Meet Nyssa Bell and discover Just Be Pilates Streaky Bay

Back story: the things that happened to a character in a book or film before the beginning of the story being told in the book or film.

I often wonder if my life didn’t play out the way it did, would I be here now about to open a Pilates Studio in my home town of Streaky Bay. My Pilates business has a backstory of its own and similar to my classes have many levels of meaning.

My name is Nyssa Bell and I am the owner of Just Be Pilates. I am married to Shannon Bell and we live with our daughter Jadah. In June of 2016, when our second daughter Lucy died of stillbirth at 36.3 weeks, our lives changed forever. My perspective on the world shifted. I had always been an optimistic, cup is half full type of person, but this rocked me to my core. I had experienced grief, trauma and devastation, but nothing like this.

Slowly, but surely, I began to see and look for ways to get back to doing what I now know as my purpose for being put on this earth, to help other people.

In 2022, we were lucky enough to have Pilates by Nardi living in Streaky Bay and I went religiously as I loved the weekly connection with her, the wonderful humans in the class and the significant reduction in injuries I had for that Netball season. When she departed for study in Adelaide at the beginning of 2023, I kept getting nudges from the universe that perhaps this could be something I could do, I mean Nardi had created a fantastic habit that I didn’t know I needed.

A few short months later and after many supportive conversations with a handful of very close friends, I made the leap to sign up to study with Studio Pilates to complete my Anatomy & Matwork Course. In between marking, report writing and many at home Pilates sessions, I managed to complete my first course in the beginning of August 2023.

That is a taste of the backstory of where the Pilates journey started, however, the story behind the name and logo hits a little closer to home and my heart.

Just Be Pilates is a tribute to my first born Jadah with her initials JB, the notion of and a reminder to Just Be who you want to be and our third connection, the actual bee. Ever since Lucy passed, we have had bees as our signs from her.

Those of you who spend time with us as a family will know many of these stories, but we often have a bee that will sit on the clothes line while I hangout washing, sit on my shoe at netball, sit on my shoulder while standing and speaking to people and on the Netball goal ring as I use to practice my goals. There are simply too many examples for it to be a coincidence, so it just felt so light and right to have a connection with bees in the logo, name and branding.

I want to thank Lain Montgomerie for creating my first logo for my business which enabled me to get it up and running in the early days. She knows so much of my back story which greatly helped her to understand the brief.

Change is constant, growth is optional…with the opening of my new studio around the corner, I can’t wait to write the next chapter of the story. If you would like to know more about my story and the Post Traumatic Growth I have experienced, please head to a podcast I was invited to record with my friends from Mentally Fit EP.

Nyssa Bell || Inspiring post-t - MFEP+ME - Apple Podcasts