(cringe) processing #5: Choosing What Aligns

Note: I am in the process of archiving my writings disperced across social media platforms on my own website here. This is a mirror post of my personal essay “(cringe) processing #5: Choosing What Aligns“ on my Substack page (cringe) processing.

I dedicate this piece to myself, having just recently celebrated another year on earth.

If you read my previous post, you would know that movements have consistently been a key part of my living and experiencing the world since May 2023. During the first two years of my return to movement, I was lucky to have found the first ever workout program I could stick to with OrangeTheory and a local yoga studio. In the meantime, I tried many other different group fitness classes, from bootcamp to barre, from spin to kickboxing. I enjoyed some more than others but none of them made it into my regular programming. For two years, I was content with the combination of cardio through rower and treadmill, strength via dumbbells and TRX, and mobility through slow flow and hot yoga.

Throughout this period, I learnt that I really gravitated towards feeling strong. Time after time, I noticed how much more enjoyment I gained from lifting weights than sweating through cardio. This difference in pleasure manifested itself in a shift in class attendance pattern: I started to mostly attend strength classes with occasional hybrid training. After a while, I decided to lean in on my preference to focus on strength training. In May 2025, I tried out Flex Base Training (my current gym) and officially quit Orange Theory, the place that first witnessed my consistency and exploration. As I was growing stronger in the gym, I also felt inclined to try out different sports. I tried out beginner beach volleyball, started surfing, and even relearned tennis.

Surprise, surprise. Who would have thought that learning movements and practicing sports while doing the inner work of healing would have meant constant invitations and opportunities to discover more about myself and make connections between movements and life. My last post was about returning to my body and the wonder of being grounded in one’s own embodiment. In this post, I hope to share some insights from strength training and surfing this past year. If strength training taught me how to cultivate force internally, surfing taught me how to relate to forces much larger than myself.

Let us first return to May 2025 when I transitioned to cultivating strength at my current gym. Joining a new gym was intimidating. I had never used a barbell, a pull up bar, a landmine, a sled, or a cable machine before May 2025. I now know it is normal and okay to be unsure of and even a little scared of unfamiliar movement patterns or equipment. I guess that’s why we started small to get comfortable with the basics first before adding weights and difficulties to challenge the muscle. This is consistent with how I learned to set boundaries with my parents. I started small with saying no to low-stakes requests to start using that underdeveloped muscle. I kept note of all the tiny wins and being okay with setbacks when practicing saying no and holding my line. I was told to treat each obstacle as an opportunity to challenge and grow that muscle. If I keep doing it, the same weight will get easier and ready for us to level up in weight. This is progressive overload in gym and in life.

It is wonderful when something you thought you would enjoy ends up being more than what you could have ever imagined. I love lifting heavy and feeling like a badass. But strength isn’t just lifting heavier. On top of physical strength, I have come to develop more somatic awareness, emotional strength, and communal strength. I love being present with my body and breath. I love cheering on others and also being encouraged by coaches and peers.

It became clear to me that I am stronger than I think and give myself credit for in and outside of the gym. I can deadlift and squat more than my body weight. I am capable of standing up for myself and people I love. I am strong enough to confront my parents for how they have hurt me throughout the years. I am capable of protecting myself and my inner child by protecting my boundaries and holding my ground. I am strong enough to feel big emotions and sit with them.

While I am strong and capable of doing difficult things, recovery is equally if not more important. My body is my guide and companion in the gym and beyond. Instead of pushing through, it is perhaps more important for me to be present and attentive to various signals. Like in real life, I have proven again and again that I can meet crazy unreasonable expectations at the expense of myself. So it is not about proving my capability to do hard things but to learn to honor my physical, emotional, and mental capacity.

It was also during this past year that Flex Base has become this third space for me to cultivate a sense of being part of a community. I am blessed to have formed genuine rapport and friendships with several people from my gym. It feels like that once I am on this inward journey of healing and self-actualization to live a more aligned life and be a more authentic self, my energy radiates from inside out and attracts new friends on the same frequency. Working out with friends also adds a whole new dimension to strength as we are growing strong together physically and emotionally. Cheers to more muscles, more coffee chats, more beach days, and more birthdays together.

In comparison to strength training, I have had a much more complicated relationship to surfing. It all started when I signed up to join a group lesson for true beginners as advertised by Instagram. It was September 6, 2025 at Redondo Beach. To be honest, I don’t remember much of what happened during the actual surfing session. I do remember getting to the meeting spot super early. My heart was pounding fast while I was simultaneously distracted by the heaviness of the mineral sunscreen on my skin. I wasn’t a natural talent. I didn’t really successfully pop up. But I guess I enjoyed the experience enough to give it another shot a few weeks later and eventually even got my own second-hand board and a thick winter wetsuit.

There was something about surfing that kept drawing me back in this past year despite constant setbacks with long breaks in between. It is immersing myself in the ever-changing powerful ocean, an environment I have always felt akin to yet simultaneously afraid of. It is the wonder comes from being in the natural elements, sitting on my board at the line up looking out to the horizon, hearing the waves, feeling the sun, seeing dolphins and seabirds. It is the smile that comes from having fun rolling in water during a wipeout as if I am in a laundry machine, sometimes getting all tangled up with the kelp forest. It is the joy that comes from standing up on the board, however short it may be, and the cheers for myself and others sharing the ocean. It is the lightness that comes from my tense body and nerves eventually loosen up toward the end of the session.

Looking back, I had always been more drawn to the metaphorical and philosophical aspects of surfing more than the act of surfing itself. From the very beginning, I remember being blown away by little observations like how tense my body was, how hectic my pop-up felt, and how I frequently refused to let go of my hands. My coach said: “You might instinctively think it is safer to hold on to the board, but that makes it harder to balance and flow.” Seemingly common surfing advice like this, combined with all the introspective work I have been doing in therapy and journaling, has yielded a revelation. During this particular phase of my life, surfing became a site for my rewiring practices: spotting strategies that have helped me survive for decades, unlearning instincts that are no longer helpful, and learning to trust myself in an embodied way.

At the same time, I found myself more and more reluctant to surf. I felt more annoyed by little things that didn’t use to bother me as much during the novelty period. But what truly deterred me was the physical discomfort, especially the migraine afterward potentially triggered by sensory overload from one or a combination of choppy and punchy waves, seasick, sun, and the restricted tightness of wetsuit. Somewhere in my body, the balance of gains and losses regarding this activity has started to tip. The internal calculator of “is it worth it” kicked in every time I debate whether to go surfing, which has led to a sense of dread as a result of constant overthinking. I commend myself for being honest with myself instead of brushing aside my feelings.

The type II fun offered by surfing has been truly unique. But the demand is quite overwhelming for my already pretty on-edge nervous system during a time of uncertainty. One unexpected day at El Porto with sets of 5ft waves crashing taught me the importance of timing to moving safely and efficiently through the impact zone. I learnt so much but, honestly, I am good with never getting into conditions like that ever again. The sport taught me a lot but also asked so much of me: to observe carefully, stay curious, listen to my body, learn incrementally, accept uncertainty, regulate my nervous system, trust timing, recover after falling, celebrate small improvements, and remain humble before something much larger than myself.

I made the decision to take a hiatus in late April. It took me a while, but after a conversation with my dear friend Jo and many more with myself, I came to terms with this choice. This decision does not associate me with being a failure or a quitter, even if those internalized voices crack through in fleeting moments. I chose to pause with the knowledge that, one, surfing is demanding a little much of me at this current time and, two, the type I fun I gained from surfing can be achieved by much less demanding activities. I am at peace with putting surfing aside for this phase of my life. Who knows how long this phase will last. And even if I never return, or simple ‘quit,’ that decision does not make me a better or worse person.

One month later, in late May, I was blessed with a two-week trip with my partner on the beautiful island of Oahu in Hawaii. It was meant to be a relaxing trip for us to rest and recharge: nourishing our bodies and souls with delicious food, comfortable weather, rich arts and cultures, gorgeous ocean and mountains, and magical encounters with wild chickens and monk seals. Looking at rows after rows of beautiful mellow waves everyday in Honolulu gave me an itch to try surfing again at the birthplace of surfing. So I listened to that itch and took a lesson on May 28.

I was a little bit nervous to start. It had been months since I surfed. It was my first time riding a 11-foot longboard, surfing reef break, and paddling so far out away from the shore. That day turned out to be the most epic and transformative surf I had ever experienced. I remember telling my coach how this experience single-handedly broadened my perception towards what surfing could feel like to me and clarified a lot of questions for me.

My mind was blown away by how warm and comfortable the water felt, how light and free my body felt without the wetsuit, how soft and mellow the waves felt, and how breathtaking the view was with Waikiki and Diamond Head. I instantly felt calmer, more regulated, and in tune with myself in comparison to the times surfing at my regular spots in LA trying to survive against coldness, tightness, tenseness, and punchiness. Here is the aha moment. There was nothing wrong with me after all. I do not need to heal more in order to surf. Of course my body was tense and my pop-up was hectic when my body was literally in a fight-and-flight mode under conditions that overwhelmed me. Of course I would often have hours if not days of migraine afterward.

My first attempt that day instantly became my longest ride yet while my second attempt easily doubled the length. I also caught a couple waves on my own without being pushed. The wipeouts were fun but a little scary with the reef break, and I did have scratches all over as my battle scars. I surfed twice more in the next few days before having to leave. I caught so many waves, had so many rides that I couldn’t have dreamt of, and also made discoveries of why I often fell off my butt or unintentionally turned left.

But it truly wasn’t these “successes” that shook me. It was that I finally experienced surfing under conditions where my nervous system was not overwhelmed. It was learning that surfing could be a lot more fun and a lot less stressful if the conditions were right for me to learn, adapt, and grow. It was connecting this insight to the importance of conditions in life. Oftentimes when I blamed myself for being not good enough or trying hard enough, it was actually the environment being not conducive to my thriving. The lesson is less about blaming the conditions than moving away from self-blame toward a better understanding of what my needs are at a given time and seek out environments that would allow me to grow and thrive.

Ultimately, the Hawaii trip didn’t magically solve the problem underneath my complicated feelings toward surfing. It did clarify what conditions made learning joyful. Now that I am in LA, I still haven’t gone back surfing. If I feel the itch again, I will drive further down south or north to explore spots that might be more suitable for me. Or perhaps, a tropical surf trip will be the way to go. Who knows, but in this new year, I am choosing what aligns instead of what drains me.