On a strenuous journey ending in contentment

Dating in Los Angeles can make you feel like you’re just spinning your wheels, but these days spinning my wheels is actually getting me somewhere.

At least four times a week, I find myself in a dim, sweaty room where the music pumps so loud the walls sometimes vibrate. We ride stationary bikes during one-hour challenges that take us up and down hills, through intense interval jumps, and endurance tests.

In the fitness world, this form of exercise is called spinning, and different people do it for different reasons. For one, it’s a fabulous calorie-burner and a fun, fast way to get your cardio workout. It’s also a great training tool for serious cyclists.

But the more I do it, and I’ve been at this for nearly a year, I’m finding that my heart is getting a different kind of workout in this Gold’s Gym in Venice, space I share with people of all ages and from all walks of life. As I climb hills and sprint, Eminem blasting in my ears, my heart is strengthening. But not just in the athletic way you would expect.

Spinning works something like yoga. By focusing on the physical, your spirit benefits as your soul is enriched and your heart expands. You could argue that all exercise improves the mind and body, and it does. But there’s something different about taking your body to its limits in the hot darkness, thunderous songs beating behind the soothing voice of an instructor urging you to push yourself -- but, most of all, to care for yourself.

When Chris, our adorable instructor, tells us to embrace our anxiety and stop fighting it, he’s not just talking about the seven-minute intervals on a hill on which we’re about to embark, he’s talking about the things we combat every day in Los Angeles: traffic, competition, rejection.

“That’s a good lesson in all of life, isn’t it?” he says one evening. “Sometimes we need intensity. But sometimes we need to hold back, too. If you peaked early today, learn from that. Sometimes we need to hold back and that’s the toughest thing to do. We cannot live each day with that much intensity.”

It’s the same reason Mike, another handsome spin master, challenges us to cycle with our eyes closed so that we can’t see even the shadows in the room. It’s a way to give up control, he explains, a way to learn to let life happen as it will. I was amazed one morning when I learned I had managed to keep my eyes shut the longest of anyone in the class. Surrendering is not something that comes easily to me.

There are people who walk away from their yoga mats in tears after a particularly tough session of aligning their mind, body and souls. I have experienced that, but when it happened during a spinning class, I knew something substantial was stirring inside me. In those precious minutes, surrounded by hard bodies aiming for ambitious athletic achievements, so much can happen. Anger dissipates, sadness lessens, tension eases. And happiness is remarkably found in the journey -- instead of the finish.

Merle, one of my favorite instructors, always ends his class by making us aware of the gift we give ourselves each time we climb on our bikes: “Nurture your joy.”

On my bike, I am learning to do just that. I am spinning for my heart.