loving the newest me || emily shares

I came to be.come early 2018 because I’d seen Bethany on Instagram and was really fascinated by watching somebody with such control of their body. The deliberation and obvious power in each movement was so cool to see and I remember thinking “if I could manage even the smallest bit of that, I would feel 1000 times better than I do now.”

Flashback to 2016, the year my body began to feel not my own anymore. After years of training in the gym, feeling like I had control over my body, I was suddenly faced with feeling like my body had betrayed me. I had surgery which resulted in me being diagnosed with endometriosis after a year of unsuccessfully trying to fall pregnant. We fell pregnant pretty quickly after having the endo removed, but sadly it was an ectopic pregnancy which resulted in a second surgery within 2 months of the first one. The stress and sadness kicked my endo into high gear and weight gain followed. This only served to intensify feelings of hate and betrayal toward my body.

2017 rolled around and I was knee deep in my university degree, desperately trying to fall pregnant again, and dealing with almost constant pain and fatigue thanks to the endo. Another endo surgery, another pregnancy; this time ending in a miscarriage. My body couldn’t seem to catch a break.

So when I came across Bethany, I was the lowest I have ever felt about my body; I had zero faith in its ability to do anything. The gym used to be my happy place, but was now scary and unfamiliar. Something about be.come felt like home. I joined at 3am one morning in early Jan 2018 while I was laying awake contemplating the year ahead. I decided to switch focus. Instead of obsessing over pregnancy and hating my body for its perceived failures, I was going to focus on teaching my body how to move and feel good again. I followed the be.come routines almost daily for all of January….and on Jan 30th, I found out I was pregnant!

I continued be.coming throughout the first few weeks of pregnancy, and then the nausea hit. Any kind of postural change resulted in dizziness and waves of stomach churning. So I decided it was not time to push myself. I decided to relax and give my body what it needed and find a way to stay active without making myself sick. I ended up going on daily long walks and practicing gentle yoga. I continued moving all the way up to 41 weeks of pregnancy, and once our daughter was in our arms, I felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment and confidence that I had done the right thing by my body, and in turn it had done right by me and given me this precious tiny miracle.

I rejoined Be.come in Jan 2019, after giving my body time to heal and recharge after carrying another human into the world. I now realize that my earlier obsession with fitness, my gymrat days, weren’t about health, or really even fitness in any way. It was rooted in wanting to change something about my body. My weight was another way I perceived my body to have failed in some way.

This time round, I’m not moving to lose anything; I’m not trying to reach some goal weight. This time round, movement is the goal, and I’m gaining strength and confidence every time.

Love,
Emily

PS – be.come has helped me to change my life in huge ways, and I have even joked to Bethany before that they helped me to be.come pregnant!