Where Can It Be Easy? Where Can It Be Enough?
I’ve been enjoying working sets of whatever exercise in around my house, lately.
(You might too, during the end-of-year hubbub.)
The last few months have been a season of lots of shifting and processing (I couldn’t have even begun to have known how much), where gym workouts, if they happen at all, tend to be quick, big movements, that, before, when I was in the throes of diet culture measuring my worth based on my appearance and adherence, didn’t feel like enough.
Also before, at-home sets would have been an attempt to, “make up,” for that.
But learning to be with your body isn’t a math equation, and once I realized that, I started to notice how it actually felt when I wasn’t trying to force it to keep up with sky-high plans on top of everything else I was juggling in my life. Like many things, I noticed without coercion and with curiosity, I began to hear and work with myself rather than against.
I learned it feels good to me to drop all the thought threads in some swings or incline pushups at the sink or stray sets of other repetitive, mildly sweaty movements. Unbroken sets of 50 used to sound like torture to me, like a challenge that was always bigger and meatier and more intimidating. Now they sound like a lilting lullaby.
For now. That may change, as bodies and minds do.
If you’re like me and most womxn with whom I work, no motivation hack in the world is gonna make it more likely you’ll get to the gym. It’s not a desire thing; it’s an overbooked one.
The questions here, for me:
Where can it be easy?
Where can it be enough?
How would it feel good to interrupt that overwhelm shame train (not like punishment for hopping on it) and redirect its energy?
—
A conversation I find myself having regularly with my one-on-one coaching clients is this:
Life (not just the weather) has seasons. Ups and downs. Sometimes it’s fun and effortless to crush it in the gym, and other times, no matter how hard you try or how many motivation emails or posts you read, there is no way you’re doing anything that involves getting up from the mountain of work at your desk (or from the late-night Netflix session on your couch, as the case may be, because exhaustion and burnout are real).
Nothing about adapting your fitness routine makes you flaky, or bad, or unreliable, or lazy.
(or…)
From where I’m sitting, learning how to interpret the messages your body is sending and how to use them as feedback is a stroke of brilliance, problem-solving, coordination and cooperation we could use more of in this world.
How do you move in ways that feel good, when you’re not sure what that is if it’s not written down on paper?
Consider what helps you get out of your head:
Where do you engage in your most unedited thinking?
When do you feel most like you?
What sounds like fun? Like play? Like comfort and safety and a warm fluffy blanket after a cold rainy walk home?
What reminds you how capable you are?
How strong you are?
How resilient you are?
The answers to those questions are allowed to (and will) change over time. The golden ticket is to remember you’re allowed to feel good, to feel strong, to feel like you belong with yourself (and anywhere else really, because you do).
Once you discover the answers to those questions, “squeezing in,” your workouts feels less like a game of Jenga and more like a moment of attention you deeply deserve, one that anchors you in the overwhelm; a source of peace; an activity reminding you of your strength, your worthiness, your resilience, your ingenuity.
Wouldn’t it be nice for your fitness routine to feel that way, as we close out the year?
[If you’d like guidance on how to do so, I have space for a few clients before the new year begins. Head to the coaching page here to learn more and fill out an application, and I’ll be in touch within 24 hours.]
