going to the gym…tomorrow

“Ugh, I need to go to the gym” I declared, remote in hand, to an empty apartment, seated atop my couch, in my single lady space.

“UGH I don’t want to do go the gym.”
“I’ll go to the gym tomorrow. Oh yeah, what a great idea, I will DEFINITELY do a great work out tomorrow.”
**Next episode** Click!
Filled with guilt, I’d watch another, and then to distract myself from that compounding guilt, I’d watch another and another and another.

Weekends went by and Saturdays rarely included gym days. The guilt (“I’m doing something bad”) compiled and turned into shame (“I am bad”). Shame, that, week after week, kept me rooted on the couch because there wasn’t ever going to be some magical turning point where I ACTUALLY made it to the gym “tomorrow”.

The rhetoric stayed the same, “I’ll do that tomorrow”, until I committed so many times to do it “tomorrow”, I felt pretty bad about myself. Fighting the mental game has always been a priority of mine, recognizing the biggest personal battles are fought and won in my mind, I made a new commitment. I changed the language I used when sitting on the couch.

“Ugh, I need to go to the gym” typically declared to an empty apartment seated atop my comfy, grey, chaise lounge couch.
“UGH I don’t want to do go the gym.”
“I’ll go to the gym tomorrow.”
NOPE, wait, you won’t go to the gym tomorrow, let’s just own where we are, VA.
“I don’t want to go to the gym. Am I okay with not going to gym?”

If the answer was yes, remembering I went to the gym an extra time that week and what my body needed most was rest, or maybe I just didn’t have it in me, even if I had been to the gym zero times that week. Whatever it was, I’d own it. I’d click the next episode button with less guilt. One episode maybe turned into two but very rarely turned into many more. I wasn’t in a shame based *next episode* spiral, so I didn’t get stuck there.

If the answer was “no” to the “am I okay with not going to the gym?”, I’d rally, go grab tennis shoes and at least go for a walk. The physical movement would always do my body good, and again, no shame spiral.

Being intentional with my words, owning them, acknowledging that what I say out loud or in my own head is leading to how I feel about myself and ultimately, how I take action. It’s pretty rare these days to catch me saying, “I’ll just go to the gym…tomorrow.”

xoxo, va