Shine, My Beautiful Pieces of Space Trash

A couple weeks ago I took a ten-minute Peloton strength class with instructor Selena Samuela. It was a core-centric class filled with a whole lot of planks, bicycles, and mountain climbers designed to completely juice your tank and crush your abs, and boy did I feel it! While I regularly include strength as part of my workout, I haven’t ventured too deep into Samuela’s on-demand library, and so while I’m vaguely familiar with her overall energy and approach, I’m still wrapping my arms around the tone and difficulty of her classes.

Let me say this: I’m impressed by what I’ve seen so far. Selena is fit, fierce, and feisty. And, while she is entirely no-nonsense in her approach, she is also not stingy with praise or encouragement. Indeed, Samuela is an ideal blend of loathsome hard-ass and spirited cheerleader, and she propels you through her strenuous classes with equal parts challenge, camaraderie, and determination.

So needless to say, while taking this core crusher I was laughing, crying, and sweating my ass off: Samuela was not taking it easy on us. In fact, it felt as if approximately 250% of the class was comprised of holding planks in various forms, and only after a couple minutes in my arms and shoulders were absolutely screaming for relief. Nine minutes later on the cusp of collapsing and desperately negotiating with myself to please for the love of god tap out, Samuela said something that not only resonated with my core – both literal abs and figurative spiritual center – but also made me genuinely laugh out loud. In a moment of buoyancy and energetic praise, she highlighted something entirely unexpected and yet utterly poignant and profound:

“A star is just a bunch of space trash that got it together, came together, and started shining for billions of years. So shine, my beautiful pieces of space trash. Because that’s what it is, you’re a star: You are a star!”

Like I said, in the midst of pain, torture, and seemingly endless plank holding, that thought literally made me laugh out loud[1]. But it also made me break out in goosebumps all over my body. Not only was Samuela’s sentiment inspiring and motivational, but it was also deeply human and authentically true. As people, we are essentially made from stardust: Nearly all of the elements in the human body – oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and calcium, just to name a few – were formed in stars over the course of billions of years and multiple star lifetimes.

Stars – which are defined as luminous balls of gas (mostly hydrogen and helium) held together by their own gravity – not only define us as human beings but also serve as a perfect metaphor for humanity itself. Said in less scientific terms, stars are basically just messy bodies of “space trash” that got it together and started shining, despite all obstacles and odds. And this is what we humans are, too: We take all the various parts of ourselves – the messy, the loud, the brilliant, the trashy – and we put it all together to comprise something perfectly imperfect, shiny, and beautiful. Whether we recognize it or not, flaws and all, we are just beautiful pieces of space trash that somehow – perhaps because of our vulnerable flaws and messy imperfections – continue to sparkle and radiate our light to the rest of the world.

So, whether you feel like a strong badass who is crushing her core class, or a messy ball of space trash that is barely holding it all together, remember this: You are a star. And, despite what anybody says about you or how you feel in this given moment, you have the ability to shine brightly and cast light, energy, and warmth over all that you see, all that you are, and all that you do.

So shine, my beautiful pieces of space trash. Because that’s exactly what you are, and you couldn’t be more lovely.