Emotions, Effort, and Exercise
It’s not uncommon for people to feel afraid to move. A common question I’ve heard throughout my experience as a teacher is: “What’s the right way to move?” If there were a “right” way to move, none of us would’ve ever gotten out of the crib. Moving isn’t so much intellectual as it is intuitive.
There have been times in my life when I wasn’t sure if I couldn’t move—or if I was simply afraid to move.
Fear held me back. I didn’t want to do anything that might hurt my body. We begin to rely on others. If pain is bad, then we do everything we can to avoid it. We turn to professionals for advice. Over time, we lose confidence that our body can heal—even though it can. Yes, even the muscles. They know how to move.
What Causes This Fear to Make a Move?
Emotional experiences can impact the body just as deeply as physical ones. Pain, illness, or injury—whether we’ve experienced them ourselves or witnessed them in others—can stay with us in ways we don’t always recognize. These experiences become an internal dialogue.
Our bodies don’t experience emotions and physical sensations separately—they’re blended. That can make it hard to know what to do. Our intellect often fights with our intuition.
How did we ever learn to sit up, or crawl? It’s amazing how fearful we can become about simply making a move.
For example, imagine receiving great news. I remember a time when I was feeling low, stuck to the couch, barely moving. Then the phone rang. It was good news—really good news—and without even thinking, I found myself up and walking. Every muscle was awake and moving with ease. It happened so fast, I paused to notice how different I felt in an instant.
On the flip side, you can be feeling perfectly fine—until bad news arrives. Suddenly, you recoil. Your whole body tightens. It’s as if the news didn’t just hit your ears—it hit every muscle in your body.
The mind and body are deeply interconnected—like electricity: fast, reactive, and powerful. Yet we don’t always connect the dots. We don’t realize how one influences the other, and we can go years feeling stuck in circumstances we believe are fixed.
Why? Because we’ve created a narrative that keeps us there. They can complain more when you begin to move after a long time of being stuck in a physical pattern. The Miracle Ball Method can help with that. Ease into it. But never stop moving.
It’s Not Just the Circumstances
You may have had an injury or illness. That experience comes with its own interpretation—through your physical body. We often interpret pain only as negative. But many times, it leads us exactly where we need to go by moving us away from what’s hurting us.
You learn this by developing more confidence in the feedback your body provides.
Let’s distinguish between “thinking” about the body and interpreting the physical feedback from the body. That’s the Miracle Ball Method. That’s the missing link to moving freely throughout your life.
Your Body Dialogue
I call this your body dialogue—the internal conversation that tells you what’s going to hurt and what’s going to help. When you start making that distinction between physical feedback and thoughts, you realize one greatly impacts the other.
At first, this can be confusing. It can make us hesitant to move, reluctant to exercise, and unaware of how much we’ve stopped enjoying our bodies.
To make it even more challenging, this dialogue is fast—without warning. But this speed is necessary. You might be playing sports, and a ball comes toward you. There’s no time to think—yet somehow, you move. Or you jump out of the way of a speeding car. That’s the subliminal, back-and-forth language of mind and body.
It’s amazing.
But I wonder—have you been negatively impacting your body with a narrative of fear?
A simple twinge can become a sudden fear of walking on a foot you sprained years ago. Or a desire to improve may lead you to try deep breathing—and the feeling of lightheadedness makes you worry. While it’s important to pay attention to warning signs, over time you begin to notice patterns.
This Week: Notice Your Thoughts
Try noticing how your thoughts may be directing the way you move.
Do you avoid bending forward because of an old injury—or even a memory tied to that movement? Do you avoid reaching for high shelves because it reminds you of a sensation of strain or loss of control? Maybe you avoid walking because sweating feels uncomfortable, and you associate it with vulnerability.
We often mislabel physical sensations because we’re afraid of doing something wrong. The freedom we had as children to experiment and explore movement seems to be gone. Many of us walk hesitantly, awkwardly, fearing what might happen.
But you can use this body dialogue to begin exploring movement again.
Challenge some of those physical feelings. Is all that concern really warranted? Are there ways of moving that might actually be helpful—ways you’ve been avoiding?
So many of our current habits stem from single moments in our past that we’ve unconsciously turned into rules. But what if you gently challenged that dialogue?
Add a little curiosity. Ask your body to move just a little differently today. Notice what happens—not just physically, but emotionally too.
You might find that a small shift in mindset leads to surprising freedom in movement. That’s where the healing begins.
Join me for my next free webinar:
“Why Your Shoulders Hurt”
📅 June 14th, 1:30 PM
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