Claiming Ownership

Tuesday’s Truth

So over the weekend, I worked on a short personal essay about my struggles with eating and how lifting weights have helped me make active progress for Lift Big Eat Big. It was a difficult essay to write in part because it’s a part of me that not everyone knows about – it’s like one of the major secrets I’ve kept from most of my loved ones for years. In tapping away at my machine (and noshing on some of my delicious protein pancakes) I kept having to return to the root of why I needed to write the essay.

It wasn’t as much because I had a deadline (though that was a good motivator, to be sure!) or because it’s a topic that doesn’t garner as much attention and respect that it deserves … writing about my eating disorder and the challenges I’ve faced as a direct result of it is in so many ways one more step in honoring myself and my truth. I knew that once I submitted it to Lift Big Eat Big for publication, my story and my truth would reach a really wide audience. And for the first time, my secret would be out.

After I finished writing, I sat and stared at the screen for a while. Took a break. Did some vinyasa flows. Breathed. Looked back at some old pictures and then compared them to recent ones. There was a huge part of me that DID NOT want to send my article, to beg off the work – essentially, to cower behind the ED and let it win again.

Fuck that.

Stories need to be told. We all have them. Truths are only powerful if they’re given light to shine. These are things I’ve been preaching all year long. So off my essay went. Exposing myself and my truth to the all of the interwebs is super scary. But what would be worse would be if I kept hiding.