Day 3, To my inner critic: Shut up.

So, I had a great day today. It was my first day back at work, and it felt so good to be back. I went to the gym before work (seriously later than I had intended, but these things happen). I even made an appointment to get my body fat % taken! I don't know that I will need it, or even trust it's accuracy, but I feel like down the line it might serve me in some way.
Anyway, so I had to take all my shower stuff, food, even breakfast with me when I left for the gym. I even had to blend myself a protein shake and put it in a coffee thing too keep it cold. I knew I would need to drink it after I worked out in order to feed my muscles after my workout in that 30 minute period of time. The point of all this is that I dragged two big bags into the gym this morning and felt a little awkward, but it made the rest of my day work so beautifully.
At 5:30pm, I went to Amy's class. I've been so delinquent about going for the past two months that I felt a little ashamed of myself. And that's just the beginning. I began an internal verbal assault on myself before the class even got started. It was a whole lot of shaming, like, "look what you've done to yourself! You're so out of shape!" And my personal favorite, "oh yeah, that's right, this is because YOU DON'T FINISH ANYTHING! You couldn't finish that 12 week program, and you're pooping out when you still have ten seconds to go! No wonder you can't reach your goals!" Have I ever mentioned how this has persisted in every facet of my life? I mean, I personally think I self-sabotage just to MAKE THIS BELIEF TRUE. Oh wait, that might be more evidence of me criticizing myself. Well, anyway... I was really being terrible to myself until we started doing mountain climbers and Amy said something as she was coaching the class...I don't remember what it was, but it was generally encouraging at least. I think it had to do with focusing on our abs, and my abs were killing me. I decided to surrender. My goal was to surrender to the pain. You know, feel the pain and continue anyway. But by repeating surrender in my head several times, I surrendered to the inner critic. I stopped resisting it, and it kind of disappeared.
It dawned on me that I finish things literally ALL THE TIME! I've never walked out of a fitness class. There are plenty of shifts at Green Bowl that I have stayed through to the bitter end. There are projects that I fought through bitterly to finish.
Now granted, I did quit after 6 weeks if the bodybuilding plan I was on. I hardly think I am the first person to do that. What's more, I LEARNED from that! The first six weeks of this program are going to be so familiar to me!
Anyway. I finish things. All the time. So my inner critic can shut the eff up.