So, I’ve been wanting to do a “challenge” of some sort for myself. There are lots of challenges out there- the ice water plunge ALS awareness challenge, the push up challenge for veteran suicide awareness… they’re all fantastic. I wanted to come up with a challenge that was to promote positivity and self empowerment in some way ( although I won’t lie I initially wanted to make my challenge a protest politically…but since all of that topic is weighing heavily on my heart, I thought I’d offer something hopeful).
Since everything starts with US, what we do in the world and how we treat ourselves and walk our talk, I thought I would make this challenge about the limits be put on ourselves around aging.
To age is a gift, an honor and a privilege not everyone is given in this life.
And yet culturally we are very “anti-aging” everything!
We are surrounded by thoughts and ideas about aging every single day, through culture, the media, our friends and family. And much of it is absorbed into our brains without even realizing it.
We’ve learned and accepted what “aging” is supposed to “look like” and “feel like” through our years and I’d like to tell you that I think it’s mostly bullshit.
Yes, the body ages. No doubt about it. But HOW it ages is a whole other story.
The 50-100 TRILLION cells that make up our body are listening, YES, listening to our every thought, feeling and experience. AND each of those cells is also storing memories in it’s body around each of those thoughts/experiences.
As Deepak Chopra puts it”…Aging is a mistake of intellect…this mistake consists of identifying oneself solely with the physical body… If you take your mind to a level of functioning that is beyond age, then your body will begin to be touched with the same quality. It will age more slowly because the mind tells it to…”
I hear so often from clients, students and family, and once (very disappointingly) from an herbalist colleague, “Oh! Wait till you’re my age!”, or “Hey once you hit 30 it’s all down hill!”, “Hey that’s just what happens when you get old!”… I’m sure I’m not the only one to have heard these things and more.
I’m hear to tell you that YOU have control over your health and wellness RIGHT NOW no matter what your age.
I believe that 80-90% of what we experience as we move through the years is wear and tear. Did you spend your 20’s eating junk food, hardly drinking water, rarely exercising, working 2 or 3 jobs, going out drinking every other night to then get a few hours of sleep and start again in the morning? That sounds about right for me. And I’m sure many of you can relate to some of this, if not all of it, and maybe parts of this is STILL true for you.
What I have to tell you is this: Your Body Is Miraculous Machine. If you give it what it needs to run, it will serve you well. If you give it very little to work with, it will last a little while but it WILL eventually get tired and start to break down. Just like a brand new car that you decide to never change the oil in… it will eventually, slowly but surely burn out. But! If you catch it before it’s too late and clean the old oil out and refresh it with the good stuff, viola! The car will begin to run well again. Our bodies are much the same. Sadly, it’s not as easy as an oil change and it may take longer to reverse the damage and see changes but IT WILL HAPPEN.
Our fat cells are changed out and exchanged every 3 weeks, a new stomach lining is replaced every 5 days, our skin refreshes itself every 5 weeks and even our skeleton rebuilds to entirely nee cells every 3 months. And …every year…98% of the total number of atoms in your body are replaced… ( Perfect Health, Deepak Chopra).
Incredible, right?!
If all of this is true, it means that if we begin making changes in our minds and bodies and most importantly, our spirits, real change will begin to appear at a cellular level! Healing is possible! No matter what your age or challenge. You decide.
You are in control of your health.
You can either see this fact as a heavy weight of overwhelm or an exciting opportunity to take responsibility and make change for the better- no matter where you are in life!
Here’s a little back story- From the ages of 7-15 I was a competitive gymnast. A scrawny one- but all muscle. I did training circuits like they were nothing. And although I was tiny, I was strong and I FELT strong. I remember how good that felt in my mind and body.
Side note-My doshic constitution is Pitta-Vata ( Pitta predominance being the medium build, muscley athletic body type and Vata being the secondary the lanky, sinewy type).
Over the years I’ve let my Vata take over. I no longer feel as strong. I feel like a frail imbalanced Vata body with a Pitta mind and frankly, I’m over it.
I’m sticking my two middle fingers up at the voice in my head saying “Oh, you’re just getting older, that’s what happens, you get weaker and everything is harder”, which I know isn’t even MY voice by the way- but the voice I’ve absorbed from my surroundings- media, family, friends, students- even colleagues because I DON’T believe aging is a downward spiral. So much of aging is a state of mind.
Aging is what WE WANT IT to be.
So, back to my challenge- I REALLY want to do pull ups/chin ups again. AND feel STRONG again. Like when I was 10 and it was nothing to do them. It’s been a looooooooong time since I’ve “exercised” in the way of weight training. Yoga serves me on so many different levels, I’d broken up with other forms of movement. BUT, I’m craving a little bit more right now. Yoga makes me strong. But I want a different kind of strong right now. I want to pull my own body weight up on a bar… just cause!
And I’m going to.
No, it’s not going to happen over night, but I’ve decided it’s going to happen, despite what all the critics in my head are saying.
So, every day I’m going to post a video of my attempts at pull ups. ATTEMPTS will be the operative word. (You can follow me on FB)
Thank you to my brother in law Cody for giving me some tips on where to start ( he suggests the “reverse pull up” to build strength- until I can even remotely do a real pull up). So that’s what you’ll see in my videos.
Sharing these videos will be humbling and embarrassing ( I have a streak of perfectionism) but I need to stay accountable so that’s what I’ll do.
Today I’m on day 7 of 28. I’m doing 28 days to start cause after that I’m on vacation and packing a pull up bar with me may be problematic lol. But maybe I can find a door frame or tree trunk to use in HI, we’ll see lol. Otherwise, I’ll pick up where I left off when I return.
I hope this inspires some of you to start something new, or pick something up that you’ve been putting off because of “age” or feeling “too old” to start doing again. I firmly believe that if we want something and we believe we can do it -we will.
Even something silly like pull ups.
Like my 92 year old Granny says, “Age is just a number”.
xoA