Let's talk movement. Do you love a good workout or dread the thought of getting moving? Are your workouts a thing of pleasure or duty? Do you view it as a joy or a job? What is it you expect from your sessions? Bottom line question - WHY do you do it?
Personal trainer, Suzie Leigh, says in her article, Your Expectations for Exercise Are Stressing You Out, "The only way exercise will become inspiring, invigorating, and truly stress-relieving over the long-term is if you use it to connect with yourself.
Many of us harbor the belief that more exercise equals better health. But if left unchecked, more just turns into too much to handle. And when exercise becomes a stress contributor instead of a stress reliever, it won’t fit into a long-term routine."
Maybe, like me, you've had cycles where your movement added life to your life, times when a you felt disappointed at the end of the day if you had to miss your workout for some reason. Maybe you've had other times when exercising felt like nothing but drudgery and you had to summon every ounce of self-discipline to get yourself moving. Even after a workout when endorphins should have been bringing the joy, overall, your exercise left you feeling next to no love for it. You were doing it strictly because you should.
At times when we're not feeling the love and are having a hard time finding motivation or consistency, we can ask ourselves, "Is my exercise routine adding value to my life? Am I working out to honor and connect with my body or am I trying to mold it into something supposedly 'better'?"
If we're using exercise like a punishment, like a penance for sins we’ve committed, it reinforces the idea that we are not fit enough, thin enough, strong enough, healthy enough, good enough, or are just plain not enough. It then becomes easy to view movement as a price to be paid to prove our worth, to feel safe in our bodies.
Is it any wonder it becomes hard to do? That's an exhausting type of energy to live in.
Suzie observes, and I agree, "Often, when exercise becomes unmanageable, it’s because it has become a means to an end, rather than something that allows you to stay in the moment with your body.
If your workout helps you compensate for a deep-seated feeling of inadequacy, you’re ignoring or overlooking how much strength you actually do have, right now, in this moment.
If your fitness routine becomes the lifelong chase for The Thing Which You Do Not Have, it will ask more and more of you, until you have nothing left to give."
But there's good news here.
She goes on to say, "The workout that will make you healthiest is the workout that celebrates The Thing Which You Already Have.
The only way exercise will become inspiring, invigorating, and truly stress-relieving over the long term is if you use it to connect with yourself. It should teach you how to listen to your body, to understand when it needs a break or a push forward. It should make you feel empowered, strong, gentle, compassionate, and patient with yourself."
I invite you to take an honest look at why you're moving - or not moving - and and make adjustments as needed. You deserve to be respectfully and compassionately cared for, in every way, Let's remember,