YOU Are in Charge (There's More Than One Way to Skin a Cat).
If I could impart one piece of wisdom from everything I’ve fought hard to learn (and keep learning) in this life, it would be this:
You are in charge.
We often go through life being told what to do, being told what we’re not, and being told how we should fix it. And I think that’s bullshit.
There are many ways to skin a cat, as they say, but I don’t think we think big enough about the cat itself.
The cat doesn’t necessarily need to be smaller.
The cat often doesn’t need to stop meowing.
The cat certainly does not need fixing.
The cat can be whatever she damn well pleases, if only she’d spend some time exploring what that is.
We can let go of societal expectations one by one and carve out what we want for ourselves.
We can think bigger.
We can explore.
We can choose.
We can diet (or not), do cardio (or not), change our career paths completely (or not), stay in our messy relationships (or not), eat bread (or not), back squat (or not), loudly proclaim our activism (or not) …any number of things that we may not have realized were options while being caught up in marketing and paradigms, and we can feel good doing it.
The magic lies in allowing ourselves the time and space to explore. In asking ourselves questions. In getting curious, not judgmental, and finding out who we really are and what we truly want.
When I learned what I was really about, I realized that fitness, for me, has never felt right if I’m employing movement as a method of being less. I’m not one for shrinking: I’m loud and passionate, and any time I’ve tried to dim that, I spill over the edges of my container.
Fitness only feels right to me if I’m exploring: if I’m abandoning what our culture says I should want in favor of tuning in to my body and learning more about her. Lifting shows me I can do things I might not have thought I could do. It shows me I’m not a too-big body to be fixed, but a powerful set of legs, a strong back, and a big heart ready to stake my claim and take up space not just in the gym, but also in life. A barbell has taught me that I can craft what I want and be who I am, no apologies necessary.
There are many ways to skin a cat: we can achieve the body goals we desire in any number of ways. But are we honoring the cat (and ourselves) in the process?
We have a say.
We can decide.
We are in charge.
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