27 Sit Ups

Two strange things about daily increasing sit ups. First, every day the additional sit up absolutely kills me. I can barely do it and afterwards must groan very loudly and collapse dramatically onto my back. But, the next day, yesterday's sit up is cake, and the new additional sit up is the impossible one. This has been true every day since the eleventh sit up. 

Second, after every sit up, my mind tells me I can't "do this." It's like this: One (I can't do this). Two (I can't do this). Three (I can't do this). And so on and so on. I think this is so weird. Why is my mind in charge of telling me I can't do sit ups, as it seems to be? And what else is it telling me I can't do? 

This reminds me of when I gave birth to my youngest daughter and my oldest daughter was in the birth room. For a time, I said, in a quite calm and reasonable voice, "I Can't Do It! I Can't Do It!" This went on for something like six hours, until miraculously, I did it. 

My oldest daughter, who heard all of this with some adult intervention (strategic trips to the ice machine down the hall), would for weeks, whenever she was crying over a scraped knee or hurt feelings, instead of saying "Owww!" or "it hurts" would say "I can't do it! I can't do it!" 

Is this how it starts?