At A Glance
Author	Shamus Greenman
Contact	Shamus [email protected]
IAM	Shamus Greenman
When	N/A

As far back as I can remember, I can recall looking in the mirror and thinking to myself...the reflection looking back isn't me...that's just not me.

It wasn't that the mirror was wrong, it was just that the outward view didn't match the inward vision, and while I was not clearly able to put a handle on what it was that was not right, I simply knew in my heart and in my soul that there was something out of sync, something didn't match, something didn't fit.

Growing up I was a chunky child, husky, big boned, think Bobby Hill meets Eric Cartman. I wasn't fat, and I wasn't thin, I was that odd in between size, the size that makes it awkward to make friends, the size that makes you feel even more uncomfortable in your own skin that you already are, knowing that not only is something out of place in how you view yourself and how others view you, but that the version that is out of place is also out of size as well.

I remember thinking as a child that I should be athletic, I should be fit and active and a member of team sports...but there was not a lot of emphasizes on team sports or on being fit or active in my house...there was a lot put of smoking and in my Dads case eating fatty foods and having a couple of drinks after work. On the odd occasion I could get him to go out and toss the baseball around...but that was it.

I was the kid usually picked last for teams at school, again think Bobby Hill, without the short pants and comedy. Or cute Asian girlfriend.

I can remember suffering even more of an indignity to my self when the only "jeans" I was bought was the great and totally indestructible Sears TuffSkins, made for your husky active boy...

They were fade resistant, hell a bottle of bleach and a small nuclear weapon could not get them to fade, and they were totally indestructible in nature. And proudly labeled right there on my ass for the world to see were the words TuffSkins Husky fit. My Mom tried to convince me that husky was a good thing, it meant I was big and strong and healthy, thank god that kid at school set me straight, it really meant according to him that I was a fat ass.

No this did not fit with my body image at all, not only was the reflection really really wrong, but what everyone else was seeing was not even close to who I was at all, or who I saw myself as being.

But, when you are 9 or 10 years old you lack tools of any kind to make any meaningful and visible changes to your body and to your image, and a baseball cap was not really going to cut it.

I moved along on the adventure that was and still is my life as one would expect, I continued on with school and education, went off to work, more education, a few relationships, no major or life altering moments, just the basics of living.

About 8 years ago I began a serious of life altering moments.

As with most thing in life that give us pause to stop and look and reevaluate our existence, I became sick, well injured is a better way to explain it.

If I think back to the first time I became ill, when I was still a teenager and still unformed in mind or body, I remember how being diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis changed my life, it gave it a sense of direction and an enemy for me to do battle with...

The same thing occurred about 12 years later, when I became injured while working as a volunteer firefighter and we were removing a large man from a building on a stretcher, the man shifted, the stretcher shifted and he almost fell, in order to compensate for his shift and to keep him from falling I did something very foolish, I did the equivalent of a dead lift and jerk type move and in the process hyper extended my back and herniated three disks.

We got the man safely out and one he was safe I collapsed into a heap in the worst pain of my life.

Over the next 6 months I suffered through physio therapy, pain medication and a string of doctors a little to willing to cut into me.

I read a great deal and became focused on shamanistic healing and the body, and for the first time since I was a child, I looked in the mirror and new the the person and body I saw in the mirror, this reflection of the physical me, in no way matched up with the spiritual me, the me I knew was inside.

I in course discovered tattoos, and piercing, and the deep spiritual and ritual meaning that they hold for me, and slowly the image reflected back looked more and more like the soul I knew lived within me.

In course I found books and sites, BMEzine.com being the one I still come back to time and again, that spoke to me about the ritual of the body.

Here I found people who thought as I did, who could relate to my need to change the body I saw in the mirror, the way it appeared to the world to something more closely related to how I truly saw it...

But, despite the changes I made, there was still something missing, it was hard to put it into a feel or a sense...other than I was still the husky little kid who felt out of place in his own skin and who felt that his body was the wrong size.

I was getting the actual appearance down, I was starting to see a proper visual representation of my inner self, but the actual body was still far short form where I thought it should be.

It wasn't until 1999 and a good friend of mine lent me a VHS tape of a video called Body Of Work from a man named Bill Phillips, a fitness leader in how he looked at the body, how he looked at fitness and how he looked at the workings of the body and its meaning to us and its visual importance in how we saw ourselves.

Throughout the tape Bill spoke about how you can build a better body, how you can build the body you know is there, the one you see inside yourself, the body image you have when you close your eyes...and for the first time I felt an understanding to what was inside of me waiting to come out, the body I wanted was a fit healthy and toned body.

I began to look at bodybuilding and weight lifting as a form of modification as equal to and every bit as important and valid to me as any tattoo and any piercing.

And thus my journey began.

In the four years since then I have taken on fitness and health as a lifestyle, much as a piercer or tattoo artist, I believe in what I do, this modification has become such an intrical part of my life and of who I am that I would not be complete without it.

To date, fitness and the reshaping of my body is my biggest modification. It is an ongoing process much like a large tattoo project, because I am constantly working towards a better vision of who I am and how I wish to have it reflected. And like any vision mine changes and grows and as a result what I do changes and grows and becomes more.

This largest of mods has taken over my life as well, as I said it has become a lifestyle, not just a modification, it is now my way of life so to speak.

I am embarking on a new career, in fitness. I am returning to school and education myself in the ways of fitness and plan to make this my life, as my body changes, my mind does as well.

At the end of it all, is that not the common thread that we all share, and that modifications share in general? As we change our bodies, our minds follow suit? And we grow.

I've found that modification can and does mean almost anything, anything you can manipulate or change can be modified. We grow, and we find our way, and in so doing our visions of ourselves come along as well.

I've been lucky enough to find the courage to change my body to meet my soul.