I did over 90 minutes of mobility, experimenting with some new drills I was inventing.
I enjoyed the process of experimenting and tinkering and feeling into my body.
And yet after 90 minutes I felt like I had been ineffective. Like I had done a lot but I didn’t get an effective “workout.”
I certainly didn’t feel more mobile.
Then I started down my list of body complaints.
My lats don’t engage. My hip flexors are super weak. I fold over when I squat. My hips and ankles feel locked up. I can’t move well through my shoulders.
I didn’t even sweat today.
Haha. I’m the one who preaches that sweating doesn’t mean you had a good workout. And not sweating doesn’t mean you didn’t have a good workout.
I know full well that sweating is unrelated to the quality of your workout.
But there you go.
Part of me wanted to get back on a machine and do some of my drills or pull up drills or step downs. Or core work.
Something to feel the burn.
And yet my coach told me to do mobility and to take off a day of lifting drills.
He had a reason.
My body probably needs a day off from heavy lifting and drills so I can be fresh and rested for our session tomorrow.
Truth: this is not about my body. It’s not about my workout.
My body complaints arise as a sign when I am in resistance to my current state of life.
When I create a focal point for something to fix, for a part of myself to control, it’s a sign that I feel out of control, like my life is beyond repair.
One of my signs of resistance is to want to do more than is necessary to try to get the result I want.
I know the value of rest and recovery.
I know that more isn’t necessarily better and could actually be detrimental.
I know that there’s a point at which the virtue of exercise turns into the vice of escape.
All the mind spin, all the fidgeting in my body, all the attempts to control the outcome of my efforts, are ways of trying to escape the emptiness, the hollowness, the void of my actual experience.
The mystery of not knowing what’s next.
It’s all a huge ruse to escape the fear.
The more difficult practice is to sit in the feeling of ineffectiveness and resistance and notice what’s really going on.
What am I resisting? What is my fear?
I allowed myself to unleash and write without censorship.
My fear is that I’ll never figure out how to access my mobility and strength.
My fear is that all of this is bullshit and that my body won’t ever get strong and that I’ll be brittle and break and get injured and be in chronic pain for the rest of my life and have nothing to show for all of my efforts.
This is not just about my body and my workouts. The gym, the body, the workouts — they are a sample of the pattern.
My fear is that I will not find my thing.
My path. My service. How I help people.
My fear is that I won’t find the audience for my contribution, the people who truly align with what I offer.
My fear is that I won’t ever find what it is I really have to offer.
My fear is that I’ll never get my shit together because I can’t focus long enough to do things. That I’ll be a rambling, incoherent mess forever.
And why would anyone want to learn from me or get my help if I can’t transform my own life and body.
And so my ultimate fear is that I’ll end up homeless and alone and living on the street. A disappointment to everyone who tried to help me and a warning to all.
My fear is that my life will be meaningless.
And that I will have wasted my time and effort and money on all of this work.
The inner work and the outer work.
The Fear is in the Body
So I’m in resistance to what is.
All these fears are there. Under the surface. They are the invisible load that makes every step and every effort harder.
This resistance makes me tighter. It restricts my mobility. And it prevents my brain from fully plugging in.
Naming and noting the fear is a good first step.
This is where I get to take my own medicine.
I can recognize it’s all based in fear, and sparked by my expectation of what a workout should feel like, what I should experience by the end.
Even though I know I don’t always get that.
And that results aren’t always linear.
Are they ever?
Focus on the process over the outcome.
I literally just wrote about this.
Find joy in the process — even when the process feels scattered and unfocused and aimless.
Find joy in the process — even when I don’t feel like I got into my body.
Find joy in the process — even when I don’t feel plugged in in my mind.
Because that’s how it feels sometimes. That’s how it is sometimes.
That’s how it is right now.
Acknowledging the Truth
The truth is that there’s a million factors that impact mobility and strength.
Only a small part of it is about the workout.
Mobility drills alone won’t change anything because the biggest restrictions on mobility come from the subconscious mind.
My body is protecting itself.
Mobility will come when I release the fears of injury and illness and failure.
This is true for other areas of my life too.
So it comes back to releasing attachment to outcome.
Even the outcomes of feeling good in my body, feeling empowered, feeling plugged in.
Find joy in the process. In moving as much as I can. In experimenting. In failing. In flailing as I find my way.
There’s no guarantee that anything will work.
No promise of results. No magic bullet. No secret sauce.
This is My Choice
I can be in resistance to what is or acceptance of what is.
One of these leads to stiffness, physical pain, and burnout.
The other leads to a little more ease — ideally. But maybe not. Releasing attachment to outcome requires releasing the hope that acceptance leads to an easier path.
I get to choose.
Maybe this is the ultimate gift I have to offer to my clients:
The strength that comes from looking, unflinchingly, at my own resistance. The experience of holding space for the fear and the emptiness.
And the resilience that comes from showing up for the process no matter what.
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