Do you have one of more of these problems with your current exercise routine?
- You feel generally stuck in your exercise routine.
- You don’t know what exercises to do for your goal so you default to the same shit even though you don’t particuarly love it.
- You don’t really know what your goals are or should be so you’re just going through the motions
- You’re just going through the motions but the spark, joy, and fulfillment are gone.
I’ve been there, too, my friend. Many times.
If you said YES to any of the bullet points above, then I invite you to do a Movement Practice Audit.
In the 30 min video I’m going to introduce the MESH framework I used to audit my own movement practice, to strip away the useless garbage, keep what was working, and reconnect with my “why” that keeps me moving (because, “exercise is good” isn’t a good enough reason…)
Need to audit your own movement practice? Follow along with the video:
Want to listen while you’re on the move? Here’s an audio version:
What is the MESH framekwork?
Does your movement practice MESH for you? MESH helps you audit four key areas of your movement practice to see what works, and what needs to change.
What works for you right now is not fixed. Auditing yourself every 6 months to a year is a good way to check in and make sure your movement practice is still serving you.
M= Meaningful
“Why am I doing this?”
Does your movement practice support your highest values? Or are you just moving because someone told you exercise is a thing you should do. Let’s discover what makes movement actually meaningful for you.
E= Enjoyable
“Do I even like doing this?”
Life’s too short to spend time doing shit you hate. And if you don’t enjoy it, you’re not going to be able to do it in a way that is sustainable. If you hate jogging, why are you forcing youself to do it? Could you find something comparable, that meeds your needs, and that you actually like?
Also note that you can learn to like something if you can connect it to your highest values. You might not love something in the moment, but you can start to connect with how it makes you feel, or that you like the feeling of mastery you get, or you like what it enables you to do as a result.
S= Sustainable
“As my movement practice is now, could I do it for the rest of my life?”
If the naswer is no, it’s not sustainable. Not that your practice should stay the same for ever. Sustainability takes into consideration that you will evolve and your practice will change, and that you are not getting locked into one paradigm for movement.
Also consider Dr. Peter Attia’s Centennarian Olympics thought experiment: What do you want to be able to do if you were to live to be 100, and how are you gonig to train for those, like they are Olympic events. Don’t just hope for the best.
Like my favourite shirt says… Train For Life.
H= Healthy
“Am I meeting my body’s demands?”
Healthy means so many things to so many people. I like think of health as an act of meeting our bodies current demands.
Is your nervous system sympathetic dominant? Health might mean meeting that demand.
Do you have joint movement restrictions that are keeping you stuck in pain and lethargy: Health might mean meating that demand.
And many other factors that I couln’t possibly cover in a video.
So how did you do on your audit?
Understanding the MESH framework is a great place to start. From here, we can go deeper.
The MESH audit is just one tool of many that I’ve been developing for the past 2 years, and I’ll be putting it out slowly in a series of videos like this one over the next several months.
I’m going to be putting together an in depth program called Physical Mastery in which I’ll be taking a group of folks through all the steps of my movement practice audit. Not sure when it will be a fully actualized thing, but the gears are in motion.
Physical Mastery is for anyone feeling stuck with their body, uninspired, energetically depleted, and not sure what to do to get out of the physical and mental funk.
The Physical Mastery program will help you to connect more deeply with your body by understanding, healing, and deepening your relationship with it. You’ll discover what’s holding you back from inhabiting your body with more ease and joy through a series of practical and conceptual exercises. The end result is to have all the tools you need to build a movement practice that inspires you, and makes you feel energized, resilient, and grounded to take on the world.
Sounds pretty good, right? I think I created this program because it’s exactly what I needed when I was going thourgh a quarter life crisis and needed to get myself out of the hole I was digging for my body and my life: Eating disorder, compulsive exerciser, multiple back injuries, trying to meet everyone’s expecatations and dismissing my own needs.
Sound like you? I’m looking for a group of “beta” participants to give the Physical Mastery Program a test drive!
If you are looking for clarity in your movement practice so you can feel more energized, connected with your life’s purpose, and in better relationship with your body, shoot me an email to get in touch and be one of the beta participants.
