The Viable Alternative

I mentioned in my blog STOP Trying to Make Sense of the Change, Transformation or Shift You’re Experiencing how I’ve started to really dislike going to the gym beyond the normal lack of motivation. It’s like the same zest and fire that kept me working out consistently for the past fifteen years is gone and because I feel like I’m just going through the motions, it’s been a lot easier for me to just opt out of going at all.

I’ve initially attributed my lack of desire to go the the gym to the change I’ve been experiencing where when you have a structure that’s undergoing major renovation, certain things like electricity or plumbing are going to have to go offline in order to have to be rebuilt and reintegrated into a stronger structure.

That was my surface understanding, but this past week, I realized that my lack of desire to go to the gym was a lot more interesting and went a lot deeper.

Back in college, I had a big desire to go to the gym consistently to get big and cut, but I could never muster enough discipline to go more than several months. I’d work out, get all big, and then wind up falling off. That happened year in and year out all the years I was in school.

After graduating college, I started working the end of August of that same year. Despite earning what at that age seemed like a lot of money, I totally hated my job, and on top of that, was totally completely miserable and unhappy with my life and lost the passion and joy for everything.

Looking desperately to escape this misery, the following year I made it my New Year’s Resolution to pick up some new activity. My choice was between doing Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and working out, and I chose working out.

I threw myself into working out, going to the gym four days a week and took supplements like Creatine and protein shakes to help me get bigger, and I wound up getting big pretty fast. The thing was, though I had the best intentions, the reason why I went to the gym in the first place was as an escape from the utter misery and frustration I had been feeling once out in the real world working a 9 to 5 job wondering “if this is it.”

Basically, the reason why it had been so easy for me to start working out and stick to it all these years was because it was all initially to suppress the unpleasant emotions I had been feeling regarding my life.

Interestingly, now that I’ve been going to body oriented therapy for the past year which involves core emotional release, I realize that I don’t like going to the gym anymore because I’ve “inadvertently” released a lot of the emotions that I was trying to suppress by going to the gym in the first place. With the hitherto suppressed emotions gone, the reason why I go the gym has gone as well, hence my utter lack of “desire” to go.

This firsthand experience really drove home to me that many of our habits, behaviours and actions, though seemingly positive, aren’t necessarily coming from a place of authenticity because rather than coming from the core of who we are, they’re based on us trying to avoid or suppress an uncomfortable emotion.

In my case, I completely failed at building a consistent habit of going to the gym regularly, but once the misery of my life started to set in and become unbearable, it was easy for me to pick up a steady gym routine because going to the gym was a way to escape my pain. Going to the gym made me not feel the pain, but it didn’t necessarily make me feel better because the pain was still there. I was just now had an outlet to avoid it.

In the same token, there are people who have great built great habits that enabled them to become financially successful, great athletes in various sports, very skilled artists etc, but what drives them is a fear of or an unwillingness to face a repressed emotion so that they’re ACTUALLY running away from something rather than to something. That in and of itself makes their structure one that was built on sand rather than on a rock. Both structures may “appear” the same in every way, shape and form, but under certain conditions, the true foundation of both structures will make themselves known such that one is left standing while the other begins to fall apart at the seams.

We’re best served when the lives we build is a proactive choice that emanate from the core of who we are rather than a reactive choice based on what we fear. The former is true strength, while the latter though at first glance may look like strength is actually weakness when examined under a lens. When we remove the blocks, who we are is given the space to shine naturally.

To truly live authentic, conscious lives, it’s necessary to take stock of the choices we’ve made in life from our significant others, to our careers, where we live, the dreams that we’re pursuing, what we wear, our hobbies, activities, etc, and ask ourselves truly how they came about. Do they spring from a place of a natural desire for them, or did they come about as an unconscious choice to fill a certain void you felt, suppress a particular feeling, compensate for some feeling, etc?

Once you begin to identify the hidden motives behind the different pieces of your life, you can now make a conscious choice as to what changes you want to make in your life so it can be more a reflection of who you authentically are at the core. It may involve eliminating that particular piece of your life altogether or finding a way to connect to it that comes more from YOU rather than what you’re running from.

As for me, it’s time to connect to a more authentic reason to start going to the gym again regularly.

This is The Viable Alternative.

Hope this helps,

Ike Love