Building Up By Listening Deeply

In Training

When you are in training for something, you are building up. It requires a balance between deeply respecting the place that you begin from and creating a bridge to get to the place where your goal is.

If you don't deeply respect the place that you begin from, you will not get to your goal, or, if you do, you will, by working against your body, get there without the balance and grace of working with your body.

When you are working with a grace and awareness of where your body is -now- the journey is different in really healthy and nourishing ways. You are loving yourself along the way, not just at the end after traumatizing the body into it.

Image: Attribution: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-19650-0017 / CC-BY-SA Courtesy of WikiMedia.org /http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-19650-0017,_Leipzig,_DHfK,_Stabhochsprung.jpg


Remember The Power of 12 Minutes.

When I listen to my body, sometimes 12 minutes is all it is up for. Sometimes it is where I begin. But also sometimes that happens in 5 minute increments. Also, some days, what I can do, no matter what I've built up to, can still be 12 minutes,  or 20 minute, 25 minutes, 30 minutes, 35 minutes, 40 minutes, 45 minutes. Wow. That may seem like a lot of possibilities. Good. A lot of possibilities helps me to pay attention to respecting what my body needs, as a minimum, or for what it is willing to stretch into today, and also for where is enough for today.

When I listen to my body, sometimes I need to take two or even three days off during the week. I usually aim for looking at Sundays and Wednesdays as my days off. If I need them, I take them. If I need a lighter day, I take a lighter day. If I am feeling strong and my body wants to move, I go for it. For me, Wednesdays and Sundays are days when I especially listen to the body for its needs for rest or restoration or breath.

(Also, if I've had a very busy day with already too much on my plate or a physically intense day, such as a house cleaning day, or a social day where I am going out river rafting or dancing, etc. that may be enough. If I check in with myself, and hear that I've done enough, I don't add my exercise routine in on top of that. I've done enough. I just did it differently.)

The beauty in this is that, when I listen to my body, when it needs to rest up or lighten up, (or trade off on other activities) and respect that, it gets stronger! I find that by respecting those signals, that I can soon be going further than I ever thought, sooner than I ever thought.

Now I know, establishing a routine IS important. But I believe deeply that a routine is best established slowly in a way that doesn't threaten the body.

I remember, years ago, landing in New York state in the middle of January and deciding to start jogging. I didn't warm up or prepare myself. I went out in sub-zero weather, ran for six miles, tore all my muscles and couldn't move for a week. That was the end of my brilliant new jogging routine. Fini! I burned out before I even got out of the gate.

I've done the same at the gym in the past: signed up, signed on, dragged myself to seven aerobic classes a week and then done nothing but come home and need extra calories and to sleep to recover. I'd simply depleted myself, used up all my calories until I was starved for fuel and too exhausted to do anything else but sleep.

We can add five minutes and establish that for two to four weeks and then, when it is easy and part of our daily routine to do that much, ask the body if it's ready to add five more minutes. I know five minutes at a time seems soooo slow. But it is a perfect way to begin. And it is a perfect way to add on and deepen. And it is respectful to the body.

Listening to the body, letting it guide you as to when it needs to lighten up or when it is ready to go further, higher, longer, stronger is the way to build that bridge so that the body is cooperating with your desire to get there too.

-bbffair