Tuesday 8 March 2011

The bliss of not thinking…


I love not thinking, not having any thoughts at all is bliss or else just letting your mind wander wherever it may choose but without the anxiety of knowing you actually have to think of things to do.
Every Tuesday morning I don’t think. For one blissful hour all my thinking is done for me. All I have to do is put one foot in front of the other and try not to fall over.
I have a personal trainer. He’s a 6 foot Scot built like a brick shit house and is a former ex-Army PT instructor and without him, well, without him life would be intolerable. For as well as forcing me to run and exercise he also takes away the huge burden I carry around with me: my brain.
I am often told that I think too much and that I should just stop: easier said than done but with SFS (Six foot Scot) there is no point thinking. As he often says: “I’ll do the thinking. You just do as you’re told.” And “Don’t get clever it doesn’t suit you” and words of wisdom along a similar vein and it is heaven.
For one hour I do as I am told and run and exercise my guts out and all the while I know someone else is in charge. I am free of all responsibility. While I must do exactly as I am told and look smart about it, I am strangely liberated during that one hour.
It is better therapy than you would believe and worth every penny spent, though to be honest; in the four years I have been training the price has yet to go up. I started out with a crook back, for SFS as well as being a PT is also a Sports Massage Therapist and while I was there trying not to get embarrassed about my flobby body lying inert on a table, we talked of the Army and that sort of thing and I plucked up the courage to ask if he would help me learn to run so that I could play with my children without having half a heart attack after five minutes.
He took me on, taught me to walk then run exercised me and even trained me for the London Marathon but more importantly every Tuesday he relieves me of the burden of my mind.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ooooooo I need an SFS...where do I sign up?

Potty Mummy said...

Sounds great. It's one of the reasons I like skiing, actually; I'm concentrating so hard on staying upright (or, with downhill, staying alive) that I don't have the chance to worry about anything else... How are your plans going on that front, btw?

Expat mum said...

I used to think of murdering my personal trainer all the time. Not a good way to spend an hour!

Spencer Park said...

Good for you! Exercise helps me unburden as well!

mrsnesbitt said...

Do you know - I feel the same when I am on the back of the motorbike. Hubby does it all - the driving, the negotiating, the route finding - I just have to sit there and boy do I enjoy it.

Tattieweasle said...

muummmmeeeeee - as long as you don't mind doing it outside...there's always British Military Fitness!!!
Potty - plans are afoot, I will ambush Dear Charlie a week on Saturday about it...though trying not to kill yourself...well it beats thinking!
Expat Mum - yes not a very good way to spend an hour! I presume you and your PT have parted the ways or is the PT under the patio????!!!!
Spencer Park - I really should do it more often! Exercise that is!
mrsnesbitt - that sounds too glamourous! Always wanted to go pillion on the back of a motorbike!

Lou Archer said...

Very very envious... will dig garden tomorrow leaving brain on kitchen table.

Tattieweasle said...

Lou - don't be he shouts at me and I actually pay him to do it!!!!

Anonymous said...

Ooooo- send him over here!
My daughter spends a lot of time in her head, and could never understand as a teenager her enjoying endless drill exercises in the airforce cadets, at the end of the week. It seemed like such an unlikely choice for her to take at the time.
"I don't have to think Mum" she'd say."It's actually relaxing at the end of the week,to just be told what to do and do it".
Thanks for your recent visit and comment Tattie. I celebrated my doing nothing! Rare, and good.

Miss Sadie said...

Ah, the thrill of mindlessness; 12 hours a day, or more. It's called "sleeping." Very restorative, and doesn't usually hurt. Very refreshing. Mostly, nobody yelling at me, and I don't have to pay. But if food goes in my bowl, or somebody picks up a toy, I'm there like a shot out of a gun!

Tattieweasle said...

Pam - she's got a sound head on her shoulders to be so wise!
Miss Sadie - careful there or I'll want a dog's life!

Anonymous said...

I do British Military Fitness! The combination of not having to think, large muscular men and fresh air is a total winner! Knackering though.

Anonymous said...

i agree tattie, not thinking is hugely underrated. the pressure to be busy, to do, to list make ... but it's the emptying of the mind that helps to sieve the superfluous. I do it when i swim. stop thinking. so that breathing and movement are instinctive and nothing else matters. until pili pup - who runs up and down alongside - gets bored of watching and leaps in atop me! x

Posie said...

Fab that you ran a marathon, what an achievement and Scotsmen are so charming....

Cait O'Connor said...

Your man is what I need too as I can never stop thinking.

Tattieweasle said...

Mud - BMF agree if you are going to exercise you might as well enjoy the scenery!!!!
reluctant memsahib - swimming is a great mind refresher I find if I don't stop thinking I sink so really one has to focus on the matter at hand: the swimming. Not sure I would go for the bombing by the do though! :)
Posie - it is the accent, even when I am being told off it sort of caresses one!
Cait - would highly recommend him or your nearest Army PT instructor sheer heaven!

Go on you know you want to...

LinkWithin

Blog Widget by LinkWithin