Most Mondays I work at home. It’s a nice perk! However, it places my planned runs at the mercy of the weather– and today the weather did not cooperate, it snowed this morning and rained the rest of the day. (Where is spring? I’ve had enough of this gross stuff.)
I did manage to do some nice yogas just now, though. I’m always saying, “I wish I had time to do more yoga!” Well, I just received some time, so I should take advantage of it! Sun salutation flow, lots of core work, up dog-down dog transitions (those are fun, and hard) and lunges for my hips. I even worked in a tiny bit of the stuff that killed my hips the last time I went to class, figuring if I take poison a little at a time I’ll work up a tolerance, right?
I feel better about it now after yoga, but I was awfully down in the dumps about not running today. I also didn’t run over the weekend. (I did go to the shoe store, but that’s a story for another post, maybe.) I felt so much guilt and disappointment with myself, awful feelings.
And that stopped me right there. I didn’t start exercising to feel bad. I’ll repeat that: Bringing activity into my life is not meant to be another thing I can beat myself up about. It’s supposed to be a source of strength and joy for me. And sometimes the universe doesn’t cooperate, and I might not be able to do the activity I want to do. That’s okay. It has no bearing on my worth as a person. And hopefully when I go back to it, I’ll find the strength and joy there again.
Running While Fat 
For me, I have trouble keeping distance between being disappointed that I couldn’t work out and being disappointed in myself because I didn’t work out. Like, it’s fine to feel sad that I didn’t get to do a thing that I like to do. But it’s not okay when I start directing that at myself, like it’s something I “should have” done.
Yeah, I think that’s a perfect way of putting it! I recognize the latter feeling as belonging to the same set of behaviors as, say, how I used to beat myself up when I had a ‘bad diet day’. Lots of shoulds and oughts.
Sometimes it’s a struggle to stay positive on days like that.