2023. The year of expanding from Pilates comfort zone.
2022 was the year I realized just how much I’m now able to do after to my practice for the past 6 years, showing up for myself, entering new areas, rooms and environments that are uncomfortable yet still spark joy in order to further grow because I’m worth it and deserving of more in order to grow. Right now though, I’m here with each of you, sharing my experience not from a place of vulnerability it implies your still healing from the trauma currently being shared, recovering and working through our baggage in order to forgive ourselves for accepting whatever lead us to feel bad, hurt, sad, lonely, angry, frustrated, and abandoned. Usually we accept this behavior because we think we are deserving and worthy of it when in reality, we have the power to do so much more for not only ourselves, but those around us when we take care of ourselves, fill up our own cup of self love and build the largest cup of resilience we possibly can for ourself in order to handle all the garbage life throws at us - because let’s be real: life requires more than a fucking 8 ounce cup to deal with the shit.
But now, this is from a place of reflection and openness as it implies that you’ve healed from that experience or trauma being shared because each of us is worthy of forgiveness and peace solely for ourselves, not the other person: karma will serve them the dish they deserve. We forgive for ourselves for accepting and believing whatever lead us to think we deserve to feel bad, hurt, sad, lonely because we think we are accepting and deserving of behavior we’ve accepted. We have the power to do so much more for ourselves and those around us when we know our worth, value, and prioritize ourselves, our needs, and fill up our own cup of self love while simultaneously creating a pool of resilience because let’s be real: life requires more than an 8-ounce cup to deal with the obstacles thrown our way.
This year overall was a challenge for me. It felt like one obstacle felt consistent, continuous, and relentless - one after the other, pushing me further down into the abyss. At the time, I would carry the mindset that I was a diamond still being created, and in order for it to shine and form, pressure is required; however, as the year went on, the diamonds underwent so much pressure or altering by the time I was able to see them, the obstacles turned those diamonds into dust, resembling glistening ashes whenever kissed by the sunlight. How heartbreaking is it to feel that everything you’ve put your time, effort and energy into just to witness something the resembles pixie dust before your eyes, spilling like a waterfall through your hands.
That’s how the year felt like for me: I created my this diamonds I was working on creating under pressure for myself to grow, sparkle, and shine - all to become the best Pilates instructor I could possibly become: a phrase deeply enraged from my teacher training days deeper than the Club Pilates framework. I later realize the universe disintegrated it on purpose because something greater came from that simmering diamond dust glistening on the floor like the sun hitting the ocean. A tower moment to realize there is still plenty for me to learn in the Pilates world, but my days as a student were over, and it was time to for me to spread my wings, and learn to fly and begin to share the knowledge that I’ve learned over the past 3 years. From that diamond dust, a phoenix emerged from those ashes; a unique, magical, and beautiful phoenix blessed with unique healing powers and shining so bright in flight that looking at her fly is like looking directly at the sun in the sky, because it’s an angelic taking on a silvery-white color - like the diamond’s ashes it was born from. This beautiful phoenix took over 30 years to form due to the plethora of lessons to learn and develop into, shining to unveil her light for the good of all and harm to none. Necessary lessons to realize who she is, am, was, and how the journey unfolded. It didn’t fully make sense at the time when the phoenix was developing and transforming, but we got there because it's angelic in flight: a silvery-white Phoenix that shines like the sun glistening on the ocean.
I got to reflecting and thought about sharing this with each of you reading from a podcast I enjoy listening too: On Purpose with Jay Shetty. I’m grateful for stumbling upon it and having it be a part of my life. Recently in one of his episodes, he shared 7 reflective prompts for reflective thought/shadow work: my guilty pleasure. Entertaining tasks to explore myself deeper, allowing myself to come to a better understanding of myself and allowing me to fill my cup of self love, to grow and expand until I’m became my own best friend, lover, partner, caretaker/guardian & savior, which had allowed me to realize just how amazing, beautiful, strong, and incredible I am - which is huge because I am very hard on myself, and I’m the first one to put myself down, reminding myself I could have pushed myself a little harder, a little more in order to get closer to my goal and further create the vision of the woman I’m becoming. I have a vision of her in my mind: she’s fucking stunning. Smokeshow are my words for the vision of her I’ve seen. For a while I spoke poorly of myself, accepted abuse and disrespect from those around me, and it ultimately prevented me from becoming my greatest, authentic, passionate, and beautiful self filled with love, light, happiness, joy, peace and abundance in the way that’s best for me. I am still hard on myself - that will never change - as have high expectations of me that allowed me to get where I am now. But I quickly realize that I would need to change the way that I spoke to myself if I was going to progress further along my journey.
So I’m going to share the experience with you that created angelic, white or silver Phoenix, In case your curious about the questions Mr. Shetty provided that prompted this blog post, I’ve listed them below incase you would also like to take a deep dive and unpack these powerful questions as well. There are 7 of them. And if you stumble upon this post after 2022, then you still have permission to unpack them; I come from a mindset of start now, at the time you decide you want more for yourself rather than waiting for a new year, week or day to begin implementing aligned action. You can also change the time frame; because carpe diam. In addition, you only need 1 answer, but may finding yourself stumbling upon more the more you sit with each question and unpack them.
So, if you feel inspired to explore, here they are:
What is the greatest challenge you’ve overcome this year?What surprise did you deal with?
What is something you bought this year - a material item - that brought you an immense amount of joy this year? Something that brings your inner child joy.
What is the best book/podcast/ you read/listened to?
What are your blindspots for next year?
What made you the happiest this year?
Who is the person you could not have gotten through this year without?
These questions have multiple answers as there are many challenges I've overcome, the biggest one was completing both teacher training programs just to take my life back into my own hands and allowing me to achieve my goal/dream of becoming a Pilates instructor. The other largest challenge was finding a work life balance in myself and career: how much can I work, teach, practice, grow, develop, and start live the life I’ve been working on creating for myself since April 2018 and still battling the different curve balls life enjoys throwing just to keep us on our toes and hopefully we can later call the struggles we had to endure entertaining.
My biggest mistake was thinking I’d be able to come up for air and begin to breath a little bit after obtaining my certifications, but that’s really where the challenges and growth truly began. At times it felt difficult to breath, like the world was against me, and like the goal was to make me fail or feel like I was failing as much as possible as if the world attached an anchor to my ankles, causing me to sinking down to the depths of the ocean with onlookers gazing in, nibbling on their popcorn, watching and waiting to see if I could remove myself from the chains weighing me down like David Copperfeild planning his escape while onlookers watched the diamonds disintegrate into ash in July. There were times where I had to remind myself each day,
“You woke up for a reason. Your spirit decided to come to this earth for a reason, already knowing the life you would have, the feeling, blocks, heartaches - the full picture of how your life would turn out. My dear, your higher self already knows how things are going to play out in order for you to achieve your purpose and life’s mission in choosing to come upon this earth. There is more work for you to complete in this life. My soul came down to experience, because if your work was done my eyes would have remained shut.”
These challenges placed in my way via the individuals the Universe choice to break the diamond worked because a phoenix can only arise from the ashes; therefore, a part of you needs to die, creating those ashes needed are the greatest blessing and the best thing that happened to me not only this year but in my life thus far because now I could finally become who I was meant to be, allowing me to tap down and begin to unlock my greatest potential, just like one of Copperfeild’s shows, except everyone who had chosen to watch witnessed the birth of the phoenix, and flying through the world now unleashing her gifts and letting them shine to everyone who’s is in need of them in order to heal, begin to tap into their own potential, and begin to bloom into their best, most authentic, and brightest version of yourself because each one of us has a fire within us that has the potential to shine so bright it’s like looking directly at the sun. The question then becomes though, are you willing to put in the work to get there? It requires a lot of pivoting, loss, and at times causes you to feel all alone out in the cold while having a panic attack. I would repeat the whole 2022 experience all over again because all the pivoting, redirecting, and reworking required allowed me to transform into the woman I am now writing this to you. It was the year of healing, rediscovering myself, and rediscovering what sparked me joy in order to establish any semblance of a work-life balance in order to fill my cup of love again while simultaneously creating an ocean of resilience.
I also realized is my blindspot going into 2023 is Pilates - my one absolute love that has helped me to power through everything so far - because I was transforming into a continuous student but not in a good way. A beginners mindset is needed in order to learn new tasks, skills and grow, but it got to a point where I felt I lacked value what I can bring to the table when really I have so much more to offer and I need to stop selling myself short, stop telling myself no, stop telling myself I’m not good enough because I am. In fact, I’m more than good enough, keeping me down in survival mode. This student mindset l was stuck in since 2019 lead me to self-reject myself from a lot of opportunities and possibilities I would have love to participate in and be a part of, and it took a while for me to come to terms with the fae that hose opportunities were never mine, and if they were, I would have attracted them to me, and they would have been offered to me because all I need to do on my end to achieve these opportunities is show up, do the work an accept them.
2023 is the year of expanding from Pilates the comfort zone, expanding from the student mindset, embracing growth because there is more for this goddess to explore as she arose from the ashes of diamond dust, transformed now into a bird, ready to sore and flying to her rightful place in the world she has now created for herself filled with peace, love, joy, happiness, abundance, respect, and an equal exchange of energy, love, respect with exploring the different areas that make her uncomfortable just to see how much more can she do? How much did this empress self-reject herself, and what more can she do to help enrich the lives of others while still attending to and caring for her tribe? We’re about to find out.
The best part, I have my best friend by my side through this new journey: me.
Happy New Year Beautiful Souls.