I recently committed to attending as many classes at the Y as I could. I remembered seeing a woman I knew once and she’d lost all sorts of weight and looked great. I asked what she’d done. She said she’d…gone to as many exercise classes as she could. Here’s what I wrote in my journal in January (it has taken me 6 months).
“I talk about being a part of a community but I don’t join in the exercise classes at the YMCA. My brain says, ‘But what if I can’t keep up with it. ‘ But we show up for all sorts of stuff all the time for kids and others. We can certainly keep showing up for ourselves in whatever fashion we ask of ourselves. Hello 100 Day Project’ “.
I had to take care of myself first and stop all the pains. I had a bunch of shots in my butt for my SI joint and then two rounds in my right shoulder for my rotator cuff. And then I had to sit and wait for the pain that was no longer there to return.
I once read one of Nigella Lawson’s cookbooks in which she said the best way to lose weight was to regard you body as a temple. To respect and revere it and treat it as if it were holy. I can remember being at the Y and feeling embarrassed by my body. But now? I’m tending to my temple, they’re templing over there on the treadmill and they’re templing in the cycling class. We are all there for the same reason.
Plus it struck me that in the weight training class I was in this week, all of the women and one man in the class including the instructor and myself were all carrying extra weight. I felt like we were all in our temple efforts together. And when I couldn’t do the belly dance wiggle in the “Booty Call” dance class today, I began to giggle and the two older guys in the back started to laugh. Just keep swimming !
The only way to move from where you are is to accept where you are. Compassion is your truest friend when you feel as stuck as I have for these past 7 months. I am on day two of operation body temple. I watched the young women in the front of the class watch themselves and feel proud of their moves while I had a hard time looking at myself in the mirror. I want to remember what it’s like to feel proud inside my body again. Pride and not Shame.
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