Tum-ti-tum...

I last made it to my lovely yoga class two weeks ago now, but something Liane said has popped up quite a few times since. She was encouraging us to take our time and not rush and as she said 'nature does not rush, yet it still gets everything done' (or words to that affect - it was 13 days ago and I am of small brain!). I smiled and thought 'now that's a bloomin' good point'.

As I whizzed off home after the class, the words were already rattling around my mind, as although I'd taken that 90 minutes to slow my pace, enjoy my practise while making sure I wasn't rushing to get through sequences, the moment I left, it was like a switch had gone off and I was literally scuttling back to my car to get back to my admin cave.

Why did I rush then? Did replying to an email 10 minutes earlier than had I meandered home instead of whizzing have a lifelong positive impact on me, my family and my business? I'm not sure that it did. Ok, I do try to get back to people as soon as possible as that is what I hold on to as one of the things that makes the studio what it is - a boutique, personalised service which isn't just about booking classes via faceless apps or online, as is more common in this day and age, but instead dealing with a human being who genuinely loves getting to know that person...albeit often from the other end of an email in the admin cave...but seriously, I love booking time as I get updates as to what everyone is up to and it's like one big coffee morning sat at my kitchen table.

But I digress. With that approach, we have been so fortunate to attract the most cracking bunch of Pilates people...who I know wouldn't mind if I didn't scuttle quite so fast and maybe stopped on the way home to enjoy a view and take a deep breath.

I know I'm not alone, so why do the majority of us rush around like blue-buttocked flies? Well, it's not rocket science - there is just so much in the media about how our lives are getting faster, demands are greater, we're becoming conditioned to take less and less time to just stop, we're always attached to our phones, pads, laptops. Browsing t'internet while watching tv etc etc and really going all out for complete over-stimulation, trying to achieve everything at a million miles an hour and that it quite frankly isn't good for our wellbeing. But do we also actually achieve more this way? I personally have noticed that if for instance I'm looking at holiday websites on my laptop while I'm supposed to be watching something on the TV, I end up pausing what I'm watching or putting off actually booking until I'm not distracted. So during that time, I've actually achieved neither watching the programme properly, nor booking the holiday!

So to ponder further over the fact that nature isn't in a rush, I am off to Devon on Friday and will be handing over the reins for the week. I did toy with the idea of setting aside an hour each morning to check emails, but I just knew that an hour would become two as I'd be trying to also eat breakfast, get ready, plan our day out, make sandwiches and that each email reply would take twice as long despite the 80wpm typing, or contain mistakes as I rushed to get too many things done - while pretending to be on a relaxing family holiday.

I am therefore going to be snail-like for a week. I may go for a run, but I think I'd rather hike-a-lot so I can slow down, look at the views and I might even drink a cup of tea while doing nothing else at all. Wowzers. The idea seems a bit alien as I usually have a book on the go at the same time, but I'm going to do my best at one thing at a time and see how it goes. And as it's Easter and Springtime and possibly a more appropriate time

to make a resolution than 1st January in line with all the new life around us, maybe we could all just try and make that change and emulate nature a bit more. After all, we are natural beings ourselves, so make like a snail and slow down!