My second son came into the world two months ago after a long, hard labor, dropping into my midwife’s hands as I knelt on my bed at home. This birth was a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) and I have, in essence, been planning it for seven years, shortly after my first son came into the world after 54 hours with the help of a surgeon’s scalpel, much to my surprise and my devastation.

Today, I had an encounter that reminded me that our experiences of safety and agency are often being overridden by those around us and how that experience begins at a very young age. 

When you can begin to see how your psycho-emotional environment intersects with what's available to you in your body, you can start having some compassion for some of the obstacles you face in your movement. You can also start to change your environment. 

I firmly believe that following your desire and your intuition for your health journey will unfold in powerful ways that we can't even imagine yet. We don't know what will happen to you and to those around you and to the whole earth when you change the way you relate with your body. I do know that it will be an act of good in the world. 

Here are a handful of resources to help you start thinking differently about HOW you use your body in ways that do or don't support your desire for more core strength. 
 

I want women to be ever reminded that how you birth matters, not because cesareans are wrong but because they MEAN something to your health. But I don't just want to stop there. I want to be a part of the solution to the cesarean epidemic and to the path of healing after a difficult birth or before a next birth. 

I don't want to fix you. I am not asking you to fix you. I want you to come home to yourself, to Love, to Life. Movement is the path I walk to bring me there. It can be yours, too. 

You, had your life been filled with movement from the very beginning, wouldn't need to exercise. But your life wasn't. My life wasn't. Which is why we exercise. 
 

Gaining 30 pounds in such a short period of time is no small thing. It creates an entirely different set of loads on all the tissues of the body, whether it's the feet, the pelvic floor, the lateral hips, or the arms. But this work - this showing up to myself in so many ways and this changing of how I think about and relate to the movement of my body through my environment - has had a profound impact on the way my body can handle such massive changes. 

All the healing work I've done, all the movement and dietary changes and emotional preparation, all the stuff I thought would help didn't give me a different physical experience. In the midst of this, two things happened.

Need a little inspiration to get your movement on? These videos will not only help you bring more movement into your day-to-day, but will help prepare you for some of the bigger movements you might want to engage in. 

During a yoga class yesterday, I was struck at how many times I was asked to go past my boundaries, at how many times I was cued to do something I knew I could not do safely. I would look around the class and be able to see that others couldn't do them either, even if they were.

Dear People Who Comment on My Bare Feet: I've been running into more and more of you lately. At first, I thought this was going to just be a thing I'd keep shrugging off with a polite smile, but a few lines have been crossed, and I'd like to clear the air.

So many of you think you are coming to exercise to fix parts of your body that aren't working. To address dysfunctions that have caused suffering. To get better. And, of course, exercise will do that.
But, over and over again, I see that what is often happening on the deeper level is that you're turning to exercise to fix yourself. Because you think you are broken. Because you want to get out of your body. Because you don't think you're good enough.
 

I can do a crazy amount of exercise in the car...when I'm in the passenger's seat. But in my 30+ hour solo drive this last week (#movetochange!), I had to get a little more innovative and work within the obvious limitations that come with being the driver.

I felt like I was making a life-or-death choice. Like choosing one place to live was a prescription for utter desolation and like choosing another would leave me bereft of my soul. I have been clearly "overreacting."

I recently went camping alone with my five year old son. This was the first time I camped without another adult and I had a big movement lesson reveal itself to me

If you are like one of the many people who work with me, connect online or email me expressing your curiosity and confusion and delight at the interplay of your heart/emotions/psyche/narrative/life and the way you use your body, this post is for you.