“How Physical Activity Changed Me”
Living in such fast and high pressured world, i often get asked how do i manage to keep my mood, energy, and outlook for life running high.
My reply? “Daily sweat for daily clarity”.
Who would have ever thought that physical activity could become one of my favourite allies for my mental and emotional wellbeing?
I always turned on meditation and holistic approaches in order to create a more balanced relationship with myself and the world, learning how to manage stress in an healthy way and feel more present in what i did in my everyday life.
But i reached a point where this didn’t felt enough satisfying anymore, leaving me with a sense of peace, not only during the practices, but with really little changes into my day to day world.
I felt the need of a more embodied way of living and so i turned my needs for “embodied positivity” towards physical activity.
I never been a particularly sporty person in the past, and i often found gym’s environments a little intimidating!! ( rise your hands here if you feel the same! Surely i am not the only one 🙂 ).
Dwelling deep into different sports, classes, and experiences with an holistic approach, taught me more than i could ever expect and completely revolutionised my life.
Here i want to share with you some of my stepping stones:
Intention Is Everything! How often we have the tendency to approach exercise from a place of guilt? Maybe moved by the need to loose those few extra pounds? How many friends do you know yourself that seems to be constantly fighting with their own body? Or make fitness something that HAS to be scheduled?
While being fit and healthy is essential key to wellness, as important are also the feelings and motivations that stand behind our choices!
I consciously decided to make physical activity an occasion to be kinder to myself, to come from a place of genuine care of my well-being.
I choose to actively break any mental pattern and feelings that would resemble the phrase “i have to” to “i want to”, choosing feeling of excitement in doing something new with openness and playfulness.
I retained myself from taking on any self-judgemental thoughts on my limitations or physical flaws.
It’ s so easy to fall into feelings of wanting perfection!! Allowing myself to be playful made my progress faster and more enjoyable.
It made me learn how to be more organic into my experiences and less judgmental in my everyday life.
My mind felt so released and much more elastic, with a willingness to try more new things.
Learning Limits With Grace: I really enjoyed the process of testing my own edges and limits through physical practices. It taught me in a very direct way that being too harsh on ourselves (or others!) will have the opposite effect. When i did fall into those circles of failure, i often felt to give it all up all together. So, I created in myself a space to recognise how this negative connotations regarding limits where un-healthy behaviours that i learned in the past, and introduced a more graceful way of dealing with it. Shortly enough, the fear of exposing myself to failures disappeared, and i instead learned that it could become a powerful standing point of value of how far i have come and how i could improve.
Transcending Limits And Realistic Goal Setting: lots of people (including myself) struggle with the consistency and tenancy needed in learning a new discipline, or overcoming the feeling of tiredness. During my sport training i learned the envaluable lesson that our limits aren’t often where we think they are.
Our mental disbelief reach us before the actual incapability of doing, and our habits of giving up are often the sign point of when we actually need to push a little bit more.
The small action of doing those 200 meters more, or that extra repetition when i thought i couldn’t take it anymore, showed me that i had more strength than i believed in. It taught me the art of knowing how to overcome difficult situations in small steps, creating greater confidence into finding the strength to overcome difficult situations in my everyday life, and the importance to set realistic, approachable steps in order to create greater change.
Deep Listening Within The Constant Change: while some limits are there to be pushed, some may be there to invite us to deeper listening. We are living in a fast paced society where often the demand of productivity doesn’t leave much space for listening to the physical changes in energy levels. Training daily, approached with a more conscious mind, clearly showed me how my body performance could dramatically change from one day to another day for no apparent reason. This brought a new awareness in understanding that i needed to listen when i needed to push or, instead, when my body would benefit from a lighter training.
This has been a precious lesson in learning to deeply listen to myself and my needs. It also taught me great patience and how success isn’t a straight line. Sometimes our goals are reached by few steps forward and one back and the important thing it’s to train our minds in keeping a positive outlook on the prize.
Our ability to adapt and make the best out of what’s given, it the best road to accomplishment.
Time For Self Isn’t Selfish: i love when i can put my phone on silence and fully dedicate myself to something. I used to find it challenging in the beginning, but then grew in the habit of leaving the world out for a determined amount of time.
I actually set a strict rule of not replying to any message during my practice.
It brought more concentration in my training, less excuses and distractions. I learned how to set myself in reaching simple goals without interferences, which brought a tremendous amount of benefits into my life! Not only my focus improved, but i also seemed to have found a better presence to gift to others. Learning when i was “off” and learning to say “no” and put myself first with this simple actions, created a more authentic and loving presence for those around me.
I didn’t value anymore my “me” time as a selfish act, but as a place where i could truly recharge/discharge/evaluate and keep a more positive balance with the world.
Turning Unpleasant Feelings As Positive Fuel: this has been probably the best thing that i truly loved the most! The use of physical activity and training as a channel to burn all the most unwanted feelings!
Aren’t we all feeling very angry, frustrated, anxious, raging, sad, depressed from time to time? Doesn’t matter how hard we try to keep positive in life?
Our most instinctual reaction is probably to discharge that heaviness on the closest people, maybe our colleagues, or some strangers in the tube, feeling some kind of justifying reasons to do so too!
Truth is…that is very avoidable!
I used to approach my training sessions with the conscious intention of bringing in my “issues” so i could use movement as a way of processing it, instead then my head (which would keep me in a constant loop).
I quickly learned how unpleasant feelings could be an amazing fuel for my practice, and how discharging emotional reactions in this way would then lead me to see new solutions that before i couldn’t grasp.
This reflected massively in my life, learning to create distance between an event and my reaction to it, allowing myself to step out of emotional loops and living with a much clearer thought process.
Creating healthy way to process negative emotions is a KEY element to emotional wellbeing
Overall training and physical activity keeps being an opportunity of exploration and learning new skills to apply in my everyday life.
Even a simple walk, when done with an explorative approach, it can become a lovely practice!
It’s alway how we show up on things.. our attitude and desire to learn can always keep our approach to life running high.
And you.. what do you like to do most to keep your spirit running high?
Erica
CityLux Therapist