Pilates delivers many opportunities to practice moving through fear. You start by walking in the door to a new place and doing something you are not quite sure about. You begin to understand the movement and gradually add more challenge. You learn to sit without using your hands before you get to the big stuff. If you’ve never tried it, Pilates can be a scary thing. Before you know it, you are doing the things you saw someone else doing that honestly scared you. But you did it anyway. Pilates sets you up with the basics and helps you develop strength of body and nerve to accomplish scary things. You build one exercise and concept to the next. You don’t start with the big stuff. 

This overcoming of fear in the safe environment of the studio eventually bleeds into your life. Just like you can sit up better from practicing the Roll Up, you can find the confidence to stand up for yourself at work. Or you try something that terrifies you like zip lining. Sometimes I wonder what would my life would be like if I still let fear stand in my way. What if I had been too afraid to try teaching in the first place? What if I had let the comfortable, safe and familiar run my life? Through Pilates I learned how to approach fear. I practiced working with it and overcoming it. 

There has been no shortage of moving through fear this year. I made some giant changes and a lot of them happened all at once. In a matter of 27 days all of these things happened. My car was totaled in my apartment parking lot after my husbands car had been totaled in the same way 8 months prior. Ten days later I moved to a new Pilates studio. Two days later we got the keys to our new apartment. Five days later I was surprised with a new car for my birthday. Ten days later we were fully moved. Do I recommend all of this at once? ABSOLUTELY NOT. It was hard and it sucked. But I did it anyway. How was I able to do this? I learned from my challenges before. I already had a community of support around me. I had a routine of things I did to care for myself. I reminded myself that the fear was temporary. I reminded myself of that changes that had to happen. I needed change. I needed a new car. We had to move to a new apartment in a few months anyway. What I learned from this challenge is that the longer you let things go without tending to them, the harder it is to make the change. That and just how quickly I can pack. We all have those moments of fear. The difference is what you do with the fear. Will you let it push you to the limit or will you lean into the fear and push through? 2020 is almost here. What will you choose?