I am very excited to announce that I have started jogging again. I have always loved exercise and the way it made me feel afterwards. When I was younger I would run 6 miles almost every day. In college I also jogged, although not as obsessively as in my teens. Yet, come motherhood and after two c-sections something changed in the way I saw myself. The reasons behind such changes are too tangled and deeply rooted in my subconscious to bother going into in great detail, yet I generally felt a disconnect with my body, particularly my lower stomach muscles where the cuts were made and no matter what I felt weak. Feeling strong and able is one of those feelings you naturally get when you exercise regularly, and I did not feel that anymore. It's not a feeling you can just turn on or off apparently. I just could not think of myself as strong. I felt fundamentally weaker to the core.
Interestingly, these days I feel the beter living in my body than I ever had than I did in high school where I weighed 120 lbs. (which would be a dream come true now). In high school, I felt just miserable about my weight. I went to a high school in NYC where fashion and super-skinny was the fad. If I could only go back and actually enjoy my body then I would do it just to see what it would feel like to be there and feel fine. As a 35 year-old I do not intend on feeling bad about my body now no matter what I weigh. The me inside will shine through regardless.
I am reminded of a woman who once posed nude for a drawing class I took in college. She disrobed and revealed a beautiful overweight figure and did it with pride. This blew me away. I then knew instantly that what one felt about themselves had nothing to do with weight....but what was going on between your ears; your thoughts. Since then whenever I revert to my self-deprecating thoughts, I'd invoke her image and imagined myself as her, proud and just loving my curves!
Having a daughter I will make sure she knows she is whole and perfect in her body. I will also work on my personal body issues so that she does not ever have to grow thinking she's lacking anything as I did in my body.
Gotta go jogging.....
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