Changing My Life: Running Slow AF

Hello, my experiment loving friends!

It’s lovely to be here on your screen today. (And, may I say, you’re looking gorgeous?) In case you missed it, last week’s newsletter covered the crappy questions that run on loop for me, and a few that might work better. (Please read and add your ideas!)

Next week, I’ll have an update on my experiment to uncover the AWE that might be found in the mundane waiting in-between times of life. Stay tuned!

Today’s post is part of my monthly series Changing My Life where I let you know one app, website, podcast, book, or practice that’s been changing my life each month.

AND, in case you missed it, Living the In-between Times is having it’s very first WONDERSHOP! Like a workshop, but it’s 15 minutes long, there’s no “work” involved, and you’ll leave energized and inspired start taking those in-between times from BLAH to YESS…

I can’t wait to see your shiny faces there! Now, onto our regularly-scheduled programming about how running slow has been changing my life…

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So, exercising and I have been on a break. (Yes, Friends fans, we were on a break!)

You know how sometimes you’re in a relationship, and you really love that person, but you don’t love how they make you feel?

We were on that kind of break.

See, most of my life, I’d been using exercise in ways that helped me “be fit” physically, but weren’t necessarily serving me in the self-worth department. I’d swing from thinking:

I worked out today!! I’m GOOD.

To:

I didn’t workout today! I’m BAD.

After years of tying my worthiness to streaks and miles-run-per-week and Peloton challenges and making resolutions every year to get into “the best shape of my life,” I was ready figure out a new relationship to exercise.

But in order to do it, I needed to go cold turkey. My reasoning being that if I pre-decided that I WASN’T going to exercise, it would force me to wrestle down the relentless “should” thoughts that come up for me around exercise, once and for all.

-I should be exercising more.

-I’m so out of shape.

So last fall I quit quietly. I did an occasional yoga or strength session, took some walks around the neighborhood.

But I didn’t allow myself to have or follow a workout plan or program. No “I’m going to workout 200 minutes a week!” resolutions to make or break. If I felt like doing some light movement, I did. Mostly I focused on stepping back from my perpetual urges to use exercise routines as a “Guaranteed Road to Supreme and Lasting Happiness,” complete with a fat WORTHY! asterisk on top.

That road hadn’t ever led me anywhere but the dead-end swamp of shame and despair.

I’ve spent the past few months in a process that’s felt much like fielding a baseball. Noticing the thoughts that pop up, keeping an eye on them to see how they’ve been “landing” in my life, thinking carefully about how I want to respond next.

Neuroplasticity is a wonderful thing. With practice, we can change thoughts that are habitual. But it’s been my experience so far that it’s our second and third thoughts, the thoughts that follow our first thoughts, that are the most pliable. After months of practice, my thinking about exercise has evolved to:

1st thought: I’m so out of shape.
2nd thought(s): What does that even mean? Is there a “shape” police that’s coming to assess whether I’m “in it” or “out of it”? Is my health suffering right now? Does the density of my muscles directly correlate to my inherent worthiness?

Which is a vast improvement over the badgering, harping cacophony that’s rattled around my head on this subject for the better part of my life.

And then… I started missing running. The physical act of it. Moving my body through space at a gentle lean. The endorphins. The glorious indulgence of a slightly sweaty hour spent outside after a long day indoors.

I also realized that I do want my body to feel strong, flexible, and resilient. Not in a weird, super-trainer-Jillian-Michaels-wanna-be-fantasy way. More like a 48-year-old-mom-with-big-creative-dreams-who-likes-to-move kind of way.

So, this month I’ve decided to ease back into a running schedule. A schedule that feels much different than before. I’m using a low heart-rate training method, monitoring my heart rate while I run, not letting it surpass a certain number of beats per minute.

Which means I’m running slow AF.

To be most accurate, I’m doing a lot of brisk walking with a bit of running sprinkled in. And it’s lovely. While I’m doing it I get to practice thinking: I’m lucky to be able to move my body in this particular way. This feels good.

And, I am learning to let a little bit, done slowly, be more than enough.

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Previously in Changing My Life: