Dooley Noted: 6/17/2015
To change the body, the mind must also change.
And if your mind changes, your body follows suit.
I woke this morning, well into my 36th year.
I leaped out of bed.
I had a restful sleep and a massive day planned.
As I put in my clothes, I observed the body I was in.
It’s changing. And I’m getting older, just as you are.
I thought about how different my body was from the year before.
The small curves here, the changed tone there.
It would largely be imperceptible to someone not living in it.
And that’s the key.
People in my life don’t sit in bed, worrying about how my body has changed.
I don’t even do that about myself!
I love that I’m aging.
The pressure we place on ourselves not to age makes no sense.
I remember my 20s. They were tough.
The woman I knew myself to be in my 20s is far away, but close enough for me to remember how tortured she was.
And she was listening to the absolute bull that people fall apart as they get older.
It just isn’t true.
You can evolve.
Every year I get stronger and feel less discomfort – not only in a pain sense.
I feel comfortable in my own skin.
Every year, I achieve a new major goal in my own fitness and health.
Every year I learn more about what my body needs to thrive.
And every year, I move farther away from the tortured young lady who counted every calorie and exercised every free moment granted to her.
As I grip a bar and pull myself to it, I know no better feeling.
As I do a pain-free Turkish get up, I feel limber as a toddler.
As I press weight overhead and squat pain-free, I feel not young – but achieved.
I will not subscribe to the notion that we fall apart as we age.
It’s what lazy, unfocused people perpetuate.
You can listen to the peanut gallery, spouting how they are falling apart as they age.
Or, you can make the effort to build yourself up, no matter what age you’ve reached.
As always, it’s your call.
– Dr. Kathy Dooley
