Welcome to the Black Girl Burnout podcast, Kelly here.

And today I'm going to talk about how to opt into joyful movement.

I no longer exercise. I joyfully move. And my relationship with exercise

has been a tense one for many years. And today I want to talk about how to put more joyful

movement in your life, what you need to leave behind and opt out of,

that gets in the way of moving your body and gets in the way of you living the healthy life

you deserve. Like I said, for a long time, I exercised. For many years, I did exercise. I've been a person that's had a love,

hate relationship with exercise and working out. I have loved the way I looked when I worked

out a lot. I have loved certain types of workouts. I have loved challenging myself to be stronger.

But what stop me from really having joy in my exercise was that I often only thought of

exercise as a pathway to looking good, in quotes.

I only saw exercise as a pathway to externally looking my best.

And I rarely saw exercise as a lifestyle that I would do, regardless of outcome. I also pushed

myself and tried different types of exercise.

I remember one time I decided I wanted to be a runner.

That was a fun year of my life.

And I pushed myself to be able to run a distance for a bit.

And I'll never forget my mother telling me me as she would watch me on the track,

she would go to the gym and she'd work out and I would be on the track running, trying to

improve my time and my distance. And she would say, Kelly, you look so miserable. And I did.

I was miserable. I hate running. I still don't run. I don't like it. I will do it if

my life depends on it. But I have been in the best shape of my life and the worst shape of my life

...