Being Tough in a Different Way

Toughness has always required that I deny reality. I thought I had to push away pain and pretend that it was not real. While physically struggling in my rehabilitation after an accident during my first year of college that left me hospitalized for two weeks, unable to walk on my own for a month, a teammate attempted to motivate me by sharing, “you’re only tired if you think you’re tired.” 

That mentality and practice of denying the reality that I was exhausted, confused and experiencing constant pain due to injuries pushed me through three more years of college soccer. I was viewed as tough for fighting through the pain. Yet in doing so I constantly had to numb or distract myself from the actual physical reality of chronic pain. I sat in an ice bath or the ocean every day after practice, I buried any feeling that resembled sadness or fear and I transmitted my anger while on the soccer field as a way of avoiding feeling consciously upset. 

Fast forward two decades and I’m still reckoning with this pattern of denial, avoidance and distraction. To be tough always meant I had to pretend that I didn’t feel pain, that I wasn’t afraid or confused, for the fear that I would give up or be seen as weak. 

Slowly I am living out a way of being tough and courageous that demands that I actually see things as they really are, listen to the feelings that show up whether pleasant or unpleasant and then pause long enough to act in alignment with my values. This toughness demands humility and accountability and an acceptance of my fragility and weakness. This process demands that yesterday when I lost my temper and shattered a plastic cup full of soapy water against the windowsill while doing the dishes that I do not linger in blame or displace my anger onto someone else, but that I reckon with what happened and learn from the feelings and experiences. 

So, what does it mean to you to be tough? Has it changed over the years?