Brain Power
Often we talk about the mind-body connection with our clients and how we want to reinforce better movement patterns that hopefully become habitual over time. And we all know that it’s hard to break these patterns so firmly planted in our clients' brains.
It was one of the reasons why I decided to complete my Neural Linguistics Certified training to understand more about what our brains are truly capable of.
I was awarded a scholarship for the Diploma of Life Coaching with the Australian College of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Through my training, it was so fascinating to understand how the brain
continues to grow through your life, especially when we give it new things to learn, new goals to go after or ask it to change a preconceived idea.
At the core of this is that the human mind is not fixed and you can take charge of your thinking. Sounds simple but it is a powerful thought.
There is a lot of research and reading material about our RAS (your Reticular Activating System) which in a way is like your personal search engine. To gain growth in your mindset, and not become stuck, is all about finding your true potential and taking power over your mind. Others can assign or implement value to you or devalue you, and then you determine whether that is of benefit to you or something you need to discard.
There is no shortcut to hacking your brain, but simple changes daily, weekly monthly and yearly can lead to dramatic life changes for good.
If you are told long enough that you are something or someone, your RAS (Reticular Activating System)/brain focuses on that, and you become that. You search out everything to support that presumed theory of yourself, which has most likely been given to you by someone else. “I am just not that good at Pilates I never have been, or I am inflexible and I always have been, my mind races too much to sit and do a Pilates class,.” … you get the idea.
The language you choose in self-talk is also extremely important. It must never be negative, but it also has to resonate as part of you. Rather than thinking of it as I have to do my Pilates three times a week it could be ‘I deserve to live in a healthy body and be able to do what I want to do with the people I love and Pilates three times a week will help me do that.’
It is important to remember that you have the power to rewire your brain to learn more and empower your thoughts as they gather new information. So how do we encourage our clients to do the same?
In the studio, I often see clients who have allowed their opinions to become their fact. Sometimes they say to me ‘I am so broken that I can’t be healthy or optimally moving’. Instead, let's focus on getting our clients to the end goal. Ask them WHY they don’t want to be in pain? Understand their goals and help them find a pathway forward.
Within our studio space, it is important to focus on positive movement experiences that create a somatical pathway to assist with stability, strength or flexibility to support a dysfunction or abnormality that may exist. In a well-equipped Pilates studio, we are gifted with many small props such as the Chi Ball, thero-band , the Oov, the Balancsit and the Spine Fitter, just to mention a few. All of these additions promote the neurological conversation towards healing as it eases discomfort, fear and pain that may have been there otherwise. We need to remember that our practice is more than just the body in front of us we’re often training the mind too.
Kimberley is a Senior Practitioner with Polestar Pilates and owns Northern Rivers Pilates in Lismore northernriverspilates.com.au/