Mina Samuels's Blog, page 2

Is Strong Sexy?

I was asked recently what I thought about men watching women's sports for the eye candy. Did I think it was bad, the interviewer asked? My immediate thought was, yes, of course. I don't want men watching women athletes for the turn-on, I want men to be watching for the strength and grace and prowess of the players; because the women are just as good athletes as their male counterparts. When I thought further about the question though, my feelings about the issue got more complicated. In thinking of World Cup soccer, a sport where the women are fierce, fast, strong and covered in mud…well, if men find that sexy, how much better that is than the media-generated ideal of fragile bunny beauty, a mere willow wisp, toppling over from the weight of her surgically enhanced breasts.

ESPN seems to think that strong women are sexy, or at least their magazine's 2011 Bodies We Want issue capitalizes on this new direction in women's sex appeal, with its photo spread of modestly posed nude photos of top ranked athletes, women and men, showing off just how rippling a woman's abs can be.

The bodies on display are, indeed, beautiful. And if we women are killing ourselves trying to live up to some mythical beauty ideal, wouldn't it be nicer if the ideal were not quite so mythical, and instead something real. I feel certain that Hope Solo is not photo-enhanced for television while she is playing soccer matches. And though I will never play World Cup soccer, I can aspire to be my strongest self. The only thing stopping me from my own rippling set of abs is the sit-ups I don't do (okay, and maybe chocolate cake). Not only is the strong, tough, active woman ideal far more attainable than anything we see in Playboy or Vogue, because it is less constricted in its definition, the strong ideal is healthier, physically and mentally.

When I say healthier, I really mean it. The beauty ideal propagated in our society is ruining girls. Beauty and sexuality have become so completely intertwined as to be indistinguishable. A Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls found that the increased sexualization in magazines, marketing, television shows, movies and song lyrics harmed girls' interpersonal relationships, fostered greater body dissatisfaction (as if that issue needs more kindling), and its companion—eating disorders, increased depression, generally affected physical health, and even led to diminished cognitive skills (apparently they posed math problems to girls trying on sweaters and girls trying on bathing suits, and those trying on sweaters scored much higher).

The Disney princess effect is sucking the life out of girls, leaving them on the front stoop, waiting for Prince Charming, instead of outside running around in the fresh air, where they might not look pretty-in-pink every moment and their tiara might fall off. The Women's Sports Foundation reports that girls drop out of sports at a rate of 6:1 versus boys. And a Girl Scout study showed that many girls between 11-17 years old don't play sports because they think their bodies don't look good.

And even if girls do think their bodies look good, there are a lot of messages out there that we shouldn't be using our bodies for sports anyway. Passing through Times Square subway station these last weeks I've been struck by the new Levi's ad, which shows boys skateboarding and doing tricks on bikes wearing their jeans, whereas the girl's jeans are down around her ankles (she's ostensibly pulling them on, after what, who knows, since she's standing beside an SUV in the middle of nowhere), flashing us a good look at her lacy panties. The tagline is about creating our legacy. So…boys' legacies lie in extreme sports and girls' in their undergarments.

I think that's enough bad news for now. And lest it's not obvious, when I advocate for a new beauty or sexy ideal, I'm not advocating for sexually provocative sports uniforms. Scantily clad beach volleyball players do not advance the cause. The Lingerie Football League is not part of the healthy new ideal I'd love to see. Leveraging what Catherine Hakim calls our Erotic Capital (i.e. our sex appeal) in her book of the same name, will not, in my opinion empower us, as Julie Ruvolo suggests in Forbes blog post, "If You've Got It, Charge For It": The Feminism 2.0 Manifesto. Instead it sets women up against each other, in that eternally unhealthy competition for men's attention, and ensures that aging will continue to be seen as the end of our power and worth—Ruvolo sets that age at 35, so I'm way out of time anyway.

What we want is to redefine sexy completely. There's hope. The ESPN body issue is a slight breeze, perhaps portending bigger winds of change. And there's The Kicking Queen, Brianna Amat, who recently became Homecoming Queen and kicked a winning field goal for her football team (all male, except her) on the same day.

One question is whether men will still find the eye candy soccer player (or football player or runner) sexy when they have to deal with the actual strong woman behind the shin guards.

Another question—should that even matter?

Girl Changes Her World

You may have noticed, I've been thinking a lot lately about the under-layers of that eternally provocative question—"why are we here?" Maybe there doesn't need to be a reason for everything. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. But isn't it nice to have a reason for something as important as our existence? At a fundamental level, think of how much more reliable and motivated you are when someone else is counting on you for something. Showing up for someone else feels good, right? So is that where we might locate some of our reason for being, our purpose?

I was reminded of this in a stark way reading Leymah Gbowee's, Mighty Be Our Powers, about coming into her womanhood and finding her strength and activist core in Liberia during the brutal civil war in that country. At one point, speaking about coming out of a long depression (brought on by an abusive relationship, not to mention the horrors of the violence in Liberia), she begins to feel the power of meaning in her life, "I wasn't sitting home thinking endlessly about what a failure I was; I was doing something, something that actually helped people. The more I did, the more I could do, the more I wanted to do, the more I saw needed to be done."

Leymah's story is a we-shall-overcome tale, if ever there was one. But most of us, thankfully (!), do not face such overwhelming challenges. Our worlds are relatively peaceful and easy. Complacence is natural. Nothing in our direct field of vision seems to "need" us. Yet, that feeling Leymah had is, I think, still familiar. Most of us have days we sit at home feeling like failures, then something demands our presence, and I don't mean just physically, but emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and there's no space left for despondency.

I spoke to one young woman who found her opportunity to contribute in her own backyard. Paloma Wiggins is a junior in high school in Yellow Springs, Ohio (pop. 3200). She started running in the 7th grade, when one of her friends encouraged her to join the cross-country team. The distances seemed crazy long at first, but it didn't take much time before Paloma had fallen in love with running over hill and dale, with the feeling that comes with being involved in a sport.

When the small team of five girls got to high school, they decided they at least needed t-shirts, so people would know they existed. The boys' team had shirts, oh yes, and other PR perks, like free frosties at meets. Paloma, passing over the bake sale, suggested the team organize a 5k event in town for girls and women only, as a way of fundraising for their team. 150 women turned out the first year. "I realized, this was about more than raising money for my cross-country team," Paloma says. "I saw how invigorating and powerful and supportive it was to have a women-only event. And hearing the women's stories, 'this is my first 5k' or 'this is my first run since my husband's death,' well it was amazing to feel that I was helping women through things in their lives, and helping them feel active, healthy and productive."

Paloma founded Simply Women Ohio three years ago, after that first 5k event. Although the 5k is the main event of the year (217 women and girls showed up this year—a huge turnout for the size of the community), her organization embraces a broader mission. Simply Women has also established a leadership in athletics award, which will be presented each year to the graduating senior female athlete at the Yellow Springs high school who best demonstrates an enduring model of leadership and a lasting commitment to female athletics. In other words, not necessarily the best athlete, but the girl who is a team player, who encourages others and gives back into sports, not to mention taking her studies seriously.

Paloma's mission, through Simply Women, is to create broader support structures in the Yellow Springs community for young women participating in sports and other healthy activities. In the short term, Paloma is already searching for her successor, because after next year, she'll be off to university and she needs someone on the ground in Yellow Springs to carry on the day-to-day work. Any takers?

Not all of us find our purpose so early in life. And that's perfectly fine. If we're listening, our minds, our spirits, our bodies even will let us know what to do when the time is right. Start simple. What things get you up happy in the morning? Notice what makes you feel good. Explore those avenues and you just might find your Simply Women Ohio opportunity.

This post appeared on the Huffington Post under a different title.

Shoot to Score

When I ask, Olivia says she thinks she's been playing soccer for four, maybe five years. Five years, her mother, Jane, clarifies. So Olivia (Liv to most everyone) has been playing soccer for half her life (and maybe it ought to count for more, since for at least the first eighteen months of her potential soccer playing life she wasn't yet walking).

Liv plays a lot of soccer. Last spring, for example, she played on a club team that practiced for an hour and a half on Tuesday, Friday and Saturdays, played games Sundays, and had what's called academy practices on Monday and Wednesdays (of which Liv was only required to attend one, but always attended both). Her own hour and a half practices and extra academies were apparently not quite enough, because on Tuesdays her younger brother's team's academy practice was before hers, and Liv would play with them for that hour and a half, too. For the record, Jane wanted me to add this important not-a-tiger-mum-disclaimer: All add-on practices are at Liv's behest.

One of Liv's favourite add-ons is when there's a scrimmage between the girls and boys teams. "The games get stronger and more physical when the girls play the boys," Jane says. "Like if we really want it," Liv says, "we have to put more power into the ball, and be more aggressive. So we're everywhere, running fast, dribbling, passing and taking more shots on goal." Like having the confidence to race Nascar rules in Ski Cross, the girls' game goes up a level when they face off with the boys, an opportunity for the girls to show themselves just how much game they've got.

All the playing has paid off. Liv's good. She plays on the best club team for her age. In the summers though there's no club team, so Liv participates in the local soccer camp. And it was there this summer that Liv's commitment to and understanding of her sport was tested in a new way.

The girls were playing Around the World, a fast moving drill that mimics game conditions and tests a player's ability to shoot on goal from different angles. Girls rotated in and out of the goal keeping position, as they chose. Liv was up and took her shot on goal. June, the goalie, a Hope-Solo-in-training, tried to block Liv's ball with her wrist and broke the growth plate in her wrist. Or at least, that's what Liv learned later. At the time, June stopped playing, but the no one knew how serious her injury was.

The next day, neither June, nor her older sister, Martha (a friend of Liv's) showed up to soccer camp. And when Liv called Martha, to ask if she'd come over to play, Martha said she was going to the doctor with her mother and June, to check out June's wrist, which was probably broken, maybe from soccer camp. Liv hung up the phone and dissolved in tears, telling Jane, "I KNOW I broke June's wrist." Jane called June's mother immediately, to confirm the story.

Despite Liv's distress at the phone call, later that day, Liv went over to Martha's for a sleepover, and June acted as if everything was fine between them. It wasn't until the next morning that things got strange and uncomfortable. At the swimming pool with Liv and Martha and her cousins, June started to act like her broken wrist was Liv's fault, after all.

Even if it's been a long time since you were ten-years old (as in my own case), I bet that, like me, you can still remember at a cellular level the pain of being shunned by other girls, no matter how brief the moment. Hell hath no fury and all, well that applies equally to girls as to women. I would not wish it on anyone.

Liv retreated to her mother's side to recoup her mojo, and Jane recommended she text her club team soccer coach, Noah.

Noah has coached Liv's club teams for the past two years. His philosophy is to coach the whole person, not just the athlete, and he well understands the leadership and independence he is instilling in his young soccer athletes (his "little warriors" as he calls them), particularly the girls. One of his practice (and game) rules is that a player is never supposed to say, "I'm sorry" on the field, during play. Something I can imagine girls having trouble with, since we're socialized to apologize for any aggression. After all, a proper girl isn't aggressive, right? Ha.

An aside, Natalie Angier offers up this perspective, in her book, Woman: An Intimate Geography, "Aggression and depression sound like two different, even polarized phenomena, but they're not. Depression is aggression turned inward, directed against the self, or the imagined, threatening self." So perhaps one reason for the significantly higher incidences of depression in women is our propensity to apologize for any aggressive tendencies we might accidentally manifest, say, on the soccer field.

Of course, the girls on Noah's team can say sorry afterwards, but so long as they are playing clean and fair, there's no apologizing mid-flight for the accidental hurts inflicted. It's sports. It happens. Noah's rule saves a lot of time and breath.

Liv texted Noah that she had taken a shot on goal and broken the goalie's arm, asking him what she ought to do. Noah texted back, "Get her an ice pack," and then, "Can't wait to see you strike the ball when you get back [for the club team season]."

Word got around the soccer camp community about the incident. One coach said to Jane, "If Olivia were a boy, she would have been hoisted on the other boys' shoulders." But another coach made a backhand comment to Liv about breaking June's arm.

Liv has had some bad moments, though once she'd texted with Noah, she never revisited any guilt or uncertainty about her blamelessness. That was solidly past tense. She's glad, too, that the summer soccer camp doesn't overlap with the club team, so its unlikely the story will get around the gossip mill. It's just easier if she doesn't have to answer, "You broke her arm, really? Was it by accident?" And she is sure of this: "I felt bad, because June was hurt, but it wasn't my fault."

Liv says the incident won't hold her back in her game. Three cheers! That's playing soccer like a girl.

Workout With Purpose

We workout for all sorts of reasons—maybe we do it to de-stress, or to lose weight, to get stronger, or to be healthy, or for all those ends and others. All good reasons, but beneath this first layer of forces driving us out onto the roads or trails, into the pool, to the yoga studio, or the gym, resides a sub-layer that is the deeper core of meaning we bring with us into everything we do. That is: we nurture our physical, emotional and spiritual health, so that we can live our best life.

As integrative physician Tieraona Low Dog, MD, of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona in Tucson, said in an article in Delicious Living, "When you make health the goal rather than viewing it as a resource, it's easy to get stressed out, rigid, and narrow-minded. Health is what helps you live the life you want—it's a resource, not a destination. (my italics)" She is talking about the negative stress we can bring to the very act of working out. For example, working out to get thinner, and beating ourselves up every day we're not thin enough (never mind, by what media-mediated standard we might be judging the result); or working out to get stronger or faster, but in the process actually wearing ourselves down and getting super-cranky.

I would take this resource-not-destination thought another step further, and point out that if you are inclined to feel that we are here for a purpose, and that part of our raison d'être is to make the world a better place (after all, what else could it be? Certainly not to make the world a worse place, right? Besides, what better way to feel that we have agency in our lives, than making a difference in our world), then having the resource of our good health and well being is a key ingredient in our ability to fulfill our purpose.

Pilar Gerasimo, in her Manifesto for Thriving in a Mixed-Up World, goes further still. She says that being healthy is a revolutionary act by which we reclaim our vitality that is both our individual right and our collective responsibility. Big words those—"right" and "responsibility."

Indeed.

How we are in the world matters. How we approach our workouts is just one aspect of how we are in our lives. Not a separate aspect, mind you. We are one person, consistent within ourselves at our essential center.

Lest this all sound a bit high-minded and unattainable, I'm not talking about becoming Gandhi, quite the contrary. I am referring to the small things, the every day things. Most action we take has the power to make the world a better or worse place. How we treat the people around us. Did you smile at the barista when you got you're a.m. coffee? Or were you scowling for your caffeine, your mind already hours ahead into your day? The very energy we bring to our life affects those around us, and ripples outward. You know what I'm talking about—those people who make you feel good, just by being around them (and their opposites). And when we are strong and healthy, how much more likely it is that we have that positive energy to spread around. That's who we want to be. And in the end, that's really why we workout.

Sounds heavy. But in fact, adopting this perspective can bring an incredible lightness to your workouts. Instead of feeling the pressure of the goals you may have set for yourself (that you may be fixating on, or beating yourself up about), you are lifted in the updraft of energy that purpose creates.

You can also find this on Huffington Post.

Vote, Run, Lead

I was privileged to meet with dynamo activist Tiffany Dufu this morning, whose bracingly organized mind and big ideas on women's leadership had me glued to my chair while she talked. And I tried not to interrupt too much with questions and my own views on how sports fit with her flow.
Tiffany is the President of The Whitehouse Project, which, as you may now guess, means the "run" in the title of the blog post does not refer to the kind of run I'm usually talking about...but have no fear, I'll bring it all together (the function of my somewhat one-track mind). The Whitehouse Project has for the past decade, through its Vote, Run, Lead program, identified, encouraged, educated, trained and generally set women on their way in politics. New initiatives coming will focus on leadership in other key arenas, like business.
One of the difficulties women face on entering politics is their often innate (genetic? socialized?) aversion to public declarations of ambition. Not just, "I want to do this." But also, "I'm the best person to do this." As Tiffany said, it's as if women believe in the Santa Claus of affirmation, like somehow if we do a good job someone will notice and pat us on the back, without us ever having to call attention to our efforts. We know how well that works out. Where is that Santa guy?
Politics teaches women how to own their ambitions. And if you've read my blog before, you probably already know where I'm going with this. But I'll go there anyway. So does sports. There, I said it, again. Because we're not out of the woods, and reminding is reinforcing, until owning our ambition is encoded into our very DNA. Sports (and involvement in politics) helps shift our consciousness from "maybe someone will notice me over here, tucked in the corner," to "here I am and I want this."
You can vote, run (for office), lead, or you can vote, run (on the roads or trails), lead. The important part is to know, own and capitalize on your strength. That means putting your skin in the game (i.e. vote), owning your strength (i.e. run) and mining the value of your strength (i.e. lead). We're here for a reason (here as in, on this earth, in this world). Let's not waste our time waiting for Santa to show.

The Gift of Not Finishing

Last week I set out with my partner to do a 20-mile trail run in the South Yuba River canyon, from Little Washington to Purdon Crossing. There would be some elevation gain -- okay, 6,000 feet to be exact -- but we took the optimist's path, and set that detail aside. True, we arrived late to the trailhead (okay, noon on a blazing, 95-degrees-in-the-shade day and oh yes, there was quite a bit of non-shade on the trail). And between us we only had three liters of water. You wouldn't be wrong in thinking that we had taken our optimistic thinking too far, perhaps even into the realm of trail running for dummies.

Now when I have a goal in mind, I can get a little dogged (like, canine-sinking-his-teeth-into-a-toy-to-never-let-go dogged). Not to mention that we had cars parked at each end of the hike, so the exigencies of transportation created an added incentive. I wanted to finish.

By mile six things looked less than promising. The map was studied. The words "campsite" and "road" at one of the trail junctions flashed like Times Square billboards...more than eight miles further along. Running became run-hike-run, which became run-hike-hike-hike-run, and then hike. I wondered (however fleetingly so, it is not to my credit) about the appropriateness of leaving one's running-partner-in-extremis by the side of a road, and running the last five miles alone, just so I could "finish."

When we reached the road, at just over four hours and 30 minutes into the progressively slowing run-hike, I knew we were finished, and that what we'd done was more than enough. It was then, when I dropped my 20-miler chew toy, that I found the balance in the day.



The road was un-trafficked, in an area that brought to mind Deliverance (cue the banjo!), as unfair as that comparison likely is to the actual residents. We passed a couple of roads (or driveways?) leading off into the dense and uninviting woods. The next house, set back in the woods, was at least visible. At the gate, a tiny rock was painted with the words "inquire about our guest cabin." Was the cabin referred to the structure with the tin sheet roof and the caving-in walls, set some 25 feet from what seemed to be the house proper? Was there even a door on the cabin? Was the sign ironic?

And how about the large dog cage, empty of dog? I imagined a menacing one called it home. Already I was picturing big teeth, saliva dripping from the bottom of the dog's chin as it prepared to attack. I walked down the drive toward the house with trepidation. No dog. Just two little cats, heads popping up and then bounding away, tails pointed skyward. I knocked on the rickety screen door. A woman in her mid-fifties answered with a friendly smile. She offered her phone -- a landline -- to call into Nevada City, the nearest town, for a taxi. The area was off the mobile phone grid, naturally. She went back to cutting hearts out of a spot-patterned bed sheet. Still a bit worried, I asked after the dog, who was no longer, she told me. I breathed an internal sigh of relief.

But there was the pig. I had time. The taxi we'd called wouldn't arrive for at least half an hour. The women led me into her bedroom, adjacent to the kitchen where I'd come in, there, lounging and snorting at the end of her bed, on her own crib mattress (complete with sheets and extra bolster pillows) was Ruby, a 160-pound Vietnamese pot belly pig. Seventeen years old, arthritic and ailing, Ruby was a former service pig. She had visited hospices, hospitals and schools in her prime and had sported the pig-fashions of the day. I crouched down to pet and chat with Ruby. I looked at her baby book, which included a younger Ruby in a Sugar Plum Fairy outfit.

Inside myself, I felt a fresh flow of energy, as my internal rhythm re-calibrated from the truncated exertion of the run to this new, unlooked for experience, finding the adjusted harmony in the day.

In addition to the introduction to Ruby, the woman offered me stories: that retired miners liked to spend the summer at the nearby campground panning for gold in the South Yuba River, the very area which was the source, as she told me, of the wealth that had built San Francisco; that raising organic, pastured chickens to lay Omega-3 enriched eggs is hard work, best done by the young; that pig rescue organizations have a job on their hands (pigs start breeding at four months and are essentially as prodigious in their procreation as rabbits, much to the shock of casual pigs-for-pets owners); that her area (though not she herself) was the supplier of most medical marijuana to the Sacramento area, hence the unwelcoming cast to most of the properties around.

When the taxi arrived, 45 minutes later, the driver parched and unimpressed by the condition of the road, I was sorry to leave; and not sorry at all to have not finished the run. Despite my dust-caked legs and the twigs in my hair, I felt clean and refreshed. A day I might have viewed as a failure had been an unprecedented success.

We didn't force the run. Like water encountering an obstacle, we flowed around the challenges, finding the most natural course for that day.

The felt experience of that South Yuba day was like I was back on my slackline (like a tightrope -- follow the link to see what I mean), which I've been playing with, and perhaps it was the familiarity of the sensation that made meeting Ruby possible.

I've been practicing walking backwards on the slackline, also turning around, though I'm hardly beyond beginner in the forward walking department. What I've noticed in all of my efforts, is that I can literally feel, physically, in my body, how getting frustrated foils my intent, how I can only execute a maneuver once I let go of the angst-y need to succeed.

One more vivid example of that physical-mental feeling in action happened one day as I rode my mountain bike home from the grove where I usually slackline. The ride is not particularly technical, but then I'm low-skill mountain biker. There's one particular rock, maybe the size of a cushy, upholstered footstool, that's been menacing me since forever (okay, for the past three summers). The trail winds around the rock in a sharp-ish turn, flanked by thick tie-your-bike-up mountain shrubbery. I have always balked at the last minute, and put a steadying foot down. But this one day, as I approached my rock-nemesis, I was feeling a nice post-slackline calm. What was the worst? A tumble in the bushes? A chain ring in my calf? Been there. Done that. I glanced at the rock and it seemed to soften, the path seemed to widen, and around I went, and have done ever since. No force. Just flow.

To me that experience feels like slowing down my energy, by which I don't mean sapping or diminishing my energy, rather I mean gathering my energy inward, moving toward my center, my place of balance, a state which can never be achieved through pushy frustration.

And that physical feeling, practiced over and over, gets in some sense dialed in at a cellular level, and slowly, slowly translates into life itself.

You can find this blog on Huffington Post, too...

It's Not About a Better Body

I have tried all sorts of different workouts in my time—in addition to all the outdoor things I partake of, from running and cycling (off and on road), to cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and hiking, to kayaking, rock climbing and swimming, I do yoga and what's variously called Physique57 or Bar Effect (or Core Fusion, or Nalini) classes. In what feels like another lifetime (during my law school years), I was an aerobics instructor. And I've tried all sorts of gym classes (despite my non-membership), from kickboxing, to step classes (yes—that goes back some years), to pole dancing and Zumba.

Some of these pursuits promise to make me longer and leaner, to re-shape my body to the ideal—I wish. Actually wait, really? Is that really why I'm engaging in a particular activity? Other activities promise me a calmer mind and Gumby's hamstrings. The first sounds pretty good, the second sounds implausible, unless I'm willing to give up running (not!). Some of my sports make me no promises. My mountain trails have never spoken to me about their intentions for my body, or at least not that I know of.

What I do know is that far too many workouts are pitched as answers to the mythic pursuit of the perfect body. Mythic—because the very idea of perfection is a myth: Perfect by what or who's standard? Society's? By which we mean exactly what?—media generated images of beauty?—By which what I really mean is media manipulated and distorted (aka falsified—I mean you, Photoshop and your ilk) images of the unreal.

How can we possibly think that there is one standard of beauty, when we know (we really know) that each one of us is an individual with our own particular tastes? You think steak is the perfect food and my pick would be hummus. You feel perfect in pink and I feel best in black. You define musicals as the perfect entertainment and I'm not happy unless I'm crying in my theater seat, no soundtrack please. You get the idea. It's no different for bodies.

To pursue perfection is a trap, a rat maze with no escape. Perfect is a confining concept, one that holds up a rigid not-every-person's-ideal as a benchmark for all of us.

Instead, I propose we think of the pursuit of "excellence" over perfection. Excellence is individual, though paradoxically, also less subjective. That's because excellence comes from inside ourselves, it is our mastery of the particular field we have chosen. It is investing our efforts at our personal maximum level in pursuit of our best self, holding our own selves to the highest standard. And this excellence is far different from perfection, that more confining concept, which implies the best of the best of the best, as defined by the whole entire world.

As Carl Jung said, "Perfection belongs to the gods; the most that we can hope for is excellence."

So to burden our workouts with the end goal of achieving the perfect body is to pursue the impossible dream. Not because you can't do it. Because the end goal does not even exist!

Uh-oh. If our goal is a chimera, where does that leave us?—On the couch with a box of chocolates? (Not that I don't love my couch and chocolate). Of course not, or at least, not until we've finished our workouts.

We simply cannot be working out just for better bodies. The good news is that deep down we're not that deluded. Studies have shown that women who are encouraged in a workout setting with the carrot of positive reinforcement about the health and happiness benefits of their exercise are far more likely to enjoy and stick with a workout. Whereas workout settings, which use the stick of negative self-image, shaming the participant into thinking she needs a smaller bum, thinner thighs or a flatter stomach, foster recidivism.

Why we workout matters.

Here's why I do.

At one level, I work out because I want to be outside, rain, snow or shine, to feel the elements against my skin and know the seasons are changing by the taste of the air I'm breathing; because I want to be strong, to test my mental and physical endurance, to show myself what I'm capable of; because I will not go gentle into that good night, as the poet Dylan Thomas says; and so I can lounge on my couch in a state of well-earned-body-tiredness and eat those chocolates.

At another, deeper level, my workouts brings me great joy and that is reason enough. I am feeling pleasure in my very fibers, the pleasure of sweat, of effort, of turning "can I?" into "I can." The other morning, running alone in "my" mountains, I started to wonder if my eyes were playing tricks on me. The trail in front of me was streaked with bands of unexplainable light. I blinked, wondering if something was in my eye. Then I realized that what seemed to be coming from inside my eye was actually the sunlight reflected off the veritable web of early morning, as yet undisturbed, silk spider filaments, which criss-crossed my path at ankle level. I was suddenly filled with such gratitude for the privilege of experiencing such beauty and my luck at being physically able, that I spread my arms wide and shouted nonsense-happy-sounds. Don't worry, no one saw or heard, so you don't need to be embarrassed and pretend you don't know me.

The next time you are engaged in your active pursuits, stop a moment, feel the "why" of why you are doing the workout. As Eckhart Tolle recommends in Power of Now, scan your physical-emotional being and ask, am I happy? I hope the answer is yes. If not, find the workout that gives you that answer.

This post can also be found under an alternative title on the Huffington Post.

An Overdue Thank You to My Readers

Today I received an elegant and gracious letter from a woman who had recently read Run Like a Girl. Each time I receive a missive like this, I am moved anew. Selfishly, I wrote a book because I am a writer and I love writing, the very act grants me inordinate amounts of joy. Yet, what started as this selfish act has yielded me a more profound result than ever I anticipated. Some of you, who have read the book, have been inspired or moved to reach higher, and discovered that you could. For the opportunity to participate in the tiniest way in that discovery, I am grateful down to my bones.

I'll leave it to Yann Martel to say better what I am fumbling to express. As Martel wrote in Beatrice and Virgil (italicized explanatory note is mine), "Henry (the protagonist) had written a novel because there was a hole in him that needed filling, a question that needed answering, a patch of canvas that needed painting—that blend of anxiety, curiosity and joy that is at the origin of art—and he had filled the hole, answered the question, splashed colour on the canvas, all done for himself, because he had to. Then complete strangers told him that his book had filled a hole in them, had answered a question, had brought colour to their lives. The comfort of strangers, be it a smile, a pat on the shoulder or a word of praise, is truly a comfort."

Indeed.

The Confidence to Race Nascar Rules

It's been a couple of years now since I interviewed some of the women in my book. Granted, that's not quite long enough for a really shocking "where are they now?" But I recently had the chance to catch up with Brett Buckles, who was, as some will remember, in the midst of recovering from a race career ending ski accident in Tignes, France. I was curious to know how she was adapting to her non-pro, or amateur athlete life in the slow lane (by her standards, not mine). And I should be clear here, when I say amateur, I use that term with the greatest respect. After all, the Latin root of the word is amare, which means, "to love," as in—we do our sports because we love them, not because we gotta.

I also wanted to know if Brett had competed in a rodeo yet, one of the things she'd told me was on her list. She hadn't…yet.

That's because Brett is busy with about a million other things. To begin with, she's coaching our future Ski Cross Olympians. There's not much of a Ski Cross field in the North America yet, though it's an established sport in Europe. It's a fast and furious version of downhill ski racing, in which 4-6 people are on the course at the same time, competing head to head, with Nascar-style rules—"rubbing is racing." No malicious contact is allowed, in case that wasn't obvious.

The girls she coaches, 7-10 nationally, at any given time, are, unsurprisingly, slower to take to the sport than the boys. Fear, as you can imagine, is your biggest enemy in the sport, as it is in life, though perhaps a little more obviously when you're hurtling down a mountain, trying to avoid skirmishes with others doing the same. Based on my fear of small rocks while on the mountain bike, I suspect I would not be good at Ski Cross. Before you leave the gate, Brett says, you have to be 100% confident in yourself. According to Brett, it takes considerably more effort to build the girls' confidence in themselves. She blames at least part of this on how we are socialized, what she calls, "the being feminine thing," which tells us we can't kick ass and still be a girl.

Still. This is still an issue. Sigh. I wish for girls (and women, of course) the confidence to race Nascar rules, in whatever they do.

Fortunately for the girls Brett coaches, and injury notwithstanding, Brett-beats-all-the-boys-Buckles is still faster down the course than the 15 and 16-year old boys she coaches (I wonder how that feels for the boys?), so she can show her girls what's available to them. So even if most of the time they are learning how to go faster by chasing the boys, at least they know, because they've seen it with their own eyes, what a woman can do.

Brett still feels the itch to race, if not professionally, and even if she finishes DFL (dead fucking last). When she has that goal out there, it's the nudge she needs to push herself to the limit, or beyond—and that's the pleasure zone for Brett in sports. She's taken up mountain biking (no surprise) and may compete in triathlons, though she doesn't love running (no surprise there, either, since even top speed isn't going to get the wind whistling in your ears).

When she's not training her girls, or herself, Brett is working on a career in journalism, writing on the gamut from snow sports to reggae music reviews. On the side she's making jewelry. I think we can safely say that Brett has not confined herself to a darkened room to nurse her self-pity, something I needed to remind myself of on occasion, as I've traveled my own nano-length road (by comparison to Brett) to recovery.

p.s. I got out for a first mountain bike ride this past weekend and worked up an honest-to-goodness sweat—what joy!

Something a little different today…a tantalizing recip...

Something a little different today…a tantalizing recipe (if you are inclined to the chocoholic, as I am) from Erin Bolger, the author of The Happy Baker-A Girl's Guide To Emotional Baking.

Why? Well, another summer weekend is at our doorstep, many of us will be heading out on our longer workouts of the week, or maybe some are even doing races. Treats are in order, don't you think?

But first, from Erin, by way of intro:

"Running. Some of us may have taken up running to get away from our exes. Some of us started for a healthier lifestyle. I basically hit the treadmill when I decided to go freelance from my comfy job with benefits and I thought running would strengthen my lungs and get me off of my expensive asthma puffers (I was right). I was also ending a long-term relationship and nothing helps you get over a break-up better than a hot post break-up bod!

As great as running's been though, it's not my go-to activity. Most of you run when you are stressed … I bake! I'm an emotional baker. I forget about everything when I am baking and just go to my happy place.

I have a serious sweet tooth and could easily replace cookie dough for all meals. Since this is not always the healthy choice I have created a yummy and nutritious cookie combining two of my favourite things … coconut and chocolate. Now this is not a low-fat cookie so you can't eat it like it's going out of style but I have been known to have one for breakie!

Happy Baking & Happy Running!"

Ditto from me. Enjoy your weekend workouts and treat yourself! Here's how…

Chocolate Chunk Coconut Cookies

½ cup coconut oil

¾ cup coconut sugar

2 eggs

1 ½ tsp. vanilla

1 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa

1 cup unsweetened coconut

½ cup coconut flour

1 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. baking soda

pinch of sea salt

100 grams dk chocolate, chopped (I used 72%)

Makes 2 dozen cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a mixing bowl blend together the oil and sugar until combined. Add the eggs and the vanilla; blend. Add the cocoa; blend. Stir in the flour, coconut, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix thoroughly. Stir in the dark chocolate pieces.

Make dough into 1-inch balls. Place on a lined cookie sheet and flatten with your fingers. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Let cool & Enjoy. Store in a cool dry place in an airtight container.

For more of Erin's emotional (and let's not forget, yummy) baking recipes, you can visit her at www.thehappybakerchick.com.