Outta My Head and Into My Body
I play beach volleyball.
I wasn’t exactly an athletic kid growing up. In fact, the only “sport” I did involved eating nachos on the couch and flipping back and forth between Growing Pains and Real World. If couch surfing were an Olympic sport, my 12-year-old self would have been a gold medalist.
It’s not that I didn’t want to play sports.
When I was really little I wanted to play soccer, or be a gymnast.
But growing up with a single mom, we didn’t have a lot of extra funds to throw at extracurriculars. So my sister and I channeled our inner ice skater and pretended to land triple axles in our socks on the carpeted living room floor.
When I was in middle school, I tried out for the basketball team. I would have given ANYTHING just to be a bench warmer but despite my best efforts, I was not chosen. It’s sad really, but after that, I kind of gave up on sports altogether.
Looking back, I realize how important it is for young kids, especially girls, to be involved in sports. Not only does it help build confidence at a time in your life when hormones are undoubtedly working against you, but it teaches you valuable skills about how to work on a team and how to manage stress. These were skills I’m still trying to master as a 35-year-old.
A few years ago, during one of the darkest times in my life, I was desperate to get out of my head and into my body.
My first inclination was to search for somatic practices like kundalini yoga, dynamic meditation, and ecstatic dance.
Those all helped momentarily but they still felt too serious.
I picked up running but had to stop shortly after because it aggravated an old back injury.
I was quite literally running out of options.
“I decided to take a chance, and gently quell the inner voice telling me I wasn’t athletic enough, that I’d likely make a fool of myself. ”
That’s when I saw a post on Facebook that changed my life. Someone in an ex-pat group I was in was looking for a few extra members to play beach volleyball with them.
I decided to take a chance, and gently quell the inner voice telling me I wasn’t athletic enough, that I’d likely make a fool of myself.
And boy am I glad I did.
Two years later, I am still playing with the same group.
Occasionally my insecurities pop up, like when I mess up a serve or accidentally send the ball flying in the wrong direction. I am definitely not the strongest player so I often feel this giant pressure to perform well. What I’ve noticed though, is that when I start to feel this pressure, I stop having fun, and I end up performing worse.
Like the other day when I was just off.
I kept making silly mistakes and could tell that my teammates were getting frustrated with me. I was getting frustrated with me. But then something clicked.
FUN. THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN.
After that, I was able to relax and make jokes with my teammates about how “off” I’d been that day. It seemed to lighten the mood and shift their frustration to compassion.
I wholeheartedly believe that playing beach volleyball has helped me grow exponentially as a person.
Not only has it strengthened my teamwork skills (something I failed to learn all those years being a freelancer), but it continues to serve as a reminder not to take myself so damn seriously.
And - it gets me out of my head and into my body.