“Then do something about it. Remember. This is your life. You need to grab hold and make it what you want it to be.”
Something was so positive and inspiring about everything she said, yet it made him feel worse. Instead of being inspired, he had a horrible feeling that he was failing her and himself. He nodded absentmindedly but wasn’t sure how to proceed.
She didn’t mention that conversation again, yet it felt like she was waiting for an update from him, and that too was eating away at him.
After a terrible night, he knew he had to do something at the next session with Shane, before they got started. “So,” Ryatt asked, “if I don’t get any more progress, do you ask me to leave now?”
Shane looked up from the tablet in his hand and studied him carefully. “Do you want to leave?”
“No,” he said instantly. And then he frowned. “I feel like I’m avoiding you because I’m afraid you’ll ask me to leave.”
“Wow.” Shane sat back and stared at him. “I have yet to ask anybody to leave.”
“Which is kind of what somebody told me”—he stopped for a moment—“but it seems to me, if I’m not making any progress, then I’m a bit of a fraud, and you need people here who will improve. So, if I can’t be that person,” he added, “I figured that I wouldn’t be allowed to stay.”
At that, Shane put down the tablet and hooked his arms around his knees. “Wow. Again with the things that we can get our brains all twisted up about.”
“And honestly, I wouldn’t even be asking, except that I told Lana that I would. And it feels like she’s waiting.” He gave Shane a crooked grin.
“I’m glad to hear that Lana’s got some sense.” Shane shook his head. “You are showing progress. You just haven’t hit the tipping point yet.”
“It doesn’t feel like I’m showinganyprogress.” He shot Shane a hard look. “And I figured for sure then the bed needed to go to people who could improve.”
“This isn’t a competition. This isn’t a case of you need to do better in order to stay here. That’s not how this works. The only possible competition is with yourself. Being better now than you were before.”
“Maybe I’m not,” Ryatt murmured. “That’s how it felt.”
“I’m sure it did, and I’m glad you brought it up. Too bad you didn’t a week or so ago.”
“Hey, well, it’s kind of hard to figure out this mess. There’s just so much that’s wrong in life. It’s hard to know at what point in time I’m putting the idea in your head.”
At that, Shane started to chuckle. “Is that why you didn’t ask? Just in case I hadn’t thought of it, and I would take this opportunity to get rid of you?”
Ryatt had the grace to look ashamed at that. “Maybe,” he muttered. “And I know it sounds stupid, but you know how this works. Once a worry like that gets a hold…”
“Once it gets a hold,” Shane said, shaking his head, “it’s everything. It dominates your thoughts to the point you can’t think about anything else.”
“Exactly,” he muttered. “Which is also why I’m asking.”
“And I’m glad you are, and the answer is no. We won’t get rid of you. No, there isn’t a rule where you have to show enough progress in order to stay. And the sad fact is,youdon’t seeyourprogress, and that’s something we’ll work on today,” Shane stated.
“What progress?”
“Exactly. For you to see the progress, I can do a few things. I was waiting until you improved a little more, so I could show you how this worked,” he explained, “but obviously you need to see it now.”
“You know what? Even if it’s a little bit improved, it would make me feel better, and just saying that makes me feel stupid.”
“I don’t even want to hear that,” Shane muttered, “because that’s not the point of this.” And, with that, he added, “We’ll do a series of exercises, and I’ll record it, and then I’ll show you the results.”
What followed was a session like none other.
“Now we’ll do a spine movement, then core, followed by abs and glutes.” And it went like clockwork, one after the other, after the other.
“Most of these are pretty easy though,” Ryatt noted.
“Exactly. But they’re also exercises that we did a couple months ago, when you first started here. And so, although the progress has been slow, remember how I told you that it would take longer for you to reach that tipping point? All because so many muscles had to be recruited to kick in to do the job correctly. So, in theory, you should seesomeprogress today, with what I’m about to show you, even if you don’t see a lot.”
When they were finally done, Ryatt had worked up enough of a sweat that he lay here on the mat on the floor. “Okay, so I take that back. It feels like that was a hefty workout at this point.”