The Tapping Solution for Weight Loss & Body Confidence (22 page)

Chapter 9

Finding the Pleasure in Exercise

W
hen we feel pain around body image, our relationship with exercise often falls into one of two extremes—either we avoid it or we use it as a form of self-punishment.

When we’re avoiding it, exercise can seem painful because it forces us to be present in the body we have, and being present, we feel and experience our own self-neglect.
How did I let myself get like this?
we wonder. Overwhelmed by distress, we wage an internal battle with ourselves, judging our body harshly and feeling a great deal of sadness and guilt. If we are dealing with physical pain as well, the idea of exercising can bring up so much anger and frustration that the brain fires off a stress response.

If we find ourselves at the other extreme, using exercise as a form of self-punishment, we may see movement as the price we have to pay for being fat. We feel the need to torture ourselves physically the same way we torture ourselves verbally for not being “good enough.” This makes exercising a habit we will never sustain because it comes from a place of pain. Once the pain lessens or something else grabs our attention, we will go back to old habits.

Many women find themselves going back and forth between these two extremes, cycling between total neglect and extreme exercise fueled by pain and panic. At both extremes, if we hate the body we have and don’t show it any love and compassion, we turn exercise into something we can never enjoy. And this negative relationship with movement can throw a wrench in our weight loss and body confidence progress. Luckily, tapping can help us create a new relationship with exercise. This is just what happened for me. No one has been as surprised as I am by how much I love the way exercise makes me feel. That’s something I honestly never thought I’d be able to say!

Like me, so many of my clients have found that using tapping to create a new relationship with exercise is really a process of rediscovering what we all knew as children—that moving our body is an endless source of pleasure and enjoyment. Whatever your relationship with exercise has been up to now, if you go through this process and do the tapping, it will transform you in ways that get you up and moving for the sheer joy of it.

Early Experiences with Exercise

“Ortner, go run three laps and when you get back, pay attention.” By the end of the first lap, I was out of breath and cursing my gym teacher in my mind. With her and my soccer coach, it was the same: whenever I didn’t follow directions or wasn’t paying attention (which was often), I was forced to run laps. It wasn’t a traumatic experience, but it did create a belief in me that running was a form of punishment.

Many of my clients also formed negative associations with exercise during their early school years when they felt out of place or that they couldn’t keep up. Molly was one of those clients. Her memory of being laughed at by other girls after being hit in the head with a volleyball created a fear of exercise that stayed with her. Because of that early experience, she had a belief that exercising meant embarrassing herself. Not surprisingly, she avoided exercise.

Another client, Sharon, remembered coming in last place when she was forced to run in gym class. By the time she crossed the finish line, she was exhausted, in pain, and embarrassed as all her classmates stood there staring at her. From that day forward, she had believed that exercising was something she just wasn’t good at.

Though years have passed and gym class may be a distant memory, those seemingly small events in the past can create a negative foundation for our beliefs around physical activity. If we don’t address the stress the memory causes, we will continue to find reasons to avoid exercise. If just the thought of exercising causes the amygdala to fire off the fight-or-flight stress response, we’ll do everything in our power to avoid exercise because it doesn’t feel safe.

What is your first memory of exercise? Did some of your early memories around physical activity leave you feeling left out, embarrassed, or punished? If you discover a stressful event or discouraging memory around exercise, refer back to
Chapter 5
and tap on that event until you’re able to clear the stress and emotions it created.

Exploring Beliefs Around Exercise

Whether or not they come from events in the past, often our greatest resistance to exercise lies in our beliefs. In some cases, our most limiting beliefs around exercise relate to our identity (who we are); in others, they focus on what we think is possible (what we can do). To continue unpacking the layers of our relationship with exercise so it doesn’t stop us in our tracks, let’s explore some of the most common negative beliefs we have in each of these areas.

WHEN EXERCISING JUST ISN’T WHO YOU ARE

“I feel like I’m never going to lose weight because I’m not one of ‘those people,’” Lucy shared one day while taking my online class. After trying to exercise at home with a workout video, she had ended up in a puddle of tears, so sure she could never be like the woman in the video. “Every time I try to exercise, I think about the athletes in school and how I could never fit in,” she said.

Because exercise had been a source of emotional pain for her, Lucy had created a belief that exercise wasn’t part of who she was; that she would never be “one of those people” who exercises. After Lucy and I did some tapping on her feelings of not fitting in with the athletes at school, I asked her to imagine working out—to really put herself there in her mind—and then notice what she was thinking.

“I thought of this woman I know,” she said. “She’s someone I really admire. She decided to participate in a walk-a-thon to bring awareness to a charity she was passionate about supporting. So she started to walk. She was seventy-two or seventy-three, and she built herself to the point where she could walk about thirty miles. That summer she participated in the walk-a-thon. It was a hundred degrees that day. She had never done anything like that before and she did it.”

Why was this simple thought such a major breakthrough for Lucy? The thoughts we think when we exercise determine whether it’s a pleasurable experience or not. Lucy went from avoiding exercise because it reminded her of not fitting in to associating exercise with someone inspirational she wanted to emulate. With this positive association in her mind, Lucy could begin to feel excited about exercising.

Is there someone in your life with a healthy and empowering relationship to exercise? It doesn’t need to be someone you know personally. Just identifying with them or being inspired by their achievements can help you rebuild an empowering relationship with exercise.

When exercise seems outside of our identity, when we believe it’s something
other
people do, we often adopt additional beliefs to support that one.

I’m just not good at it.
Since exercise is often linked to sports in school, we sometimes think of it as a competition that we’re not “good enough” to participate in. As we have seen, beliefs often shape experience. When we believe something like
I’m just not good at exercise
, that belief becomes a fixed reality, something we don’t think we have the power to change.

When we get rid of that belief, we see that there is no good or bad, no winner or loser in exercise. Exercise is part of a sacred relationship we all have with our own bodies. Movement is a way to express our gratitude for being alive. We don’t need to be perfect when we exercise, and we don’t need to be fast or strong. We just need to support our health by moving our bodies on a regular basis.

My godmother is a great example of this. At 56 she’s an avid runner, and she’s in incredible shape. She runs in the early morning and loves how it feels to be outside as the sun comes up. She has no idea how far or how fast she runs. For her, running is a way to de-stress and feel powerful in her body.

Once I did tapping to clear my old beliefs that running was punishment and that running was something I could never do (every lap I’d ever run had
felt
like torture), one November I began to go for runs along the Hudson River. Inspired by my godmother’s approach, I didn’t time myself or have a distance in mind. I didn’t try to run fast, and sometimes I walked. I just began moving with the intention of enjoying myself. What I discovered in the process was a whole new world, a new way of relating to my body. I discovered that I love how refreshing cold air feels on my skin, how inspired I feel being near the water, and how being closer to nature makes everything in my life seem more beautiful. Because I was able to clear the judgmental voice in my head, running took on a whole new meaning in my life. It has since become one of my favorite activities. I don’t need to judge whether I’m good or bad at it; I just enjoy the time I spend being outside and feeling inspired.

I don’t like exercise.
When someone tells me they don’t like exercise, I tell them that their body loves to exercise. What doesn’t like exercise is a mind that judges and punishes itself during the process.

The fact is that the body needs movement to thrive. Research has shown that living a sedentary life is dangerous to our health and well-being. When we don’t move, we have more aches and pains and increase our chances of experiencing illness and disease.

Although it’s good to know the physical reasons for movement, we still won’t do it if it causes us emotional pain. That’s why it’s so important to use tapping to create a new relationship with movement. Until we’re able to create a positive emotional foundation for exercise, we simply won’t.

What’s the real reason you “don’t like” movement? Does it cause you to feel anxiety, fear, or some other negative emotion? If you’re unsure, start tapping on it. Beginning with the karate chop point, you might just say, “Even though I don’t like exercise, I love and accept myself.” Repeat that three times, and then keep tapping through all the points and see what you discover. And trust me: everyone can find something they enjoy doing. It may not be your standard running or jogging—these are definitely not for everyone. But there are myriad other options such as yoga, dance, walking, hiking; you just have to find the one that’s right for you.

I’m too embarrassed to work out or move my body.
It had been three years since Autumn had done any exercise. “I used to love yoga, and my friend has been encouraging me to go to a class with her, but I keep needing to reschedule. I just don’t have time.” She believed that her schedule wasn’t allowing her to go to yoga class but I knew there had to be another reason.

“I want you to imagine walking into that yoga class. What doesn’t feel safe or comfortable about that image?” I asked.

“I’m scared of so many things,” she replied. At over 225 pounds Autumn felt too ashamed of her body to exercise. “I’m scared I’ll start sweating heavily, that I’ll be breathing heavily, that I won’t be able to do a pose and people will be looking at me and judging me,” she explained.

When I asked about past events that may have created this belief, she immediately said there were none; these thoughts were only in her head. Next I asked what she thought about when she exercised. “Do you judge yourself in your own mind?” I asked. She didn’t hesitate before saying yes.

So often, the judgment we fear from others is actually judgment we are putting on ourselves. As we saw in
Chapter 6
, we often have beliefs about ourselves that are incredibly cruel and can cause us to judge ourselves harshly. As Autumn and I tapped on her fears around exercise, saying each one out loud while stimulating the tapping points, she began to relax. When we ended with a deep breath, I asked her again to imagine herself at yoga class. “I feel like everyone will be cheering me on,” she said. “If I can go to yoga, anyone can. I’m actually an inspiration.”

What I love about tapping is that when we clear our fear, the mind naturally finds an empowering belief or idea to replace it with. That’s what happened to Autumn.

When Autumn’s fear of other people’s judgments was gone, her anxiety went from an intensity level of 7 down to 2. I then asked her what feelings remained. “It’s more nerves around trying something new, but I’m willing to go for it. I actually can’t wait.” Right after our session she reached out to her friend and soon after, for the first time in three years, Autumn walked into a yoga class.

During our coaching session the following week, I asked Autumn about her yoga experience. The class had turned out to be hot yoga, so the room was intentionally set at around 100°F. The second Autumn walked in, she began to sweat, and not long after class started she realized that she couldn’t do all the moves. What’s fascinating is that even though all of her old fears had come true, she’d had a great time and felt proud of herself for going. Because she had cleared her self-judgment, she could see that everyone in the room was just doing their best and no one was judging her.