I want to remind you this week about how amazing our bodies are. They have the capacity to heal and self-regulate and this never ceases to amaze me. The difficulties come because we lose faith in our bodies, we lose faith in our body’s ability to do the right thing for us, particularly if things go wrong — when we start to have trouble sleeping, we lose faith in our ability to sleep and rest; when we start to put weight on we lose faith in our ability to lose weight; when we have problems with mobility and feel we lose flexibility and strength we lose faith in our ability to move with freedom.

 

Plus we live in a world that is constantly telling us that we need ‘X’ amount of hours sleep to be healthy, we need to follow ‘X’ diet to lose weight, we need to do ‘X’ amount of exercise to ensure we keep fit. So we try to follow these rules and when they don’t work for us, we lose faith.

 

The reason that all the ‘Xs’ cause us to lose faith in our body is because the fact is that each one of us has a unique relationship with sleep, diet, movement. Our bodies are designed to find the right way of doing something for us. We just have to find ways of building our trust and faith in our bodies again. 

 

Very often the lack of faith we have in our bodies doesn’t start with the problems we have with sleeping, eating and moving, but come from a deeper place. For example, the way we live our lives on a daily basis can affect sleep, diet and movement. Living our lives at top speed, never having time for anything, we eat faster, skip meals, breathe quicker, hug less, laugh less, cry less, love less, feel less … because all of this takes time that we feel we don’t have. But the fact that we do this stops us from believing our body can sleep and rest, eat healthily and regularly, move and be appropriately active.

 

I want to address this with you, because when I teach my classes I see groups of wonderful people, moving brilliantly and challenging their bodies with movement. I know that when I teach I give lots of different instructions and different visualisations for each movement we perform, because I recognise that we are individuals and each one of us will connect and resonate with at least one of those different descriptions. And I know that some of you will feel that you don’t move in the same way as your fellow class participant … but I am here to reassure you that this doesn't matter, this isn’t important. What is important is that you are moving in a way that feels right for your body, and that is all that matters … have faith in your body. 

 

So if you aren’t getting 8 hours sleep every night, don’t lose faith because your body will find the right amount of sleep for you, you just need to give yourself time.

 

If you are following the Low Carb Diet and you aren’t reaching the weight goals that your friend seems to be achieving, don’t lose faith because your body will find the right diet for you, you just need to give yourself time.

 

If you can’t perform a full roll up in your Pilates class, but your neighbour on the mat next to you can, don’t lose faith because your body will find the right level to perform the roll up for you, just give yourself time.

 

Give yourself time folks and keep the faith in your wonderfully unique body.