Tag: exercise

Mental Health · Personal Development

Our focus is the only thing that changes

Ruby Pipes5 Comments
“making waves” © Elizabeth Donoghue, 2009. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

I get up and go to the gym. Climb onto an elliptical and put my headphones in. An hour of time three days a week where I don’t have to say anything, answer any questions, evaluate or receive feedback. Simpler than the three days I spend lifting. Concentrating on proper form: shoulders back, deep breath, hold, tight core, begin. On cardio days I don’t even really have to think. I zone out completely. Stare at the numbers on the display in front of me. Listen to my music, my breathing, my heartbeat. It’s freedom. But it toes the line of complacency.

When I have the option of getting in a groove I can lose my focus. My attention drifts to the TV set hanging from the ceiling in the gym. Before I know it my pace has slowed, my heart-rate dropped, my breathing become easy. It’s just like that in everything, isn’t it?

We stop pushing. Settle into a rhythm and neglect to notice we’ve stopped trying. Stopped growing.

Eventually something happens to bring my attention back to it. My weight creeps up again, my brain becomes cluttered, my moods swing wildly. I wake up with bruises, I miss a deadline, I find myself standing too close to the edge.

So I make an elaborate gesture to make up for all the time I’ve been slipping.

I clean up my diet, start running, write a new blog post, break up with an abusive boyfriend, quit drinking, throw out my stash again. Great big things. Impressive and shiny. Always beneficial, but rarely long lasting. Not because I’m not committed, but because I lose focus again. Forget to stay conscious of how I’m using my time, my energy, my brain power.

My attention drifts off and I neglect to pull it back. By the time I notice something has to change, I have an insane amount of work to do to make up the difference. And it’s just not sustainable. That’s how I burn out. Fatigue. Get overwhelmed with the constant bigness of everything.

Imagine instead if I applied consistent effort toward maintaining focus on the things I want to achieve. Unwavering commitment and a refusal to compromise. No distractions. Eyes on the prize. Always.

It’s not dramatic. It’s not extreme. It’s not even all that difficult. It’s just paying attention. Always paying attention. Pulling my focus back to the place it needs to be to keep moving forward. Keep progressing. And there’s only one way to learn to do that: practice. When my mind wanders, I practice guiding it back. Meditation in the day to day. Routine pressure.

Learning to act against the forces which have been acting against me.

Done being the rock walls.

Ready to be waves.

Personal Development

The grip loosens

Ruby Pipes4 Comments
“Entwined (Fence & Vine) HFF, Dalaman” © H Matthew Howarth, 2010. CC BY-SA 2.0.

It’s easy for me to want to change it. To assume I’m going about it all wrong. Tell myself there ought to be a better way to do this. A “right” way. I fight hard against the current. Watch the people around me. Compare, question, make lists of how my life falls in line and where it differs.

I press my shoulders hard against the wall and slide down. Place the heels of my hands against my eyes and stretch my fingers up my forehead. “Why isn’t this working?”

The fight is exhausting. It takes on fights of its own. Grows two heads for every one I manage to dispatch. No longer a simple list of things I want to do, but a more detailed collection of all the ways I think I’m supposed to do them. As if forcing myself into a mold is going to do me any favors. At some point I forgot how to play to my strengths. Maybe I never learned how in the first place. Instead, I made models of characteristics I admire and tried to benefit by acting like I have them.

Of course it doesn’t work like that. No matter how delicious the scent of that promise is gliding in.

Again I find myself wondering how I can go about all this different. Wade into a river already flowing in the direction I’m interested in. I make lists of all the things I respond well to. Outside accountability and words of encouragement. Someone leaning over my shoulder and telling me, “You’re doing great.” High fives and deadlines.

So I knit myself into those situations.

Make it a point to always smile at the staff in our new apartment building.

Stop going to meetings which make me feel broken.

Apply for a full-time job in my coworking space before the position even exists, then work hard to earn it. Return to the workforce after almost exactly two years absence. But not at another coffee shop, not in some customer service position which only fulfills my desire to help people. This strikes a deeper chord. This is belonging, mattering, creating.

Sign up with a personal trainer and tell him about how I want to do pull ups and back squat more than I weigh. He nods, smiles, and says, “Okay. Let’s do this.”

Find myself in weekly meetings, telling people what I want to do over the next couple months. They stop me in the stairs and ask me how my writing is going. Ask me what time I got up that morning. If I’ve been getting my cardio in.

My grip on the idea that needing external accountability is a weak trait loosens.

I grant myself permission to just do what works for me. Remind myself that if I’m successful then I’m doing it right. There is no “better” way to get from A to B.

Kid, life will beat you up enough, you don’t have to do it yourself. That’s not where you need assistance.

Mental Health

Fifty-seven days ’til spring

Ruby Pipes15 Comments

"Spring Flowers" © Billy Wilson, 2010. CC BY-NC 2.0.
“Spring Flowers” © Billy Wilson, 2010. CC BY-NC 2.0.
I bought a two-month trial at a yoga studio near my office. It runs out the day after the vernal equinox. I’m trying hard to grab onto anything that may be able to propel me out of winter. Ever-hopeful late afternoon stretch breaks are exactly what my routine has been missing.

At 4:30 in the morning I climb out of bed and stumble to the gym before I have time to form any feelings about the day. For an hour I lift weights and blast music through earbuds. I climb onto an elliptical and only briefly curse my once-again hurt foot that’s preventing me from running. Forty-five minutes. I shower, eat, and walk out the door regardless of where I’m heading.

The less I’m at home the better I function. I go to my coworking space, hang out at coffee shops with Mason, and take walks with Alyssa. I meet with my therapist twice a week now and together we try to unravel a lifetime of habits and a faulty belief system.

It’s a constant struggle. I often catch myself wondering if any of it is for anything. There is nothing broken here. There is nothing to fix. All I’m trying to do is understand. Trying to find out what needs I was filling with things that did not fit. In a text message to an old friend I say, “It’s weird because, ultimately, all we’re saying is, ‘Here’s the foundation you’ve built your entire existence on. It’s shitty, but you built your entire existence on it, so good luck with that.'”

There’s a part of me that thinks realizing why I do the things I do and hold the truths I do will help me let them go. If I know why I developed a habit, a trait, a belief that does not serve me then maybe I can find a better way to meet that need. A more effective way to say the things I’m feeling or wanting or wish I could get from somebody.

But I know that I can’t hold on too tight to that hope. Maybe we will hash this all out, take it all apart and inspect every element, and be left still not knowing how to change any of it. Maybe the foundation always just stays the same. And I’m going to have to get used to the idea that that’s okay, too.

Sitting on the couch in my therapist’s office, my legs curled under me, I stare at the plants in the corner. Not avoiding eye contact, but not making it either. He tells me he’s changed my main diagnosis on my insurance claims again and my stomach gets all up in knots when he starts talking about PTSD.

Post traumatic stress disorder. I wobble in and out of focus. Part of me hoping that naming something makes a difference. Part of me knowing it doesn’t change anything. And a third little voice talking low, “Post. Post. Post. It’s over. That’s promising.”