Walk Home Together

Chunky. Big boned. Bubble butt. Childbearing hips. Pear. 

“You need to lose five pounds.”

“You need to lose ten pounds.”

“You’re just not athletic”

“Jeans just don’t look good on you”

“Are you going to eat ALL that?”

Just a few of the things I heard and internalized growing up. From friends, family, coaches. I wasn’t overweight. Not according the BMI charts or by any healthy standard. But the comments became part of me. Just like they do for so many kids, leading them, like me, to disordered eating, exercise obsession, low self-esteem and so many of other problems. Body hatred is a real thing. 

If I had spent half the time in high school and college studying that I spent fixated on what I was (not) going to eat or how I was going to burn off what I did, I would have graduated with a 4.0. I hated my body. HATED. I wondered what it would be like to have a doctor somehow slice off the sides of my hips, to do away with the part of my bones that stuck out too far. 

Eventually I did get to be the “right” size, or as close as I would ever get to my imaginary goal. I was also miserable, obsessed, and anxious all the time. 

“You look great!” was what I heard. I was 5’6” and a size 2. On a girl built like me, this was unhealthy and unsustainable. 

So for the next few years I would yo-yo back and forth. Constantly looking at new diets in magazines and working out on a step machine or treadmill, as always, in panicked bursts of self loathing. This lasted until adulthood, when I was pregnant with my first child. 

For the first time I looked at my body with appreciation, completely awed at what it was doing, how it was changing. After the baby came I was just just too busy and overwhelmed to think much about diet or exercise and eventually I had another baby and the pace of life picked way up and that was that. I no longer obsessed about my body, but I ignored it. It was a machine of convenience, like the dishwasher or the dryer. It brought me no joy, but I didn’t hate it anymore. So that was a shift. 

A few years passed and for some reason I decided to try yoga. It seemed easy; even a non-athletic person like me could do it. At first I did it on my kids’ Wii, and then tried some classes at the gym. A new yoga studio came to town and I went to the free class at the soft opening. That was my first experience with real, flowing, intense, proper yoga. It was the most challenging, most enjoyable, most exhilarating exercise I had ever done. I felt amazing afterwards, tired and sore and proud of myself, of my body. 

I signed up for more classes. I could do this! Sure it was hard and I couldn’t quite touch my toes and I could barely stand on one foot but that wasn’t the point. The point was that every time, I would make a little progress. Or I would try something new that might come easily, or not. I might fall down or need to rest or give up on a particular pose and it was fine. Not just fine, it was part of the experience. To listen to my body. To push it a little bit and back down when it was too much. To rest when I needed rest. To attempt a backbend for the first time since I was fourteen. To play, to experiment, to quit judging. 

That was what hooked me, the non-judgment. To stop comparing myself to anyone else. It was my practice on my mat. Whatever was going on on other mats was background noise. This was about me making friends with my body again. 

And I did. Slowly, very slowly, I got stronger. My balance improved. I went regularly to classes because I enjoyed it, not because there was a calorie burn I need to conquer. I did a headstand. I learned how to build the crazy-looking poses like Side Crow and Bird of Paradise. I bought yoga pants and gave not one damn how my butt looked in them. That’s a lie; my butt looked pretty decent for a gal my age by this time but again not the point. I was happy and relaxed and enjoying what my body could do. I was grateful for it, and I started taking better care of it by eating to be healthy not skinny. 

And there’s a difference. I stopped drinking diet Cokes and replaced them with water. I started to be more mindful of the food I ate (and served my family). Was it overly processed? Too many weird chemicals? Too much sugar? Did I get enough vegetables today? Did I eat enough protein and fat so my blood sugar wouldn’t crash later?  Because I now truly appreciated my body I wanted to treat it well. 

And my anxiety, always a struggle, improved. It’s still there, but it’s easier to manage. Off the mat I now knew how to stop and breathe, how to release some of the self judgement and negative thoughts that spark the cold sweats. And that I could always decide to rest, at any time, when I needed to. 

Along the way I got certified to teach, and officially became a Registered Yoga Teacher with 200 hours of training. I still teach and I still love it. I get to share what I’ve learned about gratitude, strength, and letting go. 

Look, I’ve still got big hips, stretch marks and some jiggly bits. But I don’t care. I am strong, I am balanced, I am healthy. I am grateful.