All tagged expansion
Toning, sculpting (coolsculpting?), shaping, firming: they're all the same.
They're words used to indicate physical transformation. I can get on board with that: you're powerful beyond measure, and you have the power to show up in your body (and in your life) exactly as you see fit.
The issue I take, though, is that those are almost exclusively used to give us all the same goal: getting smaller.
Fitness is about SO much more than that.
I did a new thing recently.
Due to injuries, stress, and poor-quality sleep, I've been moving my body in new ways. It's been a process of relearning how to tune in — something that is relatively easy for me under some heavy weight, but, I've noticed, is not so natural (at least not without a steady stream of judgment) in other mediums of movement.
I've been doing some #mediocreyoga for about 6 months (which you've seen intermittently in my Instagram stories, if you're playing along!), and earlier this week, a new class was advertised that was beginner-friendly. I'm also in a new area, so, I figured, why not?
And just like that, I took my mediocre yoga out into the world.
Rigidity in our programs keeps us uninformed: it keeps us enslaved to a program or a personality dictating our goals to us and promising that their methods are best. We don't give ourselves the opportunity to be our own best teachers—to explore, to experiment, or to say, "that's not my jam."
Allowing my body the space to not be perfect showed me that I actually don't have to be perfect anywhere. I know what's best for me, and I can change course at any time.
When we give ourselves the space to play, we find things at which we aren't very good. The rub is, thought, that we're in a low-stakes environment -- who cares if I need a wall for this handstand? It's not a competition, and no one else is in the gym measuring my progress but me. In low-stakes environments, we're free to get curious, to ask exploratory questions, to fail, to learn, and to improve.
Fitness is a means to an end: a way to get connected with ourselves. A way to learn what we're capable of and a place to push boundaries, explore limits, and surprise ourselves.
If you've been around here for a while, you know I'm big into exploration.
Experimentation.
Using fitness as a means of empowerment: for getting honest about who you are, for getting clear on what you want, and, ultimately, for getting to know yourself.
We’re urged toward dogma. Ads and commercials and authority figures scream that there is one path to success and one best way to go about it, and theirs reigns supreme. We believe what we’re told, constructing a timeline, molding our lives around it, rubbing our noses raw on the grindstone.
When was the last time you looked up?
What's so wrong with wanting to get big? Why can't we take care of ourselves because we're worth being loved on? Why can't we agree with a compliment? Are we not allowed to feel our damn selves?
We put in work. We show up. We come through. We do our best. We make magic.
Why hide it?
