As I sit here thinking of reasons why I could skip today’s workout, I realized I’m almost at six years of really pretty consistent gym-going. I love being strong but wow did Swole Woman nail it with this reminder of how our primitive brains don’t actually want to expend excess energy:
Exercising is sort of uncomfortable. In and of itself, it’s probably not going to be crazy fun. But accepting this feeling as the pyrotechnics of a primitive, no-longer-useful survival mechanism can be very powerful. Making peace with the discomfort is part of the whole thing, and so is reassuring ourselves that it’s temporary, survivable, not a threat to our lives.
It sounds silly, maybe. But these things are not intuitive to our dim human natures, which only want “eat food,” “sleep,” “have sex,” and “lie down in puddle.” It is reasonable that we need to give ourselves some support and structure. The starting will be the hard part, mentally and emotionally. But as we get going, new mechanisms take over to hold our hands and remind us that we are built for this, have been doing this for hundreds of thousands of years — that even if it’s against a certain instinct, the process is still inscribed deep in our bones.
OK, time to put on gym tights and tell my bod, “We are built for this, have been doing this for hundreds of thousands of years.”