In my teenage years when I was very active and sporty, the words ‘gentle exercise’ were like a foreign language to me. I had a black belt in karate, represented my state in basketball, won tennis championships, and I regularly went swimming and to the gym – it was an area of my life where I was considered successful. On reflection, I was not as successful as I could have been as there was always a drive to do better, achieve more or win more championships.
The way I had to push my body with karate is something I find hard to re-visit. There are memories of running barefoot on gravel and not wanting to come last because I would be made to do it again; memories of smashing my shins into those of heavy, grown men – and I was a delicate 12 year old girl in a class of adults.
My focus during exercise was always on pushing my body to do more. There was no enjoyment in the process of exercising – instead my mindset was that it was good for my body; or that by winning I was better than others.
When I used to look at my body it was almost with a cloudy vision and I would look at what I didn’t like … my thighs could be thinner, or my hips not so wide.
Recently I started doing weekly exercise classes with Danielle Pirera and her Re-Connect Exercise program. These classes and their gentle way of exercising are like no other exercise I have experienced before. I have been able to break a lot of my old patterns of how I exercised as well as discover the beauty and power of my body.
Doing Re-Connect Exercise classes with Danielle feels amazing; to move my body and to build my strength in a way where I am listening to my body and am present with my body and what I am feeling. My body feels vibrant with a real flow through it now. There is no longer the continual heaviness in my legs that I often experienced. Over the last 6 months the way I view my body has changed so dramatically: now when I look at my body I see a beautiful, powerful, strong and sexy woman.
I have also been able to heal the damage I did to myself from my former ways of exercising. The first time Danielle suggested push-ups against the wall, I cringed at the thought and I was thrown back to memories of my karate days. But this time I was able to do the push-ups in a different way and re-imprint how I now know push-ups can be – healing for the body and not harming it.
As a high school student I would wear ankle weights daily and I was constantly trying to make sure no one noticed. And they were so uncomfortable! I wanted my legs to be thinner and more toned and I thought by wearing ankle weights I could speed up achieving this goal. I recently bought myself some ankle weights to use in the Re-Connect Exercise class. The first time I went to put them on, I nearly couldn’t – the memories of my teenage years were almost too much for me. I went straight back to the huge lack of self-worth I felt as a seventeen year old. I did put them on, however this time I did it with love for my body and because I wanted to support my leg exercises and not to change the shape of my legs.
To re-visit that time of my life has been so incredibly healing; I could begin to let go of all the pain I carried from those years when I hated my body and was so consumed by how my body looked.
To exercise in a gentle way while being fully present with myself blows other ways of exercising out of the water.
My way of exercising in my teenage years left a bad taste in my mouth and from that I shunned traditional forms of exercise. Discovering this new way of gentle exercise has allowed me to discover a different way of being with my body. I have entered into a new relationship with my body – one that is based on love and support and I’m looking forward to further developing this new long term relationship.
Inspired by Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon.
By Nikki McKee, Administration, Goonellabah, Australia
Further Reading:
Exercise – it doesn’t need to be hard work
Exercise and My Body
My Turnaround from Competitive Running to Connection with Me
“My body feels vibrant with a real flow through it now” the true purpose of gentle exercise.
I have a very similar relationship with exercise, before and after! Before it was rough and careless, now it’s supportive and gentle. I feel stronger and more vital now than I did back then. Most likely because I don’t get muscle cramps the following day every time I exercise now like I used to.
Great Article Nikki, as 40 years of train had to be re-imprinted by me by being gentle as presented in the “Re-Connect Exercise classes with Danielle” and I amazed at the level of vitality and strength obtained in these simple classes.
When we focus on the feeling that we are not enough and needing to do more we are feeding ourselves poison, far better to make our focus on the amazing being we are and from their exercise is done in the holding energy of love.
Glorious to read Nikki, our body surely deserves love, respect and honouring, ‘ I have entered into a new relationship with my body – one that is based on love and support and I’m looking forward to further developing this new long term relationship.’
I had a similar experience when I first went into a gym again after years of staying clear of gyms because of the fanatical way I had previously exercised. Nothing was done in a gentle way, I actually believed the more my body hurt and aches the better my exercise work out was. Now, I couldn’t possibly think of exercising in that way because I would absolutely loose connection to my body.
It is great to recognise that some of our behaviours were not always in the best interests of our body, and to replace that with a new way of being that is honouring, supportive and cherishing of our body.
“now when I look at my body I see a beautiful, powerful, strong and sexy woman.” A beautiful exercise in being fit for life.
Likewise Nikki, the way I used to exercise as a teenager has had to be unlearnt as it always used to lead to me hurting myself from over doing it. However, its been hugely worthwhile as what I do now as exercise has given me a lovely relationship with my body which I value enormously and supports me in all sorts of different things that I do through my day.
I remember when I first went back to the gym after having been much more gentle and honouring of my body and i had similar experiences. I did not do weights as I considered this too much for me at the time Now reading your blog I realise I could bring weights back into my exercises sessions. I have not been to the gym for a while either and maybe that would also be a fun way to get more strength in my body . There is a gym five minutes from my house. Thank you Nikki .
Reading your blog has inspired me to get out my weights and exercise program and start to gently exercise to support my body all the while bringing a loving tender presence.
Yes Nikki, we are so used to not having a relationship with our body, that the moment we actually connect it is quiet shocking — not so much that it is unknown, but more so we can feel that it is so known yet have not been lived for a long time.. The moment we are honest, we instantly can connect and deepen our relationship with ourselves.
It is interesting that we are never really taught about really caring for and looking after our bodies- it is like we have this sense of entitlement with our bodies that we can do whatever we like with them. We would never do to a baby the many things we are prepared to do to ourselves, for example, you wouldn’t give a baby coke yet we drink it without really thinking about it.
Nikki no one talks about exercise this way, they champion results from going hard at it, but no one is generally open about the physical and emotional effects of exercising in such a punishing way, or the self loathing that is often motivating us. I feel it’s really important to talk openly about the effects of how we exercise on the whole person, not just the physical results, because we may not realise we are being abusive with ourselves but justifying it because we become more fit, muscly or toned.
” Doing Re-Connect Exercise classes with Danielle feels amazing; to move my body and to build my strength in a way where I am listening to my body and am present with my body and what I am feeling. ”
I did classes with Danielle and I felt the same in that it was like I was learning to consciously be aware of all my body when I was moving. The depth of movement involved with the whole body when just doing one physical moment is just incredible. One tiny physical moment moves the whole body as all the body adjusts to the slightest movement.
Its interesting to note how I used to exercise too — it was all about pushing myself to be stronger, faster, perform better.. Total (nervous system) stimulation because that was what was only known in the body at the time. I commend the Esoteric Modalities that showed me Harmony in the body. This is now my focus when I exercise – exercising in gentleness in maintaining connection supports holding my innermost harmony.
“To exercise in a gentle way while being fully present with myself blows other ways of exercising out of the water.” When we exercise with love and gentleness our body says ‘Thank you.’
I used to push my body big time with all types of exercise, thinking it was good for me, the problem was I never really listened to what my body wanted. These days my body speaks loudly, and I have to listen.
Our bodies are so responsive to love and loving exercise – best investment ever.
I agree revisiting what we had issues with can be very healing, we do not need to own it and become drowned in emotions. We can observe what was going on and make a change in how we respond. We can heal whatever hurt by the choices we make.
Exercise is a great way to develop and learn about the power in your body, there’s so much we can learn about ourselves and grow in the everyday things we need to do.
Reminds me of being a teenager and doing volley ball at quite a high level, the only focus was the commitment to the ball at any cost, I would have 10 bruises on each inner arm and 20 on each shin. It was horrific but I at the time loved it because I loved team sports and that is where I can see the bastardisation of brotherhood in the world. I fell for it hook line and sinker! Now sport just seems to be the opposite as whilst the intention is to win and smash the opposition it is really not about brotherhood!
I also, like many, got hooked into thinking being part of a team was brotherhood. Caught feels. From what I know and feel brotherhood to be now, is very different to what I experienced through sport. While I thought I felt it on the field or court we were playing on, when the game was over it was very clear it wasn’t, as most went their seperate ways.
Regular gentle exercise is really important for our bodies health and wellbeing – and I have loved how you have shared your experiences of this Nikki and how you have totally reimprinted it to a way in which your body is far more loved and honoured when you now exercise.
It’s just crazy the way we treat our delicate bodies in order to seek any form of recognition, approval or acceptance. I certainly fell into the trap of thinking I had to exercise hard to achieve the results I was looking for, but in all honesty I did not truly or deeply feel contentment. As you say here ‘To exercise in a gentle way while being fully present with myself blows other ways of exercising out of the water.’ – and the beautiful thing is that we have to opportunity to build and strengthen not only our physical bodies but also deepening our connection to our bodies and being whilst we are exercising. A win win in all regards.
Its deepening that connection that is such a key ingredient in life, and totally missed out on in the way I was taught about exercise as a child.
A lot of harm is inflicted on the physical body under the guise of being good for us, as in certain exercise regimes or when it comes to nutrition and diet advice.
Yes it is really ironic isn’t it?!
How incredible the changes that can happen with even just a drop of self-love in to a sea of low self-worth. It is like being in a sea of turmoil and finding a boat, a safe haven where everything makes sense because there is love and it is you – you are the love you have been looking for. This, is a very precious thing.
I have recently started to exercise a bit more and wow does my body thank me for it, I have a very sedentary job where I do a lot of driving so as long as I am connected exercising is a real joy for my body.
“My focus during exercise was always on pushing my body to do more. There was no enjoyment in the process of exercising – instead my mindset was that it was good for my body.” Me too. Nowadays and with the support and encouragement from Bev Carter’s online exercise programmes my relationship with exercise has shifted dramatically and I now really enjoy exercising because I am now staying with my body rather than trying to get through the exercises as quickly as possible so I can go on to do other things. Bringing presence to whatever I do has changed all that I do in life.
Its hard to describe what life is like when you have a sense of you in your body if you have never felt that before, but it is still worth describing what life is like living, exercising, eating and working with that sense of you for then the possibility and value of it is known.
Exercise must be connected with gentleness… it is our true nature
Reading this article and the impact Karate had on Nikki, is something that needs to be talked about more. There is great harm, first in why we choose to have our bodies ‘bashed’ by a sport and secondly why we actually champion and continue with this sport, even after we have felt the impact of it. The sad thing is the mindset that supports our behaviour here is all around us and it takes great courage to go against the tide.
Reading that first paragraph I’m reminded of that awful saying ‘the price of success’. It indicates that there is a heavy toll to pay, in pain or in selling out. Lets just revisit that word success a moment… as our definition of that defines the abuse we will allow, or the love that we let in.
You will not be the first or the last person to hate their body Nikki, which is why we abuse our bodies in obvious and the not so obvious ways. Very inspiring to read the healing that has taken place for you as the relationship with your body changes and deepens. When we are ready to let go of our hurts or past traumas, I have found that there is so much support available to help us do just that.
It was interesting to go back and read this blog and see how my relationship with my body continues to change, depend and heal. I had totally forgotten about the trauma I put myself through with ankle weights and how much came up for me when I first went to put them on again. This has completely cleared from my body. It’s amazing the hurts we carry around in our bodies that we have forgotten about it. Then when we do re-visit them and address them that they can completely go. So much time spent carrying things around that don’t belong!
So very true and I had to giggle because you are known as the queen of decluttering.
Yes, always happy to get rid of what’s not needed 🙂
It is a beautiful thing to realise that we can do exercises without a push or drive of wanting to better ourselves or a specific body part. That exercise can be done because it feels so good in the body and it is such a joy to exercise with ourselves. I really thought this was not possible a couple of years ago but I can. I wonder how many things we think are impossible that are actually very possible when we give it a go.
Thank you Nikki for a great article showing me how much my body is missing loving and tender exercise, inspiring how you are re-impring the way you now exercise so different to how you exercised in such a driven way in your younger life.
Bring love into exercise and you will never ever be able to hurt yourself anymore as our bodies are so sensitive and tender and need that regular exercise to stay healthy and fit to the end of its days.
I too had a dodgy relationship with exercise and body image for decades which I have only truly started to re-imprint in the last 4 years. And it’s all been about finding the love in the process, and in me, as has been described here so well by Nikki. It’s about supporting my body, and no longer fitting in with an ideal or belief.
The most beautiful thing about gentle exercise is that in supporting my body, I support my physical and mental wellbeing. The simplicity of this is staggering, and my learning is that when I don’t exercise, I feel the result of this choice on many levels. The quality of my mental wellbeing being the most significant trigger to remind me to return to regular gentle exercises.
Exercising to develop a body that is not only healthy and strong, but also loving and tender is a whole new paradigm, and one well worth the change.
If you have been an avid exercise guru or heavily into hard sports, it is challenging to accept gentle exercise and true movement as an option, as your head thinks what it is choosing is good for it, and society pushes, play hard, move through the burn, and so on. Only when you make the choice to give it a go and feel the contrast and how beneficial that is all around, can you say, wow, I pushed my body so hard and wasn’t even present through any of it, and now I can really feel how enjoyable gentle exercise actually is, and how super supportive it is for the body.
I too experience a lot of hardness in how people are, not only with themselves but also with the people they are with, may it be at home, at work or anywhere else the interaction takes place. This hardness I do experience not only in the way they move and touch but also in the way the interact verbally and talk in general. From seeing all of this it is not strange to me that how people are exercising is in the same way, hard and tough. We are so used to be this way but I am experiencing something different now after connecting more and more to my body. I am experiencing a deep connection with a tenderness and delicacy I never felt before and when I now sometimes move a little bit too hard or express myself in a hard way I instantly feel it in my body as it disturbs that yummy feeling connecting to our bodies do bring. So also for me no hard pushing and achieving in excercise anymore but just those gentle movements that do support my body to stay healthy and fit for all the work it has to perform.
Over the last year I have again changed the way I exercise. Nothing in me has wanted to do light weights. I struggled with this for a while thinking that I should, but my body finds it very challenging. On the other hand, my body loves walking, stretching and connective tissue exercises. What I’ve been learning is that there is no set way. As my body is going through certain things along my path of evolution, different things may be needed. If I get stuck in one way, I may be locking my body into something that it wants to move on from.
Gentle exercise makes me feel supported and loved when I do it in connection to my body, such a far cry from my martial arts days or even when doing my exercise routine now but while thinking about issues in my head. Having a connection with our bodies makes any movements enjoyable, light-hearted and fun.
Winning and the ideals of competition have smothered the true benefits we can get from exercise and movement. Take them away and we are left with an opportunity to evolve though connection with our body.
There is a totally false image of personal growth linked to abusing (pushing) the body. Through abuse to our body there is no possible personal growth. Only by loving it this is really possible.
True exercise allows us to get in touch with our inner strength so there is no need to push ourselves and abuse our bodies; simply connect and move in a way that confirms what is already there to support us in our daily living.
Once you become aware of what connection with yourself feels like, you don’t want to give it up… thus exercise becomes an opportunity to strengthen not only the physical body but also the connection with self.
Exercise is a great way to get to know our bodies and the power that lies within, I love how when I simply go on the walking machine I can feel the power in my legs and the strength of my commitment – it’s like who I am pulsates through every cell in my body. Yep I totally agree exercise is an amazing tool for both looking after our bodies and also getting to know who we really are on a deeper level.
Nikki, there is a strong message in your writing that is very present and such a gift – there is a choice to be made in how we move and care for our bodies, and further more, there is a choice available in what intentions we have when doing so.
I’m just realising it’s not the exercise I’m resisting, it’s the commitment to me, allowing the space in my week to support my body has not been a priority apart from my daily walks. I feel by committing to an ongoing program is the next step in connection to a deeper relationship with myself.
Exercise with push and drive so often results in injury but exercising with gentleness and your whole body opens up and says ‘thank you’.
This shows there can be a quality in how we do things. I never considered this before and when it came to exercise, it was all about the burn rather than the love and care that I could bring to exercise. Nikki I love how you have changed the way you exercise through listening to the body – it is very inspiring and something I am also working on myself.
I was never a sporty person, yet I found it easy, I could run, high jumps, jog, did a bit of all these things, but I always found I had a lazy attitude to exercise, I did not like to make my body uncomfortable…this is on the other end of the scale, lazy with exercise. But since I also started exercise classes with Danielle, she introduced something very new for me, that exercise connected to the body is a whole new way…my body loved it, I loved it, but I still continued to be lazy…
I have passed that now, and am really enjoying connecting and feeling the natural strength of my body. But the key here is whether it’s full on sport or lazy and not into it, either way there is a disconnection from our bodies. Re connecting and appreciating the body, I am beginning to feel a quality I never felt before, a strength and lightness…also a confidence in its movement and in life…the body is a friend not an enemy.
Exercising gently in a way that supports my body is now the only way I would consider exercising, and I agree, ‘To exercise in a gentle way while being fully present with myself blows other ways of exercising out of the water.’
Thank you Nikki that is amazing!
Great blog Nikki, for me exercise was first in competitive sport that was something I did because all my friends were doing it and I just wanted to fit in. Later on in life came the weightlifting to put on some more muscle. I threw myself into a hard weights program not for the love and support of my body but to try and improve the way my body looked.
These days I have a gentle exercise program where I exercise my body so it can support me to be all that I am.
I love what you share here Nikki, that when we revisit old behaviours and patterns we hold in the body, this first brings up the memories and what we left behind in our bodies, but this is great as we can now re-imprint and bring a new feeling to the body and no longer have to walk around with that old trauma.
Ankle weights? I have never tried them, I can feel from your blog how supportive these classes are and find I am inspired to give them a go.
I used to think to have a strong powerful body I had to train hard and for long hours, all I ended up with was a very toned, exhausted and masculine physique not very attractive for a young woman. Learning to gently exercise has been an interesting process for me, and how it is the quality of connection and gentleness I bring when I exercise that truly supports my body.
Wow Nikki! What a turn around from the way you moved with and viewed exercise to what you now know about it. It’s a gorgeous reflection of how willing you are to love your body and I can feel the care you now have in everything you do. Yes, it can be sickening to think of how it once was, but knowing that you were ‘owned’ by and image of what you thought exercise was can help in bringing understanding to the memory and anything stored in the body. Well Done!!
It is always wonderful to read when such high achievers have an epiphany of self awareness, and the revelations that then happen
It’s amazing what we do to ourselves and let others do in the name of sport and competition. Creating dramatic situations like the running barefoot on gravel. I have many such stories of my own. All with the end goal to be fitter, better and more accepted by others for what I could do. Yet in wanting others to accept me I actually made it impossible to accept myself. And no external measure of being successful will change that, it is only through being more gentl with my body that I have started to build self acceptance, which from a psychological point of view alone is a much healthier way to live in our bodies. Great to hear Nikki that you have found what works for you in regards to your exercise, it certainly has a profound influence on the rest of our lives and how they play out.
The moment we truly feel the beauty and power of our body is a beautiful one of acceptance and surrender, knowing there is so much beyond physicality. What is truly beautiful and powerful is the connection we feel with ourselves and the solidity and support the body is offering back to us in being in the world, there is a working together between what is physical and non-physical.
Moving in connection with my body and feeling how to move in a way that best supports how I am moving, just makes so much sense if I am doing exercises to support my body’s health and strength, which seems to be a no brainer as that is why we do exercise, but funnily enough, many, including myself some time back, do exercise with no true focus on the body and how it feels when we do it at all. It is just another box ticking exercise that makes us feel good and we can get recognition or acceptance from others.
The Gentle Exercise reconnects me to my body and supports me to build a foundation in my life that keeps me light, steady, consistent and loving.
My body appreciates being being moved and stretched. It is like offering support to my best friend – my partner in life is my own body! It so deserves to be deeply honoured.
Our bodies are so naturally tender and delicate, and like you I really pushed myself beyond what feels good when exercising. And if I’m honest, I still do – going to the gym has always been about getting bigger as opposed to taking care of myself. This is a really cool post that’s made me reflect on my relationship with exercise. Thank you for sharing!
I have been exercising lately Nikki and been noticing that if i bring awareness to my breasts when i do pull ups for example then it is much harder for me to go hard and drive the movement – its like maintaining my natural sexiness through my movements – this not only brings settlement to my body but also confirms me as a woman – 2 in 1.
Working with the body and not against it has changed everything.
Not only does my body feel deeply honoured by this but also so do i as a woman.
Wow karate was lethal! I played volleyball at a reasonable level at secondary school and the focus was on ‘commit to the ball’ no matter what you would do everything in your power to reach the ball and keep it in play. At one point I counted 22 bruises on my shins, my forearms were constantly black and blue, and I loved it! Crazy, really crazy what I loved was being part of team where there weren’t any stars – volleyball is a very even team game but this is a false brotherhood that is often associated with sport, I am like all of us naturally innately about brotherhood, one humanity and don’t find it in our day to day interactions so I went and found a false substitute in sport. No judgement it just where we are right now, but it is important to know where we are so we can shift to living and moving to the real brotherhood that awaits us and is infinitely more kind to our bodies than sport!
I have just recently commenced doing some simple exercises each morning. They aren’t about trying to raise my heart rate or get all sweaty, but just a few exercises with the aid of a ball, to build a consistency with myself. I am really enjoying them as there isn’t a pressure around time, ie. I need to be exercising for half and hour or an hour, but just feeling the benefits of choosing me at the beginning of each day.
If we look world wide at how many people are into the kind of exercise that involves pushing themselves to the limit and overriding what their body is telling them we can see directly how this impacts the likely hood to cause serious injuries and the possible detriment to their mental health.
I find that the more I include a variety of different exercises throughout my week, the more inspired I am to stay consistent.
Committing to gentle connected exercises every morning has changed my life.
I no longer get swept into the drive to get the kids to school
I find it easier to concentrate and what was a chore becomes a real pleasure – because i am no longer anxious or exhausted.
I have also noticed that by incorporating some Sacred Movement (as taught by Natalie Benhayon), into my morning routine that there is a natural awareness of my breasts, nurturing points and cervix and this connection has brought much more honouring, playfulness and sexiness into my exercise routine.
During my exercise recently i have been bringing much attention to my palms and wrists – keeping them in an open relaxed position allows me to feel when i am over doing it or driving myself as my hand draws in and becomes clenched.
From self hate to self love through gentle exercise and feeling your body and what is really going on . A beautiful sharing and very profound change in your life that is a real inspiration.
I have been ill for the last week and I notice now that I am recovering how much I miss my exercise and how it actually invigorates me and makes me feel more energetic. I am looking forward to restarting and gently getting back into my weekly exercise program.
“My focus during exercise was always on pushing my body to do more. There was no enjoyment in the process of exercising” – I know this so well… As well as finding it difficult to re-visit it. When I understood how unloving sport is – competitive sport I mean. Sport where there’s a goal to be reached. Whether it is competition with ourselves or with others. In a team or as an individual. It is never ever supporting the body. And so the body needs to harden in order to cope with the unloving choices which makes it impossible for our natural innocence, delicateness, love etc. to flow through us. In fact, competitive sport is the opposite. But I chose to stop sporting and have other than walking not done a lot of exercise. Where my body’s is actually screaming to build some more power in it. I’ve tried a little and can feel so many hurts are hidden when I start connecting deeper with my body, that led to more resistance. For me it’s got a lot to do with acceptance of the fact that I’ve been abusive towards myself and that that’s fine. To let go of the judgements, rather than holding on to them. And allow myself support to go through the process. Which will start soonish.
The more consistent I am with exercise and especially the more I don’t get stuck in a rut, the more supportive I find it. It is subtle but definitely makes a difference to my day.
I recall pushing my body to the extreme in my 20’s. I did it all for recognition, to stand out from the crowd and quite frankly it was exhausting and the truth was that I hated the doing it all, but my need for recognition was actually greater at the time. As a result though my reaction to this was to do the opposite – absolutely nothing. From one extreme to another. I am so pleased that I went along to a gentle exercise class and I loved it from the moment that I started. No push, no effort but my body loved how the exercise felt. I exercise everyday now and it will always be part of my everyday life because I can actually see myself getting older and being able to maintain a similar way of exercising.
I would never have believed exercise could be so lovely to do had I not done some of Danielle’s on line classes. She changed it for me forever as I always equated exercise with force and drive to ‘fitten up’ which I loathed doing. I agree fully with you Nickki “‘To exercise in a gentle way while being fully present with myself blows other ways of exercising out of the water’”.
The impact on my body from running for 30 years was severe. I used to believe I was free and in flight when I ran but I know I used it to tire myself out to sleep at night, to numb myself to the sadness I felt and to bury my issues, literally jamming them down while I pummelled my body.
It is such a joy to honour my body and to cherish its value and worth and to return to a true way of movement that is deeply known and was never truly forgotten.
How we move from young can condition and pattern our bodies for decades to come – our whole life, if we do not pause to listen to our bodies and consider the way in which we treat our body, move our body and run it
This reminds us – ‘Is our body a vehicle to allow us to bring heaven?’ Or, ‘is it a recipient of indulgence and abuse?’ This is well worth asking ourselves.
After being a weekend warrior and cyclist who would ‘knock over 400+km per week’ I recognise the harm and separateness such exercise can do (not to mention how numb my perineum would end up!). I love gentle exercise and still enjoy doing some ‘huffy puffy’ exercise but realise it is not about proving anything except that we can stay with ourselves whilst feeling our body. Even typing this the importance of posture and bodily connection is confirmed. Thanks Nikki
What a great blog Nikki sharing what a great difference we feel when exercising gently in connection with our bodies, lovely, ‘to move my body and to build my strength in a way where I am listening to my body and am present with my body and what I am feeling. My body feels vibrant with a real flow through it now.’
A key word in this blog is – gentle. When are we ever encouraged to do things – gently, with tender care, with presence and with connection with yourself, especially with exercise involving weights. In contrast I have found that mostly we are encouraged to push harder, to abandon self-care and delicacy and to only find strength through pain and hardship. Yet, in discovering the gentleness that I can move in, there is great strength and vitality, mainly because it does not drain me, it does not take anything away from me, it actually supports me to be much wiser in my choices and therefore to have a much more vital body that feels strong and capable.
“To exercise in a gentle way while being fully present with myself blows other ways of exercising out of the water.” this is great its about us taking responsibility for our body and bringing in gentle exercise to build the core strength for our body. Understanding the importants of bones, tissues and muscle are also regenerating all the Time. If we don’t support the growth and strength then we are inviting conditions into our life,
There are so many things out there that are telling us this is good for this and this is good for that.
But where does our own self reflection come into this?
Thank you for bring your self-reflection for us all to read.
I have memories of my sporting days and when I was training for races it would always be about getting more out of my body, out of each session, so I would be constantly driving myself to leave it all out there. Exhausting myself in the process, and the hunger, I am sure I must have been malnourished from training so hard. It is a message that is supported and encouraged by what we see in media where endurance feats are lauded and people who run marathons every day are praised for their bravery and charitable work. If only we could see how lacking in intelligence it is to do this to our bodies, and that charity with our bodies is the best place to start if we want to act charitably towards another. Perhaps we would have less need for charity if we took care of our bodies, because we would build more love for ourselves and for others and the causes that we need to support would be supported in a much deeper and more healing way.
It’s pretty amazing to associate the word ‘gentle’ and ”power’ together in combination with exercise. But this is exactly what is discovered, when you exercise really consciously with the movements of your body. The connection to the body and quality of your presence, through gentle exercise is really felt, tangible so. And this redefines the word’ power’. Great blog Nikki, thank you for sharing.
It makes sense to consider the body when we use it for everything in life, but funny how when we want something, our bodies are the last thing we think about, as our heads rule the moment and the poor body doesn’t get a look in. So great Nikki, that you were able to stop and really feel how all of that sport and physical activity was not only hardening your body, but also disconnecting you from its natural wisdom.
I just love that by turning round how we exercise and listen to the inner flow of our body’s movements, we gain so much strength and balance, core stability as well without the harshness of rigorous training.
I have also been paying much more attention what my body says and tells me when exercising and I am finding that rather than feeling heavy and achy after the exercises, I now feel a freshness and lightness when I have truly listened to what my body has communicated to me.
This is gold for anyone looking at a different way to exercise but in the way advertised and pushed by the mainstream : “To exercise in a gentle way while being fully present with myself blows other ways of exercising out of the water.”
This sounds great Nikki – “But this time I was able to do the push-ups in a different way and re-imprint how I now know push-ups can be – healing for the body and not harming it.” What an awesome way to re-imprint and create new body memory.
“But this time I was able to do the push-ups in a different way and re-imprint how I now know push-ups can be – healing for the body and not harming it.” In this i can feel the appreciation and the honouring you now have for your body, when we live from the head up we override the body and miss its truly simple calls.
“My focus during exercise was always on pushing my body to do more.”
This drive and push within the exercise arena is so glorified and glamourised – many of the images we are presented with of a fit woman is a body that looks more male than female.
Nikki, I can very much relate to what you have written here, ‘My focus during exercise was always on pushing my body to do more. There was no enjoyment in the process of exercising – instead my mindset was that it was good for my body’; I used to really push my body and think this was good for me, even though my body would be in pain, I found it hard to keep this up as it was not enjoyable and I would almost dread having to do these exercises. Now I love gentle walking, it feels joyful being with me going for a walk, enjoying nature and the feeling of my body as it moves – this is so very different to the hard forms of exercise that I used to do and I feel better now than I ever did when I was pushing my body.
What a difference it makes to my day when I make time to listen to what exercise my body is asking for and then acting on that.
Very true – taking time to listen to exactly what our body needs and then acting on it is one of the best medicines on earth!
Reading your blog Nikki, brought up the phrase ‘no pain, no gain’. Why and how did punishment through exercise become mixed up with benefit to our body? What you are showing here is that the pain in this way of using our body is pain far beyond just sore muscles, but that there is an inner pain that comes with that physical self-punishment. One that can stay with us for a very long time.
I deeply appreciate your sharing Nikki, how you have gone there and started to exercise again even with those memories and imprints in your body of the past. This shows how it is always possible to make a different choice and that with a loving intention exercise can be enjoyable.
Nikki I recall a similar experience of discovering the power and beauty in my body while doing one of Danielle’s classes. In the gentleness and being present with my body while I was exercising I could feel how much my body actually likes to move. I could also feel the strength and natural power in my body, in my heart and in my legs particularly. Although I was never into sport or exercise, through gentle exercise it’s been a revelation to discover that exercise can be fun and healing. It’s also a great foundation for building love for my body.
Since starting an exercise program after many years of not exercising, I can really feel what I have been missing out on, and that is, a beautiful connection with myself and my body. All of those years of not wanting to do exercise and convincing myself, I didn’t really need it, were me missing a gorgeous connection with myself through feeling and refining how I move during a certain exercise. It highlights so beautifully how well our bodies speak to us very loud and clear when we are very present with it, and your literally nourishing your whole body while you do the exercise, so basically a win win situation.
Thank you for sharing this, Nikki. It is incredible what we will do to the body as a result of a lack of self worth. Now that I am coming into a more loving relationship with myself and my body, I too find it confronting to face how dishonouring I used to be, in fact I would say abusive. It feels super important as you say to re-imprint the ways we move and exercise, with a gentleness that the body so clearly responds to.
I too used to focus on pushing my body to do more, thinking what I was doing was good for my body, really I was just becoming more protected and disconnected from my body. Having experienced Danielle’s gentle exercise I agree with what you say Nikki, ‘To exercise in a gentle way while being fully present with myself blows other ways of exercising out of the water.’
Most revealing in what you have shared here Nikki, is the disdainful way your body was formerly held in – nothing ever being ‘enough’… I can well relate to this in regards to years of musical training and ‘performance’.
The work you have embarked upon with Danielle Pirera is truly ground-breaking – that we CAN engage in exercise (or indeed any activity) in a deeply respectful way that honours ourselves and our bodies in full. How powerful to read and connect with how revisiting elements of the past, and bringing love to the equation today, has been so deeply healing…
This is amazing work, that is deeply needed.
This is a truly astounding transformation Nikki, a story that cuts to the heart of how exercise and sport can actually harden and shut down all that we naturally are. Thank-you for sharing this so openly.
I have been committed over the past year to exercise every day and it has been a great thing to do. My body just loves to exercise in a very gentle and rhythmic way with no harsh movements and even doing 10 minutes a day of exercise supports the body enormously.
Nikki, reading this reminded me of how I used to feel after long cycle rides, I was so proud of my massive leg muscles but my whole body was stiff in my movement, quite awkward really and I didn’t have an ease in the way I moved. So I had the appearance of great physical fitness but not an all round wellbeing as the exercise was too harsh to allow me to feel my body and make choices that were loving and understanding of what my body needs. That continues to change over time as I explore how it is to do weights, walking and swimming without driving for an outcome and a certain body look.
It is very rewarding to feel how gentle exercise is just as powerful as the exercises I used to do when I pushed myself to the limit, the difference is then I was fighting my body to keep going, and by exercising gently my body is with me and just going with the flow.
I too have pushed my body to gain the ultimate performance in sports, and now when I look back to how I treated my body it makes me realise how disconnected I must have been in order to put my body through those punishing routines.
Exercise is such an interesting one, I was brought up in New Zealand and I played volleyball, touch rugby these were the more rougher sports but there certainly is a consciousness that you need to be sporty and do several to be fit, healthy and attractive. I too cringe when I think of the delicate girl of 11 going into these sports with a hard shutting down of who I really was. This stayed with me ever since even if I wasn’t playing the sport the tough persona I had adopted stuck. Then enters Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine and I got to feel the hardness I had been walking around with my whole life. Once feeling this and starting to let this go I have been able to feel the true qualities of who I am and being able to do exercise honouring these qualities – it is completely different and it is supporting True Health.
Staying with myself during exercise is a great way of seeing those times where my body posture changes and to clock what brings about the change in at that time, and choose to move in a way that feels flowing and not hard in my body as I move. This not only supports my body and how it feels, but also is so lovely to spend quality time with myself as I am exercising in this focused way.
Kids are often pushed into sports from a very young age as all the adults around them believe that it will build the kid’s confidence and character. When all the while, as you’ve exposed here Nikki, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Re-learning how to love and truly support our bodies is the most empowering and liberating gift we can offer ourselves.
Physical Exercise at school always brought up so much, what to wear, how to avoid it, who you partner was, was you going to get picked by the team captain, was you good enough. So many conflicting messages what about if instead of competitive sports at school where we are taught to over ride our feelings there was instead education on how to exercise listening and honouring our body? – now that is what I’d call true physical education.
It is such a surprise to me that I do things to my body that I think are good for it, but all the while, my body is saying (at times loudly) that it doesn’t like what I am doing. It is a strange battle to witness and to take charge of once again, to be more inline and in tune with what the body is wanting.
Exercising to heal the body and not harm it is quite a different approach. In the past, we used the adage ‘no pain no gain’ and I ask myself if we were causing pain how could that be good for the body? Now, with a gentle exercise approach we can support our bodies to be vital and powerful, instead of being sore because we pushed to achieve an ideal so we fitted an image.
Nikki, a comment you made caught my attention and this is something that should be introduced in first grade of school: to “..exercising because I love my body instead of exercising because I hated my body.” This is HUGE! Everyone is exercising because they want to change something about their body, not because they love it and are connected to it.
Sport and competition is so “normal” from a very young age, and it’s about always being better than somebody else, – while disregarding both themselves and others. I love the way you describe your transformation and enjoy gentle exercises now. This is inspirational. I was into soccer, snowboarding, running etc, and I have also worn ankle weights to shape my legs.. I have a totally different approach now and I can feel how supportive it is for my body.
Nikki on reading the title of your article ‘Discovering the Power of My Body Through Gentle Exercise’, it became apparent to me that during all of the years of my strenuous exercise I never tapped into the true power of my body. I did feel powerfully fit but that feeling was a crude form of power that muddied my true connection with my body and caused me to continue exercising strenuously despite the fact that I was exhausted.
This morning I’m staying in a hotel, which I do quite often through work. But this time I forgot my sweat pants. So I decided to go to the gym in my jeans. I got a few strange looks from the lycra-clad, sweat-drenched parade! But I just got on with my steady workout, super simple, no excessive stress or strain. Just lovely to spend twenty to thirty minutes building the support that I need to walk through my day. That is the purpose.
In primary school I was encouraged to be competitive. In the wining I would get recognised, even receive trophies and certificates from as young as 8 years old for the achievements. The pushing and hardening of my body increased throughout my teens until my body could take no more. Later, I took up yoga but that didn’t last either. Exercise was all about how I looked and how I could improve my body. The gentle stretches and lifting of weights I do today is so very different in that I am developing a relationship with my body, listening to it and feeling into what is required. My focus is connection with my body and not about being fooled by an image in my head to be something that is not who I am.
Hello Nikki,
The karate sounds so hard core. I did kick boxing on and off for a short time but found it too difficult to keep up. In high school I was really into sport, baseball, football, volleyball, netball, you name it, was in the middle of it and I loved winning. The only thing that kept me from exercise as I got older was the fear that I would get too musselly, I was already naturally very strong and I was scared that I would end up looking like an Olympic swimmer or a man. That fear has kept me from any exercise besides walking, I would like to try the programme you speak of, sounds great.
It is amazing Nikki, how that drive to do better is such a hook to keep us exercising hard and in no connection to our body. My fix was running, always trying to better my time or further my distance. Exercising in connection is a completely different ball game and as well as gaining all the well known health benefits has allowed me to feel the joy of being in my body, connecting to how lovely it feels and taking that connection into the rest of my day.
I have to agree Nikki, exercising gently, keeping the focus on connection and remaining WITH the body during the exercise movements offers grandness and a deeper appreciation of what the human body actually offers and brings to any simple movement. The body, moving in connection actually brings the universe to whatever we do.
I recently started a gentle exercise program and I was amazed how much old tension and hardness I felt in my body and how, as I became aware of it, it seemed to drip off me. Added to that my muscles seemed to switch on just with a very gentle working of them. No need to go hard or push and yet I feel I am getting stronger by just building up slowly – being present is the key.
Sounds like a great relationship developing there Nikki, with yourself. This is indeed the primary relationship to connect to and all other relationships will benefit from that loving connection with yourself.
The only gain is if you are someone who is seeking recognition or thinking you need to fit a certain body image to falsely cover up the emptiness inside. However this is all nothing compared to the deep love and delicateness that resides within each one of us.
Nikki, your story of pushing yourself to achieve a toner body through sport and achieve success by winning competitions, is what society portrays. But, at what expense to our body?
What are the long term effects to our health, as we know athletes can get cancer, arthritis etc.
Thank you Nikki for exposing the harming effect of exercise with force and for showing a true way forward with gentle exercise, as having experienced it yourself.
Nikki, your story of pushing yourself to achieve a toner body through sport and achieve success by winning competitions, is what society portrays. But, at what expense to our body?
What are the long term effects to our health, as we know athletes can get cancer, arthritis etc.
Thank you Nikki for exposing the harming effect of exercise with force and for showing a true way forward with gentle exercise, as having experienced it yourself.
This is a top noch article Nikki and do totally reminds me of me when I did such things as karate and excessive pushing through ways of exercise. I love the way you have expressed and exposed and brought through the truth. I too fully appreciate the wonder and support Danielle Pirera offers in the way she presents gentle exercise.
Nikki, it is interesting how past experiences can stop us from doing things that are actually beneficial for us. Our bodies are designed to work and I find that exercise is an important part of our daily routine.
‘To exercise in a gentle way while being fully present with myself blows other ways of exercising out of the water.’ This type of exercising or even movement in general is rare yet should be common. We all need a body awareness revolution on this planet and it starts with being gentle and fully present.
Exercise is so riddled with the ideas that its about getting fit, losing weight, bulking up or changing who you are. This blog shows the simplicity that can be enjoyed with light exercise where the body is being supported to build its strength that does not harm or over work to the point of pain but gives the person the opportunity to feel the steady assistance that exercise gives in maintaining energy and fitness levels throughout the day.
Absolutely nb. Well said. Really we must ask the point and purpose behind why we do exercise aswell as the way. Having an exercise that supports the vitality of the body for all it needs to do in a day is all the support we need exercise wise.
‘ I have entered into a new relationship with my body – one that is based on love and support and I’m looking forward to further developing this new long term relationship.’ I love this ending Nikki! To have long term loving relationship with myself is like a surrender to the truth first and then everything afterward must support it!
Exercise can be used to connect or disconnect us. What you have shared Nikki, is an awesome way of connecting with our bodies and being impulsed from that connected body. Mainstream exercise or sport, is all about competition, striving and achieving, all at the expense of the body one has to harden and numb to achieve that.
I love your honesty in how you describe how you hated your body. It shows how we don’t accept our body. I have not accepted my body for most of my life and it started at a very young age, being busy with my weight and wanting to look a certain way. I always wanted to be thinner while in truth I was already thin! I could never look at myself in the mirror with love and appreciation. What is this human condition that we have such a hard time to accept our body?
I had given up on exercise because I had given up on myself, I had let go of the expression that I had to offer the world, and let complacency take over with the promise of a comfortable environment. How this works to separate myself from the world around me is insidious, because under the illusion that I am fine I am actually harming both myself and the relationships that I have by not being the full and and compete me – only giving a portion of the truth, keeping the rest hidden – thereby feeding the comfort circle that continues to feed itself.
Exercising and pushing myself through it never felt true to me, I always felt such resistance to it and judged myself harshly for it. Now after experiencing one of Danielle’s classes and listening to Kate Twist talk about the connective tissue in our body, the way I approach exercise and how it works together in unity has changed everything. Being present and using the breath to stay connected has built my relationship with my body to a new level of appreciation. Thanks Nikki for sharing.
There is a huge difference between working out to better your body and working out to become fit for life. To be fit for life is building a body that serves the bigger purpose we all come from. True fitness is awareness.
This is gold ‘To be fit for life is building a body that serves the bigger purpose we all come from’
A super inspiring blog Nikki, its as if we have bound punishment with exercise together and get lost in the idea that pushing ourselves = fitness and the basis of this all comes from seeking an image outside of ourselves. Its amazing to read how you have re-visited & re-imprinted these past experiences, as Serge Benhayon presents the memory within our bodies, the connective tissue is like a map of all our movements.
“When I used to look at my body it was almost with a cloudy vision and I would look at what I didn’t like … my thighs could be thinner, or my hips not so wide.” A cloudy vision that befalls many in society today, the power of self appreciation and confirmation cannot be underestimated, these are the foundational building blocks that bring true settled confidence.
When I was at school I did sport to be popular. I was naturally good at it and it got much more kudos than getting good marks in academic subjects and those kids who were not good at sport were ostracised. The whole competitive spirit was far from healthy and caused many a child a lot of hurt either from pushing themselves to win, being desolate because they lost, or because they were teased for not being sporty. Competitive sport divides people whereas the kind of exercise you are now doing Nikki, unites people.
Nikki, I think many people either avoid exercise because it seems so forceful or they do it as a ‘have to’ to achieve some result like improving the body shape or getting fit. How lovely to do it just as a nurturing program for the body where we are very aware of what we are doing and do not override the body signals. Out with “no pain, no gain”!
Realising just how we push our bodies allows an appreciation to develop of how it is to be gentle in all our movements. I notice now how when I am finding a day at work more challenging it is very supportive to choose to be more aware of how I move. Moving gently and with awareness of our bodies supports us in the moments which are to follow.
From my experience as soon as you go into any sort of competition with yourself or another, your body hardens and your mind takes over. After that, it’s all over red rover for your body and listening to how it would actually like to move, or for that matter, whether it even feels to do it in the first place, as the drive to do/achieve is too strong and the body just doesn’t get a look in. Since starting an exercise routine some months back, there is so much difference in how I move and how each move feels when I do it. So much more enjoyable being with yourself when you exercise and being guided by your body and not your pushy mind.
Thank you for this blog Nikki, it has made me consider if part of my avoidance to certain exercise is due to my childhood years.
It is so refreshing to see, hear and feel that our exercise patterns that were once hard on our bodies can be done in a way that honours our body and support our inner connection.
I was quite the opposite to what you describe here Nikki, I never did any sports and I found it always hard and exhausting and often painful. In the gym class at school I would always get hurt and I did not enjoy moving at all. But it wasn’t that I was not physically active, as kids we walked a lot to explore our surrounding, we climbed trees, we balanced on the fences and did all what was there to explore with our bodies, but without the competition or the extra force to achieve something. When we didn’t manage to balance we just would repeat and repeat but at our own pace and from there develop the physical skill. Growing older and not playing outside so much anymore I stopped this playful physical exploration with my body and only now I am coming back to the joy of what exercise actually means.
Wow this is an amazing testimony of how we use sport under the consciousness of being good and healthy to cover up for our lack of self worth and need for recognition. And with this we turn it into a harming tool that disconnects us more from our body than bringing us to more presence with it.
It s amazing how strong the feeling of not wanting to stand out or be seen in high school is, it is almost paralytic. That period is intense, being subjected to all of the worlds ideals and beliefs and feeling the disconnection between students, its when a lot of people shut down. True exercise like you have described Nikki can help people of all ages, and would be beneficial for teenagers as it would prepare them for life and not be so bogged down by the beliefs that are coming head on.
My first sessions with Danielle, way back some time ago showed me how to play and explore movement in exercise rather than stick to a rigid formula. May years later this has led to developing a great relationship with my body and with exercise, where my body asks for exercise regularly and it is a joy to do it.
I found reading this article deeply Beautiful Nikki. I love how you’ve chosen to re-imprint your experiences from the past. I’ve also been very sporty and competitive in my younger years. Tennis, football, swimming, cycling, triathlon. And I can still feel myself hesitating taking care of my body by doing gentle exercises. A few months ago I bought dumbbells and I now use them to gently exercise every now and then. And I can feel the loveliness when I exercise with gentleness and care. And how much my body actually loves the (True) loving attention. Thank you Nikki.
So many people exercise because they don’t like their body or they want to loose weight etc. This is such a burdensome way to exercise and what it does it compound the lack of self love and lack of self acceptance in the body and essentially makes things worse. The body might lose weight or gain muscle but the person does certainly not feel better for it as they have a perceived view that they are only ‘better’ because of how they look from the outside. How we feel about ourselves is key – I love how you have brought this up Nikki and shared your experience with exercise and how this has transformed for you.
For the last week I have been physically not well. Previously when I was sick I would never exercise, but now after a few days of taking care with my body and making sure I do not push it in any way, my body is calling out for movement. With gentle exercise I can give my body the movement it needs without pushing it in any way. It really is a beautiful thing to listen to the body and when it’s not feeling good and wants to move, then I’ll listen!
Nikki, you can really feel the changes you have made in how you approach exercise now from going into the hardness and drive to now truly feeling how your body feels, and moving in a way that is totally respectful and supportive for you and your body, feels really beautiful.
As a small child in a hot middle eastern country, I did a lot of swimming and playing in the water – it was a great way to keep cool. At boarding school in the UK I roller skated – forever falling and bashing my knees. At University I discovered squash – a fast-paced, jerky game that is really bad for the knees, but I played it for the next 20 years, including while I was overweight in my 30s. Now in my 60s I have returned to gentle swimming, walking and weight bearing exercise. I was doing it regularly, but recently let it drop off. This has been a mistake, because at work I can feel how my back aches or my arms ache, and it has made me realise how much we need to keep ourselves gently exercised so that we are strong and fit enough for whatever work we do. Nothing excessive, but something that truly supports a healthy body.
Spot on Carmel – the consistency is so important. I am still struggling to make gentle exercise a regular and strongly consistent part of my every day living, but I do realise that when I do make the space for it then I feel so supported and my body responds instantly. I too came from a background of lots of sports, training as a teenager for 15 hours per week in tennis and then on top of that running and stretching to maintain greater aerobic fitness on the court. Then this followed with increasing the running and also introducing Ashtanga yoga with up to 4 hours per day at times. But these extremes of exercise were done as a distraction from tension I was feeling in the body and I often had so many issues, ailments or problems as a result. Thankfully this forced way of exercising is now a past thing, and so the walks and weights are what I am building on as a daily care of my body.
Nikki interesting what you share I remember as a child I took on karate to be seen, I pushed my body, even though it did not feel right. I felt I had to toughen up in the world if I wanted to succeed or be something. I was bullied a lot when I was young and taking up karate was a way to defend myself and scare others off. Crazing what choices I had to make so I would no longer get bullied.
Exercise, in a connected way, to support my body for what I do in my day to day life has become part of my routine, next to daily walking and weekly swimming. My body loves it and I can feel it when I don’t make the time to care for my body in this way.
I love your: “On reflection, I was not as successful as I could have been as there was always a drive to do better, achieve more or win more championships.” This drive to always perform makes sure we are never good enough and keep wanting to better ourselves. Very exhausting and a perfect setup for failure and beating up our body.
Thank you Nikki for a great blog, I have to say I am still working on this myself, learning how to gently exercise. I tend to go from one extreme to the other, pushing myself to exercise or none at all. I loose consistency in not finding the happy medium. But reading through your blog, I can feel that there is so much I can be doing to support myself with gentle exercise. Very inspiring.
It is definately a process. One key for me was whether or not I was able to maintain breathing through my nose or not and then just how present and gentle was that breath during exercise.
Nikki, this is gorgeous to read, ‘Discovering this new way of gentle exercise has allowed me to discover a different way of being with my body. I have entered into a new relationship with my body – one that is based on love and support and I’m looking forward to further developing this new long term relationship.’ I used to push my body very hard – with hours of cycling and a form of yoga that included headstands and shoulder stands – all of which I found painful, I love exercising gently now and as you have written i have found a different way of being with my body, one that isn’t pushing it trying to prove something, but instead one that is loving and supportive.
Great point Willem. We are sold the lie that ‘pain just belongs to doing sports’. “No pain, no gain”. How wrong is that when athletes die, injure themselves and others all in the name of sport. Exercise to support oneself to go about one’s daily life is something completely different, but even in this we have to be super honest and aware about our true intention – it is often easy to fool ourselves we are doing something for one reason, when actually that’s far from the truth.
I recall the days when I’d be so sore the day after a gym class and could hardly walk. Nowdays, I like to feel that I’ve exercised as my body feels rejuvenated and alive from walking and light weights.
It’s so interesting how exercise is seen as something to endure, to push through any pain to get results, to be thinner, have bigger muscles, etc and yet our bodies respond so much more to exercise that is tailored for us, based on how we feel at the time as you’ve so beautifully shared here Nikki.
Nikki – I very much came from the world of pushing myself through exercise – using it to give me a sense of achievement rather than seeing exercise as a support. In fact I used it to ‘balance’ my life – giving me permission to eat more or party more with the knowing that I’d be good and go to the gym – but my whole approach was wrong. And as you share here – I really didn’t consider how my body felt when exercising.
The exercise I do now, like you do Nikki – is so very far from where I was, and I am so appreciative of building it into my day and using it to support me rather than to push me or to escape.
I like reading articles on exercise because they motivate me to get back to the gym.
I was also someone who also used to exercise to extreme levels, and would push my body really hard, to the point of almost ignoring it and becoming completely exhausted. Now, I choose to exercise gently in a way that supports and honours my body and it feels a much more loving way to be with myself.
‘My focus during exercise was always on pushing my body to do more’ . I had the same in my yoga class, I would push my body to do more, and then one day I realised that the way I push my body in class was a big reflection of how I push my body in life, in fact in everything I did…… Even with the realisation this habit continued as it had become so ingrained. It wasn’t until I met Serge Benhayon and started attending his courses that I got to see and heal many old habits and patterns that were not loving or supporting my body in any way.
For years I threw myself into sport – and was quite good at it. My body, however, disagreed. For it was my body that had to pay the price of my indulgence – crook knees, sprained ankles, sore back etc. How arrogant we have become that we think that our bodies are ours to do with as we please, and then have the audacity to complain when it lets us down. We are not just a brain on a stick, and it would do us wonders to start considering that our body is actually part of who we are. It deserves way more respect.
Every child has a natural instinct to want to move and exercise their body – at this point we are offered what is available in schools, which is all about getting better, pushing harder and faster, competition, looking athletic and there is a whole lot of comparison with every other child, I recall this as young as 4 when starting primary school and having running races. We then grow up thinking this is what exercise is, but it’s not, this is a way to guarantee that we are not connected with our bodies, that we are hard and that we don’t like our bodies. One day this true way of exercising, that you have described Nikki will be offered to young children when they put their hand up and say they want to play and be active with their bodies. It may take some time for the industry to change, but it needs to change because at present the sports and fitness industry is harming us, and bounding the body for a whole life time, or even life times.
This blog really challenges the definition of a successful life. Currently we would say that an elite athlete who has won at the highest level in sport and has all the fame and fortune that might go with that, is successful, even if their body is falling apart and riddled with injuries and physical scars from pushing their bodies so hard and they have dysfunctional relationships with themselves and with those around them due to the isolation and psychological and personal sacrifices they had to make along the way to achieve what they wanted. Is this really success? Is this really intelligent as a species to think that this is ok or even to be championed as a great thing? True success for me is a life that produces a vital, vital inspirational body and rich, supportive and deep relationships that are constantly developing.
I love going to the gym and not have any plans in what I am going to do or for how long I will be going. But to just feel in the moment which body parts I want to train and to leave when I feel it is time to leave. Then going to the gym becomes more of a body thing, which sounds weird writing this because it is a body thing, but it shows that it is far more often the mind that is going to the gym than the body.
I like what you are saying Mariette. Going to the gym or whatever other exercise we choose is usually more about the mind than it is about the body. Our body is super intelligent and knows exactly what it needs and how it needs to be treated.
I so relate to your blog Nikki. In the past I thought exercise was all about pushing my body to get a ‘result’. Looking back I realise the result was a ‘relief’ when I finished the exercise and a body that over time became hard and tight. Now I exercise whilst staying in connection with how my body feels. The benefits of this are immense and affect all areas of my life. My body feels open and expansive afterwards with no hardness and I don’t have to push my body in order to feel the power there. My movements flow and exercising supports me in my connection throughout the day. Exercising has become a joy, not a never ending pursuit of the perfect body.
Since I have been doing a more gentle form of exercise my body has been far healthier and I certainly have more energy and feel more fit than when I used to exercise and train hard everyday. With gentle exercise you can remain connected to your body and you know what to do to support the body and to restore harmony if needed.
There is something about sport and many forms of exercise where by it seems there is a quest for satisfaction and stimulation in the mind at the expense of the body. It is almost a competitive sport within ourselves. Mind vs Body. Is this really healthy? And why does it have to be this way? Surely exercise that encourages the mind and body work together as one connected whole has got to be more healthy?
As an ex elite athlete I used to tell myself that I enjoyed sport and the competition of sport. However if I am honest I was using it to prop up an ailing low self esteem and lack of confidence. I liked the relief, stimulation and distraction sport gave me from this constant tension of not liking myself much and so chose to ignore the physical pain, stress and anxiety I would also be feeling when playing a competitive sport.
So many times as a health care practitioner I have heard my clients say that they do not enjoy exercising. That they see it as something they have to do to lose weight or stay fit but it is something to be endured not enjoyed. Why does exercise have to be this way? There is a way to bring joy back into exercise and make it fun.
I also used to believe that the harder I exercised and the more I pushed my body, the stronger and tougher I would become. It has been a great realisation for me to come to understand that actually the more tender and gentle I am with my body throughout the day, including when I exercise, the stronger and more powerful it becomes because I am supporting my body energetically and physically together.
What I love about Gentle Exercise is that we feel what is happening in our bodies while it is happening and we can feel more deeply into areas that need a certain level of care and attention. When we don’t do this we are quite often sore after the exercise session and even sometimes in considerable pain; we have not been present with our bodies while exercising so have pushed ourselves beyond what is healthy for us and are now having to suffer/manage the consequences. Sometimes these disregarded body parts only begin to become a serious ‘problem’ years later. Working as a therapist, on land and in the water, I have come across these situations many times.
I have never really been someone who was into full on exercise, in fact I would avoid it at all costs, but that all changed when I was introduced to the wonderfully gentle exercise presented by Danielle Pirera. The difference in this form of exercise is that, as you say Nikki, “I am listening to my body and am present with my body and what I am feeling.”, after all my body is very wise and I if am fully present it will soon tell me if I am harming it in any way. Now this is definitely wisdom that needs to be shared with all children at a very early age, and if it was there would naturally be a huge reduction in the level of injuries, saving people a lot of pain and reducing the current huge cost to the medical system.
Your story brought me back to my association to exercise and sport too Nikki. It definitely feels wonderful to move in connection with the body, as apposed to pushing the body beyond its limits.
Just recently I have made the relization that I still had the pushing behavior in the tasks I physically still needed to do in life and have introduced the “flow with the body” way of working with the body. This has been incredible to witness and experience. The ripple affect on me and others creates more vitality, grace and is harmonizing.
Here in England it can get super cold and each year I am disturbed when I see how ‘normal’ it is for young boys to spend 2 hours out on a freezing cold football pitch with shorts on. It seems to me really disregarding and also for the parents getting very cold on the side lines. I can remember having to play hockey and other spots outside when it was freezing and absolutely could not wait until I was back in the warm again.
Many children come away from school scarred with memories of sport and competition this can then effect their confidence when becoming adults, what we need is a education system that is more caring, honouring and respectful of our bodies and not one that encourages competition and humiliation.
Wow Nikki, how awesome would it be to have Danielle Pirera ways of exercising in schools everywhere so that our children understand about the quality they do something in.
Great point Brendan, it makes sense then if we all knew how to self-care and self-love from a young age we would never engage in competitive sports or push our bodies to extremes when we exercised.
Thank you Nikki, this is such a great sharing on letting go of old patterns and beliefs about exercise that end up harming and hardening our bodies. The way I used to push my body to extremes at the gym and with my running regime left me feeling quite tired and I was always getting sick. These days I am also enjoying exercising in a more gentle way and feeling how this supports me in every area of my life.
This line stood really out for me: “There are memories of running barefoot on gravel and not wanting to come last because I would be made to do it again;” I was actually wondering why we do these kind of things to ourselves. It is not that we have to do it, but we create this life that is full of hardship and struggle and feel identified by it in a way. The hugest realization in my life has been that life does not need to be that way and that like you shared with exercising there is always a more gentle way to go about it if we but are willing to love ourselves, care for ourselves and accept a life of ease and flow.
I’m a new starter at the gym meaning I’m going to the gym with a whole new way….to enjoy my body, supporting and building its natural strength, been guided by how much is needed for my body, with no other intent to go anyway, look a certain way. Sometimes I get bored because I’m not driven, or goal oriented, just gentle movements…as I stay with the momentary boredom, something happens and its like I drop more deeply into my body, feeling more connected using it natural energy…and when i leave the gym i feel expanded and flowing, not from the rush of adrenalin or the relief from pushing, but just the natural flow and strength of a gentle work out. Or should i say work in!
Beautiful Karoline, love all you shared, and how you describe it certainly does feel like a ‘work in’.
I love this Karoline, a ‘work in’ allows you to stay connected to your body rather than a work-out that can easily disconnect you and take you away from your body.
A deeply rooted consciousness exists in our society that says ‘it’s good to work the body hard and for us to get tough about it’. This is our widely held and accepted belief, wedded to images and ideals of perfect bodies that have only been achieved through sweat and strain. So it’s really inspiring to read your account of breaking the mould and the process of unlearning that is required for true gentle exercise.
Nikki this is a great expose of how we imprint our bodies by the way we treat our bodies and the attitude, beliefs we hold at the time. Also how we can heal old imprints by doing it differently – reimprinting but what really brings the healing is the love and support we bring and the change of movement. Beautiful, thank you!
Gentleness is the first step to connect to who I truly am.
So True Felix. To approach anything in life with any bracing means connection to ourselves is lost. There is a wonderful choice we are offered every moment: do we move gently supporting our connection and the flow that is already there for our next movement simply because we chose the previous moment in honour? Or do we brace, even in the slightest way, causing tension, which instantly stops the flow, which then requires more push and effort for the next movement to occur. It makes total sense to me to feel the gentleness and move from there.
What I really like Nikki is how you say: “the way I view my body has changed so dramatically: now when I look at my body I see a beautiful, powerful, strong and sexy woman” – because your body may not have physically changed as much (or at least it is not as important as it once was), but the way that YOU now VIEW your body – what you think of yourself has changed. I think that is fantastic – and so much more valuable
My experience of exercise is that if done with enough gentleness and self care that it creates a flow in my body, makes my muscles more open and puts less strain on my joints, I can then take this flow into the rest of my day and expand on it from there. Whereas when I overdo exercise I can feel the difficulty in staying open and tall and my breathing can become more shallow. These are feelings I am starting to consider more when I go to exercise as I know which way I prefer to feel.
Exercising in a way that when we move the body consciously and carefully, it brings a huge amount of awareness about ourselves. Its like all our six senses wake up and we feel a whole lot more, and feel a part of the whole too.
Running barefoot on gravel and having to possibly do it again sends shivers down my spine – quite incredible what we are willing to do for the sake of apparent fitness and looks.
Exercising for me was something I had to push myself into, I would do my routine disconnected from my body lost in my thoughts, almost relieved when I was done and could rest again.
With gentle exercising like taught by Danielle Pirera I experience that staying with my body and enjoying my movement is key to this form of exercise and it started to be a time where I truly spend time with myself.
Of course. Gyms are set up to distract us from the ‘necessary pain’ of exercising. It is a game-changer therefore to actually be with our bodies when we exercise and to re-write the rules about ‘no pain no gain’. Thank you again Nikki, for this testimony to exercising gently and respectfully.
Thank you, Nikki, for sharing so openly about the brutality of the way you approached exercise earlier in your life. This hard ‘push through’ relationship with our bodies is something I know well and see/hear a lot. It is inspiring and game-changing to read about the shift from this, to exercise that is part of a developing love and respect for your body.
Yes Matilda, it is astounding how brutal we can be with ourselves in the attempt to exercise our body and how normal that is made to be. Even the alternatives to that, like for example Yoga that are supposed to be more relaxing and in tune with the body are in the end about this ‘hard pushing through’ relationship with the body. It makes such a difference to exercise with and for the body instead of constantly fighting against it.
This is so awesome to read “I have also been able to heal the damage I did to myself from my former ways of exercising.” through gentle exercise and self-care your body has healed. So often we can tell ourselves that old sports and exercise injuries are there to stay, however our bodies have the ability to heal and to what degree that is we must always remain open…I know from my own experience of healing, my body now feels younger than it did in my 20’s, I am now in my 40’s…a miracle, but only in the fact that it is rare, as your blog shares it is not impossible, but it is simple, self-care, self-love and nurturing our conscious presence, changes lives.
As I grow up I didn’t really go into exercise or sport. I did try the gym few times, I found them intense and I always felt out my depth. I avoided exercise and thought it was not for me. I have now found a way to exercise that supports me, I am a trained remedial massage therapist and esoteric practitioner who supports myself and others to feel what is going on in their bodies and care for them. I found a way to exercise, stretch, tone etc that brings more vitality, awareness, joy and strength to my body but I do not stress it out. Exercising in conscious presence with care and gentleness has turned my life around. I now share this with others.
The quality of the way one exercises is the quality of way one lives life. Or, how we live life, is how we exercise and also how we work.
True, how we undertake activity, movement reflects how we live, and our movements and activity determine the quality of our life. Interesting to consider the power of choice concerning how we undertake activity, we can potentially completely alter the quality of our life.
Great points here Zofia, I love that.
Love the intention you have with regard exercise Nikki. I used to exercise without any connection to truly supporting my body, underneath it was about the look, or shape/size of limbs, and like you I also pushed my body to achieve and sustain this …and that if I missed a class it would be disastrous. When i look at how I exercised I can see that this unloving and yet disciplined way, actually more controlled way, was how I worked/did my job and held myself in life. If there was no ease within my body, there was none at work or at home. Today I exercise differently because I live life differently, with and in connection and awareness.
Of course – well said, Zofia. If we are prepared to treat ourselves so harshly in our exercise programme, what does that look like elsewhere in our lives. When we open up to listening attentively to our bodies and are respectful and gentle (which certainly does not mean soft and given up!) we can develop not only our exercise routine, as a sustainable and health enhancing programme, but also other areas of our life (diet, sleep, posture, work ethic…).
Food for thought Zofia and Matilda, the quality in how we exercise ripples into every part of our day, quite a consideration really that we can so profoundly influence our movement and the outcome of our day by how we workout.
I love that you were able to reimprint and heal your memories with just simply applying ankle weights with love. There is no doubt that this gentle and loving approach to exercise and the body is an extremely powerful and supportive tool.
It is a great description of feeling old patterns returning and changing the trajectory of it by being present in her body and choosing to undertake an activity with care and love. We can see this choice to ‘re-imprint’ any thing in life through the same choice.
I agree Samantha, it is incredibly simple once we know and have the awareness of what is needed – which is love. We only need a marker of love in our body, so we can apply it to the next task or movement, which then will re-imprint everything.
Exercise is often used as a punishment, a challenge or a release valve, but rarely is it considered as you raise here Nikki, as a form of connection, a way to more deeply appreciate our bodies. It is a similar process to how we treat many illnesses, as something we have to battle or overcome. There is real intelligence in treating the body as being special and not overdoing it, in the past I would use exercise to run off an unhealthy food choice or dull down feelings I had, but that wasn’t addressing the disconnection I felt, just burying it for it to return again, which it always would.
Very true Stephen, me too, i used to give myself permission to eat something creamy, comfort food, or cake etc. — purely because i had already worked out. So would exercise specifically to be able to eat what i wanted and maintain my shape. The resulting fit body shape detracted from the underlying issue of dissatisfaction or discontent i felt about things/life/myself covering it with a ‘good life’, ‘good food’, ‘good living’. Exercising now in connection has brought awareness to ‘the good’ that actually hurt, to bring about a more true life, that today and now actually brings great joy.
Great point, as you say “Exercise is often used as a punishment, a challenge or a release valve, but rarely is it considered as you raise here Nikki, as a form of connection,” In the past, I had not considered that I could deepen my inner connection through exercise, but I do when ever I exercise now. I am building my relationship with my body and how it feels, this naturally deepens my inner connection.
Exercise as a form of connecting with ourselves sounds like a great proposition and a fun way to look after our physical wellbeing.
‘I have also been able to heal the damage I did to myself from my former ways of exercising.’ Reprinting what we have done previously is so powerful in changing and healing our bodies.
Thank you Nikki for sharing your personal story here with us in this blog and how you were able reconnect to your body by exercising in a loving and supportive way!
Yes Janina, ‘reconnect to your body’ brings a new quality to exercise with push or drive but the juice of love and support…building a vital body that flows in movements with strength, naturally so.
It is very different to use leg weights, or any weights in fact with the intention of making you look better, rather than to support your body to be a strong and flexible ‘home’ to live in. Very different. This feels lovely and is enjoyable as opposed to a hard and painful slog.
This is a beautiful revelation for all. Exercise and the true loving benefit it can have on our bodies in the harmony and expansiveness it allows and that in our lives. Thank you for sharing this as it is so different to the forced pushing exercise is made out to be that are bodies have to suffer from.
It’s revolutionary to realise that exercise does not actually equal pain; but that we have abused ourselves under the false guise of ‘exercise’.
Revolutionary and evolutionary to care for our bodies through exercise that supports vitality and harmony rather than hardness and pain.
This is a great point Kylie! As this idea that pain in exercising is a good thing is really very widespread.
Exercise is a support tool to heal – when it is used in any other way it harms.
Absolutely Rik
“I have entered into a new relationship with my body – one that is based on love and support and I’m looking forward to further developing this new long term relationship.” We live with our bodies 24/7 so it makes so much sense to have a loving, nurturing and honouring relationship with our body so it can support us in all that is to be done.
Nikki, how beautifully supportive and honouring of you and your body is gentle exercise…”this new way of gentle exercise has allowed me to discover a different way of being with my body.” To be with our bodies in a loving gentle way, in whatever we do, is so very nourishing and healing for us as a whole.
Yes it is and it changes so much. Being in a listening relationship with my body has changed the way I drive, type, walk, eat, talk, sleep… and it is not about control or discipline. Listening and responding to my body’s signals actually makes life much simpler. I do not have to work things out but simply ‘listen’, adjust, respond, listen again – the signs are always there.
Exercise for me in the past was always something I had to push as well. The goal was always something to achieve from the mind and not actually to connect to my body. It was not en-joyable. My exercise now is very simple with the intention to connect to my body. Its something I do not want to miss and supports my whole day. The other beautiful thing is I only need 15mins for resistance with weights and a walk which is another 15mins. There is no stress on my body and day at all but an amazing support.
Any exercise done to achieve something we want, (fitness, how we look, how good we are at something, breaking records), is counterproductive, as it stresses every part of the body in the attempt to do more, gain more of anything, and feel good about the self. When we feel appreciative of ourselves from deep inside, then we move our bodies with joy and harmony, whatever exercise we are doing.
Exactly Joan – when we push we are going against our body’s natural state. Our bodies are naturally strong and when we connect to our body we begin to experience our body’s unique level of wellbeing, strength and flow. We are the ones who actually harm our bodies in the first place by not taking care, bringing disregard etc then we want to make it look a certain way from ideas we hold. Our bodies are magic, but we fall into the trap of taking them for granted, well I had but now I don’t and it’s a whole new experience, pretty amazing actually.
Gentle Exercise is very well named as whatever we do we do it to honour our selves and at the pace we feel we need at that moment. Not having to push our bodies to do and work until it hurts is very freeing. The most amazing thing is how my body responds to this – my body proves the no pain no gain theory has no merit.
I love doing gentle exercise and am finding that doing exercise consistently really works.
The deliberate push in sports is comparable to taking drugs. It’s harming, numbing, giving a momentarily release.
True. And the ‘no pain, no gain’ slogan perpetuates this abuse.
Absolutely Felix and Kylie – well said. I know I bought into the belief of ‘no pain no gain’ when I exercised, pushing my body to the extremes was certainly abusive.
‘When I used to look at my body it was almost with a cloudy vision and I would look at what I didn’t like…’ Body image issues – I can relate to this. What I see changes according to how I feel and how connected or not I am to myself. If I look in the mirror and don’t like what I see I know I have lost my connection and have allowed unwanted images in.
Our perception of ourselves is certainly clouded by how we are feeling – when we look in the mirror we see whatever energy we are in at that moment reflected back to us.
Absolutely Victoria, how we feel about ourselves unless seen through a loving heart first, can be tainted by old patterns and feelings of rejection or self loathing.
I love your comment Victoria, it’s very supportive at this moment when I am having a melt dow over a haircut I really hate, did not ask for and will take a long time to grow out, but in truth it has just destroyed an image I had of myself, an image that includes identifying with the way I look as defining my beauty in some way. I haven’t even looked in the mirror for more than a horrified second since the haircut yesterday but I am off to connect with the incredible beauty that shines through my eyes right now and put an end to this crazy image.
‘…by winning I was better than others.’ Does this honesty not perfectly capture the ill-momentum behind all sports? Competition only divides and fosters supremacy, even though we have convinced ourselves it unites and is ‘healthy’.
This is huge. Thank you for saying it out loud, Victoria. Competition is at the root of so much ill in our lives/world and whilst we go on pretending it is a natural and healthy part of life, we go on living in isolation and ‘battle’ with one another.
Running barefoot on gravel… wow, it’s hard to think about, let alone conceive of what it must be like to actually do. it’s astounding what we will accept as normal or at least do-able in our quest for recognition. We will, literally as much as metaphorically, walk over hot coals in the pursuit of our identifications.
Yes, exactly, and then we move the goal posts so we are eternally pushing, striving and seeking an image that we cannot possibly attain.
It was great to read Nikki how your choice to re-connect with gentle exercise and your body allowed the re-connection with the pain of your past and the healing that occurred as a result. It clearly demonstrates how healing works… stop, connect, feel, let go, start anew with a true connection.
And that we can ‘re-write’ history if we are prepared to ‘stop, connect, feel, let go, start anew with a true connection’. We are not victims of our pasts.
While I have always enjoyed exercise I was never good enough at it to compete at anything other than a fairly social level. However, what I can recognise when I was reading your blog Nikki, was that drive to try and improve myself. I was driven by the belief that the better I became at a sport and the harder I pushed myself, the better it was for my body and more likely I was to get recognition and acceptance. As you can imagine, this only led to further disconnection from my body. These days I’m learning to reverse all this and when I exercise I am much more conscious of noticing how my body is feeling along the way. It is certainly putting a lot less stress and strain on my body yet it’s still giving my body the exercise it needs.
A beautiful transformation Nikki from using exercise to abuse your body to honoring your body with supportive movements through gentle exercise. I too have pushed and abused my body through training for sports and the drive for achievement and the false sense of feeling successful. I remember lying in bed feeling extremely exhausted and tired but not being able to sleep due the ache in my legs keeping me awake from running on the tennis court all day during tournaments. The drive to win clearly overriding what my body was telling me. Through exercising in connection with my body I have discovered that there is a far more honoring and supportive way to move, stretch and strengthen the body. This way of exercising feels more of a celebration of me and my body in connection that builds a loving quality through movement that I then can live throughout my day.
So true Nikki – I love the way you expressed : “To exercise in a gentle way while being fully present with myself blows other ways of exercising out of the water.” I feel the same, my way of exercising has so changed from the way it used to be, pushing hard, working up a ‘sweat’, being ‘out of breath’ etc etc – awful in retrospect. So glad for the teachings of self- care and self-nurturing, and listening to our body’s messages while it still can whisper…
Unlike you Nikki I avoided exercise at all costs although many of the feelings were the same. Like you I too have found that ‘I am listening to my body and am present with my body and what I am feeling’ and this has brought another dimension to my whole way of living.
Your sentence “I have entered into a new relationship with my body – one that is based on love and support” resonates deeply in me. In the last weeks I make the same experiences. When I do exercises, then I feel my body all the time, which is just awesome. My body tells me, how it wants to be moved and not the other way round, that my mind always told my body what to do. That is really a big turnaround in my life. I’m also looking forward to the next development steps.
It is so true Alexander our bodies hold a great intelligence, an intelligence that we all have access to and can be aware of whenever we choose to connect to and honor the delicateness that our bodies are.
It’s interesting how we may think we have left something behind, until we are faced with something that reminds us of that time and then everything then all comes flooding back. However we can heal all that has been in our past and re-imprint ways in which we have hurt ourselves. Your article Nikki is living example of this.
Great expression here Nikki of the evolution that you have chosen to be responsible for.
I can so relate to this as all along for almost two decades of my life I allowed myself to subsribe to the ‘ideal’ that a Man needs to be tough and so I went about pushing my body to stupid limits that seems so unintelligent as I look back and also so unloving. And the fact that I am alive intact without any permanent injury means that I was being protected for a very strong reason!
Even though it is hard yet; as most of humanity around us isn’t attuned to ‘gentle-ness’ and understanding that True Strength lies there. But how blessed are we that we chose/We heard the ‘Call of the Fire’ to understand what it is to be in a body and to respect and deeply cherish that.
For me even though I lived a certain lifestyle of extreme sports and martial arts etc; deep within me I knew what it truly meant for ‘The Body to be a Temple for my Soul’- I went around telling people that. But that was in arrogance!; and now I dont need to tell anyone or shout from the rooftops.
My Body is a marker and a refleciton of this deep truth- that indeed it’s a temple as it enhouses my Soul. Awesome to even read the comments here from everyone. Thank you!
Yes Chetan, “body is a temple” – such a common saying that has been completely diminished from it actual ancient truth towards modern day obsession for external appearances and in this the falsehood of working the inner through such obsession. Yes, the body is vitally important, and to look after with exercise. Though when the body is pushed, pulled, pumped, strained, injured, constricted, or meditated in yoga without true self-connection (to one’s inner-heart) , there is no love in this temple [body]. And if there is no love, the residing of Soul in the temple cannot be. Our body’s quality towards love is what enhouses the divine, or Soul. The quality gives it the suppleness of expanded-ness and sustaining this suppleness through exercising in body-and-being-connection gives the breath of life.
Exercise and sport have been such a strong way to compete and compare with others in my life. Even now when I know how futile and unnecessary this is I can still find myself wanting to be “better” than another. I was in the pool yesterday and there is a strong pull to try and swim faster than others. But yet I know it always feels better when I swim at my pace and not anyone else’s, then I can breathe my own breath and not get caught trying to outdo others, which is really quite sad, and pointless and actually very childish.
I have also caught myself out judging another because of how they have chosen to exercise in a hard and fast way. Where I think I am doing it better because I do not push myself in exercise. Comparison and competition comes in all different flavours.
“I could begin to let go of all the pain I carried from those years when I hated my body and was so consumed by how my body looked” its incredible to stop and reflect on the pressure we put on ourselves to look a certain way, to force ourselves to have that perfect image. The reality is there is no perfect image and no amount of exercise will get us there as it is a moving feat. Letting go to this picture and allowing our next generation not to foster this, will change the world.
It’s interesting how society supports our self hatred and body image issues, and this is often packaged up for us and presented under the banner of health and fitness.
Yes Melinda this is a great point. We are taught from a very young age that overriding and pushing our bodies is how we can get recognized, appreciated and loved in the world yet all the while we are missing the greatest opportunity of all, appreciating and recognising that who we already are is everything and worth loving to no end.
My measure of ‘health’ is the measure of my connection with my body; and listening to and following through on all that it communicates with me. At present, the common picture of health and fitness we hold is based on overriding this communication to attain a goal, image or ‘perfect body’ that is in no way our true body.
As we become more sensitive to how we feel in our bodies it is easier to be aware of what happens when we push ourselves too hard.
The outer success will never be a reflection of the inner beauty.
Hear hear – so true and easily felt.
Well said Heather. The outer success only succeeds in strengthening the illusion that what is outside of us and what we achieve is more important than our inner connection and inner beauty.
Never, thanks for the reminder Heather.
As a youth I loved competition, especially the adrenaline rush in the morning when I arrived in the hall and had changed. It didn’t do me much good but it allowed me to focus very strongly. In hindsight what I really liked was the powerful numbing that came along with competition.
And the other extreme Michelle is to give our body no exercise at all, which also comes from an emotional lack of self-worth or self-loathing and in general being lazy. Our body needs gentle exercise and knowing what your body needs from day to day comes from our rhythm of daily and consistent self-care and self-nurture.
Quite often the words ‘a new way to exercise’ are published in magazines to promote the career of someone or to sell a book or TV program. This is clearly not the case here, because as Nikki shares with us her experiences, we are given the chance to question how we are in relationship with our own bodies. This is something I am personally very grateful for, and after reading this blog I have re-visited my own exercise routine with new a perspective on what exactly it is for and why I am doing it in the first place.
Very Supportive Blog Nikki, everything does change in our life when we reconnect and honour our bodies, that also includes the way we excercise.
I’ve been there two Linda, it’s so odd that we can become so focused on changing our body or being able to get it to perform as we choose but totally ignore what it is telling us through what we feel.
The ‘relationship’ we have with our body is so important. How we treat our vehicle from which we express is key to how ultimately we treat everyone else too. If we do not look after our body through sleep, nutrition, gentle exercise, etc. we pay the price. Our bodies cop our choices and others bear the brunt of these consequences too, through tiredness, bad moods, obesity, illness and disease, etc. It is in everyBODY’S interest to truly look after themselves.
This is a revealing article, Nikki, one that holds a mirror in front of so many of us. I cringed when I read the parts where you were pushing yourself, because I could feel how this happens in almost every sports class at school on a daily basis, it is the norm in our gyms – and I used to do sports, even health sports in a similar way. Why are we so harsh to our bodies?
Why are we so harsh to our bodies? Great question Felix. Is it possible it is because we love the comfort in the many distractions life offers (food, tv, alcohol, drugs, hard competitive sport, etc to name a few) that we have chosen because we do not want to feel our hurts and our emptiness?
Great sharing Nikki. it is amazing how the way we exercised in the past can affect us now if we don’t allow ourselves to feel what our bodies are communicating. I remember being forced to run every morning before school as a 10 year old, I absolutely hated it and I felt like my teacher had designed it as a form of torture. When I went to the gym as an adult this also felt awful but I accepted that this part of the deal. Now I have come to appreciate and listen to the signals my body gives me when I exercise and this allows me to enjoy moving my body. When I exercise in connection to myself my muscles work much harder and I can actually feel different patterns coming up to clear. This is a far cry from the way I used to exercise which was all about ‘blocking everything out’ and going hard.
Super points made Leonne, I think we have all experienced at some point using exercise as a means to ‘block everything out’, which of course is just a delay, as everything is still there to be felt and dealt with. The key is to be connected with your body and being in and out of the exercise class.
Moving your body with gentleness and grace (which can still be done strongly) is such a joyful experience. It is like it bubbles up inside and makes me feel so amazing for the rest of the day. Feeling how gorgeous my body feels exercising in the morning has changed what I accept as the normal way to feel in my body.
I agree Linda. Most people are convinced that gentle exercise is a waste of time. But my body has never felt so good being exercised in this gentle way. The way I exercise changes every time, depending on how I am feeling. Some days it is just some stretching, some days more cardiac and some strengthening with weights. This is so different to making myself do a set routine or keep up with whatever class I was attending.
One of the most remarkable things about exercising in connection is that it is so much fun. Smashing your shins against adult men certainly doesn’t sound like much fun! I feel the lack of fun in the way most people currently exercise is a big part of why so many people don’t exercise. It is sold to us as something that needs to be hard work (no pain no gain) which no one looks forward to – it doesn’t need to be this way.
We can convince ourselves of anything though. I have participated in some extreme activities and was scared to the bone in most of them. But I convinced myself that it was fun and exciting because of the recognition that I received from doing these activities. Thought that I was liking the activities, but really it was recognition that I was looking for.
I agree Fiona it is simply joyful to be moving in connection with our bodies, feeling the natural flow of our Love in motion builds a quality of graceful power, whilst also strengthening the body, that can then be lived throughout our day.
I loved reading about how healing it was to do some of the same exercises you did as a teenager, but with a very different focus and perspective. We tend to avoid things that have bad memories attached to them, but this has shown me that revisiting them with a loving perspective is very healing and allows you to embrace a new way. It is clear that what you thought was ‘healthy’ as a teenager was not what your body would have chosen. If we could remind teenagers of this instead of pushing competitive sport we would grow up very differently.
I have recently started an exercise program after a very long time choosing not to address this very necessary part of my rhythm and overall sense of wellbeing. I am finding that I really enjoy this time with myself feeling what my body needs and how if feels with my choices for the day. And learning to move in more of a spherical, flowing way.
Julie, I have not really developed an exercise routine or program in my day, but my body is communicating loudly this would be very supportive but I always put it off, or there is always something else to do. But you are right, building this into our daily rhythm does impact and effect our overall sense of well-being.
I never used to compete with exercise with others. I thought that it was a good thing, however I would compete with myself, always trying to outdo the day or week before, all for recognition and control.
I used to run miles and miles in order to look a particular way with the mantra in my head of no pain, no gain. How far from the truth I was. Lots of pain and definitely no gain.
Gentleness allows us the opportunity to realise and understand the true impact our movements have on our body and on the world. It does not in essence require that we are slow, nor steady, but rather that our movements are such they are done with consideration to the body and all that is around them. It is in itself not a state a being that actually brings us true connection to ourselves, but it is nonetheless a super powerful technique that helps bring us back from the disconnected way in which we normally move, and as such, helps create a state of being that allows for the possibility of true connection to our innate state of being.
‘Gentleness allows us the opportunity to realise and understand the true impact our movements have on our body and on the world’. If we were all to stop and just for a moment ponder on this sentence?
This is a lived example of how we can re-imprint exercise Nikki. I too came from a very hard approach to exercise and got into the whole martial arts, horse riding, competition, running ect. But all the while I knew I was pushing my body. And yet sports and competition was encouraged, so I kept at it. Today I am in a very different place where like you, I have been supported to really look at exercise and not use it as a way to check out of my body, put my mind towards it and sweat like mad – but rather a time for me to connect with my body, feel what is going on, and exercise based on the needs of my body rather than the goal of completing a program.
I just finished my daily exercises and just like you they are the gentle version of what I used to do. It is so different to truly be present with all my movements and be with my body. That in itself is an exercise. It shows me how distracted I was in the past. Just doing what was needed, get it over with. Now it is a wonderful moment with me and my body from different angles.
I remember how many healing sessions from Universal Medicine trained practitioners it took to break down the hardness in my body before I could truly understand how the conventional way of exercising was doing me harm and adding to that hardness. It makes total absolute sense now and I deeply appreciate the choices I made to reclaim my sensitivity to my body.
Wow and you reclaiming your sensitivity to your body Simon will be inspiring others to do the same, a man claimed in his tenderness and sensitivity is healing for all to see.
I have a past of doing fairly intense exercise and fortunately I am now able to see why I chose to do this. It was a powerful way to avoid feelings that came up, to numb myself from the hurts and impositions I felt of how I was meant to be as a young boy, and that sport would allow me to fit in if not actually be who I am. I noticed this in the swimming pool the other day, where my week had not been so good and the temptation was to bury myself in a lot of swimming, but now I know that this is not the answer, and that stopping before I made myself too tired was much more loving.Our life choices should never just be a way to cope, they must offer us a way to live our innate qualities. Qualities I know from personal experience, can’t be found in intense exercise.
Love your honesty here Stephen in sharing your experience and wisdom.
Nikki you have shared so much of significance with this article. What I especially loved is how you managed to heal old patterns that you were harbouring in your body, with the healing connection brought about through the gentle exercise.
It is never too late to change… and gentle exercise is a gorgeous way to bring loving care back to our bodies.
Most people think if I push my body with sports that is healthy or at least that it is good for me. Most of us do not think about the consequences which can occur in our bodies if we exercises hard – it can have the exact opposite outcome – instead of being healthier the body get a sport injury . . .
“To exercise in a gentle way while being fully present with myself blows other ways of exercising out of the water.” Wow that is such an inspirational way to do exercises Nikki – Thank you for not holding back your experiences with your new way of doing body exercises – it does not have been the hard way and that is something my body has to re-learn as well.
I have always loved exercise but the underlying mindset was that it was ‘good for me’ which was the same ideals and beliefs I had around healthy eating. In my mid 50’s a friend, who taught martial arts, said he was opening up his pre-martial arts 1hr warm up exercises to family and friends. His gorgeous super gentle wife said she was doing them so I decided to give it a try. I really enjoyed the classes and eventually decided to stay on for the martial arts part that followed on. As you experienced Nikki, there were mostly strong men in the classes and when I did blocking moves with one of them with my forearms and wrist area, it absolutely killed and I had bruises the next day. I decided then and there that it was too rough for women – it just didn’t feel right.
Great blog Nikki – another myth busted – you most definitely can teach an ‘old dog’ new ‘tricks’.
When I exercise now, I make sure to allow for the spaces, not just the activities. It is equally important to exhale and allow the body to rest in full between the movements so that when we have finished exercising we do not feel hardened or overly stiff.
I like that process, to leave the ‘spaces’, everything does not have to be 100miles an hour but instead giving time to feel each movement. I like to ensure I can still breathe through my nose as I know in that my body is benefiting from the movement and not needing to harden up to cope. Exercise is also a great opportunity to express ourselves and move in a way that allows us to feel our body as a whole.
Very true Stephen, the focus on the (gentle) breath during exercise is certainly what has slowed me down between exercises in the gym to bring the needed connection to myself, and steadiness in my day…it is amazing how much confidence to oneself and to one’s body this quality of connection brings. I also like feeling my feet on the ground walking to and from the gym apparatus. Before, i always used to rush and make myself dizzy or heady, using adrenalin to make my day a continuing space of the same rushing and dizzying. Very disconnected.
I see that there was still competitiveness in the desire to be skinny, because I was seeking to be as skinny as others or skinnier, as though this was the mark of my success as a woman, and seeking to be seen and noticed as a result. What a trap and trick this is! Placing our value on how we look is so destructive when this body is not who we really are anyway! It is the expression of our being, of our soul through the vehicle of our body that is here to express beauty, love and care. And our body reflects this expression back to us. Understanding this is powerful for women and for us all.
Wow Nikki, that’s some pretty hardcore exercise you got up to in your youth! And what a big change you have experienced in a short 6 months.
I never liked competitive sport so veered away from it at all costs. But I certainly fell for the allure of exercising to be skinny, starting with running at 15 and going to the gym in my Uni days. I also did gymnastics as a child and later a lot of contact improvisation movement in drama and theatre studies, as well as circus and later ashtanga yoga. There was always a pervasive feeling that I needed to exercise to lose weight; yet once I reached my desired weight I found it hard to stay there. Now I understand why, because without the self-love and appreciation, always looking with a critical eye, I would then give up on my program and self-sabotage.
I attended similar such gentle exercise programs with a practitioner in Melbourne for 2 years and have continued with my own home program since moving away. The support I received was phenomenal, to break down those entrenched beliefs and begin to exercise for self-care and to confirm my beauty. It is a whole different way to be with my body and I love deepening this everyday, confirming my delicateness, my power and capacity by the program I commit to; and mostly, deeply honoring and appreciating my body just as it is, no changes required…… just observing how it reflects the loving choices I make for it each day, which I am able to make by simply listening to how it feels in response to choices made the previous day.
“To re-visit that time of my life has been so incredibly healing; I could begin to let go of all the pain I carried from those years when I hated my body and was so consumed by how my body looked.”
This is very beautiful and deeply inspiring Nikki, as so many of us carry a self-loathing of our own bodies, which has a detrimental effect on how we treat them, by connecting in a tender, gentle way to our bodies, and learning to love and appreciate them is deeply healing and inspires others to do the same.
It feels so powerful Nikki to re-visit your past hurts and re-imprint them with a loving and honoring approach towards yourself and body, its an inspiring account to read, as it shows us all that this is possible in all areas of our life’s, and that its OK to feel the hurts we had when we were younger and that’s its possible to heal these, and not carry them with us until we die, the choice is always there.
A very powerful and important message for us all here in your blog Nikki, when I go to the gym its very shocking to see the extreme way some people push their bodies, literally shouting out in pain as they lift weights to heavy for their body, men with huge muscles, but still a feeling of being small, driven to always be bigger, never stopping to appreciate or connect to their bodies.
When I go deeply into your question, the main difference for me is exercising because I love my body instead of exercising because I hated my body.
There is a whole world of difference there Nikki, it is very beautiful that you have summed it up so succinctly. Everyone that has read this now has a choice as to the intent of their exercise.
We are encouraged to put our bodies on the line for sport and it is madness! I remember some of the young men I went to school with were great at sports. The damage they had sustained to their bodies was remarkable for 16 – 18 year olds. One of the men who was a fast bowler at cricket had serious shoulder injuries because of it. The focus was not on him healing his shoulder but on managing it so that he could still play cricket.
Where in the past I would always set a goal and a time (at least one hour!) to my exercising. Nowadays I just go to the gym, do what feels true to my body and leave when it feels time to leave. This feels sooo wonderful, I really appreciate myself for this.
‘Doing Re-Connect Exercise classes with Danielle feels amazing; to move my body and to build my strength in a way where I am listening to my body and am present with my body and what I am feeling. My body feels vibrant with a real flow through it now. There is no longer the continual heaviness in my legs that I often experienced. Over the last 6 months the way I view my body has changed so dramatically: now when I look at my body I see a beautiful, powerful, strong and sexy woman.’ Danielle’s gentle exercise sessions are profound.
So gorgeous Nikki that your body feels vibrant and that you can feel the real flow; what a testament to Danielle and of course yourself. You are the one who took responsibility to change the way you exercise, thus bringing a loving tenderness to yourself. I found your blog so inspiring Nikki, thank you.
Your sharing is very powerful Nikki. To share a gentler way of exercising that in truth supports the body compared to the drive and competitiveness you were once in is inspiring. I have been fortunate to also experience exercise classes with Danielle and having gone from a couch potato and hating exercise because I didn’t want to put my body through any level of pain to enjoying moving my body in a supportive way has transformed my attitude to exercise.
What is behind the massive effort to get every part of the body the way ‘it has to be’ for you to feel at ease with it? This is a relevant question since, you may never be at ease with it. It is a run against yourself. A way of living where confirmations are only short-living.
A great question Eduardo. As when we are willing to be honest with ourselves about what the drive is to push and exercise hard to get the ‘result’ we seek for us to be at ease as you say, we discover that the result will never completely satisfy as we are not honoring who we are in any way and instead disregarding the body to fit the image of a picture we are attached to. Yet we are more than any picture that we seek to attain to be an image of.
The power of creation! Creating the body you want to have, with the exact shape here and there. Walking the satisfaction of your creation; the source of your confidence. Feeling that this is it and that everything will come your way because of how you walk in life. The power of illusion!
We exercise towards an image we want to become. It is our little secret. We think we are in control but we are not. The image is because we feel less not being it.
The fascination of pushing the body and of being able to ‘touch’ the results and feel the satisfaction of it. It is interesting the addictions we can adopt in life.
I can’t stress enough how much doing gentle exercise in the morning, even if it is as little as ten minutes, with a walk as well on a daily basis has made my work life doing gardening so much easier and more enjoyable and I have energy left most days at the end of the day. I just wish I had started doing it years ago.
That’s a massive transformation Nikki, from pushing your body in a punishing way to exercising not only in a gentle way, but also with presence and connection to your body. I have found when I exercise in a gentle connected way, I don’t override my bodies innate wisdom, and I don’t injure or over do it, its also is far more fun and enjoyable.
Exercise for so many people is based on looking a certain way or achieving a picture of how their body should look, often driven from not liking how their body looks in the first place. It then can become a difficult and arduous task, as we haven’t connected to, loved and appreciated our body, and exercised from this connection.
Often the way we approach exercise or are taught to exercise is without feeling and listening to our bodies, allowing ourselves to deeply feel and appreciate ourselves and love our bodies exactly as they are, and then exercise in a way that builds that love, rather than trying to better or improve our bodies with an external picture of how they should look.
“To re-visit that time of my life has been so incredibly healing; I could begin to let go of all the pain I carried from those years when I hated my body and was so consumed by how my body looked.” This is very powerful Nikki, as so many young girls and boys have a deep self- loathing of their bodies, which can cause many destructive and self-harming behaviors. In order to heal we need to learn deep self-acceptance and appreciation of our selves and bodies.
A movement is true when the quality it is done in is true.
It is such an interesting point that you raise, Nikki: to exercise because you love and care for your body, rather than because you hate it. This would surely make exercise much more joyful!
What comes to me after reading this is how no matter how difficult the memories we hold in our bodies, if we approach ourselves with tender love and understanding we can let go and heal anything. We may need support from others for some of them, but absolutely nothing is bigger than us. We are powerful beyond our wildest dreams.
Thank you Nikki for sharing this. I love how you point out that it is not only about changing our way of doing things when we want true change to occur but that it has all to do with healing our past hurts and being super loving with ourselves.
The way you write about exercising gives the natural joy and lightness back to it. When people talk about sport and going to the gym, it is always from a ‘I have to’, ‘I must’, a pushing, a drive, I don’t like my body or something needs to change. No wonder we can’t commit to do regular exercising.
I have found that exercise is one of those things where you have to master what’s true and what the right balance is for YOU. Everyone’s body needs different things, and it’s impossible to compare to others’ routines or rhythms as they are so personal and self-tailored. I’ve seen and experienced the importance of being active and looking after our bodies and think exercise is a great way to build a relationship with ourselves.
This was another great element to classes with Danielle. We were all doing different things at different speeds. If you looked in at us it would have been an odd sight. Most traditional exercise classes use music, which you then pushes you to keep in rhythm with and the teacher will push you and be telling you what to do. It is an entirely different experience to exercise in a group where you move to you own rhythm and do as your body feels.
When we exercise in connection to and with the body it is deeply healing. It calls us to develop a relationship with ourselves where we are listening and honouring our body in every movement that we make as the quality in which we move our body will have a direct relationship on how we feel. Therefore we can see the importance of how we exercise – it can be either healing or harming, the choices is ours.
I love that exercise is used in this way to help us honour our bodies
Wow what a difference Nikki, and even more amazing is the healing you have done by connecting and feeling everything that was still in your body from those pushing and hurtful ways of exercising. Exercising while staying with my body is like nothing I ever experienced growing up as well. The whole idea and goal in the past was to check out from feeling my body as much as possible because my muscles were burning so much or I was completely exhausted by the tumultuous ideals and pictures running through my head. There was absolutely no enjoyment in moving my body. Thanks to attending Re-Connect Exercise programs online I’ve once again felt that joy, fun and freedom in moving my body like I did when I was very young.
Reading your words Nikki has let me reflect how important it is that we discern whom it is that we allow to run the body in which we reside. Is it the spirit, that part of us that lusts for recognition and thus seeks identification in our every move? Or is it our Soul, that part of us that allows love to imbue our every move because it needs a suitable vehicle through which it can express this heavenly love? How simple the move you made when you made the choice to not make it about the outer reality; the shape of your legs, how others will perceive you etc. but chose instead to make it about supporting your body to greater hold the depth that is the real you. Divinity is simple, if we choose it.
Dear Nikki,
Reading your experiences of exercise throughout your teens has given me a moment to reflect upon my own. As a teenager the only form of exercise I had any desire to do was horse riding, and this I did fervently, most afternoons after school and almost every weekend. Any other form of exercise was off my radar. As my life unfolded, walking became my exercise as horse riding featured less and less in my life. Then around 18 months ago, I too connected with Danielle, and since then have a steady strong commitment to gentle exercises and the difference in my body’s strength and my inner strength is palpable. Whilst I continue to walk regularly, walking without the exercise did not hold the same support for my body. As one who avoided exercise as I did, this was amazing to feel in my body.
Wow Nikki, super inspiring!
PS: I love that you’re practicing being still while you wait for your nail polish to dry! Seems like a simple exercise…but I can vouch that it’s not that easy when we’re used to doing 50 things at once!! Stillness – it’s an art that will benefit us no end!
Great read Nikki! How amazing that you’re able to clear some old and very stagnant thoughts about yourself. Building a new relationship with exercise can be a huge process when we get real about what exercise actually means for us. So often we are driven to do it to ultimately look better. Rarely is our focus to nourish and maintain our bodies lovingly.
Beautiful Nikki, and so important that this balance of what kind of exercise we can do and in what way – is coming from our body and not our minds. And how big the after shock effect can have on our bodies. And to face that, and deicide to let go and heal it is very powerful. I never thought that woman could truly do push ups, or at least not me, but what I can feel is that I empower myself to feel what my body needs, and if that is doing a push up or two(or more) = I am willing to unlock my power and hold myself lovingly. Good fun!
Great reply Danna, you have pointed out that as women we can actually ask for more from ourselves, but in a deeply loving way that respects our bodies and does not push them in to abuse.
As long as I can remember I have tried different exercises because I always felt I “should” exercise but I never could get into them. Recently thanks to the support of Curtis Benhayon and Beverley Carter, I have found a whole new way of exercising in true connection that I absolutely love. I have also found many ways where I can use my own body and bones as a weight, for example lots of great leg exercises without ankle weights that I have actually found more powerful than using ankle weights, and also the joy and healing of micro movements and moving in presence.
I was admired and championed – and encouraged to go further. What I also find interesting is how to this day many people still admire the fact that I had a black belt in karate. I knew this was something seen as admirable and so I played it too. I would always put it on my CV when applying for jobs and it is usually what got employers to take notice. I find it quite exposing that it is admired – that what it takes to get a black belt is something seen as desirable in society.
Awesome reading Nikki – I’ve just signed up at a gym and are slowly building a rhythm with it and learning once again how my body wants to be exercised. I think I was the master of pushing myself. Now I make sure I’m very present when I do the exercises and especially when I do weights.
Thank you for sharing your story Nikki. Sadly I do not know a woman that hasn’t grown up not loving their body. For me, it has only recently been that I have begun looking in the mirror without the incessant belittling, and degrading undertone. Exercising and moving my body from a place of love has also been for me key in supporting myself to break the momentum of thrashing and beating my body up by all the ways I used to exercise. Danielle’s one on one classes was a pivotal turning point for me in this.
Great sharing Nikki, exercising is very important for our bodies. I know that for me by having an exercise routine it helps support my body throughout the day to do what I need to do. Not only does it physically help my strength it also strengthens the way I talk and walk. It helps me stay present and with what I am doing.
This is such a great example of the harm that we can do to our bodies by doing something deemed “Healthy”. Exercise done in disconnection can be very harmful.
We really overdo exercise that is for sure. What we do to our body and what it truly needs are poles apart. The strain and load of everyday exercise is enormous and is in fact causing us more damage than benefit.
I agree Nicki, work I have done with Danielle, have reshaped how I am with my body. Exercise is important, but doesn’t have to be a harsh punishment.
I love this Nikki, the beauty and simplicity you now experience through exercise as a total contrast to how you lived it in the past. One way confirming your amazingly gorgeous self and body whilst the other always had a strive to be something or look a certain way to ‘feel enough’. Our self worth is not up for grabs pending on what we do to our bodies in life, our self worth is something that is always there, regardless of anything and with absolute consistency; to know this and exercise with this knowing is paramount to changing the way we as a whole society can exercise.
It’s so beautiful that you speak of being in a relationship with your body Nikki. When we choose this we take day to day life and deepen it on every level.
Our speaking and thoughts and feelings and body all begin to align. We feel IN LOVE.
With all past choices we must come around and re-imprint them. Nothing is left behind.
For evolution is about re-turning to the love that we are and living this in full. Therefore, in order to do this we must first re-visit all that we have lived that is not of this heavenly love and re-choose what we will take with us in our next lap around the sun. This is the great cycle of life and this is the Great Cycle of Love that we are held in and by. Nothing is left behind – we either choose love, and take that with us into the next step or, we take what is not of this love and let that be the quality, or lack thereof, that we live by.
And what a beautiful thing that is.
I have never been attracted to exercise of any form, it always felt harsh on my body. Intuitively I resisted running of all kinds. The understanding of exercise and its place in life has taken on a different way for me now and as you have shared Nikki – it can be done with love, presence and appreciation. This a great blog and it feels like it will have much to offer others wanting to re-imprint old experiences.
Nikki, i used to do this sort of exercising, ‘My focus during exercise was always on pushing my body to do more. There was no enjoyment in the process of exercising ‘ I did this with cycling, yoga and swimming always pushing myself thinking that this was what exercise was all about, I hurt myself in the process and have come to realise that actually gentle exercise is far more loving for the body and is all that is needed and that the hard, pushing of my body was causing more harm than good.
I did not do much in sport, my memory of the sports class at school brings up only terrifying moments where the other girls would say that I was too slow, that I did not fit in the team, that they couldn’t win with me etc. It made me nervous and eventually I did not go there anymore. Later in life I discovered yoga and how flexible my body was, I was pushing my body to hold on in every posture you can think off, it was not about building a relationship with my body, it was all about overriding what my body was telling me, proving I was okay. With Esoteric yoga and gentle exercise classes with Danielle has changed all this and the relationship with my body is becoming more loving and caring. It is about listening to my body instead of demanding my body to listen to me.
Although I may never have pushed my body to the extremes that you did, Nikki, I, too, have found that “To exercise in a gentle way while being fully present with myself blows other ways of exercising out of the water. ” In fact to do anything while being fully present with myself is a revelation.
The extremes we go to in pursuit of the ‘perfect’,but elusive, body are really quite frightening. Somehow and somewhere along the line it has become the norm, which means there is no one asking us why are you doing this? How does it truly feel in your body? And so the cycle continues, with extreme versions becoming headline news or being applauded even with a complete disregard for the fact that underneath ‘the body’ is a very sad and lonely person.
Nikki thank you for sharing the extreme levels you went to in order to achieve what you thought was the ideal way of exercising. The choices you are making now are obviously supporting your level of vitality.
Dear Nikki, thank you for sharing your amazing change.
During many years in my life I’ve experienced insecurity and frustration doing sports at school. I didn’t like it because it was so hard to me. However Sports was something that had to do as a skill in my school. I felt my body contracted, exhausted and blocked in the middle of a basket match or a marathon. I didn’t understand why we had to compete to each others like that and why I had to push my body to do something that I couldn’t! So I grew up hating sports. I’ve never liked it.
When I started to do gentle exercise and true movement with the beautiful people of Universal Medicine my perception about doing sport changed completely. I realized that I could feel my body first and move it in a loving way. Now I go for a walk everyday and do gentle exercise, not as a duty but yes as an act of love for myself. When I’m moving present in my body I can feel the expansion, the growing and the feeling that I’m in my body in this life. Then the joy to be here comes and doing exercise it’s a great oportunity to enjoy and celebrate my presence on Earth! Now I’m feel so inspired moving my body everyday.
How healing to re-imprint your body’s relationship with exercise. Thank you for sharing and demonstrating that it is not what you do but the way that you do it that is important and by listening to our bodies we can support them to be more healthy and vibrant and appreciate their power and strength without all the old self-critical thoughts that are so damaging. Awesome inspiration to explore the amazingness of gentle exercise that never asks you to override your body for some external goal but honour the preciousness that we all have innately within us.
I agree Katie, when we don’t have goals it takes the pressure off and we are left with the space to enjoy the exercise and know we are supporting our body. Doing things gently also means there is less room for injury.
I too used to drive myself to do lots of exercise and thought I was very fit, but it was never something I could sustain or particularly enjoyed. since have discovered doing exercise gently it feels totally different. I enjoy it, and I have no end goal other than to look after my body by keeping it strong and flexible within the limits of what my body can do. This has come from developing a relationship with myself where there is acceptance of the wonderful body I have.
Thank you for sharing your experience with gentle exercising which is so far removed from the martial arts and sports you speak of. I also went down the martial arts route along with many other forms of exercising but the over riding factor was the mind over powering the body and it was always a battle to achieve more.
How powerful it is to revisit a love-less time of my life with support of someone who is living with love and thereby re-imprint all those memories the body still holds – with love. It’s a healing not only for myself, but also for all those I shared this time of my life with.
The body is very forgiving but that does not mean we have to punish it in every way possible, I still have aches and pains from activities and accidents I had years ago as a result of not being in the gentleness our bodies deeply crave but I do know they would be a lot worse if I had carried on in that old hard disregarding way.
Thank you for a great sharing here, Nikki. It is awful what we can do to our own bodies when we are young and think we have to prove just how tough we can be. Your story of doing karate at 12 years of age, in a class of adults pushing yourself so, is actually quite awful to read now, but you obviously were keen to prove that you were the ‘best’ at the time. There are many who continue to do this until their old age, never satisfied with their appearance, or still needing to prove themselves for some reason. I too, played a lot of sport when I was young, swimming, tennis, and netball, wanting to stay active and ‘fit’, and yes, I also loved to win, but did not put in the time needed for training to go far in my sports. I, like you, was never happy with the shape of my body, wishing I was much more slim in many places. It was lovely to read of your experience of gentle exercise classes, that feels so much more self-loving to me, great to no longer be pushing yourself, or trying to prove yourself, but moving yourself with deep care and attention to each move. That feels so beautiful to me now, the way that all women should approach exercising, to keep themselves fit and healthy. Much better than treating ourselves with the disregard that we used to do.
I am in total agreement, gentle exercise really does rock, I still can’t believe what I used to put myself though to play rugby, if I had my time over I’d probably take up tiddlywinks, I don’t know what that is but I’m sure it would be less harmful to the body and the training regime a lot gentler.
I had a class in dental materials the other day and the teacher was presenting that there are ways to restore teeth that makes them stronger than the original teeth. This seems great but he shared that the problem with this was that these stronger teeth would result almost always in fractures in the tooth that were unrepairable, which means the tooth has to be taken out. Though when restoring teeth in a good way, matching the original tooth strength, the fractures that did occur would always be repairable. I am sharing this because it is a bit like exercising in extreme ways, making our bodies stronger than they need to be to function and be fit in life – doing this will always break our bodies down at some point that in a way that can be quite harmful for our health. Yet when we exercise gently and to our bodies needs, the body will not break down catastrophically.
That is a beautiful comparison Lieke – thanks for sharing. It exposes how irresponsible we can be with our bodies (or dentists with our teeth!).
It is interesting that the drive and harm that you put your body through in the early days was still there in your body to be revealed and released when you chose to start gentle exercise in connection with the flow and movement of your body.
This is beautiful to read Nikki, how you have rediscovered that true relationship with your body, the relationship based on love through doing the gentle exercises as being presented by Danielle Pirera. It is so important that we start to rediscover the value of our bodies, that our bodies are not there to bring us any form of recognition or reward through excelling in sports or excessive exercise but that our body naturally confirms us who we truly are and where we come from if we allow ourselves to feel that and not counter that feeling with making our bodies hard and tough. We are delicate and sensitive beings and our bodies know that and the reconnection with that quality in our bodies brings that quality in our everyday’s lives, in all that we are and do and into the relationships we have.
Beautifully said Nico.
I can really relate to what you are sharing here, Nikki. I have just started going to the gym again after a long break and am re -imprinting how I treat my body in the gym. I no longer exercise to sweat it out but work very gently. In fact I shower prior to going to the gym now rather than after my workout as it makes me feel fresh while I am exercising. My body feels great after and is very gently being toned. It is eye opening to see how other gym members treat their bodies -the same way that I used to!!
A great sharing here Nikki which I am sure so many people can relate to. The consciousness that comes with exercise is huge – the no pain, no gain mentality only damages people both physically and psychologically. Exercise when done in connection and honouring of the body is deeply healing and a true gift that we can offer ourselves daily.
So true Donna. So many of us cringe at the thought of going for a gentle walk or doing stretches as opposed to going for a run or doing a hardcore class. If we’re not completely stuffed by the end of it we believe we’ve not worked hard enough. This is such a lie, and it contributes to our exhaustion, and often we don’t want to admit it.
Elodie, I have experiences that many times in offering exercise classes, many people enjoy the fact that you can feel more expanded and stronger and fitter without being in muscular pain, while for others there is still the feeling that if you don’t feel sore then it hasn’t been of value. This is a strong belief and one that I know from my own intense exercising days creates a very hard body. Much better to ease of that intensity and enjoy the simple movements and recognise that exercise without pain is much more enjoyable for our bodies.
This consciousness is huge and is something I can still get caught in. In doing classes with you recently Donna I have broken through another level of this consciousness. I am discovering more and more that the presence I have while exercising is what supports my body – it is irrelevant how far I walk or how many reputations I do. The focus is now on me being in my body while I move – far more challenging that it sounds!
When I read your account of the things you used to do to your body Nikki, I was reminded of the stories in books about saints and the way some would tie themselves with rope under their clothes so that they would suffer more and go to heaven. I see people doing boot camp and being shouted at by trainers while they pull tractor tyres or do push-ups. No pain, no gain. The consciousness feels the same. How wonderful this is that you, and all of us, are able to rid this imprint from our bodies with conscious loving movements.
Very well said Amanda, the consciousness is the same and felt by all. But the need for abuse which comes from a place (of emptiness, lack of love) in our body – which we have allowed and accepted, seems to be valued more highly then feeling the truth of our actions.. So it is not about the change of action, but the change of energy that is behind it. Once we choose love to be our action, our direction will change its course, and so we will allow more love in and accept more love, which automatically stops abuse to be let in. Therefore we must choose a loving rhythm at all times. To the best of our ability.
Realising that the way I used to treat my body was abuse and that is came from an emptiness and lack of love was hugely healing. As I began to treat my body with more care and allow more of the love I am to be felt, I realised it was no longer possible to treat myself the way I used to. This continues to deepen as I continue to deepen my love for myself – even when I look at how I treated my body a few months ago, I have changed.
It is amazing to read how you have reimprinted the same activity – the push-ups, the ankle weights – in a totally different energy, in full awareness of what it was like for you back then and what was behind it all, and now from a place of self-honouring. Beautiful.
I was really wowed by this too Fumiyo, to have held such difficult or negative memories to now knowing how to use equipment and move in a way that is not only in connection with your body but loving of it is huge. Inspiring us all around the world to not put any exercise in the old or too hard and painful basket, but instead discern for ourselves and re-imprint what feels true and supportive.
Yes Fumiyo, it’s super inspiring as so often the tendency would be to simply avoid exercise when one has over-exercised or done it very intensely in the past. I know I avoided it for sometime but have found Danielle’s classes to be super supportive to find a new way of exercising that is not about competition or bettering or fixing, but about connecting to and supporting my body, so it can support me throughout my day.
What really amazed me in your story Nikki is how much we still hold the hurts in our bodies. As you stepped into the world of exercise again and putting ankle weights on or a push up on the wall, it brought up the painful memories of when you did that previously. If we don’t revisit things, to feel it and let it go and where necessary, re-imprint it by doing it again in a truer way, we remain unaware (on one level) that this stuff is still with us. Well done for going there and healing the past and lovingly stepping towards your future.
There is such a strong theme in our society of contorting and distorting the body into the shape we want to see. Yet very few people are stopping and considering – ‘what would our body say if it could speak?’. What quality would it choose to eat. speak, walk and exercise in? To consider this would truly be body building. We so often make life about the outcome that does or does not succeed, but what if we made it about the quality in which we work? To me, this is as you show Nicki is the true exercise of life we are here to see.
I agree entirely Joseph – we have gone as far as body modification too with surgical procedures to change our body. This seems to expose our lack of acceptance of ourselves as we naturally are, or perhaps more accurately a lack of connection to ourselves as we naturally are.
I love that Joseph – ‘true body building’ is the ability to build a body of love.
If building a body of love was the focus behind exercise, the world would be quite different.
I know the expressions your talking about Marika… the gasping for air, body dragging or shoulders up around the ears because of the immense pressure to ‘succeed’ running through the veins. I did this and remember my chest feeling like it was going to explode. There is no joy when love is not the fuel being used, so how can any of us truly say we en-joy exercising in that way? More honestly it is a form of relief from the many pictures we have that we are trying to live up to.
Yes it sure is important to regard the inner tender being we are when we do things such as working out. If we regard this then the outer shape will carry that quality and we will feel a lot more spacious and we wont have to eat tons of food sustaining this shape – true body building if you ask me.
‘To re-visit that time of my life has been so incredibly healing; I could begin to let go of all the pain I carried from those years when I hated my body and was so consumed by how my body looked.’ Nikki I was deeply touched from reading how much the self-hatred of those younger years was still influencing your exercise choices until recently. How powerful that you have been able to heal this wound and choose a different way to exercise and are able to adore and support your body just as it is.
Thank you Nikki for sharing your experience, I really have never been an exercise person but always thought that being active and gardening would be enough. I too have experienced Danielle’s exercises class which are so much fun to do, with no push or drive no goal to reach, just the joy of feeling the body in gentle movement.
Isn’t it interesting that the intensity of our critical eye can build hard sheilds around our bodies; and the harder we work at changing what we see before us, the tougher the sheilds become. Only when our eyes begin to see with the love that we feel inside, do the sheilds begin to drop away because love needs neither sheilds or hardness. Love is its own power and strength, beyond anything that can be made with weights or exercise. Thankyou Nikki.
What a shift you have made Nikki, I can feel the difference in the way you reflect on how it was with exercise and how it is now and it feels so much more supportive, loving and in connection with your body. I feel inspired to connect more to my body, as exercise is something I have tended to avoid as it never felt good in my body, just hard, driven and coming with a force. I can see now it is all about the quality we bring that makes all the difference.
It is the quality we exercise in that makes exercise supportive (or not). When I exercise now with drive or lack of presence, it doesn’t feel too good afterwards.
This is beautiful to read Nikki and really confirms the fact that our bodies are a result of how we treat them. If you live and work hard then you feel hard and tough. When treat yourself gently and with love so to do you start to feel this from within. Considering how many people suffer from body image issues, this is a very significant point of truth.
“To exercise in a gentle way while being fully present with myself blows other ways of exercising out of the water”. Totally agree Nikki, the key in this is the ‘being fully present with myself’. Danielle Pirera has wonderful way of explaining and supporting those who attend her classes whether in person or on line to be able to remain connected to ourselves while we still get the benefits of exercising without the need to prove anything. I am so appreciative of the opportunity to be able to attend her classes which apart from gently exercising offer an awareness of always being honouring of our body.
I was programmed to think that if I couldn’t do an hour of exercise it was a waste of time, I struggled to find an hour to dedicate to exercise a day (another blog sometime!) but Danielle proved to me that I could always find 20 minutes and I could engage with my body in a way that would be incredibly efficient. The connection and intention was everything.
I can relate to this Lucy, if I wanted to walk it had to be for at least 30 mins to feel the benefits. I now go for a walk even if I only have 15 mins and it is amazing how refreshing even a small amount of time can feel if the quality and connection is present.
Well done Nikki – that’s quite a turnaround in your life! I didn’t participate in sport to the level that you did, but nonetheless sport has always played an important part in my life. One thing I definitely do have in common was the belief that pushing my body hard in exercise was good for it and proved that I was tough and strong. It is taking some time to undo all the hardness I created in my body but the delicate person underneath is definitely starting to shine through. Thanks for a great blog which reminds us all to listen to our bodies and adjust our exercise routines according to the messages from the feedback loop that is happening at the time.
Being tough and strong through sport is a great way to hide our delicateness.
Thanks Nikki, I have done a couple of exercise programs with Danielle and have found them to be incredibly simple yet so powerful for how they changed, not only the feeling of vitality on my body but how I exercised as well. I can see how it would have supported you after such hard exercise when you were younger. We have no clue, most of the time, what memories our bodies carry around with us till we revisit certain moves. What a freedom and a healing to be able to let go of that abusive way of thinking about yourself.
How great to hear Nikki “now when I look at my body I see a beautiful, powerful, strong and sexy woman.”, usually when people exercise it is feelings of not being enough or being in a struggle, but you have shown exercising can be totally the opposite and quite enjoyable!
Having been similarly sport and exercise focused through school and my early twenties I can still feel the false identity developed with that being me. I thought I had let go of it but I realise I still have my tennis rackets in the back of the cupboard and although I have absolutely no intention of playing again I know I still have an attachment to them and this self-created identity as have still got them there tucked away.
Thank you Nikki, this blog brings a whole other way to see exercise in our lives. I love how you say “this time I did it with love for my body and because I wanted to support my leg exercises and not to change the shape of my legs” When I read this I feel inspired to support my body in this way too as I appreciate and understand how much it needs looking after to perform it’s tasks through a day’s work.
This blog reminded me of the maxim ‘no pain no gain’ which is used time and time again to justify what is , in truth self, abusive behaviour
I agree Elaine. We are abusing ourselves claiming that its ‘good’ for us.
No pain no gain is the ethos in so many areas of life and definitely alive and well in the fitness industry. The relief or sense of elation achieved is in way justified compared to the long term effects on the body.
For a long time I have been very active in the gym and also with yoga. Anything that was ‘soft’, ‘slow’ or ‘gentle’ was a no-go area for me as I only went for tough and fast. I can see now this came from disregard and complete lack of self-worth. Nowadays I go to the gym and I do some gentle exercises and I love it. No more pushing and wanting to have a certain a body image. Just being me with a deep care for myself and my body.
The motivation to exercise for improved body image drives so many people. When I was young I thought the only reason people exercised was to fix the wrong parts of their body and was resentful that my body needed it! How convoluted was that thinking! Naturally exercise was associated with punishment and fixing problems until I discovered the gentle exercise classes.
I feel Anne I still have a level of resistance to exercise because it did hurt and initially wasn’t interested in competition, so the only way to get through was to override the messages my body was telling me. So now I’m still overriding the body that is lovingly asking me support my body and I’m resisting because of past hurts. Hmm time to address the resistance!
I was similar Mariette, always wanting to drive myself and burn the maximum calories. I struggled with my weight and could never do enough exercise. The thought of doing yoga or going for a walk felt like a waste of time. Now I have a totally different outlook and love walking. The drive has gone as I have become more settled in myself.
I agree with the gentle and deliberate method of training the body that you have detailed in your article Nikki, this approach to exercise is so more compatable with how the body wants to move
Absolutely and it’s awesome how easy it is to re-imprint our ways of being with the body. It is very quick to realign to that which is natural.
Great to read your story Nikki, gentle exercise is definitely the way forward, I can’t say I ever enjoyed exercise or training for sport but the gentle exercise you speak of is totally enjoyable and I now manage to do it most days.
I never enjoyed exercising either Kevin. It was as if my body was already tired before I’d begin, knowing what I would put it through. Exercising with care for our body makes a huge difference.
I know that too Dianna, I can feel that the gentle exercises does support my body in returning to its natural state of being as in the past I used exercise to get recognition and reward and for that I had to push hard. Through the gentle exercise I can now more connect to the delicateness and sensitivity my body carries and with that take this quality into my everyday’s life.
I know this too Kevin and Diana – even sports and gym sessions at school were a major challenge and this continued in later life with attempting ‘keep fit’ classes as they must be ‘doing me good’ – even a few forays into Yoga and attempting to bend my body into contorted poses was equally non-enjoyable.
Walking with presence and gentle exercise with care is beautiful and enjoyable.
Stephanie I can’t believe we fell for ‘ no pain no gain’ or keep fit classes ‘doing me good’ as you say. Realising the body does love to do gentle exercise and it is a pleasure not a pain … Begs the question how on earth are we being sold that unless we feel pain we are not gaining. From my experience that pain that you put onto the body gets to be carried in the body long after you stop exercising! Not to mention the injuries. Not a loving thing to do to such a body that holds and supports us and we punish it in return.
So true Diana exercising with care for the body makes a huge difference, I find that I can’t push my body in the same way as I did before and I actually enjoy it rather than seeing it as a must do and a fitness regime
I never enjoyed exercise and always had to ‘push’ to do it. And yet here we have it… the body is the marker of truth and the truth is pushing ourselves is not self-loving.
So true Kathryn. And to add there is this whole mind over matter that we can just think it and the body will perform and get the results then recognition. However yes the body will do that when overridden and pushed but it does not take away the fact that the body also wears every unloving and disregarding Movement we do with it.
I didn’t enjoy it either! Looking back I used to dread all those forms of exercising and what kept me going was the drive and the competition. Now I want to exercise, it feels lovely to move my body and If I haven’t exercised for a few days my body calls for it.
Kevin you echo my experience. Gentle exercise is enjoyable and brings me back into my body if I’ve become a bit heady (easy for me to slip into). In the past I’ve completely either completely avoided or else suffered exercise to improve my body and, for example, would endure an aerobics class, keeping my eye on the clock the whole time counting down the minutes until it ended. Gentle exercise classes showed me the way to just be with my body and move in a way that it needed on any particular day. Despite the gentleness I walk away feeling like I have had an enjoyable but strong work out.
Great to hear the other extreme Kevin where we have not really engage with our bodies in movement much at all. Hard training or no exercise seems to hold the body to an expectation of function when I want it to rather than caring for it with gentle exercise depending on what I am doing in life.
What an amazing turnaround in your relationship with exercise Nikki; from the “no pain – no gain” type of exercise that is accepted in the world as normal but obviously very damaging to the body, to the very gentle form offered by Danielle, which is focused on caring and honouring the body. You also showed us so clearly with your reaction to the push ups and the leg weights that our body holds memories of what we have done to it, something so very important for anyone undertaking any form of exercise to be aware of. We cannot continue to ignore the wisdom of our bodies.
I was quite taken by surprise when these reactions came up. I realised I had carried the pain in my body all that time and had no awareness as I had buried it so deeply. But we are the ones who bury our hurts and we are equally capable of digging them up. In the digging up process, the hurt all is felt which can be quite uncomfortable, but then there is the opportunity to let it go and no longer be held by it nor store it in the body.
I loved that part of Nikki’s sharing too Ingrid. To choose to build a relationship with ourselves and our body that allows for the ways in which we’ve treated in the past to be uncovered and the damage healed, is so inspiring to feel and whilst doing so we then also have the opportunity to choose differently next time around.
Nikki, it is great to read your article and read about exercising lovingly compared to the hardness and push of exercise that is painful to the body. At University I put myself on a hard exercise regime, pushing myself with weights that were too heavy, i wanted to look better, to be accepted, i couldn’t keep it up, now i love gentle exercise that is loving to my body.
The purpose of why we exercise makes a huge difference to how it affects us and whether it truly supports us or not. If we exercise to look better or in the mindset of ‘I HAVE to lose weight’ then we will naturally push ourselves to achieve this, and thus harm our bodies. Looking at the purpose of why we’re really doing something is the key, as that is what inclines us to make disregarding or loving choices.
Thank you Nikki, I can feel just how torturous your exercising was, but what was more painful was your poor body image and lack of self worth. How amazing to be able to re-visit that troubled teenage time and re-imprint your relationship not only with exercise but with your body too. I too am finding a new way to exercise and respect my body, inspired by the teachings of Universal Medicine and the exercise classes lead by Stephen in the U.K. What a joy it is to discover that gentle exercise is truly the most beneficial way to keep fit and healthy.
Nikki, Your picture reflects the beauty, delicateness, fragility and solidnesss of a woman choosing re-connect within and blossom forth in full for the world to see and feel your presence. It is hard to imagine you as you describe in your teenage years!
“I had a black belt in karate, represented my state in basketball, won tennis championships, and I regularly went swimming and to the gym – it was an area of my life where I was considered successful”.
I agree with you Stephanie, Nikki’s photo “reflects the beauty, delicateness, fragility and solidness of a woman choosing to re-connect within and blossom forth in full for the world to see and feel her presence”. I love how you expressed that, and it surely describes this beautiful woman. It is very hard to imagine this lady doing what she was describing when she was a teenager, that was complete disregard. But then so many of us feel we have something to prove when we are young.
When I read your blog Nikki and how you exercised when you were young and what you put yourself through almost felt like a form of punishment, there didn’t seem to be any love or enjoyment in what you were doing just a need to change your body shape. The sad thing is there was no one to say to you stop and look at what you are doing to your body, because how you were is championed in the world, the more extreme you are the more you are praised, but at great expense to the body.
Sadly we have championed pushing the body past limits that is good for it rather than listening and supporting it.
It really shows up the mind for the loveless choices it presents to us at the expense of the body. Once we tune into the messages from our body it would never ask to be treated harshly, forced to pound the pavement, or to eat to build an enormous weight bearing body, it’s all unnatural for a loving, tender and sensitive body and does not require us to do any of these extreme activities.
Alison, great you mentioned the word ‘punishment’. Why do we choose this, why are our bodies not worth loving care as they are always there to support us. Every time when I do gentle exercises such a joy is coming from my body. Most of the times I do them in front of a mirror and I see myself smile, the moment I see my face become serious I know I am overdoing or trying to be perfect. It feels so joyful to support the body in a gentle loving way.
Your story is inspiring Nikki. Gentle exercise is such a contrast to the Karate and competitive sport you used to do. It sounds and feels like a welcome coming home to your body.
So true Rebecca you can feel the hardness and protection that you must go into to do the Karate moves that Nikki describes, versus the grace and gentleness of gentle exercise.
Nikki, what a beautiful blog to read. The developing of a deeper and more loving relationship with yourself through re-imprinting with a gentle way of exercising and making different choices in your life, is felt in every word.
Thank you.
I agree, gentle exercise is an important part of our self care routine – I used to attend a weekly class where we did a range of exercises and I found that just in a few weeks, my muscles were able to build strength and that supported me in my work which involves a lot of walking about carrying things. It is noticeable how, once those classes stopped, my body reverted to feeling stiff, so I can feel directly how important it is. I have weights at home and can do the exercises there, but I’m not so motivated to do it on my own, although I know my body needs it and a daily 15 minutes of balance and strength building would be all it takes. So I’m looking for another class . . .
I can relate to what you say here, Carmel, I too have weights and want to keep exercising, but it is very hard to motivate oneself at home. I also feel the need to start attending a gym class, but at the moment feel a little in limbo, with my home on the market, keeping it and the garden in order for inspections every so often, I am finding it very hard to actually make the commitment. I know when I move that I will be doing classes with Danielle and really look forward to the commitment then, but I can feel physically that I need to make the commitment NOW.
Beautiful to read how reconnecting with exercise in a true way has enabled you to heal old hurts. Truly connecting with the body first, as we exercise, as presented by Danielle is truly life-changing.
I totally agree connecting to the quality in which I move is such a different way to approach exercise. In the past it has been achieving a certain outcome or fitness level and now it is connecting to exercise in such a way that is supportive to my body and being.
Yes Sue it is really life-changing, the quality in which we exercise determines the quality of how we use our bodies in daily life. I am much more aware when I try to force my body when I am at work but with the marker of the gentle movements in my exercises I have the choice to honour my body and not push through.
Yes Sue – no matter what we do, it is always about, connecting to us first and then move – no matter if this in the gym or in regards to any other activity. The power of connection – otherwise it is not us, moving or exercising.
It is huge what is uncovered by this blog. The common thing we are sold is that vitality comes from being fit and being fit comes from doing loads of exercise and staying in shape so to speak. This is true, to a point, but it is also a lie in the sense that it is not the complete truth of the matter. I have found through doing gentle exercises myself that I am feeling more vital than ever and I am not pushing my body like I did when I was trying to be ‘fit’. The simple fact is that the quality of how we do our exercises has far more impact on the results than does the exercises themselves necessarily
I agree Joshua, it is always about the quality first.
Well said Joshua – we are sold so many lies with regard to fitness, vitality and being competitive with sports. The body may look rippling with large, taught muscles but there is huge hardness throughout the body. The body can be strong simply through the quality brought to daily movement,, including gentle exercise. Aligning to and choosing a true quality within the body first and then bringing this quality to initiate our every movement changes everything – an evolutionary way – the way we move reflecting how we live our life.
Absolutely Joshua, great point – the quality we do whatever we do in is key to how we then will take ourselves to the next thing, and I agree far exceeds any mental push of ‘I think I can’.
Very true Joshua, it the quality and presence that we bring to all our movements when we exercise and also throughout the day, that become magnified into bodies, if we move in a hard way or a way that we push our bodies sooner or later our bodies will let us know, by becoming injured or unwell. When we move in a gentle tender way, it’s amazing to feel how our bodies appreciate that.
When we stop pushing our bodies and allow them to move naturally and gracefully, exercise becomes so much more fun and nourishing!
I completely agree Meg and also it actually works much better. I found that when I exercise in connection which from the outside might not look as if I am doing a lot, my body actually benefits a great deal more and gets fitter and healthy and I enjoy doing it, so it is sustainable. If I push myself it doesn’t work, there is a massively greater chance of injury and also I am less likely to continue. Exercising in true connection is a win win situation by every measure so you have to wonder why it is not the way we all move.
I have the same, very strange experience. When I exercise harmoniously and that includes walking at a speed I don’t start sweating even going uphill, I end up surprisingly fit and well, hardly ever getting sick.
Indeed Nicola – a win win situation. Recently I sometimes close my eyes while I’m doing gentle exercises. I feel the flow and lightness in my body, then I just enjoy how I feel and the energy moves me.
Yes! You nailed why so many people begin to exercise, but fail to continue long term – ‘If I push myself it doesn’t work, there is a massively greater chance of injury and also I am less likely to continue.’ It makes sense that if you push your body too hard, the effects are unpleasant and unenjoyable, so why would you continue to exercise long term?
Meg I really love your use of the word ‘nourishing’, that’s exactly how gentle exercise feels, as opposed to strenuous exercise that simply feels depleting.
Great Blog Nikki, it is so confirming of the support gentle exercise is to our bodies, when it isn’t about attaining a goal but just supporting our body in our daily lives it is a loving thing to do.
I never realised how hard my body was until I took those first small steps into introducing ‘gentleness’ into my life. Relating to what you share with us Nikki that constant ‘pushing of my body to do more’ and to look a certain way to give a ‘feel good’ factor. Of course this is all about outside appearance and completely ignoring the truth of how I really felt deep inside. What a turnaround Nikki to now have a new relationship with your body, one based on love and support which is creating a much stronger foundation to work from.
Its great to read your sharing on exercise Nikki, I feel that the world needs to have a reflection of a different way to exercise. One that is more appreciative of our bodies and not so ready to override. I have read a lot about extreme exercise challenges recently and the focus is always on the mind can control the body and push us to achieve beyond what we believe is possible. I much prefer to read what you have shared where we connect to the body and don’t place it under undue stress, that feels much more caring.
Absolutely we are surrounded by the constant pushing to achieve in ever more extreme ways which is so harmful for our bodies and it is great to hear that there is an alternative where you do not have to disregard your body and override its messages but have the opportunity to develop an ever deeper and more supportive relationship.
Feels weird really when our bodies seems to be calling to be treated with love and respect and we choose to not listen and push even harder. Feels like a strategy to numb down what our bodies are actually communicating to us which seems like a very bizarre strategy indeed.
We are not in a battle with our bodies. The body is clear in its messages and it is hugely disregarding of ourselves when we not only don’t listen, but do our utmost to push against what the body is saying.
When the mind fights the body, whether the mind wins or not, there is always a loser: The person.
I agree Stephen, the world certainly needs a different reflection of how to be with our bodies and how to exercise. We certainly do need to take care of our bodies and move them and exercise in connection. The amount of exercise each of our bodies needs is different according to what we do and need to do during the day, our age and our personal circumstances. There are hardly any true models of exercise in the world. The most healing form of movement I ever discovered is True Movement led by Curtis Benhayon and Natalie Benhayon. Doing True Movement has completely transformed my body and brought about immense healing and freedom in movement.
Nicola that is exactly what came to me reading this blog, when Nikki was sharing about her teenage years, in how this is still happening and how hard we push and drive ourselves and our bodies. Yes we absolutely, most definitely, need a different reflection of how to be with our bodies including how to exercise ?
I completely agree with you and myself Vicky!!! and yet probably above all what we need is to learn to trust ourselves and our bodies. If we let go of all the ideals, beliefs, images etc etc and truly connect to ourselves we would know exactly what we needed to support us in any moment.
Stephen G extreme exercise, the mind can control the body ….. yes but it begs the question , if the mind is controlling the body who pays the price? It’s the body that will have to live with the consequences for the rest of its life. The mind does not consider the whole just the attention it seeks.
Yes Merrilee, and the question I would ask is why do we want to push through, what is the outcome of overcoming the body with our mind, we achieve a challenge and what is it that is honestly felt, a moments elation of the ‘achievement’ followed by…. if there is deep honesty it is followed by the deeper emptiness that has to be there because the issue the extreme exercise was chosen to bury is actually still there, but now in a deeper more raw form. That feeling of not being enough that a million marathons will never make go away.
Yes Stephen, eventually we need to stop and ask ourselves what are we pushing and striving for? No amount of exercise will take away any pain we are burying, and unfortunately its the body that ends up breaking down so we are forced to stop.
I agree Stephen, there is an increase in extreme exercise and sports today, people are desperate to find relief from the stress, hurts, pain Etc. they experience in their bodies, but exercising in this way only buries these feelings, to later come out in a different way in the form of illness or injury, they also can become addictive as one needs to continue in a more and more extreme way to numb what is there to be felt.
Yes Thomas, and this whole outplay is really rather obvious to see if we are willing to stop and recognise the patterns that play out. I noticed this in my time doing triathlons, where it was always about getting faster or taking on longer challenges, it was always about what next, but never ever about appreciating where we are and caring and respecting the body. A body which will allow us to feel wonderful if we treat it with the respect is requires.
Totally agree Thomas, people are desperate to find relief from their stress and their hurts, and lets face it, there are many forms of distraction out there we can choose, sport being one of them. That’s why blogs like these and all the comments are super, super supportive to bring awareness to the current consciousness around all hard and competitive sport; ‘no pain, no gain’.
This is so true Thomas. We think the answer is in achieving something in these forms of exercise, whether improved performance or winning medals but the relief we gain is so short lived and instead of recognising it isn’t working we go for more of the same, just harder and with more commitment.
I was proud that I could control the body with my mind and I thought I am strong because of this . . . wow that was such a nonsense. Yes I agree Stephen we need a reflection of a different way to exercise – it will also reduce the costs in the health care area.
Definitely Stephen. Imagine if we applied the feeling of ‘care’ to our bodies when we exercised. Would this not change the relationship we exercise with completely?
There has been for decades now the search for exercise that will give us the ultimate vitality and health, and yet illness and disease continues to rise, so it is clear the increased intensity of exercise isn’t bringing us more health!
All exercise is not necessarily good exercise. Therefore we have yet to really discern if a way of exercising is good for us or even more importantly the way we are in that exercise.
Well said Jennifer, all exercise is not good for us and so we really do need to discern what exercise would support our body.
Well said Heather, and it can’t be because people haven’t tried or put in the effort. All sorts of exercise regimes have been tried and tested and still the tiredness, fatigue and exhaustion is sky- high. I was walking past a group of cyclists recently and the part of the conversation I caught was that they were sharing how tired they were. They were doing exercise for their health and yet it was draining them at the same time.
Yes Stephen – the more we care and love our body, the more our body can tell us, how much exercise is needed. It is really time to let go of all the false beliefs and ideas in the area of sport.
Our body is amazing and speaks to us loud and clear, only if we stop and listen to it. The more we care and love our body the more it lets us know How much exercise is needed.
I agree with your comment Stephen G that “…the world needs to have a reflection of a different way to exercise.” – I often have gentle walks to match my body’s rhythm at a park nearby, where I share the track with all gammuts of pushing the body to and beyond it’s physical limits, with hard and set faces on pony-tailed girls, women with bands around their arms to tell them how well they are doing whilst running flat footed on the hard concrete sweat seeping through their facial pores while men jog at a pace in competition sharing and exposing veins that could tie up a ship at dock. Yes, I agree it would be much more caring if everyone considered exercising in connection to their body, and naturally being revitalized. I would love to be able to join in with Danielle Pirera’s Exercise Class that Nikki McKee speaks of in her beautiful blog however, hydrotherapy and connective tissue exercises as shared by Kate Greenaway in combination in a pool nearby suffice and my body just loves it.
Beautiful to read about the healing power of gentle exercise and how it has changed your relationship with your body Nikki. I too have found this to be the case. The deeper connection I get from exercising in this way carries into all my movements thereafter and so the way I move then has a quality of gentleness and grace. I would never swap this for any of my running medals lying at the bottom of my drawer.
This highlights how much we are driven by ideals and beliefs around achieving fitness or our body looking a certain way rather than the quality that our body moves in.
Time to let go the running medals Jane, unless of course they are reminder that you were always worth so much more than winning any race could give you!
This is gorgeous to read Nikki. How powerful past actions can be and how the results lay dormant in our bodies, debilitating us from moving forward. To revisit these scenarios with a different mentality, an energy which supports rather than pushes, means that our bodies open up again to the beauty of life and how things can be done.
Yes, this blog is a great example of that isn’t it? I discovered the same in myself and rejected sport altogether as a result. It wasn’t the answer it was just a reaction. Now I have found a delicious balance and my body thanks me for it… I can feel a strength session coming on!
This just goes to show what type of energy is often stored in the body that we are often not even consciously aware of . It raises the question – why, how and what quality of energy are we allowing into our bodies, in the first place…?
I’ve been aware of that one recently – that everything seems to be all fine until you make choices that goes contra the familiar way of being. Goes to show that there is much going on ‘behind the scenes’ that we are not aware of, that there are energies laying dormant in our bodies that can be activated at some point, so being aware of what energy we move in is in my own experience super important.
Wow Matts – that is so true “there is much going on ‘behind the scenes’ that we are not aware of……energies laying dormant in our bodies that can be activiated at some point…………..” A super powerful reminder to bring awareness to our movements.
This has been my focus lately, being aware of what energy I am moving in, and there is no switching on and off.
Wow Nicki what an amazing turnaround with exercise and loving your body . Reading this I can really feel the pain hurt and force of your teenage years and growing up this way and the beauty of reclaiming the real you. This shows how we can really heal our past imprints and how powerful and loving this is to do. The reality that we can change so much of our lives from self harming to deeply caring and loving gentle ways for our body is a huge reflection and inspiration. Thank you for sharing this so simply and honestly and what a gift for so many of us who have also grown up exercising and pushing our bodies that we really can heal this and change everything is very powerful.
This is a great observation Tricia – the fact that we can always reclaim what we truly know is very beautiful – and that sometimes we say we are set in our ways, but really does this come from the body or the head? Because every time I say that I know it is from the head and the body will always shift and change and grow depending on where I am at. Exercise is now something that continually develops for me in my body as I become more gentle with all that I do, so does my exercise. It is a very beautiful journey and experiment to be on.
Nikki a great before and after blog, from punishing your body as a teenager, to having a respectful, loving relationship with yourself.. It was a revelation to be shown that exercise can be fun and gentle. I learned to connect to the body as I exercised, work with it, not against it and move in response to how my body felt, not just automatically follow instructions. Thank you Danielle.
That is the key – to work with the body not against it. So much exercise is based on pushing your body but this is not necessary and is something I now see as harmful.
Nikki and Kehinde for me this was also a new learning. In the beginning I had all the old believes that this is not worth it to do (gentle exercises) as this will not bring a result. I had to learn that it is not about pushing as this believe was so ingrained. Now my body loves it if I do not push him – what a gift.
I had the same attitude to gentle exercise Ester. I wanted results, and didn’t trust that I would get fit or see any benefit. When I finally decided to give gentle exercise a go the first thing that was immediately obvious was how simple and effortless it felt. How there was no pain or struggle and hence how easy it was to keep it up and make it a part of my weekly routine. I soon found I was actually enjoying my workouts rather than struggling through them. That alone was enough. How can you say no to enjoyment that is also great for your body and mind?
Working with the body in exercise, or when choosing what to eat, or when working – it is all the same result, a care and respect for the inner self that shines through.
Lovely, and a great reminder that all is a reflection that the body delivers to us
Absolutely Kehinde, when we connect and work with our bodies it makes such a difference, firstly as you say its fun and enjoyable and our bodies innate wisdom guides us, rather than exercising from our minds with a picture or idea, based on an external result.
Yes Thomas, to exercise only motivated by self care and not to fit in with any ideals, quite a different approach and hugely powerful.
My experience too Kehinde – I certainly felt exercise was a chore – but to now do this in a way where if feels fun, light and supportive is a great feeling in my body and when I don’t do it – I genuinely don’t feel right, and I also look at why am I choosing to skip it.
The things we do to our bodies to perform and strive to be the best and achieve recognition is always a losing bet. Once you reach the top, there is always someone in the wings to push you off. Then like a spent rocket you just free fall. Gentle exercise just helps us stay fit and trim like a small sailboat; it gets us where we need to be.
Beautifully said Steve!
Feels gorgeous Steve “Gentle exercise just helps us stay fit and trim like a small sailboat; it gets us where we need to be.”
Wow Steve that was a lovely picture with the sailboat – it will help me while I am doing my gentle exercises.
I prefer that sail boat Mary as opposed to the struggle boat I was choosing in the past! Self-care and self-nourishment was a super support to upgrade my boat.
The flow and ease is part of moving a body in a way that brings health and vitality, but also is more importantly a reflection of the loveliness we feel inside.
Wonderful expressed “like a small sailboat, it gets us where we need to be”. The more we love ourselves, the less we can harm our body with loveless exercises.
I love the analogy – like a small sailboat – beautiful, and it can glide easily through the waters of life too 🙂
Agree Steve. We should be fit for purpose. We certainly don’t need to be able to run for 26 miles non stop, complete triathlons, lift our own body weight or sit cross legged in lotus etc etc in order to have a purposeful life where love is our focus.
What a lovely touch Steve, a great reflection on the flow of gentle exercise and what it brings instantaneously .
Well said Steven striving and pushing our body for recognition is a losing bet. It really is about building gentle exercise into our daily rhythm to keep our body functioning well.
Spot on Steve. I happened to see an interview today with a former top Australian swimmer who was recounting his experience at the Olympics. He talked about having spent 7 years preparing for just one moment and in the end he came 3rd but he admitted that in that moment he felt completely shattered. He also realised there was nowhere to go after that moment – definitely a spent rocket. Gentle exercise certainly exposes the utter illusion of training for recognition, where there is no true support for the body or the being.
What a difference between exercising to achieve an outcome of an external goal and that of lovingly supporting the body. As I read your description of your teenage years I feel myself shrinking while I feel myself expanding with your present practice. Beautiful to read.
That is awesome Nikki, how many of us have a negative experience only to then forever live in a way to try and avoiding feeling like that ever again (However because we can never escape our choices it does come back, it may not look the same but it feels the same which brings up – is the image of the event and constructing our avoidance behaviours around the image really protecting us?)
What you’ve shared here is that can re-visit these feelings and not baulk or run away but re-imprint them in a more loving and supportive way, Thank you.
Well said Leigh – I had similar thoughts and feelings while reading Nikki’s blog – it is never too late to make changes.
I love your expression Leigh – and so true, at any given moment we can re-imprint our body with a felt truth rather than giving it what we have become familiar with but does not support it or us.
True Leigh, this is such a great gift and one of the most profound realizations that we can re-imprint these old ‘traumas’ in our body and do not have to relive them time and time again.
Exercising for me was something I had to push myself into, I would do my routine disconnected from my body lost in my thoughts, almost relieved when I was done and could rest again.
With gentle exercising like taught by Danielle Pirera I experience that staying with my body and enjoying my movement is key to this form of exercise and it started to be a time where I truly spend time with myself.
What a change – from karate to harmony in movement! My experience tells me that until you give exercising gently with connection a go, it is almost impossible to really get how different it is to the considered ‘normal’ way. It’s so great that more and more people are experiencing for themselves the benefits.
I agree Suzanne, I was also someone who was into competitive sport for most of my life. I used to ridicule some sports for being to ‘weak’. Now I could not imagine doing some of the sports I used to do as the impact they had on my body was huge, I used sport as a form of protection- a way to harden my body and keep people out. This never really supported me though I couldn’t see this at the time.
Great point Suzanne doing anything in connection rather than disconnection from our innermost and body provides a relative point in which to feel what has become familiar rather than our natural way.
True and it is the only way but I think it’ll take some time until we realise this en masse.
It’s true Suzanne, there is a different kind of normal but it can only be felt.
So true Suzanne. If I had not experienced exercising in connection, I would only have known the way I was taught exercise should be. The more I have done exercise in this way, the more I find there is to re-discover about what my body actually wants. Previously I used to exercise in a way that pushed my body, as I was trying to get fitter or change the way my body feels. It feels so amazing to do it for me. There is no dragging myself to the gym or out for a walk. It’s something I really want to do.
I agree Suzanne, until you have been shown by someone who exercises gently another experience and feel for yourself the profound effects it provides you. I have been doing weights for many years now. Gently pushing weights for connection to my body is a feeling that can hold all day, not like smashing myself being in pain while I was doing weights but also after. It was for the look to feel good instead of feeling great throughout the session and the whole day of feeling solid in your body (not solid looking).