Exercising the Ego, or Exercising the Body, Mind, and Spirit?

Our bodies benefit from movement, our minds from stillness, and our spirits from connection.

We all know the importance of exercise. It is one of our most important practices for cultivating our roots. It’s not just physical exercise that is important, however, it is also mental and spiritual exercise.

Exercise can keep us fit, healthy, youthful, thin, strong, and flexible. We have heard all kinds of guidelines and varying recommendations for frequency and intensity. We’ve seen advertisements for fitness programs, apps, and classes, designed to fit all kinds of goals and lifestyles. Most of us have at least once or twice decided that it’s time to “get in shape”, “lose a few pounds”, “get a bikini body”, or “finally run that 5K.”

When I reflect on my history with exercise I can see the influence all of the information out there has had on me. I’ve gone through countless pairs of running shoes, gym memberships, and fitness dvd’s. My focus on exercise, however, has been almost solely on my body, and largely related to my ego. I’ve wanted to look better, be thinner or proportioned differently, be stronger, or have better endurance. All of this has been driven almost solely by my ego. Exercise, for me, has been about my body and my ego.

When I began to practice mindfulness and yoga, I was similarly driven by ego. I wanted to master them, and to be “good” at it. At that time I did not have the understanding that what I was doing was actually exercising my brain, and therefore both my mind and spirit. I just understood that I really wanted to master new skills and gain all their benefits. Yoga had the added benefit of shaping and strengthening my body. All ego.

It’s no wonder, then, that for many years I did not successfully maintain consistent practices. I’d exercise for a few months, power through those days when I didn’t feel like it with sheer willpower, achieve some ego benefit, and then stop. With mindfulness practice I’d take a meditation course, complete it and feel like I’d achieved something huge, experience some of the bliss that comes after such an intense experience, and then let it go. I’d try yoga, generally power yoga because of it’s rather ego driven focus on the body, because it included mindfulness and could “kill two birds with one stone.” Then I’d go back to running, and alternate between the two.

This went on for years, the starting and stopping, the alternating. I was searching, but just didn’t get it.

I believe that anything ego driven looks outside of ourselves and relies very heavily on willpower. If we are trying to do something because it feeds our ego, we are looking to some external measure for our own worth. We need to be thinner, stronger, more shapely, etc. in order to feel good. Because the drive to do this is focused outside of ourselves rather than within, we rely on willpower to achieve it. Our intrinsic motivation just isn’t the same, or maybe isn’t even there, because the measures and feedback are external.

The biggest problem with looking outside of ourselves for our sense or worth is that it is fleeting. We achieve it, and then the moment passes. Perhaps we lose a bit of what we achieved, or the standard to which we aspired moves further away and we now have to reach the new standard. Something changes, as it always does, and we now need to achieve something else to get back our sense of worth.

The problem with relying on willpower to achieve our goals is that willpower by definition is temporary. A definition of willpower is “control exerted to do something or restrain impulses” (Dictionary.com). The Mirriam-Webster definition is “energetic determination.” Very few people, if anyone, can maintain that kind of control or energy indefinitely. We all fatigue, particularly when we are having to work hard to do something for reasons we don’t truly feel within. Once we fatigue too much, we generally stop and go back to an old way of doing things.

Let’s try to think about exercising from a new perspective. Let’s bring it inward and lose our external measures of progress, success, and achievement. Let’s expand it to include all aspects of our beings and to focus on health and wellbeing rather than on asthetics. Finally, let’s become aware of our ego’s presence in this and reduce it’s influence, allowing exercise to be a more natural way of being rather than a means to achieve something that looks good to others.

Our bodies benefit from movement, our minds from stillness, and our spirits from connection. What if we allow this to be our guiding principal when it comes to exercise? We can allow our own internal experiences to be our measures and our guides, choosing physical movement, mental stillness, and spiritual connection in ways that allow us to find our own sense of worth and validation.

Exercise today. Move your body, in your way. Walk, run, do yoga, go to the gym, play with your kids, play tennis or golf. Still you mind, in your way. Meditate, do yoga, walk in nature, sit at the ocean. Connect your spirit, in your way. Go to a faith-based service or gathering, pray, meditate, find a collective, walk in nature. Seek guidance from mentors and teachers as needed, but do what resonates for you and what gives you what you need rather than what you think you want, or what you think is expected or valued by others. What we truly need resides within, and only we can decide what it is.