Long ago I was doing a weight training program that I bought online. I needed something to kick start my routine after a few years off when my youngest son was born.
Over many months, I built muscle and leaned out. But as I watched the videos of the weightlifter teaching, I kept noticing how awkwardly he moved. Yeah he was very muscular, but I didn’t want to move like him. It didn’t look functional to me. 💪🏽
While clearly muscular, but not great at moving, I knew he would get his butt kicked by a lean martial artist ANYDAY. Big muscles don’t mean, better functioning necessarily.
I called a friend who is a weightlifter and told her what was going on. She said “yeah – that guy was a competitive bodybuilder.He’s not about functional strength. It is about how it he looks.”
Since I had bought it, I kept with the weightlifting program anyway. I figured since I’ve spent a career helping myself and others improve our functional movement, I need not worry. But then, something unexpected happened…
While I could clearly see these new muscles, I was not noticing strength gain in my daily tasks – hiking wasn’t much better, pushing the wheel barrow in the garden wasn’t easier either.
Nothing really seemed better except I ‘looked’ better.
I felt the dissonance.You might think getting compliments would make you feel better right? Sort of, yet it was not satisfying.
Have you ever lost weight because of an illness or depression? I have. While people may compliment you – it feels pretty gross. I’d much rather be happy and healthy than 5 lbs lighter.
When you don’t feel good, the way you appear to others does not matter. We are animals not statues.
I ‘looked better’ with my new muscles, but I didn’t feel more capable, powerful, sensual, tuned in or aware. “Looking better” made me feel like I was training harder to give my power away to other people.
I can be as vain as anyone else. I also know that chasing my cultures values (especially in youth obsessed America) is a carrot on a stick. The culture does not want me to be satisfied. I have to seek my own satisfaction.
Every culture has its own constructed values…
When I traveled in India, people said my curly dark hair ‘looked like Michael Jackson.” Recently in Italy, women on the street complimented me on my height – one woman called me the Statue of Liberty.🗽
It is all constructed and relative. It doesn’t exist on its own. We can know that and choose how we participate, but we can also tune into another layer of our experience that is BIOLOGICAL.
Functional movement and your ability to care for yourself is in our very make up. It is easy to connect with and track because it is vital to our very existence.
Function requires an ability to track what your body feels. When you track what you feel – you have information about what you need:
- when to rest
- when it is time to set a boundary
- when to ask for support
- when to find a cathartic outlet
- when to advocate for yourself and others
If I had to choose feeling better in my body, in my sensation, feeling more in tune and capable in my daily life over ‘looking better” according to whatever culture I am in – I will always choose my experience, my own felt sense of my body and my ability to act on my own behalf first.
The thing is you don’t have to choose one over the other. We all feel beautiful when we feel capable of fully living.
The photo up top was taken after I finally stood up on a surf board after many attempts and falls. When I finally relaxed, made less effort, stopped thinking and felt my way into it, I GOT UP!🌈 It was thrilling.
I hope wherever you are – you can connect with the sensations of your body. I know it is a challenge for some people for a variety of reasons. That is understandable.
Consider finding one small pleasant sensation to track. Right now – can you feel the sun warming a patch of skin? Or the air gently entering your nostrils and exiting a little warmer?
Even for a moment, when we build our connection with what is present and pleasant, we build a connection to our own intrinsic value, experience and power.
In the meantime, whatever hemisphere you may be in, I hope you will take a moment to follow a pleasant sensation and notice how you feel.
