the shoulds
and the real enemy
Last week, a few friends and I jumped on a Zoom call to share our “favorite things,” something we usually do every year around this time at a festive holiday party, #butcovid. As we were catching up on life, one of the friends mentioned that she really enjoys the yoga classes on the Peloton app, but that she always feels like she has to do a “real workout” afterwards and was asking me what I think she should do.
I only half jokingly said, “umm, destroy the patriarchy and the bikini industrial complex that goes along with it?” I have been listening* to Burnout over the past few weeks on my walks, in addition to thinking and writing about our systems problems; hence, the snarky (but I think, accurate) response to my friend’s question.
I asked my friend how the yoga itself felt afterwards, and she said it felt great and that she noticed the after-effects for the rest of the day. Honestly? Her response pissed me off. For her. And for all of us - because it was so relatable.
Daily walks outside have regularly saved my sanity in 2020, but I do notice that my body looks different (and by different, the mean voice in my head says, “ugly and flabby and when are you going to lose your #covidseason pounds?!”) when I’m not lifting weights as much as usual. So even though I have been actually experiencing how getting outside for an hour and moving my body is so good for me physically, mentally, and spiritually, I’m still running into this narrative that it isn’t good enough because of what the culture has engrained in me about how my body should look.
I regularly teach and write about this stuff, so it is extra annoying to me that I continue to struggle with it. This isn’t the first time I’ve written about this, and it won’t be the last, I’m sure, but in the past, I have tried to just do better: stop shoulding myself, using the word “movement” instead of “working out,” talking kindly to myself. I still think all of those are great ideas, and I plan to keep practicing them. However, re-reading Burnout was a great reminder that this so-called problem isn’t an individual failing of mine that needs fixing so much as it is a systems problem that needs to be named and confronted.
Emily Nagoski names the problem that my friend and I were chatting about - what, in Burnout, the authors call the Bikini Industrial Complex:
The Bikini Industrial Complex got you in its clutches and began explaining how your body should be, how your body falls short of the ideal. We’ve all been lied to, our whole lives…the entire power structure that values our conformation over any other trait — our intelligence, our abilities, our tenacity, our tenderness — needs us to believe this lie. It depends on us to hate ourselves and ignore or even despise the beauty we were born with, to measure our worth against its standard, so that it can control us.
The real enemy is the patriarchy and the Bikini Industrial Complex (and racism and sexism and ableism and lots of other -isms that keep us from recognizing the inherent worth and value of every human being) that keep us locked in their claws spending time worrying about how our bodies look instead of how we feel in them.
The patriarchy negatively impacts everyone, not just women. Its rigid gender stereotypes don’t enable men to be fully who they are, as much as it does the same to women. The same is true of any societal model that preferences certain types of people over others. When we appropriately name and identify the real enemies, we have a chance of unclenching the claws they have in us about the ways we think about ourselves and each other. The first step in dismantling any system’s power over us is to name it in the first place.
The subsequent steps have to be both individual and communal - unless we want our grandsons and granddaughters to still be having this same conversation at their holiday gatherings. What I appreciated so much about Burnout is that the authors continually acknowledge that the troubles we’re facing are both/and problems - with both/and solutions. So burnout is a natural consequence of the water we all swim in, and by playing along with it instead of swimming against it, we give the systems more power. When more of us begin to swim against the tide, it erodes the system’s power. We arrived in this position by both individual and communal action over centuries - and we’ll need both to get out of it - eventually, probably long after we’re all gone, but every little step forward matters.
*Side note: I read Burnout a few years ago, but either it is just hitting me much harder this time around or there is something about listening to it after having read it that is impacting me more. Anyone else who listens to audiobooks notice this phenomenon?
A few of our favorite things
I thought I would share some of the favorite things that came up from our virtual party since it is always so fun to hear about what other people are raving about, especially this year. Treat yo' self!
Back at the beginning of quarantine, I needed less decisions, so I dropped my skincare routine and replaced it with: this oil, these two cleansers (first La Roche Posay and then Cerave Hydrating), and some witch hazel toner. The SIBU oil lasted me at least eight months of using it daily, and I’m still on the same bottles of cleansers and toner from January. My skin has largely never felt better, but I also have worn makeup all of maybe two times since March so that could have more to do with it than anything. I also wonder if my skin really likes my cold shower habit?
One friend bought a nodpod as a treat for herself early in quarantine and now can’t live without it. I might have grabbed one for myself while we were still on the Zoom call.
A friend raved about these little razors for any hair in places where you don’t want it and these press-on nail sets as a cheap way to feel more put together. I’ve never done my nails, but I chew on my cuticles when I’m stressed. So my hands look like a crime scene after 2020, and I was thinking that maybe I should try some old school press-on nails just in hopes of maybe keeping me from picking at them.
Grant butted into our convo and said that this massager was one of his favorite things of the year. We both also raved about this CBD tincture that we’ve been using for a few years now.
We bought a smaller foam roller like this one a few years ago, but I recently moved it out in the family room so that we’re all more likely to use it for even a few minutes a day. I do notice a difference in how I feel, especially on work days when I spend much of it at the computer but take short foam roller and mobility breaks.
Rants and raves
👍I cannot stop listening to Evermore. I don’t know if it is just the right album at the right time, or what, but I. can’t. stop. What’s your favorite song?
👍Our church puts together an Advent booklet every December written entirely by our people. You sign up for a verse and then write about it. It is one of my favorite things, and I’m appreciating it extra this year since we aren’t together week to week. Also, our submissions were due while Grant and I were deep in the Covid brain fog, so we didn’t get to contribute this year, but others picked up our slack and I almost think that is even better. Reply to this email, and I’ll send you a PDF version!
👍I refuse to admit how many times I’ve watched this British kid, even though the whole naughty/nice thing is my main beef with Father Christmas:
👎I guess we already knew that the Trump administration’s Covid plan was to not have much of a plan, but somehow seeing these emails in black-and-white still made me see red.
👎Mitch McConnel. Let’s be honest: Mitch could just permanently be on my rants list, but I’m with Dr. Lewis:
Worth sharing this week
The Pantsuit Politics ladies asked me to come on their sister podcast, The Nuanced Life, again to chat about all things living seasonally and, specifically, the Covid winter ahead. I love Sarah and Beth, I love talking about living seasonally, and I would love to hear what you thought about our convo!
In Mark Manson’s newsletter last week, he talks about the “halo effect,” something I didn’t know had a name but that I’ve dubbed “typical standards of beauty privilege” in my own mind. Science shows that there is in fact privilege for people who fit into our cultural standard of beauty, but Manson asks a good question: why don’t we talk about it more?
A Schitt’s Creek gift guide?! Where was this when I was making my wish list a month ago? I’ll definitely be bookmarking this for gift giving in years to come, although I may have to buy that “eww, Covid” mask pronto.
I finally wrote a list of our favorite “Covid season” games, narrowing it down to only games that we consistently enjoy just the four of us - or just the two of us for at home date nights.
Good old fashioned comfort food has saved my life more than once during #covidseason. I love how Chris La Tray writes the magic of a cheeseburger, but really about this season we find ourselves in:
Whatever we require it's okay to require it, and it's okay to request it. Let's lean on each other. Things are liable to get worse before they get better, and if we can't do it, who can? So let's.
Seasonal view of the week
It snowed, and snowy walks make me so happy!
Cheers to stopping the shoulds and noticing the real enemy in the week ahead!
Sara