I went to a new dance class at the gym today, and I was very impressed and inspired by the teacher. She is one of those people with lots of energy and enthusiasm, who was still shouting "let's go!" and "yeah, push it!" into the microphone after one hour of very intense aerobic activity. She is also not the classical dancer type, being more strongly built than petite and elegant - I tend to think of ballet dancers as having the ideal dance physique. But this girl is muscular and stocky in overall build.
And she's fat. Significantly overweight. BMI greater than 25, most likely (for what that's worth). When she shakes it, it really does shake. She's got rolls of fat around her tummy, muffin tops, thunder thighs, wobbly upper arms and bosoms that require at least three layers of lycra to hold in place. Not a bone in sight.
And that makes her an inspiration to many of us. I've been feeling too old to dance, too flabby in the tummy, too maternal and post-2-babies to feel comfortable dancing. But this girl is not self-conscious at all! She gets up in front of a whole class and dances us until we drop - she's super-fit, super-stylish and she's got the moves.
Standing next to her, I feel like a poster-girl for "white girls can't dance". I feel stiff and very unco-ordinated. But unlike being too old and post-partum, I am inspired to dance *more* and change these things. Thanks S____! You go, girl!
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Dance, dance revisited
In the interests of trying to get back into the swing of life, I went to a gym dance class today. So I went and shook my tail feathers for almost an hour and enjoyed the hell out of it! It has been literally years (three years, I think) since I last danced. I gave it up with the nausea of my first pregnancy, and always kept meaning to get back to it...
So now, as a mid-thirties mother of two, I felt a little self-conscious and ridiculous to be shaking it all about like I did as a teenager. But it was great fun, and from the amount I sweated I'm sure it was good for me too! Whether I still think so tomorrow remains to be seen. Besides, I was about the middle of the class demographic. I suppose I have to realize that "suburban housewife" now means me. Odd thought - I still think of myself as "professional woman" not "stay at home mother of two".
I have to admit that my goal was not simply enjoyment and fitness. I am very aware that my body is not what it was prior to having two children. I am probably in denial about this, but I aim to get back into my pre-baby work clothes. It only makes me more determined that I've been told it can't be done. (Stubborn much?) I'm giving myself six months, and then we will see who is right!
For those of you not familiar with the dance craze phenomenon, the title here is a riff on DDR (Dance Dance Revolution).
So now, as a mid-thirties mother of two, I felt a little self-conscious and ridiculous to be shaking it all about like I did as a teenager. But it was great fun, and from the amount I sweated I'm sure it was good for me too! Whether I still think so tomorrow remains to be seen. Besides, I was about the middle of the class demographic. I suppose I have to realize that "suburban housewife" now means me. Odd thought - I still think of myself as "professional woman" not "stay at home mother of two".
I have to admit that my goal was not simply enjoyment and fitness. I am very aware that my body is not what it was prior to having two children. I am probably in denial about this, but I aim to get back into my pre-baby work clothes. It only makes me more determined that I've been told it can't be done. (Stubborn much?) I'm giving myself six months, and then we will see who is right!
For those of you not familiar with the dance craze phenomenon, the title here is a riff on DDR (Dance Dance Revolution).
Friday, April 2, 2010
Lent journey: embracing failure, rediscovering grace
Lent 2010, my first attempt at a Lent fast while breastfeeding. The year I had Evie I chickened out, so this year I decided to do it properly. I set myself a moderately difficult fasting discipline, but not as difficult as some years. Something that should stretch me and make me suffer a bit, sacrifice a bit, but be achievable. Seven weeks isn't so long, really.
Over the first week of Lent it became evident that the fast was going to be more difficult than I had realized. I revised my targets downward, allowing myself more leeway in how I performed the fast. Maybe I was expecting too much and motherhood of a 2yo and a 3mo was going to make a rigorous regimen of fasting impractical.
By the end of the third week of Lent it was not going well. I wasn't meeting my targets for most days and I was ending up breaking the fast on more days than I was keeping it. In addition, I was becoming irritable and guilt-ridden, but I was determined to persevere. Paul writes in Romans that perseverance produces character and character produces hope. Lent had always been about hope and character development for me before - what was going wrong? I must not be doing it well enough - try harder!
By the end of the fourth week of Lent it was all falling apart, and I was falling apart with it. At my appointment with the maternal and child health nurse she did a post-natal depression screening test and I checked out in the "borderline, possible clinical depression" range. I was shocked. I had no idea what was the matter with me. Depression runs in my family, but I had a much harder time in Evie's newborn period and I never had any symptoms of depression then?
It just *couldn't* be my fasting regimen. Spiritual disciplines are supposed to build strength, and OK, maybe I had got a bit out of training since having Evie, a bit "spiritually flabby" but surely the solution would be to train harder, try more? If you want to build strength, you have to stress your body a bit. Besides, it would be ridiculous to be so dependent on food as an emotional crutch that a simple partial fast for seven weeks should cause me to be an emotional mess? That can't be right. Christians should not be dependent on anything but God - surely praying more would be the solution?
By the end of the fifth week of Lent I was so out of sorts I decided that not only was this hurting myself it was also hurting my family. I don't want to be the kind of mother who screams at her children and husband because she is having issues of her own. It felt like failure, like giving in and giving up, but so be it. I decided to embrace failure.
So what does it feel like, being a failure?
Strange. This is not an experience I have had very often. Sure, I've had plenty of times I haven't done as well as I would like, times when I haven't exactly "won" but very few times that I've actually given up and not completed the task. I'm one of those people who hangs on to the bitter end and reads every last word, even when the book is torture. Offhand I can think of three books I've started and not finished, in my whole life. Stubborn, much?
Being a failure made me hypersensitive to criticism for a while - I know I've failed, now just leave me alone! People pointing out that I'd not met expectations just made it worse. But then I relaxed into it. OK, admit it, failure means letting go of those expectations, that idea of myself as someone who doesn't do that kind of thing. It is a very different feeling to going down fighting. I suppose I am being stripped of a kind of pride in losing the ability to say "I would never do *that*!"
Reorientation. Now I can see things slightly differently. I'm down - I tried and failed. Is this how the disciples felt when they fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemene? I always thought before that they just didn't try hard enough, but now I'm on the other side, on their side. And Peter, my favourite disciple, what is it that I like so much about him? That he failed and then came back again. It wasn't a single lapse for him either, it was a conscious decision repeated three times over and yet, he experienced forgiveness and reconciliation to a degree that made him stronger and a better example than ever.
Could it be that there is more for me to learn about God and grace in this experience of failure? During the last two weeks of Lent I decided to live in this space - having failed to meet expectations and forgiving myself for that. Allowing God to speak to me of being humbled in my own strength, and yet still lifted up by God's grace. Seeing myself fallen and realizing again that I can *not* help myself, can not do it myself, that I rely on God's grace completely and utterly.
This has brought me to a new place this Easter, and infused a whole new meaning into Good Friday - or perhaps it is the same old meaning made new again. Truly, I feel more grateful and reconciled to God, and more in need of God's reconciliation than I can ever remember feeling since I first became a Christian. Humbled and brought low, rolled over in surrender, here I am. Yet while lying on my back on the ground, I can see the stars and the glory of God better than ever before.
It has been a strange Lent journey. I haven't come out of it with the spiritual "muscle" I had hoped to develop. But I think I have found something else instead. I haven't trained, I haven't worked out, I haven't sweated for it this Easter - but I've been given a precious gift. I have rediscovered my first love - the love that God had for me before I knew anything about faith or holy living, when I came with open and empty hands, knowing my own poverty and begging to be filled. How did I ever forget how that felt? That was the love that took me from being who I was before, to being a Christian who wants to follow God and learn more about that amazing love. Once again, I am renewed by the transforming power of God, made over, forgiven and lifted up in a way that I could never do myself merely by applying more effort. Once again I am a child coming hurt and in tears to the One who can, who will, make it all better. Letting go, relaxing into God's hands - I am held close.
I originally called this reflection "embracing failure" but I have gone back and added the second and more important part - rediscovering grace.
Over the first week of Lent it became evident that the fast was going to be more difficult than I had realized. I revised my targets downward, allowing myself more leeway in how I performed the fast. Maybe I was expecting too much and motherhood of a 2yo and a 3mo was going to make a rigorous regimen of fasting impractical.
By the end of the third week of Lent it was not going well. I wasn't meeting my targets for most days and I was ending up breaking the fast on more days than I was keeping it. In addition, I was becoming irritable and guilt-ridden, but I was determined to persevere. Paul writes in Romans that perseverance produces character and character produces hope. Lent had always been about hope and character development for me before - what was going wrong? I must not be doing it well enough - try harder!
By the end of the fourth week of Lent it was all falling apart, and I was falling apart with it. At my appointment with the maternal and child health nurse she did a post-natal depression screening test and I checked out in the "borderline, possible clinical depression" range. I was shocked. I had no idea what was the matter with me. Depression runs in my family, but I had a much harder time in Evie's newborn period and I never had any symptoms of depression then?
It just *couldn't* be my fasting regimen. Spiritual disciplines are supposed to build strength, and OK, maybe I had got a bit out of training since having Evie, a bit "spiritually flabby" but surely the solution would be to train harder, try more? If you want to build strength, you have to stress your body a bit. Besides, it would be ridiculous to be so dependent on food as an emotional crutch that a simple partial fast for seven weeks should cause me to be an emotional mess? That can't be right. Christians should not be dependent on anything but God - surely praying more would be the solution?
By the end of the fifth week of Lent I was so out of sorts I decided that not only was this hurting myself it was also hurting my family. I don't want to be the kind of mother who screams at her children and husband because she is having issues of her own. It felt like failure, like giving in and giving up, but so be it. I decided to embrace failure.
So what does it feel like, being a failure?
Strange. This is not an experience I have had very often. Sure, I've had plenty of times I haven't done as well as I would like, times when I haven't exactly "won" but very few times that I've actually given up and not completed the task. I'm one of those people who hangs on to the bitter end and reads every last word, even when the book is torture. Offhand I can think of three books I've started and not finished, in my whole life. Stubborn, much?
Being a failure made me hypersensitive to criticism for a while - I know I've failed, now just leave me alone! People pointing out that I'd not met expectations just made it worse. But then I relaxed into it. OK, admit it, failure means letting go of those expectations, that idea of myself as someone who doesn't do that kind of thing. It is a very different feeling to going down fighting. I suppose I am being stripped of a kind of pride in losing the ability to say "I would never do *that*!"
Reorientation. Now I can see things slightly differently. I'm down - I tried and failed. Is this how the disciples felt when they fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemene? I always thought before that they just didn't try hard enough, but now I'm on the other side, on their side. And Peter, my favourite disciple, what is it that I like so much about him? That he failed and then came back again. It wasn't a single lapse for him either, it was a conscious decision repeated three times over and yet, he experienced forgiveness and reconciliation to a degree that made him stronger and a better example than ever.
Could it be that there is more for me to learn about God and grace in this experience of failure? During the last two weeks of Lent I decided to live in this space - having failed to meet expectations and forgiving myself for that. Allowing God to speak to me of being humbled in my own strength, and yet still lifted up by God's grace. Seeing myself fallen and realizing again that I can *not* help myself, can not do it myself, that I rely on God's grace completely and utterly.
This has brought me to a new place this Easter, and infused a whole new meaning into Good Friday - or perhaps it is the same old meaning made new again. Truly, I feel more grateful and reconciled to God, and more in need of God's reconciliation than I can ever remember feeling since I first became a Christian. Humbled and brought low, rolled over in surrender, here I am. Yet while lying on my back on the ground, I can see the stars and the glory of God better than ever before.
It has been a strange Lent journey. I haven't come out of it with the spiritual "muscle" I had hoped to develop. But I think I have found something else instead. I haven't trained, I haven't worked out, I haven't sweated for it this Easter - but I've been given a precious gift. I have rediscovered my first love - the love that God had for me before I knew anything about faith or holy living, when I came with open and empty hands, knowing my own poverty and begging to be filled. How did I ever forget how that felt? That was the love that took me from being who I was before, to being a Christian who wants to follow God and learn more about that amazing love. Once again, I am renewed by the transforming power of God, made over, forgiven and lifted up in a way that I could never do myself merely by applying more effort. Once again I am a child coming hurt and in tears to the One who can, who will, make it all better. Letting go, relaxing into God's hands - I am held close.
I originally called this reflection "embracing failure" but I have gone back and added the second and more important part - rediscovering grace.
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