No Pain No Gain Has a Lot to Answer For

Have you ever used a bolster in yoga and felt slightly embarrassed about it?

As if making something easier meant you were doing it wrong. As if struggle was the point.

We have inherited a story that says difficulty is what makes us grow. No pain no gain. More effort, more training, more discipline. Doing it harder is better.

Rest is just a pause before getting back out there.

So many of the women I work with are exhausted in a way that sleep doesn't touch. And many of them are doing all the right things like yoga, pilates, meditation, eating well, sleeping early, at least working on it. And still carrying a list of symptoms that includes anxiety and, more often than not, rage. This is much more than lifestyle.

I notice this even in the way some women approach our work together. Treatment becomes another item on an already full list. Inner work becomes something to achieve. Even healing gets squeezed into a timetable that has no room left in it.

What I would love for us all to remember is healing doesn't happen if the body doesn't feel safe enough to rest.

Rest is not the reward at the end of the process, it is the condition that healing needs to begin.

When we are dysregulated, all available energy goes into keeping the wheels turning. It is only when there is space that the nervous system can direct its resources toward healing rather than survival.

Our sex hormones (oestrogen and progesterone) and our stress hormone (cortisol) are derived from the same building blocks.

When stress is high, the body prioritises cortisol.

There is simply less available for everything else.

An invitation for winter

How are you approaching your time?

And what might you be willing to reconsider as quality time spent?

Before we know it, spring will be here and we'll be asked to perform again.

For now, winter is offering us respite.

Will you let it?

If something here speaks to you, you can work with me in person at my clinic in Preston and at The Yin Palace gatherings in Melbourne, or online through my qigong community and Rage Rising. The Three Treasures Pathway is offered both in person and online.

With Love,
Anny 🌹