You are in your body. From the first time you slid into this world (I like to imagine it like a fun waterslide, but my mom disagrees) to this moment here, and to many moments ahead of you — you are in your body.
This body might — in fact, WILL — change. It will change shape, size, sturdiness, elasticity, speed, strength, and maybe even the amount of limbs it has. I find this incredibly fascinating, that this vessel that transports all our hopes and dreams changes as it travels.
But sometimes, it changes abruptly. Injured. Sick. Broken and tired and beaten down. As I was talking with an old friend from high school today, he asked, “Why do you think people get injured?” And I answered with the textbook response: “They didn’t warm up properly or they didn’t perform the movement with correct form.” Though true in many cases, it’s really this — the Acceleration Nation mindset.
We don’t want to see constant velocity; that means plateauing, that means lack of growth, and that means failure to continue to evolve and prosper. We want to see acceleration. We want to grow, and then grow faster. We want to go from 0 to 100, real quick. And 0 to 100 can easily turn to 100 to 0 when a student, who had put off visiting her usual studio or running route for a couple weeks to focus on projects and papers, suddenly decided to go to a Bootcamp class followed by a run with a friend and ended with a hot yoga class with her favorite instructor.
I liken it to a poor friendship. If we don’t text our friend all week, barely even say hello in passing, and then decide to give this sweet human our attention for 24 hours straight, not only will we end up exhausted after this ordeal, but we will also feel like it isn’t sustainable, so understandably, we don’t sustain it. The relationship isn’t strengthened by this outburst of dedication because there was no consistency to begin with. It was 0 to 100, and though the high was high, it won’t stay for long.
Word of advice? Replace your need to grow, and grow more with a wholehearted attempt to hover around a maintenance level for your health. I call these my essential daily habits. (No, you don’t really need a fancy word to describe them, but that’s what they are to me.)
Do I do them every day? No, of course not. I try to, wholeheartedly, do them every day, because I have noticed a marked difference when I don’t. Writing in my Five Minute Journal helps me stay grounded, day and night, and truly takes five minutes. Eating a wholesome breakfast with a good amount of water is a matter of choice, and starts me off with good energy (literally) even if I don’t make the best nutritional choices the rest of the day.
Lately, I aim to maintain, and I feel like I am finally understanding how to become friends with my own body.