I used to have flat feet. I used to have debilitating neck pain. I used to have a functional scoliosis. I used to have TMJ. I used to have a shoulder that ached day in and day out.
I used to be told “that’s just the way you are.”
Except… Now I do not have flat feet. I do not have neck pain. I do not have a functional scoliosis. I do not have TMJ. I do not have an aching shoulder.
Nearly everything that makes up your body responds to signals. That’s the wild thing about being a human…you do stuff, your body responds. You do other stuff, your body responds differently than it did with the first stuff. You may not change your eye color, but you can change nearly everything else.
When I first heard the mainstream messages from society – that you probably hear too – I was scared and confused. I was scared they were right…like I was being let in on the secret that all adults knew. “Your body falls apart. That’s all there is to it.” And I was confused at how that could possibly be right. If bodies are doing cell turnover till the day we die, how could I be ‘stuck’ with anything?
That’s what I was told for as long as I can remember. About every malady or challenge someone in my family faced. “Well, it runs in the family…”
Maybe you have heard this, too. About obesity, or diabetes, or flat feet, or dying young. The thing is, while there is a genetic make-up to you that is the result of whomever reproduced to create you, it’s far more flexible than scientists and the general public used to think.
You’re not destined to be just like everyone else in your family just because you share some genes.
How you move, how you live, what stressful events happen in your life (and how you respond to them), all of this, and more, influence you…
Every part of you is made up of a collection of cells, and when those cells get ready to turn over and die so that new cells can take their place, they pass along information to those new cells. And when it comes to the collections of cells that make up your joints, your bones, and your various levels of soft tissue, that process is not a untouchable event.
Fifteen years ago, I did not yet grasp just how monumental it was to realize that everything is changeable. All I knew was that I didn’t want to stay the way I was.
Because the way I was felt bad, it felt painful, it felt stressful, and it took up more of my finances, my time, my energy, and my attention, than I wanted it to. So I made it my mission to try and change these things about my body that everyone said were permanent…
It’s true that change takes time. Which is why you start achieving (or not) your goals before you even begin the work on them.
Because if your beliefs and motivations aren’t lined up to support you during the long walk on the path of making change to your physical body, it’s much more likely you’ll stop doing the work before you get to where you want to go.
You’ve got to believe it’s possible for you to change – and – that even if you don’t ever get to whatever goal you have in mind, that what you’ll get out of the process of going on that journey is worth it.
Let’s say your goal is to finally have ‘flexible hips’ and you do the work to try and get there. A year into working on this goal, you aren’t at whatever image you have in your head represents ‘flexible hips’, and you have “only” gained five or ten degrees of mobility. Is that to be considered a ‘loss’ then? Absolutely not. Not only are you more mobile than when you started, you have gained valuable lessons for your body, your spirit, and your mind, for having gone on the journey in the first place.
If you’re going to truly become an excellent caretaker of your body – feeling great, moving well, and tapping into your true potential, you’re going to be tending to your physical movement – and as importantly – to your thoughts, your mindset, and how you relate to your body as you move it and train it.
COPYRIGHT © 2022 FIT FOR REAL LIFE – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Found this post helpful?Buy me a coffee to say thanks 🙂
