How did a fitness professional get so wrapped up in the mind and feelings? Well to answer that honestly I’d first have to say I am a deeply feeling person. Secondly I’d have to explain that feelings ultimately guide our behavior and action. Behavior and action are a few of the main components in our overall health and vitality.

 

I started working full-time as a personal trainer in 2009 at 24 years old. At that point I was all fire and motivation, I had an indomitable ability to speak in bumper stickers (though maybe that part is still true), and I lived by the same “no excuse” culture as the rest of the fitness industry. I had just graduated college where I spent the previous two years consumed by my own fitness journey. In my early twenties diagnoses with my back were bleak and fitness changed that bleakness to brightness. There was a lot of naivety and ego wrapped up in it for me.

 

Over the years I worked with so many people; people from different socioeconomic backgrounds, people from different cultures, people with different body types, belief systems, lifestyles, and preferences. Over the years I had my own life experiences from gastrointestinal misdiagnosis, to depression and anxiety, to stress, to having a child. It turns out there are all kinds of excuses.

 

A study published in the journal Psychology of Sport and Exercise suggested that emotions, both positive and negative, affect habits and behaviors regarding exercise and food choices. While negative emotions were found to play a large role in self-sabotaging behaviors, positive emotions did not increase the likelihood of engaging in beneficial health behaviors.

 

The study found that regardless of emotional state participants all agreed that exercise is a behavior they should engage in. So that throws the old “if you know better, you do better” adage out the window. So a negative emotional state is likely to engage in unhealthy behavior and positive emotional still isn’t likely to engage in healthy behavior. What gives? Perhaps the key is to not exist in an emotional state at all. Those in a neutral emotional state were the most likely to engage in beneficial health behaviors. It turns out that feelings really do guide our habits and actions because those decisions are being made out of emotion. The other odd thing? Both the positive and neutral emotional states reported high levels of happiness.

 

Over the years I’ve both engaged in and watched others engage in what I kindly refer to as the treadmill of life. If you ever feel as if you’re “spinning your wheels” then you know exactly what I’m talking about. We live our lives on this figurative treadmill constantly chasing after the positive emotions and running from the negative ones, ignoring the majority of our existence in the moment.

 

Whether we are consumed by our feelings or trying to bury our feelings they end up running the show and dictating our habits and behaviors. Mindfulness is what happens when we step off the figurative treadmill. Mindfulness is focusing our awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations - a neutral emotional state. As I’ve taken the steps to apply mindfulness in my life as well as guiding others to do the same I’ve seen an interesting shift happen. This shift into a neutral emotional state, where we have time and space for all of the emotions without becoming consumed or driven by them. Instead of having having a physical aversion to exercise and/or emotional eating or forcing our bodies into workouts we feel like we “should” be doing and/or restricting certain foods we step out of the black and white, this or that, all or nothing and step into freedom.

 

I have heard it all: I’m not motivated, I’m lazy, I don’t like working out, I have no willpower… on and on. Each time recognizing those statements stand in direct contradiction of many other aspects of that person’s life. The mother that is running a business managing a home and an office will tell me she has no motivation and that she is lazy. The woman who has kept going through countless days riddled with anxiety and depression tells me she has no willpower. The woman who tells me the best she’s ever felt was when she was walking regularly and dancing for fun tells me she doesn’t like working out. It’s not that there are no excuses, it’s that we aren’t addressing the deeper reasons. We’re thinking and feeling in black and white, this or that, all or nothing while life happens in all the colors and space in between.

 

Our society’s health culture is constantly telling you: “run away from any negative feeling or experience and endlessly chase after happiness - oh and you can’t have happiness until you buy this formula or try this proven method. All while their solutions don’t work forever because they aren’t meant to be done forever. You wouldn’t have to keep coming back for more if they did. So we’re told to work harder, wake up earlier, and push through. Life is challenging enough, we already work hard, and we don’t have time to overhaul our current existence. If you are ready to find freedom on your own terms and make a “healthy lifestyle” fit into your life instead of you trying to fit into it, it’s time to step off the figurative treadmill and into a mindfulness centered approach.

 

Your patient, loving witness,

 

Melissa

www.melissaromano.com