As a girl growing up and now, as a woman, I was never told my body was incredibly powerful.
β
Being a girl and then a woman in sports seemed pretty grim: I'll always be slower and less strong than the holy grail: the male body.
β
Not interesting, not featured in media, because βfemale sports is just not interesting.β
β
But I realised, during my last pregnancy: wow, I created a human.
We, women, create the whole of humanity.
We are god!
We have this incredibly powerful, fine-tuned machine. For 40 years, we can create a human completely from scratch.
As my grandfather likes to say, "Women are magicians. You give them a drop, and they create a baby."
β
We haven't been told this empowering story.
β
Instead, we've been mocked: "Women are moody and bitchy, complicated". We get called hysteric.Β
β
Weβve been ignored by the research world: 80% of the medical research is still, today, done on males.
β
Women die because we don't know how to recognise a female heart attack.
β
We have long-lasting chronic pains, such as PMS, endometriosis, and PCOS, that could be detected early, tackled, researched, and improved.
β
Pain is not normal.
β
We have huge hormonal fluctuations that are not explained to us and impact how we feel, metabolise nutrients, and react to sports.
β
Imagine if a man had his testicles removed. He'd have a huge drop in testosterone. He'd like to know what will happen to him. Right?
β
A third of women in the US above 60 have a partial or full removal of their ovaries (hysterectomy), with nothing explained to them.
β
Mental health professionals are surprised women experience mental health struggles. We're prescribed pills to solve it Instead of looking at the core.
β
Is it hard to be a woman?
β
I see it as like doing a 100-km ultra-marathon. I could complain the whole way, say it's cold, hard, and perilous. I could have a really bad time.
β
Or I can feel incredibly grateful to myself. I can look at the stunning view of the early dawn few people see from the top of the mountain at 5 a.m. Iβm exhausted but so alive.
β
Being a woman is hard. There's no question about that.
β
Having hormonal fluctuations, giving birth, and transitioning to menopause is hard.
β
But it's also incredible.
β
We can be so in tune with such an array of emotions. With ourselves and with others.
β
We get to feel a tiny human in our bellies.
β
We get to have big life stages and experience a rainbow of the wheel of emotions.
β
Letβs Reframe
β
So, for this month, weβre taking it with a twist at Wild.AI.
β
The way we speak in the app, in our communications is always to make you stronger. More empowered.
β
More confident.
β
It doesn't mean ignoring the negative sides.
β
But understanding it, embracing it, and getting stronger on the other side.
β
Reframe how we talk to ourselves.Β
β
Reframe how we see our incredible bodies, which have fats to sustain us in ultra-endurance or keep us going through pregnancies.
β
Our female bodies which, on average, live longer than men. Isnβt that powerful?
β
Our scars of sports, of C-sections.
β
Our broken fingernails, our urinary leaks.
β
Our emotions are strong. Because we are not robots.
β
But also, knowing we are not alone.
β
Letβs empower ourselves, like with air masks on aeroplanes. We must become the type of women who look after themselves and, in turn, empower others.
β
So that our little boys, our little girls, see us appreciating our body. Hear us compliment ourselves. So that they do the same.
β
So our friends can go through the same path.
β
An empowered woman, confident, entering a room: it's incredibly sexy.
β
For this month, let's think of the origins of shame on women. Why? Why is it shameful to have a period? To be in perimenopause?
β
How do we perpetuate this?
β
How can we first change it, slowly, day after day, for ourselves?
β
How can we become advocates for other women?
β
So we can be empowered.
β
0 Comments