Changes, Easy & Forced: The Sister Effect

Past Effects on your Present Pilates

I’ve got the 1979 hit “We Are Family” by the inimitable Sister Sledge banging around in my brain. The line, “I’ve got all my sisters with me” is on repeat.

The reason why is because I recently was able to spend time with my three sisters whom I love very, very much.

One lives in California, one in Utah, and one in Washington. I live in Australia. (can you believe none of them live near me? Rude! Well I guess I am the one that moved to the other side of the planet so, my bad)

When the four of us get together, which is never often enough, it’s cause for a celebration. Ooh, and now another song pops into my brain: “Celebration” by Kool and the Gang, circa 1980! (here's a more current version of it for your earwormy pleasure)

While it was great to see these three amazing women who are very important to me I also had a funny revelation about our relationship.

The revelation got me asking some questions:

• Are we allowed to change?
• Are we consigned to forever be how we were when our family relationships were formed?
• Why do we feel like we've matured but still automatically get pulled back into our previous role when we hang out with our family?
• What are the forces that pull us back that way? Habitual, mental, emotional?
• Why does it seem that some changes feel easy and organic while for others we have to be extremely forthright and almost force a change in our behaviour?
• Are we allowed to, and/or must we grow, transition, mature, and move on?
• And finally, Hey, isn't this a blog about Pilates? How do all these questions relate to an exercise method?? (I ask myself that all the time, lol)

Will I answer all of the above questions? 

Don't hold me to it but let me tell you a couple of stories about my seester relationships

I'm a middle kid, number three in the line up. Two of us have tattoos that show our birth order, here's a crappy photo of mine:

Growing up I was the shy, awkward, socially inept one. My younger sister (who always had her s**t together way more than me) was my conduit into the world. We shared a room and did a lot of stuff together so I would convince her to literally be my voice. If I wanted to buy something at the shops, I’d bribe her to go and talk to the sales assistant for me and ask them the questions I physically felt I could not. My two older sisters also appeared to me to have their s**t together so yeah, I often felt like a misfit.

As my mother always said, I was painfully shy but nowadays I’d say that I had really crippling social anxiety which showed up mainly by me being petrified to talk to strangers. I rarely raised my hand at school but also was frightened to answer the door or the telephone. (I still hate calling people - texting is an introvert's dream!!)

photo by Priscilla Du Preez

photo by Nick Fewings

Years on (our ages now range from early 60's to late 50's) I do feel as though I'm not the person I used to be but, at the same time, I'm also still very much that person.

When I get back around my sisters sometimes I'm surprised that even though these days I'm good at adulting, how it can shift and I feel like I did when I was a kid. Is it just that subconsciously the patterning's so familiar that I easily regress?

This last visit we actually joked about the pull between the opposites inside me.

When the three of them met me I'd just finished attending a conference by myself, which is always hard. I only knew a couple of people out of the hundreds attending so I'd been making a huge effort to de-wallflower myself and talk to people who were, gasp, strangers.

Surprise, surprise, I found that engaging with the other attendees turned out to be really rewarding and this is what the sisters were giving me shit about, commenting on who was this new putting themselves out there extroverted person and what had I done with my real self?

A non sister related example of time-warpy personality regression was my 20th high school reunion. At the time I was successful in my profession, my marriage, I had a child, and all up felt pretty confident in my life. But as the evening progressed and I was interacting with those people from my past I literally started to feel shy, insecure, and unpopular - the exact things I felt at age 15!

Have you ever had an experience like this? It really caught me by surprise and I felt as though my very foundations were rattled.
 

Past & Present & Pilates

Alright, the stories are out of the way so here's my Pilates segue:

First, isn't it hard not to bring our past with us into the Pilates studio?

What do I mean by that?

Do we walk through the studio door already expecting that we will fail at certain exercises? Do we base our current ability on how we've performed in the past, which btw, is a completely natural thing to do.

Do we tell ourselves that we’re the type of person or we have the type of body that can’t possibly do x y or z?  Do we tell ourselves that we’ve struggled with or never accomplished a certain exercise before so why should now be any different?

Or...

Can we stay with what is known as the beginners mind, i.e. can we be ultimately present with and within ourselves and see what unfolds? Can we try not to hold on to how we've felt before? Can we not regress mentally, physically, or emotionally?

Whoo, those things?

Those things are really hard things to do!!

Easy Changes

Have you unconsciously changed during the time you've been practicing Pilates? I bet you have.

Are there exercises that you can perform now that you couldn't at the beginning of your Pilates journey? Are there certain movements that are so much easier for you now that you don't really think about them anymore?

Were you aware of all of the micro movements and adjustments over probably many repetitions that made it possible for the change(s) to occur? 

If you've trusted the process of learning and trusted yourself (& maybe your teacher) then I'd bet you've had countless unconscious changes.

Consciously Forced Changes

Forced sounds a bit harsh, right?

What I mean is sometimes we have to put some effort into changing, especially if it's so easy to unconsciously slip back into previous thoughts and patterns.

Some Pilates exercises are hard, no bones about it and some will never be available to us but...

We can surprise ourselves when we go for something a bit too hard for our perceived level. It might not go perfectly (in fact it might be quite bad) but we'll always learn something to build on.

Like me getting out of my comfort zone and talking to strangers (or even - gasp - making a phone call!) sometimes we need to push ourselves so that we can re-write and progress our story. 

These intentional changes, the forced ones, coupled with the subtle, unconscious improvements over time, is what moves our Pilates practice forward!

So go now and embrace your inner Gemini - let the twins of easeful and forceful change be your guides and always remember to have fun.

Cheers, 

xBec

The information contained above is for informational purposes only. The contents of this blog are not intended to amount to advice and Rebecca Forde disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this post. 

cover and social photo by Melissa Askew