Last week was a week of big numbers for me.
In CrossFit, we worked to a 1-rep-max lift in several movements, and I achieved several new Personal Records (PRs)
- 65 pounds in push press
- 115 pounds in back squat
- 100 consecutive jump ropes without tripping
- 200 pounds in barbell deadlift
The 200 pound deadlift was 23 pounds heavier than my previous PR for barbell deadlift.
It felt big. But not as big as what came the next day: my 48th birthday.
What’s the difference between 47 and 48? my coach asked me.
I gave him some incoherent articulation of a reason that made no sense to me even as I said it, and then I shifted my focus to my hex bar. I had a goal of lifting 225, and I wanted it so bad I could taste it.
Yet, despite feeling strong and confident from my big CrossFit PR, I failed to get my goal of 225. I even failed to match my previous hex bar PR of 215.
In an instant, the high of my barbell deadlift from CrossFit was a distant memory, and I was in a negative spiral after failing to meet my goal.
This isn’t about the deadlifts.
It’s not even about weightlifting.
The Bigger Story: Lessons From Eclipse Season
I decided to compile a reel of clips of my big PRs from the week. As I reviewed the videos, a bigger story emerged.
It’s so synchronous that I can’t ignore the tie-in to current astrology. The planets always show you where to look.
When I looked back at the timing, I realized that last week’s big milestones really began with my recent hex bar 215 deadlift. That occurred on the date Mercury stationed retrograde — one day after the new moon solar eclipse in Aries.
My barbell deadlift and failure to hit my new hex goal occurred at the lunar eclipse in Scorpio, the final south node eclipse on the Scorpio/Taurus axis.
With Mercury retrograde through this whole eclipse season and with the final south node eclipse in Scorpio happening opposite Mercury retrograde and Uranus in Taurus, as well as my natal sun, it felt like there was a bigger story here to share.
Among other archetypes, Mercury is the counter.
This is a story about the power I gave to numbers to define me. It’s about the way I invested my value, worth, and happiness in external metrics. It’s about how the weight of emotional investment in any outcome makes the lift much heavier. And it’s about how to liberate myself from the constraints holding me back.
The Weight of Numbers
The number I wanted most of all last week was the hex bar deadlift of 225. Even though I knew better than to attach to the desire — especially during a south node eclipse — and even though I know the suffering that comes when we get attached to an outcome, I wanted it.
I was hungry for it.
Hunger and desire can be a good thing, in that they can fuel our drive. But there’s a line. Too much desire — or, more specifically, attachment to that desire — can weigh us down with expectations.
The more we invest in the outcome of hitting any number — the more emotional weight we load on the literal or metaphorical bar — the heavier the lift.
That’s one piece of this.
How Do You Define Yourself?
The lunar eclipse in Scorpio was the final south node eclipse on the Taurus/Scorpio axis; we’ll have one final north node eclipse in Taurus in October. It’s a series that began in the fall of 2021, that teaches us a lesson around a larger theme.
The Taurus/Scorpio axis relates to what we value and how we define our worth. The overt themes often relate to money and financial matters, but value and worth go way beyond financial currency.
I noticed how much I was invested in the numbers, and how I let them shape my mood.
Deadlifting 215 on hex bar felt like a big deal. The PRs in Crossfit a week later, culminating in hitting 200 on the barbell deadlift, sent my confidence soaring.
And then, as I struggled to hit my previous numbers on the hex bar and faced the impending addition of another year to my age, my confidence plummeted and I found myself feeling grief and anger.
Just like that, my mood had disintegrated.
This, of course, is the problem with measuring ourselves against outside metrics.
If I fuel my confidence from the big lifts, the big misses will deplete my confidence.
Why Does It Matter?
What’s the difference between 47 and 48? my coach asked me.
What is the difference, really, between 47 and 48? Not much. Other than expectations of where I “should” be and what I “should” have accomplished by now.
What’s the difference, really, between 215 and 225?
Or between 2,000 and 2,500 blog posts?
Or anything else we measure?
The only difference the story I have about what it will mean when I hit those numbers.
Every day I read or hear from people either boasting about their numbers or desiring numbers.
My client who wants a net worth of $100 million. The trainer at the gym who boasts about how many Instagram followers he has. This one guy in my Twitter feed who shares how many impressions his work has received online. The influencers who obsessively track likes and comments.
It’s all the same.
We’re all counting something in the (often) subconscious belief, that whatever we are measuring is a metric of our worth. We are seduced by the belief that we can define our worth by a number, whether it’s the number on the scale, the number on the barbell, the number in a bank account, the number of likes, followers, comments, impressions, book sales, or website visitors.
This is so normalized in conversation we hardly think about it.
But when you step outside of it, it lands differently.
What’s the difference between 47 and 48?
As I watched myself on video giving him some answer, I couldn’t help but think:
Isn’t this so fucking silly?
Look how much I was letting this age define my mood. Look how invested I was in getting this one lift on this one day.
As if this would give my life a sense of meaning and purpose or suddenly make me happy.
In the context of the deadlifts and the weightlifting PRs, it’s so obvious how silly this is.
It’s just a number on a bar.
The Shadow of Worth
But, of course, the myth is that it’s different in other contexts.
It’s not different. It’s all just numbers.
Jill Wintersteen, who writes monthly workbooks on the lunations for Spirit Daughter, explains that the shadow side of Taurus and Scorpio raises issues regarding our security, worth, and value.
When we are in these low energies, we look outside ourselves for validation of our worth and value. We may obsess over money or other metrics that we ascribe to value and worthiness.
We distract ourselves with external preoccupations, blame others, and project our feelings onto others.
Forgetting we are perfect where we are, we constantly look to the next shift we need to make in our lives, and we fail to appreciate what we have already accomplished.
That checks out with my experience.
Whether it’s the number on the barbell, the number in your bank account, the number of likes or followers that you have, or the number of impressions that your work gets, it’s all the same pattern: sourcing our worth and value in an external metric.
Who the fuck cares?
The numbers are not a measure of your worth or your value.
The Path to Liberation
The irony is that the more weight I put into the numbers, the harder it is to reach them. The lift becomes too heavy.
The intense desire and attachment outcome that I had regarding my hex bar deadlift added an extra weight that I didn’t have on the barbell during CrossFit.
This is where Uranus comes in. The story of Uranus in Taurus is about revolutionizing how we think about value and worth.
Uranus wants to liberate us. It works by bringing the unexpected.
My PR in CrossFit felt so great in part because it was unexpected; I wasn’t loaded with pressure to hit a certain number. And that made the load on the bar a lot lighter.
Liberation happens when we can free ourselves from the attachment to a number; when we can source our value and worth from something internal to us.
[…] Of course, it’s never really about the deadlifts or the numbers. […]