What If We Actually Don’t Need to Change?
A radical idea…
For over twenty years, I've been immersed in the health and wellness industry. Not just as a consumer, but as a leader. I've been the guide, the coach, the one teaching others how to be healthier, stronger, and more confident. I've taught classes, designed programs, and listened to the stories of clients in search of the ever-elusive "fix."
As I evaluate my own relationship with my body, I am realizing my personal struggle to attain the unrealistic "ideal." Like many of the people I served, I was stuck in the relentless, exhausting cycle of solving the problems of my outward appearance. I endured countless diet fads and extreme workout regimens, chasing the dream to be leaner, stronger, and better—a pursuit I conveniently disguised as “industry research” or “professional development.”
My body was a project. A machine filled with conflicts in need of resolution. A deviant I had to coerce into compliance. My worth was tied to what needed to improve, and the stakes were even higher for me. I had convinced myself that my professional credibility, income, and livelihood depended on maintaining this physical ideal. I didn't have the awareness to be honest with myself, simply assuming that my struggles weren't the same because I was the professional. I was supposed to have it all figured out. What would people pay me for when they discovered the truth?
My career was built on the science of human movement, instructing others on how to move their bodies—but not how to relate to them.
I’ve begun to sit with what it would mean to let go. What would it look like to surrender the constant need to change, and instead embrace what already is? It's a terrifying, beautiful, and profoundly simple truth. Is true freedom and happiness what happens when we stop trying to fix something that isn’t broken? Are we enough just as we are? Is it possible to find acceptance and wholeness, not by changing the appearance or actions of our body, but by changing our relationship to it?
This conversation is impossible to start. It’s a loaded question with possibly millions of conflicting responses. I don't have the answer. All I have is the radical idea, and the nerve to share what I once considered my greatest weakness. I’m not throwing all my fanatical habits out the window tomorrow. But I’m hopeful that this can open the door to more conversations about the one thing all humans have in common – a body.
