I’ll be honest with you, I suck at exercising. I do the minimum: I walk, I do some yoga, occasionally I still dance. I used to compete in Latin and ballroom dancing and was in the best shape of my life until I had an accident during one of the rehearsals and was forced to wave goodbye to my dancing career.
Since then it has been extremely difficult for me to exercise. Being unable to compete in dancing, along with having a chronic pain disorder, coupled with graduate school and research sure had its toll. I tried a number of things to get myself back to exercising but none would work.
I tried the typical self-blaming talk, that was enough to motivate me for a little while, but then it stopped working, as it usually does. Then I tried teaming up with others, which also only worked for a little while.
One of the biggest barriers I faced that prevented me from exercising (primarily, running), other than the lack of time, was due to the fact that I find the whole thing to be painfully monotonous and boring. As much as I enjoyed dancing in the past, I truly despise running.
I gave up on exercising altogether for a little while, until I started working on my current book, which uses comic book and other geek culture references in acceptance and commitment therapy. As I was working on my book, I found myself asking the questions, “What if Batman needed help?” “What if I became Batgirl” “What if I suddenly became the Doctor’s new companion?” “What if I needed to run away from the Death Eaters?” In order to be able to accomplish these missions, one needs to be in good shape. Somehow this connection with geek culture, something I really love and value, gave me just the right kind of spark and motivated me to start exercising.
I knew that I needed to spice things up and make the task of running a little more engaging, I got out my Batman capes from the San Diego Comic Con, along with masks, and some other gear, and started running. The results were amazing. People were cheering, taking pictures, and looking very excited. I then bought a Batman shirt and wear it every time I run or go to yoga.
What about you, who would you run for, who inspires you?