Brazen is in the Eyes of the Beholder (guest post).

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This guest post is at my request. Emmaclaire relayed the story to me and I *asked* her to come here and share. I ask, should you have a moment, you share your best conquering weight room *fears* in the comments below.  Thank you!

 

When I read Carla’s post about being brazen, it didn’t have negative connotations to me as it did some readers.

Rather, I thought it a great descriptor of Carla herself, and an adjective I would be pretty happy to hear applied to me.

But I don’t think of myself as brazen at all.

Granted, I’ve done some things that others may find outside their comfort zone: sign language interpreting for a former shuttle astronaut in front of a huge theatre full of people (just part of my job) or climbing a 100-foot tree in the rain forest of Costa Rica (just part of the vacation package).

That’s not brazen to me; maybe because I just did them, I didn’t make the conscious choice to do something outside my own comfort zone.

My 17-year-old daughter is my brazen inspiration.

She is truly her own woman and puts herself out in the world in a way that I certainly never would have at her age.

For example, I am a nervous traveler.

I’m always afraid I’m going to get lost in an airport and miss my flight or something.

Heck, I’m 53 and I’ve only flown alone 3 times in my life! But we made it a point to travel as much as we could with the kids when they were young.

And the result? Princess is flying solo to Finland for 6 weeks this summer to visit her boyfriend. She hasn’t expressed any travel concerns because it’s just what we do.

When she was old enough to go to the gym with her dad, they used to lift weights on Sundays while I was doing my long run.

They even got matching t-shirts with the monikers “Olga” and “Helga” on them (yes, they bought me my own that says “Ludmilla”, but I have yet to wear it).

So when the time came for her to sign up for her required high school PE classes, she naturally chose Strength and Conditioning.

Mattered not one whit to her that she was one of only 2 girls in a class with 17 high school boys.

In shorts.

And cut-off t-shirts.

She would compete with them, even taunt them.

She loved it when she was able to out-lift, out-run or out-crunch one of those guys. And she never gave it a second thought.

Why? Because it’s just what she does.

For myself, I’ve allowed myself to be intimidated by the weight room.

I have made a New Year’s Goal for the past 3 years to just take the plunge and do it.

Part of my concern is that I work for the local high school, and the weight room is often filled with young guys from my school.

I have this nagging worry that they will see me there and think “Eeew! It’s my school secretary!”

When I told Princess about my issues, she said “we should go together, Mom!”

I would be tickled to have her be the trail-blazer in this situation, allowing me to follow in her brazen wake, even if she doesn’t feel it’s a brazen thing at all.

We’ve made a date for next Tuesday. Maybe I’ll finally wear my Ludmilla shirt!

I imagine there will be things as she moves along in her life that she will see others doing with ease and will wish for the brazenness to just put herself out there.

My wish for Princess is that she be blessed with a remarkable daughter such as mine, who will someday say to her:

It’s just a short hop to the moon, Mom, we should go together!

…because it’ll just be what they do.

 

 

 

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Comments

  1. I love this! I hope that one day I can raise my daughter like you have raised yours – clearly your love of travel and your emphasis on her being herself and doing things that are outside of your comfort zone have served her well.

    Kudos to you for being such a strong mom!

  2. You can do this! It’s so wonderful to have a daughter that is so comfortable with herself and is open to showing you the path that she has walked. Have fun!

  3. Love this! We have also traveled with our kids and I think it helps eliminate fear of the unknown :). Hopefully, they will have the same confidence and be brazen themselves!

    Thank you for sharing 🙂

  4. I love this!! We can learn and gain so much from our kids!! Love that your daughter is so BRAZEN and that she is going to help you conquer a fear. And, I feel sure that over the past years you have done the same for her many times!!!

  6. What a beautiful post! YOU sound brazen to me, but I love how you see brazen in your daughter and how it’s impacting you. We don’t have kids (yet), but I see my own mom in a brazen light and it made me teary when I read your thoughts at the end and made me think of my possible future daughter. Thanks for sharing your story, and remember on Tuesday that everyone is concerned with what people are thinking of and looking at them that they’re not thinking of you! It’s a funny self-focus that will maybe help free you of your own – and you will feel so empowered after your first time being brazen in the gym with your daughter. Rooting for you!

  7. You can do it!!
    Weight rooms are really intimidating until you go and realize they aren’t!

  9. Kudos to the mom who raised such a BRAZEN girl! Can’t wait to hear how your foray into the weightroom goes. Sounds like you have the perfect guide.

  10. What a wonderful guest-post Emmaclaire. You have cultivated such a beautiful relationship with your daughter, one I hope to emulate with my own one day (she’s nine). You don’t give yourself enough credit, you ARE brazen, who do you think Princess learned it from?! So glad that you can follow her into the weight room on Tuesday wearing your t-shirts; no advice other than to focus on what you’re doing and pay no heed to anyone else in the room. Good luck and congrats on raising a confident, happy & Brazen young lady!

  11. This is EXACTLY the future I hope for for my daughter.
    She has already shown me her courage and BRAZEN in many ways. I look forward to opportunities to FOLLOW her!

  12. Thank you, Carla, for allowing me to share this little excerpt of Life with Princess 🙂 And thank you everybody for your kind comments. As a recap, we did make it to the gym, and having my daughter there was just what I needed! She gave me someone to focus on and interact with so I didn’t even have time to think about whether anyone was watching me (we both just laughed when I bottomed out on the tricep dip counterbalance machine – oops!). And I knew I had the right coach when we were doing tricep kickbacks, and she said “Wait! Hold it…hoooooold it!” – ouch! She worked me hard. As mothers and/or daughters, we have much to learn from each other, don’t we?

  13. I think my 26 year old daughter has taught/given me just about as much as I have taught/given her. She just recently moved cross country to start a Master’s program and spent two weeks traveling in Europe with fellow classmates.
    I have been self-sufficient and traveled alone to things many times…a raft trip down the Grand Canyon with a solo hike out was a highlight-and I think she respects that I have done that and shows her it can be done.
    I also do triathlons and it has impressed upon her that women are strong and fast….(doing my 119th this Sunday in San Fran (Alcatraz), and turn 61 this year. Yes, it’s “just what I do”.
    I see many girl trips together as we age! Keep up going to the weight room…believe me, no one is paying attention to anyone but themselves!

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