Client Story: Things that are only in your head, may be holding you back

We've discussed here on the Zen Blog about how our minds are amazing story tellers. Often to our detriment in health, because those stories can hold us back from consistency and progress.

Let me share two examples from clients in the last couple months...

"It feels easy"

I had a client say this, while doing a quadruped rocking exercise. This movement is part of the warm up in her "Redefining Strong" group for 60+ years old. This movement promotes gentle movement through multiple joints in the body, while loading the body differently than we typically do in our modern lifestyles. The fact that it's a gentle movement AND that it's a warm up exercise, leans us towards the fact that we're not striving for "hard". We're focusing on DOING and MOVING.

What struck me was when she said "it feels easy", it wasn't in a "this is dumb" kind of way, it was in a way that said "I feel like this can't be right because it's easy". That is the reality of SO MUCH in our struggles with our health practices. We "try" to make things HARD so that "it counts" or because "we're supposed to". We have this constant pull in our heads with battles of "easy vs hard" or "good vs bad" that we almost feel that we "have to try to avoid EASY". Yet..

👉Well over half of Canadian adults aren't getting the MINIMUM amount of recommended physical activity each day for general health and wellbeing.

👉Most people drop their efforts in the first 2-4 weeks (if they make it that far), because "it's not working".

👉Some people AVOID getting started because they have a mental image in their head that it's "too hard" so they "can't do it".

EASY allows us to feel GOOD.

EASY and feels good means we'll most likely want to do it again and again.

This allows us to create consistency with our movement AND... it feels good. Pretty good deal I'd say!

It doesn't have to always be easy. We can certainly have some days/weeks that are more challenging. But why do we feel that everything is "this or that". When it comes to your health habits, when something feels easy and good, KEEP GOING! EASY can make up the majority of our efforts, in which case it will make the harder/more intense times that much more do-able, because we've had consistency, practice and we're more prepared to manage "the push".

"I just feel stupid getting up this way"

Ok, I can't remember exactly what my client's words were but they were along these lines. She's nearly 84 years old and a firecracker! We've had sessions during our work together discussing mindsets and ways to get up from the floor. But she'll hit the odd week where she's overthinking and telling herself stories in her head. Usually, it comes down to "how she looks" getting up from the floor (not that she's unable).

I was feeling particularly "smart-assey" that day she last brought it up, and so when she said this I started to remind her that it has never been asked for her to do it in any particular way other than do-able and comfortable. Her overthinking continued. I always offer her modifications (such as a bench, wall or step) to help if she wants/needs, but she VERY rarely accepts these tools. This lead me to "apologize" to her;

"I'm sorry. I totally forgot to tell you about the 'get up' competition! You may lose out on the medal now, but I'll take the blame. I should've told you to point your toes more and stand back up with style to score more points."

(She gave me that cheeky look she can do because she knew where I was going with this. Her friend laughed - which pumped my tires more 🤣)

The ONLY thing holding this woman back on these days, is her own mind and the stories going on in there. The unfortunate part is, this is normal and therefore without someone to point this reality out, it's easy to believe those stories and hold yourself back.

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I'll say it again - Our statistics in health habits such as physical activity, nutrition, sleep, stress management etc... have been moving in the wrong direction because we keep going back to "what we've always done". We NEED a fresh approach. We NEED a better understanding of ourselves. That starts with paying attention to what that voice in our head is saying and realizing that he/she is often NOT providing the REAL STORYLINE.