Low-pressure show-ups

This #thankyouthursday, I am grateful for low-pressure show-ups.

I am not really into New Year’s resolutions or even really annual intentions, aside from choosing a theme word.

But I do appreciate opportunities for new habits, even arbitrary opportunities like January 1.

So, without making much of a fuss about it, I’ve decided that I would like to show up for myself every day in 2022.

The specific way I am choosing to do this is by consistently participating in MommaStrong, a program that focuses on functional fitness and that is the most humane approach to exercise and wellness I have ever encountered.

Still, I’ve been a member for close to two years, and I’ve yet to “achieve” a daily routine. That’s okay, and I’ll keep trying—one of the MoSt mottos is “begin again.” But I know I would feel satisfied and proud of myself if I were able to do this one thing for myself, every day.

And that is why I am grateful for low-pressure show-ups.

Because the way MommaStrong is set up, there are many paths to success. My perfectionist mind likes to think the only thing that counts as a show-up is a full workout, which in MoSt land means doing the D15, a 15-minute exercise video that is posted daily.

But my perfectionist mind is wrong. Because there are other options that also count as showing up, including 5-minute videos called hacks, as well as 5-minute videos for stretching.

There is a part of my mind that says, “You think you can do 5 minutes of stretching and count that as exercise?! What a joke!”

And that is the part of my mind that keeps me from developing a daily exercise practice, because you know what, YES, 5 minutes of stretching totally counts—it surely is better than 0 minutes of nothing!

So, with my refreshed mindset, I’ve given myself full permission to embrace low-pressure show-ups. And sure, it’s only January 6, but I can still appreciate that for the last 5 days in a row, I have prioritized myself in some way.

I’m also thinking a lot about this quote I found, which may or may not be rightfully attributed to Horace Mann, but that resonates with me regardless: “Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it each day, and at last we cannot break it.”

For me, low-pressure show-ups are delicate threads, and I am grateful for them, because they are helping me weave a cable.

Love > fear,
Christina

p.s. The other day a friend asked me how my book was doing. My answer was, “Great, but it’d be doing even better if more people knew about it.” Which is true, but, it’s also true that I’m not very interested in book promotion. But I figured it was at least worth mentioning here: If you know anyone who might benefit from reading 49 Days to Real Love, please tell them it exists. Thank you!