Do you have a regular exercise routine, or are you resistant to exercise? Who is in charge of whether or not you exercise – your wounded self or your loving adult?

Part of the responsibility of the loving adult is to make sure that your inner child lives in a healthy body – that you eat well, get enough sleep, and get enough exercise.

Physical inactivity, such as sitting too much, is actually on par with smoking and obesity regarding deaths from type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and breast and colon cancer, causing 1 in 10 deaths worldwide.

If You Don't Exercise, Why Don't You?

Following are some of the reasons my clients have given me for not exercising:

• It's boring.
• I don't have the time.
• After working all day, I'm too tired.
• If I get up early enough to exercise, I don't get enough sleep.
• I don't believe it's that important.

If your health is not important to you, that's a sure sign there is no loving adult taking responsibility for your physical wellbeing.

Some of you know that I was a sickly child and I hated being sick. In my early 20s, I decided that I wanted to be a very healthy adult and set about learning how to make this happen. Over the years I've come to understand that excellent health is three-pronged, and each prong is equally important:

1. State of mind – Inner Bonding
2. Nutrition
3. Exercise

Like good nutrition and the practice of Inner Bonding, exercise needs to be pleasurable and consistent in order for you to keep it up. It can't be a boring, tedious chore.

The Challenge

Here is where the challenge comes on – discovering what physical activity you love to do so much that it becomes very important to you to do it, and you therefore always find the time.

For example, I love my morning walk up and down hills in nature. I do my formal Inner Bonding process out loud while I walk, which sets the tone for the day. It is very rare for me to miss my half-hour walk because it's not only something I want to do, it’s also something my dog loves to do! I've been doing it for many years. I also love throwing pots on the pottery wheel, which I’ve done since I was 20 years old. It's great exercise for my arms and core. Working in my garden is also excellent exercise. 

Years ago I worked out at a gym. I liked it but I didn't love it. I tried it again some years ago and found that it just didn't do it for me. In fact, it made my body hurt – a sure sign that it wasn't right for me. I've also tried yoga on and off, which I think is a great form of exercise, but again, it doesn't work well for my body.

So, the challenge is to find what you love to do and what works well with your body. You will build it into your life only if you love it. Tune into your inner child – what would he or she love to do? Is there a sport you love? Do you love to dance? Ride a bike? Run? Work out at the gym? Yoga? Martial arts? Swimming? If you don't know, try different things until you find what you love, and then, if your health is important to you, build it into your life.

Join Dr. Margaret Paul for her 30-Day at-home Course: "Love Yourself: An Inner Bonding Experience to Heal Anxiety, Depression, Shame, Addictions and Relationships."

Image by Yerson Retamal from Pixabay