When You Lose Momentum, Be Gentle With Yourself
I have fallen out of my daily qigong practice.
It makes me feel better when I do it. I know this. Yet somehow, instead of actually doing qigong, I’ve developed a new daily practice: beating myself up for not doing qigong.
Self-flagellation. Every day. I’m very disciplined about it.
And it occurred to me that this is pretty much the opposite of everything we try to say through Ploppals.
When a healthy habit falls away
Recently, I was reading an email from a qigong teacher I follow. He wrote about how practices naturally wax and wane throughout a long life. Rather than forcing ourselves back into them—or beating ourselves up when we stop—he suggested trusting that there will be a time when the desire and space to begin again return.
That really resonated with me.
Because I had been treating my lack of practice as a personal failing rather than considering that maybe this is simply a season in my life.
Then I saw something similar from Leah Hope, a young woman I follow on social media. She lost more than 230 pounds through walking and exercise, but I originally followed her because I loved her attitude. She wasn't exercising just to look better. She talked about moving her body because it made her feel better.
Recently, she shared that she'd gained about 35 pounds over the past year.
She'd been traveling. Her brother became very ill. She was helping care for him.
Life happened.
What stayed with me was how matter-of-factly she talked about it. There was no public flogging. No I can't believe I let this happen.
It was simply: This was the season I was in. Now my life has some space again, and I'm ready to get back to the gym.
I thought: I want to learn how to do that.
Losing momentum doesn't mean you've failed
Sometimes life knocks us off course.
Depression can make everything feel heavy. Someone we love may need us. We may be grieving, overwhelmed, exhausted, sick—or simply trying to get through a particularly difficult stretch of life.
And often, the things that help us feel better are the first things to disappear.
We stop walking. Exercising. Making art. Calling friends. Meditating. Cooking. Doing whatever it is that normally helps us feel more like ourselves.
Then we make it worse by judging ourselves for it.
Maybe we could skip that part.
Maybe instead of What is wrong with me? we could say:
This is where I am right now.
That doesn't mean this is where I'll always be.
You can begin again when you're ready
I'm realizing that I don't have to punish myself back into qigong.
Maybe the first step isn't getting back on the mat.
Maybe it's simply stopping the daily judgment about why I'm not there.
There will be a day when I have the space—or the desire—to begin again. And when that happens, I don't have to make up for the time I missed.
I can just start.
Which brings me back to our little Flower Ploppal and the ridiculous message that somehow feels particularly appropriate here:
“If poop can grow flowers, you can do anything.”
Sometimes you're in the flowers.
Sometimes you're in the poop.
Neither one lasts forever.
So if you've lost momentum somewhere in your life, maybe you don't need another voice telling you what you should be doing.
Maybe you just need a little reminder:
You've got this.
With love,
Heather
Founder, Ploppals
