Are you a good listener?

Relationships are a two way street.

They take work. They require listening. They take action.

There are ups and downs. Sometimes things just click and at other times you cant seem to get on the same page.

Guess what? It’s the same thing with your body.

Your body talks to you.

You feel the best you’ve ever felt. Other times, you feel pain even though you’ve been doing your exercises.

But like any relationship, we need to work towards building a solid foundation. Its called building resilience.

Building a relationship where the breaking point is higher and the bounce back rate is quicker.

For instance, have you ever been in a relationship where the littlest thing becomes a huge argument? Any tiny disagreement has the potential to cause yet another breakup?

Now compare that with a healthy one where you don’t question the relationship after an argument. Even when you might be frustrated with the other person, you still love and respect each other and know things will get better in short time.

This is the relationship we want with our bodies. Confident, able, and unafraid even when things are not at its best.

Working as a physical therapist, I often see the opposite. People walking on eggshells around their bodies, afraid to aggravate it or piss it off because once its pissed, its PISSED.

So how do people usually respond to this?

Usually be being avoidant. Stopping completely anything that could cause pain.

This isn’t any better because this is the same thing as two people living in the same house, not talking to each other.

So what can you do?

Start by listening to your body. If running 5 miles caused you severe pain, back that off until you find a distance or pace that doesn’t.

If squatting with weights on your back caused pain. Then find a weight that doesn’t aggravate it, which may even be just body weight.

This is called Graded Exposure.

Slowly exposing your body to small challenges (we all love a little challenge, don’t we?) Then we build on this by slowly increasing the challenge little by little

Its a concept that goes a long way, and its what physical therapy, rehab, and training is founded on

Here is to improving your relationship with your body. The road might be a long one but the first step in the right direction is the most important.