Today I wanted to talk about exercise, and my relationship with it.
I wanted to share because I know so many people with chronic illnesses who are high achievers.
Former athletes, people who love to push themselves to extremes.
I love doing hard things.
I think it is the very essence of human existence.
Doing hard things develops your character, it calluses your mind, it helps you to face adversity with strength and stoicism.
It helps you to be strong, to be a better partner, and friend.
It puts you in a position where you can exercise compassion and forgiveness out of choice, not weakness.
But as I reflect on how my relationship with exercise unfolded, I realised I had approached it wrong.
You see, when I look back, to my ‘healthy’ days, they were not that.
If I did not push myself to vomit-inducing extremes, I would feel miserable.
If I did not collapse into bed in a heap of exhaustion, I could not sleep.
If I hadn’t broken my body down to the point of agony, my mind would be restless.
As I reflect, I realise that for my whole life, I have been masking negative thoughts and sensations with intense exercise.
Again, this isn’t to say that pushing yourself is bad, quite the opposite.
When done in a way that is to build character.
As a means to challenge and expand your boundaries.
As a way to develop your mental strength.
This is all excellent.
But I realised that was not what I was doing.
I was doing it out of desperation, escapism, addiction.
Like with anything, the way in which you approach something is more important than the thing itself.
I relate to this so much. I worked out 6-7 days a week in the “before times.” It was too much. Now I’m able to build in movement and I do it in a much more reasonable way. I stop before it doesn’t feel good.