I am currently visiting my family in New York after this long, bizarre, and challenging year. Everywhere I look, I see rainbow flags, high schools decorated with pride banners and even the local grocery store has a rainbow decal in its window. Yet, despite the sincere expressions of acceptance that I see all around I am reminded that it was not always this way. You see, I write to you while sitting at my mother’s dining room table. In my family, this very dining room table is where we work out life’s issues; where emotions swing freely between laughing, crying, and yelling–sometimes all at the same time. All the sensations of so many discussions –including the ones around the hurt and the disappointment of my coming out many years ago–still live in the fabric of these seats.
My coming out was especially hard on my mother. To her, I had it all. I married my high school sweetheart and had a beautiful home. My son was a healthy, active, and happy 18 month-old. For me, however, the life I was building was not suited to where I needed to go and who I needed to be. I vividly remember Ellen DeGeneres coming out as gay on the cover of Time Magazine as I was going through my own process. Society was resistant but changing, and I was often caught in the cross-currents and pull of that resistance and change.
As I sit here at this table, some decades later, the sensations are still palpable. I remember the feeling of my tears, my fear, and the pleading from everyone around me who did not want this change. I also remember the smells of the rectory as I complied with my in-law’s request to seek the counsel of a priest. To this day, churches remain hard spaces for me. I remember feeling like a child as I sat across from my mother in my own gynecologist’s waiting room–my mother desperate for him to tell her that I was just having her-monal (her pronunciation, not mine) issues. I agreed to these things because I love my parents and in-laws unconditionally and wanted them to know I felt their pain as well. However, it did not change the fact that I needed to keep moving in a direction that was right for me.
Move it
As I look back on that tumultuous time in my life, I realize that movement–any type of movement–was my outlet and source of strength. Ironically enough, there was a time I was completely disassociated with my body. It was after my son was born just prior to my coming out. I was significantly overweight and one day, I decided to go for a run. I remember feeling inspired by the sunlight through the trees, the smell of the moist earth under my feet, the unevenness of the hearty stone walls, and their contrast to the vast open wooded areas I ran through. The sensations of my body moving intrigued me and motivated me to keep going. Physically and emotionally, I was facing challenges that were new to me. But in the doing, I learned that I did not need to be some ideal, I just needed to be moving in a direction that was right for me. Little did I know, that run would catapult significant physical and emotional growth.
Coming out meant I needed to find a way to support myself. The feeling of empowerment I got from moving my own body was so powerful that I wanted to share the feeling of connectedness to help enlighten and support others. I became a certified personal trainer and, wanting to know more, went to grad school. Suddenly, through this crazy process of coming out and living this new version of myself, my personal and professional lives evolved simultaneously.
This evolution led me to discover Pilates. I was intimidated initially by what felt like exclusivity in the practice but I quickly formed life-changing connections with people like Connie Borho, who led me to the PhysicalMind Institute where I studied with Doris Pasteleur Hall and Leslie Powel at Movements Afoot. The studio was a mind-bending lab and exploration of movement. While my life was chaotic, the studio was a safe space for me where I could learn, feel and heal through the practice of Pilates.
Changes for the better
What coming out has taught me is that life is indeed a journey and growth is constant should we choose it to be. Eight years ago my growth continued as I decided to move, with my wife and young daughter, to Sacramento to work with Balanced Body. Instinctively and intuitively this felt right. Working with Ken, Nora, and Al, (and everyone at Balanced Body) is, and remains, a creative, intellectual, and supportive platform where my professional potential is encouraged. This past year, as we all navigated the profound changes in our world, at Balanced Body we leaned hard into discussions around social injustice, body type inclusivity, training style, and diversity. These are the very discussions I wish could have been had around the dining room table with my family all those years ago.
As I sit here now at my mother’s table, she is buzzing around the house and grateful for my visit back home–the first since the pandemic started. Our relationship has come a long way from the tumult of those early years. Though it is hard not to feel emotional reflecting on how far we have come as a family, and as a society, I know there is still much work to be done. As overwhelming and complex as it all may seem, do not underestimate the importance of the safe spaces that you create in your studios, facilities, and clinics every day. For me, it literally was the simplicity of movement that initiated the change that has led me to a career and life I am proud of. Who knows how many others are literally touched and changed in ways we can never really know.
It may sound cliché but find your passion and dive into it. For me it was movement, but it could be anything. Find it and with it, you find your power and your voice which can change a family, change a community, and change the world. If I were to give advice to my younger self sitting at this table all those years ago I would say be true to yourself, be brave in your conviction, and above all, believe that you, just as you are, are enough. When you stand true, others will follow. Happy Pride to all!
Joy Puleo is Balanced Body's Director of Education. In July of 2013, Joy moved, with her family, from New York to Sacramento, California to join Nora St. John and the rest of the Balanced Body team to work on developing curriculum and educational programming. Joy has been teaching Pilates teachers since 2002 and in the health and wellness industry since 1996. Joy earned her MA from Columbia University in Applied Physiology. As a lecturer she presents at conferences and studios across the country and abroad and with Balanced Body, she is a regular at most Pilates on Tours. In addition to her degree Joy is A.C.S.M. certified and is able to provide ACE credits for students who take her classes. She is a fully qualified Balanced Body Pilates Instructor and teacher trainer, CoreAlign and Bodhi Suspension System master trainer and a graduate of the PhysicalMind Institute. Joy was also trained on the GYROTONIC,® Level I and the Ladder. In 2011 Joy founded Body Wise Connection, a not-for-profit which works with women newly diagnosed with breast cancer. Body Wise Connections sole purpose is to remind women that even in the throes of a diagnosis and treatment for cancer the body can heal and strengthen. Body Wise Connection works to restore physical self-awareness and empowerment through gently, rhythmic Pilates based movements. Though Joy is no longer in New York, Joys work has expanded to include all cancer patients regardless of the primary cancer diagnosis. Joy believes that movement changes lives and that education is the key to unlocking potential. Joy is thrilled to be working with Balanced Body on the shared mission of elevating mindful movement as a component to long term health and wellbeing.
