Cardio therapy

When my younger son was little, he had some trouble controlling his temper.  Walking was one of the only things that helped him.  (Sadly, he had no sense of direction, so he could not go walk alone, which was what really helped, but that’s another story.)

I know he’s not the only one who finds exercise, and cardio in particular, a balm for the emotional upheaval of life.  Running from our problems may not work, but running may help solve them.

Take that heartache on a hike, that frustration to the gym, that anger to dance class.

Blow Them Up

A lot of things in my life weigh more than 15 pounds.  Fifteen pounds is not a lot of canned goods or books.  It’s a big load of laundry.  My dog lifts herself, but even she weighs more than 15 pounds.

Fifteen pounds is also the limit of what I am supposed to lift for the next week.

Limits can be hard to accept.  (Or understand, if we happen to be studying calculus.)  Unfortunately, they also exist.

Here’s the plan.  We accept that there are limits.  And then, as soon as we can, we blow them up.  We grow and change and attack new limits.

I’m looking forward to next week.

Socrates says... (cue Bill and Ted...)

Self-knowledge helps.  I know, for example, that if I really want to get something done, I need to do it first thing or suddenly the whole day will be gone, spent in little, less-important tasks.  I know that my ability to resist less-healthy food goes down over the course of the day; if I’m going to allow myself a treat, I had better save it for later in the day or suddenly one treat might become several.

Easily said.  But where does the self-knowledge come from?  Paying attention.  We need to go a little Harriet the Spy on ourselves, observe our behavior.  Keeping track of what we see can help to sort out what was a one-time thing and what turns out to be a pattern.

We may turn out to be people with an unexpected love of dancing, or folks who will walk for hours if there are shop windows to check out, but whose feet ache the second step into the forest.  We can’t know until we look.  And when we know who we are, we can figure out who we want to be.