I haven’t published a post here since January 28th.
March came and everything kind of stopped. Writing here really didn’t feel important, so I let it go.
I miss it, and the hundreds of ideas and notes I have been storing away in journals and in my notes app are starting to taunt me. In March and early April I felt this internal push to perform. To DO. To create and make use of that weird shut down never ending Sunday time. But I didn’t. Nothing came. When I tried it felt to forced and it just left me feeling frustrated. So I gave up. And it was fine.
Which seems to be a theme lately;
and it was fine….
Seeing the quote “No Pain No Gain” gave me the idea for this. Is that true? No pain no gain? I think it is total bullshit, mainly because so often WE are the ones causing our pain.
Frist: If you walk into a gym and see this quote hanging on a wall-
RUN.
Leave immediately.
They are idiots.
When it comes to Fitness/Exercise/Movement; no pain no gain is bullshit. The idea that you should be in pain during (or after) a workout is flawed and wrong for so many reasons. We need to revise this quote. It should say:
No DISCOMFORT No Gain.
Walking into the Gym/Yoga Studio for the first time is scary, and uncomfortable.
A little discomfort there can lead to a lot of gain later.
Doing a squat for the first time, a push up, looking around the room trying to figure out WTF the pigeon pose is, a 30 second sprint, picking up a dumbbell that is 5 pounds heavier…. Uncomfortable. A little discomfort can lead to big gains.
Getting COMFORTABLE practicing DISCOMFORT is a super power. No pain no gain is silly.
No Pain No Gain in life? Ehh, no thanks. These last couple months have felt
painful in a lot of ways. They have sucked. Finally seeing the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel I am finding this “pain” has been useful. I see clearer, I know what is important and what is not. I know what (whose) opinions I value and what ones to discard (or throw in the dumpster without even reading…). I know how I react matters more then what happened… Pain can be useful when you know you are often in control of it. Getting comfortable with discomfort taught me that.
We have to separate pain from discomfort. Pain is something we avoid, we run from and we aim to stop as quickly as possible. Discomfort is different. Sit in it long enough and it goes away, it can even start to feel good.
I hate stretching- it is uncomfortable AF and I am built out of bricks not rubber, stretching is not natural to me, but I know if I hold it long enough the discomfort starts to fade and I start to feel really reeeeaaally good.
The same with lifting, I live for the moment I feel stuck under a weight, like it is not going to move… then with a little more effort it goes. It's amazing. Or that high after a full on sprint. Or or or or or… .on and on. There are hundreds of moments like that at the gym, I see them every day.
You have to be comfortable enough with a little discomfort to get to them.
Life is different. Life can seem downright painful, when really most of the time it is simply uncomfortable. The problem is when you are in it, like physically in the shit and muck you can not see the “pain” for what it is. So we run from it instead of examining it.
Some things are pain. Death, illness, injury. I am not talking about those acts of God of which we have no control over, rather “human” acts, like those we have experienced since March; loss of routine, of purpose, of career/income… that shit is uncomfortable! But we do not need to make it painful.
Our reactions make it painful. Our fixation on the WHY make it painful- most of the time we will never know. And if/when we do find out WHY does it help?? No. It pisses us off more.
There is a Buddhist quote that says "The important thing is to get rid of the arrow, not to enquire where it came from”. !!!!
What good does the WHY do??? Nothing. Get rid of the arrow, take that shit out. Throw it far away.
You leave it in by asking who threw it, why they did it, what their intentions were and so on. The “arrow” is not what is causing you harm. YOU leaving it there is.
Every time we go back and ask why, or how, or who WE put the arrow back.
We cause our own pain, which means we have the power to end it too.
We are adaptable by nature, resilient, we figure shit out- we have been doing it since man walked and gathered food for the first time. I think we forget that. (I forgot that). We are capable, adaptable, smart, resilient beings.
We forget (I forgot)
that our track record is amazing.
We have survived 100% of our bad days, of every cataclysmic event that happened to us.
Discomfort didn’t ruin us, it MADE us.
Shaped our being.
Discomfort through that lens shouldn’t be ran from or numbed out, it should be embraced, or in the least examined without judgement. What can I learn? What can I shed? What can this teach me??
We need to stop asking why it happened,
and start asking why it matters so much to us.
If it is even worth our energy.
We do not need to get hit with “the arrow” when we start dealing with things from that level, it simply can fall at our side – not worth our time
(I am talking about every time I would get riled up about a stupid Facebook post, or what someone said, or what I thought someone said…). So many times we are responsible for what pains us. Let the arrows around you, not in you.
Sometimes we willingly jump in front of them by looking at things we know will anger us. It is so dumb.
After feeling discomfort way to many times these last few months over (what I know now was) really silly stupid things
I figured out I was causing my own pain. That was an uncomfortable conversation I had to have with myself, and totally worth it.
The gym being closed for months; hella uncomfortable. Painful at first. It sucked, and still continues to suck. Bitching about it every day didn’t help though. Byron Katie says it best, when you argue with reality you lose 100% of the time. That doesn’t mean you (I, anyone) sit back and relax and let life happen. It means you do not fight with what is
while you work to change it. Fighting with reality is painful.
Turns out I can make my daily calls and send my daily emails and not bitch about it, complain about it, and wallow in it. Who knew.
Letting go of the pain around it lets me see it clear, and without judgment. I am still mad, that hasn’t changed. But the anger isn’t the driver anymore. Love is. Love for what I do and who we serve. I like operating on this plane so much better.
Other things that have been not to comfortable lately but also totally fine: gaining some weight, canceling some trips, and homeschooling (which side note- that shit is NOT for me).
It is funny how when things happen they feel so large, daunting and impossible. Then you find yourself on the other side, its fine, and you really do not know what happened in between. That is what this weird time has taught me.
Its fine. It has always been fine and will continue to be fine IF I allow it to be. If I stop trying to control things beyond my power, stop trying to understand things I can never understand, stop trying to please people I wouldn't take advice from, stop caring about who thinks what and says what, in short; let it go. Not because I don't care, but it because it doesn't matter.
Allowing things to be doesn't mean we all just roll over and die.
It means we stop reacting from a place of defensiveness and fear. We stop reacting out of anger.
Out of scarcity. Problems can't be solved like that, at least not effectively. I don't want a solution formed in anger, I want one formed in love and understanding. I don't want to run a business from a place of fear, I want to run it from a standpoint of abundance! I will fully admit this would have sounded like some real hippy shit to me last year, but even the most cynical person has to admit if we all started operating from a place of love the world would be a better place. And maybe we do it alone.
Maybe it is just you, accepting and flowing while the people around you continue to fight and bitch and scream about the "right way" or right things.... I'd rather accept the discomfort and move on then complain and fight and sit in my self imposed shit waiting for the world to fix itself.
Those folks are in pain, and they are gaining nothing from it.
Being uncomfortable is fine. It ends. We learn some things, we shed some things, and we move on. Almost all the time it is only as painful as we make it.
2020 taught me to focus on my reaction. That discomfort can suck but we can learn alot. It can be no pain and a lot of gain….
(really though; if you see a trainer posting that quote get away from them).