Lifting Heavy Things

An Unlikely Personal Trainer Teaches You How to Support Mental Health and Wellness In The Gym

All throughout my childhood, I was the kid who always had a note to be excused from P.E. Sometimes I presented with mysterious (and fictitious) aches, pains, and headaches, especially when there was a timed mile or a rope climb scheduled. In high school and college, I skipped gym to smoke cigarettes, drink coffee, and read. And today, I am an unlikely fitness professional and coach — the kind of support I needed as an adult when I was struggling with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). While I quit smoking nearly twenty years ago. I am still an avid coffee drinker and reader, and I never learned how to climb a rope.

In my first book, Lifting Heavy Things: Healing Trauma One Rep at a Time, I guide readers through two journeys: my own, from fitness misfit to exercise enthusiast and trauma-informed personal trainer; and theirs, should they be curious about using movement as a healing practice as I have with much success.

As a lover of the personal essay, random facts, and experiential learning, I wove together memoir, research, and practical exercises to explain how you can deepen your relationship with your body, learn about your boundaries, and lean into your agency through embodied movement. Whether…