When something hurts, our first reaction is usually to stop moving.

For example, “My back hurts too much to take a walk today.”

Or, “I feel too sore and stiff to workout.”

“It hurts to lift my arms above my head.” So you stop lifting your arms and find other ways to do things instead.

It hurts.

Life just hurts so much.

"Maybe if I stop moving, avoid doing anything that triggers the pain, maybe then I can protect myself against it."

This is the exact opposite of what we need to do.

Immobility is not the way to fix the daily aches and pains that life brings our way. Unless it’s a serious injury, you need to move!

Your body is designed to move. Your body NEEDS motion to retain function. When you are in pain, movement is the answer.

Movement is what lubricates your joints and keeps your muscles gliding across each other as they were intended. If you don't move your fascia binds together and locks you into a severely limited range of motion. Movement is what gives your muscles strength and length so that they can handle sitting still without aches and pains and muscle cramps.

Move through the pain.

Don’t avoid it.

It’s there. Poke at it and find out exactly what it is, exactly what hurts, and then explore it mindfully. Move it around, feel what changes.

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WANT TO MOVE BUT DON'T KNOW WHERE TO START? I can help you with that. Email me about private online Yoga classes. (Just reply to this email.)

Move Forward

When your heart hurts, when you’re afraid, when you lack confidence, move through the pain. Face it and look it in the eye. Let yourself feel it, and then move forward.

Action is the antidote to doubt.

Do one thing. Make a tiny bit of forward progress. Take steps toward that thing that you long for but are afraid you don’t deserve to have every single day.

Failure hurts. Rejection hurts. But so does staying still and staying small, because you’re trying to avoid any pain. Pain will find you, under the covers, in that curl of your lower back and the unexamined shadows of your heart. Pain will find you. You may as well move toward it, choose the kind of pain that leads to greater strength, and allows you to live the life you want to live over time.

Trigger an Adaptive Response

Immobility teaches the body that it can continue to weaken, and that a greater range of motion is not required. If you don’t move you lose your range of motion.

This is true of our bodies. It’s also true of our minds and hearts. The less we demand of ourselves, the less we try to push toward something more, the more we lose our ability to simply stay where we are. In the absence of forward progress, we don’t just stay the same, we lose ground.

Whatever it is that hurts today my friend, I assure you, movement is the answer.

RECOVERING MOBILITY Donna was in a car accident. She had several injuries, including one that required hip replacement surgery. For 2 years as she healed, she stopped using most of her muscles. She had a special chair to help her stand up. By the time she approached me for private Yoga classes through zoom, she needed a cane to walk because she had balance issues and a tendency to fall over. "I cannot touch my toes, or the floor, especially without the cane because I lose balance and fall.” Her doctor had suggested Yoga. So I created Yoga sequences that were modified to her mobility level. We used the back of a chair to make sure she didn’t lose her balance, and I guided her through movements that would help strengthen and lengthen those muscles that needed attention and care after all her body had been through. ​ After her second session her balance was better, and she could move with less pain. Four weeks after her first session, she was able to bend over, place her cat’s water dish on the floor, and come back up without thinking about it, or needing a cane! By 6 weeks she was jumping up out of her chair, and showing all of the people who came to help her with things how well she could move!

You may not be struggling to just feed your cat like Donna was, but whatever you are struggling with, movement is the answer.

I would be honored to be your guide through a Yoga based movement practice, if that’s a kind of movement you would like to embrace right now.

Just reply to this email to ask about my teaching schedule and rates. I've got room for about 3 more people in November.

Love, Carrien

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113 Cherry St #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205
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