Here’s something I learned about pole dancing early on: You need skin to stick to the pole. You can’t wear big, baggy clothes, or you’ll slide right off.
This created a problem for me. While I loved my pole dancing class, I was also fiercely determined to hide my overweight body behind an oversized T-shirt. There was no way anybody was going to see this stomach of mine, I told myself. I wanted to keep this shameful, embarrassing thing hidden, repressed, and in the dark.
So I showed up to class in XL T-shirts, and every time I tried to master a new move, the T-shirt got in the way. Still, I couldn’t imagine showing my stomach to anyone. Ever.
I had been an active and athletic kid who played softball and soccer for many years. Even though I loved sports, I felt marginalized in my body. I was always the biggest kid on the field and the last one picked for sports teams in gym class. My weight, I believed, would always hold me back.
This belief stayed with me until adulthood; it’s part of what caused me to hit the gym as an adult. At that point, I had a regular desk job. I went to work every day and came home. I had nothing else going on. My life was predictable, and I was bored. Besides being bored, having a desk job where I sat for eight or nine hours a day was wreaking havoc on my body, so I joined a gym and fell into what I call the “girl cardio trap.” I thought that if I just did a million hours on the treadmill, I would lose weight, and everything would be fine.
That’s not what happened. Not only did I not lose weight, but I was bored at work and the gym.
I decided to start taking exercise classes that seemed fun, like pole dancing. From there, everything changed. For the first time in my adult life, weight loss was no longer my primary motivator for exercise — fun had taken its place. Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to go to the gym.
Which brings us to me sliding off the pole in my big, baggy T-shirt, unhappy with the situation but also resigned to never progress forward.
Then one day I was in the locker room getting ready for class, feeling so tired of hiding parts of me in embarrassment. I just so happened to catch my reflection in the mirror and had a gigantic epiphany. This body really isn’t as hideous as I had made it out to be, I determined. Maybe holding onto shame was keeping me in the dark, when what I really needed was to move into the light. That’s when I decided to go into that pole dancing class wearing nothing but a sports bra and shorts.
At the end of the class, I told everybody, “Today is the first day I’m not wearing a T-shirt!” And you know what? I got a big round of applause.
I went home that day and cried my eyes out. Not because I was sad, but because I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders.
Eventually, I got fired from that boring desk job and became a full-time fitness trainer. I now have a thriving practice as a motivational speaker and a trainer, passionate about pole dancing and weightlifting, who works to empower nontraditional athletes to succeed.
Here’s a challenge for you, one I share with my clients: Find something you are keeping in the dark, that is shameful for you, and bring it into the light. This might even be the literal light of the studio, as it was for me. You may find that shame dies in the light. You may find that you can start to heal and become your complete self.
I’m still on my healing journey, still coming to terms with the shame I feel about my body. But I’ll say this: Now people have to pay me to keep my clothes on!
