Lies I Told Myself – “Nobody Will Like You If You’re Fit”

“Skinny Bitch.”  “Fat Bitch.”  Sometimes women are brutally cruel to each other.  You know how a lot of people are afraid of failure?  Well, I’m one of those people afraid of success.  It’s stupid, I know, but for a long time I told myself that nobody would like me if I was too fit.

Perhaps this reverse logic is owed to my experiences attempting to climb the corporate chain, where it was ok to get ahead, but not too quickly, or co-workers would try to stab you in the back.

Perchance this line of thinking comes from my acting days when I competed for jobs against my friends, where my success literally meant their failure, and in that kind of environment it is difficult to be supportive of each other’s victories.

Maybe it goes further back to school days?  If you were too smart you were teased relentlessly; as though a target was permanently attached to you.

Each of us is guided in part by a map of our hurts.  My map told me, “Don’t be the best you can be, nobody will like you.”  About a year ago my friend, Regina, came to my house for a visit.  After the kids fell asleep and the men were watching TV, I confessed my fear of not being liked to her over a cocktail and a bag of chips.

And Regina, in her manner that I love her for, said, “That’s stupid, Lisa.”

And you know what?  She was right.  I’ve made more friends this past year attempting to be fit than I did in the past ten years attempting to be liked.  My friends from home, Jenny and Meghan, send me texts and sometimes little notes in the mail encouraging me.  “Don’t give up now, you can do this!”

People at 24 Fitness I don’t even know have wished me luck at my competition, because they see how hard I’m working for it.  The other day a man who sometimes helps me load the 50 lb bar on my back for my walking lunges handed me a Leadership coin.  It said in part, “Always ask yourself if you are doing the right things, at the right time, and for the right reasons.”

And if that voice in your head tells you to make yourself small to try to fit in, tell that bitch to shut up.

Try your best at whatever you do.  Your real friends will be there for you.

Lisa

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