Fitness goals: Health-driven or Aesthetic-driven?
Hospital corridors weren’t shy of hearing my name, tears cried accustomed to the surface of my skin. I did everything I could to be everything I thought I should be. And finally, I arrived there. I became the leanest version of myself. I had the thigh gap, little to no cellulite, visible abs. And then… nothing. Nothing changed. Nothing happened. I wasn’t rewarded with anything. People didn’t love me more, and in fact, I became an individual who was more difficult to love because I withdrew from the world, withdrew from those who tried to help me, guide me into the light, open my eyes to the reality. The all-encompassing reality that to this day, I still struggle to comprehend and live by. The reality is this,
“You are so much more than your body. What your body looks like will never determine your worth, your heart and your soul.”
How you feel on the other hand is where the real beauty lies. Arising in the morning teeming with energy, not letting your view of your body be the determinant of your joy, your happiness. Looking in the mirror and assessing, “wow, this mirror really needs to be cleaned,” and not, “I can’t leave the house today.” It all comes back to this question of revelation- who decided what was good and bad, right and wrong? You may see someone’s physique and pray that someday it be yours. But how could you ever tell they wake up at 3am every night due to hunger pangs? How could you ever know that they’ve lost their natural cycle, and no matter the sunshine above, they feel a cold inside. A chill that never seems to go away- but it does, and it can.
Place the hot glass you’re holding down for a moment. Hold yourself in a deep breath and ask, “Would I dislike my body so much if nobody was ever to see it again? Would I spend the most of my days criticizing and analyzing what I see in the mirror, if I was the only one to see me forevermore?” Do you want to change for you, or for the unreliable, everchanging eyes of society’s beauty standards?
There is nothing wrong with the way you look. There is nothing you need to change or fix. I promise you, you are perfect the way you are. And I encourage you to open your eyes to the possibility that maybe it wasn’t you who decided you weren’t. Whatever insecurities were planted within you, they were never yours to begin with, and they don’t have to be any longer. Decide for you- what does your good feel like- not look like- but feel like.
Change the narrative- you are the author of your story, so take the pen out of the hands of the projective, let your heart speak, and begin to write.
Do you have fitness goals? If yes, take a moment to think about what these goals are. Are they achievements along the lines of, “hold a plank for five minutes,” or “finally run twenty kilometers without needing to rest”? Or, do they sound something more like this- “have a thigh gap, and a visible six pack,” or “be super lean and toned”? Notice how the first two goals are accomplishments you cannot hold, but the second two, objects that we can attain, that we can see, that eventually, we identify with.
If you resonated more with the goals mentioned in the latter, I invite you to inquire with yourself, “are my goals health-based or aesthetic-based?” The answer is almost always clear. That is, unless we are wearing the guise of societal standards, pulled like a veil across the eyes of our hearts where our deepest intuition lies. Goals are incredible, and I am the first person to advocate that we all set ourselves goals and seek every day to achieve them. But the goal- that desirable fruit, that lustful outcome- is the salient part. And I don’t mean salient as in, that is where we put all our focus upon, most certainly not- the journey is the unfolding beauty. I mean important as in, tuning in to where that goal is stemming from- love or hate, unconditional self-love or conditional? Take a look at social media- could we possibly be blamed for having aesthetic goals, having this “dream body” engrained into the neural pathways of our brains that we will go to unimaginable lengths to attain? To taste the sweetness of a flat stomach and breathe the shallow breath of an overly lean body, we’ll do anything. And I have.