On Bullying: Why I Created SCR

It's year 5 of Strong Chicks Rock. Wow..Happy Birthday To You--Strong Chicks.

As I'm writing this, I'm watching the final episode of the show 13 Reasons Why, it's made my heart hurt and made me sick to my stomach. 

Holding my heart, and wiping tears away. I remember, through every cell in my body, why I wanted to create SCR.

I know you've heard me say the part about SCR, the one I always say, because it's true--that when I was 18 I experienced hate in my body for the first time. So I sought out a way to learn how to not hate what I saw in the mirror. Even with a dad as a strength and conditioning coach, I was too afraid to ask for help. So I looked and looked and all I found online were diets, cleanses and quick fixes--that's not what I wanted. I wanted to love my body. 

Which led me to create SCR, I wanted to create what I needed. A judge free and safe space for women to learn how to love their bodies and not use food and fitness as a form of abuse to make themselves smaller. But to create food freedom, and learn how to step into their power.

There's more though.

I created Strong Chicks Rock Because 

I was bullied in highschool. Jeez, not just highschool. From elementary school until I was 17, I was bullied. I came home more nights than not, crying. My dad would hold me as I bawled my eyes out telling him about the mean girl events that ensued.

I was labeled slut, ugly, whore and so on, until the point I believed it. So when I was 16, and a man took my pants off, I laid there in shock,I said no, I did, only once, but he said yes, so I didn't speak again. I cried, and I let it happen.

I had nasty notes shoved in my locker. 

I ate in the bathroom alone because I was shunned from sitting at the tables.

I had flyers made about how ugly I was and how much of a slut I was.

I can't even type this without tears because I shoved all of this so far down for so long that I acted like it didn't happen. 

How could girls, let alone my friends, possibly be so cruel--but they were.

When I realized I wanted to create SCR, It wasn't just because I wanted a space for women to learn.

I wanted to create a space where women could feel safe, not alone and learn how to step into their power as women.

Kindness And Girl Hate

Girl hate was all I ever knew in female relationships. I didn't know kindness. Sure, it came in short bursts. What had been ingrained into my brain though, was the worst kind of hate. The hate that makes you drop out of highschool  (yup, I did that).

What about kindness? 

When girls would send me hate messages or letters, or laugh at me, call me names etc, my dad would say: "be kind". 

BE KIND? WTF DAD. Do you know what it's like???? I want to curl up in a ball and never come out of the house. This wasn't your average mean girl situation, this was life altering evil.

Once I got out of it, and my dad's other phrase "this too shall pass", really worked (of course it did)--I thought, 'what if I could change it?'

I didn't think I would end bullying or wipe mean girls off the planet, but I thought, if I could create a safe space for women, for them to learn how to become confident, kind, and empowered women--they could move out of their own pasts of being victims or the bullies themselves.

We Need Empowered Women

No one taught me how to be an empowered woman. Bless my father for doing the best he could to raise two girls on his own (with the help of my nana of course). 

What about you?

Do you feel confident? Connected to your body? Empowered? Do you feel like you can have a conversation without gossip?

I didn't and wasn't any of those things.

Had I been, in highschool, or at all growing up--I can only imagine how differently my experience would have been.

We need empowered women, we need kind women, we need women who will change the pattern. We need women who won't tolerate mean girl talk. We need kindness.

There You Have It

That's my story.

That's why I care so much about women empowering women.

That's why I need SCR.

My dad was right, being kind is everything. #kindnessrocks.

Kindness is the foundation of SCR. 

When we as women can learn to be kind to our bodies, and show up as empowered women to our lives--the magic we hold is limitless.

Strong Chicks Rock is for women who want to learn how to connect to their bodies. For women who want to learn how to love their bodies without BS, in a judge free zone. For women who want the support of women who actually care. For women who want to learn how to use movement as a way to feel powerful, confident and strong. 

Anyway, Happy Birthday SCR. I am whole because of you. I love me, because of you. Most importantly, you allowed me to take hold of my worth--and know that it never was held in the words of what he thought, or what she said, or what he did to me--it's been mine to hold and own this whole time.

And to 13 Reasons Why--thank you for breaking my heart open to bring me back to why I started this.