"This is not the way it was supposed to be."

"This" could be anything. Infertility, disease, difficulty losing weight, or gaining it. The result is the same - your body has betrayed you. It's not functioning as it should or how you hoped. It does not seem to get better quickly, despite your efforts. Maybe it never will.

The temptation to despair is strong. It is decidedly hard to love your cross.

What gets me out of the rut of trying, and failing, to love a body that has failed to function properly is to stop focusing on loving myself harder. Common advice says to focuses on loving yourself, but it is a solitary love. A weak love.
I cannot love myself out of this trial, but I can allow myself to be loved through it. That love can be the balm that makes the blisters of cross bearable.

This means talking to others about the ugly in our lives, not holding onto our dirty laundry for fear someone might show us how to clean the stain.
It means accepting help - allowing others to be the hands of Christ.

I am still struggling along this road. I still say "This shouldn't be happening" multiple times a week. But then I text a friend, write a quick email to let my husband know my headspace, or prayer journal out my mental mud.
It does not cure anything bodily, but it does provide an antidote to the despair.

It is ok to grieve. It is normal to feel hurt and angry, but don't stay there and certainly don't walk this road alone.
Know that your body is not your punishment.
Know that you are not the only person carrying this particular cross.
Know that God still loves you and wants good things for you.
Know these things, even if you can't believe them yet.

Building a Healthy Body Positivity

Honest truth, I was the chubby kid in ballet class.

No one called me that, but like most kids I was observant enough to notice.

I was too tall to be in the front of the class, and muscular enough that I often partnered in the guy's role. Dance school uniforms meant that I could not hide the fact that my leotard and skirt looked very different on me than on my classmates.

Going through puberty in front of a mirror was a struggle. I could not ignore what was staring me in the face many days of the week.

The dance world had woken up to the idea that the need to conform to one ideal of a "ballerina body" was driving out talented dancers. There was less pressure to eat a certain way or look a certain way. However, there was a cone of silence around navigating normally fluctuating weight - especially during the puberty years. After years of getting it wrong, everyone was trying so hard to do right, they did nothing.

So I plodded along, unsure of my strengths, and clueless for how to address the weaknesses in my dancing and in my body. I started to think maybe the problem was ballet. Maybe I just did not have the body for ballet and I should find a dance style that would be a better fit.

I did ballet-modern and learned a number of other styles, in addition to the tap and jazz my dance school offered.
I went vegetarian for a few years to see if that would help.
I generally flailed around trying to figure out where I fit. Kind of how puberty goes down for a lot of people.

Now, as an adult, I aim for a healthy body positivity. This means largely accepting the realities of my body while working towards strengthening my weak points.

Ballet will not let you be in denial about the realities of your body, it's true. I think that's a good thing.

Even the most perfect ballerina does not have a "perfect body". We all have unique quirks and struggles.

I have hyperextension all over the place. Which is a genetic gift when I need to make a pretty picture pose, but it makes it physically impossible to close my legs in fifth position. I need to use fifth position a lot.

I have very flexible feet. It's great for pointe work, but it also makes me just as able to sickle my foot (bad) as much as I can wing my foot (good).

I am not a tiny person. I build muscle fast, and I will never have the ballerina look. It is a fact of my physiology.

Accepting my bodily reality is not saying I cannot improve or that I cannot dance. It merely means I am accepting the truth of my body and am choosing to work with that reality. Choosing to work with an impossible ideal in mind is not only an unhealthy choice, it would make me a bad dancer.

What I wished had happened during puberty was someone taking the chubby dancer in the back under their wing. She needed someone to walk with her to learn how to see how these strengths and weaknesses were interconnected.

Your mainstream "body positivity" does not work well for kids who are growing up in front of a mirror. It reeks of hypocrisy. Telling a kid just to love the body they have and to not try to change it is in direct conflict with the message that if they work hard they can achieve their dreams.
Kids are smart. They notice these things.

A healthy body positivity discerns the difference between working with the body you have and being resigned to your body. Working with your bodily reality is empowering. It acknowledges that I have agency over my body. Being resigned to my body would mean letting the body control me. It would be disordered and fundamentally unhealthy.

What are your thoughts on building a healthy body positivity? Has this been a struggle in your life?

Are We Ready to Stop Hating on Ballet Yet?

There is something that is really bugging me on the internet. It has become popular to hate on dance, and ballet in particular, with the argument that ballet is not safe for our children to participate in from a body image and sexualizition standpoint.

I have been in ballet starting from the age of 4, mostly took a break in college, and came back after my second child was born. I have enrolled my son in ballet this past year and he will continue into a boys program this year. I have seen a lot of dance schools, styles, teachers, and dancers. Professionals, the professional aspiring, students, and just-dancing-for-fun people.

I cringe when I hear that parents are avoiding letting their children participate in dance because they "want them to have a healthy body image." Especially when the follow up is "do sports instead!" Y'all, sports are not an immunization against negative body image. It may even be worse if parents assume that sports are safe thus they don't need to be looking out for negative body image or a distorted relationship with food or exercise.

Sexism, sexual exploitation, and "competitive thinness" are all very real issues in sports, and even more so for female athletes. Parents assuming soccer or volleyball will be immune to such issues only makes it a better primed environment for exploitation.

I have known a lot of very serious athletes. They also train extremely hard, struggle with the physical and mental demands of their sport, and see the good and the bad in their sport.

The common denominator between the bad experiences is that they happen when parents, and athletes/dancers, sign onto a team, a dance school, a program without doing their own legwork to see if it would be a good fit.

Please do not assume something that was a good fit for your friend will be a good fit for you. Instructors change, coaches change, teammates change. If parents do not take the time to check into the particular class/team their child will be enrolled in, then reality can be wildly different from your expectations.

It is being a smart consumer to check it out before you sign up, but also to check in with the class instructor/coach and your kid as the year progresses. Attend any observation days. Know what goes on in a typical class/practice.
I am not saying be a helicopter parent. Anyone who has ever taught a class with little kids can tell you there is a balance between being involved and being overbearing. I am saying to pay attention.

If your kid wants to take a ballet class and you have never been to the ballet or taken a class yourself, please try and educate yourself about the dance world. If you do not understand what is and is not normal for a class at your child's level, it will be very hard to express your concerns or combat negative situations.

Ultimately parents have to make the right call for their own child, but enough with letting a bad experience taint your perspective of an entire art form.

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On Wednesday I'll have a post on healthy body positivity, my perspective as a adult in ballet without a stereotypical "ballerina body", and navigating puberty in front of a mirror.
Come continue the discussion!