The only thing in this life that you can control is yourself. It’s obvious. We’ve simply forgotten.
We’re constantly being told what success looks like, how we’re supposed to eat, exercise, work, age, live—even think. We buy this. We follow that. We optimize everything. After a while, it’s easy to lose sight of a simple question.
Who decided that’s right for me?
“We make plans and God laughs” is one of my favorite sayings, especially because I need structure and a plan. Planning gives us direction. Mistaking the plan for certainty is where we get into trouble.
I don’t walk into the studio with a plan. I walk in with a direction.
Maybe I’m playing with precision that week. Or flow. Or transitions. Or stamina. It frames the way I’m thinking, but it’s invisible to my clients. The session begins when they walk through the door because no two bodies and no two days are the same.
Bob Liekens would smile and say, “If it’s available to you.” And I would give it a try, even when I thought he was asking me to wiggle my ears. Three honest attempts were all he wanted. I’ve never forgotten it and this mindset is echoed in our teacher training program.
The body doesn’t care what happened yesterday. It only knows today. My job isn’t to force today’s session to resemble the one I imagined. My job is to understand the body in front of me and decide where we go from there.
Control is an illusion.
There’s freedom in knowing the difference between what can be changed and acknowledging what cannot. Responding is different from reacting. Reaction is automatic; response begins with awareness and is a choice.
Pilates gives us the opportunity to practice that distinction every time we step into the studio. We notice and never judge. We adapt and never force. We work with what’s available instead of insisting on an ideal.
You can’t push a string. The harder you push, the more it buckles. Pilates teaches us to work with reality instead of against it, to respond instead of react, and to recognize that every day offers another opportunity to learn.
Tomorrow will be different. The body will be different. You’ll be different. That’s not a problem.
That’s an invitation.
The only thing in this life that you can control is yourself.
Whether you accept that invitation is up to you.
Everything else is a possibility.
