Her training regime incorporates boxing, and to secure her spot on the Wall of Greatness, Bonilla landed one hundred punches in thirty seconds while sparring with Palermo. “I never thought I was going to be a girl who could throw good punches. To do one hundred punches in thirty seconds is not something everyone can do,” she told me. “While I’m throwing those punches, right in the middle of it, you can either give up, or you can keep going and fight through that pain of your arms burning, your shoulders burning. That feels good.” For her quote, Bonilla chose “Don’t quit.” She used to see those words at her old gym, before she became paralyzed. “Before, I would just see it. Now it makes sense.”
Her new goal is to walk in leg braces, an outcome that once seemed even more improbable than being able to drive. I asked Bonilla what it meant to be facing the possibility of walking again after six years. “I never thought I’d get to that point,” she said. “I should not be able to lift my legs and walk in braces with the diagnosis I have. They don’t understand how I’m doing it, but it’s getting done.” To prepare, she’s working on her core strength, and Palermo has issued a pull-up challenge. As part of the U.S. Marines Corps physical fitness test, female Marines must be able to complete at least ten pull-ups in a row to receive the highest possible score. Men must complete twenty-three. Bonilla’s goal is one hundred. “If I’m going to be walking, I need my abs to be strong, my arms strong,” she told me. Sometimes when she’s doing pull-ups, Palermo challenges her to hold one, and it reminds her of being on the playground as a kid. “I think about my legs when I’m up there. I pretend to kick my legs because I remember when I was younger that it was something I loved to do. I’m not mad at my body anymore. I say to my legs, ‘You’re taking a break. That’s okay. But we’re going to make this happen.’”
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In 1825, poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote, “Hope without an object cannot live.” Modern psychologists have come to a similar conclusion: Humans crave concrete goals and thrive when pursuing specific aims. C. R. Snyder, who conducted the most rigorous scientific analyses of hope, found that this state of mind—so crucial to our ability to persist in the face of life’s obstacles—requires three things. The first is a defined goal, that object on which hope lives. The second is a pathway to reach your goal. There must be steps you can take that lead to progress. The third is trusting that you are capable of pursuing that path. You must believe that you have the inner resources and the necessary support to take each step.
One way to think about DPI Adaptive Fitness is that it is an incubator for hope. At DPI, members set meaningful life intentions, like being able to drive or walk. The trainers then provide the pathway by setting concrete physical objectives, like hitting the number of squats or pull-ups that will develop the necessary strength or stamina. The entire environment, from the background music to the attitude of the trainers, is designed to increase members’ confidence that their goals can be met. Trainers make sure members notice the gains they make along the way. “In open gym classes, a participant will see someone walking better or able to do something, and for some reason, they always tell the trainers,” Palermo says. “I’ll say, ‘Go tell them! Tell them what you see!’” The trainers also document moments of triumph so they can be shared and celebrated. When Palermo thought Joanna Bonilla was ready to conquer her boxing challenge, he insisted on taking a video. He wanted to make sure Bonilla would be able to watch it later, show it to others, and see how tough she is. “I’m a person who doesn’t want to celebrate and hype it up,” Bonilla told me. “He videotaped it so I could understand what an accomplishment it was.”
DPI also invites friends and family to work out with members, something that can make a training session both more effective and more meaningful. The mere presence of a loved one can change how you perceive a physical challenge and what you able are able to do. One study found that if you are accompanied by a friend, a hill seems less steep than when you face it alone. In 2007, a medical journal documented the case of a sixty-five-year-old man with Parkinson’s disease who was unable to walk more than a few steps without losing his balance. He lived in a region of Northern Israel that was regularly hit with Katyusha and mortar rocket attacks, and when the warning sirens went off, he could not run to safety. During one attack, however, his wife was with him, and she grabbed his arm as he stood from his chair. In that moment, he found that he could not only walk but run. Neurologists concluded that it wasn’t the urgency of the situation that unlocked his capacity to move, but the fact that the man could literally follow in his wife’s footsteps.
The family-and-friends policy at DPI has another benefit: It adds important witnesses to every triumph. When people who are important to you celebrate your achievement, that accomplishment becomes even more significant. André, who contributed “Believing is achieving” to the Wall of Greatness, came to DPI after a brain injury and stroke left him with a significantly slowed gait. It sometimes took him ten minutes to walk from his nearby parking space to the front door of the gym. Palermo gave André an ambitious challenge, a five-minute single-leg stand on his weaker leg to develop his stamina. When André first tried to balance on his weaker leg, he could barely hold the position. But he built his endurance over time, his wife often by his side encouraging him. When André surpassed the five-minute goal and made it onto the Wall, she was there to see and celebrate it.
The physical challenges members undertake at DPI are objectively impressive, and every victory that has landed someone on the Wall has a wow quality. Like the overcoming of a Tough Mudder obstacle, it’s a story you can tell, a photo or video you can post on social media, something that earns legitimate bragging rights. One young woman recovering from a brain aneurysm had been working on pulling the equivalent of her own body weight on a sled. Once she reached that goal, her brother, one of her biggest supporters, stood on the weighted sled, and she dragged him across the gym, too. I know because I saw the video on Instagram, where it was racking up views and encouraging comments. When Palermo comes up with challenges for new members, he pays attention to their personalities. He tries to come up with things that are uncommon and that—disability or not—most people cannot do. He looks for the goal that makes someone light up. Something that, when they complete it, will provide undeniable proof of both their progress and their potential.
In The Anatomy of Hope, physician Jerome Groopman defines hope as “the elevating feeling we experience when we see—in the mind’s eye—a path to a better future.” Hope of the kind incubated at DPI can provide a real training edge. In one experiment, psychologists induced hope by asking participants to think of a time in the past they had accomplished an important goal, and how this could help them pursue future goals. Each participant then held one hand in a bath of ice water for as long as they could stand it. The hope induction helped participants stick it out a full minute longer. Think of the difference one minute might make when you are doing pull-ups or balancing on your weaker leg, and every extra second of effort opens the possibility of doing more tomorrow. Further, when people perceive a painful physical exercise as helping them reach their goals, their brains release higher levels of endorphins and endocannabinoids, the chemicals responsible for an exercise high. You can recruit your built-in neurobiological capacity to persist through pain and fatigue if you know what you are reaching for and believe that what you are doing matters.
The importance of hope is why the Wall of Greatness is the first thing new members see when they enter the space and why it’s visible from every corner of the gym. It is an ever-present reminder that goals in the gym get met. For those already on the Wall, it’s evidence of what they have accomplished. For new arrivals, the Wall invites them to imagine what might be achievable. The first time I spoke with Joanna Bonilla, she told me about a conversation that had taken place at the gym the night before. A new member, a stroke survivor in his fifties, had asked a trainer, “What do I ha
ve to do to get on the Wall?” Bonilla says, “He was looking at the Wall, and I could see him literally picking out where he wanted his quote. He was like, ‘This is going to happen. My name’s going to be on there.’”
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ONE OF MY FAVORITE TELEVISION SHOWS is American Ninja Warrior, a competition in which contestants from all walks of life run an obstacle course that requires tremendous strength and skill. Something odd happens when I watch the show. My body instinctively tries to lend a hand to the contestants. If they are struggling to maintain their balance or grip, my core braces, as if to help them hold on. If they’re preparing to make a big dismount, I’ll lean into the side of the sofa, as if throwing my weight to support their landing. When I first caught myself doing this, it struck me as a bit ridiculous, but also delightful. Just watching the athletes and rooting for their success triggered a sympathetic mimicry.
Movement has a potent ability to trigger a sympathetic response in an observer. Your own heart accelerates as you watch a baseball player sprint toward home base. Your stomach lurches when you see a skydiver jump out of a plane. When a runner crosses the finish line and throws his fists in the air, you let out a triumphant cheer. This embodied empathy is surely part of the thrill of watching sports, dance, or stunts. As writer Jonah Lehrer observes, “When I watch Kobe glide to the basket for a dunk, a few deluded cells in my premotor cortex are convinced that I, myself, am touching the rim. And when he hits a three pointer, my mirror neurons light up as if I’ve just made the crucial shot.” I would argue this perception is not so much a delusion as an evolutionary advantage. The human capacity for empathy is rooted in the mirror neuron system and its ability to observe and interpret the physical actions of others. Your body responds sympathetically to another person’s movement because humans instinctively try to understand one another.
In addition to the pleasure such empathy can afford, it is also a way to broaden our sense of what is possible for ourselves. As dance critic John Joseph Martin wrote in 1936, “When we see a human body moving, we see movement which is potentially producible by a human body and therefore by our own.” When you watch others move, you don’t just perceive their action. You proprioceive it. You receive it into yourself. This is what empathy does: It creates, in your mind, a felt sense of what you are observing. When you watch an athlete compete, a dancer perform, or a child play, you sense their actions in your own body, even if you aren’t always aware that’s what’s happening. This makes observing movement more than a visual experience; it’s also a visceral experience. When you sense, empathically, the movement of others, you also sense that movement as part of your “self.” Our bodies learn what is possible by seeing and sensing the strength, the speed, the grace, and the courage of others. I think this is one reason I found myself watching so many videos of Tough Mudder events and athletes training at DPI Adaptive Fitness. It was more than research. It was inspiration. Not just in some sentimental or cerebral way, but in a deeply embodied way. Allowing yourself to be moved by the actions of others is a way to catch hope.
At the CrossFit box where Reverend Katie Norris coaches, the gym has a personal record board. Every time someone gets a faster time, lifts a heavier weight, or masters a movement they could not do before, that person gets to write it on the board and ring a bell. When the bell rings, the whole gym stops what they’re doing to cheer. “It often happens that a workout is so hard that someone is not sure they can finish it,” Norris told me. “We all gather around them and cheer them on, and when they are done, they fall to the ground crying, and we hug them.”
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that so many people are drawn to communities where they can pursue physical challenges alongside others. It is a joy to watch people exert themselves, face their fears, and overcome obstacles. At Norris’s gym, members sometimes show up just to witness what others are accomplishing. “When someone in the midst of a depressive episode comes in and just sits and watches class because they could barely get themselves out of the door and into the car, that is beautiful.” This is also how collective hope works. Sometimes you are the one crushing the goal and ringing the bell. Sometimes you get to be part of the crowd that hugs and cheers the person ringing the bell. And sometimes it’s enough to simply immerse yourself in a space where such a joyful noise gets made.
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Four months after my first conversation with Joanna Bonilla, I stopped by DPI Adaptive Fitness in Fairfax, Virginia. When we had last spoken, Bonilla was just beginning to imagine the possibility of walking in leg braces. It had seemed an unlikely goal for so long, but her training was making it possible. Even though I knew how hard Bonilla was working, I was not prepared for what I saw when we met up. After completing her regular workout in her wheelchair, she took out two custom leg braces. One at a time, she strapped the braces around her thighs and shins, inserted her feet into the curved white plastic footholds, and laced up her black sneakers. Then she stood, gripped the handles of a walker, and walked across the gym floor.
When Bonilla agreed to talk to me about her experience training at DPI, she wanted to use a pseudonym. That’s not uncommon. Many people are happy to share their stories but don’t want a public spotlight. Even her quote on the Wall of Greatness uses a nickname—it’s attributed to T.N., or “the nerd,” because Bonilla is always pushing for more knowledge, always asking the trainers at DPI to explain why. But after our conversation, Bonilla changed her mind and gave me permission to use her full name. “It’s not fair for me to hide myself,” she said. “I want people to learn from my experiences and be able to contact me if they need encouragement to do something they are scared of.” In her decision to use her real name, she seemed to me to be at the top of some obstacle, reaching out. Wanting to grab a stranger’s hand, pull them up, and carry them over.
Chapter 6
EMBRACE LIFE
When I spoke with Susan Heard about running, she was in her home office in Easton, Pennsylvania. The forty-six-year-old mother of two works as a major gift officer for St. Baldrick’s, a childhood cancer research foundation. Her office is decorated with shadow boxes that display medals and photos from 5Ks and half marathons she has participated in. Hundreds of colorful paper origami cranes also hang from the walls, strung together in cascading chains. The cranes—meant to be a message of hope—were her son David’s project. Before he died from cancer at the age of ten, David had wanted to have mobiles of cranes installed in every children’s hospital in the United States.
David was eight when the doctors discovered the neuroblastoma wrapped around his kidney, aorta, and vena cava. On the ultrasound, it looked like the tumor was strangling his heart. A neighbor offered to make special rubber bracelets—similar to the LiveStrong yellow bands so popular at the time—that the community could wear to support David and his family. Heard asked David what he wanted the bracelets to say, and he decided, “Embrace life.” The family did their best to honor these words. There was chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation, but also backyard Nerf battles, family vacations, and dance parties in the kitchen. When David was invited to share his story at a fundraiser, he surprised Heard by announcing to the crowd, “To kick things off, we’re going to have my mom shave her head!”—and so she did. It felt empowering. Then the cancer came back, and the medical options ran out. David died on February 10, 2011, and Heard fell into a deep depression.
Almost four years after her son died, she sat on her couch on New Year’s Eve, thinking, I’m not even alive. Why am I here? “I was in so much pain. I didn’t want to be alive,” she remembers. As those thoughts echoed in her mind, she asked herself, Is that really true? Do I really not want to be alive? Her husband had gotten her a Fitbit for Christmas, so she decided, Maybe if I start exercising, I’ll feel better. “I kept telling people, ‘Embrace life.’ I was saying the words, but I was not doing it,” she told me. “I was just trying to find a way to get
back.”
Heard started to walk the family dog more often. She worked her way up to thirty minutes on an elliptical machine. Within a year, she joined a local running group. The leader who set the group’s pace slowed the entire pack when Heard first joined, so she wouldn’t feel left behind. “I was too new to running to even know,” Heard says. “That group got me through it.” They run outdoors in all seasons, along a six-mile loop at a local fish hatchery. “There’s something about being outside, something peaceful. There’s something about being with the weather, the sun, the wind, all of that. It’s a different sense of being alive, being connected to your world. I feel I see more, I know more, about my world.”
It was during these outdoor runs that Heard started to experience something unexpected. “I’m often looking for David,” she told me. “I’ve had moms who’ve said, ‘I dream about my child.’ The only dreams I’ve ever had about David are horrible, the horrible things that happened.” While running, she started to feel his presence. “There are these moments when you get into this state of true relaxation. Your body is working, but your mind lets go. When I run, and I get there in my head, I feel him,” she says. “A fox runs in front of me, a cardinal dodges out of a branch, a squirrel acting bizarre—you notice these things out there. My immediate connection is always, ‘Hi, David.’ That’s how I feel. He’s showing me that he’s here. When it happens, it’s tremendous. We’re always looking for these opportunities to feel them or to see them. And for me, that’s where I’ve found him. Outside.”
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