How I got over my fear and loathing of PE and learnt to love exercise

If you'd told me three years ago that there would come a time when I would rank 'running' along with 'making mug cakes' and 'reading about the Mitford sisters' as one of my favourite hobbies, I would have laughed you out of town.

It's not that I'd never thought of giving it a go. I lost count of the number of times I downloaded the NHS Couch to 5k app on to my phone. More specifically, I lost count of the times I staggered through Week 1 Run 1. I knew that running would be good for me - all those endorphins and all that fresh air. But I still couldn't make myself commit to it.

A huge part of my on-and-off (admittedly, very much mostly off) relationship with exercise was that I was scared of it.

I was scared of not being able to do it. I was scared of not being as good at it as other people. I was scared of getting out of breath. I was scared, god forbid, that people would see me, lolloping around the streets, bright red in the face and sweating like a sweaty thing.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly when that changed. I think it must've been when I started to see running differently. I'd never been very sporty at school - my lack of coordination and aforementioned anxieties put paid to any enjoyment I might have elicited from PE lessons, which I regarded as weekly state-sanctioned torture.

As an adult, it was a real challenge to break that habit of - consciously or subconsciously - linking exercise to embarrassment. To me, doing anything remotely active was intrinsically linked to being laughed at by my peers, pitied by my teachers and generally feeling all-round useless. Yet I'd heard and read so much about the good things sport can do for our health, both mental and physical. I knew that I had to completely rethink my perception of physical activity for my own good.

So why did running make me change my mind about exercise?

First of all, I found that running was different to other forms of exercise I'd encountered previously. Unlike the team sports we had had to do at school, it didn't require any of that elusive hand-eye coordination - just putting one foot in front of the other and keeping going. That's all you have to think about when you run. Running is often a group activity, but I've found that, even when I'm running alongside other people, it can be quite solitary, in a positive way. Once I'd found a bit of a rhythm, however slow, I found that a run was a safe space for me to reflect on how my day had gone, what was going on at work and all the other things that our days can be too busy to comprehend. There's no need to fret about balls flying through the air towards you (ahem), nobody's relying on you to be in a certain position at a certain time - you just have to keep plodding.

Secondly, it really showed me that a positive mental attitude goes a long way. My then-newish boyfriend had a completely different perspective on exercise to me, being a PE teacher (yes, I'm aware of the irony) and he encouraged me to give it a go. In his mind, because of his experiences of exercise, being active was linked to being positive, to having fun and feeling good. He knew that there would be obstacles for me along the way to getting fitter, but he knew that the results were worth it. Having that hindsight really helps, of course - I can see now that taking up running has been a brilliant decision. Having a positive mental attitude while you're in the midst of it is more challenging, but it does help. It's true, there were so many times when I wanted to stop. There were so many times when I did stop and I allowed the negativity to creep back in. A lot about running is psychological, I think. I would tell myself part-way around Parkrun that I couldn't do it, that I needed a rest when I got to that tree. I didn't, but because I'd thought it, my body believed it. When I was able to get over that mental barrier, to hurdle the stumbling block that was my negative inner voice, I overcame a physical one as well. It's really possible to will yourself better.

But most importantly - eventually - I felt the benefits of running. I was out in the fresh air with like-minded people and the brainspace to relax, even though my body was working hard. Running unleashed what a therapist of mine once called 'free child', an ego-state which can become repressed in many of us. The UK Association for Transactional Analysis (which is more or less the study of how we communicate with others, thus displaying behaviours that might be engrained in us from childhood) describes 'free child' as 'behaviours that express spontaneity, creativity and are independent from other's expectations'. That last part was the key for me. Sploshing through a puddle-pocked, moonlit wood one Tuesday evening in February, head-torch beaming and leggings caked in mud, I had the sudden realisation that this was what it meant to feel alive. I know how cheesy that sounds, but it's true.

I'm not going to lie - getting properly started was hard. Most of those fears I mentioned became a reality - I was slow and I was sweaty. But do you know what? Nobody cared. Nobody at Parkrun or in my beginners' running group gave a monkey's what I looked like or how fast I went or how far I could keep going for. But, slowly, I started to get quicker. I started to run further. And I started to feel happier.

It turns out that exercise isn't about what you look like to other people. It isn't about shame or embarrassment or self-loathing. It's about looking after your body, looking after your mind and even, to my utter surprise, having fun.

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If you want to lace up your trainers and start running (and, surprise surprise, I really recommend that you do), I've got three top tips for you:

• Sign up for Parkrun! It's a collection of free, timed 5k runs (that's three miles in old money) which take place at 9 o'clock every Saturday morning. You can run, jog or walk and, once you have that first time, chipping away the seconds and scoring new PBs gets extremely addictive. The atmosphere at every Parkrun I've been to (and I'm into the 40s now) has been one of inclusion and happiness and encouragement. Honestly, it's one of the best ways I can think of to spend a Saturday morning and I've become one of those people who've become almost evangelical about it. Have a look at the website to find a run local to you.
• Join a local running club, especially if they have a beginners' group. When I was starting out, I really enjoyed running with Women on the Run, who have groups in various locations around the UK, but lots of clubs will run 'introduction to running' courses which will build you up to being able to join in on club nights. Graduating to join the main group is the start of a whole new adventure - our local club organises trail running nights, weekend races and a whole host of exciting training sessions to keep you on your toes.
• Embrace a running buddy. If you can find someone who's in the same boat as you, adopt them immediately. You might both be building up to running for half an hour without stopping or you might both be looking to bust out a good-for-age marathon time. It doesn't matter - if you can find a friend to spur you on and who you can encourage too, you'll both be laughing all the way to the finish line.

Hello!

Self-care is big business at the moment. Just the most cursory of glances at Google shows 2.3 billion results, including books, blogs, podcasts and forums. The Guardian alone lists over one hundred thousand results on the subject, including some less-than-salubrious findings.

So why am I entering the fray?

Well, self-care and I have a tricky relationship. Like many people, I've struggled with my mental health - the British charity Mind reports that one in four people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year. On my worst days, I struggle to look after myself in the ways that I should. Sometimes that means that I don't fuel myself properly and either go without eating, or I overindulge in the wrong things. Sometimes it means that I forego exercise and fresh air to wallow in my own soup of self-pity. Sometimes it means berating myself with unkind thoughts that I would never dream of voicing to another soul.

I've made many attempts to break free from my spiralling self-doubt and self-loathing. Lots of things have helped - like several, albeit brief, courses of counselling - but I felt that I needed a gradual but complete lifestyle overhaul. Yes, I had baggage from the past that was weighing me down and there is no doubt at all in my mind that proper counselling has been one of the best ways to unpick it - I would never advocate a do-it-yourself approach in lieu of proper professional help if you're at a point when you need it. Indeed, admitting that it's time to speak to somebody about the state of your mental health surely has to be one of the most important acts of caring for yourself.

But I felt that I needed to do something more to improve my present, to complement my talking therapy by treating myself like I loved myself.

In my quest to be a happier me, I happened upon the self-care movement by accident. In 2019, you can hardly escape it - it's packaged in neat, Instagrammable squares, as hashtags, as easily digestible social media snippets. There's no doubt that it's a burgeoning industry, and the cynical part of me realises that, in consumerising self-care, some companies are out to make a quick buck from people's mental health management. But I also read stories of people who had found the mantras, the meditations and the bullet journals genuinely helpful.

I think that the key is recognising that the 'self' in 'self-care' is not just reflexive - it means that it's subjective too. I think that there's a sensible, pick'n'mix approach to self-care, through which we can each compose our own contentment.

That's what I plan to do with this blog. In a past life, I was a sort-of lifestyle blogger. But when my mental health took a nose-dive, posting unfailingly sunny content about days out and travel destinations felt hollow. It felt like I was forcing my life and my personality into this badly-fitting mould I'd made and eventually, I abandoned the blog.

I've missed writing. It's been several years since I've felt I've had the right kind of seed of an idea, one that rang true to me and wouldn't feel like a facade or a sham. While I suppose that this is a lifestyle blog of sorts, too, in that choosing to treat ourselves with love and respect is choosing to live in a certain way, I hope that The Caring Self will feel like it has an authentic voice.

There's another aspect I want to explore in this blog too. In caring for ourselves, I think it's also important to keep others in mind - most of us are hyper-aware of the fact that there's a line between self-care and selfish, but I feel that it's important to state it nonetheless. For a while, I've been mulling over the saying 'you can't pour from an empty cup' and, to me, I think that's what I'd like this blog to be about. I've been doing a lot of thinking over the past few months about empathy, communication and our relationships with others, for a whole host of reasons. It seems to me that this old adage is true - in order to be able to relate healthily to the world around us, we need to learn that it's OK to look after number one. From there, the rest can follow.

In short, I hope that this blog will help us to care for ourselves in order to become caring selves. To look after the people around us and to make the world a happier place.

So this is my own pick-and-mix, take-it-with-a-pinch-of-salt, suck-it-and-see version of self-care. Feel free to join in whenever you're ready.