[Inner wisdom helps clarify your exercise vision.]

Forget “No pain, No gain.” And live the “No pain….perfect!” lifestyle. You do not have to torture or strain yourself exercising in order to receive benefits. The most important thing is to choose exercise that is supportive of an optimally functioning healthy body, and to enjoy it.

“Having a goal is a state of happiness.”
-E.J. Bartek
Most of us are trying to get to a place where we feel good emotionally and physically. We work out to feel better about our bodies and to experience a sense of well-being. Within this statement is the implication we need to listen to our physical body and inner wisdom when clarifying our exercise vision. Paying attention to how your body feels physically, honoring “feel good” emotions and listening to your inner wisdom are perfect for guiding you in your exercise choices and validating what comes naturally to you. Defining and choosing exercise that fits you, based on what you like and enjoy, is great inspiration for choosing exercise. Develop your listening skills by listening to your emotions and intuition for guidance. Keep in mind that the value of your awareness and clarity is experienced when you integrate them into your exercise experience. After all, the idea is to define exercise for yourself and integrate that definition into your lifestyle. Your clarity and awareness allow for choices that create motion in your life.

“Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul must see through these eyes alone and if they are dim, the whole world is clouded.”
-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

One of the most frequently asked questions I get is, “How much exercise is enough?” “Enough for what?” I ask. Research often recommends a duration that will produce some measurable result. Regardless of the results measured, unless you are exercising, you won’t get any results. Enough exercise is the amount you are willing to engage in. Motion is beneficial no matter how small. Everything inside your body is moving. Your heart pumps, your blood flows through your veins and arteries, your breath is moved by the inspiration and expiration of air by your lungs, your nerves are firing, your hormones are directing, your molecules are dancing and your cells are working. Movement means you are alive and any time you allow yourself to move, you are contributing to your optimal wellness. Your movement supports life. According to the Law of Inertia, a body at rest tends to stay at rest and a body in motion tends to stay in motion. Set yourself in motion and get your momentum going by stepping out. It only takes a small step to get your exercise momentum going.

“Nothing happens until it moves.”
-Albert Einstein

When you think of exercising, you might associate it with weight-loss, muscle strength, heart conditioning or the goals you achieve by doing it. Go beyond this picture and consider the benefits of simply moving your body and breathing deeply. Exercise not only promotes physical improvements, such as muscle conditioning, but it also promotes peacefulness and relaxation. When you engage in movement, you give yourself the opportunity to focus on pleasant things and release tension from your body. Exercise can move you into a meditative state of relaxation after only a few minutes of movement. When exercise becomes too much, the pay off for that bout of exercise becomes a defeating endeavor which shows up as exhaustion, burnout or bodily injury. Enough exercise is the amount that benefits you in the moment and in the long run. It is the amount that feels good to you. It is the amount that brings value and fun to your life experience in the form of exercising your way.

“They can because they think they can.” -Virgil

Internal or intrinsic motivation means assigning the catalyst or stimuli for motivation to something within yourself, something you carry with you at all times, allowing you to engage your motivation at any moment you choose. Access to motivation is with you wherever you go. Choose to create motivation you can call upon whenever you desire. It is this internal focus and remembrance of who is making the choices that enables you to exercise and engage in movement from a place of empowerment. Exercise for the love of the lifestyle-it doesn’t get more intrinsic than that. Exercise itself is the reward, the feeling good part is what you carry with you.
After all these external and internal awarenesses, integration closes the deal for you. Aligning your choices with your awarenesses and choosing action in integrity with your highest values of wellness, creates a life well lived. From a place of integrity and alignment, things seem to flow easier and with less effort. When you come into alignment with inspired choices, life becomes a rather fun time. My peace comes from knowing that what I think is reflected in how I am living. The belief that it could be otherwise only blinds me to the origin of unpleasant experiences. I know that you cannot think one thing and experience another; therefore I choose to think well and live well, too.

“We listen with our hearts and what we hear moves us.”
-K.S. Danner

You experience your wellness each time you choose well. Living life well is simply a series of choices. Developing an exercise consciousness requires you to make choices that cultivate an open mind, a field of fertile soil ready to be planted with the seeds of wellness and to grow into a life of movement and joyous living. Wellness exercise is not only about fitness exercise; it is about exrcising well in all aspects of what contributes to your well-being. Exercise well by choosing wellness exercise, that which moves you from within. If only for today, choose to move. And then you can think about tomorrow when you get there. For today, choose to live an exercise wellness lifestyle.

“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.”
-Carl Bard

Karen S. Danner teaches Mindfulness and Stress at Arizona State University East. She is the Founder, CEO and Creative Director of Love Yourself Well, a wellness education and promotion company. She specializes in stress management and behavior integration. This article is a distillation of Karen’s book Life Moves – Exercise for the Love of the Lifestyle. Find more on Karen, her company and her book at www.loveyourselfwell.com or www.karensdanner.com