September, as we know is the start of a new school year for most but it increasingly feels like a fresh start in all walks of life. There have been a number of events that Farnham Pilates have taken part in this month that all give a sense of restarting or taking stock of where our lives are at and where we want them to go.

At the beginning of the month we celebrated National Fitness Day. We teamed up with Bfit Belinda Andrews for a bootcamp and also organised a walk round my favourite thinking spot, Frensham Ponds. It was great to see many local women, some friends, some clients and some business associates just taking time out to do something healthy, chat and enjoy the fresh air. I was interviewed by Eagle Radio about this event and how we can incorporate fitness in our lives more.

The major event for me this month was speaking at the WIFE conference in Guildford last Saturday. It was a big deal for me to speak at such a big event of about 80 attendees, the last time I have done anything like this was at university when I froze. I chose the topic of metime/youtime, as I’m passionate about how understanding yourself and your needs have to come first to fully be able to help and support others, especially loved ones, who rely on you to be strong. I showed how using mindfulness can help give yourself space and a break. I also strongly believe that we have choices in life how we think, behave and act so we must be kind, forgive and support ourselves, and each contact with everyone around us is the legacy we leave not possessions. It is also vitally important for women, businesses and self employed to be able to stay focussed and positive to be successful. In researching for this talk I have connected with many other fabulous women to find out what they do for Youtime and they produced a series of video selfies to share what they do. Do take a look below for some inspiring ideas to help keep you on track. Also you are able to join the Free 10 day reset “me-time”daily email?

The WIFE conference was a big challenge for me but one that I am so glad I took, I was so nervous but talking about a subject I am passionate about made me want to do it again! I’ve had some amazing feedback from my talk and it makes me so happy that it may inspire some women to take more care of themselves so they can achieve more out of life.

It was great to also listen to other amazing speakers like Anna Kennedy OBE (from The Peoples Strictly) how she set up an autistic school for her boys and it now is the largest school in UK. Clare Newsman a child physchologist talked about how to get the best out of our children by not praising. There were other diverse topics but networking with these amazing women who had done something or changed an act of parliament made me feel inspired. The one thing I took away from the conference was to keep going helping clients and striving for the best I can.

It seemed fitting that my talk was timed at the start on National Work Life week which runs all this week. What great timing for us all to take stock, as routines get back to normal and we enter the last quarter of the year. What have we achieved? What aspects of our life need rebalancing? How can we achieve this? It sometimes feels that to make any change we need to make a huge effort, but we can make really small changes that can start us on the road to a big change in attitude. Our “Just Breathe” email course that was launched this month helps by giving just one exercise a day to help us refocus and make more time for ourselves.

So now as September reaches its end I am looking forward to celebrating another huge milestone. Farnham Pilates celebrates its’ 10^th Birthday! We are delighted to have been delivering quality Pilates sessions for the last decade and we are also looking forward to continuing this in our new garden studio which has its’ grand opening this Friday, 25^th September 10.30 – 1pm. We will be offering demonstrations of our new reformer equipment and we are also pleased to be teaming up again with some other local businesses – Aase Waterman who is offering massage, Georgina Watts who is offering Reiki sessions and Merel Keuning who is offering reflexology. The morning is in aid of MacMillan coffee so do join us to celebrate this huge milestone for Farnham Pilates.

I hope September has been a good month for you and that you are also able to refocus and see the road you want to take in this next chapter of our lives. Let me know if you need any support from any extra classes or our wellbeing workshops that will be run in November.