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Six words that changed the way I’ll talk about my body

August 29, 2018

There are certain phrases that come from the mouths of our babes that stop us dead in our tracks. Phrases such as …

“Uh oh …”

“Shut up!”

“Don’t be mad …”

“I can’t hold it.”

“Whoops!”

Late last week we added a new one to the list.

I am a sad, snooze button-slapping sloth. My intent is always to workout in the mornings but, because of my aforementioned condition, I typically have to cram it into the evenings, right between stuffing dinner in my face and washing a child’s butt.

On one seemingly uneventful evening, I was in the basement, 10 minutes into 80 Day Obsession’s Booty day when the chicks came down. JoJo set up a ninja obstacle course and was pushing her sisters to “Jump higher!” “Run faster!” and “Do it like this!” They were running around in their sports bras (hand-me-downs from a work friend’s daughter and their latest obsession) and giggling and burning off energy and radiating innocence.

After about 20 minutes, Spike came running over, panting, and put her hands on her hips.

“Look how much weight I lost!” she declared.

I set my weights down and spun around, propelled by the sobering gravity of the statement spilling out of my 7-year-old’s lips.

“Whoa! I mean, I think you look really strong,” I said, grasping desperately for a solid, child psychologist-endorsed rebound. “And that’s what I like to see.”

She raised her eyebrows, looked over at her biceps, shrugged and went back to the course, pleased by the exchange. That made one of us.

With every squat, every leg lift that followed, I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into a sinkhole of shame. I finished my workout and went up to tell Hank we were big, fat failures who could not use the words “big”, “fat” or “failure” anymore.

“We have to stop talking about our weight!” I announced. He barely turned from the dishes. “I mean it. Spike just told me she’d lost weight, and I don’t like it. We gotta get it together. Only stuff about being strong, from now on. No more rubbing our bellies, or complaining about how much we ate, or any of that.” He nodded in the agreeable way he does when I make such profound proclamations out of nowhere.

Body image is a struggle handed down from the women before us, who put their eggs in the basket of Jane Fonda, Weight Watchers, Slim-Fast and Oprah. Women who inherited the same battle from the generation that came before them. A generation that sought resolution through grapefruit, diet pills and belt massagers. It is a conflict as old as humankind – the epic tussle between vanity, health and self-acceptance.

Thinking back on my childhood, I can fondly recall my own mother’s affinity for peanut M&Ms. At night, after dinner was cleared and the children had scattered, my mom would sit down on the floor next to her bed and watch L.A. Law with a bag of the multicolored candies in her lap and make me scratch her back. At the time, I thought nothing of her evening ritual. It was endearing and just something she did, like dying her hair or snapping her fingers when she danced.

But in my house now, when I reach up into the cabinet for my after-dinner treat of two pieces of 72% cocoa chocolate, I see my daughters watching. Sometimes they’ll even say, “Watch the sug, mama.” And they’re not saying that because they’re judgmental turds. They’re saying that because I’ve unintentionally conditioned them to say that. I, along with a million forms of media and mixed messages, have formed their thoughts and placed phrases in their minds by vocalizing my own food shortfalls over and over again, in conversations that I thought were benign or far enough away from little impressionable ears.

And now, despite all my best intentions, the thing I always feared is happening. It’s being held up to my face in the form of one innocent little statement: “Look how much weight I lost.”

I naively thought I was following the protocol for bringing up healthy, well-adjusted girls. To their faces, it’s always about nourishing our bodies, getting stronger, treating ourselves well. But it hasn’t been enough. The fabricated shortcomings of our mothers and our mothers’ mothers are infiltrating my adorable chicks and I so desperately want to stop it.

I was talking about Spike’s declaration with a friend at work and she mentioned that even her oldest son, who is 6, has been talking about his “belly” and comparing himself to the other little guys in his grade. He’s 6!

What the hell? Where did it all get so screwed up?

Maybe time has quickened the affliction, but I don’t remember worrying about my body until middle school, around the time the dreaded locker room came into play and sixth graders with C cups started ruining everything. I had a short pixie haircut above my ears, braces, freckles and a chest as flat as an Indiana cornfield. That was when I started comparing myself. We all remember when we started comparing ourselves.

That same friend told me about a project her class did in first grade. They were doing some experiment with pumpkins and the teacher had the students step on a scale, first holding a pumpkin, and then without it, in order to get the weight of the squash. “I still remember pretending to be sick so I wouldn’t have to weigh myself in front of my class,” she shared. “And I wasn’t even that much bigger than the other kids.”

We all carry some of the responsibility, I suppose. For my part, I’ve been known to rub my food baby after a meal or let out a regretful groan after going for the second cinnamon roll or saying stupid shit like, “Oh, I shouldn’t,” when offered an amazing homemade pastry. I think I’m counterbalancing it by screen grabbing inspirational quotes on Instagram like, “Exercise is a celebration of what your body can do. Not a punishment for what you ate.” I think my perception is off.

How do we break the cycle? How do we convince the next generation that as long as they are using their bodies and treating them well and they feel capable in their bodies and they feel at home in their bodies, that they are doing exactly what they need to be doing? How do we make them feel proud not embarrassed, motivated not defeated, informed not passive?

Caring for yourself is a massive responsibility. It’s composed of a thousand decisions in a day and, as any mind-body guru will tell you, the body keeps score. There has to be a shift away from succumbing to the suffocating complexities of the weightloss noise and toward the beauty of caring for this precious gift we were given, this phenomenal space we get to occupy on this planet.

I’m not saying I have the roadmap to get us there. But, thanks to six little words and the mirror only a child can hold up to you, I feel like I’m waking up to the urgency of the issue at our children’s’ feet. The shift has to start somewhere. Let’s lean in a positive direction.

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Wellness

How to properly play the shame game

October 27, 2016

Subj: Your race day photos are here!

Pictures are a strange thing, aren’t they? Depending on the angle, the movement, the moment, they can either elevate you or level you. How silly that a simple image – a blink, a blip – can have such impressive power. And the photos in this email were going to be special. Not only would they offer some frameable moments with my bestie and proof I showed up, but they would also capture my epic photobomb of a dear family friend at the finish.

But it was another bomb that detonated that day.

I opened the email. “Oy, that’s a rough picture,” I thought, not overly rocked. I clicked “next”. My face scrunched higher. “That’s not-a … not great either.” As I scrolled, my eyebrows raised and met in a rippled, disgusted collision between my eyes. The cadence of my finger on the mouse quickened. “Next”. “Next”. “Next”. I squinted and tightened my lips, revealing the tops of my bottom teeth. These proofs, all of them, were painful. Sobering.

Now, let’s pause here, shall we? This post is not an easy post to write. It’s also not an invitation for criticism or a passive plea for praise, though I can see how it would be mistaken for such. It is, like all musings on this blog, merely an observation and pitstop on my personal road to self discovery and improvement. I nearly ditched the topic altogether when, on two separate occasions in the past two days with two separate friends, the mere mention of this blog was instantaneously halted by dams of positive praise. “Stop! You look great.” “Oh my gosh, you’re crazy!’ Which, to be fair, is exactly what I would do, because that’s what our friends and parents are supposed to do. They’re trained to do it. It’s what’s socially acceptable. But I wasn’t baiting the hook that day, and I had no desire to go fishing.

Hand over my heart, I’m just trying to start an honest dialogue about the distance between the pins on my map. The ones marking where I thought I was, where I am, and where i want to go. I should be able to talk about that without people instinctively coddling my delicate inner child, or thinking I’m licking rice cakes and crying over Coldstone Creamery, or (the worst) that I brought my ego out for a good stroking only to be put back on the shelf for a few weeks before I prompt them to appease me again. Not that I think these girls thought that, or that I would think that about them if the conversation were reversed. I just think we’re so quick to console and then shut it down, rather than engage and encourage real change in the people we love.

What if, instead of my weight or my shape, I was commenting on my smoking habit. Seriously … just think about it. If I came to someone and said, “Gosh, you know, I’ve been smoking for years and I really think it’s time to reign it in and clean things up around here.” No one would say, “Oh Courtney … it relaxes you and you’re only having 8 a day!” No.

When I was training for that race, I didn’t feel great. I felt amazing after the long runs, yes. But mostly because they were over. I felt empowered by my endurance, yes. But my body didn’t feel like the body of a person who was running 8, 9, 10 miles. It felt weak. Like I was willing it to perform. Still my perception of the changes happening to my body was positive. But to lay it all out there, what I was seeing in myself throughout the 12 weeks was something that far exceeded the woman floundering in front of me on the screen in those post-race pics. And, you guys, that’s OK. l’m OK addressing it. In fact, I feel empowered and kind of on fire because of it.

If Oprah and I were sitting around chatting about our truth and what we keep in our closets and all those hidden jewels she digs up when people perch upon her magic couch, a lot of things would come out. I used my heightened exertion as a free pass to take all foods – sweet, salty, fried, fast – to Pound Town. I was eating to compensate for what I thought I was burning … what I wasn’t burning. And I wasn’t eating to fuel, either. I was eating for fun. And from boredom. And as reward.

But as my new best friend Brené Brown (whose book, “Rising Strong” is currently blowing my mind and should be on your goodreads list right now) says, “Shame cannot survive once spoken.” So I’m sayin’ it, baby: I have not been good to myself.

Again, let’s pause. I want to be clear that this is not a body shaming situation, guys. (When did everything become “shaming” anyway? Fat shaming. Skinny shaming. Bachelor shaming. I actually had a craft beer guy at a liquor store cider shame me once.) That’s not my jam. I love my body. This body carried and delivered three babies. It ran 13.1 miles … twice! It carried me over close to a dozen mountains on zero sleep for four consecutive, very cold days. And it has held up generally well considering my lackluster maintenance regimen. It is flawed, yes, for many reasons, many of which I count as my biggest blessings.

This is not a conversation about vanity. It’s about confronting personal negligence. It’s about acknowledging my sincere love for this body and where I want to see it go, then finding the silence to listen to what it is telling me it needs to get there. I rarely sit in quiet. Do you?

By this point in the post you’ve either bailed (therefore not reading this) or you’re straddling the fence between empathy and exasperation. I get it. I anticipated that. I’ve wanted to write about my come-to-Jesus moment for weeks, but haven’t. I haven’t because body image is icy. Everywhere you look people are either embracing their full figures and shutting down shamers, or collecting criticism for projecting unrealistic expectations onto young girls. You can’t win for waking up in the morning. It’s slippery and juicy with judgement. And because I don’t count myself as obese or emaciated, but somewhere in the soft center, I often feel I don’t have the right to voice my dissatisfaction with what I see. But considering 91 percent of women report being unhappy with their bodies, I don’t think I’m necessarily alone out on this limb, either. I don’t think I’m the only person to ever declare: I have work to do here!

Not only do I often fear it’s unjustified, it also seems baited. Because I have 6 little eyes constantly watching my reactions and listening to my self-deprecating commentary. One day, when I went to pick up the girls, JoJo walked up and handed me a piece of paper.

“Here Mom.”
“Thanks! What is this?”
“It’s the number for Nutrisystem.”
“Ohhhhh … OK. JoJo, can I ask, do you think I need Nutrisystem?”
“Well, you’re always talking about how you ate too much, and they help people who eat too much.”

Boom! Trap snapped.

Standing there, holding that piece of paper, my mind Googled every phrase I’d uttered over the past 7 years that had anything to do with being pregnant with a food baby, stuffed, gross and, yeah, fat. The results were deep.

But that’s more of a word choice issue I’d say. I do want them to see me striving, reaching, working hard to be something more tomorrow than I am today. Again, the war I’m waging is not against my body. It is for my body. I choose to fight it out of my desire to be strong. It is a battle rooted in love and love is nothing without respect. Respect for where I’ve been. Respect for where I want to go, and know I can. I have not been respecting this body. What I saw in those pictures was the mirror I’ve been refusing to buy. (You know the one in the dressing rooms at Target that makes you look green and cellulitey.) It was a face-down moment, and what comes next is up to me.

Brené defines integrity as, “choosing courage over comfort. Choosing what is right over what is fun, fast and easy. And choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.” She goes on to explain that people tend to treat you the way they see you treating yourself. You have to stand strong in your integrity.

I carve out at least 30 minutes every morning to move. I have lost 36 pounds since having Sloppy Joan two years ago. I have made great strides and I’m not embarrassed about the way I look, but I have regrets tied to my stalled progress. I have regrets about where I could be compared to where I am. And I’m not mad about that.

Regret is another label with a bad reputation. Why should we pocket regret? Why shouldn’t we listen to it and use it to fire us up inside? In Rising Strong, Brene writes, “To say you have no regret is to deny the possibility of a braver life.” Heck yeah I want a braver life! It’s indifference that really frightens me. Feeling regret is a cue that I want something more. It instigates motivation to change. Casey spoke about her fear of an uninteresting life and I think a lot of us shoulder that same worry. What would happen if we took all the energy we spent mourning and rolling around in regret and instead harnessed it as a fierce catalyst to move in the direction of our dreams?

I was listening to a podcast recently with the blogger from Strong Coffey. She was talking about the power of redirecting our thoughts of comparison. “When you’re about to unleash all the negative things in life, try to hold onto it, regroup and instead share a little more of who you wish you were these days.” It’s an exercise in visualization. Instead of letting yourself be swallowed by feelings of inadequacy, by the regrets, focus on where you, personally, are going. It’s your journey. Keep your eye on the prize and your feet and heart will follow.

Brené also shares, “There is so much knowledge in our bodies and we just have to learn how to listen.” My arms are telling me to lift what’s heavy. My head is telling me to stop sleeping with the sexy excuses. My gut is pleading with me to shed the secret sugar binges and grab what’s clean. My feet are reassuring me they can go further. It’s talking and I’m really trying to quiet down and listen.

I’ve covered miles and have miles to go. I’m just giving my shame a name in an effort to shut it down and make it something that waters my soul instead. Something that feeds and fosters growth. I want this for the little ones watching my example, of course, but mostly for the me I haven’t met yet. I want to find her, years from now, on a sun-lit peak just inches from the clouds, with a big smile on her face and nothing but light and love in her heart. I’m not asking for your sympathy or for you to talk me down off the ledge. But if you ever want to meet me at the top of the mountain, I’ll save ya a spot.

Thoughts

Meet me where the glass ceiling used to be

July 29, 2016

The world has gone crazy. She has lost her way. There are so many different energies pulling everyone in so many different directions that we’re all simultaneously colliding and treating each other like ghosts. But on a planet where commonality has become the ultimate unicorn, I have identified one undeniable truth. One fact we can all say, “Amen” and “Hallelujah!” to with an enthusiasm otherwise reserved for Bad Moms trailers and quotes from Scary Mommy’s facebook page. This truth I’ve stumbled upon is undeniable and invigorating and, let’s face it, a giant middle finger to a lot of folks who’ve had a big middle finger coming for some time now. So, here it is … Ready …

Women are kind of having a moment.

For a person who has the word “Superwoman” in the title of her passion project, it seems negligent to breeze past the forceful feminine momentum in the air. And more exciting? For once it really has nothing to do with Beyonce. I mean, other than I almost took my sweat-soaked shirt off and swung it around my head when Run the World (Girls) came through my headphones on my morning run. (“Strong enough to bear the children – Then get ta business.” I mean … somebody had to say it.)

And I’m not just talking about ole Hil’s recent nomination, either, although no one can diminish the historical significance of her accomplishment. For me, it has everything to do with this speech and this woman:

If she was acting, I volunteer to polish her Oscar for the rest of my days. That speech had stank on it. It was a master class in delivery and poignancy and perspective. She threw her rhetorical spaghetti at the wall and it stuck. To everyone. Everywhere. The part about her girls playing on the White House lawn … I felt like I took an emotional bullet.

The chicks and I were driving home from their grandparents’ the other night and got into one of those driveby formative chats.

“And who is the president, girls?” – Me
“Barack Obama!” – Both
“Right, and who is his wife? Who’s the First Lady?” – Me
“Ahhh, Michelle Obama?” – JoJo
“Right!” – Me
“I love her.” – JoJo
“Yeah, I love her, too” – Spike
“Why do you love her, JoJo?” – Me
“I don’t know. Because she’s pretty and she helps people.” – JoJo
“She does. That’s right.” – Me
“Why do you love her, Mom?” – JoJo
“I love her because she is a wonderful woman. She cares about children and education and people’s health. She has a garden and she says things that change people for the better. She is very strong and all of us girls should try to be strong, right?”
“Right” – Both
“Because, girls are …” – Me
“Awesome!” – JoJo

These unexpected conversations put just a hint of hot vomit right at the base of my throat. I feel such a responsibility to say the right thing. To offer those profound nuggets that will turn up in their nonfiction works 30 years from now. But more often I falter here. I think my FLOTUS contact high got me through this particular incident just fine.

Perhaps the female feels are also heightened for me because of the book I officially finished this morning, Shonda Rhimes’ Year of Yes. The writing on these pages makes everything from the brain in my head that forms sentences to the tip of my fingernails that tap furiously on dirty keyboards so jealous I’ve been reduced to a humbled heap of fragmented story ideas. Dear reader, I don’t know what your craft is, or your interest, but have you ever been witness to someone who does that craft or hobby so masterfully that you feel both defeated and on fire all at once? That’s me now. I’m all jumbled up in awe and inspiration. Her intimacy with characters and uncomfortable transparency in this book were so admirable and so well done it sparked a desire in me to quit writing altogether and just succumb to the towering shadow cast by her rare creativity and run away to furiously write for weeks in a small cottage in the Ireland countryside all within the final letters of the final chapter. //More to come on this masterpiece later.//

The entire book was captivating, but one speech featured in Year of Yes in particular stirred something in me. Something I didn’t realize had settled. If you are a woman, a professional, a master of your craft, a novice, if you have a pulse, give this 8 minutes of your time. Let it pour in and take up some space where a negative thought used to live.

I love the idea of the glass ceiling being this tangible place, this possible meetup. Like it’s a designated location where we can all go to celebrate our victories and plot to right all the gender-specific injustices. I’ve been lucky. In my working years I’ve never truly felt oppressed or discriminated against. I’ve been given platforms and the benefit of the doubt and opportunities. I don’t feel like I need to burn my bra (they’re too expensive for that anyway) or march with other womanfolk. But that doesn’t bestow upon me some fast pass to get to the front of the line. It doesn’t mean the struggle of other women doesn’t leave bruises on my heart. It doesn’t mean I don’t get a righteous tickle where my internal plumbing resides every time a lady sticks it to some condescending sucker.

I have three little girls. Three girls. I want more than this moment, for them. I want them to, not only chase their dreams in a world that is free and just, but also respect and appreciate the fact that other women went toe-to-toe with adversity and beat the shit out of stereotypes in order for them to do so. I want them to watch Michelle Obama’s speech and feel the weight of her words. I want them to let other women’s stories shake them up a little bit and flip their perspective. I pray, of course, they never feel less than or unequal to, but if they do, that they know that’s when it’s time to go high.

It isn’t the end of the struggle, but yes, we women are having a moment. Whatever side of the party lines you fall on, whether you’ve been held down or lifted up, whether you have children or you don’t, there is something to celebrate here. So keep those over-the-shoulder boulder holders clasped and your eyes on the prize. The world just might find her way after all.

Thoughts

My nail beds suck

November 21, 2015

The happy hour conversation was unexceptional with a few exceptions; soothing in its familiarity. We spent 30 minutes playing catchup and gossiping like little hens. This person married their neighbor. That person was snippy when they walked by at daycare. Then someone lit the match. “You guys, I’m having a serious breakdown. I look old.”

That was it. A giant finger had dropped into the room and tapped the first domino in an intricate arrangement of insecurities. The now-ignited wildfire burned for 20 minutes at least. From crow’s feet to the empty baby apartments surrounded by saggy skin to shortcomings at work to extra weight, we beat the shit out of ourselves, passing the boxing gloves around the circle like a fast-burning “cigarette”.

Remember that scene in Mean Girls, where they stand in front of the mirror and critique their reflections down to the nail beds?

Karen: God. My hips are huge!

Gretchen: Oh please. I hate my calves.

Regina: At least you guys can wear halters. I’ve got man shoulders.

Cady: [voiceover] I used to think there was just fat and skinny. But apparently there’s lots of things that can be wrong on your body.

Gretchen: My hairline is so weird.

Regina: My pores are huge.

Karen: My nail beds suck.

[pause. All look at Cady]

Cady: I have really bad breath in the morning.

Karen: Ew!

It was kind of terrible. The martinis and the dim lighting warmed us into this gross place of revealing every doubt and exaggerating every subtle flaw. But there’s very little truth to any of it. Where we see wrinkles around our foreheads, others see eyes that have crinkled and cried during furious fits of laughter or smiled a familiar grin at us a million times. When I look at my girlfriends I only see the things in them that I treasure and, I imagine, they see the same in me. But why we have to rely on each other to point those things out, why we are so blind to our inner beauty, I’ll never understand.

So, for the record, my stomach looks like a pound of Silly Puddy left out in the sun. My face is starting to crease and show the ups and downs of my 33 years. I have athlete’s foot. And I’m pretty sure I could pack my lunch in my pores. But would I trade the Puddy for my trio of princesses? Not in a million trillion years. Would I smooth a crease in exchange for one of those magical summer nights where the stories made me cry and the belly laughs echoed under a black bedazzled sky? Probably not. Clear up the athlete’s foot after I hand over my half marathon medal? Doubtful. Up my skin regimen time at the expense of a few extra snuggles? You know the answer.

Am I ever going to completely abandon my self-bashing tendencies? I don’t know anyone who’s entirely liberated from introspection, and I don’t think it’s healthy to neglect taking inventory every now and again. Heck, I just bought a Rodan + Fields package to try out last week. But I am going to make a conscious effort to celebrate a bit more than I chastise. Because the dings and dents in my armor were earned in glorious fashion, in glorious company. I should be proud of the places this body has taken me and the obstacles it’s conquered. I should rejoice in the meaning of every mark and the lessons carried through every line. This shell is a story, my story, and while no narrative is perfect, it certainly deserves some respect.

Girls’ night goal: More chat, less talk about being fat. Simple.