Why we need to embrace the cringe
(and stop pretending we are perfect. It's holding us back)
It continues to amaze me the extent to which as women we try to pretend we have it all together, even when we don’t.
We are socially pre conditioned to glide along like swans, while endlessly kicking beneath the surface. Anything else feels like failure.
And it fundamentally holds us back. This quote from WILD BARE THOUGHTS really struck me this week:
“If you can look back at who you were three years ago and feel nothing but comfortable recognition, you’ve stopped moving. The absence of embarrassment is not evidence of wisdom. It’s evidence of stagnation we’ve been calling consistency”
Stepfanie Tyler talks in her piece about the power of ‘cringe’ and how important it is to see that feeling as part of the process. But most of us feel deeply uncomfortable about that feeling, and it needs to change.
Two other events this week brought this quote to life.
The first was a woman new to our Board Women whatsapp group, talking about her journey into skating, wanting to find places to skate and practice. My local area has notoriously horrible ground to practice skating on (no smooth seaside prom here, it’s like gravel), and so my suggestion was actually to head to the skate park (just go early). Her reaction? I’m not ready for that yet, not until I’ve had some practice.
This marries with nearly every beginner I’ve seen come into our sessions. They apologise for their lack of prowess before they even begin. “I don’t have any balance”. “I haven’t been doing this long”. “I’ve had a big time out and I’m finding my feet again”. We are so in fear of judgement that we’ve talked ourselves out of succeeding before we’ve even begun. I’ve never yet heard a male beginner do the same thing.
Even worse, I have friends who won’t come and try a board sport because they’re out of practice. They talk about getting fit and having some practice before they come out to a surf session. You know what would be really good practice? Surfing! But we talk ourselves out of it, because we don’t deem ourselves to be good enough, not good enough to be a beginner (?). Does it make logical sense? Absolutely not. But it’s a common trait in so many of us late starters to these sports, unsure of whether we’ll be accepted, unsure of whether we can perform, unsure of whether we have a right to be here.
The second event was my wonderful Monday night interviewing the great Kimmy Fasani. Yes, that Kimmy - icon of the snowboarding world, and producer of the film Butterfly in a Blizzard, a film that set out to chart the journey of a professional athlete new to motherhood, but diverted due to a series of real life events (childhood trauma, parental loss, cancer, sickness of her child - you name it, this woman has been through an unimaginable amount).
There’s a scene in the film where Kimmy has come back to a Burton sponsored shoot for the first time after having kids. The trip involves her being on a boat with her family & crew in Svalgard, sailing to spots where they can climb mountains and snowboard back down again. The team are climbing up, you’re struck by the beauty of the scene, and then the voice over from Kimmy reveals that she has shit herself in her trousers on the way up.
Yes you read that correctly, she shit herself. An unavoidable post pregnancy symptom, yet she tells no-one. She continues to climb, and then snowboards down, and has to find a way to change her only pair of snowboarding trousers and make them smell ok again, whilst the crew are milling around the crowded space. And all the while, she smiles. No-one has a clue what has gone on.
In the podcast we are laughing about this story, and comparing notes about the many side effects of pregnancy (and let’s face it, life) that we don’t tell even our life partners, for fear of not being the perfect version of ourselves that we’ve manufactured. Heaven forbid that they realise the full, devastating physical effects of what we have gone through. Piles? yep. The occasional wetting of your pants because you can’t quite get to the loo in time? yep. Cracked nipples? yep. All of that and more.
We’re laughing in our conversation, because it’s so physical, it’s so gruesome, it’s so real, that it’s depressingly funny. But it’s not funny, is it? Why have we set ourselves up in this way? To feel that we’re not going to be accepted in the warts and all version of ourselves? I for one, am a little over it.
So how does this apply to our respective journeys in the world of board sports? To navigating being beginners in worlds that celebrate the impossible skills of the very few?
Well, at the very least, we start! Not coming to a session, not trying, because we haven’t got the skills yet belies the very point.
Everyone was a beginner once. In everything in life.
It’s the central thought we have to come back to. We don’t have to be good to start. We don’t actually have to be good at any point (if we’re enjoying it). If you’re starting one of these sports (or anything new and a little more daring) in mid life, you’re already ahead, because most wouldn’t even consider it.
Stop holding out for being perfect. How boring would life be if that’s our filter for anything we try? Surely life’s thrills lie in the messiness, in the mess ups, and as we always say, in the falling.
Come fall with us, it’s fun, I promise x