It’s my last regular post! I’m letting that lead me. Endings are something I’ve been exploring lately, letting go, allowing change to flow through me instead of resisting, struggling, raging.
It started with the pandemic, so much started with this goddamn pandemic. Everything I understood to be true about my world was up for debate. Isolation, constriction, struggle and then a refocus on what was really important. I started to let go. I began to understand that I couldn’t play the same character of me in my life under these different circumstances. It wasn’t that I wasn’t me, but rather that how I showed up and what I had with me changed. Social exercise, the bike rides, the group classes, all faded away. I was left with just me and what I wanted to do with my body, and my heart. It turns out, I still really dig the one on one interactions, even over video. Once I settled down, my therapy practice stabilized and zoom work became just fine. My supervision practice (supervising other therapists in their work and mentoring them) blossomed. Being a mentor fuelled me and I leaned in to that new and thriving space of connection.
Physically, it turns out, I really only want to walk my dog and do yoga. I patiently found ways to get to my mat, trying to be gentle and not push. I hurt my shoulder but I didn’t give up on practicing. It just got softer and softer, only as far as I could swim out and make it back alive.
All around me the world pulsed and convulsed. There was still a lot of struggle. There was a struggle to teach in group online. I still hate that, hate it with the passion of a thousand suns. We had a glorious in person masked term in the fall and having it ripped away from me again by the latest crisis has put my body in a raging uproar. I’m on fire in my spine. I know this to be my grief and struggle to connect with my family of students and colleagues through square boxes. I will never be okay with a group thing online. There just isn’t enough energy in the world to hold all those souls sufficiently to do what I need to do with them.
But back to letting go. I had been practicing and meditating and feeling into all the corners and I was so excited to do Adriene’s 30 days in January. But when I began that movement project, that should have been exactly what I needed, I collapsed. She was tumbling ahead of my body and I couldn’t keep up. There was something frantic about it. The words were right but the feel was wrong. I stopped after 7 days, went on an Adriene strike and I haven’t gone back. I’m staying true to my insides. It wasn’t right for me, danger, danger, danger. I’m on the mat still with others, staying true to what my body needs and says. I feel confident, and sad. I loved her and she’s gone.
Then there is this blogging practice. I’ve only ever blogged for my own good, hardly thinking about you, audience (sorry, not sorry, just how I do things). I would hit nerves or not but it was just about what comes out of my fingers. The more me I could be, the more true I could be to the exact moment of my writing, the better I felt about it. I wonder sometimes how it made you feel, to read mundane or very personal or very rant-y posts. In the end, that wasn’t why I did it. I just like to write. But now I am in some process, moving into a liminal space that is reforming something again. I don’t know what it will be yet, shadows just out of reach, but it feels important. I think it has to do with my teaching and an explication of the magic I’m finding there. I still want to write, I’m scared of letting go of this monthly practice, but I need to. I’ve said what I need to say for now.
So Adieu my friends, my dear fellow bloggers and the people who looked forward to what I had to say, or happened upon it and said “hmmm, cool” or however you were while reading. I have appreciated this space and your eyes and hearts that have been moved here and there. I may come back when I really need to say a thing in this community but until I do, keep moving your beautiful bodies and keep your precious hearts open as much as you can bear.
A somewhat barren tree covered in paper red hearts. A symbol of hope and loneliness both.
I’ve been planning to write a post about our internal stories all month but, despite trying several times, I couldn’t quite make it work.
This morning I decided to try again and realized that the problem was that I was trying to accomplish two things at once. I was attempting to write a post that incorporated two separate sets of information and I was moving back and forth between the two and getting annoyed because I wasn’t getting the post written.
Sound familiar?
Maybe you’re not a writer but I’ll bet you’ve done something similar in the past while trying to build a habit.
I know that have. I’ve set a goal that was too big and had too many parts and I’ve tried working on all them at once without realizing that’s what I was doing. And then I found myself annoyed because I wasn’t making any progress, because I couldn’t figure out what to be doing at any given time, and because I felt like I was making a mess of things.
Now, that’s not to say that your practice can’t have multiple parts. And I am not suggesting that your practice can’t serve multiple purposes. BUT I am saying that you need to be aware of what you are doing and create a structure that will support your plans. And, finally, to avoid frustration, you need to be able to set expectations that match your efforts.
Just as I had to realize that if I wanted to write about our internal stories, I would have to choose a method to deliver the information effectively or I would end up with a frustrating jumble of words that I might not be helpful. In fact, if the jumble was too big, I might not even be able to share it at all.
So, I’ve been through the part where I sort of knew what I wanted and I just worked in any old way for a while, coming back over and over to the topic but making no tangible progress. Then I reached the point (today) where all of my repeated actions helped me to see the obstacle in my way.* Once I could see the obstacle, I could figure out a solution.
And the solution is to write 3 posts. This first one tells the story of writing these posts and how my approach might apply to your habit-building process. The second one will be about figuring out your existing internal story about you and your habit and how you might begin to revise it. And the third will be about figuring out which part of your habit-building story that you are currently living and how accepting that might help you keep the plot moving forward.
See why I couldn’t get that all in one post? That would be like you trying to make a single practice session be a Taekwon-Do practice, a yoga practice, and and do strength training cardio all at once.
Sure, it could be done but there would be a lot of extra work involved as you tried to fit everything in and get just the right balance. You would probably be very tired and sore afterwards and you probably wouldn’t be looking forward to your next workout.
I could have put hours and hours of extra work into crafting an enormous draft post about internal stories and then spent even more time revising it into something readable. That would have been exhausting and frustrating and I definitely wouldn’t have been looking forward to writing my next post. And, to top it off, writing that post would require more time than I have to dedicate to writing for the Fit is a Feminist Issue blog so I probably wouldn’t have finished it. So, I wouldn’t have accomplished what I set out to accomplish because I didn’t match my expectations to my capacity.
Or, I could have chosen to shorten my post dramatically and just mention a few key things. That would have been a smaller step toward my goal but would still be useful. If I was going to be writing a blog post daily for the rest of the year, I might have chosen that route because I could return to add to the ideas later.
But, given that I am only doing daily posts for another few days and since these story-related ideas are specially important to me, it makes more sense for me to break down my ideas into three posts and focus on each one separately.
And, to go back to the example above, if doing all the bits of your huge practice would be exhausting, it would make sense for you to either separate your different types of practices or to design a practice that incorporates all three but for less time and/or at a lower intensity.
Once you’ve figured out what the obstacle in your current practice might be, you can make a choice that serves you best.
Today’s Invitation
Today, I’m inviting you to consider how my challenges with writing this series of posts might apply to your own habit-building practice.
Are you feeling like you are practicing over and over but not making any progress?
Are you trying to do too much at once or maybe hoping that a multi-purpose practice will pay off in all areas at once?
Is it possible that your work so far is not just about making progress in your habit but also about helping you to learn to see how to identify obstacles or adjust your methods/techniques? (like how all my attempts to write ended up showing me that I was trying to incorporate too much at once)
Can you see any ways to encourage yourself to break your practice into sections, approach it in a different way, or scale it to fit your schedule?
No matter how you answer the above questions, and now matter how you are doing with your practice, I would like to offer you these gold stars to celebrate your efforts.
Your hard work counts. Your efforts matter. And, most importantly, you matter.
Image description: A small drawing of 7 gold stars against a background of overlapping lines. The drawing laid on black computer keyboard on a white surface.
*So, from this perspective, all of my fumbling around with earlier versions didn’t mean I wasn’t make progress. I didn’t FINISH what I was doing but I was, unknowingly, working my way toward today when all of my wordy fumbles brought me to the point where I could see the obstacle. And while it would have been great to have known that I was on this path and it would have been terrific to have reached this point earlier, I guess this is another damn lesson in trusting myself and trusting my process. It’s a shame we can’t just learn that lesson once, isn’t it?
About the Go Team! posts:
For the second year in a row, I’ll be posting a Go Team! message every day in January to encourage us as we build new habits or maintain existing ones. It’s cumbersome to try to include every possibility in every sentence so please assume that I am offering you kindness, understanding, and encouragement for your efforts right now. You matter, your needs matter, and your efforts count, no matter where you are applying them. You are doing the best you can, with the resources you have, in all kinds of difficult situations and I wish you ease. ⭐💚 PS – Some of the posts for this year may be similar to posts from last year but I think we can roll with it.
When it’s cold outside, and I’m lying on my couch in a Wordsworthian mood, I think about my summer fitness activities. Doing yoga outside for the first time was one!
Over the years I’ve done yoga almost exclusively inside (including stretching in my bathroom). What I remember about inside yoga:
Get there early to get a spot where you want to be–the mirrors or the walls, the back or the front, near or away from the door.
Can be a tight fit. Tape on the floors so you know where to park your mat.
People half ignoring you, half checking you out.
Water bottles, quick dry towels, and stretchy outfits outside of my price range.
Bells and bowls and Buddha statues and instrumental flute playlists.
This is a broad brush. I am certain yoga studios have a range of vibes. But the juiced-up versions of inside yoga seem to encourage focusing on all the wrong things about yoga. When Sam sent around this link, US-based yoga studio popular with celebrities opening first Toronto location, I could only imagine this chain’s next level of bougie. (As the lead image suggests, it’s teal-only yoga wear there).
Trying Yoga Outside
This past summer, when the studios were closed due to COVID, a few friends and I signed up for a morning outside yoga class. And when I say outside I mean we were on the grass next to the parking lot of a local craft brewpub.
“A woman is meditating in a half-nose pose with her arms above her head – Sanjali padmasana. Back view” by wuestenigel is licensed under CC BY 2.0. So, not me.
Yoga outside immediately felt different from yoga inside. Sunshine, grass, trees, sky, breeze. A smallish group, there was friendly eye contact and slightly sheepish smiles. No floor tape–my choice of mat placement was shade or sun. Folks brought water, but registration also came with a beer, which you could drink after the session–or during, as our yoga instructor did.
When I stretched to the sky, I reached for tree branches. When I rolled a bit off my mat, soft grass cushioned my body. When I relaxed in savasana pose, the sun warmed my face. The traffic, bugs, and uneven ground were all noticeable, but they somehow made me feel more connected to my place and space. I didn’t need or want bells or a flute playlist.
Yoga in North America
I am far from the first to note that North Americans culturally appropriate yoga. As Yoga International’s Arundhati Baitmangalkar says, “Yoga is a spiritual practice. It is a way of living. It’s a practice of self-study and mind management. It is a way of thinking, speaking, being—and more. Yoga is a part of Indian culture and heritage.”
Doing what I will call “middle-class white person yoga at 11 in the morning, beer in hand” was definitely NOT reflecting the culture and heritage of India.
But being outside meant no appropriated or commercialized artefacts or symbols. The instructor was inclusive and supportive in her instructions. She was not South Asian, but her shape and size was that of a regular person, not someone who stepped out of a Lululemon yoga ad. No teal.
Baitmangalkar goes on to note that in many studios the goal is a workout, not yoga. I fully accept that the outside yoga was more of a workout. But my friends and I were also looking for some mind management and self-care after having struggled with supporting others during the COVID pandemic. We wanted to reconnect with our spirits and the world that day.
I am not recusing myself of participating in cultural appropriation by doing craft beer yoga, but being outside the inside studio made me consider how I might further educate myself and engage with yoga living. I’m going to start with some of the recommendations in Baitmangalkar’s article.
For those who practice outside yoga regularly, please share your experiences in the comments!
There’s nothing in particular that’s wrong but everything seems to be a little more challenging that it needs to be. You probably have time to do the things you need to do but you aren’t particularly enthused about them. Your energy is a bit low and nothing is really appealing to you at the moment.
You feel like you are trudging through mud and that the day is going to go on forever.
This is an excellent time to choose extra self-kindness, to take breaks when you can, to remove any unnecessary items on your to do list, and to go easy when it comes to your practice session today.
It’s a good time to go back to basics, to pare down you practice and any other work to the bare essentials, the things that will meet your most fundamental requirements without adding any additional weight to your day.
If I have to write on a sloggy day, I start by freewriting or brainstorming. (Sometimes my first sentences is ‘Ugh, I don’t want to write today…)
If I need to draw, I’ll start with a basket of stars – an easy and recurring drawing for me.
If I’m practicing Taekwon-Do, I’ll do front punches and sidekicks – two movements that require muscle memory but not a lot of brainpower at this point.
If I’m trying to do yoga, I’ll do downward dog and warrior II – two of my favourite poses that let me pay attention to some of the areas of my body that need it most often.
And, if I am trying to write a blog post, I’ll talk about how it is ok to feel like you are slogging through your day, and then I’ll remind my readers about the importance of self-kindness, the value going easy on yourself, and how going back to the basics is useful and still counts as a practice session.
Maybe going back to basics will give you a burst of energy that lifts that slog feeling and you’ll go on to do more. Maybe your very basic practice will be all you can manage today. Either of those things are perfectly ok.
And you know what else is ok? Realizing that even the basics aren’t possible today and you just need to rest.
Go ahead and experiment by giving the basics a whirl but trust yourself to know what you need today and every day. Most of the time you’ll be able to tell the difference between when you feel like ‘I just need to push myself a little’ and when you feel like (to borrow a Dorothy Parker quote) ‘What fresh hell is this?’
Today’s Invitation
So, as you can tell, if your day feels like a slog, you aren’t alone. My metaphorical boots are covered in mud and I swear that I am getting a twinge in my wrist from checking my watch over and over. *
Today, I’m inviting you to meet yourself where you are – go easy if you need or want to, challenge yourself that feels good to you, or grab a blanket and take a nap if that’s the right option for you right now. All of those approaches are part of the big picture of building a habit that serves you well.
Here’s my ‘back to basics’ basket of stars that I am offering to you for your efforts today, no matter what those efforts are.
Your hard work counts.
Image description: a small drawing of a black and white patterned basket filled with gold stars. The background of the drawing is covered in gold speckles. The drawing itself is resting on a black computer keyboard.
*For the record, I am perfectly fine, it’s just one of those days that feel like a slog. I’m taking good care of myself and sticking with the basics for every task I have on my list, including this post. 💚
For the second year in a row, I’ll be posting a Go Team! message every day in January to encourage us as we build new habits or maintain existing ones. It’s cumbersome to try to include every possibility in every sentence so please assume that I am offering you kindness, understanding, and encouragement for your efforts right now. You matter, your needs matter, and your efforts count, no matter where you are applying them. You are doing the best you can, with the resources you have, in all kinds of difficult situations and I wish you ease. ⭐💚 PS – Some of the posts for this year may be similar to posts from last year but I think we can roll with it.
Last week, FIFA, the international soccer federation, recognized Christine Sinclair as the greatest goal scorer ever. Period. Male or Female.
Astonishingly, although she has been shortlisted as FIFA player of the year seven times, she has never won that recognition, despite playing in five World Cups and four Olympics (bringing home two bronze medals and a gold). This year, she didn’t even make the final cut.
It was almost two years after she broke the record. She scored her 185th goal in international play back in January 2020. She now has 308, along with 53 assists. She scored her first goal in her second game as a member of the Canadian national team, when she was just sixteen.
Almost every photo of Christine Sinclair shows her with that huge smile of joy. This photo is by Daniela Porcelli/Canada Soccer
Over twenty years later, she is still going strong, playing with both her Portland professional team and the Canadian team. And she is not done. In addition to plans to play at the next Women’s World Cup in 2023, and committing to another two years with Portland, she is pushing for a professional women’s soccer league in Canada. Canada is the only FIFA top 10 ranked country without a professional women’s soccer league.
A pro league wouldn’t solve all the disparities between the men’s and women’s games. But as Sinclair explained just after that gold medal win “We’re hoping that this platform will give us the opportunity to start that change and plead to Canadians that have the ability to make the difference to invest in women. The young little kids, they deserve to be able to go watch their heroes on a week-to-week basis and not [just] every four years.”
Starting a league, or even a team, takes a lot of resources. I get that. But I also note that soccer is the most popular team sport in Canada, with over 750,000 participants in organized programs. It ranks among the most popular sports for girls, and as long ago as 2012, more than 360,000 females played the game (41% of all players).
Approximately 4.4 million Canadians tuned in to watch that gold medal game in Tokyo, making it the most watched event of the Games. It seems to me that there is an audience. I, for one, would love to follow teams regularly, instead of a World Cup of Olympics tournament every few years.
Diane Harper lives in Ottawa. She is an enthusiastic watcher of World Cup and Olympic soccer, and looks forward to catching a live game when the Men’s World Cup comes to Canada in 2026. She still regrets missing the Women’s World Cup sole Ottawa game in 2015.
One of the things that I love about a heist movie is that every person on the team has a specific expertise. They may not be needed for every heist or they may only be needed for a short time, but they’re ready to do their part at any point in the caper. And the person in charge knows everyone’s role and knows when to call any specific person into action.
What does this have to do with you and your practice?
Well, your practice is a heist, of course, and YOU are the person in charge.
You are seeking a specific result whether that result is incorporating something into your daily life or achieving a specific end goal. You need information in order to make that happen. You may need specific equipment. You need a way to track your progress. AND you need people beside you – literally, virtually, or metaphorically – to make that happen.
So, who is on your team?
Actually, to echo the title of this post, who ELSE is on your team?
After all, you are on your own team.
And I am obviously on your team – I’ve been writing you every day since January 1 to remind of that.
So, that makes two of us who want you to pull off this caper.
Now you can figure out some more people who belong in this ragtag group of misfits who will rally together to make this happen…sorry, maybe I’m running with this metaphor a bit too much. 😉
Do you have specific friends who have either the expertise or enthusiasm to offer you support when you need it?
I specifically recommend including at least one friend who you can complain to, one who can boost your spirits /coax you into working on things when you are a bit meh, one who will say something like “Oh, come on, we’ll try this together.” and one who will have fun but odd solutions to your dilemmas. You may even find that one person can fill all of those roles?
Do you have someone who can trade expertise with you?
I’m good at creative solutions and troubleshooting. I have a good friend who is rocks at creating systems and tracking things. We trade expertise on the regular so neither of us has to spend a lot of time in the dregs of work that frustrates us. Someone like that makes an excellent team member.
Do you watch specific exercise videos on YouTube?
Why not consider those instructors to be on your team? Sure, it’s para-social and you probably can’t invite them to your birthday party but I’m pretty sure that anyone making fitness or meditation videos is wishing all of their viewers well, so that counts.
Are you part of a fitness class or program?
If so, that’s another group of team members. When I posted on Facebook this morning about my plans for Taekwon-Do practice, I tagged three people from my classes (who are definitely on my team) and moments later I had a response and an offer of support.
Many members of the blogging team here at Fit is a Feminist Issue are part of a group that is aiming for 222 workouts in 2022. They check in when they have done a workout and get encouragement and support. They don’t know everyone in the group but the whole group is on their team.
How about family members? Your doctor? Your therapist? The person you always see on your daily walk?The person on Instagram who posts about their workouts? The person on TikTok with the pep talks that you love?Your connections on social media?
Any and all of those people can be on your team*, even if they don’t know it. 😉
Unlike in a heist movie, you don’t have to literally recruit all of the members of your team.
If someone you encounter on a regular basis brightens your day, helps you feel inspired, or reminds you to focus, you can consider them part of your team.
In fact, you don’t even have to limit yourself to human team members. Your dog, your cat, your lizard, or the crow you see on the mailbox on the corner can all be part of your team, if you want them to be.
Today’s Invitation
This whole post is kind of an invitation but let me be even more specific here:
Today, I invite you to consider the team that’s working with you to help you establish your practice.
These might be people you have asked for help or they might be people (or animals) that you encounter regularly as you build your habit. They can be directly offering help and support or they can be motivational or inspiring in some other way.
Even if you are working on something on your own, you are not alone.
Creating a list of team members can really help you to see who is cheering you on.
Here’s your gold star for today, whether you are listing your team or happily flying solo.
Your efforts count, your work matters, and you will find your way forward.
This gold star is definitely on your team. They even brought pompoms to cheer you on. Image description: a cartoon drawing of a happy gold star who appears to have jumped into the air to wave their purple pompoms. The words ‘Go Team!’ are at the upper right of the image. The drawing is propped up against a black computer keyboard on a white surface.
*I realize that not everyone you know is on your team and that’s ok. While it would be great to have universal support, you don’t actually need it. You can proceed without their approval. Even though it can really suck if someone close to you is creating obstacles, I hope you can find ways to ignore them, to work around them, or to build your practice in spite of their opposition. Personally, I have had a fair bit of success with spite-fueled missions so don’t worry if you have to use that tactic.
About the Go Team! posts:
For the second year in a row, I’ll be posting a Go Team! message every day in January to encourage us as we build new habits or maintain existing ones. It’s cumbersome to try to include every possibility in every sentence so please assume that I am offering you kindness, understanding, and encouragement for your efforts right now. You matter, your needs matter, and your efforts count, no matter where you are applying them. You are doing the best you can, with the resources you have, in all kinds of difficult situations and I wish you ease. ⭐💚 PS – Some of the posts for this year may be similar to posts from last year but I think we can roll with it.
If all goes well, I’m hoping to test for my 4th degree black belt in ITF Taekwon-Do sometime later this year but I have a lot of work to do in order to be fully prepared.
I’m fairly confident about the patterns I have learned for previous black belt tests.* And I feel good about one of the three I need to learn for this test but I haven’t yet fully grasped the second pattern that I need to learn.
So, I am taking my own advice from my Go Team! posts and creating a plan for a small, specific practice to really get this pattern, Yoo Sin, into my brain and into my muscle memory:
I’m going to practice Yoo Sin for at least 5 minutes a day, every day, from now until the end of February, or until I can perform it without hesitation, whichever comes first.
This is what Yoo Sin looks like:
A YouTube video of Patricia Pacero performing the ITF Takekwon-Do pattern Yoo Sin in a practice space with white walls and with blue mats on the floor. She is wearing a white TKD uniform (dobok) and her black belt.
I have been through the whole pattern step-by-step a couple of times with guided instruction but at this point I can only get about 1/3 of the way through the pattern without stopping to check the next move.
I’m not sure if 5 minutes of daily practice will get me where I want to go with the pattern in a month but it will definitely move me in the right direction.
And, as I know from my own Go Team! pep talks, I can reassess and do some course correction at any point in the process.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
For the record, this isn’t the only TKD practice I will do in February, it’s just how I plan to add this pattern to my repertoire.
*If you aren’t familiar with how things work in the martial arts, getting your black belt is not your end point, it’s the point at which you know enough of the basics to start deepening and strengthening your practice. I earned my first degree black belt in 2014. I learned 3 new patterns for my second degree belt in 2016, another 3 new patterns for my third degree belt in 2019, and I have to learn 3 new patterns for my 4th degree test. This is on top of the 9 patterns that I learned for the various belts leading to my first degree black belt.
I’ve had a lot to say over the past 23 days about all of the things you can encounter as you build your practice. You’ll have ups and downs, there will be obstacles, things might feel weird, you might be grumpy. All of those things are part of the process. It’s ok to feel how you feel and you don’t have to assign any particular meaning to those feelings, unless it serves you well to do so.
But what about if the only thing you feel about your practice is dread?
What if the idea of your session never feels good or even neutral?
Let’s be clear, feeling psyched about your practice session isn’t a requirement for building a habit. You don’t have to be excited or even want to do your practice. If you can go ahead and meditate or move without any motivation or enthusiasm. – you can be fueled by stubbornness, anger, or you can have no discernable feelings about it at. If your feelings on the matter are irrelevant to you, or if you can make a practice so routine that you can do it on autopilot, have at it. You don’t need my advice on the matter.
However, if you dread your practice, constantly look for ways to avoid it, or if you feel like you have to climb a metaphorical mountain every single time you consider practicing, it might be time to review why you have chosen this practice and whether it is actually serving that purpose.
If, for example, your practice is about recovering from an injury or dealing with an ongoing issue, you might want to stick with it, even if you dread it, because it will serve you well down the road. You might be able to make it less awful by choosing music or a podcast or show to entertain yourself while you do it, or by getting a friend to join you -in person or online- while you do your dreaded thing and they do something that they dread. You are the only one who can make the call about whether the dread is worth the results.
But, if this practice is something you have chosen with the idea of expanding your life in some way and you are hating every part of it?
RECONSIDER!
Pretty please.
Why did I choose the word reconsider instead of just telling you to stop?
Because there is probably a complex thought involved in choosing your practice and in choosing whether to change it. Being told to just drop it doesn’t honour that process.
That being said, it may not be that complex for you. So, if you hate your practice, you wish you had never started, the mere thought of it ruins your day and you have no real reason to continue it, consider this is your official permission to drop it and carry on with your life.
If it is more complex than that, please read on.
Why did you choose this practice?
So, there was a reason you chose this practice in the first place.
Maybe you want something that this practice will bring.
Maybe you started this practice to keep someone else company.
Maybe you’ve been given a medical reason for this practice.
Maybe you just thought you should do this.*
Maybe it was a whim, something you thought you would try.
Those are all valid reasons for starting a practice. (Yes, even the word should. Should is a trap but it catches us all sometimes.) But they may not be reason enough to continue.
And we all dread our practice sometimes, especially at the beginning when our brains are keen on sticking with the old pathways instead of putting energy into building new ones.
But now we are a few weeks into our practices and it’s worth taking some time to evaluate how we feel about them.
And if you are still dreading your sessions all the time (or if you haven’t been able to do them at all), this is your chance to take a close look at your intended practice and the reasons behind it.
Things to (re)consider
1) If you want something that your practice will bring, peace of mind, greater strength, additional flexibility, increased endurance, but you dread your practice so much that it ruins your day or that you can’t make yourself do it, your practice is not serving its purpose. There are very few things that can only be achieved in one way. You don’t have to stay on this path because you have already started walking it. Research different ways to reach the same destination.
If you feel weird about starting over or if you are worried that you ‘wasted’ this time so far, remember that your efforts so far count – even if all of your energy went into avoiding your practice. And you are not starting from the same place you were weeks ago. Now you have more information and you know some things to avoid.
2) If you started this practice to keep someone else company, perhaps you can change your side of things. If they are doing yoga and you can’t stand getting on the mat, perhaps you renegotiate. If you are working together in person, perhaps you can do strength training or regular stretches or meditation or read or write or colour while they get bendy. Or perhaps you can find another way to keep them company and cheer them on while you undertake a different challenge.
3) If there is a medical reason for your practice, you may not have the option to stop trying to do it. I’m sorry about that, I know it sucks.
If you can’t escape your practice, you’ll need to find a way to live with it. This might be a good time to engage for full stubbornness abilities and go for angry self-care, or it might be a good time to pay some attention to the issue as a whole.
You may want to start with exploring your feelings around the whole situation. Sometimes our resentment or frustration around medical issues can show up as our brains refusing to cooperate with the very things that will help us most. I find that freewriting in my journal or recording my thoughts as I complain aloud often helps me to figure out the emotions that are getting in my way.
If you start to wade into your feelings around this and you get overwhelmed in any way, please speak to a mental health professional. Not only is it outside of the scope of these post but I am not trained in guiding people through intense emotional reactions. I don’t want to ignore the fact that there may be deep-seated emotions involved in these things and I don’t want to appear cavalier about how to address them.
If the problem doesn’t seem to be based in your feelings about the medical situation, it will be helpful to get specific about your dread. If the practice painful? Is it boring? Are you annoyed about a lack of progress? And then try to figure out what you can do to address those issues. Can you do a different practice and still help your medical situation? Can you do something to make it more interesting? Do you have a realistic sense of how long it will take to make progress? Can you measure progress in a different way? Can you develop a wildly disproportional reward system (i.e. every set of reps earns you 30 minutes of reading your novel)?
4) If this practice was something you thought you should try for some reason but it is not serving you it is definitely ok to stop.
You can take some time to explore why you thought you should try it and if those reasons are important to you, you can figure out a different way to accomplish the same thing.
There is no reason to feel guilty or bad about not doing something that doesn’t work for you.
Yes, even if you announced it to everyone and asked people to ensure that you stick with it.
You are allowed to change your mind and if someone gets uppity with you about it, try adopting a shocked, haughty tone of voice as you respond with something like, “Surely you wouldn’t expect me to continue a practice that didn’t meet my needs? That would be ridiculous! Maybe you like getting trapped in that sort of thing but I refuse to treat myself that way.” Usually that baffles people so much that they back off.
5) If you started this on a whim but you hate it? The experiment is complete. You have your results. You hate it. Feel free to move on.
Changing your mind doesn’t mean that you give up too easily. It doesn’t mean that you can’t stick with things. It has no meaning at all unless you give it one.
If you get any grief about it, respond that you think life is a buffet and that you have no intention of having seconds of a dish you didn’t enjoy.
Today’s Invitation
Today, I invite you to either recommit to your practice, to change it, or to ditch it, whichever serves you best.
You don’t owe anyone else an explanation about which one you choose and you are the only person who knows what is right for you.
I wish you ease as you figure it out.
And here are your gold stars for today. There are lots of them in the photo because the process in this post may require lots of different little bits of hard work.
Your hard work counts. Your efforts matter.
And, what you WANT and what you LIKE matters.
After I finished this drawing, I considered redoing it because the tree was so tangled but I decided it was a metaphor for the fact that even when circumstances are tangled we can earn a gold star. Image description: A drawing of a tree covered in gold stars, the drawing is on a small white card that is resting against a green notebook on my ink-speckled white desk. The tree is drawn near the right edge of the card and it is made of black lines that stretch upward before looping at the end. Each loop has at least one gold star hanging from it. There is a pile of gold stars at the base of the tree and the ground is green and slopes upward to the left. The sky is light blue.
*There’s that damn word again. *shudder*
For the second year in a row, I’ll be posting a Go Team! message every day in January to encourage us as we build new habits or maintain existing ones. It’s cumbersome to try to include every possibility in every sentence so please assume that I am offering you kindness, understanding, and encouragement for your efforts right now. You matter, your needs matter, and your efforts count, no matter where you are applying them. You are doing the best you can, with the resources you have, in all kinds of difficult situations and I wish you ease. ⭐💚 PS – Some of the posts for this year may be similar to posts from last year but I think we can roll with it.
It’s January and I’m super busy. The dean’s office is busy as we get ready to return to campus January 31. I’m also in the middle of three different grant applications.
At home we navigated the challenges of coming down with COVID, being sick (briefly and not that sick, thankfully) and then re-entering the world at large. It all felt very complicated.
In the world of Zwift, I’m captain of one bike team (hi TFC Dynamite!) and helping out with another (hey TFC Phantom!)
There is a lot on my plate right now. It’s not the case that there aren’t blog worthy things on my mind. Instead, it’s more like there a lot of different things I’m thinking about and they are still in the percolating stage, mid-mull, as it were.
Nothing seems to be settling down into a blog post.
Here’s my list:
Book review time!
I’m reading a book and writing a review for the blog. It’s Let Get Physical by Danielle Friedman. Here’s the blurb, “For American women today, working out is as accepted as it is expected, fueling a multibillion-dollar fitness industrial complex. But it wasn’t always this way. For much of the twentieth century, sweating was considered unladylike and girls grew up believing physical exertion would cause their uterus to literally fall out. It was only in the sixties that, thanks to a few forward-thinking fitness pioneers, women began to move en masse. In Let’s Get Physical, journalist Danielle Friedman reveals the fascinating hidden history of contemporary women’s fitness culture, chronicling in vivid, cinematic prose how exercise evolved from a beauty tool pitched almost exclusively as a way to “reduce” into one millions have harnessed as a path to mental, emotional, and physical well-being.”
Let’s Get Physical by Danielle Friedman
Silly Little Walks
me going on a stood little daily walk for my stupid physical and mental health
I’ve been fretting for a little while about walking and mental health connection and while we’ve all been taking silly little walks for the sake of our mental health, I worry we’re putting too much pressure on the humble walk break. Not all problems can be solved with a lunch hour walk. I’ve been worrying too about what it means for those of us, like me, who can’t walk very far or very fast.
Snow Days
Sarah, Mallory, and I are just back from a lovely weekend away which involved lots of time outside in serious Canadian winter. It’s January and we’re in the days where the high is still in the negative double digits but everything feels better because there’s sunshine and longer days. It’s why I hate November typically and do okay in January even though it’s colder. We all joked about having moved into our serious winter clothes– long underwear, snow boots, snow pants, parkas and real mitts.
I’ve helped a few newcomers to Canada get ready for winter and I know it’s a costly business. Most of us who spend time outside in the winter have multiple winter coats and boots for different activities and conditions.
In addition to the clothes, we also all have snow shoes and poles and yak tracks for walking on the ice. Again, it’s okay being outside when you have the gear but when streets and sidewalks aren’t plowed, it’s super cold, and you don’t have the right clothes and gear, it can be a long indoor winter. We often message people, for physical and mental health reasons, to just get outside but the reality is that it’s not simple.
Sunday hiking on the Georgian Bay Trail to the grotto in the Bruce National Park
Saturday was warmer but windier
Knee surgery
I’m trying not to think too much about knee surgery. It makes me angry and sad. I know, it’s just knee surgery. It’s not cancer treatment, but the pandemic delays feel endless. I first saw the surgeon about total knee replacement, in the hospital, in August 2019. This August that will be three years ago. I have tentative sabbatical plans to go to Australia and New Zealand. I have hiking plans that without the surgery won’t happen. I mean travel might not be possible anyway but if it is, and I can’t do any walking (or tramping as they call it in NZ) I’m not sure what I will do.
I’ve considered traveling to the US for surgery and paying. I’ve considered just ignoring the whole thing and focusing on what I can do, which is walk 2-4 km without much trouble. But it hurts. My knees always hurt. Pain wakes me up at night. I try to think about people who are worse off, the people with more serious surgeries delayed because of the pandemic and even people waiting for knee surgery who can’t walk at all.
The poles helped on our walk today and I might invest in a pair, or just borrow Sarah’s more often.
Here’s me with poles!
Mallory and me at the end of our hike
Encanto
We also watched a movie that readers with younger children will know all about. I loved seeing the depiction of Luisa, the strong and muscular sister in Encanto. I also loved reading that children related to her. This is possibly the first time I’ve seen a muscular woman in a children’s movie or book who wasn’t the butt of jokes. Now I want some Luisa merch too.
Less than 60 days until spring
I try not to start the countdown too early but this year when I want to see friends outdoors and we’ve got another brighter pandemic spring ahead of us, I’m ready for spring anytime. In many ways 2022 feels an awful like 2021, as this video points out.
We’re all looking forward to spring and summer in my house.
