Mindful Exercise

The fact that we need to intentionally exercise is weird.

We have these bodies solely to do things for us. They help us move around and pick things up so we can change the shape of the world around us. How well they do this depends on how well we take care of them.

In the past, the body was in good shape by default.

We had to walk from place to place and hunt for things and lift things all the time, so the body stayed as it should. We didn’t have access to this high-calorie-sugar-rush-carb-based-diet so we burned off what we ate more easily. It was all fuel, not entertainment.

Now, we have invented things to do all of our work for us, so we had to invent other things that we use to keep the body in the shape it used to be in.

We have things to lift and things that trick our body into thinking it is walking somewhere when it isn’t. We have videos and DVDs that tell us when to lift and when to move our legs and exactly how to do this to get the maximum benefit.

It’s weird, right?

Even weirder is that most of us don’t do this like we should. The only thing we have to move around the world is this body, and we don’t do what we need to do to take care of it and keep it moving.

This isn’t judgment, I don’t use mine as often as I should either. Maybe I only wrote this blog to remind me to get my shit together.

I actually really enjoy exercise when I do it mindfully.

Being aware of how I move, what it feels like to use the body like it is meant to be used.

Yoga is good for this, but anything else can be as well.

This makes physical labor enjoyable as well, if we let it.

There is also something worthwhile about simply bringing everything back to how it was meant to be, the body moving around the world.

Now where did I put the remote…