When I received some feedback this week which started with the words I feel like I have lived the majority of my life with self doubt … particularly when it comes to exercise … it made me feel sad. But also it made me feel a little bit angry, angry that this person has felt like this for nearly her whole life, and the effect this will have had on this person’s health.
It starts when we are little: maybe we were told we weren’t very good, or maybe we felt our friendship group were better than us, and maybe felt left out if we couldn’t run as fast, or jump as high, or catch the ball … or maybe we couldn’t do cart wheels, or handstands, or move like we felt we should move. These thoughts and feelings stay with us and can stop us from ever participating in activities and exercise again, specially if it involves being with a group of people. We have fear of
not being able to do the movement, or not being as good as someone else in the group, feeling judged by others, and the feelings grow and we can feel intimidated, so what do we do? Some may carry on regardless, but for some it can make us STOP.
I’m sad, because as we age the lack of exercise for us can affect so many other areas of our health and wellbeing and our life. In all my years working in the fitness world, I have learned that there is no movement that is wrong or bad for us, its just that our body isn’t used to doing the movement, and in the words of Joseph Pilates — movement heals.
My anger comes from the fact that I feel the fitness world can make us feel bad, make us feel that we aren’t doing the right thing, make us feel that we should be doing more, and therefore we should feel bad about not exercising enough, not looking as we should look. It almost relies on people feeling unhappy and bad … and this makes me angry, because it compounds the feeling of self-doubt that people may feel about joining in with exercise.
I hope that no-one feels like this when they do JTP classes, whether it be online or in person. When you come to my classes I want you to Pilates as you are, move as you are, for everyday life. No comparison, no judgement, no need for self-doubt, because when you move, you move for YOU and that is the only thing that matters.
