The one with Nora, grass and a man who thought a lot about figs

This week has been HOT.

I don't need to tell you that. You've probably spent most of it hopping from fan to fan with the stealth of a private detective hopping behind trees to stay undetected.

I decided it would be a great idea to take my training outside on Friday. Yes, the day that felt like wading through soup. But wasting sunshine is not on my agenda.

My programme was handstands to tuck planche. It looks pretty cool. I can usually nail a handstand on the first or second rep — I have done this movement so many times that my body just knows what to do.

This time, however. Not so much.

I was on grass. That changes the stability under my hands immediately, adds a sensory dimension that has my brain sending out small distress signals. The ground was slightly sloped. Not flat like a gym floor, which means my body has to find balance differently, recalculate everything it thought it knew.

And Nora turned up.

If you haven't met Nora yet — she is the voice in my head that tells me I can't do things. The one that tells me I am too tired even though I feel fine. The one that tells me to go back inside and stick to what is easy, known, proven. She does not usually bother me during handstands anymore. She knows I've got it.

Except on Friday, on the grass, in the soup-weather, she had something to say.

Not today, I told her.

Here is the thing I know from teaching the dogs tricks and trying to learn my own.

The moment you change even one variable — a new environment, a new texture, a new feeling — you have to learn the skill again. Not from scratch. But close enough to feel like it.

Harley and Flynn will sit outside Betty's Tea Rooms without a second thought. Take them to the middle of the market on a busy Saturday and ask for the same thing. Absolutely no chance. Too much going on. Too much Nora-equivalent dog brain firing at once.

Friday's handstand was exactly the same.

And this travels into everyday life too.

I can practice speaking kindly to myself at home, in the quiet, when nothing is pressing and Nora is having a day off. Then I hit a red light when I am late and the driver in front wants to do fifteen miles an hour and that kindness practice — it is there. But it is so much harder to find. It takes the same effort and concentration as the first time I tried it, back in the quiet.

This is why we practice. Not to be perfect in controlled conditions. But so that when the conditions change — and they always do — the pattern is still there underneath, waiting to be found again.

It is progressive overload for the muscles you use to challenge Nora.

And it gets easier. It genuinely does.

One Thing For You — The Nora Audit

Next time you notice a voice telling you that you can't, you're too tired, you should go back to what's easy — try this:

Name it. Literally. Oh, there's Nora.

You don't have to argue with her. You don't have to make her go away. Just notice that she's there and that she is not the same thing as the truth.

Then ask: has the environment changed? Is this actually hard, or does it just feel hard because something is different?

Often that's all it takes. The skill is still there. You just need to find it again in the new conditions.

Not today, Nora.

From the Trail

I've been working my way through a philosophy bundle on Kindle this week. I'll be honest — a lot of it is just humans writing down what they think, and there are a suspicious number of opinions about figs and wine.

But Seneca stopped me.

Nothing grows again so easily as love.

I've been sitting with what that means for the thing I find most difficult to talk about — self-love, a term I dislike almost as much as wellness — and here is what I landed on.

If I know what feels good to me and I practice it from a place of wholeness, even if I drift, as long as I can notice I've drifted — the journey back is not starting from scratch. Just like the outside handstand. The pattern is still there. It comes back quickly.

That feels like something worth remembering.

Until next time, keep walking the trail.

Becky x

P.S. The tuck planche did not happen this week. Nora was delighted about this. I was not. Next week, grass or no grass.

P.P.S. The Way Home — my book, two years in the making — is almost ready. I'll tell you more very soon. For now, you can find out what it's about here.