Learning to Listen to Silence: First of all.. I'm Sara

Before anything else, we are people - unique - each with our own story. Each with an extraordinary strength, able to reach us even in the darkest corners of ourselves. Sara is 29 years old and has worked as a model maker (i.e. one of the people who turns creative ideas into models and prototypes) for Terranova, one of the brands of the Teddy Group, for 3 years. The new Active line collection, dedicated to the world of sport, was launched with a campaign that, from Rimini, takes her name to the whole world - because it is really her story that becomes the protagonist. Before us was a blank page and the desire to tell, through the collection, a real story, able to speak and challenge women. And through the corridors of our offices, little by little Sara revealed herself with her vitality and her passion for running. But to truly understand how her story took shape, we need to take a step back. 

Imagine a road, and then imagine yourself walking it. What you will feel is enthusiasm, adrenaline, but also effort, fatigue. But there is more. Step by step, you discover you have conquered a new goal - no one asked you, it wasn’t part of a schedule to follow. Everything is the result of a choice, of a dialogue with your body, of a relationship with yourself that has led you to conquer an achievement. Small or big as it may be, that step is yours.

Along this road, Sara began her journey — a path made of falls and restarts, of shadows and distant lights in which running became the instrument of rebirth, the means by which to reclaim parts of herself that risked being lost. One step at a time, Sara learned a new way to look at herself, rediscovering her role as the protagonist in life. But to do that, she had to pass through silence and darkness.

Before starting to run, Sara was a classical ballet dancer - she was, until she was 19 - when university life, study, the desire to live fully a love (for the man who is now her husband) put her in front of a choice. Time was never enough, and Sara, after years spent on tiptoe, hung up her shoes, enduring a change for which perhaps she was not ready.

“It was a difficult time because I could no longer recognize my body, I experienced a sort of total blackout that led me to lose myself", she recounts, “especially in relation to my relationship with food. For two years I suffered from bulimia. Worries, thoughts, had led me to shut down. I kept asking my body something that it could not give me".
She continues: “I believed I was fine but couldn’t find anything to give me the strength to say ‘enough,’ so I continued that way for almost two years. I didn’t seek help from anyone; my parents understood it, but did not realize it at first because I was good at hiding myself. They saw it over time when it could have been too late. Then one day, I looked at myself in the mirror and I saw my eyes. They were empty, lost, and I understood that I could no longer go on like that".

That gesture that seemed so liberating dangerously approached a situation with no way out. Sara had to choose - but that choice in such circumstances is not definitive, not an immediate revolution. It’s a small but precious attempt.

“I said, ‘let’s try.’ I went for a walk, then I began to jog, I’d set myself a target - maybe a tree - and ran toward it. Once, twice, three times - from a game it became a passion. My body followed me. From that moment on, the awareness I gained at each finishing line triggered the true revolution that was in the way I saw myself and my body. I discovered a new relationship with food, I saw my body transform, and I saw food for the first time as true nourishment for my body. I discovered another life, made of values and flavors, learning to love through nuances".

Then Sara understood that that game, that trampoline for her life, could become something more. Today, after investing in sport, having trusted a coach, she has begun to earn her first victories, to be part of a team, and to push those small goals further. But the real victory was over herself.

“I began to see in me a new energy, new details. Before, I was focused on what I perceived as flaws; then I saw that I could win with my body as it is. My body is my helper and it needs food, rest. What we build, we build together. The bad moments are still there, but looking back I realized I was losing - and instead I desired to win. I desired to win against my demons and this changed everything, even how I understand beauty. Those shapes I once couldn’t look at, now I find myself thanking them: the shapes, the muscles, even cellulite, because it is beautiful to look at myself and say “I love you,” as beautiful as sharing it and being able to say it. Speaking to ourselves is the deepest thing we can do - we are the protagonists of all this. We must not remain hidden, but dare, dare without fear of anyone’s judgment, because life doesn’t go backward".

Sara testifies not only that rebirth is possible, but that it happens precisely where we feel the need to flee: “In front of you there is either darkness or light. Sometimes you must fall, see the darkness, cry, stay in a closed room, see everything from a negative perspective, but pass through that moment. Learn to listen to the silence when everything seems to want to distract you. It’s 5 seconds in which the possibility of a new life happens. Of a choice presented like a train passing by, which you need to board as soon as possible".

It does not matter how deep the abyss is, nor how empty the room is - small or large as the painful circumstance might be -  there are always those 5 seconds in which everything is at stake, in which life calls, in which a path appears, and enthusiasm, and adrenaline, and fatigue, and the fall - and then a new step. One at a time, until the run toward a new day.