I was on the rowing machine this morning and drudging through doing a mile on it (not a big deal). It was unpleasant in a way that I often find cardio exercise unpleasant when I am not in a rhythm of doing it: it took effort and I felt a certain level of anxiety because I knew it would be tiring.
When I thought more about it, the thing I found unpleasant was not actually the exertion or the fatigue. Instead it was the anxiety I felt about the exertion and fatigue. And anxiety is inherently future-focused. When I managed to simply focus on the feeling of my body as I rowed a mile (again, not a big deal at all), it felt nice and clear and easy. Taking in only the raw, unprocessed data of the rowing as it was happening made the experience a much better one.
It is not easy to remain in this state. I find that I can do it for a few seconds at a time before my mind starts pulling the future forward again. But it makes many negative experiences better and I find it empowering to feel like I am not entirely captive to my mind’s interpretation of the world.
I believe that thinking this way is an outcome of several years of a modest but fairly consistent meditation habit (perhaps an average of 10 minutes per day, three days per week for ~5 years). This is how I have come to understand “mindfulness:” allowing yourself to purely take in the raw inputs of an experience instead of letting your mind default to interpretation and feelings which sit on top of the raw inputs.
Sometimes remembering all the past anxieties that did not materialize can help put the present one into perspective, which you may doing as you remind yourself to return to the present.
The 10 sec count down before a WOD is when my anxiety is at its peak. This disappears seconds into the workout.