My Passion Experiment – Day 4

I sincerely thank everyone that has come to read about this project and especially those who have taken the time to comment, very much appreciated!  I’m on Day 4 of trying to live “on purpose” and of trying to nurture my inner passionate spirit back to life.  I’m not so foolish as to make any determination at this stage as to whether or not it’s “working”.  While normally I would assess and evaluate anything I’m doing, especially new things, in this case I feel that it’s in my best interest to simply keep moving forward.  To look at each new day as a blank canvas on which to paint my colors and each passed day as a finished painting, whatever it might look like.

Over the last couple of days, in choosing to “do it with passion or not at all”, a couple of other words keep popping up in my head.  Respect and disrespect.  In order to bring them into the light and find out what my heart was trying to tell me, I wrote a list of what I feel is respectful (of myself and others) and what I feel is disrespectful (again, of myself and others).

DISRESPECT

• Sleeping in, no gym
• Over-eating, eating when not hungry
• Staying up late (this does not respect my personal sleep needs)
• Using social media during quiet or couple’s time
• Eating foods which are poison to my body and mind (chocolate, grains)

RESPECT

• Keeping personal commitments (gym, dog walking)
• Wiping counters & tidying up at the end of the day and before leaving the house
• Leaving my phone off/away when at home for the evening
• Speaking in a gentle and kind voice (to myself and others)
• Greeting people at the front door to our home
• Taking time to myself without guilt

Here on Day Four of this Experiment, I’ve been back to the gym a couple of times and it’s felt good.  But different.  The first morning I went back I had my lifting grids and I was ready to hop on the treadmill and bang out a 20 minute run and then row for 3000 meters and then get back into my lifting schedule.  And…I hopped onto the treadmill……and just stood there.  41 days had passed since I’d been on a treadmill.  Before that, 6 months had passed without consistent exercise.  And in these 6-8 months previously, I treadmill sprinted…and ended up with inflamed Achilles tendons.  I lifted the heavy weights that my charts said I could do….and hurt my bad shoulder about 4 times.  I stopped and healed and started and injured and stopped a half a dozen times.  Sometimes I didn’t bother even stopping, just kept going…and ended up couched for 7 days in February.

I couldn’t press the speed button that morning.  I just kept thinking how incredibly disrespectful it would be to myself, my body and my emotional and physical health, to walk in off the street and jam myself right back where I was a year ago (or more).  So I walked.  At a wicked incline. And I sweated buckets and felt it in every muscle below my waist.  But…no pain.  No sore knees, no inflamed Achilles, no lower back pain.   After that was over I did some rowing and then it was time to head to the weights.  And again, I was stopped.  What do I do?  I scale it back, slow it down, take it easy and work my way back.  Back to where I was?  Or maybe to somewhere completely new.  Slowly and steadily.  Carefully and “on purpose”.  I left the gym feeling like not only had I gone to the gym which is very important for my “passion growing” but that I also respected myself and where I am right now.  I respected the body that has carried me through some really hard times, I respected my emotional and mental health by being real and honest and true.  Have I felt stronger, physically?  Of course.  But I felt more connected to myself than I have in a very long time and that was the strongest feeling of them all!

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