Trust Your Body

Hey League!

I grew up in a close-knit family and safe community. Many of our neighbors were family members or long-term family friends. As a result, I never felt unsafe. I could explore anywhere, I could talk to anyone. But the other part of feeling safe growing up was feeling capable in my body. Knowing I could jump out of bed every morning and do whatever I wanted. I could scarf down a bowl of Captain Crunch and be on my bike by 8 am, gone for the day unless I got hungry.

There were no limits to how I could move my body. I could climb anything, do flips, hop across rocks with no fear of falling, balance on logs over crevasses and ravines, swim across the bay, and dive for treasures. I never stopped to think about what I could do. I just did what I wanted. 

I am not sure where that changed, where I lost that trust in my body. Was it when I injured my knee bowling and had to have surgery? Was it when my kids were born and I was suddenly fearful of everything in the world that might hurt them? Every threatening furniture corner, electrical cord, and raised sidewalk crack? Today they are grown up, but I am always texting them to “Be careful on the ice, don’t break an ankle” and “It’s going to be -40 this weekend, make sure you wear your parka” while I’m outside in my hoodie in the same weather. 

I love that I had such an outdoors and movement-focused childhood. I wasn’t the kid who ran and jumped off the highest spot at the mine pits, but I loved jumping from lower spots and swinging on the jungle rope.  Now, I’d hesitate to jump from the rocky cliffs into the water even just 10 feet up. As an adult, I suddenly became aware of risks I never saw as a kid. The log I could hit if I didn’t stick my landing, the crumbling rocky edge that could give way, the jagged rocks you have to hoist yourself up on to climb out. 

As much as I loved how I grew up and trusted my body to do my bidding without question, I had a much harder time trusting my kids in their bodies to do the same things. I think some of that is because of how much – as parents especially – we’re told that danger lurks around every corner from the second they are born. Dyes in fruit roll-ups, bike helmets even on a tricycle, waiving the right to sue if your kid dies at the trampoline park, the dangers of infections from simple cuts and scrapes. Everywhere I turned as a young parent, I heard about how dangerous life is for kids. Clearly, my parents never learned about all those dangers! We were too busy living life to spend too much time questioning it. I’m full of scars from my misadventures, but I remember where every single one came from! 

My kids though, are mostly scar-free. There are a few, my oldest wiped out roller skiing one summer. One kid mangled his thumb using a saw to build a fort with friends. But they mostly didn’t spend their childhoods full of bruises, scrapes, road rash, and healing scabs. Has it made them less resilient? Has it caused a disconnect in how they trust their bodies compared to how I did when I was young? Did my learned fears as a parent make them doubtful of their own abilities? 

It wasn’t only the fear of them getting hurt, but the fear of being judged for allowing them to do things society has deemed dangerous. We’ve replaced playground equipment with only the lowest, safest structures. We don’t let kids balance on the curbs as they walk in case they fall. They swim with arm floaties otherwise it’s too hard. I think we do our kids a disservice with all of this fear. I think it produces a lack of trust, capability, and resiliency. 

But I also think we do this to ourselves as adults and pass it on to our kids. When was the last time you balanced across something on a walk? If a tree is down across the hiking trail, do you go around it, or do you climb over/under it? Do you always choose the path of least resistance rather than looking for the many ways you can challenge yourself? 

I’ve mentioned before that I try to set things up in our home to create mini-challenges rather than always seeking to make life easier. I put heavier bowls on high shelves so I have to reach for them, I put commonly used pots on the lowest shelf so I have to squat to get them. I use cast iron pans and I mash chaga with an old-school mortar and pestle instead of a coffee grinder. 

But I realized recently that those little things, while I still do them, aren’t enough. I miss the way I grew up, the way I trusted my body, the way I used it all day, every day to move through the world in a variety of ways. I want more of that in my adult life, so I’ve been wracking my brain to figure out how to bring more movement-as-life into my days. 

Rucking is a great solution to this problem, as I can combine it with almost anything else that I do. I can wear my Ruck when I load and stack wood. I can wear it when I mow the lawn or weed the garden. I can Ruck hill repeats when I’m on the phone. 

But I still want more. More variety, especially. This spring, I am going to add more garden space to our yard. Maintaining a garden requires a variety of movements. Squatting, kneeling, pulling, lifting, carrying, reaching, and pushing (wheelbarrow). I can add my ruck to level things up even more. Our growing season is very short, only about 90 days. In the fall I do a lot of hiking. Come winter, my activity level tanks, at least when looking at it from a daily perspective. I do some winter hiking and snowshoeing, but those are mostly reserved for the weekends due to a lack of sunlight otherwise. 

Winter is when I really need dedicated exercise but it’s also when I resist it the most. I struggle to balance the strong desire to hibernate in my flannel pajamas and read books for 4 months straight with the knowledge that if I don’t get my workouts in, I will start off the active season behind the eightball. If I don’t keep a solid routine, my consistency wanes. But I also feel the need to shift with the seasons and I don’t think our bodies are necessarily intended to do the same thing day in and day out for years, pretending as if our tendency to rest more in the winter isn’t there. 

This winter I’ve balanced it a bit by doing more yoga and focusing on form and balance, especially as I continue recovery from my hip replacement. But I’ve also found I am more hesitant to go walking and rucking in the winter due to the snow and ice. Falling on a joint replacement can be catastrophic, so I have a new fear where I lack trust in my body and its abilities. Ironically, I am so grateful for my improved strength and mobility after having surgery, and yet I want to protect it so much that it’s caused me to move less than normal over the winter. My teenager will come home and report he “biffed it” (fell down) 5 times trying to walk home from the bus stop. Just the idea of it is horrifying to me now. I’m not sure how to work through that part and regain that trust.

Do you find that your activity level changes with the seasons? What do you do differently? Do you plan it ahead of time or do you go with what you feel like doing each day? 

I’d love to know how others manage those adult fears around getting hurt, not trusting your body, and how you overcome the desire to hibernate when it’s 0º for weeks at a time like it has been here for much of the last 2 months. What keeps you going? 

In Wildness, 
Kim