It's just a phase

So me and my mummy bestie have a sentence we say to each other ALL the time... "it's just a phase". We say it when our babies won't sleep, when they are teething, when they refuse our beautiful cooked food, or any food for that matter. We say it to remind ourselves not to get "stuck. It's easy to get stuck in the moment and fixate on things so this little phrase is a nice reminder.

Ok, how does this relate to Pilates, health and wellbeing? Well, I really believe that if we all looked at our lives as ever changing phases or seasons that pass it would take away a lot of the pressure that we feel.

Now, like everyone I have an idea in my head of what my life should look like. I like to eat healthy, keep my house junk food free and stay active. But that's not my reality at the moment. I'm in a phase where I have a toddler that hates sleep, is poorly and can't be left alone for one second before he's teetering on the edge of some piece of furniture. And as you can guess a phase like that calls for LOTS of tea. And chocolate. And does a good job at killing any desire to exercise. Instead of beating myself up about drinking a ridiculous amount of tea (2 sugars if you are wondering!) I accept that it's the phase. I need the tea, I need the chocolate... well maybe I don't physically need it but it does help.

Trying to fight this is pointless. So instead I've accepted that when I have a particular bad night (or week!) with my buba I won't worry about how much tea I drink. I eat an otherwise healthy diet. I try to do at least a few minutes of Pilates every day. That's what matters. And soon (I hope!!!) this phase will pass.

So when you are in a bit of a funny phase and you realise you aren't living up to that "ideal" lifestyle in your head just know that it's OK. It's a phase. Eat the chocolate, do what you need to do to get through it and don't make it harder by being hard on yourself. Look for small positive things you can do to keep a little dose of healthy going even through the tough phases. Maybe it's 1 less sugar in your tea, or a 10 minute Pilates session instead of an hour. If you haven't done Pilates for weeks it doesn't mean your Pilates journey is over, or if you're eating huge amounts of junk it doesn't mean you can longer eat healthily.

It's a phase. Phases pass, it's how you view them that can have a lasting impact so try not to feel as though you are failing during these times , like all seasons they will come and go and we just have to try and keep as much of our healthy lifestyles going as we can without depriving ourselves of the things that will help us through it.

How can you keep a few small healthy things going when you are in a particularly difficult phase? I would love to hear your thoughts x