At Athalonz, our purpose is to empower your power through our performance enhancing athletic equipment, our giving back campaigns, and our social shift campaigns. Our athletic equipment is scientifically designed to help everyone play their best. Our giving back and social shift campaigns are focused on preventing child abuse and helping heal for those that have been abused in the past.
Why athletic equipment and child abuse prevention? The answer is simple. I’m Tim Markison, Founder and CEO of Athalonz, and I was sexually and physically abused as a child. Playing baseball as a child literally saved my life. Baseball gave me a dream. I dreamt of being a professional baseball player, which gave me hope for a better future.
I want to prevent children from suffering the physical pain and de-humanizing effects of being sexually abused that I endured. For many, however, they have already been abused or are being abused right now. It’s estimated that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually assaulted during their childhood. For these children, I want to help them keep their dream alive, keep their hope alive, give them a voice to speak out, and to help them heal. Participating in sports is a great way to help keep a dream alive. It saved me.
Empowering your power is ultimately about believing in yourself without limitations. Believing that you can do anything you want; be anything you want; have everything you want; and believing that you are deserving of all of these things. Our performance enhancing shoes will improve your power by at least 9%, helping you become the athlete you want to be.
The tricky part of empowering your power is doing it without limitations.
As a victim of child sexual abuse, I was de-humanized. I was essentially a thing to be used and abused at the will of others. I was programmed, brain-washed if you will, to believe that I was stupid, I was worthless, I was unlovable, I deserved the abuse, and I couldn’t do anything right. All of these limitations were ingrained into me and prevented me, as an adult, from empowering my power to become the person I wanted to be.
For me, the limitations had to be removed from within. No matter how many people told me that I was smart, I was lovable, and so on; I didn’t believe them. My programming was so loud and so strong, that no amount of external praise could get in. I had to retrain myself with the help of others. I had to replace “I am stupid” with “I am smart”; replace “I can’t do anything right” with “I can do anything, be anything.”
Retraining did not happen overnight. At first, I almost scoffed every time I said to myself that “I was smart,” that “I was lovable,” that “I could do anything.” But, I gradually shifted. I shifted from “I am stupid” to “Maybe I’m not so dumb” to “I’m not dumb.” And from “Maybe I’m smart” to “I’m smart.” Each limitation began to shift in a similar way. With each shift, the world seemed better and brighter for me. My life got better and I began to like me.
Until recently, I had no intentions of sharing about being sexually abused as a child or sharing the pain and difficulties of my recovery. Many of the people closest to me knew very little about it and I kept it that way. But, that is exactly what perpetrators want. They want their victims to be quiet, to live in fear, and to remain helpless. So to truly be of the greatest service to others, it became clear to me that making great products that enhance sports performance was not enough; I had to speak up.
Child sexual abuse is a difficult topic to talk about, to hear about, and to think about. But talking about it and hearing about it are the only ways change is going to happen. So I have to share my story. To share how it damaged me. To share how painful and difficult my recover was. But most importantly, to share that it was all worth it. I have a great life and I want to help others have one too.
So please join me on Team Athalonz by empowering your power with our performance enhancing athletic equipment. With each piece of athletic equipment sold, we will donate 5% of our profits to help prevent child abuse. We all win as we make the world a better place one person at a time.
Comments will be approved before showing up.
Today was a good bit of climbing. A little over 2,000 feet of elevation gain. Not as much as day 1 or day 2, but not trivial. I am really enjoying traveling through the small towns. The people have been friendly, the service has been good, and the food has been excellent.
