Balance
In keeping with the family tradition of throwing oneself into walls repeatedly in hopes that they will miraculously dissolve, I have been doing the FIRM (aerobic strength training) for well over two years and strength training longer than that. It is the right thing to do. I have read it repeatedly in every reputable source that I can find. I must push my body 4-5 days a weeks into a sweaty, quivering mass and then I will lose weight. The muscle mass will build my metabolism. Everyone says so. There is just one problem. I am not losing weight. I work at the very edge of my body’s ability to recover before the next time and the slightest change in my body sets me back. If my candidiasis flares, I can hardly crawl through 20 minutes of a FIRM workout. Any of the normal fluctuations that my health makes set me back and I not only have to recover from the problem of the moment but the drain exercise places on me. A smarter person would have surrendered sooner, but I am required by some sort of internal law to be sufficiently bloody before moving on. But I have, in fact, moved on. And you know what? I feel terrific.
All along the way, I have longed to do yoga. It wasn’t vigorous enough. It wasn’t the “right” way to get the results I wanted. Everyone said so. So I would throw myself at the FIRM wall 4-5 days a week and IF I had enough energy leftover I would do a yoga workout. I loved the way it made me feel but exercise isn’t about that…it’s about results, isn’t it? (I hear you laughing out there….No. The way I feel is not allowed to be considered as a desireable result. I’m painting a wall here with my blood and let’s not let common sense interfere.) And so I suffered from “yoga guilt.” I’d occasionally do a yoga workout for no “good” reason other than I just wanted to but I would have to pay by feeling guilty about not doing it the “right” way. About not really working as hard as I should.
Then too much travel, combined with too much stress caused my candidiasis to flare again and once again, I was laid low. Always challenging, my daily workouts again entered into the hellish range. And this time there was enough pain in my life for me to say….what if I approach this differently?
It was suggested to me over a year ago that we should practice nonviolence with our bodies. It seemed like a good concept to work with in terms of one’s body and one’s diet. I even considered the idea to be life changing at the time. Great theory to play with as long as you didn’t let it interfere with working as hard as possible. Nevermind that “as hard as possible” meant draining more out of your body than building it up. Of course, I could never get as far as fast that way and what my body needed was a few more swift kicks. Now, finally, I thought to myself. “What if I actually TRIED that? What if I listened to my body and did yoga because I love it and because my body loves it?”
And so, I am doing yoga and trying not to feel guilty. I am trying to sit down and open the channels of communication that my Creator placed in my body to help me bring balance to my body. I am not going to listen to what everyone else says my body needs for me to eat either, if I don’t want that much protein, if my body isn’t telling me that it wants that much protein, by golly….I’m not going to eat it.
Balance. Not pummeling the part or parts of your body that aren’t falling into line but treating your whole body as one. Honoring what my body tells me when it says “enough.”
It feels good too….yes, I know you knew that already. But I didn’t.
