Exercise is Allowed to be Fun
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Why is it that when we think of exercise we think of this no pain, no gain, soul sucking, physically draining, calorie blasting nightmare?
The fitness and diet industries have been spreading underlying messages of fear for a long time now. They have taught us to squeeze in workouts even when we are exhausted. They have taught us to push just a little bit harder even when your body is asking you to stop. They have taught us to count the calories burned, to accept the shaming language of your body needs to change, to look in the mirror and always strive for more improvements, to keep buying all of the things to help reach “x weight” which means that you will then be deemed worthy. To “punish” yourself for eating “too many calories..” because if you can just get to the gym all will be fine. To workout harder so you can “cancel” out the cake you were “not supposed” to enjoy the day before.
It’s a no wonder we have such a weird negative, on and off again, relationship with exercise.
These industries have shaped us to think that exercise is a means of avoidance. It has turned into a fear based activity because god forbid we gain any kind of weight. There is this underlying tone of self hate, that if you exercise you just may be good enough some day.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Maybe it starts with using the word movement rather than exercise because that opens up the possibility for it to mean something else. The possibility for it to be out of enjoyment and love for your body rather than from a place of hate and punishment. What activities would you partake in then? Could you make a list of things that you ACTUALLY enjoy when it comes to MOVEMENT not EXERCISE? Like dancing, or cleaning, or walking, or doing HIIT twice a week rather than every damn day?
What fears are you listening to around exercise? What is driving those decisions? What if you could make those decisions out of love and intuition and what feels GOOD rather than listening to that fear? What if YOU could decide your worth, not the scale, not the size of the jeans, not the media, not the supermodel that triggers your not good enoughness? What if that could be enough?
What would it feel like to come from a place of pure curiosity, a judgement free zone? Just notice.
When we can start going inward and asking ourselves these questions, we can start making decisions that actually feel good to our bodies. When we can stop turning to the outside world to give us the answers, we can start discovering ourselves.
You are allowed to have fun with your movement. You are allowed to not want to “workout.” You are allowed to decide what is best for YOUR body. We individually define “fit” so discover what that means for YOU.. and hint, there is no wrong answer ;)
