I exercised at the gym today and also took a couple long walks outside and it feels so good. I feel so damn good. I haven’t exercised in a while, I felt stuck in a kind of physical stasis and had some anxiety about exercising. Everyone knows exercise is good for you but it’s easy to forget how good it feels. Embodying that goodness oh man. Tonight my cheeks are flushed, my blood is flowing, my eyes and mind are relaxed. I’m turned on all the way up and lit from within.

Yes, it’s definitely a goal of my January 2019 to get physically in shape again. I’ve been using this incredible (free) app Pacer to track my daily steps and exercise goals and in the week I’ve been doing it, it’s markedly increased the level of my physical activity. It has a little tracker that tells you how many steps you’ve walked so far. 1-2999 is sedentary. Sedentary! I hate the idea of being sedentary (not to mention all the health risks that go along with it) so that alone has made me intentionally get out and walk at least 3000 steps on a daily basis.

A lot of the work I do is remote from home so it’s easy for me to have a sedentary day if I’m not mindful about it. The levels on the app are sedentary, lightly active, active, and highly active. I’m happy to say today was my first highly active day in the past week and I feel fucking amazing. The screenshot below is my actual day today. Woot.

While I was leaving the gym I held the door open for a man behind me, and he said you’re from Latin America! And I said I’m half Cuban. And he said I could tell you had sunshine in you. Maybe he was just hitting on me but he was polite and respectful and didn’t ask for my number so I prefer to think he was just appreciating my inner light thank you very much.

On my walk to the train, I passed by a light store. Scores of chandeliers lit up and shining in this warm thin little slice of a store. I walked passed it smiling, then walked back over to it and decided I wanted to walk inside and soak up all the lights. I entered the store and the only two people in there, both of whom worked there, snapped their heads up as soon as they heard the door open. Likely not something that happens too much in chandelier store… although you never know it was by Fifth Ave. I said,

“I just want to walk and look at all the lights!”

The woman who works there (and maybe owns the store) said,

‘oh, yes! The energy. Go soak up the energy!’

So I did. I wandered through the store in a kind of reverie and soaked up the brilliant lights. My heart was so open and happy and… bright. As I walked back out the store and to the train I felt like I was exploding with some kind of ecstatic bliss, likely due to my (finally) exercising – hormones are real. And I remembered something my acting teacher said to us last weekend during an intensive workshop, ‘On the other side of anxiety is an ecstatic experience’.

The other side of anxiety is ecstatic experience.  Tweet this!

I can definitely say that today, pushing through my anxiety and getting some exercise led to an ecstatic experience. It’s exciting to think that those of us with anxiety are blessed with bundles of energy primed for ecstasy.

Till soon,
Lillian