No Thanks On the “No Pain, No Gain”

gentle exercise, healing

Who else hates the thought of traditional exercise? What if I told you that there’s actual reasons why, aside from sheer laziness that you resist breaking a sweat on the treadmill or forcing squats with heavy weights? Lord knows, there are tons of options for getting a good workout in. What if the gym is just not the right place for you to get moving?

Beyond Laziness

There’s a connection between the stories we tell ourselves about our judgements around our body image, as well as chronic health conditions that make it next to impossible to gather up the will to do traditional exercise. Being “lazy” is an overused term for a much more complicated issue. Why is there heaviness? Let’s go there, instead, where root cause awareness will help us find real solutions instead of blaming symptoms.

Yoga is Not for Everyone

Yoga has long been a viable option for a gentler approach, but if you’re like me, you’ve gotten hurt by practicing poses you didn’t know weren’t safe until 12-24hours later. For people with chronic pain like arthritis and other inflammatory conditions, certain poses may feel fine in the moment, but suffer flare ups after the fact.

It’s frustrating to want to find an activity that feels right, I urge you to keep searching!

Learning to listen to our bodies is a challenge in these times where our focus is persistently shifting from one priority to the next. We seem to have very little, if any, downtime. I invite you to go a little deeper into why exercise is so very hard for so many.

Exercise Resistance

Exercise resistance is rooted in not feeling safe and comfortable in our own skin. People who have suffered physical or sexual abuse are especially susceptible to this, as pain or discomfort can be a trigger for old memories of distress. In today’s highly critical and perfectionistic culture, most of us have been shamed for moving in certain ways and our protective responses are to shut it down by going up into our heads (aka intellectualizing). We learn to live up in our heads and become disassociated from our bodies. We start to subconsciously believe that sensations are a threat. The good news is that there are ways to reconnect to the body without pain. Therefore, I invite you to explore conscious and mindful movement with me or find resources in your area.

In many studies including the National Institute of Health, gentle exercise is shown to reduce anxiety and depression, as well as relieves symptoms of fatigue and pain. When we start to do exercises that actually feel good with no pain whatsoever, it becomes a positive feedback loop. Now, if only we had the time!

Putting Ourselves on the Priority List

If you were to really take a full inventory of how your time is spent in a day, what amount of time do you think is focused on some form of escape, entertainment, or stress-relief? So many of us spend our time taking breaks using social media and “doom scrolling” because it takes no effort and stimulates the reward centers of the brain. The hardest part of any shift, is making the decision and taking action.

I invite you to try out a virtual movement session with me. Start out my just setting up a 15min chat and try out a mini-session. I can assure you the chances of you feeling better than before the call are almost certain. Drop the negative self-talk and start making your physical and mental health important.

You’ll be happy you did. 🙂

https://calendly.com/lisabethlent/15min

LB

PS. Stay tuned for upcoming Ecstatic Dances in the Danbury region! I’ll be offering them soon!

 

The Perfect Storm: Chronic Stress, Burnout & Perimenopause

perimenopause, graves, thyroid, stress, burnout

Why is it that so few women have a clue about the massive transition called perimenopause?

Could it be the imagery that goes with it? I mean, this is not a phase of life with any glamour or status, quite the contrary. It is seen as the beginning of the end. The “old lady” phase, or our “golden era.”

(*shaking my head*)

Got Support?

It goes unsaid because of all that and then some. If you are one of the lucky women who’s had dialogue with older family and friends, I’d guess you were in the minority. For women like me, who come from little emotional familial support, there were no conversations aside from the complaining of symptoms AFTER the fact.

I had less common symptoms and more intense than from what I’ve heard.  At 45, in 2019, the season when this COVID business started ramping up globally, I started noticing cysts and red rosacea on my cheeks, my chronic insomnia ramped up to pretty much every night, and the brain fog was beyond comedic levels. When I was 49, the hot flashes came, RELENTLESSLY, every 5-10minutes, all, day, long.

Got Stress?

Nevermind the fact that I had been living a high-stress life, chronic anxiety, undiagnosed ADHD (diagnosed at 50, mind you), and my thyroid went into hyper-drive with the autoimmune disorder called Graves Disease. I learned then that there’s a correlation between CPTSD, burnout, and perimenopausal symptoms being more severe. Oh, and the ADHD situation also compounds things.

The Math is Mathing

It’s starting to add up. Chronic stress, lack of support, being a woman, equals a less than gentle entering-into the “Crone” stage of a woman’s life cycle. Burning the candle at both ends will end up in burnout, who knew?

Or am I the only one who had to live behind the proverbial eight-ball with all of this?

The Teaching

Perimenopause is the great equalizer. Paying the piper of sorts. It will level the playing field and catapult you into prioritizing yourself only as sudden health crisis’ can. Older, wiser is hard won. Learning to prioritize myself has been quite the journey, and waves of lessons after lessons, showing me where self-neglect can not be. So, then, it’s a blessing in disguise.

About a year after my Graves diagnosis, I took my health by the reins and made nutrition, sleep, gentle movement and deep prayer (with frog, Kambo medicine) my #1 focus. I mean, top of the list, and guess what, no one starved, and we all survived. Not only that, but my thyroid started functioning at normal levels and I got off the medication. I’ve been in remission since 2024. I started Hormone Replacement Therapy last year, and it’s been a GODSEND GAMECHANGER for sleep, and the hot flashes are GONE. Yay western medicine!

The Body Speaks, Listen

This is why the old ladies give no fucks, they’ve learned the hard way, around this stage in the game, to only take on what is necessary and learn that NO is a full-sentence. It’s time to take care of ourselves and be closer to the top of the priority list, my female friends. This is serious business. Perimenopause is the forewarning, love your body now, or forever postpone your peace.

Jump on a call with me to learn how I can support you through this intense change of life stage with the wisdom of good nutrition and gentle movement. Schedule a call with me here: https://calendly.com/lisabethlent/15min

Back to the Playground

Remember when we used to jump into a sandbox and had no concerns about who was there and if they would play with us or not? Do you remember a time when you were dancing and didn’t have a care about who saw you?

Or do you only remember being made fun of for wanting to play or dancing like a fool?

The heart longs to play, even as adults, we need play like we need to get all the things accomplished. I know, you probably can argue that one. But you know that cliche, “All work and no play, makes (your name) a dull boy/girl/person.”

Play is a huge stress release. It can only be done when the body and mind feel safe and at ease. Play is a big confidence builder. Recent studies have found that we learn faster and absorb more when something is fun versus when we are all serious and studious.

I invite you to get into the sandbox with me, hop on the swings and meet me in the dance studio sometime. My Intuitive Movement Integration Method (IMIM) is grounded in playfulness to teach many layers and facets of mindfulness:

  • Body-compassion, body neutrality
  • Awareness of critical self-talk and negative beliefs about our capacities
  • Remembering that it feels good to be in our bodies, especially when endorphins and serotonin starts to flow.
  • Lovingly observing how different parts of our bodies carry tension.
  • Invite that tension to be released with the breath, sound, and organic, free-flowing movement.
  • Getting out of isolation and connecting in a warm, friendly space to relate to others and building community.

Many would say that learning these things is hard because of all the barriers we think of, and that making time to bring awareness to these things feels overwhelming or impossible to achieve. Our limiting self-beliefs and judgements (protections) of others keeps us in a pattern of harshness and harmful habits, especially being hard on ourselves.

Book a private session with me to test out IMIM for a mini-demo. Let’s play!

Here’s the link to book: https://calendly.com/lisabethlent/30minvirtualimim

Stop Hip Pain, Go Deep

body positivity

Ah, approaching fifty was a rude awakening. It was as if parts of my body were a ticking time bomb and then all this inflammation erupted in the most peculiar places! My complexion went to shit, I was getting headaches and arthritic neck pain on a frequency I only had in my mid-thirties, when I didn’t know I had arthritic neck pain (I had started to adjust my posture, putting my head on top of my body, which GREATLY reduced the frequency of my pain), my right SI joint starting acting up, which was gradually getting amped up with the passing of every year, but the real shocker was the right hip pain, random, sharp, shooting pain and sometimes it would feel like it was slipping out of place.

Scary, to say the least.

Off I went to the PT for six months, for them to send me off for an MRI and a pain management specialist offering me cortisol shots, but I have heard from all too many folks that that only is a temporary fix for the inevitable; total hip replacement. At fifty, the MD agreed, I was a little young to consider such a procedure. With desperation, I went where we all go to find answers; Google.

I found some (a ton) of videos on the topic, but one approach intrigued me. Deep squats. Something about it seemed ancient, comforting, welcoming and easy. Different talking heads aka “influencers” raved about their incredibly positive impact to relieve lower back tension and improve hip mobility.

I had zero to lose by trying.

I’ve been doing them daily for the last two seasons now, and the frequency of hip pain is less than 5%. I get a phantom pain about once a month or less now that I do them and some other deep mobility exercises.

Basically, if you can’t get off the floor without using your hands, you have big problems post mid-life. I’m thankful I reclaimed my depth. You’ve got yours?

I can help you get off the floor. We start REALLY gradually, off the floor, with gentle movement.

Let’s chat for 15-20mins to see if we’re a good fit and I can help you reclaim your body’s ability to reduce chronic body pain and move again. Imagine that.

What do you have to lose?

LB