Gotta Wake Up and Move It, Move It

What are you struggling with that you know you and/or your body need to do as springtime is rapidly approaching?

Something I’m still learning becomes very clear about this time of year. As spring is coming up and the days are getting steadily brighter I begin to feel anxious. It starts small and then keeps me from sleeping well. And in the exhaustion I must make myself move. Like get up off my butt and dance. Or get a good run in. I just need to get moving, and something far more active than a simple walk to the mailbox down the street and back.

And, honestly, I hate it. I know it will make me feel good, and I will eventually actually enjoy having done the work. But the first few times I manage to do a Zumba video or get out the door and run, I’m wishing I could simply curl back up and stay cozy in hibernation mode.

I think the dislike, at least initially, is that I was doing something that had been working…and then it wasn’t anymore. I’m not good at change and even if I know what needs doing, as I’ve begun to learn, I still don’t like the transition.

Transitions are messy and I’m still not used to having seasonal transitions that affect my life. Maybe I never truly will be.

Even as I fight against the realization and the sense of it I know that being human means that my physical body is influenced by the world outside. In many ways. I am not a scientist or doctor so I couldn’t tell you why or how my body was immune, or seemingly so, for so many years while I was on birth control but yikes, the differences are sometimes rather stark. I want to hibernate in the winter and apparently need to make myself move and wake up with the imminence of spring.

Why is that so hard? I really don’t know. I hope that trying to work more with my physical reality will be useful. Having a game plan for what I should expect of myself throughout the different seasons of both the year and my cycle throughout each month. I shouldn’t lie to myself that this isn’t my reality. I’m living it and should plan accordingly.

The biggest problem, at times, is that my past has educated me in the way that things “should” be and I’ve struggled to conform. And yet, in a lot of ways I’ve done so and masked what I want with what I’ve been taught I should want.

I’ve made many strides towards finding myself and the things that I want in my life but there are still ways in which I struggle to properly prepare myself. It is so easy to regress, to expect others to make my decisions. That was the safe part of being a kid, and sometimes the unsafe thing, too.

The largest hurdle to making gentle plans and structures that stick is trusting myself. I spend so much energy at times worrying that I’m not doing the things that I set out to do when I should be listening to myself and trusting that I can make the call and do the things. More listening and less micromanaging myself. Less struggle to overcome my natural instincts and more doing the things my body needs me to do.

So I’m going to get out there and wiggle, dance or run, whatever the hell makes me and my body happy, thank you very much! The bonus is that I work from home so I don’t have to deal with funny looks if I need to get up and move. Honestly that is one of the best parts of working from home now that I’m learning to listen to myself better. I’ve always felt so tense in public spaces, like I’m not supposed to make random movements with my body because they were commented on or called out as weird or even shameful.

I’m also beginning to suspect that I have some neurodivergent tendencies. But that is something I’m still researching and reading about. I don’t really need anything official, it is simply nice to feel seen in ways I never thought I would be. It has been super healing, y’all.

PS. This week I've not finished any art and that is ok. This little cattapus has been slow going, not because it's hard work but because I'm allowing myself space for what I'm needing...and its apparently not so much drawing/painting at the moment, oh well. I'm also realizing that he really looks the part, in this WIP stage, to be paired with this post. He looks so tired, or baked as a friend commented on Facebook, lol.