Ungooping oneself

I tend to be a bit of a sucker for certain female empowers, so to speak.

Ever so discreetly, though. 

Aka, you will not see me regularly post about these fascinations (well most of them):

Greta Gerwig’s modernized, unromanticized adaption of Little Women is nothing short of brilliant. 

Goop is about as guilty a pleasure as one admitting to eating Oreos with peanut butter. 

The book She Said, on the women who broke the sexual harassment accounts of Harvey Weinstein, is to be devoured.

And the #MeToo movement they began is to be applauded. 

In college, I commended Felicity’s haircut. (Quite literally. Albeit my hair did not do Keri Russell’s justice even though mine was also a relationship induced haircut.)

And in another life, I shamelessly wear every outfit featured on Man Repeller. 

If there was ever an era to be a confident, empowered female, with an assured sense of self it would be now, no? At least that’s how I feel it somehow should be. Particularly on days when my self-confidence is subpar and I give one too many thoughts to “what should I wear?” 

A pure, unadulterated self-identity for women has never felt more accessible, more forgiving or more unabashed. 

Maybe I’m ashamed to admit that I allow the current culture to at times tamper with exactly what I identify to be my self. But, I undoubtedly have, and at times certainly do, even if in the most minute ways. But these minute ways can have a way of building upon each other.

Recently, I was finishing a workout (which I pay too much to stream at home - but, I love it so... ). At the end of it, I sat down panting and sweating to my weekly instructor pep talk (to which, I should add, always is conveyed as a genuine, authentic talk rendered from her own life experiences).

They are these brief empowering talks and even though I’m wary of posting any kind of “I am female, hear me roar” type of posts, I’d be surprisingly spurred on by her simple statements. They are the kind of female-affirming ideas that the media is currently consumed with, but yes, is at times needed.

But the caveat is this lithe instructor also speaks in what appears to be a weekly rotation of new Nikes and designer workout clothes that compete with the variety of clothes I wear in a month.  

This one session she was batting off bits on self-identity, not finding your worth in performing, in how tight your butt is or flat your stomach may be, but simply finding it in you - right where you are. 

We’ve all heard this before, right? From many different women and through many different platforms.

While I felt remotely compelled to offer an uncharacteristic shout out to the screen, it hit me - am I being self-empowered by a streaming workout right now? Now, this would be normal today. There are endless online workouts, fitness gurus and influencers reminding us to not tie our identity to all the things they simultaneously promote online.

They are simple truths. The ones I know and seek to live by. 

But why is it they appear more powerful and affirming when it comes packaged in an outfit that looks like Net-A-Porter’s athleisure look-of-the-day?

The pursuit of self-identity for women today can feel at times double-sided and conflicted: We don’t have to do it all anymore, but we still try to. We don’t need any material thing to have a complete sense of self, but then again we seem to need everything to feel like complete, presentable females. Even in a day when the make-up free, fresh-faced girl is the goal, we still feel obligated to maintain so much. (I mean, the makeup-free look still requires makeup.)

It’s similar to my relationship with Goop; Yep, that Oreo-covered-in-peanut-butter guilty pleasure. 

Only it’s more packaged to incite a self-loving, deep-thinking, existential-exploring, Chase credit card equipped, modern-day woman who knows how to dress for the moment and treat herself right. It explores the type of questions you second guess before you Google. So of course when Netflix released The Goop Lab series, it had my full attention. That is, until about halfway into the first episode, when suddenly seeing many things I had read brought to life on-screen made me second guess why I was reading it in the first place.

I won’t give away the six episodes (yes, I watched all six), because they’d be an enlightening experience for anyone to see the ways we as females are seeking to better understand and improve ourselves.

Granted Goop has been known to push the envelope and make you go “wait, that’s crazy.” (If you’ve heard about the Jade Egg, you know what I mean.) So while I always knew this was a cutting-edge, new age, L.A. perspective on how to be a woman of today, seeing some of these ideas come to life has caused me to more closely audit if I subconsciously inform any ideal sense of self every time I check in on current mental health practices, the latest turmeric latte, or a 5-minute all-natural beauty routine. 

In the search for maintaining a solid self-identity, do we consider what all we allow to inform our identity?

You could say some of this auditing has had me second-guess just how much weight I hold into all these empowerers, and how brief daily engagements with influencers can create a sense of self. 

I would never demonize Goop because, to be honest, I’ll probably be back there next week. And I will probably never unplug from my streaming workout, because yeah, I like my workout. 

But nonetheless, I’m still in the process of ungooping myself.