Workout Wednesday: It's Always Going to Hurt

One of the biggest challenges I have with exercise is dealing with pain, both during and after. I don't like pain, really, honestly. I do everything I can to avoid experiencing pain. I am such a baby that when I found out I was having a baby (my now 20-year-old daughter), I freaked out about the pain that I'd experience right up until the day. If I stub my toe or cut my finger, I freak about the pain before I actually feel anything. Yeah, I'm that bad.

Oh Dwight . . . lol

For the first couple of months that I was training, I did what I've always done when dealing with pain: I tensed up, squeezed my eyes shut, and took to screaming in my head; in other words I did everything I could to block it out. I eventually realized that I had to figure out a way to get through my sessions. I would surely be punished by Trainer if I asked him to go easy on me, so that wasn't an option, and I certainly was not going to quit (I signed a contract giving the company access to my money once a month, so I might as well make use of it). Therefore, the change had to come from me.

I made up my mind to simply accept the pain. I had endured it for weeks and the only negative side affect was being sore, everything else about it was crazy positive (weight loss, stronger muscles, improvement in my exercises) so that is what I had to think about.

This has been huge for my personal growth because I find that now I approach other challenges with the same mentality. There are things that I've never been able to get through, but now I just take deep breaths and accept what I'm feeling instead of trying to push it away. The result is that my body doesn't shut down (I have fainted more than once during doctor visits) and I am able to get through things that were nearly impossible before.

So as I move forward in my get-healthy journey and continue finding new ways to physically challenge myself, keeping an open mind to the pain and discomfort is going to be the key between simply "getting through it" and downright being successful. I say there's no time like the present to kick some serious butt!