more than anything. And yet, I could still walk out of my sessions feeling like I got something of value from it.
This past year has shown me that sometimes you have to swallow your pride and work on the things that simmer beneath the surface before they boil over and burn those around you.
The question became: Do I stay the same and let the world accept me as I am or do I compromise my position and make changes I can feel better about when I look in the mirror?
It was a compromise worth making and a price worth paying: work on your mind to work on your life.
When you consider the areas in your life where you’ve been inflexible to change in the past, ask this:
What compromises can be made for the betterment of yourself and those around you?
I’m keeping this week’s post intentionally shorter in efforts to ask you to think about these things for yourself and to look at the year 2020 through a different lens:
What have you learned this year? Anything of value?
This week, I’m doing another client spotlight with the debut of Georgeann Jones and her son, Alec Pinter. Georgeann started with me nearly two years ago and one of our common bonds is having sons with autism. Her son, Alec, recently started training with us as well and this episode is about their experiences and successes as clients of RevFit. We talk about the community here, why it works for both Georgeann and Alec and how the inclusivity and atmosphere has been beneficial not just for the neurotypical but for those with special needs as well.
I woke up this past weekend after a perfect night’s sleep next to my perfect wife in our immaculate bedroom with our perfect Boxer. Shortly thereafter, our perfect toddler with his perfect hair and angel-sweet disposition joined us. We enjoyed a perfect cup of coffee, had a perfectly cooked breakfast and our entire day could not have gone better. It was…perfect.
When my week began, I started my day at my perfectly run business joined by my perfect staff and my perfect clients with their perfect lives and perfect diets and I thought to myself “My God, my life couldn’t be more pristine. I couldn’t find a flaw around me if my life depended on it.”
Except, none of this is true.
My life is as chaotic, unpredictable, amazing, scary, shocking, and incredible as I can possibly imagine. There are things that have been going unbelievably well and things that I think are going to fall apart any moment.
I know, I know…it’s 2020. We’re all experiencing something like this.
The thing is…we’re still striving for perfection.
We’re waiting for the perfect time to reign the diet in.
We’re waiting for the perfect time to change jobs.
We’re waiting for the perfect partner to settle down with.
We’re waiting for the perfect solution to this Godforsaken virus.
We’re waiting for the perfect moment in time for someone to hand us the magic pill so we can accomplish more…by doing less…
Personally, I’m in a boat with 2020 where it honestly hasn’t been ALL bad.
Don’t get me wrong, some really terrible things have happened this year.
Professionally, the first series of lockdowns in our state was kind of scary. We may face yet another shut down soon if the spikes don’t get under control.
My wife and I have had the toughest year in the nearly 11 we’ve been together.
Therapy has been more grueling than I ever imagined due to events in my childhood that occurred almost four decades ago and every negative reaction I’ve had to them since.
Marissa and I turned a corner in our marriage and are doing better now than we ever have.
And still…nothing in life is perfect.
Not in mine.
Not in my wife’s and not for any of my clients regardless of how successful they are with their goals.
Perfect has virtually no place in my vocabulary.
What I find I’m grasping onto with both hands and working with is incremental steps, better habits, more realistic goals and even as little as 10% more progress in any area of my life than I had a year ago.
No one knew what 2020 would bring. As we near the end of it, we have no idea how or if 2021 will be better.
So, where does that leave us?
Where does it leave you and your goals and your dreams and your frustrations?
Hopefully, in a place where perfect doesn’t exist.
Because no one will hand you that. Not in this year and not in the next one.
So, if you’re waiting for ideal environments and perfect opportunities that you can guarantee 90-days of planning over…good luck.
It won’t ever come.
This year had all potential to be completely and utterly devastating and we have no guarantee of how or when it will end.
So, if you’re here and you’re reading this and you’re waiting for a sign to change…
My better half joins me on the show for the first time to talk about her own journey with strength and improving her health. We talk about her background on the stage as a lifelong performer and how motherhood has since transformed her. We discuss support systems, trigger foods, the importance of health in our family and the influence of our environment and upbringing and how it shapes our relationship with ourselves.
I remember Sunday night, Nov 1, when I got the call. Our mutual friend, Rachel, called me after dinner and said “I wanted you to hear this from me and not just see it on Facebook. I have some bad news to share. Terry Waye passed away today. He was with his son at the Browns game.”
I remember, in that moment, the shock.
I remember that kneejerk feeling: Terry, my friend, I completely failed you. I am so sorry I failed you.
I remember being able to keep my composure for the remainder of that phone call and talking to my wife about what happened. At a certain point, I just couldn’t keep my composure anymore.
I remember talking about your passing with clients the next morning, clients who sadly never met you.
I remember posting a video to my clients about losing one of our own, the tragic way that you left this world, and a very frustrating, emotional plea to my clients: please take a look at your health…
I remember, once I posted that video, I couldn’t stop crying: “What do you mean I don’t ever get to see you again?”
I remember the first time we met, nine years ago. I was still relatively new with my business. As memory serves, you were referred to me from another client I had at the time. You were 44 years old then, your mother had just passed away from a heart attack two years prior.
I remember you telling me that at that point, you had lost and regained over 100 pounds twice. That it was time to get focused and get the weight off again so that life didn’t go for you as it did for your mother. I could tell how devastated you were to have lost her.
I remember marveling all those years ago about how much love you had for all those around you: your wife, your boys, your friends, your siblings. I could tell that behind that teddy bear exterior, was a man who loved life as it came to him and just wanted to be healthy enough to enjoy it all.
I remember that even then, nine years ago, we were still trying to pinpoint the motivation to succeed. We were both loving fathers and hard workers, we both cried that day during your initial consultation. I knew then, that more than anything in this world, I wanted to help you. I wanted to be the coach that helped you win.
I remember you first becoming a client, then very quickly a friend.
I remember that, as it happens in my line of work, you got very busy and had to stop training with me for a while. We stayed in touch, as you got to see my business grow by leaps and bounds, we would have periodic conversations and you’d tell me: I need to get back in with you, I just have a lot going on right now…
I remember that, true to your word, you did come back to work with me again. That was after we expanded the business and moved from location one to location two. It seemed you were reinvigorated and motivated again to start the weight loss journey once more.
I remember you were in more pain then, more physical pain. Your joints were starting to ache more, you had more muscular pains, all things you were attributing to being sedentary and not being focused on your weight loss.
I remember, again, we were trying to peel back the layers of: What will keep you motivated to succeed this time? We would get close. We’d share lots of conversations about life, work, priorities, food, wine, family, and you and I had a deep love of music. I loved talking about music with you.
I remember thinking (and telling you): Terry, I think I want you to be more successful than even you want to be. You laughed and said: Yeah, I know. You might be right…
I remember your life getting busy again and you had to drop off the roster. I know work and some personal things in life were tying up a lot of your attention. You promised you’d get started with me again in the future and you kept that promise.
I remember expanding from location two to location three and you and I were still in touch. You would read my blogs, you would engage in my posts on Facebook and you kept telling me: “I’ll be back.”
I remember getting that email from you. The one where you said you wanted to take a different approach this time. You knew how busy we were getting at the studio and so you made a special request. You asked if we could meet once a week so you could have some accountability with your goals. You were going to focus on food and exercise on your own, but you needed a sounding board to talk through the thoughts in your head and get a new game plan. By this point, you had lost both of your parents and you had experienced a health scare of your own.
I remember thinking: This is it. Terry’s ready. We’re going to see him succeed once and for all this time.
I remember you saying: “I need you to be blunt with me, Jason. Call me out. Don’t sugarcoat things. I know I need to get out of my head with some of my behaviors. I just feel like we’re together for a reason and that’s why I keep coming back to you.” I agreed. There was a reason you and I worked so well together. I loved you, I respected you, and I wanted so badly for you to get the weight off that you desired to so you could live the longest, healthiest life you could.
I remember us being more successful this go-round. More successful than we had been at any other point. I remember us talking about this in our meetings and in our emails.
I remember you starting to get side-tracked again with life. Historically, there was always a “distraction”. That could have been the stress with work, a personal issue to solve unrelated to health, or a project you were excited to be working. I called you out at one point and suggested: Terry, YOU are the project. Work on you. That’s a good project. “Yeah, I know.” you said. And I could tell, that at least momentarily, you were letting your gears spin on that one.
I remember that your love for your friends and your time of relaxation at your lake house was something to be admired and respected. You loved doing for others (almost to a fault). In our conversations, it was a case of “When I get finished with XYZ event/circumstance/holiday, I can get focused on myself again.” I pushed back at you again and I said “Terry, you know what they say on airplanes during the safety precautions? That in the event of emergency, you put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you take care of others. I need you to put your mask on.” That might have been one of the most impactful things I ever said to you. That one, in particular, stopped you in your tracks.
I remember you coming in for one of your consultations, and unbeknownst to me, but much to my happiness, you brought your wife, Debbie and your youngest son, Ethan, with you. I thought “Ok, he’s getting really serious now. He’s brought almost all of his family with him to see more about the work we’re doing together.”
I remember COVID hitting this year. You were the first of my clients to be diagnosed with it. I remember how ill you were and how much it threw you for a loop. I remember you talking about how some of the lingering effects of it was how it was affecting your memory. So much so, that you completely forgot about a couple of our sessions. That wasn’t like you but I understood you were in uncharted territories with that virus.
I remember you losing a good chunk of weight during that illness and we made a joke that perhaps that was the silver lining to kickstart the weight loss again.
I remember that as you got to feeling better, you got busier again: more work, more stress, more projects and our communication, while still intact was getting interrupted with a bit more frequency.
I remember reaching out to you, just a couple of weeks ago to see how you were doing. I missed seeing your face, the emails only accomplish so much. You were still active as client, just not as active with our consults. You said: “You’ve been on my mind a lot. I know I need to get in to see you.” That session never got booked.
I remember that Sunday night, November 1…that phone call.
Terry, a world without you is not a better world. It’s an emptier world. A world without your smile, your laugh, your conversations and the love for every soul around you, is not a better world. I hope you come across my Dad up there. I hope you tell some good jokes together. He may not be the Browns fan that you were but I’m sure you could share some great stories about the impact you had on the lives of everyone who met you.
I fucking hate that you’re gone. I hate that you won’t ever come through these doors again. That I won’t get to hug you again, tell you how proud I am of you again or that we won’t get to see that next milestone of weight loss.
I know that losing weight is not a cure-all for everything but damn if I don’t think that it could have kept you in this world days, weeks, years longer.
I write this, with the blessing of your wife, who I asked if I could commit something like this to the world. If I can’t be who I so desperately wanted to be in your life, the coach who helped crack the code for you, perhaps I can fulfill that role to your family. We can laugh about you, we can cry about you, we can all take care of ourselves in better ways in tribute to you.
I know I’m not alone with this empty feeling of a world without Terry Waye. I know I was privy to sides of you no one else could see because weight loss was a very personal, private thing. Thank you for at least letting me help to some extent.
I love you, Terry. Your friendship and support will never, ever be forgotten. I’m really going to miss you, brother.
Jason Leenaarts 