Mandate #3: Hard. Painful. Enjoyable. All at once.

Three Steps for Rediscovering Joy in Movement

When I’d step into the frigid prairie winter carrying my bundled-up daughter, I’d grimace and inwardly (okay, sometimes outwardly) groan at the injustice of living in a place where the air hurts your face.

But when I would look at her to make sure I wasn’t irresponsibly subjecting her to frostbite, she’d be grinning into the bitter wind, sometimes even laughing at the strange, exciting sensations on her fresh face.

Same stimulus, two very different responses.

Let’s not sugarcoat it: hard or painful exercise can feel…hard and painful. So how can movement be inherently enjoyable?

What if the burn could feel good. Yes, discomfort signals that the body is straining its limits – muscle fibers tearing, systems pushed. But it’s also the signal that the body is adapting, leveling up, growing stronger and fitter. 

It’s proof that it’s still needed in the world, not yet ready to fade or diminish. That burning in your chest is evidence of life and vitality. 

The signal you focus on in that moment determines whether you experience suffering or invigoration. 

Author Scott Carney writes about The Wedge: the gap between stimulus and response where we can decide what something means.

When you feel discomfort, you can interpret it as suffering, or as your body adapting and rising to the occasion. 

Whether the cold wind feels relentlessly dreadful or like an exhilarating cue of adventure.

If choosing the latter doesn’t come naturally anymore, with practice, the gap between stimulus and response can widen. In this wider gap, we can retrain our mind to interpret the signals as life-affirming. Even enjoyable.

This is why some therapists prescribe exercise for patients with anxiety or panic attacks: through exposure to exercise they learn to reinterpret the pounding heart and shortness of breath as signs of health, not danger.

Here’s what to practice: Attention, Appreciation, & Decision.

First, take a moment to pay attention to the sensations you’re experiencing, second, appreciate the miraculous effects they’re creating in you, and third, decide to focus on the transformation at work.

Most of us move on autopilot. We lift, bend, and walk without feeling the body doing it. But when you slow down and notice how your breath responds, how your muscles engage, and how your heart keeps pace, everything changes.

Remind yourself of the sheer genius of your body at work: hundreds of bones, dozens of joints, miles of nerves and blood vessels all working together so you can simply stand or take a step. A system so complex even scientists don’t fully understand it.

The human body is astonishing. The more you pay attention, the more that awe grows.

Then add gratitude. Appreciate how much you’d lose if one small part stopped working…a tendon, a joint, a fingernail. We rarely think about them until they fail, and then we’d trade almost anything to have them back.

Even pain has its place and is something to appreciate. The rare genetic disorder where a person cannot feel pain, is incredibly dangerous. Pain is a critical signal for survival and safety.

So here’s your homework:

1. Pay Attention. Next time you move, stop just getting through it. Start noticing.
2. Appreciate what your body is pulling off in real time. Practice gratitude.
3. Decide to focus on the upside of those uncomfortable sensations. Stay in that space.

You might even find yourself smiling through your burpees. (And if not, fake it till you make it.)

With you in it,
Amanda

“Between what happens to us and our response to it is our power to choose that response.”

– Paraphrase of Victor Frankl from The Doctor and the Soul (1955)