Learning to be with your body isn’t a math equation, and once I realized that, I started to notice how it actually felt when I wasn’t trying to force it to keep up with sky-high plans on top of everything else I was juggling in my life. Like many things, I noticed without coercion and with curiosity, I began to hear and work with myself rather than against.

I learned it feels good to me to drop all the thought threads in some swings or incline pushups at the sink or stray sets of other repetitive, mildly sweaty movements. Unbroken sets of 50 used to sound like torture to me, like a challenge that was always bigger and meatier and more intimidating. Now they sound like a lilting lullaby.

For now. That may change, as bodies and minds do.

If you’re like me and most womxn with whom I work, no motivation hack in the world is gonna make it more likely you’ll get to the gym. It’s not a desire thing; it’s an overbooked one.

The questions here, for me:

• Where can it be easy?

• Where can it be enough?

• How would it feel good to interrupt that overwhelm shame train (not like punishment for hopping on it) and redirect its energy?