Exercise in the Moment

I now have this process in my life, basically every day, of working out. It's new to me in terms of it being a consistent thing. It's also new to me in terms of it being something I am actively trying to make a regular part of my life.  I want this to be something I do without drama or fear or dread. I want it to be as common as eating or sleeping. I do not, however, want it to be mindless.

I don't think that will be much of a problem. In fact, I think it's kind of the opposite. Exercise is strange because it is a physical thing you do, usually an intense physical thing you do, but at the same time, for many people it is also this quagmire of emotions.  Hope. Despair. Fear. Happiness. Approval. Resentment. Embarrassment. Confusion. Pride. Actually, maybe all of this at once.  There are also goals and intentions and frustrations and expectations tossed in as well. That is a lot of stuff to be happening during a workout.

You'll notice, however, that all of this stuff is about things around the exercise, but nothing about the exercise itself. This is something I want to change.

One of the goals I'm going to have about my workout from now on is a mental one. I want to be able to be IN the moment of what I'm doing. I want to think about how my body feels, what it is doing, what muscles are being used, about my breathing, my pace, and my movement. In other words, I want my focus to be on the actual ACT of the exercise, not on all of this baggage I have associated with it.

There are a lot of benefits in doing this. For one thing, if I'm thinking about the movement and what my body is doing, I'm less likely to miss a step and injure myself. When you focus on your activities, you are more careful . . . at least, that's the theory. I will also be able to achieve a better assessment of my progress. If I note that my breathing is bad on one Tuesday but better three weeks later doing the same workout, then I know I'm getting stronger where my breathing is concerned.

However, to me the most important benefit of being in the moment of my workout is that it helps me to really become grounded in my body again. As I've written about on many occasions, I spend a lot of time in my head. I avoid my body. I avoid thinking about it or connecting to it, mostly because it usually just causes me pain or discomfort in some way or the other.

I want to use my workouts as a way to truly connect with my flesh. I want to regain ownership of my body and what it is doing. I want to really reclaim the idea that it is a part of me, not just some big thing I happen to be connected to. I don't want to look in the mirror and think, 'this isn't me. I'm the person who is inside of this.' I want to look in  the mirror and see me and be happy in that idea.

So tomorrow when I go to do my exercise, I am going to try and really BE in the moment of them. I want to feel what my body is doing and concentrate on that and only that. Admittedly, it will probably take me a while to get good at this. In time, however, I think it will make quite a difference.