A couple days ago I posted the picture above on this blog's Facebook page. It represents where my body is at right now. Along with the picture, I shared my thoughts and feelings about my body and the attitude I intend to take about my body going forward.
However, upon closer review, I find myself feeling ashamed in different aspects of myself, not just my body. Quite a few of these aspects I have absolutely zero control over. Like my age. I have to say, this is not one that I saw coming. I was slightly bothered by getting into my late 30s but never expected to feel shame over it. And when I ask myself "why?" I can't help but be ashamed about the answer!! I feel ashamed because I'm afraid younger people may find me obsolete. And I'm afraid I'm not aging well and I'm getting ugly. There I said it.
Then there is another area of my life in which I can not go into detail. This area has actually prevented me from blogging as much as a I used to because I am not free to openly discuss certain issues that have taken place over the last couple years for fear of retribution. So forgive my vagueness. However, there is a person in my life who is constantly on the lookout for ways to laugh at me and shame me for whatever reason they can find. I feel like I can't openly talk about my insecurities and problems on this blog anymore which I absolutely hate as this blog used to be my therapy. Not only does this person make me feel shame about who I am, I also feel shame for not standing up for myself. I have to be honest, I can't find a way to make peace with this area yet but, here is my hope: I am going to start being more honest again about me and my life right now and let the chips fall where they may. It is my life. And I will not keep hiding.
Yet another area I feel shame is in my inability to be perfect. This one is silly enough that just typing it makes me shake my head at myself but it's true! I am not a perfect mother and this is probably the biggest source of my shame. I don't feed my son perfectly probably about 1/3 of the time even though I know the health risks he could face later down the line. I feel like I don't pay him enough attention at times. I let him watch t.v. I try to limit it to an hour per day but if it's a really rough day, sometimes it's quite a bit longer. Sometimes I lose my cool and yell at him.
A huge area I am definitely not perfect is in my health and fitness. I do good a lot of the time but sometimes I just lose my shit and eat all the wrongs things and even occasionally drink too much. I love to exercise so I don't have trouble sticking with that. However, I do have a tendency to sometimes be too extreme in my exercise which I ALSO feel shame about because I feel like I'm abusing my body in that capacity too.
This flows into my next area of shame. No one would categorize me as overweight. Most would even say I'm fit looking. However, I don't have that super buff, hard bodied look that most people expect a personal trainer to have. This makes me not pursue clients as aggressively because I feel like I don't look the part. I feel like they will look at me and say "Pffft, like YOU can help me!"
I also feel shame when I look at myself naked. This one is really hard to type. It's even harder to not delete and to know that everyone will read it. On a really super great, toned, un-bloated day, I almost don't hate what I see in the mirror. The rest of the time....shame. Sheer and utter shame. I don't really know how to make peace with this one either.
So yeah, this blog post is a little different from the rest. I usually try to end things on a good note and talk about the positive in all this but I don't think I can at this moment. This is my struggle. How do I make peace with all my shame? Hopefully just acknowledging it is a good start. In the meantime, all I can do is be the best person I can be. I'm so far from perfect, it's depressing. I'm not even always a nice person. I have selfish moments. But I am definitely a good person. I love people. I would never ever deliberately hurt a person, so why do I hurt myself? And I forgive people so easily. Why don't I forgive myself?
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