Welcome to this week’s Newsletter, I hope you have had a good first week in June.

We were back in both Face-to-Face and Online Classes with you last week and it was lovely to get moving and enjoy sharing Pilates with you all. We have at last sorted replacement classes for Mary’s groups in Loughborough for the Wednesday morning sessions cancelled on 20 May — these will now be on Wednesday 2 September — everyone involved will be notified via a text message to confirm. 

Your Whole Self this week is talking about what happens when life throws a curve ball — this was inspired by a friend and colleague of mine, Lillian Lartey, who is a Wellness Coach and she has written a lovely piece about how to manage this — I have shared a link to her Newsletter below.  

My Exercise of the Week is Leg Circles, a fabulous mobility and stability challenge for the hips and lower back. 

Face-to-Face Classes continue this week, except for Jenny’s classes in Rempstone while she is still away enjoying her holiday in Canada. Jenny will be back week beginning 15 June. Remember that nobody misses out, as the replacements for these classes were timetabled earlier in the year.

Online Classes continue and will follow the regular timetable. Remember — all Live classes are Recorded and available in the members' jtp.zone website for replay or to schedule into your own timetable. 

Finally, just a quickie for Online Class attendees — Zoom links are all newly created this week, so if you bookmark links rather than going to class directly from the jtp.zone, your bookmarks will be out of date.

The JTP Book Club

It's a new month, and here are this month’s recommendations: first one perfect for a holiday; second one a little darker.

Three Summers by Karen Swan — a good holiday read based on three summers, one in 1957, one in 1958 and one in 1961, a romantic story based in Italy. A light read which will transport you to 1950s Italy, something to lose yourself in. 

Night Swimmers by Roisin Maguire — Grace lives alone in Ballybrady, a little village on the sublimely beautiful east coast of Northern Ireland. She fills her days with swimming, fishing, quilting, and baiting the tourists who arrive from the city with more money than sense. She hasn't left the village since a traumatic stay in London as a young woman at the end of the 1980s.

Enjoy!

Inspired by my friend and colleague, Lillian Lartey, Wellness Coach and her Newsletter this week, I have taken a look at when life throws a curve ball and the effect this has on overall health and wellbeing. 

Lillian refers to the unexpected things that happen. It could be suddenly finding yourself in pain, or struggling with a severe illness, or possibly when those close to us are suffering — and the effects on our lives and wellness that this can bring. We might find our plans are interrupted, with a bit of a jolt, something that stops us in our tracks and changes what we thought this week, this month or even this year might look like. It throws us off course and this can make us feel frustrated, disappointed, even a little lost because suddenly, what we thought was normal doesn’t feel quite as steady anymore. 

What Lillian shares are three simple anchors that she has used when finding herself in this situation. These anchors are:

• vision — where we place our attention
• tools — what we have available to us
• support — who we allow in.

Vision — where are we looking? 

It is so easy for our focus to narrow when something shifts with our health or body and it is unexpected. We might find ourselves focusing on what we can’t do, what has changed and what feels difficult. Completely valid feelings which can make us feel quite heavy. But we can use our Vision to look at what is still available to us, what can we do today even if it looks different. Look for the small moments of progress, comfort or ease, and allow a little more balance in what we see.

Tools — what is still within our reach?

With uncertainty comes the feeling that everything has been taken away, but there are still tools available to us, they just look different than before. For example, slowing down instead of speeding up, adapting rather than stopping altogether. I often refer to this when I am teaching — we don’t have to do everything, but we can usually do something, and that something could feel small, but could be incredibly powerful.

Support — we don’t have to do it alone

If you are used to being very independent, asking for help can be very difficult. Many of us are used to managing, coping, getting on with things, but when experiencing a ‘curve ball’ it’s not a sign of strength to carry everything on our own. It should be a sign to reach out, ask for help, share how we are feeling, lean into the people around us. It could be family, friends, or people within our community who will support us exactly as we are.

The thread that runs through all of this is that when things don’t look the way we expect right now, it doesn’t mean that we can’t move forward, it just means we have to take a different path for a while. We might need a little more patience, a little more care, and kindness to ourselves, but it is something to hold onto. 

Here is the link to Lillian’s Newsletter, where she provides what she feels is important for our overall health and wellness. You can read all her Newsletters from there, and subscribe and follow her on the socials too.

Have a good week folks: keep looking, moving, and feeling good.

With love and support,

Jane xxx