I hope you have had a good week…

As a very quick update, Keith was discharged from hospital during the week and is now recovering at home. I don’t have enough words to thank the NHS nurses, doctors and all the staff at Derby Royal Hospital for taking good care of Keith but also in making me feel cared for too — where would we be without the NHS?

So what is coming up this week? All face-to-face classes are back, so please do remember we have an online Catchup system so you should book absences and Catchup classes there if you are going to miss your regular class.

Also for face-to-face classes, remember MASKS to enter and exit venues, plus any props you might need for your class, but also as the temperature is dropping wear lots of layers to class as we still have to ensure we have adequate ventilation when exercising indoors, which will mean windows will be open.

I would just like to thank everyone who comes to face-to-face classes for being considerate and respectful if someone within their family has to isolate or tests positive for COVID, I really appreciate that you are taking responsibility and taking care not to attend class in those circumstances …. It helps us to keep classes running — THANK YOU.

This week’s Exercise Of The Week is aimed at introducing the principles of Pilates to you. Perfect if you haven’t started Pilates yet, or you might be thinking about starting.

This is the first principle — Concentration — when we are practising Pilates we want to focus on the movement, focus on where we are feeling it, and what we are feeling, as well as our breath and quality of the movement. This is Part 1.

As with all Exercises Of The Week, please keep away from pain and work appropriately for your body.

Boundaries!

Do you find your time being stolen away from you or disappearing? You start the day with a list of things you wanted to achieve, but because of circumstances or demands being made by others you barely have time to look at your list. Or it might be time spent with people, family or a group of friends, who always want to meet in the evening, when all you want to do is be in your PJs by 7 having a hot chocolate!

If this happens a lot, it can cause frustration, and at worst anxiety. Perhaps you find it difficult to say no to someone if they ask for help, or you might find yourself not feeling strong enough to change things.

This is where using boundaries can help so that we can make a positive change to how we feel. Its not that you want to stop helping, or you don’t want to see people, but if it affects how you feel, then something needs to change, so this is where we need a boundary.

Yes I can help, but I need this to happen, in order for me to help you, so I will need…

Yes I would love to see you and spend time with you, it would work better for me if we could meet for lunch this time, as I like an early night

It sounds simple, and it is, but how often do we find ourselves sacrificing our own feelings in order to make others feel ok, or meet others demands?

It's all part of learning to support yourself so you can support others. It is perfectly acceptable to put some boundaries in place to protect your own wellbeing, your time, your feelings. So here is something you can start to do, make a list of the situations that make you feel that your feelings aren’t being taken into consideration. Then alongside that list, write down how you would like it to change. Now start to write out some statements that you can use, look yourself in the eye in the mirror and practice saying them out loud!

Support yourself, so you can support others better.