By Betsy Gonwa, 
This winter, I added swimming to my exercise routine. It was slow to become a routine. Some weeks I would swim once and some weeks twice. My original goal was to swim three times per week. But that didn’t happen.
One day, the time I had set for heading to the pool came. I found myself walking first in one direction and then another. Toward the door, and then toward the comfy recliner and my unfinished novel. I wanted to go and at the same time I didn’t want to go. What was going on? If this was something I wanted to do, why didn’t I do it?
The vocabulary of my youth consisted of words like procrastination and willpower. Words that contain elements of judgment, criticism and condemnation. With that mindset, there was no way to deal with resistance except to push through. But, “Just do it, Betsy!” was not working.
In that moment, I stopped moving and just stood there. A pause. I acknowledged what I was feeling. I acknowledged the “want to” and the “don’t want to.” It wasn’t purely one or the other. It was both/and! I wanted to exercise and I did not want to go out in the cold weather. I did not want to get wet and at the same time I wanted to swim.
Honoring my both/and feeling was a moment of honesty, a moment of being real. Giving myself space to feel what I was feeling also gave me freedom.
In the self-talk of my childhood, I would have called myself lazy and attempted to power through. That can work for awhile, but it is not the long term solution for me. Devon Price, a social psychologist and professor at Loyola University claims that laziness doesn’t exist. But unseen barriers do. My unseen barriers appeared in the form of discomfort — getting cold and getting wet – and inertia — stopping one activity in order to start another
I have come to accept this about myself, that sometimes a part of me will resist what another part of me wants. It is how I will feel in the moment.
I just swam at the indoor pool for the last time this season. I came to expect the both/and feeling. Sometimes it lasted right up until I was waist deep in the water. Until I would lean forward, and get my shoulders and arms and face wet. Or alternatively, until I dove in. Only then would the both/and feeling pass. And then, I would swim.
This happens to me in other arenas, too. What about you? Is there something you want to do and don’t want to do at the same time?
