This week's #SkinImInSunday features fitness enthusiast and sports model Tobi Ojora. Tobi is the powerhouse behind the Instagram-based fitness hub Tone with Tobi, that provides workout plans/ideas, fitness and food tips, inspiration, and wellness advice. Below, she discusses vulnerability, learning to bounce back from setbacks, and practicing resilience. Read her story below:
I find it really hard to be vulnerable; when I ‘feel’ too deeply it makes me uncomfortable, but I’ve had to learn to embrace it. I wanted to be an athlete so badly when I was little, so to get there I felt like I had to be the best ; run faster, jump higher and be better than everyone else.
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Fast forward to 2015, I was doing a triple jump and I sustained a knee injury. It seemed that in the time it took me to recover, everyone else leveled up, but for me everything seemed to go down hill. 2016, another injury, and so I quit.
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I felt lost. Track is a huge part of my family, and my siblings are national and international athletes and of course, my parents would tell their friends about us. So many times they’d ask us what we did and my siblings would list off their accomplishments whilst I sat uncomfortably and mumbled what I used to do.
Am I proud of my siblings ? Extremely, but was I jealous? Absolutely. It’s hard to admit, but I was. They’re younger than me, but they already have so much going for them. I felt inadequate and I didn’t quite know how to process it. I’ve asked myself so many times if I’m a bad sister for feeling like that and I still don’t really know the answer.
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Tone with Tobi was a coping mechanism – I figured that over almost 16 years I’d gained so much knowledge that there was no point in keeping it to myself. It has taught me a lot about myself. I can be vulnerable, but I am resilient.
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Obviously those insecurities don’t just go away completely ; it takes time but I’m getting there. When people ask me what I do, I do feel a little silly saying ‘I have an Instagram page’, but I’m really really proud of myself. Silly and proud.