A quick google search shares some definitions:
Body awareness is the ability to understand where our bodies are in space and how our bodies move… Sometimes, if people have difficulties with body awareness they may appear clumsy, uncoordinated or have delays in motor skill development.
Your therapy source - Read full article 
 
Body awareness is the internal understanding of where the body is in space. Body awareness is highly influenced by proprioceptive processing, the sensory information one receives from the movement and force of muscles and joint groups. 
North shore pediatric therapy -  Read full article 
 
Body awareness is the sense that we have of our own bodies. It is an understanding of the parts that make up one's body, where they are located, how they feel, and even what they can do.  
​Study.com - Read full article: 

Our relationship with body awareness changes and can deepen along the way, from a child learning to walk and getting to know how the body can move, to perhaps a gymnast who knows exactly where they are in space during somersaults and activating the exact muscles to get a particular ‘result’ and through to our barometer to how we are in the world, in tune and sensitive to everything – people, situations, food, emotions, movements, etc. 

This is our most important relationship. It is the one we can chose to hold dear, and continue to develop or ignore.
 
Body awareness can be getting to know yourself deeply, in a way that can bring understanding, communication and a care to honour what it is sharing with you.
This is why body awareness is essential to our wellbeing, health, relationships and all things in life. 
 
The relationship with your body is super important to develop and prioritise in life Why? Because it will share with you in a moment whether things are OK for you? Food choices, environments, people, relationships, etc, etc. By listening to your body, you can make choices that support you fully.
 
On a physical level, learning to know how to activate, let go, connect to muscles and areas of the body is powerful. It is very supportive to make exercises and movements that are performed correctly and able to be changed or adjusted if needed. Learning to feel how your body is in movement is so much fun and something that flows on into life so simply.

Why do we try to escape our discomfort with a holiday break or spa retreat? 

When it’s a short-term fix, we return home only to find all the usual daily discomforts, stresses and tensions have not changed – they are there still waiting to be dealt with.
 
What I have found for myself is that we can access everything we need to support ourselves in life, in a single moment.  We don’t need to go anywhere to connect to stillness as it is already naturally within us all.
 
Why do we ‘need’ to retreat from life to have time for ourselves?

We say to ourselves and others :-

• I need to get away
• Want time for me
• Don’t know who I am anymore
• Took a day off work because just had to have some space
• Need a break from the kids
• I just want to zone/veg out in front of TV
• Worked hard so need a holiday

 
As a society we are really missing the connection with ourselves and each other. We generally seek ways to 'feel better' that actually disconnect and distract us from feeling and being with ourselves.  

We go on holiday and relax, do nothing, get stimulated with adventures etc and think this is the way to cope with our stress and strains of life. However is it really only a temporary relief from feeling the stress and tension? Most holidays and escapes are not bringing us supportive behaviours to help when we're back in our daily life.

It's funny how we expect a reward for working hard with 'time off' when in nature all creatures are constantly working, surviving and evolving without wanting to take 'time off'.

What I have observed in myself and the thousands of clients is that there can be a moment when a person deeply connects with themselves through their body. In this moment they experience for themselves what it feels like to be without stress, tension and pressure. With commitment this connection can continue into every moment of the day.

Beverly Carter’s presentations (online or in person) are interactive and share simple ways for you to enrich, nourish, and deepen your relationship with yourself through exercise, movement, self-care, body work, healthy choices, personal development and love
​
bev@itstimetoshine.com.au
​+61 414 415 902

I took this opportunity to take myself off for a walk with me, even leaving my dog behind, knowing I could take her for a walk later. I live on east coast of Sydney and I could feel the joy in my body at the prospect of this beautiful space to be with me. It was a spectacular spring morning – the sun shining in the cloudless blue sky – was divine.
 
It didn’t take long to feel the intensity of life as many people were out and about at this time. Most people were out doing their exercise, either walking, running swimming or taking the dog for its walk. It felt crowded yet there was also much space available. My walk was such a joy to be, to spend time with my body, in nature and space to be open to feel what was needed for my day.

As gorgeous as it was at times there were many moments when I could feel the abuse that came from the runner who brushed past, hit my shoulder and then shook his head with annoyance, felt the disturbance by the heaviness of the foot steps stomping on the ground, the distress of the people who were really gasping for breaths, the ignoring of the beauty of nature around everyone and oh those drama filled conversations. It was interesting to observe these and in the past they would have triggered and upset me yet today I didn’t get caught in them by choosing to stay with my body and me.

From my experience I know this way of exercising is NOT the answer. From my understanding of the body in movement this is definitely not the way forward with our health and care for each other. Exercise is a beautiful way to reconnect, heal and deepen your relationship with yourself and in a way that doesn’t impose on another.
 
The way we are currently doing our “morning exercise” can be used as a way to close off from each other, in our movements, our expression and hide into our distractions.
 
How are you with people when you are out walking? Are you open and engaging or closed off, insular and distracted?
 
What are distractions? These are behaviours that we do to avoid connecting to ourselves and feeling our bodies. Examples of distracting activities and behaviors:

• Listening to music with earphones on
• Music on speakers
• Taking phone calls
• Eating breakfast along the way
• Taking your dog when you really need some time just for you
• Drama and animated conversations
• Taking a coffee on your walk
• Taking work/relationship issues with you

 
One of my other observations – I’ve seen people running and out powerwalking for many years and no one’s body is changing! How many people do you know that are regular exercisers who want to get fit or lose weight and their body doesn’t change, yet they continue to pound the streets trying?
 
So why are we continuing to do the same thing over and over again without any changes? Two of my old personal training expressions are –
 
“if nothing changes, nothing changes.”
 
“Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome” –
a commonly held definition of insanity.
 
So, I’m fascinated why are we doing the same? When will we stop and say ‘hang on a minute this isn’t working? Enough, ‘lets try something different?’
 
If you feel its time for you to try a different approach and you are open to play with this for a week or so, read on . . .

As many of you know by now, I’ve been an active chick all my life. Due to being a personal trainer for close to 30 years I’ve had to learn how to adjust exercise and movements to support my body with the physical aspect of my life. It started 20 years ago and has constantly changed and will continue to evolve. This is what its about, not getting stuck, not feeling one thing works when there are in fact so many ways to love and support your body through exercise. I’m sharing this as I haven’t gone from the equivalent of running a marathon everyday as a personal trainer to the way I am with exercise now in a few days or weeks.

Where ever you are with exercise is a wonderful place to begin. Take your time to feel your way – remembering to climb a mountain takes many small steps not one big jump .
 
So. . .
 
What if we deleted ‘exercise’ from our vocabulary for a while? What if we replaced it with ‘morning walk to be with me’ or ‘my time to be me’ or something that inspires you to spend time with you.
 
Try these for a week or so and see how you go:

• Be open to change/alter your ‘routine’
• Be prepared to not go as far 
• Don’t take any phones or music devices
• Wear clothes that are comfortable and show your expression
• Meet people with your heart and say ‘hello’
• Be prepared to meet people
• Allow nature to reflect your beauty back to you
• Have no time frames – even 5 minutes is enough
• Try allowing your footstep to be loving for the earth
• Be open to feel
• For those that aren't exercising regularly you have a beautiful opportunity to start afresh

 
Then to help with your accountability let me know how you went on in the comments box of this blog.
 
I will be here to support any questions, queries or celebrations.
 
Questions that may help you:

• What did you notice about your body?
• Did your relationship with your body change slightly?
• How was it to connect to others?
• What was the biggest thing you noticed about this week
• What can you appreciate about you?
• What will you carry forward to next week?

 
For one on one sessions contact Bev.

Osteoporosis and osteopenia is something that I’m seeing almost every day within my client base. The clients with this diagnosis don’t necessarily fit into the typical picture of someone with this condition; they can be young, very active, seemingly taking care of themselves, eating good food, and have always eaten dairy etc. So why is this this disease on the increase in my client base?
 
Perhaps they come to me because they are drawn to the level of care, experience and understanding of the body that I have? Or is there a general rise of people being diagnosed? And if this is the case, what is really happening here?
 
With the diagnosis, the general medical recommendations are to do more weight bearing exercise, this includes walking and resistance/weight training along with dietary advice. What you may not get told is that there are many physical aspects that are important to be considered while exercising to prevent serious injury and damage to the body.
 
Choosing a program and trainer is something that is super important; that’s why It’s Time to Shine with Beverly Carter has been offering Osteo Strength and Awareness programs since 2016 that honour the physical aspect and so much more to support healing from within.
 
The next program begins Wednesday the 28th of June, with times to suit both Europe/UK and Australian time zones.

“After an exercise session with Bev Carter your body is not aching, exhausted or even hyper, but rather expanded and relaxed, you feel very joyful, still and open. Very different to the usual exercise classes. Highly recommended”  Julia, UK
 
Exercising has never interested me apart from walking and the odd dip in a swiming pool, but I love being part of the Osteo Strength and Awareness Program as it supports me to keep deepening my connection with my body, and also I am starting to understand and feel, how the quality of my movements directly affect the health of my bones. All of this happens easily and effortlessly with the love, care, expertise, wisdom and fun, which have been the hallmark of all the session I have attended with Beverly. Elizabeth, UK
 
​"It is a joy to work with Beverly Carter and her various programs offered. Bev has a totally different perspective of 'exercise'..." Stephanie, UK
 
"The Osteo Strength and Awareness Program offered me professional guidance to exercise my body in such a way that is very gentle, caring and fun. This style of exercise has taught me to check in with my body to see how it is feeling about the movements I am doing and to not do them just to get them done with no thought about am I tensing anywhere or not concentrating on what I'm doing. My belief about exercise was always no pain no gain, but Beverly explains this is not the case which takes the pressure off especially exercising with an illness or structural problems with our body."  Christine, AUS
 
 “At last I am beginning to love my body and its movement and follow its messages rather than having pushed and tried to control it all my life.” Joan, UK
 
“I can hardly believe how much strength and steadiness my body has gained through these movements carried out so gently and consciously with the least effort; you feel like you are doing very little, but by the end you know you have had a real workout! I would recommend them to anyone, even those who are into regular exercise, for Beverly takes us back to that all important root of movement -- the energy, and gives us time to explore that.” Joan, UK

Having been an elite athlete and fitness trainer for all my working life, if I had a dollar for every time I heard:

• “It must have been a good workout as I was sore the next day”
• “I must have done something right as I really felt the session the next day”
• “I can’t have done anything as I didn’t feel any pain the next day”.
• “I need to do more as I am not feeling it

 
. . . I’d be rich.
 
​How many of you have experienced lunges or squats where the next 2 days you can’t sit on the toilet or walk down a flight of stairs without wincing in pain? Meanwhile saying to your self, “Oh but I must have been doing a good thing!”

​The ‘no pain no gain’ myth is a result of a commonly held belief in the fitness and sports industries of the overarching benefits of ‘muscle overload’.

​Muscle overload is a term used to describe a way of working a muscle with the intent to increase muscle strength, size and power.

Muscle overload is when we deliberately work the muscles to exhaustion; this pushes the muscle to recruit more muscle fibres so it can, lift more, do more and contract harder – this is done by increasing resistance (weight), repetition or duration.

Here are some examples of how this appears in your training programs:

• Increase of repetitions – eg 10, to 12 to 15 …
• An exercise progression – eg a push up on the knees will develop onto the push up on the toes.
• Weight increase – same repetitions with weight increasing 10k to 12k to 15 k
• Speed of contraction eg  slow down pace of movement
• Change range of movement – full range of movement, small pulses.

It’s a constant push for the body/muscle to do more. This is because the muscle becomes more efficient the more you train and therefore requires more weight to keep developing. Eg: what once felt heavy begins to feel light and so you step up to the next weight bracket. Or another example would be repeatedly trying to run 100m faster than your last Personal Best time, or doing your cycle circuit quicker or longer each time you do it. But has anyone stopped to ask ‘when is enough?’ Are we looking to be fit for life or for an Olympic relay?
 
And if this belief were true – the belief we need to do more and more or our muscles won’t benefit and instead become weak and unfit, where does it end? It would be like pouring water into a cup with a hole in the bottom. We would never stop having to do more and more training. . . run further, faster, harder and lift weights that are always getting heavier.

One of the reasons ‘muscle overload’ is so popular in exercise and sport is because it is a way of training the muscle to recruit more muscle fibres by increasing its load. But with this process some of the micro fibres tear through overuse and it is this that gives you the pain the next day and often even more the second next day.
 
Yes that’s micro muscle fibre tears, the same as muscle tears that happen in sprains and torn muscles yet on a micro level. If you’ve ever turned your ankle and sprained it you can appreciate that it hurts and takes 6 weeks to heal. Even on a micro level it hurts and takes time to heal. Does this really sound something that is necessary?

There are many health and fitness programs being offered online, Personal Training studios, gym’s, magazines etc. All these options can be challenging and confusing when choosing an exercise program that suits your body’s wellbeing, body and what it needs.

Tag lines like ‘lose 10k’s on us’, ‘body transformation’, and ‘ideal body in 6 weeks’ are to engage and attract people to buy the product.  Many programs offer the latest research and amazing results. The reality of these claims is generally short term, painful, extreme and unrealistic, which may not be sustainable in supporting long term health and wellbeing.
​
Below are some suggestions that may help you make a considered choice of health and exercise program. For long term health and vitality, the program will ideally support, sustain and integrate simply into your lifestyle. 

​How restrictive is the diet or exercise programme?

If a health program is restrictive or overly strict in any way, it will never last.  Why? Because it cannot be brought into a daily rhythm or become a long term lifestyle.
 
When there is an overly strict and restrictive program, it can make many people obsessively think about the things that they can’t have or do anymore E.g. Promising yourself you will work out for an 1.5 hours everyday is too much for most people who have a normal, full life. What can be dangerous is that this pressure can add to stress and be overwhelming, so a person tends to stop all exercise. Stopping can then bring up guilt and self-esteem issues, which is not supportive to anyone.
 
Trainers talk about ‘will power’, ‘mind over matter’ etc, all of which are short term and not at all supportive to building an honouring, loving and supportive relationship with your body.
 
Take the time to listen to your amazing body, and respect what it is saying, it will show you the way.

Claims to have a ‘bikini body, transform in 12 weeks, quick weight loss and overcoming disease’ are some marketing ploys that can be used to extract your money and give you the answer to a need for a ‘quick-fix’.

​Remember, there are NO quick fixes and NO body to ‘get’. Our ideal goal would be to connect to and care for your own body. 

Is this program something you can realistically maintain for life?
Or is it sustainable and endurable only for a few short weeks?
If you can only live the health programme for a few weeks, then generally it will be a quick fix (weight loss) and the weight lost will quickly return and the exercise regime will cease. Consider that a loving lifestyle change that you can maintain is more supportive and sustainable in the long run.

​When you listen to your body it will tell you. It will speak loudly when things don’t feel right or feel wonderful. Recently, I received this feedback - ‘Bev the exercise program I chose asked me to do an exercise and it didn’t feel right. . .” Learning to trust what feels right or not is a supportive lesson for us all. In this case, my client was absolutely right! 

So many people think that an exercise programme is working because it hurts the next day. This is definitely not the case. The body gets sore when you have pushed it or done something is hasn’t done before. The muscle pain that lasts up to 2 days is actually tiny muscle fibre tears. It is deeply dishonouring of your body to expect pain from every session. When you train in a loving and honouring way, your body will feel ease and grace, and you will feel light and tall. 

The question is ‘how long have you had your trainers?’ There are some people who will only buy one pair in their lifetime and others who have had their shoes for many years. In fact, there are very few people who change their trainers often enough, possibly due to the expense or the inconvenience of getting to the shoe shop.
 
Most people don’t realise that training shoes actually need replacing every 3 – 4 months, especially if you use them regularly eg. Runners, walkers, instructors, sports, group exercisers etc. (And this post isn't sponsored – unfortunately that's just a fact.)
 
I hear many people when they buy their next pair of shoes are really shocked to feel just how ‘slack’ and ‘empty’ the old ones had become. What is it that allows us to keep wearing shoes that are providing no support to our incredible bodies? Why don’t we feel when it is truly time to get new shoes? Why do we put our bodies in disregard while exercising when we wouldn’t ever go on a date with old, sloppy shoes?

Most people would agree that stretching is good for you. And yes it can be wonderful for your body.

How many times have you stretched a part of your body so that your muscle is shaking and you are feeling tension and pain? 

Have you ever found that your shoulders and body feel contracted and tight trying to hold you in a certain position?

This is how most people stretch. What they don’t realise is that this type of tension in stretching will bring muscle contraction and not muscle lengthening. So all the pulling and pushing that is done actually won’t improve flexibility.

How lovely would it be to work with your body and it’s natural function to stretch? How would it be, to really stretch to appreciate, honour and feel gorgeous in your body? Here are some simple tips:

Number Two: 
Be conscious of what area you would like to stretch. This may sound obvious but do you really take the moment to stretch a particular muscle or do you simply throw your leg up on a bench? Be clear as to what muscle group you intend to stretch. For example many go to stretch their hamstrings (the muscle at the back of the thigh) and turn their leg out from the hip or curl their lower back. This then changes the stretch to other muscle groups rather than the intended one. Take a precious moment for you and feel into what is taking place in your body as you stretch.

Number Three:
Be gentle and supportive getting into and out of your stretch position.

Number Four:
Use a towel, dyna band, strap, chair, doorway etc to stretch different body parts. Bands and towels are great home equipment to stretch legs with out bringing tightness and stress into your upper body.

Number Five:
Feel into the area you’re stretching. You should feel a gentle lengthening with NO stress, tension, pain or shaking. If your do feel these things you are over-stretching and this will not support with increasing flexibility in the muscle.

Number Six:
Feel that your body and muscle can ‘surrender’ into the stretch – then you know you are working with the body and it’s natural ‘stretch reflex’.

Number Seven:
Stay connected to your body and feel if the muscle ‘lets go’ after a little while. This is around 20-30 sec – yet you don’t need a stopwatch if you simply feel and connect to the muscles being stretched.  If you feel the ‘let go’ or ‘surrender’ happen you can chose to gently increase the stretch a little or simply enjoy it as you are. If you don’t feel this ‘letting go’ please don’t panic, it may simply be because you may need to hold stretch longer or it may be that you are over-stretching and need to ease off the stretch a bit. 

Number Nine: 
Feel the stillness of the muscle and body and stay with your gentle breath, this will support the ‘letting go or surrender’ in the muscle. The muscle loves to feel safe and supported so it can let go, if you’re over stretching and moving around all the time you will miss the stretch reflex.

Number Ten:
Make stretching part of your daily rhythm to connect with your body. Take a moment to appreciate YOU and YOUR Body in these precious moments of stretching everyday. Make self-appreciation a part of your stretching routine. 

After the first season of filming, there was some time before Gladiators aired on TV – this time was great to reconnect to my clients, business and friends. But when Gladiators did go to air it was Australia’s highest rating TV show ever. Our lives changed overnight. I have always been a private person so to have people check out what food I was buying in supermarkets and to witness the sea of faces turning round as I walked into a restaurant was uncomfortable. But the worst thing was people touching my muscles without even asking.                     
I was a ‘thing’, an object.                                                                                      
Because I was on TV people seemed to feel they knew me well enough to touch my body. Even as I type this today I can feel the upset of how this felt. Who does that? Who goes up to a beautiful woman and simply squeezes her arms? But this happened on a very regular basis. I remember trying to cover myself up regularly with baggy clothes so I didn’t stand out.

During Series One I had struck up a friendship on the set, one that felt supportive, safe for me to be me, in this world of Gladiators. Trust in people was rare in TV so to find trust in someone was a gift. This friendship developed into a secret relationship, one of those that would only complicate matters if anyone knew.  Then I had the other secret of my shoulder injury. Up until a couple of days before filming I still couldn’t lift my arm up above my waist. To hold all this inside was such a burden.

The first time I ever experienced gentleness with my body, was with our massage therapist. Instead of kneading and pushing my shoulder to heal, which for sports people is normal, she was instead gentle with it. I remember her famous line: “Blade, you’re carrying emotional burden. . .” How did she know?

It was with this care and gentleness that my shoulder began to feel better. During training and before filming commenced I had to prove to the producers that I could still be the “Queen of the Rings (Hang Tough) in Series 2.” Still in pain whenever I raised my arm above my head, I had managed to go on the rings twice – at strategic times to ensure that the producers could see I was up to the task. Both times the pain was excruciating.

Series 2 was slightly different; our working days were changed to support the whole crew to cope with the workload. We had days of working and days off and it worked out much better. We had real audiences in series 2 instead of smoke to hide the empty seats in the arena. The crowds were amazing and the lift you got when you stepped out into the arena to compete was amazing. Behind the scenes we still looked the same with the ice straps on our limbs, the tens machine and people sleeping, but all in all it was a smoother series.

As a team, the Gladiators had a moment, a moment that was defining for its opportunity for brotherhood. When we first began as Gladiators we had been given a contract to look at, get legal advice on, and then sign. Well that was the theory. Because of the delay in production, some of us only got the contract a few days before and some literally received it on the first day of pre-filming and publicity shots. It was expected it would be signed on the dotted line there and then. The contract was terrible: we were to be given minimum wages, we had to sign for 1-3 series (depending on the show’s run), we were to get no royalties for the use of any of our images on advertising, no insurance and absolutely no guarantee of anything.  To sum it up simply – we sold our soul to the devil, and from then on the production company owned us. We had no control of anything. We were especially vulnerable because we were not eligible to be part of any Actor’s Union. We existed in a non-category; we were ‘Athlete Entertainers’ doing physically high risk work that was considered uninsurable.

In the first meeting between the Gladiators in the early days, we discussed that ‘we all need to sign with Harry M. Miller as a group’, ‘don’t sign the contract, we need to stand together to get a decent contract’. Which is what we tried to do, until the producer’s bullyboy started ringing around to everyone individually to passively-aggressively bully us into signing. As one person signed and then the next, our strength was diminished, and in the end we all had to sign the contract or walk away. 

For some people it may sound easy to ‘walk away’, yet at this time of my life this was an opportunity, a business opportunity and hopefully a financial opportunity with all the appearances and endorsements.  

Midway through Series 2, after a conversation with a Channel 7 crew member, one of the team discovered that the Gladiators were being extremely underpaid in our per diems (living away from home allowance). While everyone who was contracted/employed to Channel 7 were receiving the proper amount, our production company was paying us substantially less.

From our experience we knew that we had to stick together 100% – our strength was in numbers – if someone cracked we would all fail . . .  Two key Gladiators took our request to the producers to raise our per diems; we would not work (next day) until this was resolved. We waited and we did stick together. As the day’s filming came to a close we learnt that they had agreed to our request. We had won the right to have our per diems raised and backdated. We drove off in our two Taragos,  yeeha-ing and laughing. It was one of those rare times that we felt the power of us united as a team.

Sadly this was the last time that this unity would be experienced. After that day the producers clocked who the influential Gladiators were and they began pandering to them to keep them onside. They did this until the end of the final season.

At the end of Series 2 there were more public appearances – at shopping malls, nightclubs, sporting events and as guests on other TV shows. We were told that Public Appearances were where we would make our money. This was not to be the case. We were told that as new jobs came up, they would be assigned amongst the thirteen of us equally, yet the reality was that the Gladiators who were the most popular with the producers became the Gladiators who were more in demand with the public, as they were the ones who were more well-known to audiences through more air time, more games and more interviews.