Today was a day I have been dreading for some time.
Tomorrow is going to be going to be worse. I will be paying a price for today. Likely, the next day will be more of the same.
I know I’ve needed to do this for some time but I put it off and put it off. I knew the result would be painful. I don’t like pain and I bet you don’t like pain either. In the long run, though, this will be a good thing. That’s what I told myself when I decided to face my fears this morning.
Today was my first day back at my Body Pump class at my local YMCA. Body Pump is described as, “an endurance style weight training program that strengthens and sculpts the body into lean muscles without bulking up.”
It’s a class I attended regularly before my foot surgery. Obviously, as a result of the surgery I was unable to attend for quite some time. I remember when I took the class for the first time I was warned by a regular attender, “You are going to hurt for days so just be ready.”
She was right. She also encouraged me to come back for the next class two days later as it would get better. I did and it did.
Having remembered how painful the first time was I knew I was in for the same thing when I started back up. I want to avoid the pain but I know the pain will lead to a positive outcome. Tomorrow morning it will be hard to get out of bed because I am going to be sore. For me, often the second day is even worse so I’m really dreading Wednesday.
It took some courage for me to go back to class today because I know the pain ahead. In spite of the pain I’m glad I went.
The very same thing is true when we know we might face some emotional pain. There are issues in our lives we need to deal with or difficult conversations we know we need to have with someone. Often, we will put them off because we know the pain is coming. We choose not to deal with difficult issues.
Rationalization becomes our very good friend at times like these. Excuses are easy to come up with at times like these. Certainly this isn’t the right time. I’ll wait until I’m in a better frame of mind.
Fear has taken over. You know it’s going to be painful and you don’t want the pain.
It takes courage to face the difficult challenges in our lives and to have the difficult conversations. It will be painful, maybe for a long time. But in the long run, the pain will decrease and you will be glad you courageously did what you needed to do.
Now, what did I do with that bottle of Ibuprofin?
Have a STRONG and COURAGEOUS day!
Do you need a speaker for an upcoming event? I’d love to be that guy. You can reach me at dave@cultivatecourage.com or 952-200-7499.
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