Here I am, writing on a plane, Boeing 777 from Milan to Miami, to be specific.

I love plane rides only for the reason that they force you to disconnect from the Internet and, while they take you from one reality to another, they offer you with a good opportunity for some internal work: thinking of current life status, future goals and meditation.

I’m thinking of how I molded my life around training – making the time, sacrificing it, avoiding social events to prioritize rest, creating a diet that would work for my goals, keeping work load to a certain level to assure I had my 10-15 hours of practice and that training was still enjoyable and not just becoming a job (coaching and teaching) consequently making me lose the passion, which is the core engine of it all.

As time went by, the following has occurred: I got really good at training, I got hurt, I recovered my injuries, I added back weight training, I had heartbreaks, I tried to recover from those, I moved back to Miami (you remember me in Vegas probably), I worked for Equinox to try a corporate job – sometimes to make sure you’re doing the right thing you have to lose it – in fact I lasted only 4 months and went back doing my thing. I like to be free, creative, I learned to be more organized and get down to work harder not only when I felt like it (I spent many years being like that, thankfully I’ve been smart and resourceful too).

So I came to a few conclusions at 34 years old. One, there are things that won’t change, even if everything else around you does. These things are my passion for movement, exploring the body abilities, pushing limits, healing the body if mistakes are done, more than anything teaching the mind to fight fear and self doubt. There are other things that I do and love but training has been my biggest and most steady focus. Thank God! It could have been a man. Thankfully I had something bigger than love alone.

But I feel a void many times. I know training is a big part of happiness but it’s not everything. In fact, there have been times where training alone wasn’t enough, it was actually harder than usual due to the fact that it wasn’t bringing the fresh joy of first learnings, it was more a routine to master and polish. The longer you go the less experiments and discoveries. But also was because me, like everyone else, needed more in my life. What was more?

I live in a beautiful place. I have the beach minutes from my house. It’s never cold. Miami is alive and colorful. The void was probably one of the sacrifices I dealt with for a long time, avoiding socializing and being around people. The fact that I am somehow an introvert – believe it or not – makes it more difficult. I’d have an easier time dancing in front of people than talking to them! And it’s hard to trust, sharing, engaging in general. The fact that socializing also revolves around drinking 80%of the times and it has gotten even worse after the introduction of social media, doesn’t help at all. The point is, even if you love living alone, you need people too. So I’d say loneliness is the biggest challenge I had to face since living in the US, partly because of how I am and partly because of how this country is based of a individualistic culture rather than family based like in Italy, where I’m from.

Anyway, going back to the void. Training alone cannot make you happy because eventually we want meaningful connections, not to mention LOVE – and sex – and the more we search true love the more we don’t find it – or find crappy surrogates. We go on dating sites and swipe people left and right, oh Lord…I’m gonna stop here because this is a whole other topic that I can talk about another time. So far the voids presented to me were: quality socializing/connecting and lack of love.

I know some of you might think, “I work all day/wanna make money so I don’t have time to think of this stuff”. Well that’s why I’m here to tell you ah. I do work but I also think about my life quality and happiness status. Maybe because I’m an Aquarius, maybe because I get anxious about the future – we all do-, maybe because I like to analyze and see where I can improve. Bottom line I like the way I am and I seek to improve in other areas, as I taught myself with training. Training is so applicable in life too, that’s one of the ten million reasons why I love it.

But I didn’t solve the void problem. Honestly I know some days are better than other ones, some things are not in my control and so on. One thing I know for sure is: to build something – meaningful friendships, relationships- some effort is required and its name is: openness and continuity. Showing up somewhere. Be there and present. Not canceling plans. Showing interest and honest care. Be vulnerable. Be committed in what you want. Improve yourself to have a better chance in what you want. Thinking clearly and stay in the loop of positivity. Do not let loneliness and tiredness filter out life for what it’s not. This is very difficult and YOU HAVE TO TRAIN FOR IT.

So to solidify my happiness, I have to train daily my approach to the above things. Some people meditate. Personally I don’t but I believe it works great for those who do. I did start with small little changes. Start the day with a good morning routine. Reading. Starting to go somewhere new. Talk to people. Be kind. Being more present, like I used to do before IPhones. Bottom line, if you master one aspect of your life, career, training, motherhood etc, you’ll want to see how happy you are, and if you’re not, find the void. It’s usually inside, projected into outside. You have to find ways to fix what can be improved inside before it works outside.

That’s my 2 philosophical cents, now if this plane ride would stop being so bumpy…