How to Be Emotional (Without Spiraling into Self-Sabotage)
You probably don’t know this secret about my past: I’m a former D1 Collegiate Athlete.
Movement is one of my favorite (and most effective) medicines.
After retiring from Varsity College Athletics I intentionally stayed away from intense workouts to give myself a break. I later became a certified fitness instructor and taught yoga sculpt - think yoga with weights in a heated room.
Needless to say, I’m no stranger to intense fitness and pushing the capabilities of my body.
You know that moment in class when the instructor says “burpees!” and your mind immediately responds with panic?
I love that moment. It’s a challenge I welcome. Bring it on.
In the last few years, however, I’ve consciously chosen to push my body less and my mind more. As I’ve increased my working schedule to start a few businesses alongside my regular 9-5, I’ve gracefully allowed myself to spend less energy and time in the gym.
My current movement habits looks like this:
Lift 2x a week (instead of 4-5)
10 min stability/core training in the AM
Ride the stationary bike while on a meeting
Short kitchen dance parties while the tea steeps in between work calls
The result?
I’ve lost muscle and stamina… and I’ve gained self-doubt in my physical abilities.
I’ve noticed that my bring it on mentality was being replaced by self-sabotaging thoughts of, “I can’t do this”, “I can’t believe how weak I am now”.
So not motivating.
I know from my days as a fitness instructor that a lot of people are met with self-doubting thoughts when they workout.
I know from my days in recovery that a lot of people are met with the same type of self-doubt in their career, their relationships, their appearance.
What do most people do when self-doubt creeps in:
Eat
Drink
Isolate
Zone out to Netflix
Buy things they don’t need
Self-doubt leads to self-sabotage.
Experiencing this phenomena of self-doubt in physical fitness for the first time in a long time, I noticed how tempting it was to skip the workout all together and resort to one of the above.
Unwilling to abandon myself, I do what I do – put on my lab coat and get curious.
I was able to regain my athletic confidence really quickly through something unexpected…
Emotional intelligence.
Like it or not, our ability to embrace our emotions is directly tied to our success in all aspects of life: relationships, career, and even fitness.
Emotional intelligence is the ability to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions.
With emotional intelligence comes the understanding that between the stimulus and the reaction exists your power to choose.
Stated differently: between your instructor saying “push-ups!!” and putting your knees on the ground is your ability to pause and give yourself what you really need to perform at your true ability.
It's AWESOME.
If you experience self-doubt in physical fitness, here’s what I’ve learned that will help you take back your power (and achieve your fitness goals).
Channel Your Emotions to Achieve Physical Fitness
Here's what you need to know:
1. Emotion = Natural Reaction
Your body is incredibly intelligent and is equipped with so much wisdom and knowledge that has been passed down from generations. For example, we have primal instincts today because the cavemen developed them to stay alive.
Nigel Nicholson, senior Professor at London Business, wrote in the Harvard Business Review, “Homo sapiens emerged on the Savannah Plain some 200,000 years ago, yet according to evolutionary psychology, people today still seek those traits that made survival possible then: an instinct to fight furiously when threatened, for instance, and a drive to trade information and share secrets. Human beings are, in other words, hardwired.”
The adrenaline and panic that rushes through you when you hear your yoga teacher guides you into an inversion is the same adrenaline and panic that rushed through the cavemen when they heard a rustling in the bushes. The difference is that their lives were on the line, and your life (99.9% of the time) is not.
You are genetically wired with these primal instincts, meaning it’s totally natural for your body to have a reaction to an experience. Think about your emotion, the rush of adrenaline and panic, as your body's natural reaction to an event or an experience and trust that it's OK to have the emotion as a reaction.
By accepting all emotions as OK, you lessen the urge to avoid them or escape from them by modifying your movements or skipping the gym all together.
Remember, unlike the cavemen, your life isn’t on the line so there’s no need to fight (beat yourself up mentally) or flight (drop to your knees when a plank feels challenging).
2. There's Nothing Wrong with You (Take Your Power Back)
Just because your body is reacting with an emotion doesn't mean you're broken.
An emotion is just a natural and temporary reaction to what is happening. With some patience, love, and tolerance, you can and will move through each workout and make it to the other side.
When you’re doing something for the first time, it’s a natural instinct to feel afraid. This emotion, no matter how it manifests, is your body’s way of processing the experience.
Trouble only comes when your Ego gets involved and creates a big, bad story about what the emotion means about who you are.
As you're sweating up a storm and your Body starts to shake, your Ego creeps in and says, "You're weak! You can’t do this."
If you believe that story, you're giving your power away.
You've mistaken the initial response, your emotion, as a part of your identity and you've made the emotion mean something about you/your worth/your future. This story only adds more anxiety and fear into your experience.
What happens when we feel anxious, full of fear, or broken? We compensate. And for many, that means we give up or modify before we physically need to.
When you're experiencing an emotion during your workout; practice patience, love, and tolerance. If you find yourself getting caught up, move past the story your mind is creating and focus on your body instead.
3. Feel it to Heal it Or Carry it Forever
In my own personal experience, releasing my emotions as they arise instead of avoiding them has been extremely healing and has had a positive ripple effect in my life. It avoids build up of emotions that can lead to self-sabotage (emotional eating, drinking, shopping) in the future.
If you shove it down instead you’re going to carry it with you wherever you go and then it’s going to manifest as something you really don’t want (like screaming at your partner or sending an emotionally charged email to your boss).
You can practice emotional intelligence and feeling your emotions while you workout.
What does your body need? How does your body want to naturally process the experience?
If it needs to shake, let it shake.
If you feel like screaming, let it out.
Exhale intensely.
Let a tear fall.
I’ve allowed all of these and more to happen on a yoga mat, a gym floor, on my Pelaton, and in my own living room.
This is what makes movement medicine.
Remind yourself that all emotion is temporary, then let yourself cry, scream, or move in an expressive way. Let the emotion move through you so that you can be free to move forward without it.
What would change in your life if you were able to experience emotions without shame?
What would you do differently if you knew emotions were temporary and no big deal?
This is the power of emotional intelligence.
Start building your emotional intelligence today by acknowledging your emotion as a natural reaction to an event. Then, accept your emotions as a temporary experience that is separate from who you are. When you do this, you’ll be able to cry or scream or huff and puff during your workout without feeling embarrassed. It’s liberating.
How free do you want to be?
Jenna