I have a double mastectomy surgery coming up in late December.
The surgeon asked me to lose at least 20 pounds by then as well as work on strengthening my upper body, and in particular, he urged me to do Yoga.

During Covid I paid for a Yoga Streaming App that had the most wonderful classes and ended up doing only 5 classes during the entire year of membership that I had.
It was never an issue of time, equipment or space at home, but rather I gave into urges to quit and “not feeling like it.”

I found a studio that is 18 blocks from my house in NYC and they offer a wonderful selection of yoga classes throughout the day, 7 days a week with state-of-the-art amenities and a luxurious feel.
I can afford their membership and start as soon as this coming Friday and as soon as I am considering it I am having these thoughts:

It’s too far.
You’re never going to go.
If you didn’t practice at home you will definitely not practice there.
You will still not feel like going.
It will probably be too challenging for you, even the beginner classes.
It’s going to be money wasted.
You never stuck to it when it came to gyms and studios.
A little bit of rain and you won’t go.
You will just end up disappointing yourself.
I don’t trust you to actually go to the classes.

Phew… big sigh…

Surely, my brain has a lot to say and it has a pretty solid opinion about not trusting me to actually go and do it.

I was doing some Intentional Thought Download on thoughts I would like to believe before I sign up:

I will make the schedule simple for me and just stick to it.
I am expecting to never feel like going.
This time it will be different.
Now I know that for sure I will have urges to quit and that means I am human.
Now I know that I trained my brain to quit Yoga classes but I will teach it something new.
I’d like to give myself this gift of a strong and flexible body before this surgery and I will.

The thing is that on paper these intentional thoughts sound pretty but I totally do not believe them.

Since this issue has been something I was dealing with for two decades already, does it make sense to not even try to self-coach, expect the urges, expect not feeling like it and force myself to go to the class, no matter what?