Episode 20: When Your Body Makes you Stop to Think
Arivee: Hi, I'm Arivee Vargas and I believe we're also powerful beyond our wildest imaginations. We have the ability to overcome the fears, self-doubt, negative beliefs. And all the other roadblocks that hold us back from having the life and career we really want and deserve.
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This week I wanted to share some insights and some perspective on how do we accept what is, how do we accept where we are in this moment right now without also feeling like we're lazy or we're complacent or where necessarily satisfied and one of the biggest reasons why I wanted to talk about it today was because I've been having a lot of these similar conversations with some of my coaching clients. I've been talking to other coaches about this and some of the high-level conversations they've been having with their clients. And I just recently also experienced it personally myself, and if you follow me on social media and you know a little bit about my story and some of the things that I personally find challenging, one of those things. Is accepting where you are, acknowledging where you are without feeling like doing so means you're lazy and you're indifferent and you don't wanna do something more, right? And so, I recently was working out and I was doing my normal hit workout normal hit routine, not normal, but I was taking a class and I usually do that, which is why I say it was normal, but I was trying to do an exercise that is probably above where I was at that time. So, this was actually a 3 3 days ago or so I knew I needed to use a lower weight in my dumb bells, but I said no, I'm ready to go to the next dumbbell weight level and if you know renegade rows, it's a basically a push up. You're in a push up position on your palms, but you have two weights underneath your holding two weights as you're in that position with the weights on the mat, and so Renegade row is your rowing while you're in the push up position you row the other side, and yes, we're in that push up position. So, it requires a lot of core work and squeezing every muscle in your body and all that good stuff. And I knew that I should not use a 15-pound weight for each side. But I said I could do it. I'm tired using these 10s. I know I can do 12 but I didn't have 12, so I said, OK, I'm gonna go for 15. And the minute I started doing it, something pulled in my lower back, and I felt it. And I said, oh, but that's OK. It's just, I know I had bad form. I was rushing. It's probably too heavy. That's fine. And I decided that it was a good decision to keep going not a good decision, but at the time I wanted to finish my work out. I'm not lazy. I'm gonna keep going for it. I'm gonna push through the pain. Not a smart decision, but I did that. I actually didn't feel that bad throughout the rest of the workout, which is why I was able to finish. Literally an hour later I was in so much pain. I couldn't even sit down. I had to lay down and I had to do the heat ice regimen and I'm feeling better, but it really has forced me to stop moving around so much and it forced me that I can't really pick up things off the floor 'cause. It hurts a lot. I was wondering, should I go to the doctor? I mean, this is what I pulled muscle feels like it's very painful, but it really made me stop. It made me stop moving so much and it forced me, obviously, to stop working out for the time being because I. I I can't with the way that my lower back on the left side is feeling.
And so, as I was thinking about this, I was really angry. I was really mad that I couldn't work out right. Like I I was mad that I did that wish I knew I shouldn't have done that. I knew as soon as I felt anything, I should have stopped. But I had to prove to myself that I could do it and so I did. And then the consequence came of the pain after that. And just the discomfort I still feel right. But I was still I and I still feel this way. This like, resistance to like why can't I? Why is this happening? Like why can't I just move around the way I want to? I have three children I have. I need to be able move around right and there's this resistance you feel to the situation. The situation is that I'm in pain. I cannot continue working out. I cannot move like I want to I can't pick up every Lego off the floor. I can't pick up every doll off the floor, can't pick up every shoe. Can't sweep in to get the dustpan and bend down because that is hurting my back. I can't sit for long periods of time and I'm I'm resisting that. I'm resisting the fact that I can't do that. I'm resisting. What is. I'm resisting where I stand right now. And I wanted to talk about it because I've been seeing it a lot in different ways when I'm talking about working out, but this applies in so many other environments and so many other situations in so many areas of your life, right? Obviously not just in physical exercise, but in relationships. And it could be. In your career, and even in COVID right when the pandemic hit, there were so much resistance. Well, why are we here? Why can't we just go out and and hang out with our friends and and be with the people that we love? Like why can't we have Thanksgiving? Why can't we? A lot of resistance of like, but this is what it is. This is what it is right now there's a pandemic, right? I mean, now we're moving forward. And I'm hoping that we have really moved forward. But at that time, there was so much resistance to why we why we can't just go to a restaurant. Why can't we just do the things we wanna do as we've always done them? And it's like, well, because there are certain health risks to that, right. But you saw that resistance then and what's been helping me even today and what I've seen help others and and what I know lot of a lot of coaches work with their clients on this too and full transparency most of the people that I know who our coaches have coaches me included. Right. And we work through this with them too, right? We have our own stuff we work through as well, right. But there's this realization I came too, and it's not like in an epiphany. But you learn how to be aware of your feelings. You learn how to be aware of why you're feeling the way that you do, what thoughts are triggering those feelings, what are the facts behind that that are pretty neutral that's making you think something, right? You're having a thought about something that's very neutral and with this I was feeling a lot of resistance to the fact that I couldn't do the things that I always wanted to do because of the choice that I made to keep going when I injured myself. And even the injury itself was probably a choice, right? Because in my gut I knew that that way it was too heavy, that I wasn't quite ready, but I wanted to prove to myself that I was. But there is this inclination, this almost a reaction, to resist something that happens, even if it's fact. Right. It can be proven. It's a fact, right? There's this resistance to it. And what's been helpful is to sit with it. That's been helpful to me and a strategy a lot of people use is to. OK, what does it feel to be in the space? We're in the space. Right. Like you can resist it or you can accept. You can accept this as where you are and sit with it, sit with the feeling that you don't like it. Sit with the feeling that you think it was dumb that you used a heavier weight than you should have. Sit with that. Sit with it, it's OK. And yes, I'm totally judging myself saying that it was dumb to use that weight. That's that's that's a judgy statement. And I recognize that, but sit with all of those feelings, though, right? Like, it's not that I never have those shameful, judgmental feelings I do. I have those kinds of thoughts. I have those feelings, and it's important to recognize them. Be aware of them, be able to label them, be able to name them so you can move forward. And you can address them when we say, Oh no, but I just can't. I just can't say that about myself. I just can't. I can't treat myself that way. Yeah, what, you're doing is you're suppressing and you're a avoiding. You're not dealing with it. And when you don't label it and don't recognize it and you don't confront it, you're not really dealing with anything. Right?
So, I think what's important is and what's been helpful. To me, especially again, in the last day is to sit with it. Sit with why I feel the way I do. And then dig into the questions of why does it really, really bother me that I can't work out? Why does that really bother me? Does it bother me because I just love the endorphins I get when I work out? Yeah. Yeah, that's part of it. But that's a surface level answer. Even I know that, right? My own brain recognizes that. And I think the real answer part of the real answer is that I feel like I need to work out to feel better, to feel strong. I feel like I need to do that. There is something I attached to working out. And lo and behold, it has to do with proving to myself that I can do something right, like proving to myself that I could do renegade rows with 15lb weight on each side, right? Proving to myself that I'm worthy of that cause 10 pounds wasn't enough? Can't do a body weight can do. No, I know. I have to show myself that I can do that, and some people say that's good. That's great. No. But you wanted to show yourself going to push yourself. Yes, it's important to push yourself. However, it is not showing yourself the care and love and kindness and respect you deserve by pushing yourself to the point where you hurt yourself to me, I physically actually hurt myself, but this could apply to other situations where you emotionally hurt yourself, right? You do something or you say yes to something, or you are dealing with the situation where your actions are at your own expense and. That's what I'm talking about. Sitting with it means you dig deeper into those questions. Why do I really need to do this? Why am I really resisting this? Why do I really have a problem accepting what this is and really asking yourself those hard questions and and and being honest with yourself about those answers? Right. I always ask the question of, OK, what what is this telling me? What is this telling me in terms of what I need to be learning right now? I think Oprah, one of her favorite questions is, what is this moment here to teach me and I love that question. Right. It could be. What is it here to teach you? What do you hear? To learn? What is it telling you? And really digging into, like, why you're resisting? What you're resisting, why you? Why you don't want to accept where you are? What's going on where things stand? Because you can choose what to think about what is. You can choose what to believe about what is about the current situation, and then you can also choose whether you want to let it be what it is or you wanna do something about it right. In my situation because of the situation, it is right. Every situation is different. How you respond? Handle, assess, address.
Each situation is going to be different. But for this situation I’m in where I physically am in pain and cannot move my body the way that I usually am able to. You know, I'm not going to do anything. Like, I'm not lifting shit like I'm not doing anything. I am taking it easy on my body. I am resting. I'm not bending down to get everything. I'm asking for more help actually, which I do not like to do. I will admit that I don't like to ask too much row, but I'm asking the kids to clean up. More of their stuff. Right? Can you please grab the 5000 pieces of I don't know what kind of paper are on the floor? Right? The cardboard boxes you're creating into trains. That's great. I love that. I love the creativity. But like dead people, somethings gone. Someone is going to trip. Right. I I can't do those things. I can't pick up the way that I used to. I can't even putting the dishes in the dishwasher, so I'm literally not doing anything I may be asking for more help, but just being and I'm sitting in discomfort, I need to say that I'm sitting in discomfort because I don't like the way it feels. But I'm also asking myself. In answering those questions of OK, but I feel this way because I've attached something to working out that is beyond us. Feel good because you wanna be stronger, feel good. It's deeper than that. And that's the work I'm doing. And that's the work. I encourage everyone to do, right. To be self-aware. Create that space for the awareness. Because choosing what to think about what is choosing what to believe about what is, and choosing whether you wanna take action, what that looks like, I just wanna be. Let it be. Right. That's informed by introspection. That's informed by the discernment. But you won't know that until you actually look inward and ask yourself those questions and do that work. Right. That's the way forward is to go inward. Right. You can't go outward until you go inward. And I'm wondering that hard lesson now again, you know, the universe teaches you lessons. All of the time, it's just up to us to notice what they are and to recognize them and hopefully they inform how we are, who we are in the in the future, right? So, I'm just gonna be, I'm just going to be. I'm not going to do. I'm going to rest and I'm going. To sit in the discomfort of the rest and sit in my own discernment, and I'm hoping that if you're going through anything similar where you're really resisting something that is, that is happened or is happening, and it's fits fact based. OK. But like, it has to be fact based, but you're thinking about it in a certain way and feeling a certain way about it, that's creating your your view of the situation. What does that tell you? What is that there to teach you? What is that there that you can learn from? How can you ask yourself those deeper questions so that you understand that accepting what is is really the starting point to all this other internal work that you're gonna do and that you're doing, I hope that that work really does serve you and that you can apply that work into different parts of your life moving forward. And I hope that you realize that accepting what is is not complacency. It is not that it's all good. Nothing needs to change. That's not what I mean. You know that it doesn't mean laziness. As I said before, it just means this is where you are. And now you kinda gotta get to work. You gotta get to work.
OK, my friends let me know if this served you. You know how to find me. I'd love to know if this served you. And what else would be helpful for me to talk about? That would serve you until next time. Remember your way more powerful than you realize. Do that internal work. I guarantee it'll be worth it.
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