Recently I had the chance to spend a whole day at the computer. As a mummy to two pre-schoolers, this felt like a rare treat. A whole 7 hours just for my computer. No noses to wipe. No popcorn to pop. And what did I notice by the end of this happy event, with its trail of ticked boxes behind me? I felt SORE. That same week a Herald article determined how many hours of movement it takes to counteract a work day spend sitting: The answer is a whole hour of exercise. Doing the maths, that means a 5 day working week necessitates 5 hours a week of exercise.
No wonder I felt achey after my day in the office. I had forgotten that desk bound workers experience this every day and just how horrible it is as it builds up. Is this your reality? Or is it different for you? If you have three legs to your stool: Family, Career and Health, so often it seems one is left to flail. And because health and fitness is often the more flexible and less instantly demanding option, it’s the one that’s often put back. Yet how can you afford to lose your health when you want to stick around for those you love? Nor will you be role modelling what you would want for your children.
(If you want to do a 2 minute life balance check, click on this website. It’s got a life balance wheel you simply mark up and get an instant snapshot of where you are excelling and where you can expand a little more – invaluable.
And here’s the kicker. Most likely nobody’s going to hand your life balance to you on a velvet cushion. Unless you have amazingly pre-emptive in-laws, full time help or a mind reading husband, nobody will give it to you. You have to claim it.
As I have myself experienced so many flavours of guilt, claiming, and guilty claiming, I feel sensitized to what I am privileged to have shared with me at the studio. Mums of young children in 7.30pm classes, expressing their guilt about missing story time. (I am frequently that woman myself). My heart goes out to the exercise loving woman who declares ‘the stars have to align for me to come to class’ (meaning I am keen as mustard but I require: husband not caught in traffic, baby already fed and not teething, siblings homework done and preferably in pyjamas.) I enjoy the delightful matter of factness of the thrice over mothers who hardly ever miss class as they know how important their life balance is, and I feel so happy for them when I intuit it’s clearly part of an actively supportive understanding between themselves and their other half. (And I silently thank these wise women as they give me strength in my own resolve.) Maybe that’s because they have been ‘there’. So consumed by the exhausting demands of small children and daily tasks that they know deep inside they just can’t afford to let themselves go to ‘that place’ ever again. (Yes, I am speaking of myself again here too.) Then there’s the lovely brand new mum the other week who told me how supportive her husband is of her getting out for a bit of fitness and in return what she does to support his training. There’s the husbands who book their wives’ class vouchers, and wives who book husbands’ visits. And there‘s the whole spectrum in between which is maybe somewhere where you find yourself today.
We are all part of the ongoing flow of the river of life. Some of us in the rapids, others in the shallows, some nearing the rocks, others caught in a current, some recovering after successfully navigating a rough patch, and all of us, hopefully doing the best we can.
So here I can only encourage you to claim what you know you need. (And remember folks: Claiming it once isn’t always enough. Often you have to reclaim it many more times.)
And in terms of health we have a few good reasons to get with it this month
- Free structural assessment as we start our early morning warrior challenge classes
- Free gentle yoga class for someone you love
- Six New Meditation Techniques -course starts next week
- My Ayurvedic Solutions for Vibrant Health workshop on this Saturday.
- Plus we’re extending class passes when they collide with Christmas!
Ripper! Let’s get started!
-Christina