My Inner Personal Plight

I am a gym whore. I put out to work out. Ahhh! Working out today was HEAVEN! At 6 AM I was taking a weight-lifting class to sexy, blaring music. At 7 AM I was spinning. I wanted to take a Zumba “dancercise” class at 8:30 AM, but I decided to get to my office to begin work instead.

Some mornings I’m dragging, especially if I hadn’t had a sound night’s sleep. But today, I was having such fun dropping out of my usual routine! My good friend at the gym, Melanie, was not around on her usual machines. She’s been out for a few weeks. Apparently, she had overdone her workouts, had become dehydrated, and she ended up in the local hospital’s emergency room. My Pilates trainer cautioned me not to over train. So I made a conscious and Gilda-loving decision to drop Zumba from my to-do list today.

I sauntered into the sauna for a couple of minutes. It’s usually empty and I can meditate there. But today there were two lovely women. We chatted about casual things, with me continuing to be mindful about my mission NOT to come across as Dr. Gilda. But there we all were, sweating and vulnerable. One of the women, a beauty, said something negative about herself, and I cautioned her not to put those things out there because they become self-fulfilling prophecies. She said, “Really?” Suddenly, I was again in Dr. Gilda mode. “STOP THAT!” I silently told myself. But the other woman asked some questions, particularly whether I do coaching because she’s been planning on hiring a life coach. She asked me for my business card and I gave it to her.

I wonder if I’ll ever be able to totally shut off my professional from my personal. How do celebrities transform into civilians? How might Oprah become Olive-On-the-Street? How might Cher become Cheryl in a big anonymous city? For me, this is another objective, not unlike building up the strength in my scrawny upper body. Too bad the gym doesn’t offer exercises to guide me in this, my inner personal, plight!