The GOOD, the BAD, + the UGLY!

I have been very quiet on my own blog for some months now, but the sun is finally shining today, and I have many words swimming around in my head, so i thought I would finally bite the bullet and write them down.

It is now June, and this year has been a roller coaster of emotions, experiences, laughter and tears, both personally and professionally.

I’ll start with the ‘Bad’ — > In March of this year I was struck down with a nasty virus that completely wiped me out, missing 3 weeks of work, made me miss running at the Olympic stadium with the Cambridge Bootcamp ladies, my 40th was a wash out, and my training took a massive node dive, as did my confidence. On the plus side, one of my 1-2-1 + bootcamp clients ran in my place, and these ladies did us all very proud here in Cambridge. A lot of the bootcamps girls especially Katie Huane have raised huge amounts of money for the Gold Challenge and the Arthur Rank house in particular, so not all bad 😉

The ‘ugly’ –> This is more difficult to express, but suffice to say that I have experienced such ugliness from people this year, that it knocked me for six. People I thought were good friends have shown themselves to be nothing more than spiteful vindictive ‘ugly’ people. Some of my friends and family know what happened, most of you do not. I always believe in my friends 150% which may be seen as fault, and believe me I have had to do a tremendous amount of soul searching over this one — Was it me? What did I do to bring this on? How could I have seen this coming? I became insular and self critical over that period, but over time, + with support  (+ loyalty) from GREAT people, and, knowing that one day, the truth may out, I am moving forward.  The truth is starting to out for some, which I thought may give me comfort, but actually I am just very sad that this happened in the first place.  I have learnt through this experience that we MUST keep moving forward, not dwell on the past, not focus on the thing or person making you sad, as this just feeds the energy  and leads to more sadness.

I can safely say that this episode is over, and whilst these ugly people still feel that can throw shit at me, I am no longer allowing this to affect me, my work or my family. Don’t ever give negative toxic people your head space – It will bring you down to their level, and there will always be people who want to bring you down, including our own inner voices. You have to use that inner voice to your favour, take action and empower yourself. It took me a while to learn this, but I am a work in progress 😉

The ‘GOOD!’ –> So much AMAZING stuff has happened this year and I am extremely proud of it –  I ran my first half marathon raising over £300 for Cancer Research – I am not a person who likes running particularly so this was a challenge in itself!

I turned 40!!! (That’s GOT to be an achievement!)

I have been privileged enough to train and work with some of the world’s leading Kettlebell coaches including Lauren Brooks, Mike Mahler, CJ Swaby, + James Breese. Through learning from these guys, I now have a goal to become RKC qualified next year (level 1) ~ These guys have all been truly inspirational, passionate, supportive, helpful and shown me a different way of being. Open minded, positive, soulful ~ in a world full of energy vampires, these guys alone have proved that you DON”T have to be like that in this industry.

I have loved every minute of this networking + training, so much so, that via Twitter, I met another amazing PT called Lizzie Wall (no relation, but a kindred spirit)  Together we have set up the blog  SWINGSISTA   The idea being that we post Kettlebell work-outs daily (WOD) which anyone can do. This has spread very quickly on Twitter (hash tag swingsista) and we have created an army of women who have embraced the warrior woman vibe (POSITIVITY, TRAINING, HEALTH)  So much so, that Mike Mahler has put a link to my website Purple Fitness on HIS website!!!  (SWOON!!)

I met Mike yesterday at a training weekend they have going on (for the second time). He spoke about Hormone optimisation, and I could have literally listened to him ALL DAY!!  If this is something that interests you, he has a  book out called ‘Live Life Aggressively’ which is just a phenomenal read. He spoke about how as humans if we are holding onto emotional trauma, no amount of training or clean nutrition is going to work as we will have a dark cloud that dictates decisions that we make in our lives. Whether or not you agree with this, I can definitely relate to it. I am aware that I carry my brothers death, and fathers disability around with me (amongst other things) I often feel anger, sadness, resentment, a feeling that ‘something’ is missing even when I am training well or eating right. So, when Mike was speaking yesterday much of what he said really hit home to me, so that is my next plan –> work on ME!! Live in the moment, not the past. Life doesn’t have to be scripted, we don’t have to keep making the same mistakes over and over ~ we do have the power within us to change things if thats what we really want.