​“Oh look. Superwoman is back.”

I could barely make out the sound over the workout music blasting in my headphones but as I turned to find the source of the muffled words, I realized they had been directed at me.

I locked eyes with the elderly woman beside me and reached up to click the headphone sound off so I could clarify what she had said.

I could feel the defensiveness starting to rise in my chest.

She motioned to the weight stack on the leg machine I was using and said “you’re like a superwoman. How can you do weights that heavy?”

She sat down at the machine beside me, adjusted the weights, and pointed at her own weight stack sighing “I can barely do this little bit and you did all that the other day.”

Suddenly everything shifted into focus.

I realized that I had misread this woman a few days earlier when she had been waiting for one of the machines I was using. Her exasperated sighs that day hadn’t been about me taking too long or being too sweaty or using a machine she wanted. They were because she felt badly about her limitations.

She had been in her own head, beating herself up with negative self talk.

She had no way of knowing that just a few minutes earlier I was feeling exasperated with my own limitations too and was convinced that she was repulsed and irritated by me.

With my newfound insight, I leaned over to her and whispered, “You’re a superwoman too, you know. Just being here is hard.”

She softened, smiled, and did a set on her machine before taking a deep breath.

“You know,” she said, “I’m actually recovering from a stroke and a triple bypass. I’m trying to get back to being healthy.”

Talk about a superwoman, right?

We spent the next few minutes chatting in-between sets as each of us completed our own superwomanly workout and shared some of the struggles of our lives - her looking back wistfully at my current stage of life and me looking forward in awe at hers.

As we parted ways, I couldn’t help but be moved by the irony of our shared experiences with self doubt and negative self talk.

Both of us had dragged ourselves to the gym on a Monday morning, feeling badly about ourselves and envious of the other women around us.

Women we thought were stronger,

skinnier,

faster,

healthier,

prettier,

and overall, better.

We had looked around us and saw a bunch of superwomen and in the mirror only saw a fraud.

But, for those few moments today both of us seemed to realize that maybe we did have a little bit of a superwoman in us.

Because there is a superwoman in all of us - fighting our own demons, pushing through our own challenges, and fighting towards our own goals.

Maybe it’s time to stop beating ourselves up and start lifting ourselves up instead.

And maybe as we start to lift ourselves up, we could also lift up our gaze and make connections with the other superwomen around us.

Because they are everywhere.

Even within.

Shame.


Five simple letters.

One complicated word.

For many of us, shame has been a constant companion for as long as we can remember.
It has been the thing we try to avoid at all costs.

Shame.

You probably know the feeling.

Something or someone reminds you of some mistake from your past and suddenly shame washes over you, turning your stomach into knots, leaving your cheeks red with embarrassment, and making the air around you thick with regret.

Shame.

When it hits, you want to run away, wash the feeling away, hide from the world until it is gone.

But, maybe some of that shame is misplaced.

I’ve carried shame around with me tied to so many mistakes I’ve made and one in particular hit me like a ton of bricks the other day.

All at once I was back there — remembering what it was like to be a teenager caught making a mistake.

Until last week if you had asked me about that day, I would have felt nothing but shame --
because that’s how I was told I should feel about it.

Shame.

Regret.

Embarrassment
.
Weak.

Dishonest.

And so the teenage version of me all those years ago filed that experience away as something about which I should feel deep shame —  until last week when I looked at the incident through the eyes of someone who is now parenting teenagers.


Yet again my perspective on life shifted as I settled into another new phase of parenting.
It turns out the shame was wrong.

The shame was misplaced.

The shame had no purpose other than to make me feel badly about myself and keep me tethered to an impossible quest for perfection.

And for the first time in my life, I gave myself permission to re-evaluate the feeling of shame.

Listen friend, just because someone tries to give you the label of shame or just because a younger version of yourself accepts that shame, it doesn’t mean you have to keep it.

You can always re-evaluate.

You can always choose to peel yourself out of the shame, release yourself from its thick grasp, and step forward into a forgiving space — a space where mistakes don’t have to equal shame and embarrassment.

And so I stepped out of the weighty prison of shame and left it behind.

​What if you gave yourself permission to release some of the shame you’ve been carrying around?

Recently we got to sneak away to New Hampshire with family.


We were excited for some fun in the sun but the weather didn’t seem to care about our outdoor plans. Instead, we saw lots and lots of rain. Lots.


So, we spent a lot of time playing board games, watching movies, and doing multiple 300–1000 piece puzzles.

As I watched our family of 10 in their puzzle process, I couldn’t help but draw a parallel between the puzzles and life.

A couple of us would start a puzzle and together we’d sort through the edges and inside pieces.  Sometimes we talked. Sometimes we sat in silence. As people got tired, they’d simply walk away from the table. No one yelled for them to come back when they left and no one felt hurt when others needed a break. Sometimes someone else would jump right in to take their place and pick up where they left off. Sometimes the seat would stay empty for a bit. Sometimes we’d realize that one of us was sharper at night and one of us was sharper in the morning. Sometimes we’d realize that one of us was better at finding the edges and one of us was better at finding sections that fit together. Sometimes we’d realize that someone with fresh eyes was needed.


Somehow, without fighting, without strategizing, and without giving up, we worked together to finish those puzzles.

And that’s the key to life right?

We need to work together with our people to solve the problems in front of us.

Because life has a funny way of not going our way.

Sometimes our people need to walk away from our puzzle for a bit. Sometimes someone is there to jump right in. Sometimes things feel quiet and there’s no progress for a bit. Sometimes some people are better equipped than others. But eventually, piece by piece, things get figured out and put together in the right way. 


And a 1000 piece puzzle, just like life, is always easier when you have support.
​

And life, just like a 1000 piece puzzle, can benefit from trusting in the people on your team.