A Year in Review: Setting A New Gauge For Stopping Points

When I first began to exercise, correctly (right form), I would always stop when I felt the first instance of pain. My trainer, Trevor Pace would say, “Give me five more!” I would quit. To me the pain was my body’s way of telling my brain that it could take no more; that, we, body and mind had reached the stopping point which no more could be accomplished. But after a year of workouts, proper nutrition, and supplementation; I have set a new gauge in the determination of my stopping points.
The physical pain that I feel is no way as hurtful as the mental, emotional, and psychological pain that I’ve had to endure for years because of poor body image, low self esteem, and ridicule. I have flipped the script. The pain that I endure, to me now, is my body’s way of telling my mind that we now have to work together more effectively. We now have to listen to each other. We now have to take care of each other. We, now, have to love the other. I have replaced the gauge of “the pain” with the gauge of “my purpose”. I used to refer to “the pain” as “my pain”. However I have discovered that there is nothing personable about pain. Even the pain that I experienced for years, at the hand of myself and others, was never personable, mine. It was a very common pain. But purpose can be owned, honed, and specifically designed to fit the desire and will of the person. The fulfillment of my purpose is the new gauge for my stopping points. What's yours?