I have, at various times in my life, been quite fit. I’ve had gym memberships I’ve actually used and at one stage even walked to the gym a couple of mornings a week, worked out for half an hour, then walked home in time to get ready for work. I’ve enjoyed bike riding and walking for exercise and pleasure. I even took dressage riding lessons for a year or so. I’ve gone to fitness classes and I’ve worked out at home.
I have also, at various times in my life, been quite unfit. I was a child of average weight who became a teenager of more than average weight in a family of significantly more than average weight. In my early 20s I was seriously under average weight for a period of time.
None of that is particularly remarkable, except to demonstrate that I’ve had the usual range of fitness experiences including fluctuations in weight and varying interest in exercise. I’ve always found focused exercise mindlessly boring, but not stressful – simply a necessary evil to ensure I don’t head down the same path as most of my family.
In theory, that should mean that exercise is a non-issue. I’m currently not happy with my general fitness and weight, exercise produces lovely endorphins to help counteract some of the less happy stuff circling in my brain, and I have a track record of finding regular exercise useful and achievable (if uninspiring). It should be a no brainer.
But recently, when my husband returned from a run and was talking about his fitness goals, the app he’s using to track his stats, and his plans to regularly join one of the local Park Run groups, the fluttery ache in my chest became more pronounced and my thoughts started to spiral. I could feel my heart rate accelerate.
The train of thought that triggered the anxiety quickly progressed from thinking about exercising with my husband to thinking about how that would involve tracking goals and stats, to feeling completely overwhelmed by the knowledge that I’d never be able to keep up and I’d just slow him down. I felt irrationally pressured to have stats worth tracking. And I was already bracing myself for my husband to be disappointed that I’m not fitter and more interested in running (which he loves) and feeling a sense of abandonment because this would something he would pursue without me. [Those negative thoughts are all a reflection of the mess in my head, not anything he’s said or done.]
By the end I was feeling teary and anxious and frustrated that the thought of exercising (or more specifically someone else exercising) could derail me so quickly, when it’s something I’ve done in the past with so little effort. It’s an overwhelming irony that I seemed to cope so much better with life when my life was so much worse.
But the anxiety isn’t about the exercise, of course. it’s about the dysfunctional assumptions about implied goals and targets and expectations. All the expectations of what I should be able to achieve and how I should be prioritising this over something else. The expectation that I should be able to make decisions and follow through without everything becoming some kind of existential crisis. All the things I should do and be and think, that I never manage to achieve. All the ways I think I disappoint people.
A lifetime of failing to live up to the expectations of my parents and ex-husband and an awareness from my earliest memories of what I should be doing means that just the thought of setting fitness goals made me panic. I felt useless and like a failure before I even started.
I have a friend who has deal with some tough times by setting herself fitness goals and focusing on achieving them. She’s explained it as something that’s completely independent of others – she sets her own targets, pushes herself to achieve them, then sets the next goal. She doesn’t have to rely on anyone else and she gets the satisfaction of knowing that she’s achieved something by herself, for herself. It’s an empowering thought and I can understand the appeal for her.
But it’s hard to shake a lifetime of being told implicitly and explicitly that my focus should be helping others achieve their goals, or achieving the goals set for me by others. Pushing past those well established mental and emotional barriers is painful and exhausting, as ridiculous as that sounds.
I should be able to push past this – I know exercise and fitness is something I need to prioritise. And if this was the only decision where I was battling my expectation trauma response, then maybe I would find it easier to force myself past the initial resistance. But it isn’t the only decision. I fight this battle dozens of times each day at home and work. I’m exhausted by the constant need to review each emotion and thought to ensure they aren’t shadows of my past rather than a reflection of my present.
Exercise. Social commitments. Music choice. Work. Parenting. Relaxation time. Family priorities. Writing. Health. Hobbies. Everyday life. The decisions each day seem endless and most of them involve effort to override the anxious thought that whatever I decide, the decision will be the wrong one.
I’m counting it as progress that I can think this through and recognise the dysfunctional thought patterns. I was able to continue to function after the conversation with my husband, where previously the thought loops would have gained momentum and the rest of my evening would have been lost to panic and damage control.
I’m getting better, I think. It’s slow and painful and exhausting, but I’m hoping that these tiny steps forward will gradually gain momentum. Until then, I’ll just keep putting one foot in front of the other (but won’t be tracking my step count).