Tag Archives: self image

Practice Makes

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running women

That’s me in the back. Way in the back. (Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Carlos was still sleeping this morning after the rest of us were clomping around.  As I crept around in my bathroom, which shares a wall with his bed, it reminded me of all those mornings when I woke at 5am and tiptoed out of the house to go to boot camp.  Before I could let myself remember how good it felt on those days to get out in the dark and work out HARD before my day officially began, I jumped straight to feeling bad about the fact that I don’t do it anymore.  Lately, I have had more practice feeling bad about my body than I have had practice feeling strong.

Boot camp workouts began with some stretching and kvetching then a couple of laps around the track.  Not a race, just an easy-paced run.  At my strongest, I could hang with the middle of the pack.  My best time ever was a 9:50 mile.  At my not so strongest, I was hanging in the back of the pack, about a 13:30 mile with some shuffling sprinkled in the running.  Erraday, I’m shufflin’ shufflin’…

When the super fast women like Becky and Danielle streaked by with their pony tails bouncing back and forth, I tried not to feel like a three-legged Holstein stuck in a bog.  They were busting out 8 minute miles while keeping up a lively conversation.  I tried to remind myself that they are fast runners because they practice it a lot.  They can run like that because they practice running.  They probably can’t quilt worth a shit because they don’t practice quilting.  Yeah, I could SMOKE THEM at quilting. Probably.  Oh, here’s a funny note:  I saw Danielle at lunch today and warned her that I was going to write about “the fast girls.”  She said, “Oh, Becky’s the fast one.  I can barely keep up with her.”  Then I asked Danielle what her fastest mile was and she said…6:20.  Yeah.  One gazelle comparing herself to another gazelle.

My point is–we get good at whatever we practice.  Even the things that aren’t good for us.  If I practice running, I get good at running.  If I practice running myself down, I get good at running myself down.

I’ve been writing every day for over six months and I’m getting better at it with all the practice.  I’m mothering like I never thought I could because I’ve been practicing it for six years (EVERY damn DAY).  I have a new job and I’m getting so much more efficient and exact in my tasks because I practice.  Quilting?  Haven’t sewn in six years, so I would need a little time to get back my running stitch.

Running?  I haven’t been practicing that since Carlos was born.  Running myself down?  Been training like it’s the Olympics without even noticing.  Yes–even as much as I focus on the positive and practice gratitude and cultivate mental health, I spend plenty of time subconsciously telling myself that I’m a fat, lazy, so and so and if I really had any gumption or backbone or SENSE I could make a better effort at being…whatever it is I’m not being.  I didn’t even notice how much I’ve been practicing that kind of messaging.  Ugh.  That crap hurts worse than running.

You know my favorite part of running?  Sprints.  WHAT???  I know!  Shuffling along feeling like my thighs were going to combust then…finding that little something extra that was still hidden in my heart, that let me go all out for a few seconds.  I loved sprinting because all I had to do was go 100% for a little while.  Hmmm.  Might be time to practice that again.  Go for one of my fat old lady walks then RUN.   Oops.  I fell back on my practicing there–I’m not a fat old lady.  I’m a 45 year old woman with 45 pounds I’d like to lose.  And I can run if I practice.

What do you practice?  What’s something you’re really good at because you practice every day?

The Triple Nipple

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I feel silly writing about challenges this week when I have a childhood friend who just had a brain tumor removed.  A woman at work lost everything in a fire a few days ago.  My college roommate is sorting through her father’s house and decided what to keep, what to donate, what to sell.  My friend’s husband is trying to find a job.  There are people all around me with urgent and emergent challenges.

I have annoyances.  Inconveniences.  Overscheduling dilemmas.  Middle class problems.  Chronic versus acute.

But that brings me to a challenge that saps some of my energy every day, no matter the day.  I know my life would be better if I could find a way to step away from it.  My challenge is comparing myself to others.

You’ve read this far and I still haven’t explained the Triple Nipple title.  That’s called burying the lede, kids.

nailed it

In my racing mind, every person I encounter is doing something better than I am.  If you are a stay at home mom, I’m not spending enough time with my kids.  If you are a career dynamo, I am a schlub compared to you because I want to protect my family time.  If you run, that makes me regret that I used to run.  If you dress well, I am reminded that I don’t put much effort into my clothes.  If you remember to use your crockpot, you are so much more organized than I am.  If your daughter always has a hair bow to match her dress and her shirts never have spots on them, I am a lazy slattern who can’t dress her children.  If you drive too slowly, I am a speed demon.  If you drive too fast, I am clearly in the way.  If you drink coffee, I am foolish for drinking Diet Coke.

Now don’t think you need to scroll down there to the comments and tell me how stupid and unhealthy this is.  I pay a professional to do that.  And sometimes I apologize to my therapist for taking up her time when there are people out there with real problems.  Depending on the day, she might say, “Yeah, and this crazy shit makes you one of them.”

Somewhere along the way I decided that everyone else was really acing this whole grown up life thing and I am the only one fumbling around.  I compare my blooper reel to their highlights tape.  My inside to their outside.  These comparisons are the source of my anxiety because I am constantly judging and measuring and assuming that I am being judged and measured.  And coming up short.

But I do try to remind myself of the old adage that says if we all stood in a circle and showed our problems, we would snatch back our own as quick as a wink.

One day I was sitting at lunch with some of my delightfully brilliant girlfriends when a woman walked by.  Libby said how pretty her dress was, so we all looked over and it was.  I recognized the woman from my kids’ school and said, “Y’all…I don’t know how she does it.  Her kids are adorable and she and her husband actually enjoy talking to each other and at the Easter egg hunt they all have on coordinating seersucker outfits and she brings homemade decorated sugar cookies to the potluck and she just had a baby about four months ago and her hair is so shiny and she finds time to work out and has a full-time job but her kid is never the last one picked up from daycare…”

And that’s when Nicole looked up from her salad and shrugged.

“She’s probably got a third nipple.”

Well, that’s an excellent point.  

We all have something we don’t show to everybody, something that makes us feel weird or not normal.  Now when I find myself comparing and judging, I dwell on that possible third nipple instead.  

Guess what?  One in 18 men has a “supernumerary nipple” and 1 in 50 women does too!  Even the triple nipple isn’t as uncommon as we think.

I love this cartoon.  I’m getting there–to the place of AWESOME and ALSO AWESOME–but it’s a challenge.

stop-comparing-comic2

Six Word Mantra

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Yoga-Ohm

Do you have a mantra?

The word “mantra” comes from Buddhism and Hinduism.  It means a word or phrase that you repeat during meditation to aid your concentration or focus.  Like “Ohm.”  (That’s that symbol you see on a lot of yoga tank tops.)  Sometimes we use “mantra” to refer to our words to live by or essential wisdom.

I tried having a mantra once, back when Fartbuster was hanging out at the Buddhist Center in town.  I was learning how to meditate so instead of starting out like a normal person with five or ten minutes for a few days a week, I signed myself up for a four-hour session on a Saturday morning.  Yeahhhhhh…For my mantra, I chose “Breathe in, breathe out.”  The first three minutes were bliss, but in the fourth minute into the four hours I got that Bush song “Machinehead” stuck in my head because the chorus goes “Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out.  Got a machine head, it’s better than the rest.  GOT A MACHINEHEAD!”  And so on.  

That was my last meditation retreat.  

In Tibetan Buddhism, an important part of spiritual practice is reciting the Six Word Mantra:  “Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum.”  At one of the sessions I attended at BlogHer, the leader was a yogi who encouraged each of us to write and share our own six-word mantra.  These six words our focus and concentration on our writing.  

I distilled mine from a famous quote from Dag Hammarskjold, a Swedish diplomat who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations.  

“For all that has been–Thanks.  For all that will be–Yes.”  

These are the two lessons I have learned in my life:  gratitude for the story I have lived and enthusiasm for the stories that lie ahead of me.

So my six-word mantra was:  WHAT WAS?  THANKS.  WHAT COMES?  YES!  

What’s your six-word mantra?  

Oh What a Gift!

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Have you ever read the Robert Burns poem, “To a Louse?”  It’s about a woman sitting in church showing off her fancy bonnet…but she doesn’t realize that a fat gray louse is crawling around on it.

Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner,
Detested, shunned by saunt an’ sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her,
Sae fine a lady!
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner,
On some poor body.
 

 She tosses her head with pride that she’s the center of attention, unaware that the louse is the reason people are staring at her and pointing.  The Scots dialect makes a little translation necessary, but you get the drift.  My favorite part of the poem is the conclusion, which I’ll render into Englishish:  

And would some Power the small gift give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us
 

Oh, what a gift God might give us, to see ourselves as others see us.  It would from many a blunder free us.  

See that new logo up there?  It was designed and drawn by my friend Jose Luis Silva.  You might remember him from such favorites as “Dust to Dust” or “Short But Sweet.”  He’s a genius and I trusted him with my face (which for a woman of a certain age is no small feat).  

At L'Express on Park Avenue

At L’Express on Park Avenue

Luis asked me for some guidance on which direction I’d like to go with the logo, so I told him that I wanted something black and white, friendly and fun, maybe a caricature.  I suggested that he use this picture of me that he took when we were in New York for our friend Spencer’s memorial service in January.  I love this picture because it surprised me.  For once I didn’t see a wrinkle or a size or gray hair–I saw me.  The laughing me, the loving me, the feeling me.  What a gift Luis gave me in this snapshot–to see myself as others see me.  

Then he recreated it for the logo.  The first version was a pretty exact replica of this photo, but my giggle covered by splayed fingers looked too much like Hannibal Lecter in a mask.  I asked him to try it again with my hand in a different position.  He perfected the hand, but my now-uncovered smile looked a lot like The Joker’s  creepy slash.  Luis listens to a lot of death metal, so I was thankful there wasn’t blood dripping from my eyeballs or a baby head clenched between my teeth (maybe in the next version!).  

I said, “Um…can you change my mouth?  I look a little…evil.”  His reply was, “But, sweetheart, you ARE EVIL.”  And my answer?  “Of course I am, but I don’t want to LOOK EVIL.  This is marketing.”  Luis commented on the interesting challenge that caricature poses for the artist:  finding the balance between rendering your subject, but exaggerating primary features for effect.  

The next version looked far less evil, but now I was looking too nice.  Jimmy Carter nice.  (Isn’t this starting to sound like a stereotypical “Honey, would you move the couch over there so I can see how it looks” dialogue?)  At this point, I knew he had the hair, the eyes, the face shape, the nose, the clothes, the wine–everything was right except my stupid mouth.  I muttered, “I don’t look like THAT!”  Then I walked to a mirror, put my chin on my hand and smiled…and discovered I DO look like that.

Luis’ next version was The One.  He gave me some new smaller teeth and I was finally comfortable.  It was a done deal when I pulled the image up onscreen and turned my laptop to Carlos.  He took one look at it and chirped, “Mama!”  

I am so grateful to have a friend who can see me.  And show me to myself.  And tolerate me through the revisions that I needed before I could see myself.  Oh what a gift!  

If you would like to hear “To a Louse” in a charming rendition, click on the following image to hear an award winning recitation!

Hear the winner of the William Law Memorial Trophy from Calderwood Primary performs 'To a Louse'.

Hear the winner of the William Law Memorial Trophy from Calderwood Primary performs ‘To a Louse’.

Big Girl Panties

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Objects on blog may appear smaller in real life.

Objects on blog may appear smaller in real life.

I am hesitant to write ANOTHER post about panties–even though the one about walking out of your panties has been my most popular to date!–but here goes.  Well, this is hard to talk about but I hear that it happens in a lot of mixed marriages–when NORMAL people marry Brasilians…

OK, no more stalling…

The cleaning lady keeps mixing up my panties with G’s underwear.  

I frankly don’t know which of us should be more offended.  We have to unstack the stacks and sort them again after she leaves.  Maybe it’s a vision problem, you say?  Could be.  But I think there’s more to it.

About once a year, G’s mother sends him a package from Brasil and invariably, it contains a few pair of…sultry Latin undergarments for the modern man on the go.  I guess over our years together, through attrition and acts of God, the ratio of sultry Latin undergarments to normal underwear has grown disproportionate.  Then you have to throw in the fact that, along the same time line, I discovered maternity underwear and the forgiving nature of cotton.  As his underwear got smaller, mine…didn’t.

Well.  We could maybe make a graph that shows how the accumulation of sultry Latin undergarments versus the accumulation of voluminous panties has culminated in this laundry catastrophe.  But I’m not sure how to set that up in Excel.

Truth is, I think it’s time.  I plan to get back to the healthy weight that I was when I was running and eating cleaner.  But until then, I think it’s time for me to go buy new panties and I’ve just got to get over the fact that they’re not going to be in the size they were before I had a baby at 42.  But I deserve some big, girl panties.  I don’t need to be bound, twisted, bunched, pinched, itched, and constricted on a daily basis.  And maybe the cleaning lady will be able to tell the difference between mine and his.  I wonder if they have Hello Kitty in my size?

It’s a Habit

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OK, it’s Monday night and I’m high.

High on life.  Coming off a nine day vacation straight into a new job.  Where I get to do interesting things with people whom I genuinely like.  At home, I find myself surrounded by loveliness.  A sparkling jewel of a pool.   The wildflowers and roses in the backyard are singing in the rain.  Our grill still has gas in it from last summer.  I paid all the bills and had some dollars left until payday.  The children are acting like Von Trapps.  It was Father’s Day and they made hand print art in a wide variety of adorableness.

That kind of high.

Here’s a good soundtrack to that kind of high.  It’s called “Follow Your Arrow” by Kasey Musgraves, from her album Same Trailer, Different Park.  Get ready to whistle for the rest of the day!  I don’t listen to the radio much these day (or the Pandora-Sirius-youtube-interwebs either) so it took an episode of CBS Sunday Morning to introduce me to this album.  One listen to one song and I was on amazon buying it!

On another note (I promise to tie all this together, but first, to make a long story longer…), I’ve started subscribing to Seth Godin’s blog on the advice of my friend Michelle.  He’s a marketing guru (so is she!) but his daily thoughts on customer service, viral marketing, social media, etcetera get me thinking.  The other day, his topic was“Angry Is a Habit.”  Here’s an excerpt:

It’s easy to imagine habits like a scotch after dinner, biting your nails or saying, “you know” after every sentence. An event or a time of day triggers us, and we go with the habit. It’s easier than exploring new territory–it’s merely a thoughtless response to an incoming trigger.
 
But emotions can become habits as well.
 
Distrustful is a habit.
 
Lonely is a habit.
 
Generous is a habit.
 
 

Happy is a habit.  Because I’m happy today–and that “happy” translates to a complex combination of  rested+energetic+validated+challenged+cherished+nourished+useful–I see happy things all around me.  All around me in the same flea-bitten trashy house filled with the snot-nosed kids and the piles of laundry.  Seriously, we are so behind on laundry that I wore maternity underwear today.  And they weren’t exactly baggy.  Whatever!

But when I’ve had the chance to follow my arrow for a while, I get back to this happy place.  Just now, I looked over and saw Jinx the cat asleep on my cesspit of a desk.  I saw the little kitten my dad rescued from a trash can instead of the teetering stack of bills and magazines.  It’s 10pm and the kitchen still smells like the dinner dishes that are stacked in the sink, but that wrecked kitchen means we have plenty of food and I made a tasty meal from it.  Carlos still didn’t eat it, but he manages to thrive on a diet of bananas and air with some dog hair stuck to the bananas.

I tried to grill hamburgers tonight, but thunderstorms put an end to that.  So I broiled them, but they were still pink inside after 30 minutes and the smoke alarm going off twice.  So I fried those bastards in a frying pan right on top of the stove.  And while I waited for them to cook, I looked out the kitchen window and enjoyed watching the butterfly bush drinking in the rain.

Well, when I get this high (ON LIFE), I start to ramble I guess.  And I want to eat cake and Doritos, but that’s typical for any night.

So go make lots of noise, kiss lots of boys, kiss lots of girls if that’s something you’re into…when the straight and narrow gets a little too straight…follow your arrow wherever it points.

What are you seeing differently today?  Which way is your arrow pointed?

Your Permission Slip

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you are a runner

Back in 2008, I signed myself up for boot camp with a single goal:  I wanted to be able to do a military style REAL push-up by my 40th birthday.  Three weeks later, I did three!

Three months in, after running and working out three days a week in the company of my compatriots at WoW! Boot Camp, I felt better than I had ever felt about my body.  Not that it was getting thin–but I was getting STRONG.  I decided to jump on the bandwagon and sign myself up for a 5K.  

But to train for a 5K, I needed to increase my cardio training, which meant I would need to do some work on my own.  In the daylight.  Without my coach.  And someone who wasn’t also a member of the group might see me…exercising.  So my coach came up to me one morning (at 5:WTH30 in the morning) and asked if I had a training plan.  I stuttered, “Um, well, I thought I would start using the elliptical in my basement until I can do about 45 minutes worth because that will equate to about the same amount of effort…”  She looked at me sideways and said, “Nobody ever ran a 5K on an elliptical.  Why don’t you go outside and run?”  The immediate answer in my head was “Because someone might see me and laugh,” but I knew better than to say that to April.  I didn’t have an answer for her.  She suggested that I map out a 1.5 mile route from my house and go out and back, running as much as I could and walking the rest until I could work up to running the whole thing.  Easy Peasy.  

I was terrified to run in public because I felt like I needed a permission slip.  Wouldn’t “real” runners laugh at me if they saw in my $124 New Balance shoes and my double reinforced titanium running bra, size 40G (the G is for GOTDAMMM!)?  I took my dog with me so I could use him as an excuse to be out in public, taking up sidewalk, breathing the fresh air and pretending I was an athlete.  I started to run.  Just run.  I went at night so no one would see me, or on Sunday mornings when the mean people might be busy at church or still in jail.  

No test to pass.  No license to earn.  No membership card.  Just run.  

I finished my first 5K on a rainy Saturday morning.  I had to walk some.  Everyone there was nice to me.  I was scared to look over my shoulder during the race because I thought the only thing still behind me was the police car bringing up the rear.  But I did it and I was so proud of myself that I wore my number straight to a Weight Watchers meeting.  

So let this quote from John Bingham be your permission slip.  It doesn’t even have to be about running.  Replace the word “run” with sing, zip line, act, date, write, blog, swim, whatever you wish you had permission to do.