Shut up, Becky!

There is absolutely nothing more frustrating that the tiny little bitch of a voice that resides in your head that likes to come in, fuck shit up and leave. That voice that will happily destroy all the hard work you have done to feel amazing. I have one of those little bitch voices, the problem is, that voice ain’t little for me. Its a booming, dominating voice that essentially says to me, bitch, you ain’t shit. I felt like I needed to name that little asshole because she seems to be around a hell of a lot. I think I might call her, Becky. Yes, my name is Rebecca, one of the variations of my name is Becky, but holy shit, there is nothing more annoying in this world to me than the name Becky. No one is allowed to call me Becky. Ever. Except my Grandmother....  I can't make her stop, she's my Nan, she will likely slap me for even requesting it (when she remembers who I am, of course).

You know that meme thats floating around currently of Kermit the Frog, and Kermits dark side keeps telling good Kermit to do stupid shit to ruin a situation, thats my brain. On the daily. Becky comes in and makes me doubt and question every, single aspect of my day. We will start in the morning and she will not relent. Nighttime is her favourite, because she likes to remind me of the time I said something ridiculously stupid when I was 15 so I think on that for 5 hours instead of actually sleeping. Its Glorious!

Anyway, this Becky bitch has really been getting in my way of late. Every thing that I have achieved of late, is accompanied by Becky’s negative ass tone. She has this way of making my accomplishments seem insignificant. becky likes to focus on the parts that went wrong, before the good things happened. Or she also likes to create a world of self doubt.

I have recently taken on a new feature to my day job. I get to organise events. I love a good event, I love organising things. I love a good party planning expedition. So, I have recently organised my first real event that isn’t a Christmas Party and when one of the most important parts of the event went live, I felt something incredible. Pride. It was a moment of holy shit, the thing that I did is doing things that are good and I have succeeded as an adult! Then Becky, oh my god Becky, she just HAD to get involved!!!! Becky decided to put her two cents in and make my “I’m a successful Human Being” feelings die in the ass. Becky thought she should share her thoughts on how people probably won’t turn up and the event will flop….. Thanks Becky, you bitch…..

Becky infiltrates most aspects of my day. When I go to my training of an afternoon my Coach likes to film us and share our workouts with The Empire Crew on Snapchat. Now, I have absolutely no issue with this whatsoever. I think its great, its also a good snapshot of what we can expect out of training when we can watch the morning crews workouts. On Wednesday nights we have Technique where we work on our 3 main strength exercises to correct and perfect our form and technique. So we do Deadlifts, Squats and Bench. I leave those training sessions most weeks feeling really good about my session, my Deadlift form is getting somewhere, my Bench Press is coming along swimmingly and my Squats are getting as deep as the River Nile! When I watch my snaps back, Becky decides to point out that I look chubby in my videos, that my midsection is looking mighty thick (and not in a good way). Becky decides that the depth of my squats is not nearly as important as my thick midsection…. So once again, the awesome work I did was completely overshadowed by this unrelenting asshole in my head telling me that in all my hard work, I will have consistent failings.

Now, I joke about this voice and I give her a name to make her easy to blame. Trust me, I know this is probably the least healthy way to deal with my own lack of self confidence, but it adds a bit of a light hearted spin! I have always had really low self confidence. When people compliment me, instead of saying thank you, that means a lot, I will likely respond with Happy Birthday…… I do not cope. At all. My inner voice of self doubt is one of those things that I consistently battle. My coach seems to know when she’s getting in the way, because she will throw on my, lets fuck shit up song, because she knows it quiets down the noise in my head.

I guess my point to this ramble is that the little voice only gets a big as you let it. When we let our doubt take over, we are letting ourselves become controlled by the what ifs. I know I can do basically anything i set my mind to, but that little voice tells me that I will likely fail, or someone will judge, or that I am not good enough. Its a hard cycle to break but you can break it. You will always have the little bitch ass voice, but when it all comes to the crunch, its how you deal with it that defines a situation. Sometimes you need to tell your own Bitch ass Becky to take a back seat. You’ve got this and you don’t need her at the moment. Becky has her place, but she doesn’t need to take front row at your every life event. Sometimes you just need to scream from the rooftops, Shut UP BECKY!!!!!!!!!

The Bentley Butt

When I was a young girl, I had a massive fear. Now I am talking a fear that would keep me up at night! A fear of having a huge Ass. Now, this might sound absolutely ridiculous, but there is a back story.

On my Mother’s side of the family, there is a thing known as “The Bentley Butt”. All of the women are destined to have one. It’s a genetic hand me down that none of us wanted to have, but we get to wear it like that ugly as all shit dress your sister no longer fits. Comments were always made at family gatherings, “Ohh look, you’re getting The Bentley Butt”, like it was a coming of age, momentous occasion. I would always be on the defensive when someone would point out mine, ”No I’m not”, I would say with venom, cursing said family member to a life of walking across fire and brimstone for even so much as suggesting I was falling victim to the family curse. 

I was mortified by the idea of having hips that told the occasional lie and a booty. I was desperate to be a waif like, stick figured goddess. That was my holy grail. I didn’t want hips or a butt or boobs! Picture Christina Ricci’s character, Roberta Martin in Now and Then, taping down her boobs. That was pretty much me, but with my ass. For some reason, in my mind, having curves was completely undesirable. When I was growing up, all of the strong females in popular culture were thin. Super models were essentially shoved down our throats and the expectation to look like them was overwhelming! It is really no wonder most girls grow up with unhealthy body image. 

Take a look into today’s society standards though, my oh my how the tables have turned! The ‘sexiest’ thing in the world right now is curves. Boobs, Hips and Booty are on the top of the lists of must haves! Today, women are embracing the fact that they have an ass, boobs and hips. Which, for me, is fantastic. It means I am not stuck in this rut of wishing for something that is impossible for me to achieve. I will always be curvy and I am slowly coming to grips with that reality. Funnily enough, my sister and I consistently joke about the fact that we had curves before they were cool. It adds a bit of light to something were were always so ashamed to have!

My best friend has 6 year old daughter and she was recently tellinh me how her beautiful girl is already stressing about the way she looks. She is 6!! What world are we creating when a 6 year old has to be worried about their looks?? Unfortunately, young girls are the most impressionable. They hear every word we say. When we put ourselves down, they hear it. When we put down others, they hear it. They are little sponges soaking up every word we say, every time we whinge about our bodies, they start to pick apart their own because to them, its normal. We do it all the time, so why shouldn't they? Even my 7 year old Son has days where he says to me, Mum, I'm so skinny! Now, my son is like a bean. His father is 6'2", so really it is not surprising that he tall and slender. I have to tell him, Dad was just like you buddy, and look how he turned out. Your time will come.

Every single day our lives are flooded with images of women who are absolutely perfect. Their asses are just phenomenal, all perky and cellulite free, their boobs are up where they are meant to be and their stomachs are like a bloody washboard! Or on the flip side, we see women who are naturally tall, statuesque, slender beings of grace. The clothes they model look absolutely divine, but I can tell you, if I tried to wear some of the things they wear, I would look like a Christmas ham shoved in fishnet tights! It’s about learning to accept that we are not all the same, there is no 'one size fits all'. We are all different and that’s what makes us all so fucking fabulous! Our body shapes, our body types, our height, are all different, yet we continue to crave something that is more than likely genetically impossible to achieve.

I am waiting for the day where we can all just accept what we have been given. Our bodies are the vessel that carry us through this crazy thing called life. Without it, we cease to exist. As women though, we are predisposed to compare ourselves to others and want what we don’t have. Some women who have a small chest, want bigger boobs and vice versa, we will never be completely content with what we have. It’s a major design flaw.

So here’s a thought, take a look in the mirror and instead of picking apart the things you don’t like about yourself, pick 3 things that you adore about your body. Those stretch marks you despise from pregnancy, instead of loathing them, remember the reason why you have them. You created life and your body carried your baby to safety. Those thick thighs, instead of being sad about them, just think, you’re not going to drop your phone in the toilet! Your thighs will save the day. Put a positive spin on your dislikes and I promise, eventually, you will love you, all of you.