9/30 Mental Toughness Thursday

By Coach Leslie 
In July, for GORUCK Tribe, we read an excellent book by Micheal Easter called The Comfort Crises. I blogged about it here and here. 
In The Comfort Crisis, Easter, discuses an emerging issue in our modern era of the Comfort Creep. Comfort creep is an insidious incremental increase of ease in our everyday lives with a commensurate decrease in our toughness. Easter describes it this way, "We sleep on the most comfortable mattress possible in our climate controlled home. We wake up and walk less than 20 feet to get into our climate controlled vehicles to work in another climate controlled building. Then we drive home to eat dinner that we didn't need to grow, forage or hunt. Then we sit on a comfortable sofa until it's time to go to sleep in our comfortable bed."
One of the most powerful methods Eater recommends to stave off comfort creep is to attempt a misogi. Miosgi is a Japanese word that describes an arduous journey that transforms you. 
According to Marcus Elliot, a Harvard-trained sports scientist, modern misogi are designed to test our physical and mental edges. He says misogi need 2 criteria:
1. You should have a 50% chance of completing the journey
2. Don't die
Misogi is meant to circumnavigate our human potential. During your misogi journey you will be tasked with exploring what you're willing to put yourself through to become a better human. Ultimately, whatever you decide to do for your misogi it will be an exploration and it should change of your comfort zone. 

I am attempting a misogi this weekend. I have committed to joining Coach Nick for all 24 hours of his Femme-Fatale-A-Thon. This misogi scares me for many reasons. Not the least of which is the volume of physical activity, 21 CrossFit "Girls" equals 1,566 pull-ups, 1,025 air squats, 781 push-ups, 450 sit-ups not to mention all the power cleans, deadlifts, thrusters and other barbell movements. In order to complete all of these workouts I will OBVIOUSLY have to scale many of them. That is also a component of misogi rule number 2: Don't Die. I will also expand this to don't get rhabdo. 

Staying awake and active for 24 hours also scares the hell out of me. Not since the Marine Corps and a 200 mile bike ride in 2002 that took 20 hours have I stayed up this long. I feel that a 50/50 chance of completing this is about right given how messed up my sleep is regularly. Who know? Perhaps my chronic insomnia will give me some super power at 3am when we're scheduled to do Jackie. 
I am also intimidated by Coach Nick and Micah. They are both much, much younger than me and Nick was an Infantry Officer and Micah a Radio Reconnaissance Operator. These men are used to hard physical endeavors and I'm pretty sure they will have no problem leaning into this task. At 49 years and 11 months old, 26 years out of the Marine Corps, I am feeling like perhaps my glory days of being a Marine badass are a bit faded. But, what the hell, I'm going to do it anyway! 
This Femme-Fatale-a-Thon is a charity fundraiser for three important local non-profits. Warriors and Quiet Waters because of the outstanding work they do for veterans, Heart of the Valley because we all love dogs, and Haven at my request because I am a military sexual assault survivor. I am grateful to Coach Nick for asking my advice for the third non-profit and his willingness to include Haven because of my personal experiences. 
ALL OF YOU can support our misogi in a few different ways. You can physically join us in the gym for a donation, you can join us virtually for a donation, or you can just pledge a small amount for each workout we complete. You can get the details on how to do all of that by clicking the button below. 

Click Here to Support the Femme-Fatale-a-Thon