21 April 2008

A shift has occurred

A while ago I started reading/listening to Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth. I'd been looking at it in the stores for months and then Oprah was starting that webinar thingee, so I caved, drank the Kool-Aid and joined the masses. It has turned out to be fantastic for me. I had been heading towards a lot of his concepts for years, this just sped things up.

Anywho, one thing I've really gotten out of his book is the ability to divorce myself from pain. He made a statement that fear/panic is just the ego because it doesn't want to fail and look bad to other people. I extrapolated that out to pain because that is what I use to avoid failure. Pain. By accepting the pain as a indication that I'm working hard, and acknowledging that it's not going to kill me or do me any great harm, I can look at it with amusement and wonder how far I can go with it. I'm not sure this is making sense but it does to me.

So this weekend I started my new workout plan. I did strength training Sat and Sun and kicked my own butt. Saturday I worked so hard that I got nauseous and couldn't shake it all day. I've never done that before. By the time I was done working out I was so weak and spent there was no way I could go for a bike ride. So I did hill intervals on the stationary bike. I was whupped.

Sunday I awoke and was debating skipping. I talked myself out of it and kicked my own butt again. I was dripping sweat and my legs were shaking when I was done. I headed out for a run after and my legs were so thrashed I could only go 15 minutes. It was great!!

This morning was swimming. It is also my 'easy' day. I had a swim plan and figured I'd follow it but not push myself. Yeah, wrong. I ended up pushing it and getting a real aerobic workout. I did cut off the last 50 m as I was running late since I got a late start. But I had to talk myself into cutting off 50m.

So a shift has occurred and I like it a lot.

3 comments:

Vickie said...

Interesting concept. For me, it is the fear of looking bad and failing. I have to constantly work on this head problem I have. I'll keep this in mind and see if it helps.

Irene said...

A wonderful shift, indeed!

Michelle said...

Wow, you are kicking ass! Did I already tell you I lived in Hawaii for 5 years during college? I went to UH at West Oahu. I lived on The Big Island for four months too. Man, I miss Hawaii. California is a close second though. Anyway, you're certainly getting your head in the game, rock on!

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