This meme has been going around. I think I even shared it in the Sanctuary just for the giggle of it. But it stayed in my head for a couple of weeks and I finally figured out why.
But first, let’s clarify some things.
The ideas of fitness and exercise, as they are currently packaged and taught, are repugnant to me. As usual, our culture thinks you can a) buy something that will fix all your problems and b) that the body is somehow this separate mechanism from our minds and hearts and culture and family and c) that certain kinds of bodies are the “goal” and d) that certain kinds of bodies represent “health” and and and…
It’s ironic (or a bunch of other things) that the person who made this meme go so very viral and who crossed out the 30 to replace it with 40 is a very, very, very thin, white actress. I’m assuming she doesn’t understand the layers of meaning she added when she, a representation of so many problems with our ideas of bodies and success and beauty and health, was the one to up the age to 40. (I could go on forever with this stuff but it’s not my point so I must move on…)
And the idea of “influencer” is just, well, GROSS.
All of that said, the reason, I finally realized, that this meme really bothers me is the ageism. And I don’t mean the ageism of assuming only 20 year olds are the epitome of beauty.
I mean the ageism of assuming that someone in their 20s doesn’t have something to teach us.
The ageism of assuming that just because you’ve gotten to… 40… means that you do have something to teach us. ((cough meme creator case in point cough))
Just because you age doesn’t mean you’ve gained any deeper self understanding.
Just because you are young doesn’t mean you don’t already have a deeper sense of self understanding.
Self understanding and the ability to challenge one’s self to grow are the prerequisites to good teaching and they have nothing to do with age but everything to do with experience and then what we do with that experience.
So here’s what I don’t want in a teacher or a guide on my body/mind/soul journey:
I'm not interested in being taught by someone who has not struggled and been challenged by and in their bodies.
I'm not interested in being taught by someone who has never had a serious injury and then worked their way back from that.
I'm not interested in being taught by someone who has never had to struggle with moderate to severe mood disorders and fought like hell to get back in their bodies to heal their minds and hearts.
I'm not interested in being taught by someone who doesn't have a deep understanding of not just their own trauma but of the myriad ways that trauma can manifest and the unique struggles of traumatized brain when it comes to getting back into our bodies.
And I'm not interested in being taught by someone who has not experienced heart shattering grief and still managed to breathe and move in some way through it all.
That doesn't fit on a meme so of course we distill it and think it has to do with age because that's simple.
It's not age... It's experience.
And it's not just experience but CONSCIOUSNESS AND EFFORT relative to those experiences.
And finally, the person I am interested in working with, learning from, or even teaching (as I do) is the person who gets that the body is no less and no more important than the mind and the heart….
…that mind, body, and heart are not separate but integrated and separating them does violence on a personal, cultural, and global leve.
…that the body is a vehicle to process life.
…that the body is an expressive tool to say things that can’t be said with words.
…that the body is not a story of your goodness or your badness.
…that the shape or size or condition of your body is in any way a moral proclamation regarding your personhood.
…that fitness is actually about wholeness and connection and has nothing to do with your abs or how many fucking burpees you can do.