My physical therapist was gone last week, so I anticipated there would be a lot to tell her about how my body was feeling and how the workouts were going. She is helping me learn about my body and it feels so good that she listens and knows how to instruct me to work out in ways I can hear and actually do.
At her office, she greeted me and we went to her small windowless cubbyhole of an office. When she asked me how the previous week had been, I stammered, suddenly feeling tongue tied. Luckily, I had remembered to bring along my notebook, where I religiously record my half hour workouts; every day except Sundays, which is a day I look forward to for the Biblically advised day of rest. I opened the notebook and started recounting the past two weeks. She seemed impressed and I must admit to finding more value in my notes than I had expected. After putting a positive spin on my progress, she asked which exercises I wanted to work on.
I picked squats. Curiously, as soon as I began squatting down low, then standing up tall, just as she had instructed, I started to feel tearful. What was going on? I kept going. Maybe the feelings would lessen if I just kept at it?
Done with that exercise, I kept trying to ignore my feelings and chose forward raises as my next exercise. This meant she had to go find weights. While she was gone, I spied a Kleenex box and snatched a couple in quick succession, blowing my nose, dabbing my eyes and trying not to make a sound.
As I lifted the weights she delivered, I felt an almost overwhelming desire to cry. She asked me if I was okay, as it was pretty evident that something big was going on. I assured her that I wasn’t in pain. I said everything was good and I was not sure why I was so emotional.
Meanwhile, the rain had stopped so my drive was easy – so easy I stopped at the store and bought my first ever sheep yogurt.
Back at home, I thought about what had happened while I was exercising. It dawned on me that maybe old messages about not being athletic were behind those big feelings bubbling up. But it was when I stumbled on the phrase “grief of relief” that I felt confident I had discovered the main reason behind my tearing up.
Getting help exercising that feels supportive is such a relief but I’m also grieving all the years I agreed with those early messages that I couldn’t do anything good enough when it came to exercising.
Now I feel seen and held in a different way than I am used to when it comes to my physical body. I can’t wait to see if knowing this consciously will translate into squatting without tears.
Have you ever experienced the ‘grief of relief’?
