Enjoying my Gentle Exercise Programme

I have been exercising in a different way recently which has been life changing and very supportive for my body.

I have worked as a physical therapist for decades and ‘told’ lots of people what exercises to do. I developed many individual programs for people to recover from injury and return to their specific sport, and used to pride myself on their achievements.

When people asked me what I did for my exercise program, I would laugh and say “do as I say, not as I do.”

Slowly through my working life, I realised I needed to exercise: I could feel I was losing strength and tone as I was ageing. I’ve always been active during my day, and I used to think that was enough.

Not coincidently, a new gym opened very locally and had a special offer so I joined it. I enjoyed going at the start; I went swimming 3-5 times a week, attended some line dancing classes and an exercise class for over 50’s.

I also had a personal trainer who advised me which weights to use. As I went more regularly, I became more fit. I returned to the trainer a few times, until I thought that there must be a point where I am at my optimum and can stay there. I felt there would be a level where this constant increase of exercise would become harmful to my body, so I decided to plateau with the gym work and concentrate on swimming, which in truth I enjoyed much more.

But with the swimming, again I started to push myself. I managed 50 lengths over 1 week and then increased it to 60, then 80, which was a mile. Woo hoo!, I was swimming a mile a week.

Then I pushed to swimming 50 lengths a session and if I didn’t manage that, I felt I’d failed myself. By the time I’d reached 80 lengths a session, I could feel how I was swimming much less for pleasure; rather, I needed to complete the goal.

I would see people get into the pool and do a few lengths and exit quickly and think “how pointless was that?”

My membership lapsed as I had forgotten to renew it. Ok, I decided, it was time for a break. I stopped and did virtually no exercise at all to see how that felt… I was aware I could get away with this for a while.

I then had an episode of lower back pain. I was quite stressed at the time with work and emotional issues. I remember thinking, “for goodness sake, now this as well!”

I did not understand it as a stop moment – it felt like yet another thing I needed to sort out.

I had started attending some presentations with Serge Benhayon at Universal Medicine but had not yet seen how life changing this was going to be.

It took me a couple of years to start to honestly look at my life and see how the way I chose to live affected every area/aspect of my life. I tended to do all or nothing, and when I was in the ‘all’ I pushed myself hard with everything, and had done so for a very long time.

Over the following couple of years I learnt a different way of caring for myself. I now see the back pain was a great stop moment I was given to show me that I hadn’t been supporting my physical body and caring for myself.

I returned quite slowly to exercise, by walking and going occasionally to a local pool. My fitness level and muscle tone had plummeted in the gap of not exercising at all; my commitment to myself was also quite sporadic – I would exercise when I had the time, and if at the end of the day I had made no time, then it wouldn’t happen.

But as my level of self-care has improved, exercise has moved higher on the list of importance. And I am realising a very different way of exercising, by feeling what my body wants to do.

I started my new exercise program with a few core exercises and a little daily walk. It has taken time for me to feel the benefit of the exercises, but I have continued them, with more commitment to myself, and my health and with this my fitness, has improved.

I realised that this is my responsibility, to myself, to give my body more care and attention.

When I have been pushing myself, I was in disregard of the messages my body was giving me and at the time I wasn’t exercising at all, I was absolving myself of any responsibility of looking after my body at all.

The body is my vehicle of expression and I have been telling others to do exercises for years, but not lived my own words. This is a huge opportunity for me to now reflect to everyone I meet by example, at work or in my daily life.

I exercise gently now most days. It may be a walk in the countryside or my garden, an exercise class, a bounce on a trampoline, some gentle connective tissue stretches at the computer, some core exercises – or I can swim crawl (freestyle) for a few lengths in the local pool.

I now listen to my body and exercise it whatever way I feel to, with great joy and confirmation for the health of my body. It’s my connection to myself that guides the exercise I choose to do, and supports me and my body to be Fit for Life… and now I’m off to exercise!

I wish to extend grateful thanks to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for their teachings, which are a great support to my life.

By Gill Randall, beautiful woman, physiotherapist, Grad Dip Phys, Banbury, UK

Further Reading:
Serge Benhayon on fitness, physical exercise and the gentle breath
Exercise – it doesn’t need to be hard work
Exercise: Gentle and Flowing or Pounding and Pushing?