How to talk to your body
How to talk to your body
On personal training and positive motivation
I’ve hired a personal trainer. It’s a luxury I can’t really afford, given I’m currently in the overdraft of my graduate account (and I graduated seven years ago… I know you didn’t come to this Substack for financial advice but please, don’t take money tips from me).
I don’t need a personal trainer. I am qualified to do it myself and no one needs to be an expert at the gym to do a good workout, anyway. But the gym has become more of a mental shampoo to me - I use it to scrub out the bad thoughts, watch the debris of negative self-talk wash out. Lather, rinse, repeat, day after day.
I think having a hobby you do for the sake of your brain feeling better is good. Only, my body has started to feel left out. It’s had a hard time recently, bless it, with recurring injuries and an operation. And even the things that are meant to be somatic practises, like my movement, aren’t really serving my body.
It’s meant I’ve not really felt at home in my physical self. The disconnect isn’t a war or an argument. Nothing that extreme. It’s more like a series of exasperated miscommunications, my body and my mind both huffing and throwing their palms upright into the air at the obviousness of what each needed but the other wasn’t providing.
My avoidant personality was fine with that, at first. Don’t talk to each other, don’t let me in on what you need, see if I care. As far as I was concerned, I had tried. I had done the rehab - entire workouts dedicated to simply lying on the floor and filling my ribs with breath and pulling my belly to my spine like I was doing up a too-small pair of jeans. If things still didn’t want to respond, I was too stubborn to keep asking.
My stubbornness is also why I’ve never felt great in PT sessions before Rachel. I’ve had trainers whose motivation styles are offensive - telling their struggling clients that the weights are tiny or that they just need to get on with the five more reps left.
I don’t think their goal is to intentionally shame people into working harder - I actually think the aim is reverse psychology, getting people to realise they’re stronger than they think or another cliche like that. Only I’m too petty for it to work. If you think I’m so lifting such silly, light weights then I just won’t lift them. My brain manages to create enough shame on its own, it will simply not accept yours too.
That’s why I asked Rachel to help me. She seems to have a sixth sense for my body (I’m sure it’s not just my body, actually, but anyone’s), looking closely at it moving and saying, you’re using your lower back, fold your ribs in, and I’ll do it and then the small ache in my lower back will creep away. Then, after I take the feedback on board, she’ll say things like, your body responds really fast, and, now that’s a connected body, which makes me feel the pride of a kid given their pen license after practising their handwriting.
Maybe what I’m getting at is that she tells me that I’m good. It feels like the wrong reason to hire a trainer: surely they are there to tell you what to improve on? But it also feels like the trajectory we take in all relationships, our desire shifting from the elusive, non-communicative people towards the nice ones, the ones who let it be known that they want us.
It’s the same journey I want to be on with my body. I want my avoidant relationship to turn into one of clear feedback and positive reinforcement. I think that might start with being my own Rachel: having the external foresight to see what its grievance is and congratulating myself when I respond properly. In the meantime, at least I have real Rachel, teaching me how to relate to - and treat - my body.
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