The Gift of an Offhanded Truth
Ten years ago, I was in Toronto for a speaking event. We had dinner beforehand with a group of employees from the shop affiliated with the event, and I ended up sitting next to a shop manager who mentioned that he was also a bike fitter. “Wow,” I replied, “I’ve been thinking I need to get my bike fit professionally lately. My lower back has been feeling sore.” In a very polite, direct, Canadian way, he replied, “You don’t need to get your bike fit. You need to get your back strong.” I feigned indifference while my ego shriveled inside. But but but…. my inner monologue protested. I’m a professional athlete! I’m not weak. Nonetheless, I went home and sheepishly threw a few back exercises into my core regimen. I started biking more. I also focused on holding my spine straight while biking, drawing in my core and trying to relax my arms and shoulders. In less than a month, my back wasn’t hurting any more when I biked. The Canadian was right, I admitted ruefully to myself.
Keep going, the truth is just up ahead I’m pretty sure.
Then, a few years ago, three months or so pregnant with our second child, I lamented to the midwife during a routine visit that this time, I had began showing immediately. “I feel like before I even peed on the stick my belly had already just plopped out,” I told her. She walked across the room to grab something, and looked at me over her shoulder. “That’s because you don’t have any abs any more!” She laughed. I laughed too, or at least made an attempt to seem like I was laughing, but inside I was taken aback. I had worked hard on my abs after my first pregnancy! I’m a professional athlete! I internally huffed to myself, blustering about all the reasons she was probably wrong. But it turned out she was right. After giving birth to our second, I saw a physical therapist, a friend of mine who specializes in core and pelvic floor. With her guidance, I did some very basic exercises that helped me understand that previously I had been doing too much, in the wrong way, and basically exacerbating the issues caused by my nonexistent pelvic floor.
The strength lies within, or at least within reach perhaps.
While it stung at the time to hear each of these comments about my body and my strength, they each brought about a change for the positive. The comments were gifts, the kind that I didn’t want at the time but that I find later, cleaning out a closet, and realize it’s exactly what I’ve needed all along. I’m grateful to each of these people for saying something. They didn’t know me very well; they didn’t know how I might react. Maybe they didn’t even consider my feelings. Either way, they didn’t have to say anything. It would have probably been easier to keep their mouths shut, to smile and nod and keep things overly neutral. However, had they said nothing, I would have carried along blaming other things, thinking I was doing just fine yet never quite understanding why things were slightly off. But their honestly caused me to reflect and understand that I have blind spots (a lot of them), even as it pertains to my own body, the one that I spend one hundred percent of my time in.
Even if the path is obvious, it doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Perhaps it was easier for them to say something precisely because they didn’t know me well. I know that closer I am to someone, the more I know their weak spots and the less I want to poke those vulnerabilities for fear of hurting their feelings. And more importantly, perhaps because I didn’t know them well, I was more receptive to their message; I could listen to what they were saying in a more objective way because I felt emotionally more removed from them. Regardless, these small instances, among others, have helped me to learn that honesty—especially the kind, direct type of honesty—can make a positive difference for anyone, even if it’s the more difficult option.
A high chance of murkiness with occasional bouts of clarity.
