"I'm Not Here to Exercise..."
My experience with gyms and shifting belief patterns & personality traits
It has taken me all but 29 years to make it to an exercise class.
I have mulled over it for many hours. Checking the schedule of the classes at the gym nearby. Putting the class into my calendar, then finding a last-minute excuse not to go. Feeling frustrated with myself.
Today is the day. I plan to go to the 9:15am Strength Training… It comes and goes and instead I go to the store to pick up yogurt, onions and black tea and clean up the trash beside the creek near my house.
Ok, the next one is at 10:30. This is it.
I’m not quite sure where this weirdness around exercising comes from. It was somewhat of a badge of honor for many years that I “have never been to a gym.”
I have been to hip-hop classes, many a yoga class, and I love to walk and hike. But I have a huge blockage around “working out” in a gym setting.
It could be the fact that I have to admit in some way or the other that I am “trying” if I go to the gym. Trying to look good, feel good, to have a nice body, etc., and the thought of admitting that I care about my appearance, something so “materialistic” has felt vulnerable and cringy to me in the past.
Other ruminations I had were about the unexpectedness of it all and the potential judgment I could receive.
Will it be obvious I’ve never done it before?
Will I look stupid?
Will people be looking at me?
Will everyone else be super athletic?
Will it be too hard for me?
Will the instructor be annoying?
Will I be the only one there?
I tend towards a grumpy or “non-excitable” demeanor more often than not. Which I 100% know is a part of my personality, but “not me.” I know it has come from certain trauma responses in life to better support my survival but feels no longer serving its purpose.
Currently I have been very consciously wanting to shift this aspect of my personality. To be more positive, to be happier, to choose gratitude over negative ruminations.
More vigorous exercise feels like it could be supportive on a physical level of enhancing my mood and energy, sure.
But there is this other aspect of this commitment of shifting my thought patterns and beliefs about it and myself.
So here I am. Trepidatious, slightly irritated, pulling out of my driveway and saying bye to my husband. Covering up my spandex shorts and sneakers so he doesn't know I’m going to the gym. Because again I can't STAND the notion of him commenting on me exercising. (One step at a time…)
I get to the gym with no time to spare. I check in and pay at the counter. The woman there says, “Enjoy your exercise” as I walk away.
I roll my eyes subtly and say to myself, “I’m not here to exercise…” What audaciousness she has to make such an assumption.
I walk upstairs to the class thinking, “I swear to God if the instructor greets me too enthusiastically, I will leave.”
Studio A is lit up with fluorescent lights and The Temptations are playing. She doesn't acknowledge me as I put down my mat and gather my weights - perfect.
The room is full of women in their 60’s and 70’s. “Fit granny’s” as the instructor's 10-year-old son calls them all. The class is fine. It is a blend of cardio and strength. I feel silly seeing myself in the mirror with my skinny legs- I decide to blur my eyes and stop staring at myself as I do air punches in a squat. But I do it all and break a small sweat.
A woman at the end offers us all spaghetti squash she grew. I probably won't go back to this class. But it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. I will try another.
I feel accomplished just by going. I felt a sense of relief that I got over the “1st-time hump.”
And it struck me how funny it is that something can seem so monumental to one person and so trivial to another.
We have so much in common biologically as humans but so much nuance with our particular constellation of personalities.
Like I said I am committed to being more aware of these subconscious beliefs that rule my day-to-day life.
I am particularly interested in shifting my moody and depressive tendencies. As I’ve been delving into the realm of German New Medicine more and more, I see that it's not just coincidence when I suddenly shift from feeling good to feeling shitty. It's not always my pre-menstruation or my “hormones”. Or the fact that I didn’t eat well that day. Or that I have some chemical imbalance.
No, it is about the tracks, the thought patterns, the certain frequency of feeling that I am stepping on that is shifting me into and out of these states of being. The me that is not me.
There is a map to understanding. I have the paper, the general outline, the compass, I just need to fill it in with my particular flavor of self-healing.
This is what I love. The nitty-gritty of the human experience. The parts of ourselves that we don’t want to talk about. That is where the growth is, where the answers lay.
In the gym class, with the fluorescent lights and the instructor with a microphone, where you know, on some plane, there is something here for you.
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I’d love to hear what seemingly trivial things you struggle with.
Thanks for listening. Blessings.