I’m going to write about body weight, because this year it’s relevant to my interests. If this is triggering for you, I apologize, and hopefully you already know to protect yourself by closing tabs and stopping yourself from reading further, because this isn’t directed at you. I’m writing about my body, which belongs to me, and my body image, which is A+ and also belongs to me. I can’t write about other people, their bodies, or their body image because those are all outside of my expertise. Probably what I write will not reflect the experience of most people who ever lived. I say that because I rarely read anything written by other people about their bodies that fits my feelings or my life. If you’re still reading, then maybe you’re curious what it would feel like to be someone else?
Someone who likes being a person in a body? Someone who experiences this thing called “my body” as cooperative, convenient, and useful? Okay, so the main way I relate to having a body is that it is the vehicle I use to carry my consciousness from place to place. Another way I use my body is as a test lab for the performing of interesting experiments. There is a huge amount of divergent “health” “information” out there. The way I make sense out of it is by trying it out on myself and seeing how it goes. The first thing I discovered is that sleep is my main health priority, without which nothing in my life works. Being sleep-deprived makes me moody, lowers my energy, and apparently interferes with my immune system. I sleep as much as I can and I feel totally entitled to it. The second thing I discovered is that my own personal body weight is strongly correlated with what used to seem like random, unconnected issues. The heavier I am, the more migraines I get. The heavier I am, the more often I get colds and flu, and the longer it takes to recover. There is a certain specific body weight, above which I get headaches and night terrors, and below which I do not. Above that weight, I’m prone to dizzy spells, and below that weight, I’m not. I have lurking suspicions that all of these things are somehow connected to thyroid function, to the endocrine system, or to hormones in general. These are the reasons why I monitor my body weight. Apparently other people do it because they care what other people think of their appearance? Or they tie it to some kind of performance metric so that they have a stronger sense of autonomy and control? Perfectionism? Self-loathing? I dunno. I don’t even clean my house for those reasons, although I do run a tight ship. I pay attention to how much I weigh because when I don’t, my life sucks and I feel like crud all the time. When I do, it’s straightforward and fades into the background. It’s just the simplest way I’ve found to keep tabs on the most obvious, easily tracked trend line on my physical dashboard. (I can step on the scale every morning, and I don’t have to use a measuring tape on various parts of my body, draw my own blood, or take other kinds of samples which I lack the laboratory equipment or knowledge to analyze). I like numbers. They feel like a neutral feature of the world, like... sand. Or pebbles. They’re just there and they only have the meaning that we ascribe to them. All right, so here’s what happened. I’ve been training hard at martial arts all year, and along the way, I gained a bunch of weight really quickly. Some of it was muscle, and most of it was adipose tissue, also known as excess body fat. This became a problem because, for the first time in 3-4 years, I started having headaches and scary sleep episodes again. I kept thinking, Oh, that’s just a fluke, until one morning when my husband remembered me doing stuff in my sleep and I did not remember. I HATE THAT. There’s basically nothing more humiliating and dreadful to me than when I... sleepwalk, flail and hit my husband, scream, have conversations... DO THINGS in my sleep and my conscious mind has exited the building. I’d genuinely rather have incontinence than this. It makes me feel like I’m developing dementia. That was the trigger. I absolutely cannot allow myself to continue up that road. My sleep gets shattered, and when that happens I can’t focus during the day, it destroys my productivity, I feel weepy all the time, and I just start getting sick a lot. None of these things are what a fork is for. Time to slow my roll. I knew exactly how I’d gained the weight, because I’ve done it so many times and also because it was somewhat intentional. I had this idea that if I added more muscle, everything would be fine. Apparently not. I think what goes on in my body is that whatever blood sugar conversion process is happening when I up my calorie intake and add body weight, whatever it’s composed of, that’s the thing that triggers all my other health issues. I was doing it too quickly. My goal was to gain 15 pounds of muscle in a year. I put on 4 pounds the first month, maintained for three months, and then put on an additional 5 pounds the fourth month. May 1 I weighed ten pounds more than I did on January 1. By my birthday I’d gained a full-on fifteen pounds. Okay, that would be AMAZING if it all came from muscle! Muscle on a female frame of my size happens at a rate of about a quarter-pound per week. Let’s say I had 8 pounds of muscle which I dearly loved, and 7 pounds of (additional) extra body fat which I did not want or need. What to do? Handle it in a competent, businesslike manner, the same way I would pay off a debt or clean out a closet, of course. The same way I tackle most problems. It was surprisingly simple, again because I know what I’m doing. I had gained the extra weight by adding about a thousand calories a day to my diet, often in the form of French fries and cake. This was on the advice of my husband, who noticed how exhausted I was when I would come home from class, and suggested that I eat more. Once I built my endurance, stamina, and strength from training hard for 8 months, I was ready to switch gears. This is what I did. I set a deadline: my wedding anniversary trip. I set a goal: two pounds per week. I made guidelines, which I followed: keep a food log every day; avoid desserts, fries, appetizers, and sweet drinks for the duration; add cardio. I was very, very pleased to find that I could handle an hour-long martial arts class and an hour on the elliptical on the same day! My arms and legs have been getting really strong, and I’ve been seeing muscle definition I never had in my life before. I also had this tubby belly. As far as I can tell, almost all of the 8 pounds I lost over four weeks was sitting right there, right in the stroke-risk, heart-disease sector of my midriff. During the process of cutting weight, I felt more energetic. I’d really missed my cardio workouts, and it seems like it has helped my overall mood and energy level. I also use that time to read the news and catch up on my email, which is helping me to feel more organized and productive. The result was that not only did I make my goal, I came out on the other side feeling like I had my life more together. My hubby bought me a new bikini for our anniversary, which, let’s just say they come in every size for a reason. If you want to wear one, wear one. For us, it symbolizes a commitment to spend more time relaxing in the hot tub. For my next trick, I’m going to work on learning more core exercises. This is the one obvious area of my body where extra muscle and attention would be interesting and useful. I’ve never known what it was like to have a strong core, and I’m determined to find out. One way to define the word ‘organize’ is in the radical, political sense. It can help to keep this in mind while contemplating Getting Organized in the women’s magazine, top-down, social trend manner. The point of Getting Organized is to focus your energy, clear your mind, and introduce enough structure in your life that you actually do everything you intend to do. Harnessing your rebellious streak is one way to take ownership of this process. Remind yourself that power is not given, it’s taken. Agency and initiative are yours to command, but nobody is going to hand them to you.
Here are some orders against which you can rebel. GO TO BED EARLIER. If you’re tired and burned out, if you never feel like you have anything other than low energy, then getting better quality sleep is mandatory. However! Sleep procrastinators are staying up late to try to gain more personal time and assert some autonomy. If you do insist on staying up late, why not use that time toward Getting Organized? Late at night, you can still make a strategic plan, write a comprehensive to-do list, clear your inbox, shut off notifications, hunt for a better job, update your resume, study for an advanced degree, write a book, delete and cull and sort and file. You can even aggressively clean your house if you have some resentments and anger to direct at your partner, housemates, kids, or neighbors. GET RID OF STUFF. It probably would make your life easier to edit your possessions. A lot of people, though, are using their piles of stuff to set physical boundaries when they aren’t sure how to negotiate emotional or social boundaries. Taking up space in a psychological sense, in a way that makes a huge and measurable impact on the world, would probably take more ACTION and less stuff-stroking. Until that point, why not hang on to the objects that you own and instead journal, meditate, or do some deep inner work on your emotional reality? EXERCISE. I always associated society’s demands that I sit still, keep my frilly clothing immaculately clean, and passively maintain a sweat-free ladylike demeanor as Victorian social control. Girls of my generation were barred from participating in sports and strongly discouraged from being physically active or getting dirty. As an adult, I choose to do mud runs and obstacle courses, put on boxing gloves, and train in martial arts because **** YOU I DO WHAT I WANT. Sitting, though, is a time-honored tradition of political resistance and civil disobedience. Maybe the time I spend kicking and punching things, you instead spend mobilizing a campaign. *shrug* Working out can be a great way to release stress and tension, but maybe you need to retain that tension to fuel your cause? SAVE MONEY. There are only a couple of things more empowering than financial independence, and knowing where your money is going can be a great source of clarity and resolve. This can be approached in other, bolder ways. It’s a common entrepreneurial strategy to “burn your ships” and know that you will have to push yourself hard to earn enough to reach your stretch goal in a short time period. I talked to a client after we spent three weeks sorting through piles of unpaid bills, collections notices, speeding tickets, overdue rent, and back taxes. She asked how much she owed, and I didn’t want to tell her, but I did, because knowledge is power and the truth will set you free. “Ten thousand dollars, is that all?” She basically marched out and landed a better job, feeling that it was easier and less stressful to “just earn ten thousand dollars” than to painstakingly negotiate repayment plans or follow a meticulous budget. Go big and go home. EAT BETTER. Most people seem to experience keeping a food log or watching what they eat in any way as a soul-destroying prison. I found it fascinating and terrifically empowering, as I was finally able to assess the root cause of my migraines and night terrors. I weigh in every day because I’m working to put on fifteen pounds of muscle in a year, and how else will I know if I’m gaining enough? As a backpacker, marathon runner, boxer, and all-around endurance athlete, if I don’t make sure I get enough calories and micronutrients, I’m going to bonk. Ingredients lists, nutritional information, food logs, scales, measuring tape, and body fat monitors are tools for massive strength, power, and a BACK OFF, BUDDY attitude from the eighteenth dimension. If you want them to be, they are. LIVE YOUR BEST LIFE. Honestly, if you’re an observer of pop culture, you’ll see that living your worst life and being your worst self is likely a quicker path to fame. It’s an undeniable way to differentiate your brand. Who wants the pressure of living your best life? Sounds like a lot of work. I think it might be more interesting and productive to define your most mediocre life and try to nail that first. Ultimately, if you’re not the boss of you, then nobody is, and that’s something unique and particular in its own way. Wild tangle of brambles, you do you. Rebellion can be intriguing, it can set your world on edge like nothing else, and is it burning your flame in the most gorgeous way possible? A flame with a constraint can send a rocket into space. Where is your rebellion taking you? “There are plenty of good things to look forward to as you grow older. So accept the aging process, and don’t waste years in the gym.” - Barbara Ehrenreich
“Who says going to the gym is a waste?” - Me Buckle up, because I’ve got a rant coming out of me and it’s going to move pretty fast. There’s this sick myth out there that the only reason a woman goes to the gym is vanity, that she cares about her external physical appearance, and that this is wrong and should be stopped. Personally, I think that if vain people want to make changes to their appearance, that’s their right, but it’s a moot point! We don’t begrudge people wearing the clothes they prefer, teetering in impractical shoes, dyeing their hair literally every color of the rainbow, getting professional mani/pedis, bleaching their teeth, spending thousands on orthodontia, removing moles, having full-body tattoos or piercings or henna treatments. Why, then, would bodybuilding be excluded from this catalog of personal expression? Back to what I said about it being a moot point. I don’t know anyone who works out for appearance reasons, and that includes men. Which, are we judging men and women by the same standards here? Because we should be, or at least we should if we believe that all humans have full bodily autonomy. Why do people work out? I work out because I want to avoid or delay getting Alzheimer’s disease, and also because a cancer scare and a fibromyalgia diagnosis at age 23 were, shall we say, inspirational. I work out because I’m physically frail and I see it as my only option to stay mobile. If that isn’t true for you, I’m so, so happy for you, but do not DARE to come at me for prioritizing my health and independence. Why do other people besides me work out? My friend is training to be an FBI special agent fighting human trafficking. She wants to pass the physical. My friend is training to get into the Air Force because she wants to become a pilot. My friend is training to get into the Navy, like the previous four generations of her family. My friend is training because he’s 78 and he wants to keep active. He can still get on the floor and do pushups. My friend is training because he was choked against a wall and he wants to be able to defend himself. My friend is training to set an example for her little daughter. So is her best friend, who has a daughter about the same age. My friends are training because they’re married and it’s something they enjoy doing as a couple. My friend is training because she’s been fascinated with martial arts all her life, and she eventually wants to master every form. My friend is training because she was a college athlete, and she craved something else when she could no longer play soccer. My friend is training because she and her sister run marathons together. My friend is training because he wants to apply to the police academy. My friend is training because it helps manage her depression. My friend is training because she lost 100 pounds, and now she can. My friend is training because she does roller derby with her daughter. My brother is training because he fractured his spine in three places in a construction accident, and being able to run is a celebration of life. Can someone explain to me why “accepting the aging process” somehow implies being completely sedentary? Why sitting elegantly in a chair is somehow proof of deep wisdom, and anyone who has the temerity to join a gym is foolish? I have a gym membership BECAUSE I accept the aging process. I believe I am very likely to live to be ninety, and I have a significant chance of living past one hundred, because I stay current in gerontology and because my relatives tend to be very long-lived. This is not an optimistic viewpoint. On the contrary! Outliving my meager savings by decades is scary, deeply scary. I’ve watched several of the women in my extended family retire into poverty, frailty, and economic catastrophe. Being forced to quit working due to health issues and then running out of money well before I die is a near certainty, unless I plan carefully to avoid it. Being poor, ill, and dependent on others is pretty much the opposite of aging gracefully. Agreed? I wasn’t able to have children. There won’t be anyone who is somehow obligated to care for me. That means financially and also physically. What will happen if I let my health decline to the point that I can’t get out of a chair on my own? Who will come over if I fall or if I’m bedridden, too weak to phone for help? I’m forty-three and it’s by no means too early to make contingency plans. High on that list is the physical training to fall properly. I love working out with my senior friend, and I hope I’ll celebrate his eightieth birthday with him at our gym. He’s a lovely person, and he’s also an excellent reminder of what I want for myself, just thirty-five years into my own future. We do “sprawls” (falling forward) and “breakfalls” (falling backward) several times per class, and each and every time, I think, “I’m doing this for Future Me.” Today is my last opportunity to build muscle and bone density for Old Me, and I’ll tell myself the same thing tomorrow morning. Yes, aging is a natural process of accruing wisdom, valuing friends and family, and celebrating one’s legacy. All of that is ever so much easier to do with vitality, high energy, and physical stamina. I didn’t have those assets in my teens or twenties, but I do now, and that’s because I’ve “wasted” so many years in the gym. Not only do I intend to waste many more, but I also plan to open my own gym when I’m sixty. I’d like to set the example for younger people that it’s never too late, and also demonstrate that there are forms of wisdom that can only be accessed through action and physicality. “My body” is not one single unchanging entity. If it were, the day I was born would have been a lot tougher for my mom, considering I’m taller than she is. It continually astonishes me how deeply rooted our beliefs about the body can be. Our bodies change every day, every minute! All our cells are continually in a process of renewal, down to and including our bone tissue and our brain cells. This is why I’ve been thinking lately of this thing I call “body polymorphia,” or the perception that the body has the potential to shift between many possible forms.
We believe this when we contemplate hairstyles or piercings or tattoos, sure. Tanning, yeah, why not. Corrective eye surgery. In fact, I cut my eyeball on a bird-of-paradise plant last year, temporarily damaging my vision, and it healed perfectly. The idea that a cut can heal without leaving a scar is really stunning, yet somehow we’re able to make it through the day without giving it much thought. We believe that broken bones can knit, that people can wake up from comas, that it’s possible to survive a stroke or a heart attack or a broken neck. In spite of all this, somehow, some of us believe that there’s nothing within our power or control that we can do about body composition. Uh. Why not? Why would we cling to the demonstrably false superstition that Nothing Can Be Done about adipose tissue? It’s a simple fixed-mindset belief. Even though I grew almost visibly from infancy through adolescence, my body stalled out and I became like unto a tree, adding rings around my trunk each year. That’s what happened, right? They say having kids causes weight gain, but I never had kids, so why did I gain weight? They say aging causes weight gain, but I weigh less at forty-three than I did at twenty-two, so why was I overweight then but not now? What we really want is to be let off the hook when we feel judged by external forces. Personally, I feel more judged by gravity! Why would I care what other people think about my physical appearance when they can’t park straight or drive in their own lane? What should be most important is whether we feel like we have enough energy to do everything we want to do. This is what I’ve taken upon myself. First, I decided that I wanted to be fitter each year than I was the year before. I want to take good care of Old Me. I want to open my own gym when I’m sixty, and impress younger people with all the stuff that a progressively aging person can do. This is already starting to happen. I enjoy wowing kids in their teens and twenties when I tell them my age. I thought about it and realized that what I really want to give to Old Me is a set of tangible, physically measurable gifts. She’s getting more muscle, more bone density, healthy blood pressure, and a lower resting heart rate. She’s going to have better posture, more visible muscle definition, greater agility, and better balance. There are seventeen years between now and my sixtieth birthday. With seventeen years of daily practice, how many yoga poses can I master? Could I work to do the splits, a handstand, a cartwheel, a muscle-up? The only way to find out is to find out. Right now I’m working on my headstand. It took two weeks of trying every night, and I finally got it the night before my birthday. I couldn’t do it as an eight-year-old or a fifteen-year-old. Why quit, though? Why buy into this madness that the body thickens up, stiffens, solidifies, and quits working quite right? IT IS B.S.! A year ago it hadn’t occurred to me to find out, “Am I too old for this?” Now I ritually stand on my head in front of the bathroom door every night while I get ready for bed. I’m getting faster and I’m able to hold the pose longer. I can feel it activating my midriff. This is what I’m feeling these days. I’m feeling that the long, sleek, supple muscles of my torso are desiring to be flexed and stretched. Temporarily I’m also feeling that I have a bit of a muffin top, but hey. Underneath the variable, ever-morphing top coat that is my external layer, there is this sinewy level. I know it’s there because 1. I can feel it and 2. I believe in an empirical reality that can be observed, tested, and verified by SCIENCE. Scientifically I know that I can build muscle tissue, grow thicker, denser bones, change my blood sugar and blood pressure, and even *drumroll* burn off excess reserves of adipose tissue, commonly referred to as body fat. My body composition has changed over the years, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. My ring size has changed, my bra size has changed, and weirdly, even my shoe size has changed! My feet got a half-size bigger after my marathon, which I thought was permanent, until I went in for a new pair of Birkenstocks after six months of kickboxing. Now my feet are a full European size smaller than they were *before* the marathon. If my feet can change size, what else can? I’ve worn eight different clothing sizes in my adult life. Now I’m calling forth the fascinating, mysterious, even adorable specialty muscles that lay hidden in my arms, shoulders, and back. What are you like, my dears? Where ya been? Do you have friends over there in the abdominal area? I believe that every part of my body is capable of change and growth. I know it to be true. I believe that I have the power and the emotional strength to learn more, to do more, and to ask myself why I struggle when I struggle. Why shouldn’t I go through each day in a body that can turn cartwheels? The joy in my heart is a transmogrification ray. As I play and experiment, I change my body, this amazingly polymorphic body that I have the pleasure to call my own. It’s hard to imagine a feeling state that you haven’t ever felt. For instance, I have no idea what it feels like to win a Nobel prize or have chest hair. I can guess at it, I can ask people who have been there, I can decide that I don’t mind not knowing, or I can make changes in my own mindset and behavior to see if I can find out for myself. Some exploration can be interesting. It can also be helpful whenever there’s any kind of conflict or friction around a mysterious feeling state. One of these is the idea of self-acceptance. Where is the line between self-compassion and fatalism?
What does self-acceptance feel like? It’s probably different for different aspects of the self. My guess is that most people are not bothered by certain parts of what they see as the “self” while being frustrated by other parts. Physical appearance, character flaws, intelligence, sense of humor, relationships, skills, talents... It’s easy to imagine someone who, say, is proud of being good with animals but feels unattractive. Maybe another person feels clumsy but smart, or friendly but bad at art. Probably most of us feel acceptance when our strengths line up with our values. It’s when we feel judged, shamed, or criticized by others that we tend to beat ourselves up and have trouble with self-esteem. This makes sense, but it’s also funny. Anyone who has watched the first couple of episodes of a season of American Idol knows that plenty of people have strong self-esteem in areas where it may not be warranted. (I’m a terrible singer with a good ear, so I know better than to inflict my voice on an audience). There’s also no guarantee that we’re really as weak as we think in the areas where we feel more vulnerable or wounded. When it comes to ourselves, we lack perspective. That’s the point of self-acceptance, of course. Ideally we’re learning to be more compassionate and patient with ourselves. What’s the point of shame, anyway? The challenge is to learn how to reframe the inner work, so that it isn’t a battle over shame. It’s possible to view these challenges with a growth mindset, seeing areas for improvement without feeling less-than, rejected, or criticized, by self or others. As an example, when I was in high school I used to spill milk in my lap all the time when I was eating cereal before school. It was really frustrating! The day I realized I could avoid this problem by eating at the table instead of sitting on the couch, it felt triumphant. AHA! I suppose I could have seen myself as clumsy or something. At the time it just felt like I was unlucky, because something was Happening to Me that wasn’t happening to other people. I realized it wasn’t Happening to Me, but rather that I was Doing It to Myself. I had the power to make a very simple change in my behavior and instantly get better results. I wasn’t judging myself or blaming myself, I was recognizing an unhelpful pattern and making my life easier. This is why I think that self-acceptance can often be defeatist. There are so many common human foibles, things that many or most people do, and there’s no reason to “accept” them and continue to do them. We can change our behavior with an attitude of humor and affection. There I go again, looking for my sunglasses when they’re already on top of my head! Oops, I just came back from the store with everything except the thing I went there to buy. Me and everyone else. Probably, though, we already know how to laugh off our silly mistakes. It’s the bigger stuff that catches us up. In my work with hoarding, squalor, and chronic disorganization, there are a lot of contradictions. My disorganized clients tend to beat themselves up quite a bit, punishing themselves as though being scattered were some kind of moral flaw. They almost always refer to themselves as “hoarders,” even though they have little or no emotional attachment to their stuff. Squalor clients, on the other hand, don’t really believe in germ theory, and they have no hang-ups about truly unsanitary conditions, mold, vermin, insect infestations, or even the occasional dead rodent. My true hoarders tend to feel entitled to hoard, not just their own but others’ possessions, not just their own personal space but that of roommates, relatives, friends, neighbors, and the general public. Hoarded homes tend to look extremely similar, yet they got that way through wildly different emotional and cognitive states. Maybe there’s some irony here. Those whose behaviors are the most frustrating to others around them tend to be the least concerned about it, feeling like “that’s their problem, not mine.” Those who feel the most guilt and shame about chronic disorganization will often adopt a new behavior or structure the moment they learn about it. The ultimate questions are ethical concerns about how much our behavior impacts others, and straightforward evaluation of our results. Is what we’re doing on a routine basis fair, interesting, efficient? Does it make our lives or others’ lives easier, better, more fun, more meaningful? In our current cultural moment, when billions of digital images are so instantly accessible at all times, people seem to be struggling more with accepting their physical appearance than anything else. This has always felt very puzzling to me, because why should that matter, of all things? What does how someone looks have to do with their personality, intelligence, character, or contribution in this world? Why on earth should someone’s body or face, both of which change decade by decade, feel like a bigger deal than how they act, what stories they tell, how they treat others, or what they do with their time? What the heck does the physical vessel have to do with the legacy of a lifetime? What will we leave behind after our time on this earth, other than a bunch of photographs? Maybe that’s the most defeatist idea of all, the premise that appearance is first and foremost, the most important trait and the single quality that defines us. The time we spend on the outer work takes away from the time we could be spending on the inner work. What if we just redirected our focus? What if, whenever we started focusing on our body parts and wishing for external approval of our externally visible traits, we simply paused and decided to go further in? It’s happening again! I went to a party and another woman showed me how to do something I couldn’t do when I was a little girl. Last time, it was spinning a hula hoop, which led to my immediate purchase of my own hoop(s), months of obsession, and a non-obvious segue into running. In a way, my first tentative spin of a hula hoop at age 35 led directly to running a marathon.
This time, it’s the headstand. My inability as a child to do a cartwheel, spin a hula hoop, jump through two jump ropes, or do a headstand had nothing to do with lack of trying. If I’m anything, it’s persistent. I just couldn’t figure out how to model what other kids were demonstrating. This might be because, due to my late-July birthday, I was younger than other kids in my grade, and thus smaller and less developed. It might be because I’m still not great on proprioception, knowing where my body is in relation to the external world. I defined myself as bad at sports. I hated P.E. I was last picked for teams. All these childhood antics left me feeling excluded, clumsy, slow, weak, and sorry for myself. Ah, but! In my forties, I’m finding those missing pieces. When I meet other women my age in a physical setting, we gravitate toward each other immediately. Just the other night in kickboxing, I had someone ask to be my training partner after someone else had already asked! These days, I’m first picked instead of last picked. (We had an odd number in the class so the three of us partnered up together. I would NEVER leave another girl hanging). Suddenly there’s this playfulness and fun in my life that once eluded me. Now, about that headstand. What’s the secret? It turns out that when people do something like acro-yoga or juggling, something that looks like magic, they’re doing extremely specific things. These movements can be broken down into micro-steps that can be learned and mastered one by one. Not everyone who is good at something is a good teacher, and it’s possible to do something without understanding how you’re doing it. It’s also true that lifelong athletes tend to underestimate how much baseline strength and cardiovascular fitness is required for certain things. In spite of all that, it’s always possible to find a good teacher or a video that demonstrates the steps. It was no accident that I met my new friend. We were at the WDS opening party, a field day, and I spotted a group of people doing headstands at the other end of the field. After I learned a new hula hoop trick and taught another woman to spin two hoops at once, I wandered over there to see if anyone could teach me. I asked! This is the magic part, really. My new friend showed me the initial stages, and I found that I was strong enough to easily do them. All of my work in boxing gloves over six months gave me a totally unrelated, non-adjacent ability. How crazy is that?? I went out and got myself bigger biceps, deltoids, trapezius, and lats, thickened up my neck a bit, and opened the door to acrobatics. Step one: Kneel on the ground. Step two: Put the top of your head on the ground. Step three: Put your hands down about shoulder-width apart, halfway between your head and your knees. Step four: Put your knees up on your elbows. With me so far? While I was watching and listening carefully, I wasn’t really thinking about how much of my body was inverted and vertical. Put your knees on your elbows? Okay! Like this? I had tried this in yoga class several times, even against a wall or with a partner, and it was definitely not happening. As a boxer, yeah, not only was it possible, it wasn’t even hard. The next step is to raise your legs and straighten them out. I’m still working on this part. It’s given me a solid understanding of how much more core strength can do for my life. Comically, it’s become my major motivator. My arms, legs, and back are quite strong now, and I have some real muscle definition, but my belly is soft and slack. External appearances don’t matter much to me, but the ability to do not just the headstand, but other circus tricks actually does matter. If I can build up my abs and obliques, I can use that new muscle base to do other things, too. That’s probably the secret behind walking on my hands, riding a unicycle, and doing a cartwheel at last. Maybe I could also learn to do a backflip or other gymnastic moves. What I’ve been doing is practicing my headstand for a few minutes every night before bed. I haven’t been this excited about anything since that first day with the hula hoop. I feel genuine anticipation when I get down on the floor, wondering if this is the night. The picture accompanying this post is from the one-week mark. As I post this, I’ve had an additional four days of practice, and I’m able to extend my right leg straight up. I estimate that it will take me 3-4 weeks to go from zero to sustaining a full headstand without immediately tipping over. Another way to put it is that, at five minutes a day, it has taken less than an hour to get one leg up and I’m guessing about another hour to get them both. There was a rough moment. I was trying to impress my husband (while he was trying to brush his teeth) and I called him out to see how I finally had my leg up straight. Then I toppled over and landed on my back. Embarrassing! Apparently the impact caused my gluteus muscle to clamp up on one side overnight. I was limping and it was scary-sore. I took some anti-inflammatories and did my normal amount of walking, and within an hour or two it was fine. It’s only fair to say that falling over is a little more dangerous for someone with a fully developed skeleton; I weighed half this much in grade school. I just remind myself that one of my main reasons for choosing an impact sport like kickboxing is to build bone density while I still can, and that falling on the ground is literally the type of impact that helps with this. It’s also highly relevant that I’ve learned how to fall properly. A few hundred sprawls and breakfalls trained me, so that I fell in a straight line and didn’t twist or strain or sprain anything. Be careful! They tell me to be careful when they wouldn’t tell a man. I AM being careful! I’m being careful to protect Old Me from falls, from osteoporosis, from sarcopenia, from heart disease and cognitive decline. I’m also protecting myself from regret and isolation. The moral of the story is, find something that truly excites you and strive for it in tiny increments, day after day. The thrill of finally getting that prize is something you can’t get any other way. A funny coincidence came up the other day. Someone I’ve known socially for about a year asked what gym I go to, and then told me that he went to the same place for three years. Wow, really? It’s a martial arts school with a couple hundred students, not exactly a huge 24-hour commodity gym. He said he was in the best shape of his life at that time, and then added ruefully that he should get back on that. I paid attention to that, because he is at least ten years older than I am, and the older I get, the more I realize that matters.
Then I thought: What exactly does “best shape of my life” mean? When would that be? Am I already there, was I there at some point in childhood, or is there still a “better” “shape” somewhere in my future? I should throw in there that using the term “shape” is a bit ambiguous. It seems to refer to externalities like physical appearance, and that inevitably touches on What Other People Think. It’s much harder to discuss an internal sensation or overall experience of... what? Strength, agility, speed, power, peace of mind, potentiality...? Harder still when trying to get our heads around internal physical feelings that we may never have felt, like trying to explain a flavor or a musical genre without comparing it to other things. I can easily imagine a few time periods that could compete for “worst” shape of my life. Crawling on the floor with the flu. Walking around during finals with my eyelid twitching from stress. The first time I ran down a flight of stairs and suddenly felt my back jiggle. The first time I walked up a flight of stairs and my vision started to go black. Swallowing radioactive iodine for my thyroid scan, and then struggling not to cough for an hour even though the enlarged gland caused a constant tickle in my throat. Being strapped to the table for my first nerve conductivity study. Et cetera. Hard times, scary times, sad times. It’s because of this background of chronic pain, illness, and fatigue, though, that I’m so ready to embrace anything better. This is why I can’t give a care whether other people approve of my external physical appearance. Go ahead and fit-shame me; you won’t be the first. My health is somewhat fragile and I can’t live a conventional lifestyle in a conventionally relaxed, standard physique. I do what I have to do and that tends to result in certain external physical signs. The body changes tend to be a mix of good, bad, and neutral. When I was training for my marathon, my feet looked kinda terrible. They wound up growing a half size bigger and I had to get rid of every. Single. Last. Pair. Of shoes I had owned before. Then I got more into backpacking and I wound up losing the nails on my two big toes. Took six months to heal. As a cyclist, I learned that I always sweat out the crotch of my clothes first. Now I’m boxing and doing martial arts, and I’ve had at least one visible bruise at all times since January. I’ve also scraped off my knuckles and broken off a chunk of toenail. Sexy stuff. I get teased because I have yet to find a successful method of controlling my frizzy hair during class, and I’ve resorted to wearing a dorky bandanna as a sweatband. Athletic me: Frizzy, sweaty, bruised, muddy, looking like a laundry basket. Ah, but then there’s the inner experience. It starts when the scary stuff gradually fades away. My thyroid nodule disappears and never comes back. I realize I haven’t had a migraine in a year, then two years, then three years, then four years. My shoulder quits spasming. I stop feeling like a human trainwreck. Then I start to be able to keep up. I can keep up with the other students in class, I can do moves that would have left me quivering on the floor a month earlier, I can ride my bike or run at the same pace as my friend. Then I start to notice that I’m doing weird things, like opening the pickle jar in one try, or running up a flight of stairs two at a time without losing my breath. Then I start feeling very, very strange feelings, such as the desire to do core exercises. I read that an Olympian athlete does 700 sit-ups a day and I feel curiosity. Oh? How long does that take? All in one set or throughout the day? What else does she do? In spite of all the evidence that my body is changing, because my experience of being in my body is undeniably different, it still surprises me when these changes show up on the outside. Brushing my teeth, I suddenly see the new definition in my triceps. Leaning forward, I’m surprised by the roll of my trapezius muscles. Getting dressed, I see the shadow marking my hamstrings. Whoa, what’s going on there? Arguably, I’m in the best shape of my life right now. I’m about to turn 43. I can do stupid human tricks today that I couldn’t manage as an 8-year-old child. I still feel slow and ungainly in class, and I work out next to women and men who are as many as 35 years older than I am now. I can only assume that I’ll continue to improve, especially because I’m due to switch to advanced classes this summer. This makes me feel about 10% scared, 25% excited, and the rest just nonchalant, because it’s inevitable. What’s going to happen, though? What will the best shape of my life look like, and when will it happen? How will I know? The Self-Love Experiment is a story about Shannon Kaiser’s exploration of self-compassion. This is a very raw, immediate, real look at what it’s like to do deep inner work. It will speak to anyone who has body image issues or who struggles with self-loathing. Hence, nearly everybody.
Self-compassion is the antidote to shame. Unfortunately, the first level of defense that comes from toxic shame is to convince the ashamed that they are undeserving of compassion, or anything good in this world. It always boggles my mind when I work with clients who are so convinced that they are terrible people, even though everyone else around them sees them as kind, sensitive, caring friends. Trying to love yourself when you feel unlovable must feel like ripping off your own skin, like a nakedness beyond nakedness. Shannon Kaiser talks openly about her issues with depression, eating disorders, drug addiction, and body dysmorphia. If she could learn to love herself while fighting all of these demons, then surely there’s something here for everyone. Something I found really intriguing in The Self-Love Experiment was the differentiation between the “rebellion self,” the “reward self,” the “protection self,” and the “lonely self.” These are aspects of the personality with different drives, and they explain a lot about coping behaviors. This is a very approachable, yet multi-layered and complex book. There’s enough here that some chapters could keep someone busy for a year. If you’re a Feeler, if you’re dissatisfied with your life, or if you are ever mean to yourself, it would be a self-compassionate act to read this book. Try the Self-Love Experiment for yourself. Favorite quotes: It never occurred to me that trying to change my outside world was a desperate attempt to feel better on the inside. To stop loathing myself is to reduce the negativity and pain in the world. Despite what you might believe about yourself, you are not broken, you are not your problems, there’s nothing to fix, you’re not off track, there isn’t something wrong with you, your insecurities are not hindering you, and your flaws don’t make you weak, unlovable, or unsuccessful. How do I write about hedonism without making it sound all sexy? This is a serious question. In fact, there are few things that are more serious than the ways that pleasure overlaps with morality, and we tend to oversimplify all of that by making it about sex. I’m a very shy person, and I have no intention of going there on this blog. What I have noticed, though, is that my people (my clients, my students) are really poor at identifying things they like and enjoy. They’re also really poor at imagining a positive future for themselves. Here are some of the hardest things I’ve asked them to do:
Describe your perfect day Make a list of things you enjoy Tell me your favorite What would you like to happen between now and this time next year? This area is wide open for research. Is it something about depression and anxiety that prevents people from enjoying themselves and imagining better times? Or is it this disconnect from pleasure that perhaps leads to anxiety and depression? Does this all just have to do with the amygdala being activated or something? I think these ideas are objectively testable. As with everything, of course, we can test ideas on ourselves. Say it with me: does it work, or does it not work? Does it work for you, or does it not work for you? One of those ideas we can check is the idea of sin, or morality in general. I’ve noticed that my people tend to moralize about things that simply aren’t moral issues. “I was bad.” Ooh, naughty. One of those areas is housework, another is money, and another is food and body image. A close friend of mine was trained from childhood that a clean house is morally virtuous and that household dirt is shameful, perhaps evil. THIS IS A MATTER OF OPINION. I keep a clean house because it’s a cheap workout and because otherwise I can’t find anything or think straight. I also like how it looks, feels, and smells, and more on this later. Many people have been taught that money leads to evil, which is a bummer, because most of these same individuals would probably be terrific at fundraising for charity if they allowed themselves to think that way. A million volumes could be written on all the ways we’ve been taught that certain foods are “decadent” or “sinful” and how we’re “bad” or how we’ve “been good” for eating in certain ways. If we want to be decadent and sensually indulgent, my dears, there are so many better ways... There are zero, zero rules for what you can find pleasurable or not pleasurable. Nobody else can tell you whether you like something or don’t like it, just as they can’t tell you what emotions you are feeling. As you learn to inhabit your body more fully, you’ll be more aware of what you do or don’t like and what you are sensing and feeling. Not knowing is a promising sign that you have a lot of fun experiments ahead! Also, it’s nobody else’s business what you enjoy privately. The reason so many people cherish time alone is that this is when we get to do all the stuff we like to do. For instance, when my husband goes on a business trip, I watch horror movies and eat eggplant for dinner, because we don’t share those delights in common. It’s nobody else’s business what you listen to on your headphones, how you season your soup, or what you choose for your favorite colors. There are a bunch of things that are commonly perceived to be pleasurable or fun, things that I personally dislike. Start with the word “pampered.” UGH! That will only ever make me think of disposable diapers. Also, I despise being waited on or having very attentive customer service. I’m shy and independent, and I distrust flattery. I’ve never had a professional manicure or pedicure, although I’ve bought them for men I’ve dated, because it sounds awful to me. Two words: toenail fungus. In fact, just stop at the word ‘toenail.’ Let’s see, what else? I don’t like alcohol or coffee, I think cheese is revolting, and there are a lot of desserts that turn me off. I don’t like croissants, gummy candy, or anything with powdered sugar or syrup. I don’t care for chocolate either. Each and every one of those items that I dislike are things that another person would love. That’s awesome. More for you! I’m attentive to what I dislike or find ‘blah’ or uninteresting, because one part of expanding into pleasure is avoiding the icky stuff. This is an existential position. Practical philosophy! I believe that I have the right to move toward things I love and enjoy, and the right to say a firm NO to things that I don’t. This is a radical, revolutionary position. A lot of us don’t necessarily believe that we really exist, that we have a right to our own opinions. This is something that can take a lot of work, something that is worthy of exploring with a counselor or therapist. Why shouldn’t you wear socks in your favorite color, listen to your favorite musicians, or say “no thank you” when you’re not interested in eating something? Huh? Why shouldn’t you? The biggest thing I’ve learned from coaching is that each of my clients has a highly idiosyncratic, negative story behind whatever painful, ineffective thing it is that they’re doing. That’s why I really mean it when I mean that you should put serious thought into why you think you’re not entitled to basic pleasures or basic, fundamental boundaries. Because you are. Of course you are! As a matter of fact, the vast majority of pleasurable things you can indulge in won’t affect anyone else in any way. They don’t even have to know. If you like cutting your sandwich on the diagonal one day and horizontally the next, go ahead! I’ll go on to say that claiming pleasure for yourself has a positive ripple effect on others. It helps as a foundation of strength, something that supports you as you do difficult things, like contributing at work, serving others in your life, volunteering, being a good citizen, or taking on challenges and quests. Pleasure nurtures you, helping you to avoid burnout, draining the boil of irritation or futility that you might otherwise spatter on others, venting and complaining about various miseries. It’s pretty hard to feel pleasure and annoyance or disappointment at the same time. Trust and believe that most people would rather hear about something enjoyable you did than something that frustrated you, unless of course you were able to make it into a funny story. Some pleasures: Spending time in nature, either physically or virtually. The phases of the moon, sunrise and sunset, clouds, stars, the weather. Trees, landscapes, flowers. The sounds of wind, water, birds - I’ll never forget the first time I heard a fox bark. Pictures of mountains, the ocean, the surface of Mars, anything that increases your sense of awe and delights your eye. Visual delights. Color. Symmetry or asymmetry. Scrolling through museum collections online. Gazing into the middle distance. Changing your phone wallpaper a lot. Music. Which is greater: the pleasure of listening to a beloved song over and over, or the pleasure of hearing something that captivates you for the first time? Fragrance. Gardens in your area. Soap. Lotion. Candles. Spices. Home cooking. Removal of bad smells. Nostalgic scents like pencil shavings. Sleeping. Probably the single most underrated pleasure of them all. Exploration. Adventure. Learning new things. Anything that you find inspirational, anything that ignites your sense of curiosity, anything that impresses you or makes you want to know more, should be pursued. Learning new skills is an entirely distinct pleasure, the satisfaction of efficacy. Storytelling. Story sweeps us away like nothing else. The great thing about the internet is that there’s so much out there, from blogging to fanfic to podcasts. Not everyone likes comedy but most people appreciate storytelling. Connection. Snuggling with pets. Dancing. Working in groups. Singing in a choir, or so they tell me. Hugging - some people like it! Deep listening. Pleasures of the body. This is a subject for a book of its own, but food is only one of the many, many ways the body can experience pleasure. I think it’s actually the weakest and fundamentally the most boring. Describing the pleasure of waking up as a well-rested, nourished, fit, active, strong, supple body is like giving people directions to the unicorn rides. Nobody believes you. It’s like a religious experience that you can only understand by living it for yourself. Shake it off and think of something else. Physical warmth, massage, stretching, working out a kink in your neck or shoulder. Sighing, deep breathing. It’s possible to live surrounded by beauty, indulging in pleasures throughout the day, and still be a productive, caring, ethical, morally correct person. This is an affirmation. If you can’t do it for yourself, do it because it’s what your friends and loved ones would want for you. Do it because it sets a good example for your kids or for other young people, for other humans in general. Do it because it’s good for the economy. Do it because nobody would begrudge it of a shelter dog, so why not you? Do it because nobody else will notice and nobody else will care. Do it as an experiment. Do it in the nature of philosophical exploration. If you can’t bring yourself to do anything else, at least just pause, stretch, take a deep breath, and allow the idea that pleasure is okay for someone, somewhere in the universe. You think? It’s our regular morning get-together. You know, you need a little pick-me-up to start the day off right. Something hot and steamy for just us girls. Us girls and a heavy bag, that is.
By “heavy bag,” I don’t mean that giant tote with the powder compact and the travel-sized flat iron. I mean that big ol’ thing suspended from the ceiling, the kind you see in boxing movies. It’s for punching. And kicking. And generally being on the receiving end of chaos and mayhem. You see it all, down here in the dojo. French braids. Fuchsia pedicures. Nose rings. Double pigtails. A variety of chemistry-enhanced shades of red hair. Yoga pants, called by that name only because ‘kickboxing pants’ has too many syllables. The only thing you don’t really see down here is acrylic fingernails. They don’t go as well with the boxing gloves. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are male students at our school. They’re even in class with us. It’s just that they tend to partner off with each other, and that means that for our purposes, they fade into the background. Sometimes there are half a dozen of us and only one of them, or rather, him. It’s a brave man who walks into a room of women fighters and ragebeasts all on his lonesome. If you haven’t trained with the competitive variety of female, then you haven’t seen competition. Remember that in any given yoga, spin, or Pilates class, at least some of the women have probably given birth. Once you’ve done that, you can do anything. Women are built for endurance and pain tolerance; otherwise, our species never would have made it. It’s a basic survival trait. Never get between a mama and her cubs. That’s a law of nature. Certainly it’s at least as true for a woman as for an animal mother. Mess with her kids and any woman will end you. In fact, most of the parents I’ve met at my school have enrolled all their children, too. Give them a fighting chance, but let Mom get in the first lick. We’re zero-sum competitors about other things, some of which would never occur to a man. Generally they don’t worry about whether they’re the prettiest or the cutest. I live at the beach, and it’s readily apparent that most men just put on swim trunks, shrug, and enjoy themselves being at the beach. They’re not going around giving each other side-eye and playing Who Wore It Best with their big ol’ khaki cargo shorts. They’re not making their own lives more difficult by trying to walk in four-inch strappy heels. When men compete with one another, it’s more likely about who’s the “biggest” or who earns the most money. Not who has more finesse with liquid eyeliner. Not that there isn’t a place for the perfect cat-eye. One would simply have to reapply after practice. We know pain. We’ve walked in the heels. We’ve worn the underwires. We’ve gone to work with cramps. We’ve tried all the crash diets. We’ve had various sensitive parts of our faces waxed or threaded, and someone explain to me the difference in sensation between having your upper lip threaded and being electrocuted. We know a heck of a lot more about the world of pain than we often realize, and if you test us, you can have a chance to find out, too. I often practice with another gal, a single mom who’s a few years older. If she clears five feet or a hundred pounds, I’d be surprised. I mean, I’m small but she’s just little. I’m pretty sure she wears a size double zero. Kicks like a mule. It takes everything I have to hold the foam targets steady for her. More than once, I’ve failed and the target has popped me in the mouth. It just goes to show that you can’t always judge by appearances. There are only two or three students in my school who look visibly menacing. One is a huge guy with a beard thick enough to hide a hand grenade. Who knows what he has going on. The other is ripped and has a crew cut, and you can see the whites of his eyes all the way around. He’s a beginner, even newer to class than I am. The one I’d be afraid of is the slender young blonde with the pink hair band. Or her friend, the one who takes conference calls during training without breaking her concentration. Beware the multi-tasking woman. She can plan a wedding and kick you back into an alley without even adjusting her headset. We’re so busy right now that we can’t even, so don’t start with us, okay? Most of the people I see in training four mornings a week do not look like practitioners of the martial arts. It’s been my experience that elite fighters, and athletes in general, have left any sense of needing to prove themselves behind long ago. There’s no question in their minds about their relative rank or competence, so why should there be in yours? Did you really need to go there? It’s better this way, better to be placid and serene in your physical confidence. Stealthily chill. Here I am, minding my own, all on my loney. Checking my manicure. Don’t make me mess it up. Here we are, every morning, lining up in our bright colors and our sweet smiles and our candy-pink boxing gloves. Eyebrows on fleek. Punching targets until sweat starts visibly flying across the room. Showing each other our pressure cuts and skinned knuckles. You thought we were fierce, and that was before you knew that we are in fact ferocious. |
AuthorI've been working with chronic disorganization, squalor, and hoarding for over 20 years. I'm also a marathon runner who was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and thyroid disease 17 years ago. This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of CookiesArchives
January 2022
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