My Conscious Self

I wanted to be on the president’s fitness club in grade school.

My skinny little arms could not pull me up the chin-up bar, and despite my 100 sit ups, and running faster than any of my classmates,(even the boys), I didn’t get that coveted certificate in Mr. Masterson’s sixth grade class.

Though I am blessed with the genetics of a few good body parts, the rigors and merit of building upper body strength escaped me. Running track, a few years of tennis, dance, and being a two baton twirler, I never had enough definition in my arms to not feel ....akward in a tank top.

I felt self conscious.

Something was missing, and I knew I wanted to pump myself up, but what did I really need to pump up to feel good about me?

I believe that there is something in how we take care of ourselves that defines the consciousness of who we are. There is a statement of well being that a “toned” body says, and perhaps in order to tone, I had to “tune” me. I had to become conscious of myself.

It is hard work building muscles. The effort and the pain that it takes to build something strong takes time and intention. Not a fan of gyms, I wanted the expression of my health to manifest in the physcial, I wanted to see the definition of hard work, health and consciousness.

My focus has been on re-structuring the emotional foundation of my life by repairing the floorboards of a shaky childhood, filling in the cracks of damage and building the muscle of a spiritual practice.

Imagine my surprise yesterday when I looked in the mirror of my Tae Kwan do studio yesterday and saw my deltoids, triceps and biceps,defined for the very first time. I thought, is my eyesight getting better, am I standing closer to the mirrors? Maybe my protein shake was helping……

I was amused that after 4 years of the study of martial arts as a way for me to gain more health, strength and focus; I was actually now manifesting the outward expression of the inner dialogue.

These repairs though internal, have begun to bare witness to all my hard work.

I wanted to be strong, I needed to be strong and the juicy plump of the "Mad Men girls” might be appealing to some as a soft place of feminine wiles to escape to or hide behind, but I had to have the fine tuning of the conscious conversation of my life to support my skin.