Today felt important in a few different ways. First off, I followed through on joining the gym and actually going. Not just signing up with good intentions and disappearing again, but physically walking through the doors and doing the work.
Thirty minutes of cardio. Around thirty minutes on free weights. Nothing extreme, nothing heroic, but enough to leave me sweaty, aching, and strangely emotional.
I’d forgotten how familiar it all felt.
There was a point during the workout where I caught myself in the mirror, dripping in sweat, breathing hard, muscles waking back up after years of neglect, and for a few minutes it genuinely felt like coming home. Like reconnecting with a version of myself I’d lost somewhere along the way.
I even started remembering parts of my old training programmes from years ago. Muscle memory is a weird thing. Apparently emotional memory is too.
The day also involved a very different kind of conversation.
After a lot of thought, I finally settled on the safewords I want to use going forward and asked my mate to decide on his too. I ended up choosing two: Hold and Break.
I chose them very deliberately.
“Hold” means:
Slow down, check in, something’s not quite right, I need adjustment or reassurance.
It doesn’t completely destroy the scene or dynamic, but it creates space to breathe, recalibrate, and make sure everyone’s still comfortable and connected.
“Break” on the other hand means:
Everything stops immediately.
No ambiguity. No ego. No pushing through. Just stop.
Given my history and trauma, having two distinct levels felt important to me. One for discomfort or emotional wobble, and one for absolute hard limits. I think too often people only think about safewords as emergency brakes, but real trust is often built in the smaller moments before things ever get near that point.
There was one sour note during the gym session though.
A very attractive woman spent quite a while filming herself in the mirror while training, and I realised I was almost certainly being captured in the background too. I’m incredibly body conscious at the moment, and it instantly made me uncomfortable.
Most gyms these days have rules around filming for exactly that reason.
Now, I genuinely don’t think she meant any harm by it. I don’t think she was deliberately trying to film anyone else. But it did make me think about the double standards around these things. If the roles were reversed, I’m pretty certain a man filming near women in the gym mirror would immediately raise concerns.
So instead of silently stewing in my anxiety like I normally would, I quietly spoke to the gym staff. Not because I wanted her punished or embarrassed, but simply because people should be aware that men can feel uncomfortable being filmed too.
That felt surprisingly important.
Not dramatic. Not confrontational. Just quietly advocating for myself instead of swallowing discomfort like I usually do.
Which, strangely enough, seems to be becoming a theme lately.
Leave a Reply