So, in my avoidance of focusing on business work on Sunday and procrastination from reviewing my knowledge of intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation and understanding the scapular plane and medial epicondylitis among other random parts and conditions to name a few thousand pages…I’m back on a rather random topic that I ranted on about a year ago…
Global Sports Bra Squad Day.
Yep. That crazy movement #sportsbrasquad got back in my head.
So if you have no idea who Kelly Roberts is or what the whole deal is, check it out here–she wrote a blog a few weeks ago summing the movement and its history up pretty well: http://shecanandshedid.com/blog/june-24th-global-sports-bra-squad-day
Now, I still hold firm to my original position that I’m not likely to be chucking my shirt and running in said sports bra…but…let’s just say there’s an evolution of thought afoot.
As I get deeper into exploring body positivity and health at every size (HAES), there’s a lot of values within myself that I am faced with and need to explore their basis and truth. I will be very honest in that my personal exploration and study into this area errs more on the body positivity side of the spectrum, as there’s much with HAES that doesn’t jive with my value system (and that’s okay–I don’t have to agree with everyone to still respect them) and it also marries into some political platforms and stances that I wouldn’t approach no matter how well-armed statistically or mentally strong I become because they absolutely don’t align with my beliefs or values.
But let’s back up and take this on a much lighter note…
I’m not even a fan of the term body positivity, because of a lot of the connotations it holds. I much prefer body kindness, and author of the book titled Body Kindness, Rebecca Scritchfield, defines the concept as an approach to well-being from a place of love–that we fully commit to ourselves and respond to our needs accordingly. Sounds easy, right?
Well, sure…if you haven’t spent your entire life on and off diets, gaining and losing hundreds of pounds, coping with an eating disorder, hating your own reflection in the mirror no matter what you dressed it in or painted on it to try to make the view more palatable, engaging in particular relationships because they were all you felt you were worthy of, and speaking to yourself in such vicious and vile ways that have destroyed your worth more than anyone else ever could. It’s WORK to just get to a place to take a deep breath and cut yourself some slack once in a while!
Am I there? Heck no. Not even close. Have I chipped into the stone…a bit. It’s always going to be a work in progress. God has a bigggggg mess to help me clean out because I sure can’t do this one alone, I worked myself into a good one here. But that’s okay. I’m not in a hurry. Took me how long to get to the point to see the issues clearly? It’s not going to clear up overnight. It’s like we talk about over, and over, and over again–we confess our sin and are forgiven, but it doesn’t cancel out the consequences that come along sometimes. This is life. Yes, we are forgiven and made clean in the eyes of God (cue “Whiter than Snow” lol), but there is earthly restitution sometimes that still has to take place–and we own it, it’s our responsibility.
So, my restitution is my re-learning. Backing up and learning the truth that overshadowed so much joy, understanding, and acceptance of who I am–not only as a person, a woman, a professional, but as a child of God. It’s painful some days, it’s awe-filled almost every day, it’s full of hilarity as I learn to laugh at myself, and I wouldn’t trade any of this journey as I come to understand fully this crazy being that God placed on the planet that is me.
As I rolled my eyes at the #sportsbrasquad this morning, I stopped for a second…I had to look a little bit deeper and understand what bugged me about it, what’s changed over time in my assessment of the movement, how do I feel about it now, and is it really a bad thing….and in this whole thought process, I realized that I was wandering through the house–in my sports bra and cycling shorts. Eye roll at self. Followed by a laugh and a face palm (no joke).
Hide your children…and I promise, this will NEVER happen again, but for the sake of the Stephanie head game experiment to see if I can make my head explode in anxiety:
Okay, so you don’t get it in all glory because…well, I have *some* standards and um, I’ll let my husband tell you about the rest (HAHAHAHAHA!!!! Because that’ll happen!!!!). I look at this in two ways–I see all the things I don’t like, like the weight still to lose or the sagging skin on my lower back from the 200lbs I’ve already lost, my nasty sagging skin arms….I could go on. BUT–I can also see how my eyes don’t look dead anymore, my face has a shape, I actually have collarbones, I have mad-strong shoulders, my body has a shape other than circus-tent round. I even sport the scars on my chest from surviving melanoma ten years ago and on my back from having a large portion of deep skin cancer removed last year. (dude, sun protection…). And yes, my rear end says, “No cupcake left behind.” Never joke about a cupcake…there’s an international cartel of triathletes that take our cupcakes very seriously!
So, while I may not be on the same wavelength as Kelly Roberts in embracing the whole #sportbrasquad and focusing on the portrayal of all-sized athletes in media, I think there’s something to taking a good hard look in the mirror sometimes and trying to figure it all out. And now my brain hurts. I think I’ll go back to studying about ghrelin now.
Heart and Sole Fitness & Wellness 