“People are incapable of stereotyping you; you stereotype yourself because you’re the one who accepts roles that put you in this rut or in this stereotype.” – Eva Mendes “Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life, but define it yourself.” ~ Harvey S. Firestone “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” ~ Samuel Beckett This week I had a productive week. I have been working with a few ladies in a running group my running coach and I developed in a town I once lived in. This week we had 2 new beginners to our group and I decided to work with these ladies. They were not runners but they wanted to begin running and wanted to get advice and talk with me about proper shoes and running styles for them. It was 30 degrees Thursday night so I put these ladies on the treadmill and watched them run a while and examined their form and I took a good look at their shoes. I stood by their treadmills and talked with them a while after they ran and as they cooled down…. I listened to both of these ladies talking. They were cool ladies probably in their mid 50’s and their biggest issue seemed to be being in the crowd of people in the gym doing their workouts. One of these ladies were divorced and we joked and talked of this and the other lady was happily married but was not satisfied at all with how she looked she said. I let the ladies talk then I began to talk to them and tell them they were welcome to try out some of my aerobic classes and one of the ladies says she didn’t enjoy coming to any classes because of the way people look and talk about you. When I heard this I looked sternly at her and before I could close my mouth I was saying it… No one will say a word to you in my class, and then it came… the whole spill… that I have to face people every day now that at one point in my life would have loved to see me living on the streets, with a baby I must add… Then I told her, but you know what? I love seeing them now, and I hold not the first grudge and I smile every time I see them because they pushed me only harder to survive that hard time… So always smile at those people if anyone says anything about you and walk away. They are only showing you who they are, not who you are. Hell we know who we are, and we are fabulous! Needless to say these ladies were then convinced to come to my next class. When I left the gym that night, I was exhausted but that conversation wouldn’t leave my mind. I kept thinking over and over the advice I gave. I was happy I gave it, but it did disturb me that they felt that way, and what really was disturbing me was the fact that I was that same way at one point in my life. I could completely relate to their feelings. People do not realize that when you say one thing to another person if it is negative it can be something that means absolutely nothing to you at the time but you say it and it can completely kill someone’s dream. Just like when I was telling her of looking at people from my past didn’t bother me now but if I had seen them a few years back I probably would have felt different because I would still remember those negative words and actions. It is absolutely true that we may forget what you say but we never ever forget how you make us
feel, and that’s what those negative comments do to a dream… What I wished I had told these ladies before they left that night was always remember those faces of the people who say those things to you or about you so when you lose all your weight or when you run that marathon with me next year you can come back with your metal around your neck in our aerobics class and look at them and smile and say WHAT UP! “The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” ~ Confucius “Enemies are so stimulating!” ~ Katherine Hepburn