Are You Just Going Through The Motions?
There will be days when you are just going to have to go through the motions.
I have spent a lot of time working on the ‘inner game’, the concept that if you can be totally in charge of how you choose to experience your emotions then the outer world cannot affect you. If you can achieve this, life will be harmonious and peaceful, lovely thought but i’m not there yet. It still pisses me off that there have been builders outside my house making constant noise for 4 months, I still get frustrated when things don’t go as planned with business and yes, I did cry when I put a hole in my brand new sweaty betty leggings! What I am trying to say is, there are days when you just won’t feel like it.
The body is chemicals, every action creates a reaction. When I am feeling down or frustrated I know it is because my chemistry is out of whack, like I am literally toxic, and I know that a shot of endorphins would really help. Problem is, do I really feel like going endorphin hunting when I am feeling fed up? NO. That’s where going through the motions is a skill, it’s just plain fact that there are some things that will make us feel better, but we don’t always feel like doing them.
I didn’t feel like doing them this weekend so I sat and drank a cup of tea on a rainy Sunday and ate 3 very indulgent biscuits, now, don’t get me wrong, the biscuits were not the problem, the problem was I didn’t actually want them, I just felt like having something ‘naughty’ because it was a mirror of how I felt, a bit crap. Afterwards, did I feel better? no. Long gone are the days of punishing myself for bad food choices but I actually felt bloated, a bit sick and had a sugar rush quickly followed by a slump.
Today is Monday, I knew I didn’t want to feel like I did yesterday so, I got up I trained some clients, I came home, I made a green juice, drunk it, had some fruit, yoghurt and oats and set about my day. Lunch time came, I made my quinoa, I went for a 5K run (got a PB) and afterwards, I just felt better. I didn’t want to do many of those things today, I wanted to have coffee and a croissant, I wanted a grilled cheese sandwich, I wanted to stay sat down but I knew that today ‘going through the motions’ was necessary, it was going to make me feel better.
Why am I just going through the motions at the moment? Life. My life has been challenging, I lost my Mum 4 months ago, I had to rebuild my business from scratch, things are difficult with my partner, after 4 years we are at a make or break fork and sometimes it feels like the whole world is imploding on me. But ‘being kind to myself’ doesn’t have to mean sitting around drinking tea, watching movies and wearing pyjama’s. To me it means, exercising, filling up on endorphins, it means eating the damn quinoa and drinking the green juice and it means nourishing my body, creating chemical reactions that in turn make me feel better.
It’s a bit of a chicken egg thing I guess, wait to feel better then have the energy to do the things they say you should do like eat healthy and exercise or exercise and eat healthy to make yourself feel better. When you feel like shit you can lay down and die or you can get up and fight, and it will feel like a battle, but the only way you can win is to get in the ring and give it everything you got, no one ever one nothing standing on the sidelines eating cookies! Going through the motions means mastering the process, and the process will equate to a positive result, so even if you really don’t feel like it, go through the motions, and soon, you’ll start to feel better, I promise.