Gentleness

“Be gentle with your body.”

This is a mantra I need. These are words for Jess to live by.

It’s a battle I’ve been continually fighting with little respite for going-on 6 years, maybe more; to stop punishing myself. To move in ways that are fun, exciting, functional… and gentle.

Since consistency has never been my strong point, I’m consistently (see what I did there?) restarting. I’m restarting my run routine, my lift routine, my yoga routine, my “healthy eating”, my go-to-bed-at-a-decent-time routine, my clean-the-house-on-a-regular-basis routine…. my blog. Ha. All the things, basically. All the things that consist of properly adulting. But the exercise side of this, the purposeful movement, it needs to be gentler. I’m terrible about giving myself time to work up. I’m often throwing myself into exercise that my body is not prepared for and has a hard time recovering from. This makes consistency difficult. If you’re painfully sore for four or five days after one workout, how can you expect to be able to complete another two or three for that week? The answer is: you can’t. Or you can, but you’ll risk actual injury sidelining exercise for much longer than just a few days.  

This is also an exercise in accepting that over the last 4 months and the last 20 pounds, my body doesn’t function in the same way and has a lot more mass and weight to support through movements… I’ve put myself back in beginner status. That is my reality right now and that is okay. Gentleness and consistency will move me forward. I’ve got to stop the punishment and begin the nourishment through movement.