Nerd Out: A Life Lesson from Camp Nerd Fitness & Geneen Roth
I just got back from over 2 weeks on the road and man, has it been an educational, fulfilling and transformative journey!I started my travel extravaganza with 5 days of doing exactly what I was put on this earth to do: teaching my mantra-based bootcamps and personal empowerment workshops. A few times during those 5 days, I looked around and actually thought to myself: "I can't believe this is my life."Being paid to teach what I love to people I love and receiving so much love in return just blows my effing mind. The fact that I can do all that at an actual camp for nerds that love fitness is almost unfathomable to me.Yep. That's where I was at the beginning of my travels: Nerd Camp.Camp Nerd Fitness is a gathering of 300 nerds from all over the world, in which we do movement, personal development and skill work... all with a touch of ridiculousness.
One teacher that was new to the experience this year walked into the main hall, took one look around, then with wide eyes, turned to me and said: "I don't think I'm nerdy enough to be here."To which I smiled and replied: "Everyone's a nerd about something."It's true, and it's what I'm here to talk about with you today. Though you may not be into video games or Harry Potter books, and maybe you've never played a game of D&D, you are a nerd about something.For me, it's many things: fitness, my friends, yoga, X-Men, self-love, comic book movies, the fact that you are worthy of being here on this earth...To be a nerd about something means to care a lot about it. That's it. Nerds are called nerds because we tend to get very excited. We care deeply. We even obsess.To some, being a nerd is off-putting, and it's usually because we've been taught that fully experiencing anything is stupid... which brings me to a topic that came up in the Women, Food & God Workshop with Geneen Roth that I attended this past weekend.
While I plan to talk about this emotional eating workshop in greater detail soon, one thing that Geneen said applies so strongly to what we're talking about here that I had to include it.Throughout the weekend, we talked a lot about "having what you have." A large part of emotional eating is the unwillingness to allow yourself to be with the food, to actually enjoy and savor the food. When we went over this inhibition, she said:"Part of not having food is protecting yourself from vulnerability – if you never have it, it can't end."This is what we're taught about nerds and why many of us reject them. We've learned that it's stupid to care completely about anything because when we do, it hurts so much more when we lose it. We've learned that we shouldn't get excited about anything because it's going to die/end, no matter what.But we lose every thing - every moment - no matter if we allow ourselves to be in it or not.The experience of being open and caring and getting excited about anything at all is one that will end because the thing you're excited about will go away. Your excitement will fade or the show will end or it will change into something you don't like so much. To avoid fully enjoying it is to deny yourself the happiness that it brings in this moment, despite the imminent end.Geneen made this sensation of avoidance extremely clear for me when she expressed this:
When we don't allow ourselves to get excited about things, we are living in the loss of it already.
When we choose not to celebrate or get excited about anything, we are living in the loss, not in the having of it. What's the point of experiencing loss if we never really had what we lost?We fear loss because we know it hurts. It sucks to enjoy something and have it end. Any of us who have ever gotten to the end of a relationship, vacation or cookie know this. We fear that we won't be strong enough to handle it when the end comes.But we can. Every one of us is capable of withstanding loss. We just don't let ourselves have things often enough to lose them so that we come to believe and know in our hearts that this is true.
Our refusal to be present and allow ourselves excitement is in essence, the refusal to live your life.
Nerds are looked down upon because their intensity often frightens people. The extent to which they fully live makes people who don't live that way uncomfortable. So they separated us from them, forgetting that we all come from one source, one life...But I'm here to argue that everyone is a nerd, and that it might be your gateway to more happiness in your life.Don't believe me? Here are some examples:
- Jocks = sports nerds
- Foodies = food nerds
- Hipsters = coffee/music nerds
To be a nerd is to celebrate, relish and fully have the experience, knowing that it will end. When jocks watch football, they really get into it, knowing the game will end. When hipsters drink coffee, they savor the cup, knowing that they'll reach the bottom of their mug at some point.Think of the one area in your life where you nerd out. What would it feel like to expand that nerddom to other parts of your human experience?What if you started to nerd out about the sunlight, about the change in seasons or the way your feet feel touching the ground? What if you allowed yourself to fully experience every bite of food you put in your mouth? What if you celebrated and got excited about the way your child or significant other looks to you for guidance?What if you allowed yourself to nerd out about life? What would change?No matter what, you can handle the end when it comes. Know that and release the fear. To avoid the enjoyment, celebration and excitement about now won't change the fact that it will end.Please, allow yourself to live in your life. Experience it for all its worth. Nerd out about everything. As far as we know, this is our only chance.Stay strong,Amy
All images except the one of Geneen Roth and me were shot by the extremely talented Will Byington. Check out more of his work and the whole Nerd Fitness album here.