A love letter to the woman behind the workout.

We both ask ourselves and get asked a lot: who is the Alura girl?

And to be fair, the answer isn't cut and dry. She doesn't fit neatly into a box. She's not a stereotype. She's not an aesthetic. She's not (only) a wellness influencer with a ring light and a green juice sponsorship posting her 4:58am alarm like it's a personality trait.

She's just... her. Figuring it out. Building something. Showing up.

We've been thinking about her a lot lately, who she is, what she cares about, what gets her out of bed in the morning (hint: it's not always the gym). Here's our best attempt at putting her into words.

Source: https://pin.it/2D4LKxGzD

She's building her dream life, quietly, on her own timeline

The Alura girl isn't waiting for permission. She's not waiting until she has more money, more time, more followers, more clarity, more whatever it is the world tells you that you need before you're allowed to start.

She's doing the thing now, with what she has, and adjusting as she goes.

Maybe she's building a business out of her spare room at 11pm. (Much like our founder!!!) Maybe she's pivoting careers and terrified and doing it anyway. Maybe she's just finally decided that her life is going to look the way she wants it to look, and she's quietly, determinedly doing the work to get there.

She doesn't post about it constantly. She doesn't need the validation of announcing it. She just does it, and one day people look up and go, wait, when did that happen?

That's her. 

She trains because it makes her feel like herself

Not to earn her body. Not to look a certain way for a certain event. Not because some algorithm served her a reel about the "hot girl walk" and she decided to make it her whole personality for three weeks.

She lifts because she's stronger than she was last month, and she likes that. She shows up to the gym on the days she doesn't want to because she knows exactly how she'll feel when she leaves (exercise gives you endorphins!!!) She's figured out that the gym isn't punishment. It's not a transaction. It's the one hour of the day that's completely hers.

She doesn't have a perfect schedule. Some weeks she trains four times. Some weeks it's two and she's proud of those two. She's learned not to spiral when life gets in the way, because getting back to it has become second nature. She always comes back.

She's also figured out what works for her body, not what works for that one influencer, not what her friend swears by, not whatever trend is circulating this month. Her. Her body. Her goals. That took a while, but she got there.

Source: https://pin.it/52Wl4Twca

She has great taste and she knows it

She's particular about things, and she makes no apologies for it.

Her playlists are carefully curated, not just a Spotify algorithmically generated mix, but something she's actually thought about, ordered, and tested on a heavy leg day. (Heavvvvvy on the Sexyy Redd, iykyk) She has opinions about coffee (strong ones, like the coffee). She knows exactly how she wants her space to feel and she's slowly, intentionally making it look that way.

She doesn't follow trends blindly. She takes what resonates and leaves the rest. She wore the thing before it was cool and she'll wear it long after, because she bought it because she loved it, not because everyone else did.

Her gym kit is no different. She's not interested in buying a $20 set that pills after three washes and falls down during hip thrusts. She'd rather have fewer pieces she actually loves, things that fit properly, feel good, and make her want to get dressed and go. Quality over quantity isn't a motto for her. It's just how she moves through the world. 

She's done with the performance of wellness

The Alura girl is over it. Fully, completely, not looking back.

The 5am wake-ups she didn't actually want to do. The green juice she didn't actually like but drank anyway because it felt like the right thing to post. The "that girl" era that turned getting healthy into a full-time content job with a very strict aesthetic and exactly zero room for a bad day.

She's done performing wellness. She's just doing it, imperfectly, in a way that actually fits into her real life.

She works out because she wants to, not because she's supposed to. She eats in a way that makes her feel good, which sometimes means a salad and sometimes means pasta and sometimes means both in the same day. She sleeps in when she needs to. She takes rest days without guilt because she understands now that rest is part of the work, not a betrayal of it.

She goes out on a Friday and trains on a Saturday. She has a great week and then a hard week and then a great week again. She contains multitudes, and she's stopped trying to flatten herself into something more consistent or more palatable or more Instagrammable.

Her life doesn't need to look good from the outside. It just needs to feel right on the inside.

Source: https://pin.it/3rWoyA6IU

She's the first to hype up the girl next to her

In the gym. In the group chat. In the comments at 11pm when she should probably be asleep.

The Alura girl is not competing with other women. She's genuinely, actively, enthusiastically rooting for them. She'll compliment your squat form unprompted. She'll tell you exactly where she got her set when you ask. She'll remember to ask how your job interview went two weeks later when you've almost forgotten she knew about it.

She knows that someone else winning doesn't mean she's losing. That another woman being strong doesn't make her weaker. That celebrating someone else's success doesn't diminish her own. A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle!!!

She learned that one the hard way, like most of us do. But she learned it, and now she lives it, and the women around her feel it.

She's not afraid to start over

The Alura girl has pivoted. Multiple times. She's had the plan that didn't work, the goal that stopped making sense, the version of herself she outgrew.

And instead of forcing it, she let it go. She started something new. She gave herself permission to want something different than she wanted before.

She knows that changing direction isn't failure. It's information. It's growth. It's her figuring out what she actually wants instead of what she thought she was supposed to want.

Starting over used to feel like losing ground. Now it just feels like getting closer.

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She doesn't have it all figured out. That's kind of the point.

The Alura girl is a work in progress. She will always be a work in progress, and she's made peace with that.

She's building her dream life, but she'll be the first to tell you the blueprint keeps changing. The vision shifts. The goals evolve. The person she's becoming doesn't always look exactly like the person she planned to be (and more often than not, she's better!!).

She's learning as she goes. Adjusting when things don't work. Being a little gentler with herself than she used to be, which is maybe the hardest thing she's ever done and also the most important.

She shows up. She does the work. She keeps going.

And she looks REALLY good doing it. 

xx

Alura 🖤