Grief, Pressure, and the Discipline That Carries You: Fitness Isn’t Always About the Gym

In December, I lost my mother. It actually feels strange to write that. Since then, life has been kind of heavy. It’s the kind of period that doesn’t just interrupt your routine, it shifts your entire foundation.

The gym has always been my biggest anchor, the space where I find mental clarity, emotional release, and a sense of calmness and some control. For me, fitness has never been just about the physical. It’s a practice that keeps my mindset sharp, my energy up, and my attitude in check. But over the past few months, even that anchor has been hard to hold onto.

When Grief Meets Reality: No Space to Breathe

In Jewish tradition, when a parent passes away, we observe a mourning period called shiva. For seven days, the immediate family members stay home while friends and community members come to offer comfort from morning till night. It’s powerful and grounding. But it’s also emotionally exhausting. You barely sleep, and when you do, you wake up feeling no more rested than when you closed your eyes.

There’s no space to decompress, no time to process, and no room to return to any kind of rhythm, especially not the gym. But when I finally returned about twelve days later, just stepping into that space gave me something I hadn’t felt in a while: energy. Focus. Even a flicker of normality.

Grief Isn’t Linear — and Neither Is Life

Just as I began to recalibrate, another major shift hit: I parted ways with one of my biggest clients. Professionally, it was a huge change. But with it another door opened as they often do and came the spark of something new, a career shift that brought a wave of energy and promise into an already emotionally drained chapter of my life.

At the same time, I made a personal commitment. In Judaism, for the year following a parent’s passing, children recite a daily prayer called Kaddish, actually three times a day. I decided to show up for that not just because of tradition, but to honor my mother’s memory. She was deeply observant. I’m not, but this felt important.

It meant being at synagogue by 8:00 AM every day. So I adjusted. My workouts shifted to 5:00 or 5:30 AM. It was tough, but it worked for a while.

When Discipline Collides with Fatigue

Anyone who lives an active lifestyle knows training doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Recovery, rest, and sleep are non-negotiable. But I was cutting corners everywhere: shorter sleep, longer days, mounting emotional fatigue. It caught up quickly.

My shoulder injury flared up again. Push movements like bench presses felt stuck in cement. Even after dropping the weight by half on some exercises, I was still struggling to push. And that told me something louder than any missed PR ever could: my body was asking for a break.

So I reset. Back to basics. Light weights. Controlled tempo. No ego lifts. Just effort and intention. And gradually it began to work. The numbers weren’t skyrocketing or even going up very much at all, but I was training with presence and purpose again.

Then Came the Avalanche

Just as I started to find my footing again, life threw more on the pile. Ten- to twelve-hour workdays became the new normal. There were new responsibilities, new challenges, and very little space to breathe.

Sleep fell apart. My body ached. I was completely overextended.

And waking up at 5:00 AM for the gym? It wasn’t working. It became more punishing than productive. I’d wake up on time to go to the gym, but couldn’t get myself to move and knew that it was sleep that I needed more than anything. I felt that pushing through another groggy, under-recovered session wasn’t helping me, rather it was draining me even more. I found myself losing a bit of discipline and one week only made it to the gym twice from my previous five times a week routine.

When Your Outlet Starts to Strain

The gym has always been one place I could rely on to help me stay centred, especially in chaos. But lately, even that has started to feel heavy. Not because I’ve lost my drive, but because I’ve been carrying so much else.

Grief. Work. Fatigue. Emotional pressure. Other life pressures. Professional and personal matters I won’t get into. Mental clutter. The weight of it all has been stacking up faster than I’ve been able to process. And even though fitness is my go-to form of mental health support, it started to get crowded out. Partly by choice. But a lot by reality.

The outlet that once cleared my head started demanding energy that I didn’t have. It’s a scary place to be, when even your coping mechanisms feel strained. It’s difficult to keep up the positivity when there is so much weight and little comfort in the self work you have achieved.

But here’s the truth: the mindset I’ve built through years of training is what’s carrying me now.

The Quiet Strength That Training Builds

This is what fitness gives you even when you’re not in the gym. It teaches you how to sit with discomfort, how to push when it matters, and how to pull back when it’s smarter.

It gives you a long-game mentality. It builds your resilience in layers.

And when everything else in life feels like it’s closing in, your mindset is the muscle that matters most.

So right now, I’m giving myself permission to adapt, but not quit. To breathe but not break. And to trust that I’ll be back soon.

Because the pressure is still real. The grief hasn’t faded. The work is still demanding. And I won’t pretend I have it all figured out.

But I’m still here. Still standing. Still building something inside that no weight on a bar can measure.

And soon, I’ll be back under that bar too.

“Discipline isn’t about pushing through at all costs — it’s about knowing when to push, when to pause, when to adapt, and when to breathe so you can show up stronger tomorrow.”