30 Day Challenge: More Than Just Yoga
- Oct 16, 2016
- 5 min read
So, this is my belly.
...and although I'm not typically one to frivolously post photos of my bod for the whole world to see - I've given myself a pass just this once because I have something really important to say.
Over the past month, I've been participating in Kamloops Hot Yoga's "30 Day Challenge". For 30 days, I've dragged myself - sometimes out of bed for a 6am class, sometimes away from work at 9pm on my dinner break, and literally any other time I could squeeze it in, with my mat and water bottle in tow, to literally sweat my little bum off for 75 minutes at a time.
And I know, you're reading that and saying - "just what was the purpose of voluntarily signing up for this torture, Jessica?"
Good question, thank you for asking.
Aside from the challenge t-shirt at the end of the 30 days...I really wanted to find something to occupy a little bit of my time (because I have sooo much of that right now...), give me a reason to get out of bed everyday before my 3pm start time at work, and I really just wanted to be able to say I did it. Because I basically run on fumes and meaningless accolades like "this one time, I went to 30 yoga classes in 30 days".
Throwin' that little tidbit on the resume, amiright!? ✌🏻
But all jokes aside, going into this challenge, I had no idea what I was getting into physically, let alone mentally. When you're forced to squish your body into tight workout gear every single day for a month, it can kinda mess with you. And did I mention that it was HOT yoga? Which means the more clothing you wear into the room, the more you hate yourself after the first reverse swan-dive, so not only are you sucking copious amounts of air into your lungs, you're also sucking in the gut that's spilling over the sides of your yoga pants because you had jalapeño cheetos for dinner last night instead of salad and you're mad at how you look in the mirrors.
...true story.
For as long as I can remember, I've wished my body looked different in literally any way, shape, or form. Over the last few years, that has started to change a *little*, but as soon as I began this challenge, all of those messy, self-hating thoughts came rolling RIGHT back.
I still remember coming back from summer vacation one year in high school to a class full of tanned, toned, long-legged and clear-skinned teenagers, who clearly got a puberty memo that never made it to my inbox, because I was still rocking a solid 15 extra pounds of baby fat. Essentially everyone peaked in higschool.
I peaked about 10 minutes ago.
And I heard about it, believe me. I was well-informed by my peers about the fact that I needed to lose a few pounds, and that my teeth were crooked, and that one of my eyes opens wider than the other, and that I had no boobs and that I was loud. I heard it then, I hear it now, because for some crazy reason, people think we don't already know these things about ourselves - that we don't harp on ourselves about these things every. single. day.
About a month ago, I received a letter that neatly listed all the things that are wrong with me; from my behaviours, to my relationships, right down to the fact that I don't wax every inch of hair off my body, and it confirmed for me two things:
A) People suck.
B) People will always suck, and that likely won't change. But if other people are going to be mean to me, I should probably stop being mean to me - because if someone else is already doing it, I might as well save myself the time and effort of being my own worst enemy.
So what am I trying to get at with all of this? 30 days, hot yoga, tight pants, cheetos, puberty and sucky people - I've never been pleased with the body God gave me. I've stretched it, I've poked it, I've starved it, I've made it sick, I've burned it, I've bruised it, and all because I refuse to believe that it will ever be e n o u g h.
And not only do I refuse to believe it, I try to convince other people to refuse to believe it, too. My mom tells me I'm beautiful and I fight her on it. Why? I couldn't tell you. But what I could tell you, is that I'm not nearly skinny enough, I'm not stretchy enough, I'm not dainty, or tall, or strong enough. And no matter how often or hard I try, I'm just never going to get there.
Whether it's 30 days or 300, I've spent so much time telling myself that I'm never going to be enough, that I'm pretty sure I'll never be able to think otherwise.
*But that's where Jesus and hot yoga come in!*
This morning, one of the men at my church said this in prayer:
"You take our 'less', and make it 'more than enough'"
...and just like that, my 30 day challenge made sense.
I will never be enough, because I am just a human. I can drop weight and have my teeth fixed, and I can stand up straighter and talk quieter and get a bikini wax and maybe even stop eating cheetos for dinner. But when it boils down to it; even those things won't be enough, and that's
O K A Y. Because when I am not enough, He is. When I am less, God will make me into more.
So last night, I finished the final two yoga classes of my challenge. I bent further into my backbends, I held longer in my tall planks, I pushed myself hard, and when I lost my balance and fell right out of my dancer's pose, and I told myself that I wasn't enough.
I look at those pictures up top and I think about how I want my belly to be tighter, I could've eaten better this week, my arms could be more toned and I need to be less pale, and I tell myself that I'm not enough.
But THEN, I take a breather, and take a second, and remember that I'm ALIVE, and I'm HUMAN, and that it's okay not to be enough, it's okay to be less, because the Notorious G O D has always got my back, and eventually, He is going to make me into more. Praise Jesus, hallelujah for that.
Jessica*.
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