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So I was just at the gym, and today they had like a class of aspiring physical therapists, sports students or personal trainers (don't know which) there who were all working out. I had chatted up one of the young men when setting up my squat rack (I always have a lot of trouble replacing the 20 kg barbell with my 5 kg aluminium one because right now I can only squat 6 kg) and somewhere between my third and fourth set he said to me: "I believe you can do 20 kg."
I explained how with how deep I'm going and the timing (three seconds down, one second up) I can barely do 6 kg. In fact in my last set I couldn't do the full eight reps, I could only do six. And he made that face that showed he didn't believe me, you know the one.
That conversation stuck with me, it really bothered me. And after a few more exercises I realised that I've been hearing "encouragement" like that my entire life. People expect stuff of me that I literally cannot do. I can barely carry the 20 kg bar, let alone squat with it. But no, people's "minimum expectations" are already beyond me.
I've been wondering for a long time why my husband associates physical exhaustion with joy and freedom, while I associate it with shame and failure. I always suspected it was another bullying thing but today I realised it had nothing to do with my classmates: It was my teachers.
There was never a point in time where the "warmup" before PE class was not way too hard for me, since I was not a sporty child. So naturally I would take breaks when I was out of breath. And then the teacher would go "Come on Noen, don't just stand there" or "You in the back, I can see you, keep going" and other such helpful "encouragements". I've been to seven schools and had at least ten PE teachers but they all did it. They all did exactly this: Shaming me for being out of breath, for being physically exhausted, for daring to take a break during the "warmup", implying or outright saying I was lazy for it, punishing me verbally for not meeting their completely misplaced expectations of me.
Thinking about this genuinely made me break out into tears in the middle of my hip abduction set and I just had to quit the workout right then and there and go home because I couldn't stop.
No wonder I hate being out of breath, no wonder I constantly apologise to our trainer for progressing slowly, taking a break or not doing a full set every time. No wonder I hate when I feel that I have hit my limit. Because I was taught my entire childhood that hitting my limit means I'm lazy, a failure, worthy of being shamed in front of the entire class.
I explained how with how deep I'm going and the timing (three seconds down, one second up) I can barely do 6 kg. In fact in my last set I couldn't do the full eight reps, I could only do six. And he made that face that showed he didn't believe me, you know the one.
That conversation stuck with me, it really bothered me. And after a few more exercises I realised that I've been hearing "encouragement" like that my entire life. People expect stuff of me that I literally cannot do. I can barely carry the 20 kg bar, let alone squat with it. But no, people's "minimum expectations" are already beyond me.
I've been wondering for a long time why my husband associates physical exhaustion with joy and freedom, while I associate it with shame and failure. I always suspected it was another bullying thing but today I realised it had nothing to do with my classmates: It was my teachers.
There was never a point in time where the "warmup" before PE class was not way too hard for me, since I was not a sporty child. So naturally I would take breaks when I was out of breath. And then the teacher would go "Come on Noen, don't just stand there" or "You in the back, I can see you, keep going" and other such helpful "encouragements". I've been to seven schools and had at least ten PE teachers but they all did it. They all did exactly this: Shaming me for being out of breath, for being physically exhausted, for daring to take a break during the "warmup", implying or outright saying I was lazy for it, punishing me verbally for not meeting their completely misplaced expectations of me.
Thinking about this genuinely made me break out into tears in the middle of my hip abduction set and I just had to quit the workout right then and there and go home because I couldn't stop.
No wonder I hate being out of breath, no wonder I constantly apologise to our trainer for progressing slowly, taking a break or not doing a full set every time. No wonder I hate when I feel that I have hit my limit. Because I was taught my entire childhood that hitting my limit means I'm lazy, a failure, worthy of being shamed in front of the entire class.
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) to have the wisdom to know what it may be!
