Balanced Truth Telling
Suan Sati retreat center, Chiang Mai, Thailand
One of the best conversations I’ve ever had in my entire life happened when a woman I admired called me poor and fat.
Yes, you read that right. I walked up to a woman I admired and started a conversation. She proceeded to call me poor and fat. I then walked away thinking, “That was one of the best conversations I’ve ever had.”
Want to know why?
Because she told the truth.
The whole truth, the real truth, the truth-y truth.
The. Truth.
Here’s how it played out: sometime around 2016, I was in the stage of financial life where I could make one fitness investment. If I wanted to go to the gym, I could have a gym membership. If I wanted to take yoga classes, I could afford a monthly unlimited pass…but then I couldn’t do anything else.
I couldn’t belong to a gym AND a yoga studio. I couldn’t drop in for Pilates class if the urge struck. I sure AF couldn’t afford personal training or to do privates. Things like spinning classes—out of the realm of possibility.
So, when I got bored with the classes that I had been doing on a monthly unlimited pass, I started to wonder what to do next.
That’s when I approached HER. That her. The one who called me fat and poor and filled my heart with joy.
She was a woman I knew from recovery meetings who looked fit and healthy. Interestingly, I was 28ish at the time and I thought she was only a few years older than me. Turns out she was in her late forties with kids in college. So…yeah. A pretty healthy looking woman.
“I know that you’re really into fitness,” I said, “And I’m looking for something new to try. What do you do?”
She enthusiastically shared her favorites. Daily tennis. Five spin classes a week. Lots of golf. A trainer.
Then she looked at me with compassion. “Keely,” she said, reaching for my arm. “I want to make sure that you understand that the things that I do likely aren’t accessible for you.”
“We’re in different stages of life. I don’t work. My kids are in college. My husband spends a lot of time up north, so I have wide open days. And, frankly, the things that I do are pretty expensive. I spend a fortune on nutrition as well as fitness. There were times in my life when I wasn’t able to do these things, but I can now.”
“I like to be transparent about that,” she continued. “I look the way that I do because I’m able to invest a lot of time and money in my physical health. It’s something I enjoy and I have the freedom to go all in.”
That’s why the conversation thrilled me. Because a woman I admired told me the truth about an area of her life that was easy. She didn’t say, “I’m rich and you’re not,” and then stick out her tongue. She didn’t pinch under my arm and say, “Mm, have you considered doing something about this flab?”
She said, “I have privilege in this area and I embrace it. If you would like to talk about the parts of my life that are NOT easy, I’m also happy to talk about those. May I remind you that we met in a recovery meeting, which means I’m intimately familiar with hitting rock bottom?”
People who talk this way are my favorite. Thanks to this woman, I have tried to do this for years: “Here’s where my life is easy. Here’s where my life is challenging. And here are the things that are in between.”
“Here’s the full picture. The unvarnished truth. No polishing. No skewing towards only talking about the good, no slant towards only talking about the bad.”
Like this – my daily writing: I’ve wanted to do this for YEARS. And you know what it took for it to finally stick? I had the chance to stop working. When Sam accepted a role based in China, I resigned from my job and I now have the freedom to pursue my hobbies and interests (thanks, hubby).
So the other day, when a friend said she wished she wished she enjoyed her work as much as I enjoy mine…I gently reminded her that this particular area of my life happens to be sprinkled with magic pixie dust. My “work” is more of a hobby at this stage: it’s all the good stuff with none of the stress. And she thanked me for saying that, just like I thanked the woman who called me poor and fat.
This balanced truth-telling, where there’s equal transparency around the charmed areas of your life (like being upfront about the spaciousness I’m enjoying right now) as well as the challenging areas (like the post I published earlier this week about wishing my plane would crash): I think it’s helpful. Kind. Humane. So I like to do it and I like when the people around me do it as well.
In transparency,
Keely
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