I made a list of the worst and best moments in my life this week. I recommend doing it to see what you’ll learn. What matters most? What can be done to help the world? How will 2026 be different? When, in my past, was I happiest? Why do some moments in life stand out, seem alive and important, while others remain a blur?
I found some of the most enlivening, important experiences to be surprising ones. Some amazing, astonishing memories, mind blowing ones, were the kind of experiences that swept me off my feet. You’d expect these kinds of events that shape your life to be like falling in love or an important trophy or something. But this flashback was odd, making me wander down a road the wrong way to see where it ends. I became perplexed, riveted on the next stone under my toe as I excavated the past. Why was this one time of my life so enticing, so compelling and irreplaceable?
It all started with a coach, in those days called “an inspirational speaker.” His name was Tom Weston. He suggested to a group of us that we “say yes to everything for one month.” (Not that I recommend you do that if you might put yourself or others in harm’s way.) Within days, I was invited to join a women’s soccer team! I groaned, uttering the dreaded “yes.” I am terrible at sports and at the time was one hundred pounds’ overweight. I groaned, a guttural, big groan. It was a freezing cold winter and I had to buy those awful cleats (if you’ve never tried to walk in soccer cleats with steel poking needles out from the bottom – don’t.)
I suppose any relationship that illuminates our lives or transports us to a higher plane could be inspired by some unknown factor. In this case, I imagine a large part of it was our reverberatingly vibrant coach named Alex. Perhaps, in our lives leadership can destroy or elevate us to an unknown, unconscious level of teamwork. All I know is that his passion was pulsating. The way I recall it, his capacity to be almost blind to any of our faults lifted us up. Laser focused, captivating – probably an idealist, he pulled us in new directions, like a powerful magnet. Perhaps like all influential people, this ability can be either destructive or uplifting. In this case, his capacity to vision our potential was positive and immense – as big as the football fields we played on. And even as Alex swooshed down on our lives, like an expansive bird, he vanished. I tried to find him for years, but with no luck.
Honestly, I don’t know if we won many games. It isn’t that part that stuns me still. It’s this: it was in that terrible freezing, muddy field, in soccer cleats where I felt the full expression of myself and the joining with a team that elevated me far beyond my own ego self.
Don’t get me wrong, the grit it took was painful too, we worked to our entire physical limits, until we were spent. We’d stop after for beers and a jukebox – completely exhausted – unbelievably still finding even more physical energy, dancing wildly into the night.
I began the experiment lethargic, sad, overeating and heavy in my body. I left it with a stunning amount of energy and more importantly, with inspiration. I learned that my limits were not entirely physical, they were also in my mind.
Katy Byrne, LMFT Psychotherapist, ConversationswithKaty.com, author.
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