While a moment of rebellion can often lead to unwanted trouble, for Richmond’s latest This Girl Can Victoria recruit, Dr Sheila Nguyen, it opened the door to one of life’s greatest gifts..
“When I turned 10, I distinctly remember there was an opportunity to play soccer, football – the beautiful game – and I actually forged my parent’s signature and played soccer, and that changed my life completely.
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“I was raised traditionally Vietnamese, so for a lot of times I was encouraged to participate in activities that were deemed ‘girl appropriate’. So, that’s playing the piano and participating in art and drawing, and so on.”
While Sheila’s parents believed they were doing the best thing for their daughter, in fact, it was leading Sheila down the path of a life littered with challenges stemming from her lack of physical activity.
“As a young person not being able to engage in sport, I remember the direct result of that was that I became quite obese. I often said to myself that I was fat and I was overweight. I felt excluded from society because of the fact that I was always indoors and not engaging in the opportunities that sport allows you.”
The lack of connection with the outdoors and others led a young Sheila to feel excluded from society. Years later, as the founder and Executive Director of the Sports Environment Alliance, a not-for-profit organisation empowering sport to do more for our environment with less impact, Sheila believed her world would be surrounded by sport and the outdoors, but as a new parent, she found this increasingly difficult.
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“When I stopped being active, which is when I had my son, there was a lot of, I guess, a feeling, a fear of judgement that you are selfish and that you are looking only after yourself and that you’re neglecting your responsibility as a mother, which is a real fallacy because you know, at the end of the day, you must look after yourself so that you can do the best job in those (areas of) responsibilities – in those roles professionally or personally.”
A work colleague encouraged Sheila to simply start walking, to take back some of her own time. This has led to a discovery of a love for jogging, which she combines with a lower impact indoor workout.
“You know, running is one of those things. I remember when I was younger, I really despised running and then I got into it and then I started really getting into it and the reason why I loved running so much, was it brought you outdoors. Additionally, I’ve chosen barre as one of the things I do fairly frequently. It’s kind of like a ramped up yoga slash pilates and I love that. You know, because of the fact that one, there’s a defined amount of time and you get really concentrated amount of activity. But as well, it’s just the atmosphere. It’s quite welcoming. You can be any shape, size, and you can still engage, which I love.
“Being physical inspires me in the way of allowing me to feel stronger and allowing me to feel more empowered, and also the places that sport takes you. I choose to fill my cup. I choose myself and I choose to take care of myself. I think, at the end of the day you can reason, you can rationalise and put so many challenges in front of you – fears and judgements and questions – and then it stops you. So, I think, just do it!
“This Girl Can empower herself to do right by herself; to take care of herself; to play, to be free; to enjoy her life for now and for the future.”
