Good morning, just stopping by to say hi 💃🏼 My body’s still here, and I’m still proud of it. But man...being fixated on your physique can be not only exhausting, but can throw you wayyy out of alignment.⁣ ⁣ When you exist in the fitness industry and so much of your value is based on your body, you can lose touch with the most important aspects of yourself - which have nothing to do with your physique.⁣ ⁣ I think it’s ok for us to be both proud of our physical work AND ALSO recognize that we sometimes exploit it for dopamine hits. I’ve done it. Many of you reading this have done it. Shit, we do it all the time. Let’s just acknowledge that.⁣ ⁣ And let’s acknowledge the damage that this practice can do to our mental wellbeing and our expectations of ourselves. ⁣ ⁣ This is a sport we choose to participate in, knowing full well that it’s mostly based on looks. We know what we’re getting into. So really, it’s about how we navigate it. It’s about not losing ourselves in the process.⁣ ⁣ I could post physique update after physique update but that’s fucking exhausting and there’s a relatively small percentage of people who want to see it. There has to be balance. There has to be self-worth that goes deeper than looking good in a bikini.⁣ ⁣ I’m 10 years into bodybuilding and still figuring out exactly what that balance looks like. So far, for me, one of the main principles keeping me sane is not being a slave to an algorithm. There are many other pieces of the alignment puzzle but that’s a good start. In this industry, it all comes down to knowing who tf you are and sticking to it unapologetically. We’ll figure it out one of these days 😉