October 21, 2014

ripped and lean is gross

I was thinking lots yesterday about the negative comments under the picture that I posted of me in a denim skirt looking at the Olympic bar, all ripped and lean. I have posted some of the comments above and I also added some other feedback I received from other pictures of me from my professional Facebook page.

“Am I the only one that thinks this looks really gross?” Jade Thomas

“Kinda freaky” Marc Montano

“Yuk” Brett Johnson

“What is it?” Shayne Cooney

“I feel crook” Brendan Lynch

“This is horrible, I wouldn’t want to like to have someone like this with all respect” Jose Franco

“WTF is it????? Yuck” Aisha El-Sayed

“She now looks like a dude in a skirt lol” Justin Burns

“Is she going to show us a doodle?” Eugene Savva

“This is more of a man’s body… but with a bra!!!!” Laarni Alvarez

“yuk. You look like a man” Lee Neaves

“Did you grow a dick also?” Savenaca Seruvatu

“Honey you look like a bloke…..” Pamala Tancred

I’m totally, 100% not upset or offended by the comments. I love how I look in the pictures. I worked so bloody hard to get this look and I personally think I look great.

Re the comments………….It’s social media!

I promoted the post and so people will see the image in their news feeds, people that haven’t liked my page and therefore I open myself up to negativity.

It’s social media.

I understand the nature of the beast. At best: it’s an awesome forum. At worst: it illuminates the darker side of ourselves re trolls and faceless people typing horrible words from behind the mask of a smart phone or computer screen.

However, this isn’t what I was thinking about yesterday. I was thinking about my own judgement of people, images and things. It reminded me of one of my faves: Wayne Dyer and his words:

“When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.”

As I was thinking about this quote I thought it was appropriate to check in with myself.

Can I be judgemental of people’s looks and appearance?

I can.

We can all be judgemental from time to time. I am sure even the Dalai Lama has to check in with himself on occasion and if that’s the case, what hope do us mere mortals have of zero judgement?

We all like what we like and we all don’t like what we don’t like. It’s what differentiates us. I guess the difference is I wouldn’t type it for the world to see.

But is that worse or better?

Does that make me a hypocrite?

Is thinking judgemental thoughts and not sharing them just as bad as airing them in the public arena?

This train of thought lead me to these words:

‘Your beliefs become your thoughts,

Your thoughts become your words,

Your words become your actions,

Your actions become your habits,

Your habits become your values,

Your values become your destiny.’

Mahatma Gandhi

Wow!

I realised that I needed to check in with these thoughts more often. They are so powerful. How can we create change outside of ourselves until we create change where it all starts, inside, with our thoughts?

We are all so different with so many different flavours. Muscly, skinny, fat, black, white etc etc etc etc. We cannot all like, admire or love every single individual taste sensation.

What we can do is appreciate the fact that we are all different and we all like different things. No need to be malicious about it. No need to have heartless beliefs, thoughts, words, actions, habits or values about other flavours right?

Accept it is not to your taste, appreciate it might be others favourite flavour and let it go.

I am gonna check in with myself much more and grab those ‘judgmental thoughts’ and remember to live and let live and appreciate how powerful those thoughts are. They are just as powerful, if not more so as a troll airing them on social media.

(FYI: This doesn’t mean I’m not going to give my opinion on health and what I deem unhealthy. Whenever I mention certain issues on my page words like judgemental will invariably be thrown around……… but this is a whole other discussion that I will save for another blog).

In conclusion, I am going to check in a little bit more regularly with my judgemental thoughts about flavours that do not suit my palate. I am going to grab them, have a look at them and ask myself if I am being the same as the people mentioned above who are simply expressing their opinions in public. If the answer is yes, I am going to have a chat with myself and remind myself to let others enjoy their own flavour.

Care to join me?

If we all did this we can start to move forward to a place where difference is embraced and no body cares what you look like (just live as healthy as poss tho right?).

When I was younger the kids called me fat and ugly.

Now I’m older people call me muscly and ugly.

To those people and the ones I have mentioned specifically above:

I’m sending you all a big muscly hug xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jibber Jabber over n out.