why my heart wins over my brain

epiphanote 3 - thoughts while bench pressing, late night conversations, and tongues, a short story collection

Hi! Welcome to my weekly epiphanote where I share a mini epiphany, moments I’m grateful for, and what I consumed this week. Grateful to have you here! ✩

Venus with Biceps: A Pictorial History of Muscular Women

epiphany

Lately, I’ve immersed myself in the fitness world in hopes of designing a doable regimen to accomplish my goals of:

1. doing a pull up by 2026

2. moving better

I’ve found a wonderful combo of using my pre-existing workout routine with gamified tricks, but as I was bench pressing the other day a thought came to mind:

Do I actually want this? To become one of those girls?

Strangely, this thought made me think of a sentence I read in Naval Ravikant’s Almanac three years ago. “If you secretly despise wealth, it’ll elude you.” ¹

The idea represented that if your intrinsic desires are different than your conscious ones, they’ll win. Your heart is the true gas for the car your brain thinks its driving.

Working out feels like nothing short of a constant battle between my heart and brain. A war between my conscious desires and intrinsic ones. These two sides fight for what I’ve been told femininity is versus what I want it to be. A constant struggle between soft and sharp.²

I don’t blame my heart for feeling that getting stronger and bigger is a betrayal, no matter how much my brain screams scientific statements. How could it feel anything different when beauty as a woman has always equated to being thin and weak? Barbie. Disney. Victoria Secret.

Thinking always succumbs to true belief. If you don’t actually want to be buff, you won’t. If you don’t actually want to be a great doctor, you won’t. Over time, your thoughts will slowly lack the conviction required to do something as difficult as working out 3x a week or getting rich.

But by continuing to expose myself to other standards of femininity, whether it be the Pictorial Collection featured above, or through role models, friends, and family who are kicking ass at the gym, I can slowly retrain my heart’s desires to match my brain’s.

With consistency and trust in this process, I hope to regain my power and re-define what the divine feminine means to me.

mundane moments

1. Late night conversations with friends in different parts of the world. C in LA, E in Guatemala, and K on Vancouver Island.

2. Filling in the colouring book habit tracker I designed with the most beautiful pastel shades from my prized Zebra Mildliners

3. The unbeatable warm scent of Indian food as I fill up my plate around family and family friends.

i consumed:

• If you’ve been here since epiphanote 1, you’re probably like “Wow, this girl reads a lot!” False. I am what you call a classic mood reader, with 3 books on my simultaneous roster. This week I’ve really been enjoying a short story collection about different people’s relationship with language called Tongues.

• One of my favourite moments in my inbox this week was the mini update from Knowable Magazine, a science newsletter with everything ranging from new fungal research to the top astrology photos of the year.

• I’ve been in an alternative frame of mind and a recent favourite is this cute little song from Frances Forever. Automatic mood booster amidst the frigid temperatures in Toronto lately, and perfect for the feminine energy in this post!

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Thank you so much for reading ashna’s journal! If there’s anything in this post that resonated with you, I always love to chat, so feel free to shoot me an email 💌 ashna.nirula72@gmail.com. Until next time!

Ashna

1. I love how my brain can transcend time and make connections now from things I read eons ago. Memory is incredible.

2. Play Strong Girl by NIKI at 3:03