I’m at the gym – TV screens in front of me all showing different things, music playing from the speakers and I’m having to focus a bit more on staying present with my walking. And I’m wondering why there are so many distractions at the gym? Is it deliberate, and if so, why?
I imagine that some would say that it helps them having something to focus on and that it makes the workout easier – that is, having music playing and a TV show to watch. But in what state does that leave our precious body? If the body would have a say, I reckon it would probably also be wanting to join the show. Not the show on the television in this case, but wanting to be present in and with the workout.
My experience is that if we are focusing too much on something else, like a TV show or the music from the speakers, then the focus on the body is left out of the equation, when the whole purpose of exercising is to get healthy, alert and present in the body, is it not?
It’s a bit like driving a car – we need to be present with the driving otherwise we will have a car crash, even though many these days do focus on other things, such as looking at their phone, or messaging or whatever we might be up to in these modern vehicles of ours. My point is that preferably we would be focusing on the driving and, if we relate this to exercising and working out, my question would be how present are we when we work out?
Are we deliberately checking out while we are ‘driving’ our body and where does that leave it? When we drive a car and look away for a split second, we can easily drive off the road or have a front on collision. For some reason we seem to be blessed from that happening too much considering how many of us are doing other things while driving, but we are still bound to keep a certain amount of focus, otherwise we will eventually end up having an accident.
But how about the body and not being present while exercising? Does that not have an effect on the body? Surely it has to. But maybe it takes longer for the body to manifest an ‘accident’.
When I say ‘accident’, I’m referring to the body giving us clear signals that something is not quite right and this can be experienced as an injury or some other physical ailment. In other words, the body says no more of that please. But do we correlate the two? Do we consider that not being present in and with our body can lead to the body having a breakdown?
One thing we do need to consider here is what actually happens when we are not present with our bodies. What happens is that we are not fully attentive to what our body is communicating to us, and in that state, it’s easy to push beyond how the body would otherwise perform the exercise. If we have music pumping, we can easily push ourselves more than we would without the music, as most of us can attest to, but is that really healthy? I would claim that it’s not. Eventually our body will have to show us whether what we are doing with it is healthy or not and if we find ourselves having accidents, injuries and feel overly tired, then we know that something is not quite right.
Something I’ve discovered over the years is that the more present and in tune with my body I get, the more aware I become of how much more present and in tune with my body I can actually be, like there’s no real end, just a continual deepening.
With that in mind, we could easily suspect that many of us do not have a very strong connection with our bodies and all the so called entertainment, in the forms of music and TV screens in the gym, make it even harder to establish one. But why so, if being present is important?
I would say, and I’m sticking my neck out here, that if we were to get more connected with our bodies, we would feel a lot more of what is truly going on, both in our bodies, but also in our lives and that is often too terrifying so we keep on doing the same old same old, until of course our body has to take itself “off the road to get a repair.”
But it doesn’t have to be that way. I’m not going to give a lecture from this experience I had this morning, but I will say this; it’s well worth looking after ourselves and our bodies and pushing ourselves, as we do right now, with a lot of help from the entertainment squad at the gym, is not helping our bodies to get truly healthy – quite the opposite. Hard facts but it needs to be said.
Fact is that our body is super tender and is not made to be roughed up and pushed beyond boundaries, even though we think we have to ‘push through’ to make it perform. It will perform if we give it the proper space to do so, but that might look a bit different from the image we currently hold of how the workout is to look like.
Let’s face it, our bodies are the temples in which we live and we have to look after them as best as we can… only not from an image of how we think they should look, but from what the body says is right and true for it. But it’s quite hard to listen when we have a myriad of distractions all around us and this is not just at the gym, but everywhere. So why is it like this? That is for us all to contemplate – meanwhile I will stick to being as present as I can with myself because I know it feels way better in my body and it also makes me not want to crave too many sweet things, because I get energised just by being present with the way that I move around in my body, which is actually a science in itself.
By Matts Josefsson, Student of Behavioural Science, Stockholm, Sweden
Further Reading:
That’s entertainment? Wired for distraction
Shock! I Achieved a High Level of Fitness with Gentle Exercise
Discovering the Power of My Body Through Gentle Exercise
548 Comments
I like what you say about the science of the way we move, Matt. There is so much in each movement indeed to understand and unfold throughout our bodies, that to have access to it, we need deeply feel it.
Being with our body is the key for true harmony and power in life in my opinion. No wonder, that in a gym, where the actual purpose and focus is on the body, to train your body, being with your body is full of distraction overload. Question is why actual humanity does not long for a true connection and as a result power?! Why does the majority enjoy this overload and total numbness. Totally forgotten knowing how it is being at ease and in presence with the body…
It is interesting how we think playing music or using another tool like TV makes our workout easier, yet on deeper reflection I have found by distracting myself and disconnecting from my body it actually allows me to push my body harder out of its natural rhythm and beyond it’s natural limit. I then convince myself that the aching muscles or exhaustion I am feeling is actually good for me.
Isn’t that the normal, the no pain no gain type of thinking. But I guess that could also be seen as a way to feel your body, to feel when it’s achy. But as you say when we feel a bit deeper we might see that pushing the body is just numbing ourselves or the messages the body would otherwise give us if we were to listen.
So true, why would we even want to check out of our bodies? Because it does not feel comfortable? If it does not feel comfortable could our response not rather be more loving with ourselves so we want to be present with our bodies? It would make our life much more enjoyable.
I have started going to the gym. What strikes me is the way I exercise is very different to everyone else and everyone in the gym can feel that. I am learning too not to get distracted and hold the connection to my body and therefore to everyone in the gym no matter the way in which they exercise is different to me.
It is so pertinent to read this today as I consider how I am with my body and how easily I want to ignore it or dismiss it and just get on with life and often in that we leave our bodies behind. As I explore a new relationship with my body I am becoming more aware of how much I ignore it and how when I am there. With it I feel so much more solid in me and in life.
I go to the gym a lot and the TV’s and entertainment are on 24/7. I go to the gym to exercise and strengthen my body and in that I need to listen closely to how all that feels and the gym doesn’t support me to do that at all. I make my own space in the gym to be able to exercise in a way that I feel. You could say this is the same everywhere because when I go shopping it’s no less on the entertainment scale. You have no need to go to the movies or watch TV at home these days because there’s enough going on at these two places to give you your fix. How can we truly be with what we need to be when there is some many things happening around us? You would need a steady dedication to live a certain or true quality that would then allow you to ‘be’ with yourself while you are with everything. This ‘every day livingness’ is The Way of The Livingness.
It’s important our bodies are strong and we are fit for what we need to do, but it’s like gyms are used to push the human body to extremes, for us to change how we look, or escape what we feel and clear the heavy excess of a day, rather than to ensure our bodies are fit, supple and ready for service.
Gym certainly has become about distractions and entertainment to take us away from feeling our bodies. It is interesting that when my mum was growing up, her gym was playing outside after school or riding her bike with friends on the weekend. Now we’ve almost made it a chore to workout and then we reward ourselves afterwards. I used to go to gym and then justify eating bad food or drinking When really I had made exercise about achieving a goal rather than part of my everyday. I still go to the gym, but I don’t look forward treating myself in a bad way afterwards, and I am learning more and more to be with my body during my workouts and listen to that rather than the hard core music.
It is a unending vicious cycle if we exercise without presence and allow an energy that is not us to enter, then we crave to eat sweet things after the work out, and so we are tied to coming back to the gym but with the same distraction until we choose to change our movements.
What energy that is running in our body is the key to everything that happens thereafter. Serge Benhayon presents something that should be shouted from the roof tops but unfortunately we tend to listen only when everything else has been shown to fail. I hope this is not the case but if we just applied the simple fact of what Serge presents we will be heading in the right direction anyways…
As you say, ‘it’s well worth looking after ourselves and our bodies’, for as we age, our lack of self care is magnified exponentially and we get to feel all the ways we have not tenderly cared for ourselves.
The mere fact we call exercise a workout rather than movement that supports us in every day life shows how we have compartmentalised all aspects of our lives to a point where we have to allocate a time just to look after our bodies. Rather than living life where we are aware of all our movements as a whole and what is need to support the body.
Basically it’s a trap doing the working out and then leave the rest of the 24 hour to not focusing on what we do with our bodies. This take exercise and working out to a whole new level. Basically it never stops. So true exercise is to always be aware of what is going on with and in our bodies. And doing stuff that is not good for the body is then an example of a bad exercise.
The intention to stay present in our exercises means the TV or music do not become the focus or distraction…our bodies and our own wellbeing take their places instead.
Its so true what you say Matts about distractions being all around us all of the time, constantly there to pull us away from staying connected to what we are feeling. Even in the supermarkets and shopping malls, as well as music, specific fragrances are pumped into the air to entice us to buy freshly baked bread or a cup of frothy coffee, and so often it has the deisred affect even when it may have been the last thing on our mind.
And it makes sense with what Adele Leung wrote a bit further down with what energies are we allowing into our bodies that then produces what we call thoughts…
Yes gyms definitely foster ‘working out’ to be in complete distraction, as you say, TVs everywhere, loud music, there isn’t a lot to take you mind away from your body. I have had to learn to really slow down at the gym. To not take myself out by the music and really focus on my body. To really feel where it is at each movement. This is definitely a work in progress.
The music is very disturbing for me in a gym, because it wants to put you in a speed you are actually naturally not. For some people doing sports is actually a chore, so it seems to me they do everything to not feel that and how they are actually moving. Totally understandable, as it looks to me they move is so hard which is draining the body, I feel it would be supportive to switch of that music…
The ‘gym culture’ is not confined only to the gym – everyday there are people out on the local roads, running in a way that is so hard, pushing themselves to the point where they can hardly breathe and the exhaustion showing in their faces and dragging bodies is clear to see. This is being checked out – complete unawareness as to the communications signals from the body.
What I have noticed is that gym culture is ‘check out’ culture, people arrive get lost in the TV and the exercise and they re not even there anymore- absent bodies.
I once watched someone using his phone in every little break of a workout set with weights. He felt like a puppet and on a wire. Because you are actually very reduced of being with your body in a gym ( because it is the actual purpose) all the behaviours are coming very obvious to the surface.
Yes I hear you!!! I have recently joined a gym, which I love …. apart from the constant dance music that is on which I find exactly as you say makes it that little bit harder to just be with me and be present with my body and enjoy the movement of exercise. So much so that I was wondering how I could listen to music that I do not find imposing while at the gym instead of the music playing. The other day when I went there the music was a lot quieter and it felt sooo much better so yes I agree ‘if we are focusing too much on something else, like a TV show or the music from the speakers, then the focus on the body is left out of the equation, when the whole purpose of exercising is to get healthy, alert and present in the body’. It would be beautifull to be and feel supported in this way in gyms etc instead of being imposed upon in how people ‘think’ it should be with their music/tv screens etc.
The similarity between driving a car and steering our body through life is a wise one. We have a vessel our body, we choose what we use it for, how we treat it, be it exercise or some other movement, it is our choice and if we do not pay attention to the road we are choosing then yes, we can end up in crisis, pain and have bumps along the way.
‘ our bodies are the temples in which we live’ yes Matts , a vehicle of expression. How we treat our body matters down to the smallest detail – precious and tender we are.
It is interesting to ponder why gyms have so many distractions when we actually go there to exercise our bodies. Why is the mind so stimulated and distracted to look elsewhere, hear else where. Our bodies need listening to, it is so easy to get exhausted, hurt ourselves, and become demotivated when we are not with our bodies when we exercise. One idea perhaps is that we do not want to be aware, it is a chore, or we want to be motivated by a tune etc…all of which do not mean long term health, I have done both of them and they do not work…being body aware and connected does, then I go back to the gym, then I do not over work an area, then I feel ready for what is next and am not exhausted.
When our movements are a true reflection of our soul , there is not a need to push and strive when we exercise to achieve the perfect body as naturally there is an acceptance of our essence and strength within.
In former times I exercised sometimes in the gym. I only had a really supporting time when I was in a gym of a medical center. There was played no music, the exercising tools were only applied for certain muscles and I had to be aware that I would use the right muscle when I did the training. I went there because I had pain in one of my legs.
After 10 times of efficient training my leg was strong again and the pain did not come back. Most gyms which I had experienced before did not have this focus and accuracy I experienced there.
When I exercise now, I do with focus and commitment to my muscles and bones, being aware of my whole body as well.
There is plenty of anecdotal and controlled research evidence to show that when we are distracted, we are way less aware of our body. You would think that the gym would be one place we would go to focus on our body., especially when the potential for injury through lack of presence is so possible.
When i-pods came out I was in heaven, (obviously not the real heaven) I used to listen to music the whole day at work, a whole new world of not being present with my body or life and how those days used to fly. Just another thing to thank Serge Benhayon as that I haven’t done this for years now as I would probably be losing myself to Alzheimer’s by now.
It’s a good point that it’s hard to listen to the body when there are distractions all around us. This is the case everywhere we go. It’s like the world is deliberately set up to keep us from ourselves. How amazing would it be to live in a world that is deliberately set up to support us to stay connected to our bodies, so we can feel the absolute truth of what is going on.
Having all of this ‘noise’ around us means that we aren’t listening and the body cannot be heard. I can see how we have so many injuries and accidents from over doing it with sport and exercise.
The art of being present is so simple, so why are we not taught this art and why are we, even if we know it, not being present. A pattern of deliberately not wanting to connect to the love we are. Crazy but true.
When I am not present with my body I easily have an accident or make mistakes. Usually when I am tired or low in energy I find it even more difficult to stay present in body. So, choosing to look after my body by choosing self-care and self-nurture is the best way to support my connection with my body and with others.
When we want to exercise and not be present it would seem to expose more about how we want the body to fit a perfect image or the like instead of truly and honestly exercising to simply support it through daily life. After all the body would never want to check out from itself so what is the true intent for exercising in the first place?
Is it possible that if we really stayed in connection to our bodies when working out, we would push it less hard? We would certainly feel the pain more!
This is exactly what it is like, we need to be with and honour how our body feels, when we are at the gym or anywhere else… “It’s a bit like driving a car – we need to be present with the driving otherwise we will have a car crash,”. Going to a gym often does not support this conscious presence, but it is essential to truly exercising well and with care and true purpose.
Many venues where expertise is promoted come loaded with the ideas of how to exercise to better the body to look a certain way or to bring levels of hardness that are far from our natural state of being. The choices to make our body a figurine or a body of working and living vitality is a choice that is often clouded by our willingness to fit in with others rather than exercise in ways that we know support the body.
I went to the gym last week, first time in over twenty years. Normally at that particular time of the day I would feel an urgency to eat something usually sweet but taking myself off to the gym supported me to connect to my body and therefore I ate foods that were not heavy on my body during the evening. Giving myself the space to connect and feel my body is certainly helping me to reduce the overeating and therefore be much more loving with my body.
It always amazes me how people can exercise and do something else at the same time. They can run on the treadmill and watch a video. They can jog next to a friend and have a chat. They can sit on the cycle in the gym and answer emails. When I exercise I can literally do nothing else. If I am asking my body to do something active I need to be with it while it’s doing it. Anything else is a distraction and can lead to me feeling dizzy or out of sorts and can even cause accidents. Some say it is a skill to multitask, but when it comes to exercise it really is worth focusing on just one thing.
I recently did a little experiment at the gym whereby I closed my eyes while I was lifting weights. What I noticed was that I was way more present with my body and able to feel how much my muscles where being worked when my eyes where closed. But when I lifted weights with my eyes opened with all the visual stimulation at the gym mentioned in this blog it was much easier to push my body past the point it wanted and was straining it more as a result.
The world is perfectly set up for us not to be present in our bodies, whether you are at the gym, the shops or simply waiting on hold on the telephone the hooks to distract you are everywhere, it takes commitment to be present but once this is lived consistently we have access to a wisdom beyond our wildest dreams for the benefit of all.
It is an interesting one using music to motivate us to work harder than the body needs to do, or watch television to distract us from what we are doing. All disconnecting us from what the body is communicating to us.
The gym is but a snapshot that is symbolic of our lives – distractions and stimulation from all directions, fortifying protection or escape in our bodies, an emphasis on form and creation rather than true substance and love and great self-abuse on every level.
To approach the gym as a means to support ourselves and to build a body that can express more of the light of the soul, and our truth is another way altogether, and one that is deeply called for and requires us to connect to ourselves and listen astutely to our body’s wisdom and feedback.
Returning to the gym this week after a break of a few months I was able to observe just how absorbed in the culture I had become previously. I realise that being there again is going to be a learning process because this time, rather than being wrapped up in what I was doing there I could not wait to leave the weights area.