"That's easy for you to say!"
My client says to me point blank as we stand face to face on the gym floor. Me with clipboard in hand and her wearing a baggy t-shirt with fixed eyes reflecting all her pain back at me.
I was in shock.
I felt the ripple of her resentment run through my whole body masking the deeper hurt that I was feeling in that moment, by her statement.
It wasn’t just what she said, but it was how she said it.
I don’t even remember what we were talking about in that moment to trigger this comment, all I remember was how it made me feel.
But of course she assumed it was all easy for me.
- She wasn’t there when I cried myself to sleep from the shame and confusion of disliking my body shape at the tender age of 13. - She wasn’t there in the room with me when I attended my first weight watchers meeting at 15 years old feeling so afraid and vulnerable. - She wasn’t there when I had a nervous breakdown at 19 years old due to over-exercising, my adrenals completely fried, crying in a heap of despair in my mothers arms at the bottom of the basement stairs. - She wasn’t there when I invested my first and only thousand dollars in a correspondence course to obtain my personal training certificate, so that I can learn about doing it the healthy way. So that I could eventually help her do it the healthy way.
- She didn’t see those parts of me that got me there that day standing on the gym floor with her. - She didn’t acknowledge the remnants of that chubby tween girl who still took up space in my adult figure. She didn’t accept all the reasons why I was the one standing there with the clipboard that day and she was the one uncomfortably fidgeting with her baggy t-shirt, just like I used to do. I understood her pain. I empathized with what she was feeling. I loved her just the way she was, because she was me once.
Maybe she was right. Maybe it was easy for me to say in that moment, but ONLY after so many years and plenty, plenty of tears.
I’m not here to make it sound easy. I’m hear to tell you that the work is worth it, and so are you
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