The Forty-Forth Question: Loving On You
Learning to love my thighs, the other parts of ourselves we love, and my favorite Prince song.
Welcome back to Asking the Question.
Before I get into this week’s edition, a quick thank you to everyone who reached out and shared their feedback on last week’s newsletter. Some folks even said it was the best yet! I’m excited for this new format and energized to bring it to you every week.
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Now, let’s get down to business.
Answering the Question: Thunder Thighs
Let me be clear: I very much struggled with some shame and embarrassment when considering drafting this response to last week’s question. I originally wrote this prompt knowing what my answer would be, and yet I was still nervous all week when sitting down to share it with all of you. But I bet any of you would feel the same way if asked to share that answer with an audience. Why? Because this is about the part of us (our identity, our personality, our body) that we struggle with the most.
So what’s that part of myself I’m trying to better embrace?
My thighs.
I hate them. I always have hated them. I’m annoyed by them. I’m angry at them. They’re the worst. And it would be a lie if I told you I hadn’t spent time looking at them and wondering what it would cost to have a plastic surgeon just chop some of them off for me. Once I even drew the dotted line like I’ve seen them do on TV shows.
They’ve just always been…massive. No matter if I’m at my heaviest or my thinnest, my strongest or my weakest, my thighs just never seem to change size. They’re the cockroaches of my body, persistent for all time. And at this point I can either keep being angry, or I can learn to accept them. The former isn’t exactly healthy, so I guess it’s time to figure out how I can fall in love with them.
Maybe it’s important to remember what these thunder thighs have empowered me to do. Run half-marathons. Train for my first-ever marathon. Hike to see incredible vistas. Reach new milestones at the gym in my weight training. Simply, they even power my ability to get out of bed and walk around every day. Heck, I’m using them right now to hold up my laptop as I write this entry! As much as I can’t stand them, I need them.
And without their thunderous shape and size, I probably wouldn’t be able to do the many things I’m most proud of myself for having accomplished (like completing my races). Could I be angry that they don’t look the way I want them to? That they spread out like a bread dough when I sit down? Absolutely. But I have to reframe that as a reminder that they look that way because of what I’ve asked them to power me to do. For them to look anything less would mean living less of the life I want. This is without even getting into the idea that I’m only unsatisfied with them because of a standard of the “perfect thigh” that media and society has instilled in me.
So, instead, I’ll just think of myself as Marvel’s next great superhero.
The Forty-Fourth Question
Last week we did a personal inventory to consider the parts of ourselves we need to shower more love on. This week, I would love for you to think about the part of yourself you can’t stop loving on.
What would you never give up about yourself?
This week we’re putting the spotlight on the part of you that already finds the spotlight quite a bit. But we’re trying to go a bit deeper to understand why.
Consider probing this topic by asking yourself:
What do you think the origin of this part of yourself is?
Are there any downsides to this aspect of yourself? What makes you appreciate those elements?
Is this something you have always had an appreciation for, or have you received validation about it to recognize it’s worth?
Have you had to make tough choices about this part of yourself before? What were they? What did you learn?
Can’t wait to hear about what this prompt unlocks for you.
Community Notes
Reminder: if you ever want to share something, reflect, or submit a prompt idea, just drop me an email or a DM. As this community has grown, my hope is that we’ll hear from even more of you in the weeks and months ahead!
This Week’s Jam: “Mountains”
The maracas. The hat. This song is everything to me. If “Controversy” is the lyrical reason I fell for Prince, “Mountains” is the musical one.
The song comes from the soundtrack to Prince’s second film, Under the Cherry Moon. An entirely skippable piece of cinema, salvaged only by the soundtrack.
It’s a perfect song for a week with a prompt about loving yourself, because this song is about the all-conquering power of love. I really don’t want to stand in the way of this song’s sonic perfection, so I’ll offer a few words from the 500 Prince Songs project as my parting thoughts on “Mountains”:
Mountains’ message of conquering adversity is better illustrated on the extended version. Three minutes in, there’s a polyrhythm created by an errant snare pattern. On the album, this conflict peters out with an early fade, but on the 12” single (and the film’s credits) we’re allowed to stick around to hear the tension get resolved, which triggers an explosion and a further five minutes of sweeping panoramic horn-filled funk. We’re now gliding on love’s wings, soaring over unscalable peaks and terrible depths, and nothing can break nor stop us.
And here’s that extended version if you care to listen.
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