This is an example of how one new thought can change our lives for the better. Freeing us from old limiting beliefs and giving us a new sense of control and empowerment.
I was struck recently by a simple sentence my personal trainer blogged. "exercise until you feel fatigue". It got me thinking....I would never have put this particular string of words together and believed it ! So I began to meditate on the idea and to ask myself why I didn't know this to be true.
I will work till fatigue (and beyond) with many things, particularly learning, studying, writing type things because of all my years of education and helping people. BUT NEVER once did it occur to me to exercise to fatigue!! In fact, my dad used to say, "use it or lose it!" but he was talking about
the brain !
So as a result of not being exposed to exercise in a way that suggested to go to the nth degree I would always stop whatever activity or movement I was doing if I felt the slightest bit uncomfortable, or the beginning of any pain or stress on my body! The alarm bells would go off and I would stop ~ really believing that I was protecting myself.
In fact, my subconscious mind is always working to protect me and because it knows that heart problems run in my family,
the need for protection would always kick in, and override any of my sincere attempts to seriously exercise!
* By the way, this subconscious protection that takes place unconsciously is often referred to as self sabotage. But it really isn’t! Our behaviours are governed by our subconscious beliefs that say, “protect” ~ so if you are experiencing a behaviour that doesn’t make sense to your logical mind, meditate on it and ask yourself the question, “What if… this behaviour is a result of me trying to protect myself ?’ and allow yourself to be creative, and drop inside yourself to find your answers. *So even though all around me has always been the correct information about exercise, I never really took it in or could make it work for me out of a fear in my subconscious mind that went something like this. “Oh, its okay for you, but it’s not for me!”, “Our family has heart attacks, so I have to be careful”.
But now that my conscious mind and my subconscious minds are in harmony, I can think two new thoughts!
One is, I can now generalize my dad’s motto, “Use it or lose it!”, to include working my heart, getting it pumping and growing stronger. And the second is, I can also generalize my own experience of how hard I work at writing, studying, learning and practicing my craft, and seeing how it makes me so much better at what I love to do. Ergo, now I can also be brave and exercise to fatigue, being consciously aware that I will just be getting better at something else I love!
….“exercise until you feel fatigue.” Now I get it, now it makes sense! My subconscious mind isn’t blocking that message anymore and I feel so much better already.
This whole process is very much like what I went through losing weight and keeping it off.
I hope this example was helpful. The important thing to note is that rarely do we self sabotage, in fact we are trying to protect, so get creative and ask yourself how this thing we do or don't do is a means of trying to protect self? You may surprise yourself and set yourself free !
Hugs,
Janice
