What Does It Mean To Move Sensitively Enough?
Some of us learned to move under pressure, to perform, to be good. I stopped structured exercise, and it freed me. So what do I do instead?
Dear readers,
In order to keep you on track, I want to explain why I’m on this search for movement that is actually sensitive enough (Sensitive Enough Movement is a special dedicated part of my publication), what it means, how far along I am, and most importantly, what this can bring to you.
After all these years of exercising and using the body in various spaces, for fun, for healing, against pain, I’m in a period when I don’t exercise in any structured way at all. I also feel no pain.
Bear with me, I am definitely not the lazy type living an unhealthy lifestyle. I just realized something I believe is worth sharing with my sensitive ladies who are tired but still show up on that mat or in the gym because they believe it is the healthy choice. With all the good girls who go to the chiropractor and do the exercises regularly at home. With women who were forced to perform at an early age. And we are entering the thin layer between physical and emotional pressure.
My case was extreme. I was brutally trained as a young rhythmic gymnast by a Russian coach. You can catch a glimpse here:
No one would survive that easily, but a highly sensitive girl lives with the damage for the rest of her life. And still, the way I saw sport and movement after this experience was not negative. The other way around, I was so used to performing with my body whatever I pleased that I was successful in all types of dancing. I could do things in the gym no one else could. I was physically strong. I was able to learn new types of movements and keep my body in great shape (when you looked from the outside). I was open to trying various sports that brought me joy, kept me with my friends, and during all those twenty-something years I thought I had to move in some way anyway, so I thought I was doing the right thing.
More or less, I was forced to keep moving with a physiotherapist, and to enter the world of healing through acupuncture, acupressure, pilates, yoga, and a few others, because my body was hurting. From the age of 13, I was in musculoskeletal pain that I believed I would get rid of by exercising the “proper way.” You can read about my life journey with movement here:
Most of the experts I saw told me I was experiencing this because of gymnastics, and that it wouldn’t get much better. They were right about one of the root causes of my pain, and completely wrong about what healing could look like.
That’s why my story applies to many: many of us can find hidden reasons behind our pain and respond to what our bodies actually need, with a real healing effect.
Here Are My Findings
Mainly, no regular exercise of anything, yes, I said it.
Yes, there are also those among us who were forced, or who force themselves, to often undergo some form of exercise as proof. Proof of a healthy lifestyle, or that they still have it, or youth, or the ability to follow rules. But definitely no tired sensitive women, and not even those who do not have a negative movement background like me, should force themselves into anything.
Even though movement is important and it can be done in a healthy way (finding what and how is truly healthy for our specific bodies and mental health is not easy at all nowadays), it should not be done for these reasons. From joy is fine, sometimes also from anger or frustration. Under the recent movement toward rest and listening to the cyclicality of women that I see online, it only makes sense to stop being hard on yourself. Compassion, listening to the signals, knowing your body and loving yourself is the way toward a healthy life.
The Rooms Where We Learn to Disconnect
The straight, intuitive way into healthy movement was blocked for me early on. And I don’t think I’m the only one. I think many of us lost that natural relationship to movement in different rooms, for different reasons. In school gym class, where we were expected to perform things our bodies couldn’t do, and were corrected or judged for it. In childhood sports, where talent quickly became a system, and joy became training. In families where someone hoped we would become a professional athlete, and we learned early what it meant to disappoint.
It’s possible my body and my mind learned to survive extreme pressure by splitting into two roles. During gymnastics, my body was under intense expectations and physical force. It resisted, because it didn’t want that load. But I was also in a kind of threat, and I adapted the only way I could: my mind took over. My mind learned to function not only with the body, but often instead of it. That’s why I still struggle to “get into” my body. I analyze everything. And I know that comes from more than one life experience, but this is a big piece of it.
And I want to name something important: my mind kept me safe. With my mind, I could withstand the coach’s pressure. I could behave and move according to what was demanded of me. I’m deeply grateful to my mind for carrying me through the hardest parts of my childhood.
Only now, about 25 years later, am I beginning to see what kind of damage that adaptation left behind. And only after long years of healing am I able to connect these dots. So what do I do with it now? I keep returning to one thing: safety.On a physical level, and on a psychological level, I keep reminding my system that now is not then.
And I’ll be honest, this can feel lonely. I don’t know if there’s someone out there who has lived something similar and can see it clearly from above. I’m trying to write for you, but I don’t always know if anyone will recognize themselves in this. I just know I can’t pretend it isn’t real.
I’m starting to believe that this kind of split, or disconnect, can be created in more places than an extreme sports environment. Not because the details are the same, but because the mechanism can be similar: the body resists, the body signals, the body does not want it, and the mind learns to override it, because overriding becomes the price of being safe, being accepted, being good.
It makes me wonder how many of us learned this same split in different rooms. In classrooms where performance mattered more than presence. In families where being the good girl meant pushing through, being responsible, being composed, not causing trouble, not needing too much, not feeling too much. There are so many ways a sensitive body can learn that its truth is inconvenient, and so the mind steps in as the one who manages everything.
What Movement Looks Like for Me Now
As I said at the beginning, I am not performing any kind of “known” exercise that I can name. This does not mean that I am not moving at all, or that I’ve abandoned my body in the difficult situation it grew into.
Behind the paywall, I share what sensitive movement looks like for me in my daily life, and how I care for my body in a way that has brought me the most pain-free season I’ve had since childhood. You’ll see how rest fits into it, and how I respond when pain tries to return.
It is an inspiration for you to discover what really suits you, not to follow any kind of routine created without your sensitivity and your specific situation at the center.
I prepared a 20% discount for you until the end of February.
If you feel you truly need this and can’t access the paid section, message me and we’ll find a way.