I'm sitting in the bathroom stall next to Jen Sinkler having a buddy pee. We had somehow gotten on the topic of whether or not she and Dave will have kids someday. It must have had something to do with my growing bump. Suddenly, I blurt out the dirty little secret I've been carrying around with me since the day I danced around in my bathroom with my husband holding a pee stick with two lines:
"I'm afraid I won't be able to have it all."
I want to work and stay at home. I want to sit in the stands at Little League games and run bootcamps in the park. I want to travel for work and volunteer in my kids' classroom. I want to have a career and support my children's interests.
And I'm just not sure that I can do it all at once all of the time. It will take balance. It will mean making priorities. It will mean missing out sometimes on things that are really important to me.
Will I have enough ME to go around? Will I make the right choices? Can I live a life worthy of my mother's burning bra?
I'm not sure that my mom would have ever considered herself a feminist, but it was never even a question for her whether or not she would work. Of course she would. Women had fought hard for their place in the workplace. My mom ran a childcare center, which may seem like women's work, but it was incredibly important to her not only to develop creative, compassionate children, but to create a space for mothers to leave their precious children so that they could go out into the world and thrive. My mom's very existence helped doctors, lawyers, counselors, bankers and many more women venture out into the workplace knowing that their children were getting the best care possible. Despite all this, I never really thought of my mother as "empowered" growing up. Despite her amazing work and contribution to society, it was always my perception that my mom was wracked with insecurities. My mom never seemed to feel comfortable in her body. I grew up knowing that it was "women's work" to feel bad about her shape.
In my opinion, Feminism has not reached its mark if most women still feel bad about themselves.
You don't have to look very far to notice that women are asked to be less, taught how to be "worthy" and asked to play small in our society. Eat less. Weigh less. Wear less. Be less. Our playing small does not serve society! Until we can learn to spend more time thinking about how to find our passion and flow in life and less time thinking about the size of our thighs, we will need to keep having these conversations. Until we can do this, we need Feminism like we need a heartbeat.
I grew up feeling like I was always too much. I was the tallest, widest girl in my ballet class. I slouched to appear smaller. I apologized for myself constantly. I poured myself over the fashion magazines and prayed that I would wake up smaller, skinnier, less. I fantasized about taking a vacuum cleaner to my fat until I was cleansed of all signs of cushion and cellulite. I felt like boys who dated me were doing me a favor. I constantly compared myself to other women, hating them silently. It never occurred to me to just love myself anyway.
Jen Sinkler once asked, "What would happen if women were all just unapologetically strong?" What if, indeed! What if we just decided to love ourselves right now, with all our imperfections? What if we decided to really embrace the unique things that we have to offer the world without shame?
Fitness is the vehicle that I use to really embrace my own power and love myself thoroughly. Fitness is my new feminism.
Strong on the Inside and Out
Something pretty spectacular happens when you start to lift weights. I've seen it in myself and in my clients. You start to get stronger and suddenly you start to have more confidence in your body. This body confidence becomes a habit and you start to really feel more confident in your whole self! What might have started off as a way to lose weight or get rid of some knee pain has quickly turned into a way to personally believe in yourself enough to find other ways to challenge yourself.
When I started to get serious about lifting weights I decided to start competing in the Highland Games. I made this decision despite the fact that I had no experience in the sport and even less athletic talent. But I believed in myself. I was willing to put myself out there. I knew that no matter how I placed (which ended up being 2nd in my first competition and then 1st in my second) that my experience there had value.
The other thing that happened when I started to lift weights was that I started to write. I started to believe that I had something worthy to say that could actually help people. My confidence in my body had turned into just plain confidence.
Power in Numbers
When I look around my life I am giddy about how many amazing women I have connected with. Gone are the days of feeling competitive with other women. It is within these female friendships that I have found an enormous amount of strength! We lift each other up. We promote each others' businesses. We encourage each other to be our best selves. When you truly love yourself and have confidence in yourself it is so much easier to love and support others.
My fitness friends are not only committed to helping women find strength on the outside, but on the inside as well. We are committed to self-love and body image because we know that as long as we as women feel "less" we will never really be able to show up and take a seat at the table next to men.
My fitness friends believe in the unique value of female traits. We do not have to aspire to be like men in order to claim power. We need to embrace ourselves as we are. We are not strong for being girls. We are just plain strong.
Do It!
Being fit and getting strong is such a gift to me because it helps me stop looking in the mirror with my list of complaints and start doing. My life cracked open when I started to value the things that my body could DO, not just what it looked like. Can I carry all of the groceries inside in one trip? No problem. Can I get down on the ground to play with my son? Sure! Can I chase my husband up a hill? You betcha! My body is extremely capable! It may not always look the way I'd like it to (hello pregnancy!) but everyday my pride in what I can do outshines my shame about how I think I should look.
Deadlifting may not look like feminism to you (where is all of the marching and bra burning!?!) but it sure as hell feels like it to me. Each workout brings me more confidence, connects me to other fit and fabulous women and helps me appreciate myself for the strong, big and powerful woman that I am.
Cara