7 Steps to Transition from Traditional Exercise to Joyful Movement
Most of us feel better when movement is a regular part of life. Whether movement scratches the itch for stress relief, self-efficacy, improved overall health, lower anxiety and depression, better sleep, or just to feel more alive, we are made to move.
However, our modern life is not set up for much movement, so we have to use fitness as a separate intervention to keep our bodies well. But with the combination of high technology usage and a more restricted idea of what fitness is, most of us simply cannot fit fitness into our daily life. Or at least, the type of fitness that is portrayed in popular media—complete with a chiseled waist, round behind, and lean lines. Combined with the wellness culture’s idea of exercise as being an activity that healthy adults make time for (mostly with the end result of a fit, slender yet curvy body, unattainable and unnecessary for most body types) the seasons when you just can’t exercise according to the fitness industry’s standards can bring feelings of shame and guilt.
That is, unless you move for joy.
The point of life, according to the shorter Westminster Catechism, is to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”
Traditional exercise has shrunken our idea of fitness to the following, more or less:
Sweat
Spandex
Soreness
But God’s idea of movement looks like this:
God’s effort, our gift
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus Romans” 3:23
Moving for joy acknowledges that no amount of exercise or sweat equity will bring us across the finish line of salvation, but rather, it is God’s effort of love in Christ that moves us
Put on love
“Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with hearts of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Colossians 3:12
More important than having the right exercise clothes is to be covered in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. When our hearts are outfitted correctly, we can be free to move in love.
Easy and light
“For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.” 1 John 5:3
Unlike the thought that “no pain no gain” is the only way to measure success, God says that moving in obedience should not feel burdensome or painful, but that His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:30).
The Bible does not have many explicit references to “fitness” per se, because in biblical times movement was more naturally woven into daily life. That doesn’t mean the Bible doesn’t talk about movement. Scripture mostly talks about obedient movement empowered by grace, expressing itself through joy. You can find more about what the Bible says about exercise, plus 34 related verses here.
As you can see, movement is very broad. Fitness is just a small subset under the large umbrella of movement.
God’s grace is wildly free. Yet it comes with a great cost, a price that has already been paid by His son, who willingly came into the world not to condemn us but to save us through Him.
You are already free.
Exercise your freedom not under compulsion but through curiosity, compassion, in Christ.
Many diets restrict food, and if you’ve watched our webinar, you know the negative effects of restriction through dieting. Restricting fitness to a singular cultural definition can be just as harmful. This kind of narrow thinking can push movement out of our reach and rob us of the joy of walking in the Lord’s strength.
If you’ve felt bound and restricted by traditional forms of exercise through dieting, fitness advertising, or the general culture’s idea of fitness as being something you do in a gym with other toned people, here are ways to break out and transition into joyful movement. If you’ve heard of intuitive eating, joyful movement is a similar concept.
Despite what popular fitness gadgets and classes might have you believe, you actually don’t have to track your calorie burn and heart rate for exercise to count.
Joyful movement is more about learning how you feeling during movement, and following the joy.
If you’d like to learn more about what intuitive exercise is, read this post. If you’d like to know how to transition over to joyful movement, keep reading below!
Create space for joyful movement
Traditional exercise as we know it today is predominantly used as a tool to burn off excess calories. Joyful movement, on the other hand, is a free gift to bless us with benefits of experiencing the freedom of movement in daily life and actively participate in the care of God’s wide creation, including ourselves.
To transition to joyful movement, you must separate exercise from calorie counting. Instead of choosing exercise based on how many calories it will burn off as penance for eating, take a break from that type of thinking and do something that simply sparks joy for you.That could mean you go back to your childhood days of exploring in the backyard and soaking up nature by walking through the woods, digging in the dirt in a garden, or grabbing your kids for a game of tag.
Whatever you do, take a break from any type of exercise you do for the sake of burning calories or sculpting your body. If you need more ideas on what might bring you joy in the Lord, I have plenty of ideas on my blog or in my book Move for Joy.
Another crucial way to create space from traditional exercise is to practice starting with grace.
Just as you would say a blessing over a meal, take a deep breath in and give thanks to God for your body with a verse like, “the joy of the Lord is my strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). You can print out this verse with a prayer and related movement, along with 15 others in our Health Scripture Cards to set your joyful movement intention.
Get curious with joyful movement
Traditional exercise can sometimes use compulsion through condemnation: if you don’t exercise, then you’ll gain weight and be looked upon as lazy. But joyful movement values curiosity and sees movement not as a one-time performance but a lifetime practice and exercise in enjoyment.
Shut down any negative narratives that tell you how you should be feeling before or after a workout by diverting your attention to how a movement makes you feel instead.
Do you feel stronger? Does a certain movement put strain on a joint? What time of day does movement benefit you? Do you feel more or less energized moving together with others? What environment makes you feel more clear-headed?
Practicing how you feeling during movement can also help set the stage for how you feel during the day. If you’re hunched over at a desk, take regular intervals to check in with your posture and make micro-adjustments, take stretching breaks, and count it all as movement.
Find joy in the limited-time embodied experience God has gifted you with through the empowering practice of continual discovery. Always look for how God is drawing you into greater joy. Seek, and you will find.
Make joyful movement support your season
Instead of jumping into a 30-day beach body program a friend might be doing to prep for a cruise, evaluate your own season of life and choose movement that supports you right where you are.
Know that most seasons of life do not perfectly align with the calendar, and that’s ok. Being pregnant for 9 months doesn’t always fit into a typical New Year’s fitness goal. Dig deeper into your greater purpose and God’s plans for you and yours right now and adjust accordingly.
If you’re in a busy season, choose small spurts of movement to keep you energized and refreshed like walking breaks, rather than spending long sessions at the gym or exercises that will make you sore and more unlikely to move fluidly through your day.
Make fitness fit you. There are so many ways your body can move, more than what we typically think of as “fitness”! This includes stretching, dancing, walking, lifting, and general activities of daily living.
Choose movement as a supplement to what you need and can look forward to, rather than an extra chore you have to perform.
Movement is a gift from God to help you be fit and ready for what He has for you, so when in doubt, ask Him for wisdom and He will surely grant it to you (James 1:5) as you walk with Him in faith.
Experiment with different forms of joyful movement
Now you have a chance to experiment a bit more, tweak your current routine, optimize some things, or even to throw it all out and try something completely new. You are free from the traditional expectations through grace, you’ve become more in tune with your body through curiosity in Christ, and you are aware of your season and what benefits you here and now.
What have you always wanted to try? Branch out and try out a trapeze class, horseback riding, or call that neighbor and see if they want to start a weekly walk with you discussing a book or podcast. Life is short, and God encourages us to count it all joy, so don’t be afraid to try something new just outside your comfort level.
Experimentation doesn’t mean pressure to try something new. If the best thing exercise can do for your life and season right now is to be predictable, then by all means, put on your walking shoes and go out at the same time every day.
But if you do hit a rut or get stuck, know you are free to change it up. You can change gyms, change shoes, change clothes, change direction, change the weights you lift (or don’t), change the conversation. See what makes you feel most free, and go with that.
Invite someone to your joyful movement practice
With all the solitary at-home fitness products for sale these days, we might start getting the idea that fitness, like eating over the sink for hurried meals, is something you do on your own in between the cracks of the day.
But we are the body of Christ, and we know that we are better together. Joyful movement is one essential way to do life together, to get stronger together, to bond over hardship together, to simply make memories together.
There are absolutely times when joyful movement is more joyful when you can go out on your own and spend some time with the Lord one-on-one, but it can also be a beautiful opportunity to invite someone along for the ride with you and build a relationship. Plus, you can pray for others along the way.
If you want to get into the habit of moving more because you know it will bless you but can’t seem to keep it up, join a tribe by asking to jump in with someone else’s group, sign up a gym and go to classes, or create your own group through invitation. Socially distant activities include walking, hiking, or running outside 6 feet apart, group fitness outside, playing tennis, golf, and horseback riding, among others.
Adapt your joyful movement practice
While there is much value in staying committed to a program, the greatest strength of humanity is our ability to adapt. We find ourselves in a famine, our body learns to hold on to food. We want to catch a quick animal, we get faster with practice.
Spiritually, adapting is to repent, to return back home to God and be renewed: “For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, ‘In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength’” (Isaiah 30:15). As Christians, we know that exercise is less about food punishment and more about moving closer to the Lord, which is of eternal value.
Joyful movement itself is a practice of constant adaptation. When what you’ve always done is no longer working for you, it’s time to adapt. When you or someone in your family gets sick, it’s not the time to push your body and go hard, but to slow down and rest. Our body often teaches us patience and to go at the pace of grace, so intuitive exercise is about partnering with and leaning into the God’s creative wisdom in your body.
This is why being open to curiosity helps you know how and when to slow down, speed up, or change direction according to your current season of life. You not only have permission, but it is within your human right and God-given power to switch things up with your movement practice as you walk by faith in step with the Spirit.
Progress joyful movement
Once you find joyful movement you love, it’s time to go further up and further in. Deepen your compassion and understanding of this movement pattern with the art of progression to strengthen your motivation through appreciation.
First, find your flow, whether that is in a general practice of movement or in a movement session itself. Start with something below your perceived ability, then level up until it feels like a goldilocks ‘just right’—not anxiety-producing-hard and not boring-slow. This applies both to your time availability and your strength capacity.
For example, once you can build in an afternoon of walking comfortably, add in another day during the week and see if you want more. If you do, keep adding until it feels right. Then you can try progressing your intensity or longevity. Walk five minutes more and note how you felt, or find a hill to walk up during your route.
Notice how you feel during, immediately after, and 48 hours after a progression before adding another. Don’t progress too quickly, or it will lead to discouragement or even injury.
You have a lifetime to experiment! Do it right, and you’ll increase your joy as you experience more of what this movement gift has to offer.
Repeat steps 1-7 as needed!
Now may you go in grace, for joy,
Kasey
PS: If this post has resonated with you and you would like to go deeper into joyful health with both eating and moving by grace, click the button below to discover all we have to offer. We have a guided 12-Week Course that will take you in-depth through our methods, offered twice a year in March and in August, so make sure to sign up for our email list to get updates!
