Name: Micaela
Age: 26
What are 3 of your favorite ways to move?
Skiing, Hiking and Lifting Weights
What is one movement activity that you have never tried before but wish to?
Dancing, like legit take lessons and learn some moooooves 🙂
How would you describe your relationship with movement?
Over the years my relationship with movement has been both unhealthy and healthy. I grew up in a family that loved to move, I was exposed to skiing at 3 years old, my first weeklong backpack trip at 8 years old and BMX, running and soccer were sprinkled in along the way.
In high school, the pressure of peers left me with a hideous concept of body image. This led me to a skewed relationship with movement. In efforts to become the “perfect female body” that culture said I had to be, I strived to constantly lose weight. I shouldn’t have. My body didn’t have weight to lose, however my brain told me I was fat. Cue unhealthy relationship with movement. I would excessively workout and would never feel satisfied with my efforts. It was misery. However, in that time, I felt like I was doing the healthiest thing for my body when, in reality, I was shutting it down and denying it nutrients and proper rest. It is scary how skewed our minds can become when fed unhealthy narratives and beliefs.
In college I studied Kinesiology which is the study of the motion of the body. I started to learn how our bodies function and how each of our bodies are dynamic and different. I became fascinated with the capabilities of the human body. In this process, I also began to question my relationship with movement and my view of my body as I was posed with the question of “why do you choose to move?”.
Hence, I began a journey of rewiring my reasoning to move… I didn’t want to move because I felt like I had to, I wanted to move because heck I COULD and because when I did, I felt more alive and more focused in my daily life. Loving movement for the sake of movement not for the empty promise of conforming to a certain body type became my target. During this process (which was years of re-learning that continues today) I was introduced to lifting. That was my cherry on top. Lifting gave me the ability to celebrate my body and gave me the bold confidence to love my body and its abilities.
What encouragement do you have for others?
In a world that screams for you to be anyone but yourself, I think that our best defensive move is to boldly love ourselves and ruthlessly refuse to degrade our bodies because heck, our bodies are stronger and more capable than we think. We should be the first ones celebrating our own bodies ability to move and do cool things. Find movement that you love and that is easy for you to be consistent with, your body will thank you.
