Self-Growth Challenge Complete (But its not Over)

I wrapped up the Spring Growth Challenge I made for myself a little bit ago. My last instagram post was actually a few weeks ago, but life got busy (and patios opened) and here I am on a rainy Friday afternoon typing up a post awhile in the making.

To recap, this is what I challenged myself to do for thirty days:

1. Do something creative (writing, painting, dancing, etc)

2. Wake up the same time every morning (one hour later on weekends)

3. Write down three things I am grateful for every morning and every night

4. Do one act of kindness 

And, most importantly, 

5. Post on Instagram my daily updates about this challenge.

So. How did it go?

1. Do something creative.I started off recording on my instagram posts the act of creativity I had done each day. Usually it was flowing or dancing, or writing. Once or twice it was water colour painting. I continued doing these creative things (not quite everyday) but I found writing so much in a post daunting, to the point where it was stopping me from posting as frequently. But I was still conscious of doing something that had me using my brain in a way that was not just thinking (or overthinking) something in the routine of my day.

Sometimes it took a little effort. Its easy for me to log on zoom for a pole class and just do whatever movement I am instructed. But when its just me, turning on some music and allowing my body to go with the beat and melody, it takes a few minutes to get into a flow. The first song comes on and awakens some emotional response in me, but like greasing a door that isn’t used often enough, it takes a few stiff, awkward movements before that emotion really translates into anything that looks or feels flowy. But I found if I committed to dancing to at least 2 whole songs, I would inevitably keep going for me, reaching that creative place of flow that actually felt good, where I wanted to keep dancing.

2. Wake up the same time every morning. I started this one out with the best intentions. However as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So while I did start waking up a little earlier every day, my weekends still had me sleeping in a good 1.5 -2 hours later than my usual 8:08 AM wake up on my teaching days. That being said, waking up at 8:08 instead of 8:30 which I was doing before, put me back in a habit of journalling an doing yoga before sitting down at my computer. And that is a routine that I have continued to keep even since ending this challenge.

3. Write down three things I am grateful for every morning and every night.

I would say this was the most powerful act of all that I set out for myself in this challenge- despite it seeming like the most simple. Having kept gratitude journals on and off for a couple years now, it was not hard for me to come up with three things twice a day— most days I actually had many more listed. What I loved so much about this exercise is that it made me so much more mindful and optimistic every hour of the day— not just when it came to write.

I was constantly on the lookout for the little good things that I could include as part of my gratitude list later— from the sun coming out on my morning walk, to not having to wait for the elevator, to nailing a new pole trick. Everyday I noticed the little, simple things that were going my way. At first it was just for the sake of recording it later and put in a post. But after a bit it became habitual. And honestly, I feel like I felt a little bit happier every day because of it.

Started paying attention to little good things, like cold ciders on a warm night

4. Do one act of kindness.

This one felt a bit overwhelming at the beginning of the challenge. For the first few days, I was trying to schedule into my day chores or tasks that were undoubtedly kind, but also took some planning, money, or other resources not readily available. Baking cookies for a nursing home, or taking a neighbour shopping are really kind things, of course, but a little tough to do in a day when it feels like here is a million other things to be done.

So I focused more on spontaneous acts of kindness. Such as holding open a door, or sharing an elevator, offering to take a picture for someone, or giving a compliment. Walking down the street, Ill often see someone dressed beautifully, with a dog thats adorable, or wearing earrings I love. This challenge, I made a point to open my mouth and say this.

Sometimes, people were surprised. In that half a second after blurting out my compliment, before people registered that yes, it was me, a stranger, addressing them, there was a coldness or awkwardness in the air. But in the second that followed, when they realized it was in face a compliment, and genuine kindness, a big smile or moment of warmth always followed. And I swear, both of us left that exchange feeling like we were walking a little bit taller.

Spending time with my senior dog and my senior grandfather

So to wrap things up, it was a good month. It wasn’t perfect. Nor was it groundbreaking. But it was a nice little refresher for myself about what’s important, and how to live everyday in a way to make up a good, balanced, satisfying life. So I’m going forward now, keeping most of these habits, even if I am not recording it or posting it.

Except for going to bed earlier. That’s gonna take a bigger challenge.

What are you tackling next?

xoxo

Jordan

A Healthy Relationship with Exercise? (It’s More than How You Move- It’s How You Feel)

Too much of anything may not be good for you. Even yoga.

Exercise is healthy. It’s hard to argue otherwise.

The measurable and well-studied benefits of regular exercise are many: strengthening our bones, improving our cardiovascular systems, increasing our muscular strength and endurance, reducing risks of cancer, stroke, and other diseases, boosting our immune systems, and alleviating mental stress and anxiety.

If exercise is so darn good for you, the more the better, right?

Not quite. Just like many things in life, there comes a point when too much takes a negative toll on a person, on the body as well as the mind.

That is why exercise is so much more than the types and amount of movement that you do.

A healthy relationship to exercise is largely determined by your mindset towards it, and in turn, your relationship to your physical body, and ultimately, to yourself.

When Exercise Becomes an Addiction

I am somebody who for a longtime did NOT have a healthy relationship with exercise. I was fit, and athletic, and often praised for my discipline and the physique it got me.

However, I did not exercise from a place of joy or pure desire to move— I exercised to appease the voices in my head, to punish myself, to compensate or negate calories, to meet a time or distance or other number goal, or even to just match the movement I had done the previous day. Exercise was compulsive, obsessive, or excessive, and sometimes all of these at once.

Movement should be enjoyable and intuitive. And coming at it from a place of self-loathing and shame made that relationship impossible.

For the many years I was anorexic, exercise was my purge. I didn’t throw up, but I ran until I felt like I would. I had just as many rules around burning calories as I had around consuming them. A day off the gym or a workout cut ten minutes early erupted in unrelenting anxiety and guilt that would only ebb after overcompensating with my exercise the next day. Fasted cardio was my drug of choice. It was an adrenaline high, that I for so long mistook for enjoyment. Now I realize it was simply my cortisol sky-rocketing, since I had no other energy form to power me through those workouts.

After years of unhealthy, obsessive exercise, and a break from exercise altogether, I can now truly say that never again do I want to wake up feeling chained to any “should” or “must” or “have-to” or other arbitrary rule. 

I am in no way against exercise. And for most people, of course exercise is important for health. I genuinely love being active— not chained-to-an-eliptical-active- but active as in moving my body in ways that feel intuitive and respectful of its strengths and its limits.

These past few months, yoga, and other forms of movement have become very much part of my morning routine.  I was loving it, starting the day a little bit sweaty and a little more fluid, and I was thriving.  Wake up, make a cup of tea, write in my journal, meditate, and then ease into a sweet and slow flow to my very eclectic yoga playlist.  Then I would lie on my mat or the grass or wherever I was in shavasana-bliss for however long before ambling into the kitchen for breakfast.  It was great.  Until it wasn’t.

Resetting my Relationship with Exercise

It was a few weeks ago I suppose that I started to notice an odd, uncomfortably familiar feeling of anxiety upon waking up.  I would lie in bed, feeling slightly paralyzed by a sense of dread in the pit of my stomach.  It was hard to get up. I would feel guilty staying in bed, lazing this early part of the day away, but I also didn’t want to do the thing that my brain was now telling me that I had no choice but to do— yoga.  

You may snort at this. Y-o-g-a.  The most gentle, healing, restorative, spiritual, safe form of movement there supposedly is.  And yet here I was, feeling the same compulsive anxiety towards yoga that I used to feel before fasted HIIT cardio.  Just leave it to anyone with a history of anorexia to turn yoga into an exercise obsession. I have nothing against yoga or hiit cardio for that matter. But I do take issue with doing any form of movement from a place of fear or inadequacy. 

I don’t think it is ever a good thing to drag yourself to do any form of exercise for the sake of avoiding the anxiety or negative feelings that will come from not doing it. And I know this is very counter- intuitive for a lot of people. 

In fitness and athletic culture, the mantra is often that there is “no such thing as doing too much.” Fitspo accounts are filled with posts and messages like “Go Big or Go Home”, “the only bad workout is the one you didn’t do”, and “push until it breaks you.”  The prevalence and pervasiveness of these messages has effectively normalized their extremeness. 

We start to believe that in order for exercise to “count”, we need to be begging for mercy by the end of it. And realistically, what human being would wake up every day genuinely looking forward to that? And yet, many of us continue to commit to gruelling fitness regimes and daily workouts when we have no desire to do so other than to get it done.

Even you reading this right now might be wondering why anyone would bother exercising if they only did it when they “felt like it.” I thought the same way. After years of pushing myself, never ending a run until a certain number of kilometers or ending a workout until I had burned a certain number of calories, exercising through injury, in extreme heat, in pouring rain, rescheduling and cancelling on friends and events to not miss a workout, I thought there was no other way to think. 

None of it felt good.  Exercise never felt good.  But not doing it, missing that workout, felt unbearable. 

Finding Balance

Its taken me a long time to get where I am now with my relationship to exercise. 

Jaeda is very intuitive with her rest days.

It took giving up running when I started recovery, and only beginning to test out running again now, three years later. 

It took cancelling gym memberships, and attending yoga classes, and going for walks with other people so that I wasn’t tempted to run while on them. 

It took deleting step-count apps and calorie counters, and walking away from conversations that made me feel triggered about my “break” from exercise and loss of identity as a runner. 

It’s taken a lot of trial and error since then as well. 

On many occasions, I’ve convinced myself I’ve had long enough a break, and I was ready to start adding in more exercise.  I’d try going for a couple runs, do a workout at a hotel gym, get a yoga membership, only to be sucked back in and feeling chained to whatever form of movement I was experimenting with.

Slowly, the compulsiveness has lessened. I can do occasional yoga and other movement classes now without feeling like I need to sign my life away with a membership. I can go for a long walk and spontaneously have it turn into a run without (usually) feeling like I need to run it the next day.

This year, I found my way to pole, a passion that had allowed me to develop a new relationship towards movement and my body, working towards goals that have nothing to do with numbers or aesthetics, but requiring strength and flexibility. 

I haven’t been able to do it since the studios across the province closed back in March, and I’ve been missing it like crazy.

However, being forced to take this time off has allowed me to see all the ways in which my mindset has shifted, as well as some of the places where I still have some thoughts to rewire.

Especially this past month, and the stuckness I was feeling with the whole morning yoga habit.

I’ve made great strides, and I am proud of how far I have come. But I am aware that I still have a tendency (and likely always will to some degree) to fall into patterns of obsession and compulsion when it comes to exercise.

However, what I have learned in these years of recovery is the ability to recognize and identify these patterns before they take over. 

I love yoga.  I want to be able to get out of bed every morning, jump onto my mat, and do a vigorous vinyasa practice if that’s what I feel like. 

I want to be able to go for a long sweaty run in the evening to my favourite playlist.

I want to join my friends in trying out a new bootcamp class or do a tough mudder or group triathlon. 

But I also want to be able to wake up, roll out of bed, and do whatever I feel like that is NOT exercise.  Or have my morning movement be a walk to the park barefoot with my dog instead of pounding the pavement with my runners.

I want to have the choice.  I want the freedom to move.  I want exercise to be a want and NEVER a should. 

Forest walks are a great way of getting out of your head and into your body— intuitive movement at its finest.

And that is why I took this week off movement— to prove to myself that I can not exercise for a week and that nothing bad happens.  I’m three days in, and to be honest, I woke up this morning and I wanted to flow.  I had that feeling of desire to move, and NOT compulsion. But, I made myself tea, and sat myself down outside to write anyways. 

Next week, I can do all the yoga I want (or not!).  But this week, I am committed to the goal of rewiring my brain about exercise and movement of all kinds, even yoga. 

As the saying goes “absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

How will I feel when this week is over?  Hopefully better than I did going in.  l will write more about my week off and what happened in my next post.

In the meantime, I’ll just be here, sipping my tea, doing my best to throw myself into every other passion and project of mine that is not movement.  How’s your relationship with exercise? 

Sometimes It’s a good idea to not just ask what you are doing, but how you feel about it…  

Stay golden. And remember- there are so many more pivotal and pressing things happening in our world right now than the exercise you did or did not do.  

-Jordan xoxo