This week, I re-read Braving the Wilderness. A look at belonging based on a Maya Angelou quote discussing how “belonging” is not to a place or to a people- but to yourself. And when you truly belong to you, that’s when you belong wherever it is you find yourself. Even in the wilderness.
Who are you? What do you believe?
These are big questions.
Simultaneously, I was a guest on a podcast. A local IG- turning to real life friend- Nina McGoff started a podcast called “Making Fit Work” and tapped me to discuss how I make fitness work in my life.
For a podcast junkie like myself, this was such a fun opportunity!
As the release date of the podcast crept closer, I started to panic a little.
Was I reinforcing diet culture with my comments?
Was I going to make other listeners lean to the obsessive snd compulsive behaviors I had spent so much time healing?
Was I saying too much?
And while I’m sure much of this was a vulnerability hang over, there was something else there too.
During our conversation, Nina and I never spoke of my disordered past with eating and exercise. It just didn’t come up because it’s not my reality anymore.
Instead, we talked about the habits I have created and cultivated that have left me feeling fitter and more fabulous at 41 then I have ever felt (ya know, mostly). And mom-guilt and giving yourself permission to take time for you.
We talked about my now.
As I thought about all this I realized, I finally belong to me in this one, tender piece of life. I have forged a path through the wilderness away from disordered eating, away from obsessive compulsion and comparison, away from sickness and toward healing, away from restriction and toward ease.
I have stood alone in the wilderness building resistance against the constant cry of companies wanting to sell me their shakes and powders and meal plans, learning to say “good for them but not for me” when I hear my friends jumping on a ban wagon “health” trend. I have learned to be silent or walk away from diet conversations that I know will trigger me. I don’t identify with diet culture.
But neither do I identify with the anti- diet rhetoric I clung so tightly to at the beginning of my healing journey. Was I chewing gum because I was suppressing my appetite? No, I just really love gum. Was I eating protein because I am scared of carbs? No, protein satiates me more and feels better to my belly.
All of this questioning and reflection, this deciding means that sometimes I am, in fact, standing alone. But what I realized is, I am standing with me.
I am working on cultivating a life I really like to live. At this moment that includes lots of movement, some exercise, some Crossfit, eating nourishing (and easy!) foods.
It involves listening to this body of mine and giving her what She needs. Be it rest or chocolate or sweat or protein. Turns out She knows what She needs.
And if I hadn’t made my way out to the wilderness, where it’s quiet, I may not have ever learned to hear Her.
So here I am today, on a podcast, talking about how I wake up at 4:44 am to get my workout in. And I’m good here, because here is a place I’ve uncovered. Here is a place where I belong to me. Here is where I find my joy.
Getting older gets a bad rap, and sure my knees hurt when I run but I know myself and I’m willing to be myself in a way I never was before.
And that’s pretty good too.
So, my wish for you is to have the courage to wander into the wilderness and find your true belonging.And then talk about it on a podcast :)
