I'm not talking about being ashamed of being fat or eating cookies (which I still have not) but of being ashamed of thoughts I've had or judgements I've made. They come so easily.
The other day in my Body Pump class I was behind a woman who put on the bare minimum for every exercise, including squats, which is supposed to be your highest weight. So she lifted 5 lbs for every muscle group. I often find myself annoyed with people who just phone it in at the gym. These folks come, but they don't conquer. It bugged me all class, as she's squatting to 5 lbs and I'm squatting with 35 lbs knowing that I can even do more than that.
But today a friend of mine that I take Shbam with was in the class with me. She told me she hadn't done pump in about a year. She asked me about another class that I take and how tough it is on chest muscles. In our conversation I learned she had a double mastectomy last year because she carries the breast cancer gene and has an 80% chance of getting it. With three small children she decided she would rather go radical now and not be sick later. She says that with that and the reconstructive surgery there wasn't anything there to be able to build bigger muscles. Well folks, I felt ashamed at my judgement of the person the other day after this heartbreaking talk with my friend.
Now I'm sure my friend is not the norm and that all the women who put the least amount of weight on their barbells are not breast cancer survivors. But it did make me stop and remind myself that everybody has a story. Sure, some people go in and do the bare minimum, but others might have injury, might not know what they are supposed to be doing and are too afraid to ask, might be pregnant, or might be a recovering cancer patient.
While my heart was saddened by my friends story, I was even more glad that I decided to do the Avon 2-Day Walk for Breast Cancer. Now I know 5 people personally affected by the disease. I know I posted this before, but I will keep posting about it. If you'd like to donate, you can click on the box in the upper right hand corner of the blog home page. $5, $50, $500....it all matters! Thank you to the many of you who have committed to sponsoring me in the walk and those who have done so already! The blog community is great. If you could even give me a shout out on your own blog pages about the walk that would be so awesome. You never know who might be touched to give to this great cause.
It is rather easy being judgemental, and we all fall victim to it every now and again. (In the "old days" it may even have been mandatory for our survival - judging a situation on our first impression and running for cover, for example.) However, most often today it is none of our business how other people decide to spend their lives and what they are doing or not doing to remain healthy.
ReplyDelete(On a side note, if we stop judging others, we will feel less judged. It's kind of assuming everybody is doing the same as we do.)
It's soooo easy to judge. Too easy! Realizing that we've done it might at least help prevent us from doing it again!
ReplyDeleteI have to be careful with my thoughts as well. My mom has rheumatoid arthritis and told me once that now that she's in pain a lot she wonders if some people at stores and such get cranky because they are in pain and have to work. Talk about convicting!
ReplyDeleteI haven't forgotten about your walk...will be donating in new year. :)
What an empowering story here.... You just never know! I will def share your breast cancer fundraising in an upcoming post!
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