I am honored to be featured on letstakeamoment.com. Pastor Natalie’s blog ExamineThisMoment is all about encouragement. She takes moments from real life and discusses the lessons we can learn from them. Please check out, read, and subscribe to letstakeamoment.com
Last year, when lock down began in America, I stayed home and it really affected my mental health. I was overthinking constantly, and feeling just plain sad. In addition, my anxiety was not helping me feel any better. Personally, I am an introvert so staying home was not bad. It was more the fear of the unknown and just seeing the world around me change. Staying on social media and seeing what was happening in different countries was scary. Also, seeing people lose their jobs was just sad to me. I had gained a little bit of weight. I live in Florida, where my local gym opened in the summer time last year. At that time my family and I decided to go to the gym because it was the main thing that was opened and it was just good to go out. I decided to go with my family.
Now, I am going to have to pause this story and just give you a little bit of background of my time in the gym. Over the past few years of my life, I have yo-yoed in my weight. I have been really thin and have been over weight. I also gain weight really easily. I never fully felt comfortable with my body and to this day, I still suffer with body confidence. I have taken PE in school which kept me somewhat in shape. At 20 years old, I got back into shape and was constantly in the gym. The problem was I was working out too much and it was putting too much stress on my body. I ended up just not going and gaining my weight back and then some.
So, here I am again, trying to lose weight, but this time I am just purely going to the gym because I wanted to have some social life. I didn’t want to just keep staying home and not going anywhere. I mean when the lockdown lifted in many places in America, people rushed to go out, even if it was just to go to the super market.
For a couple of months, I was doing simple workouts like using the Stairmaster and maybe some ab machines. One day, I decided to try this sitting rowing machine. I did one set and within minutes, I could feel a presence near me. I looked up and saw the trainer looking at me. He notified me that I was doing the machine completely wrong. I was completely embarrassed. I started sweating extra and then my social anxiety kicked in which caused me to zone out and just ramble on and on. It felt like he could be getting annoyed with me.
In a few months from now, it will be a year since this happened and yet, I still feel embarrassed. I even have constantly asked myself, ‘Why did I respond like that and feel like I made a fool of myself?” Currently, I still go to the gym but I choose not to use that machine again and now there is a new trainer working there. All of this has helped me with my embarrassment. I remember recently thinking about it again, and how embarrassed I am that I did that. I realized that sometimes, I may be too concerned with what people think of me. I care at times too much about what their viewpoint of me might be. I am constantly dwelling, thinking, and analyzing about some embarrassing things that I have done. I need to stop caring so much about what others think of me. Also, that trainer probably doesn’t even remember what happened. I just remember and need to stop feeling embarrassed about it. In addition, a family member also told me I was doing a bunch of different machines in the gym wrong. I don’t need to constantly be embarrassed about everything I do wrong. I need to have some thick skin; just take the correction and keep moving forward.
In the end I realized, we all make mistakes and have moments like this. It’s just part of life. It’s okay to just take a moment and see what you did wrong, learn the lesson, and just move on.
Deborah Young is a lifestyle blogger. She believes that our thoughts can speak very loud about things we believe in. In her blog Headphonesthoughts.com she writes about the many thoughts we have in our day.
Visit Deborah’s website at www.headphonesthoughts.com and follow Deborah on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
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I am honored to be featured on letstakeamoment.com. Thank you for letting me share my personal embarrassing story. I love getting to share real life moments and how they change us, teach us lessons, and how they can affect us.
I appreciate your real life story and believe it will inspire others. Thank you for genuinely sharing as a guest blogger. These are moments that matter everyday. ~Pastor Natalie
I know exactly how you feel, when I was going to the gym I was really reluctant to use a machine if I didn’t 100% know how to use it properly. However, even though you felt that embracement before, it might help with your social anxiety to use that machine again as avoiding it is likely feeding your social anxiety
Thank you so much for your comments. It can definitely be scary trying anything new. You are right, it would be a good idea to use the machine again and overcome it. Again, I appreciate you taking time to read my guest blogpost by @Headphonesthoughts. I look forward to you staying connected and reading more of my blogs. ~Pastor Natalie
Thanks so much for sharing how you feel during this trying time. It’s so important to be honest with mental health and share awareness!
Thank you for your comments on my guest blogpost by @HeadphonesThoughts, “Think Before Doing.” I sincerely agree with you that it is very important to be honest with mental health and awareness. Stay connected and please share with others. Blessings ~Pastor Natalie
So important to remember it’s ok to make mistakes, struggle or have a down day (or 10), especially right now! We all just need to be kind to ourselves and let ourselves slowly heal from the last 12 months!
Katie x
Thank you so much for sharing your comments. You are so right… it’s ok to make mistakes and definitely we must be kind to ourselves as well. Stay connected and I look forward to reading some more of my upcoming blogs. ~Pastor Natalie 😊
The pandemic and lockdowns have affected our mental health, and everyone is struggling one way or the other. I hope things will get better eventually.
Thanks for sharing your experiences during lockdowns.
Stay healthy and happy.
Smiles, we all have our bad days and good days. But yes, the pandemic really did a number on us all. Admire the OUTSPOKEN spirit of the writer. God bless you for sharing. Better days lay ahead.