Today I did the first stop on the Dances With Fat World Tour. I taught a class on Lyrical Movement for Larger Bodies for PURE NYC. They are an awesome group and watching them dance before and after the workshop was amazing and inspiring! I highly recommend that you check out their stuff on YouTube as well. They also travel so be sure to keep an eye out for them in your town. I took a phone, a flip cam, and my new video camera and I failed to get so much as a picture. I will get better at this.
After spending time with the amazing women at PURE NYC it was time to hail my first cab. I tried several corners but it seems like everywhere I went the taxis were somewhere else, or they didn’t see me or didn’t stop. I started to try to think about what I would do if I couldn’t successfully get a cab. A woman stopped out and in a moment successfully hailed a cab and got in. Moments later I confidently raised my hand and was on my way in my first hailed cab – feeling mighty.
And a concept that I learned long ago in a psychology class came to mind – the idea that if you see a single person do something it suddenly becomes possible to you. I think that this is particularly important in a society where we’re told repeatedly (by industries who are trying to sell us stuff) that as fat people we’re practically immobile. Idiots on the internet suggest that every obese person has difficulty to playing with our kids or riding a bike but no thin people do. I got hate mail the other day saying that fat people can’t run marathons. WRONG!
And let’s not pretend that it’s just fat people, we’re told all the time that we’re limited by our age, because we’re parents, because we’re not parents, because we have grey/curly/no hair. I actually heard people the other day making fun of someone because her jeans weren’t “relevant”. What does that even mean?
There are a couple reasons I think this happens. One is that marketers have found out that some people will buy anything if they can convince us that it will get us something we want. I’ve seen commercials that looked like soft-core porn turn out to be for perfume. Then there are the people who want you to feel bad so that they can feel good about themselves. Those are the people who will call your jeans irrelevant (I still can’t believe that’s a thing). Sadly they’ll often also ignore your accomplishments due to an acute, debilitating case of But But But Syndrome. But this isn’t about them anyway, except to remind you that these people don’t have our best interests in mind and we don’t have to believe what they say – we can rise above merely being some ad campaigns target demographic.
So remember that when you go about your life doing what you love to do and being who you want to be, you not only make yourself happy but you help open up options for other people that they didn’t even know they had. People who may have believed the lies that are told to us about ourselves, our limits, and our possibilities.
I think that’s what Marianne Williamson meant when she said “And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” You may never know who identifies with you or why, and it doesn’t matter – it’s an unconscious act because we cannot be conscious of it unless the other person chooses to tell you. And there’s no obligation, and it’s not about what you can’t do, but about what you can and want to do – just be you.
If you go take that belly dancing class that you always wanted to take, or play with your grandkids at the park, or ride your bike through the neighborhood, or wear horizontal stripes, or whatever your thing is you are giving people who identify with you the option to change what they believe is possible for them. It’s not about trying to prove anything to anyone. taking risks for the sake of taking them, or ignoring reality. It’s about realizing and testing our own limits rather than allowing them to be assigned to us by critics and marketing experts. It’s about finding a way to do what we love to do instead of what we’re told is possible or appropriate for us. It’s the simple but immensely powerful fact that, just by being us, we can change the world.
Dances With Fat 
Well said, it’s interesting to discover where we have been the designer or co-designer of our own glass ceilings.
The strongest prisons are the ones that we build for ourselves
You make me feel like anything is possible. You are the me I always wanted to be. I’m going to go out of my comfort zone and find her, put her on display and say to all the butbut’s in my life-oh yes, I CAN!
Alison,
This is awesome and you are an inspiration! I looking forward to hearing about your adventures!
~Ragen
That last paragraph is my personal motto and has been for years. Very good.
So excellent post as usual— but here are tips on NYC hailing cabs:
1. They ignore everyone—around certain times of day— most often- it’s when the shifts are turning over and they are trying to get back to outer borough garages.
2. It may look like millions are available, but if their little sign is not lit up, or, it the whole sign is lit up they either already have a fare or are off duty.
3. Sometimes, walking a few blocks north is a good bet because then you get the cabs before other people do. And also, to save money, make sure you’re always hailing in the direction you’re actually headed.
After living in NYC forever, I finally learned this.
This is awesome, thank you so much! The last tip is a great one but alas I never have any idea which direction I’m headed 🙂
~Ragen
Another post full of excellent points.
As far as “not relevant jeans” go, a couple of weeks ago my wife and I were out, doing some errands. I was wearing one of my kilts, and at one store, some adolescent girls found the kilt very amusing (even going so far as to try and take some cell phone pictures of it to send to other friends to laugh at). One of the first rules of kilt wearing is, if the opinions of others – particularly total strangers, and juvenile ones, at that – is of more importance than your own opinion, you’re not man enough to wear a kilt.
We wear clothes that we like and that we are comfortable wearing. If other people don’t like our choices, that’s their problem and not ours.
I love this post (Although my first thought was “but jeans are so stiff! Go dance in your irrelevant leotard!!! Way more comfy!). I wish more people could ascribe to this philosophy (Health at Every Size), or at the very least, ascribe to just being nice to people. It isn’t really any of your business whether they’re wearing a kilt (I love seeing a man in a kilt!) or a woman who isn’t afraid of showing some arm. If they love it, love that they love it! … But I guess I’m preaching to the choir =)
This. Yes! This is exactly why I’m taking a ballet class this year. Not for anyone else but for my own mind and body and happiness. With my non-conforming body, my formerly-injured ankle, and all of that. And it feels pretty dang good, too.
I see articles on Yahoo about how some celeb or another has “been caught” wearing something that the author ciaims is just terrible. I always wonder what the hell business is it of the author what the celeb is wearing. Why do such articles get written? Why does anyone care other than the person wearing the clothes?
I recently saw an article shaming older celebrities for… getting older and having the audacity to not look like their younger selves any more. What the heck is that all about? Why shame people for a natural process?
But then… why shame people because they don’t all look the same? What is the reason for this drive for homogeneity? Why the pressure to be “cookie cutter normal”?
I’ve worn out the question mark key on my keyboard so I’ll stop now.
Inspiring comments as always, so much I want to add or say but am too tired right at this moment, but just had to say how much I loved reading your comments.
Marion UK
I love the line…” saying that fat people can’t run marathons. WRONG!” I am currently training for my first full marathon. I finished my first half Ironman this past May. One of the most frustrating things is that when I talk to other athletes they don’t think I know anything because of my size. I know A LOT about being healthy and exercising and I can tell that you don’t if you do not understand that fact. I love my body because it can do so many AMAZING things like propel itself 70.3 miles in one day. Thank you for your posts they keep reminding me why I do what I do…to be healthy. It is often very frustrating because most endurance sportswear does no come in my size but it is starting to change and I think that is because people are realizing not all triathlete are itty bitty things. My motto is… I tri too 🙂
That’s so awesome!!! Best of luck and I hope that you’ll keep us posted!!!!!
~Ragen
This was just perfect for me at this moment. Nothing to do with the relevance of my jeans or anything, but it was good to read. Right now. And btw, you should take me with you to NYC next time. I have a wicked whistle that gets a cab every time!
YES!!!!! to all of that. One of the reasons I dance is that I love to dance. But another reason I dance is that I want the world to see me, a big woman, dancing so they can have one more piece of data to disprove the widely held notion that “only thin people dance.”
Ragen, I am so excited that you have started your tour, and am looking forward to seeing you here in SB and dancing with you =)
People…call your jeans irrelevant? I wasn’t aware “relevance” was an issue with jeans. I just wish I could find more boot-cuts.