3 years ago, a great teacher* of mine taught me a phrase that I really love, and now often use in my own classes. She said:

“We know what the weather outside is. But how is the weather inside for you?”

The first time I heard it, I was able to tune in instantly, curiously and with no sense of judgement as to how I was feeling at that point in time. It is that latter point that was a completely new revelation for me. Tuning into my body had become second nature to me by then, and I'd become so much better at being able to identify how I was feeling on an emotional level as well as physical. Yet I struggled to not feel a need to do something in response to identifying my emotional state. I would judge how I was feeling to be positive or negative, and would either begin a process of trying to hold onto that feeling, or running away from it. Rather than acknowledging 'how' I was, I'd make a judgement about 'who' I was based on that emotion and change my behaviour accordingly. 

Let me say this clearly: No emotion is a bad emotion.

We need to be able to tap into different emotions to give us our whole range of being human and to give perspective to each individual emotion. We need sadness, joy, guilt, anger, grief, embarrassment and the whole gamut of emotions. They are a fundamental part of what makes us human, and they teach us how to relate to and connect with others. Way back, before we had language, these emotions WERE the language we used in our social cultures and tribes. They were also our internal signals as to what we contributed to, needed from, and how well we were functioning in our tribe.  
 
Now, I think I logically knew this a few years back. I'd probably seen the Disney animation 'Inside Out' by then (watch it and get your kids to watch it - it perfectly encapsulates our internal emotional system). So I kind of got it. But I certainly didn't really believe it within myself. It took an analogy for me to see my emotions more objectively and as a result to, ironically, feel them more clearly.
 
Considering my emotions and moods as internal weather allowed me to accept their presence and that they would pass. I saw the 'feel goods' like sunny days and rainy days (I absolute love the rain!!!) filled with energy, creativity and joy. I saw the 'feel mehs' as foggy or dull days where energy was lower or flatter yet things still happened just in a different way or at a different pace. And sometimes it was just a storm that would be messy, but it would pass. I realised that I accept all atmospherical weathers unquestionably and accommodate them accordingly, yet I hadn't been doing this with my own weather. I became kinder to myself as a result of accepting my emotions, and my emotions become more regulated and less extreme (at some point I'll wrote a blog about emotional regulation - a fascinating subject - but it's not for today!). 

By accepting how I am, and FINALLY with no judgement, I now make better choices for myself with regards to how to best meet my needs. Sometimes the changes are subtle. A bit like knowing I'd best take a warmer jacket when it's cold, I might choose not to go to places that will make me feel worse or potentially dull my sparkle. Sometimes the changes I need to make are more substantial. I might need to have a difficult conversation or, yup, give myself a kick up the backside. Usually the big changes come when I realise certain emotions aren't passing as naturally as they might otherwise, and I realise I'm stuck. 

As Brits we’re socially conditioned to talk about the weather pretty much most days. But I wonder how often, in general as a nation, we take time to observe our own internal weather. I suspect not enough. Maybe our starting point is to clock when we mention the weather of the day, and to have a wee internal check inside to our own feelings too.

As Billy Connolly once said "There's no such thing as bad weather - only the wrong clothes". Indeed there’s no such thing as bad clothes, just inappropriate or misinformed self care.

​* thank  you to Clare Gates-Sjoblom, known affectionately by us teachers as 'yin yoda', for this phrase and for your teachings. That simple turn of phrase hit me deep and changed much. <3 <3 

We had a full on few days of activities and for the first time in many years I ‘double-did’ on some days (i.e something sporty in the morning / something else sporty in the late afternoon). We did such a mixture: road biking, road running, mountain biking, fell running, hill climbing. We rolled out our mats and yoga-ed. 
🧘🏼‍♀️ 
And we both commented on how much we felt like we’d got ‘us’ back again. 

Since we first met, hub and I have been big movers. We thrive under high levels of activity, and the ruggedness of adventure. Our first decade together involved trips to mountainous regions all over the world to trek and climb peaks plus getting out on our bikes for hours to explore the Scottish landscapes. He climbed higher and harder, I cycled further and faster. 

​Our challenge has often been resting and staying still! 
🧘🏼‍♀️ 
We’ve been working on this and have been trying to find the balance these last few years. At times during this process, we have both felt like we have lost our adventurers within. In reality we’ve just not wanted the big challenges we thrived on in our younger days, and we’ve struggled with how to find the motivation without the ambitious goals. He no longer wanted to climb the world’s highest peaks. I no longer wanted to race all over the world. Our priorities changed. I turned to yoga, hubby turned to study and learning. We evolved, but an essence of ‘us’ lay dormant.

Somewhere, sometime, not so long ago, one of us realised that we needed outdoor adventure back. Life just didn't feel the same. Something was missing. So we put up the photos that most epitomised ‘us’ and we longed to feel the life in that essence again. 

It's no coincidence that movement is my modality. I find movement such a metaphor for life and often look to it to teach me what I need to see, or to gather the resources that I need to build within myself.

Of course, yoga and pilates are important practices for me to play out these metaphors: when I need to feel strength I am drawn to strong standing poses, when I need to go inwards and look within myself I am drawn to forward flexion or the stillness within yin poses. 

But I also feel these metaphors in sport: the challenge of long endurance sessions when I have to apply patience and conserve my energy, the process of moving forward when I want to stop and learning to dig deep and keep focused towards my goal when other things threaten to get in the way.  

It's triathlon that has taught me a big lesson recently. It highlighted to me how I have been transitioning through stages and phases of life.  In triathlon, 'transition' is the change time between each of the swim, bike, run elements of the race. It is the moments between getting out of the water in the swim and onto the bike, and then the moments from getting off the bike and out onto the run section of the race.
Transitions in triathlon are about being smooth, focused, efficient. They are about getting to, then settling into, the next phase of the race as quickly as possible.
    
During my prime competing days in triathlon I was an ace at transitions! I could get off my bike, get my helmet and bike racked, trainers on, gels picked up and then back out the transition area for the final run of the race in well under 30 seconds. Many of my medals were won on the basis of my transition times being quicker than my competitors. I was known for my fast transitions and would often hear coaches tell their athletes to watch and learn from how I did them! It was about being organised and focused and decisive. 

​So I find it hilarious, and ironic, that I can be fairly rubbish at dealing with transitions and change in the bigger context of my life! In my younger years, maybe not so much, but as I get older I've definitely found it more challenging to know which direction to go in, what to let go off, what to take with me, and I really care more about how others are handling the transition too. If I play out the metaphor, my transitions in life these days are the equivalent of me finishing the swim and then taking my wetsuit out on the bike leg with me while also having a full bag of snacks because I don't know what I might want for energy, and then trying to lug my bike with me while I run and during ALL of that I'm hell bent on making sure that my competitor has got out of the transaction area unscathed and onto her bike ok too. Jeepers! 

I AM going through a transition at the moment. I've changed my work pattern to suit my energy levels better and I'm in the process of building up some work nearer to my home to make commuting easier on myself. I think that I'm now in that decisive, focused stage of transition but I had a heck of a faff about getting to here.
We moved to the country 6 years ago to enjoy a different lifestyle, a quieter and less busy one. Yet, I insisted on keeping my city life going at the same volume and pace as it had been. My working days became way longer! 7am get ups needed to become 5:30am get ups in order to not sit static in traffic. Dinner time got later and time sitting in cafes increased as I wasn’t able to pop home between working both ends of the day. There was me metaphorically lugging the wetsuit and bike with me into the next stage of this event called life, but not sure what to put down where and when and what to take with me. 

The light bulb came when I realised that I actually love getting up at 5:30am. It really suits me. So the other end of the candle had to stop burning. It was time to stop spending my evenings coaching running groups, something I’d been doing for 18 years. It was a decision that I found difficult to make but knew that I had to. It was time to leave it lovingly in the transition area. Of course I was taking all the lessons and experience I’d gained from those 18 years forward with me, because they were threaded through me and integrated into how I work with people in others ways.
    
Once I had made that decision, things felt so much easier and it was clearer to focus on moving forward with a different energy. I am settling into the new pattern of working and I can feel that I'm beginning to flourish from it. My energy levels are significantly better and as a result my thoughts are much clearer and more positive. I'm doing less 'managing' my life, and instead I'm enjoying 'being' in my life. It does feel like a load has lightened and I'm actually doing more while also feeling incredibly rested. Deciding what to let go off has also helped me focus on what does fill my working week. I really enjoy my time in Edinburgh much more now and can think clearer when working with clients there. I've got other work much closer to home now too and it lets me have study and creating time which is so important to my development. When I wind down at the end of a working day I have an evening now to spend with friends, catching up with tv or just doing life stuff. It feels great. Really great. 

I can see in hindsight actually that the process of transition is simply a case of decide, focus, action, go. It really was like my triathlon transitions used to be. I would decided exactly what I needed, where I was laying it out, what order to do it and then it was just a case of focus, action, go. The decision was the hardest bit. And I guess sometimes it takes getting to a place of carrying too much and losing energy before you even realise that you need to make some kind of decision and what is serving your energy and what isn't.
​ 
So, thank you triathlon for teaching me about life - again! I'm ever so thankful that you are a force, and a resource,  in my life.  

I suspect I am not the only one who finds my relationship with social media a challenge. My struggle with it is ongoing.  

Some of my closest friends have turned their back on Facebook, Instagram et al and they no longer feature in their lives. My husband tells me he doesn’t miss scrolling through pages of minion quotes while drinking his morning coffee (he has a point!) and if anyone wants to know what he is up to then they can pick up the phone. He occasionally asks me who is up to what, but it’s clear that he doesn’t miss it.  

My stock line, when he extols the virtue of being socially media-less, is usually ‘If I didn’t run a business then I wouldn’t be on it either’. But in reality, I’m not entirely sure just how true that is. I wonder if perhaps it’s a very handy excuse for me to keep my social media presence up. 

I go through phases of being more on or more off social media and it’s true that more often than not work related things pull me back in to time on Facebook and Instagram. For sure, I can’t then resist a scroll but is this really such a bad thing?

When I have periods away from social media I do feel more calm in general. I feel less overwhelmed about everything that is going on everywhere else and instead I focus on my own wee world. I spend more time thinking about those who are closest to me, doing things that make me tick and I make decisions from a more internally focused base. I want to connect with specific individuals to find out how they are and what they are up to. I want to make contact – real contact – with them. I have more time to do all the things that I keep harping on about that I’ll do when I have more time. I write, I pick up a set of pencils and draw, I watch the tv programmes that I really want to watch and I read. I feed my soul with greater nourishment when I am not on social media. 

Yet, when I find myself back on it, I am just that little bit more connected with certain people I wouldn’t otherwise be, and I get to geek out on specific subjects that are easier found this way. I love seeing updates from friends who live in different time zones, and those from friends I know from years back. I find out that the runners I used to coach are still running and it warms my heart a little bit. I like to find out what events are on, what classes and workshops my friends are running and I often find out about great training courses from social media. I regularly immerse myself in an academic journal or interesting podcast after following a link on Facebook and I feel part of an international community of other movement practitioners who are forging new ways forward in this field. It doesn’t feel so much like I have a Fear Of Missing Out, more a curiosity of what’s going on elsewhere. 

But, I guess, it’s when the scrolling gets out of control and my time on there shifts from curiosity to overwhelm that I need to get mindful.  

It can be so easy to get lost down a rabbit hole or to get pulled into the alternative versions of reality that others want us to see.  Our news feed is a very narrow perspective of what is going on around us, and a very audited one. It can be so easy to believe that others are leading more exciting, successful, happier lives than we are, without us knowing the truth behind the pictures and the words. We can fall prey to the reactions of others, seek approval from strangers and downgrade our worth all based on the content of our carefully targeted feed. I’m guilty in the past of believing that I need to be more than I am after 5, 10, 30 minutes of mindless scrolling. 
 
And I think it is the minFUL- or mindLESS- ness of our interaction that we need to look at with regards to the quality of our relationship with social media. Yes, of course, there can be times when it’s fun to look through memes of cats and dogs doing cute or funny things. And there will be times when we sit reading through things to then discover that it’s not really for us or worth our time and energy.  But it’s doing it with awareness that is the key. Are we taking a short break to have a bit of a laugh or some mini-connection with others? Or are we procrastinating and settling for a filtered connection to avoid facing some kind of void in our life? 

For me, I do enjoy some of the rabbit holes that it takes me down and the new knowledge that I can gain from using this media. I am a seeker and I always want to learn more. My thirst for knowledge can be difficult to quench and social media is a tool (not the tool) that helps with that thirst. It also provides me with an outlet to share my own learning and to expand my teaching outwards to those who find me in their own news feed and who follow their own curiosity. I’m aware now that being myself when I write will connect me with those who align. Trying to be someone I'm not, or trying to be flashing and headline-y just makes me feel bad about myself.     

Like any relationship it's about finding out what you can both give to each other and how you can support and add value to each other. If that’s spending three hours scrolling cat memes, then who am I to judge? If it gives you a community of support you cannot get elsewhere, then great. It doesn’t matter what it gives you as long as it feels to you that it is adding value. But if it makes you feel less good about yourself, stops you doing positive thing that you might otherwise do, or it causes you mental stress then your relationship with it needs to be reviewed. Perhaps you do need time away to gain perspective and to discover your needs from this relationship. Maybe you will never go back, like my husband, and the relationship has served its time. Maybe like me, you’ll continue to work your way through it, discovering what it gives you and how you can work together.

Part of this working together could be shedding your newsfeed of posts that no longer align with you. Unfriend, unfollow, take a temporary break even, from anything that doesn't speak to your real self.  Be mindful, be aware and you might discover a whole new perspective (and news feed) that you are in control of and not at the mercy of. 

Much love peeps 

CT <3 xx 

I am asked many questions about pilates: what it is, how it compares or differs to yoga, which do I prefer, what's my stye of pilates, what do I get from pilates - amongst other things.

In truth, I have searched for the answers to many of these myself. My thoughts  have changed over the years, but there's always been a sense of me just knowing, yet not able to articulate it, and so I've waiting until I had *THE* answer before I dared express my opinions. It's almost 10 years since I first "found" pilates and finally I realise that pilates is many things to many people. There's an origin to the practice and there's also an evolution to it. And each and every individual who practices pilates has their own origin and evolution of the movement method. As I've found my tribe of fellow teachers I've realised that they too have at times struggled with what pilates is to them, especially when they have made transitions in their personal and working life, and most definitely when they have deepened their knowledge of the body and of human movement. I've been grateful to realise that I'm not the only one who questions my connection to the practice, and who some days questions their whole relationship with it!

I've explored many edges and roads off pilates, and I've de-constructed the exercises to a point where they are no longer recognisable. It's given me an incredible array of tools to use with my clients, and it has helped me heal my once broken body from years of physical and mental abuse. That journey has been invaluable and I am forever grateful for the tangents that I decided to explore. Yet, I've known that there is something magical about the traditional repertoire and there is depth and complexity within its seeming simplicity.  I know it because it's what I felt at the very beginning, in my first few months of being taught pilates. And while I learnt and practiced the repertoire back then, almost a decade ago, the path I thereafter chose to follow avoided the most obvious exploration of all: that of the traditional repertoire. I have craved that exploration often, yet been taken off tangent once again, or I've been distracted by a shiny new object (oh, hello yoga training...!).

Finally, here I am now, 10 years later, finally exploring it and keep my practice within the tradition. And finally I understand my journey. 

Pilates smacked me in the face 10 years ago. It was a last chance saloon at healing an injury that had been dogging me for months, and I reckoned I had nothing to lose by trying. I left the session not quite knowing what had happened to me, but my body felt like it had never felt before. In fact, the phrase that I am actually looking for is 'I felt my body'. I'd spent decades living inside my head and being disassociated from my body, but in that hour I felt it, properly felt it. It was the weirdest, most wonderful, most terrifying thing ever. But I knew I didn't want to go back. The feeling was so so strong that my connection to pilates was sealed forever. It is that memory that brings me back to pilates every time I stray and every time I wonder if I have moved on from the practice.  As I practiced over the next few months I felt things I hadn't felt for years.  As I moved in forgotten ways and experienced releases of tensions and pain in my body, I was gifted (and sometimes tormented) with memories of my past. The body remembers and these memories had been trapped in my body, stuck in my protective posture. As I gradually released the protection I was able to deal with these memories and feelings and I did truly go through  a psychotherapeutic process along the way. At times it was too difficult to go through myself and I was supported by a therapist, at others times all I needed was pilates (and yoga - I was also doing yoga at this point which is another story for another day). 

It's easy for me to see now why I couldn't delve in to the depth of the repertoire as a teacher in training. I didn't have that capacity at the time. I'm glad I didn't really, as I would not be the person that I am now - strong and healthy of body AND mind. But what the repertoire WAS for me then was a mirror. Each time I practiced and revisited an exercise I was able to feel the difference. When I felt that my mind, and its years of thinking, were being broken apart I could feel how my body could position into something easier or could feel somehow more connected. Yoga did exactly this same thing for me, and together they became my places  of safety. I knew I wasn't falling apart because I could still do xyz. 

What pilates also gave me was a mirror into my behaviour, and its consequences. The pilates studio became my little social laboratory of how to interact with forces, and ultimately people, around me. As I moved with the equipment, and my body interacted with it, or the floor, I became patently aware of my intention behind my movement, and when it was authentic, or protective. If I moved the springs and bars with aggression they bounced straight back to me and jarred my body. If I moved with fear and too much trepidation, I found I often couldn't moved the equipment at all. All the nuances of interaction seemed to me like a dance between the authenticity of the equipment and the then inauthenticity of myself. The most beautiful thing about pilates was, and is, that it was teaching me how to be me - completely me with no apologies and no protection. Yes, it taught me about my core, but in the sense of showing me the very essence of who I am. 

Pilates STILL means this to me.  This IS what pilates means to me. I am at peace with my body and I enjoy all the ways it moves. The mirror is there now in any movement practice that I  undertake (be that yoga, running or even circuit training). But I have still yearned for the return to the origin, to finally explore the traditional repertoire with depth. And so that is what I am doing. The mirror of pilates is teaching me once again. Where before it often showed me where my behaviour was not perhaps the healthiest for me, it often now shows me that I'm doing ok. Certainly I'm doing my best! A few weeks ago I realised I was meeting tension with tension. This is very true of me in my relationship with others. Today I realised that I can actually disperse the tension, and I can also understand where the tension is teaching me to be true to myself, and hold my ground. Am I actually learning how to not be afraid of conflict? All by doing leg circles with springs?! I think perhaps I am. 

The final piece I feel I must add to help you to understand what pilates means to me, and for my teaching, is that I realise that this is MY journey through pilates. When I first started teaching I felt that other should feel the way I do about pilates. It had to be a mirror for those I taught too. Then I could be sure that I was teaching them 'correctly'. What I know now is that no one else can ever feel that same way that I do about pilates. It's my origin and my evolution. Others may feel similarities to my connection with it, but actually, what's so incredibly interesting as a teacher is to discover the relationship that the person in front of me has with pilates and to help them deepen their practice from that place. Whatever pilates is for someone, it's true and real and valid and worthy of respect. My relationship with it will of course interact with theirs, and we'll meet at a place where we can connect as two human beings through the method of pilates. Sometimes we can't connect and it simply means that I'm not the right teacher for them at that time. And that's ok. There are others. 

For those who have practiced with me, taught me, been taught by me, I thank you for helping make me me. Quite literally. 

Caroline <3 <3   

​Did you know that as an embryo your arms developed before your legs did? Or that your heart was beating and developing before your brain was even on the horizon? 

I didn't until I studied this video the other week. It's fascinating stuff. Have a look! 

It gave me a new perspective on movement and my interest in bringing our own patterns back to the essence of who we are.    

The arms essentially originate from the heart, and come straight out of the body and around it. It looks like a big hug to me! A huge big hug from the heart saying "Here I am world". This really interested me as I thought about how we use, or don't use, our arms to express our heart. 

Arms are a tremendous source of our expression. When I see someone talking passionately I often notice the use of their arms to add more vigour and depth to their subject. As they get more involved in their subject the gesticulations can get bigger, involving the whole of their arms, the space around them and eventually the whole of their body. I see  it as a real symbol of talking from the heart. I often admire this sight as I 'found' my arms quite late in life. I never crawled, so never developed the full function of weight bearing on them. That coupled with being a shy, unconfident and fearful child meant that I either kept my arms by my side, or hanging onto my mother's hand for reassurance. Even during my pilates training I hated learning the upper body exercises with the group as I felt so exposed and vulnerable. Rationally I knew this was ridiculous, but emotionally it was very real for me.  

I think that in some ways many of us have lost the full expression of our arms. We spend a lot of time with little gadgets in our hands, working away with great finger dexterity, but keeping our arms quite close in to our body and expressing through our gadgets rather than with our body. Very often I hear people telling me that their shoulders or arms are weak. My feeling is that arms and shoulders are often restricted from movement, natural movement, and simply moving them more to begin with starts to unlock some of the strength within, which can then be channelled into more specific movements and activities as they start to find some freedom.*

For me, an 'arm-shy' mover, I took things slowly to begin with and I became curious to the movement. I pushed things and I pulled things. I tried swinging my arms more when I walked and using them a little more when explaining things. I also threw them about a bit in the privacy of my own room while playing music (I believe it's called dancing!). 

What I did discover is that moving my arms gave me a real sense of joy. Give me a down dog in yoga and I'm a happy bunny. Let me hug those I love and I sigh with bliss. When I exercise my arms now I have  a sense of strength that my legs have never given me. 

What I love more than anything about this embryology video therefore is the very real and original connection that our arms have with our heart. The arms' movement comes from the heart, both literally and metaphorically.  And when I close my eyes and imagine my movement as an embryo, discovering and then extending my arms from my centre, before I was even conscious of it, I can't help but feel a deep sense of internal power, growth and potential. It connects me deeply with my essence and taps into a part of me that I very rarely consider. I find that exciting! 

If you're arm-shy in any sense, close your eyes and picture yourself as this embryo (you WERE an embryo once!), feel your arms developing and giving you form. Feel them growing from your heart and your essence. What do those arms say? What do you want them to do? Where are they being restricted?

You may come up with some amazing new insights about yourself! I know I did! 
 CT :-) x 

* certain shoulder pathologies may need more formal and individualised guidance to movement 
    ​