Squat Jumps

My trainer's name is Shireen. Twice a week she shows up on my doorstep with a big smile and a cheerful "Good Morning!" She is making me stronger and tougher and more confident. Sometimes she tells me to do things that I think I can't do. Like jump up onto things. Jumping up onto things scares me. But we did it today and I survived. 

She does the workout with me. My old trainer at Lifetime just watched me (and gazed around the club) but Shireen is doing it along side me and breathing hard with me and it feels more like a team effort and less like I am suffering alone. She laughs at my jokes about how wobbly I am on the bosu and that makes me feel better. 

I dread exercises with the word "Jump" in it: Jumping-Jacks, Side-Jumps, Jump-Up-Onto-This-Scary-High-Thing. Shireen makes me do Squat Jumps (squat, hands on floor, then jump and try to touch ceiling). I hate them and always complain and we joke about how terrible they are. They are terrible. Just try to do 10 right now. But a few weeks ago I decided to say "Yay! I love these! I only get to do 24 of them!" and smiled and acted like it was fun and guess what? It was SOOO much better! Really, it was such a huge change I was almost embarrassed that it worked so well. 

The power of self-talk is amazing. 

That picture of Shireen was taken at the top of the incline. Shireen is going to drag me up to the top one of these days. I am already starting the positive self talk about this. Lots and lots of positive self talk!