The Types of Challenges You May Face - Emotional

Click HERE to read all about the Physical challenges you may face and HERE for the Mental ones.

The last type of challenge we’re going to discuss are the emotional ones. Physical challenges can be summarized as our body, mental challenges can be summarized as our thoughts and emotional challenges are all about the feelings.

With emotional challenges, we are going to talk about general feelings that may come up for you when training that may not be on the sparkly side.

Anxious/Nervous - A common feeling you may run into when first starting at the studio is nervous or anxious before trying a new class. This is very normal as you aren’t really sure what to expect. What is the class like? Who is in the class? Will I like it? Is it hard? That’s ok to feel that way and honestly it would be less common not have a little apprehension before as with trying anything new in life. This can also apply if you’re performing in one of our showcases for the first time, or even the fifth time for that matter. Feeling anxious about new things is normal because there is that uncertainty that goes around the new activity.

Frustration - Another common emotional challenge is frustration. This ties into the physical challenges we talked about previously. Repeating sessions multiple times because you are struggling to accomplish something can feel extremely frustrating. WHY CAN”T I GET MY SHOULDER MOUNT?!?! Again, very normal.

Defeat - Putting a lot of effort into something and still not accomplishing it can at times feel very defeating. I have also heard stories many times of defeat when one person shares an experience of everyone else in the class getting a move but them. We have all felt defeat at one time or another wondering what all the effort is for, if it’s worth continuing on, etc. Normal. Normal. Normal.

Fear - Fear is extremely common, especially training aerials. The more advanced your skills, the more difficult moves you will be taught. Not only is there the physical component, but you may be afraid to do moves such as training at the top of the hoop, laying back in pole, etc. It’s actually good to have a healthy dose of fear as it will ensure you’re training safely.

These are just a few feelings you may feel from time to time but as you can see, there is a common thread - it’s all very normal! Well why the heck would I want to participate in something that is going to make me feel frustrated? You may ask. Going back to our previous blog posts, that’s where all the good stuff is. Working through these emotions is where the reward is. Feeling afraid but working past that makes you feel brave and strong. Working out the frustration makes you feel confident and smart for figuring it out. Sometimes the less than fantastic things really teach us the good stuff.

Our next blog post is putting this all together because let’s be real, our physical, mental and emotional challenges are not separate entities. How could they be? They are intertwined and have so much to teach us along the way.

xoxox
-Brigitte