Smile, Nod, Wave, "Hello!"
On being autistic and navigating shame-filled gym culture to find my people
I’ve been trying really hard to smile more at the gym.
A small grin, which can sometimes later turn into a nod, which can sometimes then turn into a wave. Hi! Hello.
When I’m at the gym, I’m often in my own world. It’s taken active effort to express “I am friendly!” social cues unless someone else initiates. As an autistic person, social cues befuddle me. I don’t naturally smile at the right times. Sometimes I get confused about when it’s appropriate to say hello (between sets, but just at the right time?) and when it isn’t. I’ll often wave at someone only for them to be right in the middle of turning in the other direction. My timing is always just a little bit off.
But the thing is—I’ve done the lone autistic wolf thing at the gym for the last four years. I know that I prefer working out alone—I need that deep self-focus to be able to regulate my nervous system in the ways I need to, to be able to listen to my body, the yes’s and no’s that live inside me. Working out with other people increases the noise and makes it harder to hear my own needs. Harder to listen.
But I think it would be nice, at times, to have gym friends to say hello to.
Yesterday I stopped and chatted with a woman I’ve been smiling and waving hello to for a while now. It’s progressed into longer conversations—chats about squat depth and form, mobility challenges, grocery shopping and meal prepping whole chickens for her children. Peach cobbler and peach ice cream, and her kids’ delight at dessert for breakfast.
A month ago, she shared her joy with me after her first powerlifting competition—that was one of my favorite gym moments ever, getting to celebrate her. This is Freudenfreude: feeling good about someone else’s happiness, even when it has nothing to do with you. One of the strange and beautiful intricacies of being human.
Today I had the honor of hearing more about her gym journey. She found her way into movement through curiosity and playfulness, and her husband’s unwavering support at whatever she wanted to try. “Honey, I think I want a gym membership for Christmas.” “What do you think about trying to lift weights?” “I think I want to try powerlifting.” “I think I want to compete.” Every step of the way, her husband encouraging her, walking the journey alongside her—her biggest fan, supporter, and coach.
It was so incredibly wholesome.
I don’t know her husband very well, but I’ve seen them together at the gym. I can tell that working out is something that brings them together. I’ve seen him stand behind her at the squat rack, arms extended, his entire body language expressing the words, “I’ve got you. You’ve got this. I’ve got you.” I’ve seen him make space for her frustration when a lift didn’t go the way she planned, compassionate and patient, rooted in his belief that she’s going to figure it out.
She began her journey by walking at the track, and described those challenging early days. Breaths heavy, lungs burning, joints aching. She kept going, slowly, steadily—trying different things, exploring, staying curious the whole way through. Now she’s realizing she can have a narrower stance in her squat form to get more power through the bottom of the reps, because, as she explained, her belly has gotten smaller since the birth of her last child. She shared how much fun it is to be able to throw and wrestle and chase her youngest son. How she’ll squat him for reps, holding his small body close, to his absolute delight—and hers.
This is just one person’s journey to finding joy in movement, but to me, it’s a rare occurrence. I haven’t told her yet how meaningful it was for me to hear it. I hope I get to soon.
Most of the time, when I ask someone at the gym about their fitness journey, it has nothing to do with joy, or pleasure, or curiosity.
Most of the time, it’s about shame.
I think this is probably true for so many of the things we want to do, beyond the scope of movement, or the gym, or fitness—most of us were taught to use shame as motivation. We were told shame, self-loathing, and berating ourselves would get the job done.
Not enough, not enough, not enough. Do better. Be better.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“You’re way too big.”
“You’re far too small.”
The problem with that is that shame doesn’t motivate everyone. For some people, it obliterates them.
Shame is the story I heard from the very buff, very tall, tattooed man next to me on the stairclimber, rocking a speed of 8 for 40 minutes straight—a common occurrence for him, I’ve noted over the last few months—when I asked him how he could go that fast for that long.
He’s told me he’s a firefighter. He started off by wanting to climb 100 floors for the World Trade Center. And he just kept going from there. His journey is so different from mine—he likes the confidence it makes him feel to be a big dude, and have muscles. Cardio allows him to burn enough calories so he can eat the way he wants to. He didn’t used to be muscular and buff and tattooed, he explained to me. He used to be overweight—which I could tell from his body language, his vocal tone—in this he meant, he used to be ashamed.
The thing about shame is that it never actually leaves you. You can do it all “right” according to shame’s laws. You can lose the weight. You can get buff and lean and fit. You can do it all, and still, the looming thread of shame lingers on your shoulder. It says, if you stop right now, all of this goes away. If you quit, you go back to how you were before. And remember how shameful that was? Don’t do that. Keep pushing. Don’t you dare go back.
The threat of your unworthiness never really goes away.
I have a deep respect for his journey, in that it’s his own—he got to choose it for himself, as we all get to do. I do know shame works for some people—my partner, Shawn, finds it motivating and useful. Maybe some people just don’t feel the weight of shame on their shoulder the way I do.
I do know that because this man was able to get back in the gym, he got to encourage his mom to come too—and he shared that she’s been loving it. I lit up when he said that, bursting out, “It makes such a difference when you love it!” I still had hope then that we were speaking the same language. But he replied, “Oh no. I don’t love working out. I hate it. It’s so hard, but you just gotta do it.”
And then I fully understood. We’re on different paths here. He’s doing something he feels he has to do, to continue to be worthy.
Me—and this lovely woman, my gym friend—are doing something because we inherently know that we are worthy, no matter how we look.
And knowing that, from the deepest depths of me, even when my doubt wavers and shakes, that I get to keep coming back to the fact that I deserve joy, I deserve pleasure, and I do not deserve suffering. This is what brings me into the gym, again and again, from a place of love.
Unfortunately, I can’t do things I don’t love doing.
And so for the things I have to do, however burdensome, I have to find my own way to love them. Even in the smallest ways.
When my gym friend shared her ‘before’ photo with me, she shared it rooted in pride and self-celebration. A reflection of her growth, her journey, her courageous curiosity. Not something to be ashamed of, but a part of her whole story, every bit of it holding meaning.
It fascinates me how different people have different ways of doing things. But I can say, for the most part, this man’s story—his journey, from shame about his body to the obligation to stay lean and muscular, or else—the same story I’ve heard repeated dozens, hundreds of times before—it doesn’t work for me.
If I’m doing it from a place of shame, it won’t be sustainable for me. Eventually, inevitably, I will stop.
But if I figure out how to do it from a place of joy—and if not joy at first, then gentle curiosity—I can get there. I can make it last.
I have come to learn that being in partnership with my brain, with my inner voice—being a true friend to myself—offers so much more to me than shame ever has. Or ever could.
Maybe there’s something in my brain that switches off when I have a negative experience. If I have a bad time, or I have a meltdown at the gym because I pushed myself through it instead of stopping or slowing down, it makes me never want to go back ever again.
But if I protect my positive emotional experiences—if I choose gentleness and slowness as an option, when I need it—I preserve my mind’s safety to return. To continue to be persistent.
Shame shuts me down. It dysregulates me, but more than that, it obliterates any hope I have for continuing.
But joy sustains me. It nourishes, like nutrients to a plant. Joy is how I do the things I want and love to do. I am committed to finding it, and protecting it. As much as I can.
To hear that reflected in this woman’s story, in her journey, around lifting—something we both love deeply—it made me feel so seen. Someone out there gets it.
If she can, and if I can, then that means we aren’t anomalies.
We’re evidence that joy works.