People will always have an opinion....Keep doin' YOU!!

 When you see me on the weight floor, I'm pretty focused. If you try to get my attention, I usually smile, tip my hat and continue on with my lifting.

Not today. Today I came in to sub a class and figured while I was there, I'd hit some chest and back. Just as I was making my way the pull up bar, I ran into an old lifting comrade of mine from a year or so ago, that always motivated me to push harder. I had  to stop and say hi!! I'm glad I did! We chatted it up for about 40 minutes! What a great conversation!! 

Isn't it funny how we remember things that were said to, or about us for a life time?  Most of us, by nature want to please. We want to be accepted, liked, respected, valued, and validated.

 I'll never forget....my son was 5 years old (he is now 19) and it was close to Christmas. We had just finished Christmas shopping and decided to go to Baskin Robins (in the mall) for a scoop of our favorite holiday flavor, peppermint candy!! We took our packages and ice cream to a mall table just outside the shop and enjoyed our treat, while talking about how much the people would love the gifts we had picked out. A man walking toward us stopped and interrupted this innocent mommy/son moment to inform me, that  I wouldn't be nearly this heavy if I didn't eat crap like ice cream. JERK!! I wanted to cry. Was that what people saw when they looked at me? A fat cow eating ice cream and getting fatter? He didn't see a mom having a holiday treat with her kid, he saw a fat cow eating ice cream.

" We don't see things as they are. 

We see them as we are."

~Anais Nin

It wasn't until years  later that I would understand what Anais meant.

Later in life, when I made the choice to get healthy (By the way,I still eat ice cream!)  I began lifting weights and body building. I love it!! I love the way I look! The way my chest ripples, the way my triceps cut into my delts!! I love the way I feel! So healthy and willing to feed my body the nutrients it needs to give me what it's giving me! I love feeling strong! My husband calls me Pops (short for Popeye), and I work hard to keep that title. Well, last year our best friends (husband and wife team) came to our house to play cards. The husband pulled my husband aside and told him I was starting to look a bit masculine. Kind of like Jillian Michaels. When my husband told me this, I didn't cry.... I grinned from ear to ear! Not because I want to look masculine, and I don't think I do. But, because what our friend perceived as masculine, I perceived as having reached a goal I had worked so hard to reach......and it was noticed.

Back at the gym this morning, my friend had told me she had given up body building because of how she felt other's were perceiving her. Her husband had expressed concern about her arms getting too big. I told her my hubbs had said that about my arms as well, and laughed. Then she told me, after dressing up and putting on some pretty high heals to go out, she overheard someone say, "yeah, Billy will probably get about as tall as that woman" and pointed in her direction. The guy next to him then replied, "That might be a guy (dressed as woman)."  From that point on my friend decided to just exercise lightly, and stop body building. That decision wasn't based soley on the those comments, life kind of got busy as well, but it had an effect on how she saw herself.

 She is now back in the gym, and misses how she felt and looked.

 Now, I can tell you first  hand that my friend got WAAAAAY more positive attention from her bodybuilding than negative! She is incredibly good looking and does not, at all resemble a guy. And most people in the gym marveled at her beauty and physique. But, what does she remember? What made her want to quit? The same thing that sticks in most of our heads.... the negative.

 I'll never forget the man in the mall. Most of us will hold onto moments like that for a life time, but the guy in the mall, probably doesn't at all remember meeting me that day. 

Why focus on what others think? What difference will it make? Everyone will always have an opinion, no matter what we do. But if we understand that their opinion ( good or bad ) is a reflection of them, and not us, we will be free to live and not worry about the judgement that others are trying to place on us. 

The second moral to this story?.... Choose your words carefully  when speaking to or about others. We are all swimming up stream with our own life struggles. Why make it harder on someone by degrading what they do, or why they  do it. 

My body is grateful for another day of rest and my soul was thankful for a moment with an ol' gym friend and thought provoking conversation. 

Thanks friend!!