Pilates

 It's the last day of March and I completed a goal and I need to quietly declare it.  Oddly, I also feel the need to publicly post it which is curious.  I guess I'm proud of it and want it to stick in my history.  I subscribe to an online group called the Balanced Life Sisterhood.  It is a pilates fitness workout group essentially but also it is so much more.  I pay a monthly fee.  It's not free.  For the fee I get a new workout schedule each month that I can do as my schedule allows and includes other things like recipes, podcasts, a facebook group for support and encouragement, etc.  I began this journey last year in March with an invite for a 5 day free workout challenge and I liked the workouts so I joined the group.  

Like all workout deals I have had months where I did great and some that I didn't do so great but somewhere along the line I found myself getting stronger and more flexible and I gained confidence and I gained purpose and I also gained something I haven't had acces to for awhile.  I started to believe in myself again.  Noone in my day says to me what I began to hear when I rolled out my mat and pushed play on my workouts.....I heard things like " if this is where you are today, that's ok.  be ok with where you are at today and celebrate that you showed up on your mat today.  every workout is a chance to get stronger"  acceptance plus encouragement plus a little sprinkle of challenge and push is a really good thing.  

In January I managed to do each workout on the calander.  I didn't do them all in order but for the first time I figured out how to complete them all and it felt good to try them all and get them all in.  February I did the same.  March came along.  There are 31 days in March.  It has been a busy month but come on...I managed it for 2 months already and I've been doing pilates now for a year....so I whispered a quiet goal to myself to try to do all 31 of the workouts before the end of the month.  I got close.  So close.  I got to this last week and there were 4 days left of the month and I had 8 workouts left.  Some are 10 minutes and some are 24 or 30 minutes...and some are really hard and some are stretching and breathing and mindfulness....but you just don't know until you hit play.....so I decided I could work hard and I could do it.  

I did it.  The last 8 workouts were not stretching and breathing...they were abs and core and arms and oh my word I'm stiff and sore but I did 2 workouts every day this week and I got all 31 workouts done for March.  On its own its not a big deal but when you are middle age and feeling conflicted so much of the time, it is a really big deal to be able to feel accomplished and achieved... ( and sore. ) for the right reasons.  

Kind of makes me excited to see what the April calender has to offer....