From the Rose to the Thorns: Bye Bye Gaby Coach

 

The other day, I was thinking about roses, how beautiful and spooky I find them and why they have thorns.

I discovered that, botanically speaking, the “thorns” on roses are actually prickles: "small, sharp outgrowths from the epidermis (the outer layer) of the stem, not true thorns, which come from deeper tissue."

One of the reasons for these prickles is to keep animals from eating them. How smart can a plant be?
That’s why I love jumping on my bike, to go somewhere, or sometimes nowhere at all. Even when the weather isn’t on my side, the freedom of moving with the air lets me enter a special space where my entangled thoughts slowly detangle. But this one turned out to be not the most pleasant one, although revealing.

It was a very windy day, the kind of wind that comes before the storm, with a charged, deep grey sky mixed with gentle golden sunset light.
Those days when contrasts seem to be everywhere, and the mind allows itself to be seduced into places it doesn’t necessarily belong: rush, peace, excitement, and a lot of  overstimulation.
But hold on, let me go back to the morning, so you can get the bigger picture of this event.

Since the day started, all I had in mind was getting ready for a leg session. Saturdays are great days because I don’t work, so I can enjoy a generous, all-counted calories breakfast and spend a long time at the gym. Believe me, this ritual starts early. Even my meditation wasn’t that great, disturbed by the thought of working out hard.

I suddenly realized that “Coach Gaby” had actually woken up before me.
She interrupted my meditation, injected me with compulsive behaviors like drinking more coffee than usual and blasting crazy gym-rat music to crush my sets.
I wanted to calm her down, but she wouldn’t let me. She screamed in my ears words of challenge, records, and motivation.
So, I listened to her and painfully, paid the consequences.

Without getting into too much detail, my session went just like my morning had started: jumping from one song to the next, looking for the perfect rhythm to push out one more rep.
Shaky and satisfied (but not quite calm) I left the gym.

The way back home felt like a game, avoiding traffic lights and keeping pace for  the sake of… of nothing really... I was almost there, maybe 20 meters from my house, when a crazy spiraling wind hit me from the left side, carrying fine dust that almost blinded me.

No problem, I thought, "I’ve got this."

Then, another gust, stronger this time, blew my North Face cap off.
In a delusional reflex, I tried to grab it mid-air, thinking I could control my bike at the same time.
The sequence ended with me on the ground, bleeding, my left knee popped out, staring at the sky, overwhelmed by the intensity of it all and wondering: When did I press the button for this chapter?

Once again, I was in the hospital, waiting for X-ray results, trying to piece things together. Why now?
Just when I was finally starting to feel better after two stormy years was this really happening?

I came home like a dog with its tail between its legs: no broken bones, a very swollen knee, and a prescription for an MRI in a week, hoping no ligaments had torn this time.
I sat at the table, ate a sandwich, and realized that all I truly had left was the present moment.

So, I sat quietly and meditated, trying to wash away this hurricane that left me more than  just messy-haired.

Lying in bed later, I came to understand that difficult experiences really do add value to life’s learning process but this time, something else clicked.

They don’t necessarily need to make us stronger.

So I decided to sat back and talked to "Coach Gaby."

I thanked her for her daily motivational speeches and her driven, warrior energy. But I told her I needed to switch that into something softer, a gentler way of experiencing life.

It was hard to say goodbye; she had supported me for so long. But it was time.

I allowed her to take  the medals off her neck, and believe me, how lighter it felt.

This morning, I woke up thinking of the rose again, its smell, its delicate, feminine beauty.

But this time, it no longer felt spooky.

So I thought:

"May I become the rose that welcomes both storm and sun, may I become the rose that no longer needs its thorns to feel safe".

I’m still waiting for my MRI, still healing.
In the meantime, I wish you, from the depth of my heart, that every experience helps you awaken and return to where you truly belong  with no thorns, neither prickles, only tenderness covering our skin.

Promise to keep you updated.

Love ya 💫