minn kim

“You are at high risk of major blood loss.”

This is not what you want to hear when you’re preparing for surgery. Only four months prior, I completed a triathlon. Now, draped in a hospital gown, my body no longer felt my own. A cadre of doctors and nurses checked in every few hours, and I squeezed my eyes thinking how I’ll repair once this passed.

For the majority of my life, I’ve been reasonably active and thankfully quite healthy. I’ve practiced yoga on and off for over a decade, can count a few triathlons under my belt, enjoy swimming in the Bay, and for the most part, I can pick up new physical activities with minimal stress on my body.

It was sobering to find myself uploading test result after test result from various doctor’s visits and interrogating chatGPT to understand where and how my body was raging a quiet revolution. More importantly, I wanted to learn how to recover well and for good.

I focused on getting strong. It’s been almost two months since, and the biggest unlock has been learning to lift weights.

The obvious benefits are physical: Lifting weights is sculpting my body with subtle lean muscles, boosting metabolism, and fortifying my bones and joints. Week over week, I delight when I can increase the dumbbell weight I pick up, or when I can complete a set which felt impossible days prior with more ease. “One more rep” is a steady mantra.

Other acute improvements are in my balance and posture. In yoga, I can hold Utkatasana, chair pose, indefinitely with a revived stability. My body’s alignment is more open, expansive, and everyday movements feel more effortless. I feel taller.

Training of any kind requires discipline, but because I’ve treated strength training as intensive repair, I treat it with a level of consistency akin to devotion. It is a commitment to myself to honor what our bodies are capable of. Sharing this intention with a small group of friends opened up a new dialogue around mind-body-connection that I cherish being able to have routinely. 

For this reason, my inner reality is strengthening too. I am more confident in saying no, noticing when I need to be more honest with my capacity to support others. Coincidentally, this breeds more trust because I’m less likely to overstretch, and when it inevitably happens, there is more grace all around.

I used to practice mental rehearsal a lot as a musician growing up. Now I do it every time at the gym, vividly picturing myself executing an exercise with perfect form. Practicing this habit regularly proves invaluable in the day to day too — whether it’s giving a company presentation to a room of hundreds or preparing for performance evaluations.

I am almost back to my peak strength. Each gain feels like a small victory, remembering not too long ago being so incapacitated that I couldn’t get out of bed. There are more milestones that I’d like to reach, and they are coming. I have a lot of newfound gratitude for this body of mine, and I hope to protect it for a long time.

It is a season of future-proofing.