Practicing Exercise
It’s been 3 full weeks of aiming for 10min minimum of exercise per day.
I made up this goal for multiple reasons: as a way to move my body more, as a way to practice practicing, as a way to gain strength again.
The longest workout so far was an hour (too long). The shortest was 12min. I’m doing mostly strength training and functional movement, though cardio and yoga are in there.
It’s been years since a regular workout was on my schedule. Lately, I was feeling it. Everything felt tight, sore, tired, weak or shitty. My sleep was a rollercoaster and my digestive system slowed to a halt. I became a walking version of cliche aging - getting up from the floor was hard, bending over to pick up stuff made my hip give out, my body was atrophying as I sat working at my desk day in and day out, for the past year.
When I am exercising regularly, I notice that my body feels stronger and I feel less sluggish. Everyday movements do not throw me off. My sleep gets longer and deeper. Most importantly to me, I notice that my internal dialogue becomes one of I AM CAPABLE.
One of my favorite Peloton instructors, Robin Arzón, says this when lifting weights “This is why we lift heavy things!”. The act of lifting weights, of using my mind and body in concert to do something challenging, the effort and the endorphins, all conspire to make me feel MORE ABLE. Able to do more things with my body, but also able to handle a frustrating situation or a difficult conversation or just more willing to sit with discomfort.
Listening to Professor Anna Lembke talk about dopamine on the Armchair Expert podcast, she shares how our systems are wired to level out. So, if you push on the pleasure side of things, you will eventually feel withdrawal/pain before coming back to neutral. The kicker is that the system ups the pain above and beyond the pleasure point before coming back to neutral. The leveling out is not 50/50, it’s more like 75/50. She posits that to then feel more pleasure in our lives, we need to press on the pain side more often.
Exercise is one of those ways to press the pain button to get the natural release of pleasure… and for me, it’s working.
Not only am I centering my own body and its capabilities when I am exercising, but I am showing up for my mind’s very light goal of “10min per day”. And I’m noticing the more I do this - center my own small goal, show up for myself, feel challenged, and keep going, the “chaos” my highly-sensitive self is usually rocked by is… less. I’m less thrown off by someone’s mood if my mood is on that runner’s high. I am less frustrated because I ran my energy through a very specific-to-me funnel that gives me rose-colored glasses to see through. I am more patient if I already did the things I wanted to with my time and energy.
Of course, some days I skip. Some day I am too busy/sore/tired/just do not care to show up. Some days it’s really just 10min of arms with weights. Some days it’s a 30min walk and others it’s 10min of swimming. The strength part does seems extra important right now. Using my body weight or free weights, being able to use my muscles to MOVE, feels so, so good. I mean, sometimes during a workout it feels terrible, but I always feel my internal world and my energy shifts afterward.
I am not sharing all of this because I think you should work out. I fully understand there are restrictions on people’s time, energy, physical abilities and also personal wants and needs that mean exercising is not available or desired right now or ever. However you do or don’t move your body has nothing to do with your goodness or worthiness (nor mine, I remind myself).
I am sharing this because I am observing my experience of taking something I want (to feel stronger in my body) and making it a super small and attainable pratice, which is making exercising for me not just possible, but sustainable. And I feel a deeper sense of security in my relationship with myself, while not holding myself to a standard that is detrimental. I skip some days. I do the minimum some days. I ignore the diet talk. I did not alter my eating habits. I’ve learned that I really like full body weight routines and I dislike going more than 30min. I know my body in at its current age will not do the things my body did in my twenties, pre-baby. I really observe my post-exercise mood to teach myself this is worth my time and effort.
I can do 5 regular push-ups in a row again. More importantly, I am practicing self-trust: I can trust myself that I will do the things I promise myself.
As someone who is often steamrolling their own needs and wants to drop everything to run after what someone else needs/wants, this feels bigger than just being able to hold a side-plank or feeling my core muscles work in tandem with my hip muscles so I can walk up a flight of stairs.
This feels like a new way to be with myself. A practice I can explore and apply to other things. A letting go of perfectionism. A letting go of achievement. Of creating and respecting my own boundaries so that I can be more myself with myself. An unfolding of being with myself in this way until I want to do something else, and then moving towards that in a sustainable and kind way as well. Prioritizing what I want. Over and over again.
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It’s not surprising to me that turning towards my health in a boundaried and sustainable way is coming up for me this year as Saturn, the planet of structure, tasks and boundaries, is traveling through Pisces, my 6th house of health/work/daily routines. To me this looks like fluid, flexible (mutable water, Pisces) structure & goals (Saturn). Plus, Mercury (communication) and Mars (action) are in Virgo (mutable Earth, healing through the body, sustainable support) traversing my 12th house (dreams, subconscious, behind-the-scenes of life) AND Mercury is on its way to retrograde.
I started this process with using what I had on hand, which is quite a lot:
Free weights we already own
Yoga mat we already own
Working out barefoot or in old running sneakers
Trainers:
Peloton (free version)
Yoga with Adriene (free version)
Movement by NM (free options)
A body weight workout H has from coaching rock climbing
P90x (already own the videos)
Kira Stokes