Two Years Ago I Could Barely Move.

Today, I'm Playing Softball at 52.

There are moments in life that probably don't look like much to anyone else but mean everything to you. For me, one of those moments happened recently while I was standing on a softball field.

I looked around for a second and thought...

How did I get back here?

I'm 52 years old. I'm pitching. I'm running around a field. I'm playing tennis again. I'm working out again. And most of the time, I'm doing it without thinking twice about whether my body is going to cooperate with me.

Do I have some aches and pains?

Absolutely.

I'm 52, not 22. LOL.

But I'll take normal aches and pains from actually living my life any day. Because almost two years ago, my reality looked very different.

There Was a Time When Simply Moving Didn't Feel Easy

A couple of years ago, I was on a massive downward spiral. I had been carrying an incredible amount of stress for a long time.

Work.

Life.

Relationships.

Responsibilities.

Emotional things I hadn't fully dealt with.

Like a lot of people, I thought I could handle it. Actually, I thought being able to push through everything was one of my strengths.

Keep working.

Keep moving.

Take care of what needs to be taken care of.

Deal with yourself later.

Until eventually, my body had a very different idea.

My nervous system became completely overwhelmed.

I was exhausted.

My body didn't feel right.

Moving didn't feel right.

There were physical symptoms that scared the hell out of me.

And then came the hospital visits.

Eight of them in about three months.

Tests.

Questions.

Fear.

Wondering what was happening inside my body.

Wondering whether something serious was being missed.

Wondering whether I was ever going to feel normal again.

When you've been through something like that, it changes your relationship with your body. It also changes your relationship with life.

There were moments during that period when tomorrow didn't feel guaranteed. And yet, on paper, so much could look "normal." That's one of the hardest things about going through something like this.

You know what you're feeling.

You know something isn't right.

But you don't necessarily have one simple answer that explains everything you're experiencing.

Eventually I Had to Stop Asking, "How Do I Push Through This?"

For most of my life, pushing harder was my answer.

If something wasn't working, work harder.

If I was tired, keep going.

If life got stressful, handle it.

If something hurt emotionally, bury it somewhere and move on.

That mentality can get you pretty far in your career and life.

Until it doesn't.

My body eventually forced me to start asking a completely different question:

What does my body actually need from me right now?

That question changed a lot.

I stopped looking at recovery as weakness.

I stopped treating movement as something I needed to use to beat my body into submission.

I started looking at food differently.

I paid much more attention to my gut health.

I started looking seriously at sleep and recovery.

I changed the way I exercised.

I started dealing with some of the emotional weight and stress that I had been carrying instead of pretending that the physical body and emotional body somehow lived in two separate worlds.

And probably most importantly...

I went back to the fundamentals.

The Fundamentals Aren't Sexy. And They Work.

We live in a world obsessed with hacks.

The newest supplement.

The newest diet.

The newest wearable.

The newest morning routine.

The newest way to optimize yourself.

Now… some of these are great adds to your routine but…

My experience taught me to appreciate much simpler things.

Eat real food.

Give your body enough nutrition.

Move.

Build strength.

Walk.

Sleep.

Recover.

Get outside.

Breathe.

Deal with your stress.

Deal with your emotions.

Pay attention to your relationships.

Create boundaries.

Stop inviting unnecessary chaos into your life. And do those things consistently. None of those things created some miraculous overnight transformation for me.

My recovery wasn't one giant breakthrough. It was hundreds and eventually thousands of small decisions.

Day after day.

Some days were great.

Some weren't.

There were setbacks.

There were moments when I wondered if I was actually improving. And slowly, my world started getting bigger again.

Then One Day You're Standing on a Softball Field

I was sitting in service with Andrea and she looked over and said, “hey did you see that?”  I asked what she was talking about. She replied, “softball is starting up, are you going to play?”

I didn’t think about it at first but said I think I will.

That's the part of healing we don't talk about enough.

Sometimes you don't notice how far you've come while it's happening. You notice it afterward. You suddenly realize you're doing something you couldn't imagine doing two years earlier.

For me, that's softball and movements that I haven’t done in years.

It's tennis.

It's lifting weights.

It's being able to challenge myself physically again.

It's waking up and thinking about what I want to do with my day instead of immediately wondering how my body is going to feel.

That's why that picture of me pitching means so much more to me than somebody looking at it would probably realize.

It's not really a picture of a guy playing softball.

It's a picture of freedom.

It's a reminder that the body I once felt trapped inside of is allowing me to live again. And I don't take that for granted.

I've Also Changed What "Being Fit" Means to Me

At 52, I'm not interested in pretending I'm 22.

I still want to be strong and physically fit - my body is a temple and I live to honor that.

I still want to challenge myself.

I still want to train.

I still have goals.

But I also understand something today that the younger version of me didn't understand very well:

The workout is only part of being healthy.

Recovery matters.

Sleep matters.

Nutrition matters.

Your gut matters.

Your stress matters.

Your emotional health matters.

The way you live the other 23 hours of your day matters.

There are times when pushing myself is exactly what I need. And there are other times when the strongest thing I can do is back off, eat more, sleep, recover and give my body what it's asking for.

I'm much better at hearing that conversation today.

Not perfect… Better.

My Body Wasn't My Enemy

This might be the biggest lesson of the entire experience.

For a while, it felt like my body had betrayed me.

Why was this happening?

Why couldn't I just feel normal?

Why couldn't I do the things I used to do?

Eventually, I began looking at it differently.

My body wasn't trying to destroy my life.

It was trying to get my attention.

I just hadn't been listening.

I had normalized stress. I had normalized pushing. I had normalized chaos. And my body eventually reached a point where it wasn't willing to quietly absorb it anymore.

Today, I have an entirely different level of respect for those signals.

That's also why I'm so protective of my peace now.

Not every problem needs my involvement.

Not every argument deserves my energy.

Not everything needs to be accomplished today.

And not every person or situation gets unlimited access to my life.

Once you've experienced what it feels like to lose your health, your definition of what's important changes pretty quickly.

So Why Am I Sharing This?

I'm not sharing this because I think I've figured everything out. I haven't. And I'm definitely not sharing it to tell someone that what worked for me will automatically fix whatever they're going through.

I'm sharing it for the person who is somewhere close to where I was.

The person who's exhausted.

The person who's scared by what they're feeling.

The person who's frustrated because they don't feel like themselves anymore.

The person who's spent years taking care of everything and everybody while quietly running themselves into the ground.

I know what it feels like to wonder:

Am I ever going to feel like me again?

Two years ago, I couldn't have pictured the life I'm living today, if I’m being completely honest with you.  I was on my death bed and I felt it; it was a choice in honoring the life I was given versus the life I was living.  I was being asked to follow and I finally listened.

Now I'm 52 years old, running around a softball field, playing tennis, lifting weights, building my strength and continuing to work on myself.

Most days with ease. Some days with a few more noises coming out of my joints than I'd like. LOL.

But I'm living. And I'm grateful for it. If there's one thing this experience has taught me, it's this:

Don't wait until your body has to scream before you start listening to what it's been whispering.

Sometimes getting your life back doesn't begin with doing more.

It begins with returning to the fundamentals and giving your body a chance to recover.

Written By: Michael LoColle, RESET Health & Wellness Coach

If chronic stress, burnout, poor sleep, low energy, or difficulty recovering physically have started affecting how you feel and perform, you don't have to simply keep pushing through it. At Danvers Wellness Center in Danvers, MA, we take a whole-person approach to stress recovery and nervous system regulation, incorporating movement, nutrition, lifestyle coaching, stress management, and practical strategies designed to support sustainable health and performance. Through our RESET framework, we help busy professionals and adults better understand the factors affecting their sleep, energy, physical recovery, resilience, and overall well-being. Danvers Wellness Center serves clients throughout Danvers, Beverly, Peabody, Salem, Middleton, Topsfield, Wenham, and communities across the North Shore of Massachusetts. Learn more about our approach and services at DanversWellnessCenter.com.