.png)
The Air We Breathe: Finding Well-Being That Works for You
The Air We Breathe: Finding Well-Being that Works for You is a podcast created to help you establish a trusted foundation of doable healthy habits and smart self-care skills that can endure every season and last you a lifetime. I'm your host, Heather Sayers Lehman, and my guests and I will share ways that you can focus on your physical and mental health with purpose, flexibility, and ease. The Air We Breathe is here to help you find out what’s most doable, frictionless, and effective for you and release everything that’s not. Find more information at HeatherSayersLehman.com or @HeatherSayersLehman on IG.
The Air We Breathe: Finding Well-Being That Works for You
E56. Redefining Fitness: Learn to Listen to Your Body with Body Liberation Coach Hannah Husband
Are you tired of focusing on your weight or body size? 😩
Well, Hannah Husband and the Body Liberation Playground are here to help!
Today on the pod, Hannah shares their relationship with exercise.
Like most of us, it began as their desire to change and control their body.
Over time, it shifted to their desire to liberate it and feel free.
During the pandemic, they were forced to close the doors to their brand-new fitness studio and shift to virtual coaching.
After offering weekly phone calls to check in with clients, they had the idea to start the Body Liberation Playground.
They aimed to help their clients use movement as a self-awareness practice and learn to enjoy being IN their bodies, not try to fix or change them.
We also delve into the flexible nature of exercise, particularly in recovering from sickness or injury.
Hannah emphasizes that exercise is not a binary choice between active and sedentary but rather a sliding scale.
They share their framework for guiding clients back to movement after a period of inactivity.
Ultimately, we focus on the vital role of curiosity, play, and experimentation in exercise.
Hannah shares how these elements can bring exercise back to a place of joy and self-discovery, away from the pressures of focusing on weight and size.
…..
Hannah's Bio: Hannah Husband (they/them) is a Body Liberation Coach. Think of Hannah as a couples therapist for the relationship between you and your body. They help the two of you fall in love with movement all over again (or for the very first time.)
Body Liberation Playground: https://www.hannahhusband.com/body-liberation-playground
Resources:
Don’t know how to start effectively journaling? 📖
Download your free 3D Journaling Guide here: https://heathersayerslehman.com/journal/
Ready to improve your self-care game? 💕
Download 3 Foundational Meta-Skills for Healthy Living that Lasts here: https://heathersayerslehman.com/meta-skills/
Trying to figure out if a program or activity will actually promote healthy behavior change? 🙋🏻♀️
Download Keys to Promoting Health Sustaining Behaviors here: https://overcomingu.com/white-paper/
Looking for a personal health coach, well-being speaker, or health education for employees? 🙌🏼
Visit https://heathersayerslehman.com/work-with-me/ for more information.
Need support overcoming emotional eating? Work through my guidebook, Don’t Eat It. DEAL With It! Second Edition: Your Guidebook on How to STOP Eating Your Emotions, to create a healthier relationship with food. ✍🏼
Follow below for consistent info on creating healthy habits without rules, obsession, or exhaustion: ✅
Newsletter: https://heathersayerslehman.com/subscribe/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathersayerslehman/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heathersayerslehman
sensing our internal environment, one skill being able to articulate that internal environment and like interpret those sensations and value them. Also, not something that's taught, especially in the fitness industry. Right, the fitness paradigm is like I have hired you, the expert, you are going to know exactly what my body needs. And I'm like cool, no, you've lived in your body your whole ass life. I've just met you Like I have exercise knowledge, but like you are in your body, like you're the expert of your body.
Speaker 2:Hi and welcome to the Air ReBreathe finding well-being that works for you. I'm your host, heather Sayers-Layman. I'm a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, certified Intuitive Eating Counselor and certified personal trainer. I help you get organized and consistent with healthy habits, without rules, obsession or exhaustion. This podcast may contain talk about eating disorders and disordered eating. There could also be some adult language here. Choose wisely if those are problematic for you. Hi and welcome to this episode of the Air we Breathe.
Speaker 2:Today I'm chatting with Hannah Husband, who is a body liberation coach, and Hannah and I both came up through the same fitness format where basically, fitness exercise, physical activity, whatever you want to call it is to change your body. That could be losing weight, elongating your muscles, barf, snatching your waist, making your butt bigger whatever is actually in vogue at that time. Also, a big piece of that fitness model is having a leader. So this is either a coach when you're younger and you're in sports, or a fitness leader, that is, the expert positioned to tell you what you should be doing and how you should do it. So some of the things we chatted about really are how can you tune in to yourself and tune out a lot of these other voices and the big piece of how to position yourself as your own leader and you are able to ask yourself a lot of different questions what feels good right now? What seems like too much? If I'm sick, when do I know how to come back?
Speaker 2:I definitely find, and we chatted about, like there are all these different like rules and regulations of, oh, you recover this long and you know you need to make sure you're doing it exactly this way and obviously, how can that fit everyone? So we really talk about how to make your own decisions and be your own fitness boss, if you will. I really had a good chat with Hannah and I hope you enjoy this episode. Hi and welcome to this episode. Today I'm chatting with Hannah Husband and Hannah. Why don't you just jump in and introduce yourself? Okay?
Speaker 1:So I call myself a body liberation coach. I was a personal trainer and Pilates instructor for a long time and then, as I woke up to anti-fat bias and all of the ways that that was influencing my understanding of fitness, I shifted my title. So I support folks to heal their relationship with their bodies, really become friends with their bodies and like reclaim movement as a practice that supports them holistically, and I bring like a kind of like playful comedic spin to that Cause. I really believe that like it is serious work and we need to make space for the grief and all of that and it could be fun.
Speaker 2:I don't even know what you're talking about. It's gotta be hard. It's gotta be hard, it's gotta be awful and we're going to hate it, but we'll be happy when we're done Like that's right. Yeah. And then how did you come up? We talked a little bit before this started on sort of like my origin story. But how did you come up through the world of fitness? Sure, so I was a theater kid. Theater and fitness are just bedfellows, yeah.
Speaker 1:I was literally just thinking about this today like the, the pipeline from like actor to some kind of body care specialist, like massage therapist, personal trainer, yoga teacher, right To like some kind of coach therapist, helping professional like that pipeline is strong and I am on it.
Speaker 1:So that's the TLDR. But yeah, I was a theater kid and I was not an athlete or a sporty person. I did not like step foot into a gym until my 20s probably. So I learned fitness as an adult and I really did learn it in the like weight centric paradigm of the you know joyful early 2000s, and I came to it from the lens of only skinny girls get cast in leading roles, so I'd better be as thin as possible. Only skinny girls get cast in leading roles, so I'd better be as thin as possible. And I'd already flunked out of dieting and so I was like, well, maybe exercise will be my thing, maybe that's how I'll do it. So that was my like entree into fitness for myself. And then I really liked it, like I just would feel good after going to a class, like my brain would be clear. I have ADHD, I now know, but I didn't figure that out until I was 39. But I just would be like, wow, like my brain feels really clear, I feel really like good and energized and focused, and so that was like kind of what kept me coming back for fitness on my own like. And then at a certain point I like, oh, maybe I could like be an instructor and that could be my like day job to support my acting work while I'm being a starving artist. So, yeah, that was how I got into. I did personal training certification in 2010, um, and I worked as a trainer at this like all women's gym in Massachusetts that's kind of a small local chain and got into teaching Pilates there and then moved to California in 2014 and was like, oh, I'll just work for myself, no big deal, just keep doing what I'm doing. But you know, without any of the infrastructure turns out that was not super easy to do. So I ended up working for a couple other like I worked for a Pilates studio here in Oakland and then I worked at a like, kind of like functional fitness sort of bootcampy style gym not a CrossFit, but like CrossFit light sort of thing and then my friend at the time who was the manager there was like we should maybe peel off and start our own thing. So we did that and I ran an in-person business from 2017 until 2021.
Speaker 1:It did not survive the pandemic, but we did kind of like small group strength training classes, very much like let's meet you where you are really beginner friendly, very like size inclusive in the way that we understood it at the time, but still not really questioning the like people are going to want to lose weight and we're going to need to support them with that kind of paradigm of the industry. People are going to want to lose weight and we're going to need to support them with that kind of paradigm of the industry. We more took an approach of like let's not do crazy unhealthy things in the name of weight loss. But like I wasn't yet realizing that intentional weight loss pursuit was a scam entirely and I think part of that too, like we were talking about earlier. Like I was definitely looking back at that time, I like, oh yeah, I was really using exercise to control my body, but I was quote unquote successful, right. So in my mind it worked and I felt morally comfortable like helping other people do that thing.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, the pandemic forced us to shut down our freshly opened studio and we had to kind of make an emergency pivot to doing like an online membership. And the blessing of that time was that one of the things we offered as part of that kind of oh no, how do we do this? Virtually kind of offering was weekly coaching, phone call check ins with our clients. We had previously been doing small group classes, so you didn't get a lot of chance to like coach individuals. Occasionally you'd have a sidebar conversation with someone where you'd actually get to like connect with them, but, like once we moved to the virtual version, a lot of the job became how do I help coach my clients to like keep their movement practice going? Because it's more self directed now, like we are providing them these pre recorded classes but like they have to make time to do the thing Right.
Speaker 1:And I really enjoyed that coaching part and so when that business shut down, I was super burnt out so I took some time to kind of like recover. My plan was like I'm going to do nothing for a month and literally like one week in I started getting just like. I started waking up early in the morning, no alarm, like I was like I can finally sleep in at 530am I'd be like awake and like having ideas and I was essentially like having. I call them downloads, because that's what it felt like. I was just like having these ideas like arrive in my brain of essentially a community that I wanted to create.
Speaker 1:That was about like supporting people in that coaching conversation, like how do we shift our relationship to movement from one of the movement is sacred and I must ready myself and meet it and be a good mover, to how do I invite movement to serve me in my life and how do I like hire movement to play the role that I need it to play in this season of my life, which might be different than past seasons or future seasons, and got very like deep into unlearning diet culture and like really starting to see the ways that I've been participating in that weight centric paradigm, even though I thought I was like counter to it and yeah, so that's really how.
Speaker 1:So now I have a, an online community called the body liberation playground, which was that idea that just started like downloading into my brain, and I also do one-on-one work with clients. And then I have a like small group beginner strength training program called Seedling Strength that I run a couple times a year, but mostly in the virtual realms, which is awesome, kind of relatively new. It's funny like I've been in business for a long time for myself, but I'm sort of still a newbie to the like online business world didn't for a couple of years.
Speaker 2:So then you're doing a webinar and I'm literally looking at the green dot and my slides no feedback. Is this dumb? Is this good? Is it helpful? And it is really challenging, I think because you get so much from people's faces of like a nod yes, they get it, they get it or a confused look and I think that, um, I mean like that piece just can't be, like you know, underplayed of how challenging it is to learn to work in that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, when we first switched to a virtual model in the early pandemic, I hated teaching live classes on Zoom because I was comparing it directly to teaching in person and, to be fair, I'm a very kinesthetic, auditory human. Those are my like dominant, preferred ways of interacting with the world and learning and so when I'm in a room with humans, I can tell if people are breathing comfortably and normally or if they've kind of stopped breathing right Like. I can sort of feel the vibe in the room shift to one of like oh, we hate this and be like okay, we need to change it up right Like, and on zoom, I'm just staring at the little square as being like is are you getting it? Are you feeling the right stuff? Are you? Do you hate this? Do you like it? I don't know. And like you know a little bit of a recovering people pleaser. So there was like that narrative present and I'm like one of my superpowers slash trauma coping strategies from childhood is being like hyper attuned to people's emotional tone, which again, when I'm in the room teaching humans, I can use that and over zoom it kind of doesn't work. And so at first I just felt I turned it in on myself and I was like, oh, I'm not a good teacher without this medium.
Speaker 1:And now, having done a lot more like personal development, work and learning and just experimenting, right, Like I'm like, oh right, Like there are things that don't translate over Zoom, I teach movement live now is that it puts more self responsibility in the hands of the client to notice their body and their internal state and to practice articulating that out loud. To me, which is a skill that we aren't largely taught, right, Like sensing our internal environment one skill, being able to articulate that internal environment. And like interpret those sensations and value them. Also, not something that's taught, especially in the fitness industry. Right, the fitness paradigm is like I have hired you, the expert, you are going to know exactly what my body needs.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, cool, no, you've lived in your body your whole ass life. I've just met you. Like I have exercise knowledge. But like you are in your body, Like you're the expert of your body, you can feel your nervous system nervous system like state shifts better than I can, Hopefully, Right, yeah, Again, a skill to develop. But like what I enjoy now about teaching online is that I get to help people develop those skills and, in my mind like that's way more valuable than because what used to happen when I taught in person, both one on ones and classes, was that people would show up and be like this is amazing and then, if I wasn't there to do the magic thing with them, nothing happened, whereas now I'm like teaching people the tools and skills to like listen to their bodies, check in with how things are feeling in real time, make decisions based on internal feedback and like.
Speaker 1:That is what actually I've found like empowers someone to like shift their relationship to movement in such a way that they can self-generate versus always being like well, no, I just I need someone or I need a class. I need a thing, not to say that that's wrong. Right, like it's good to know about ourselves, what kind of supports we need and source them wrong, right, like it's good to know about ourselves what kind of supports we need and source them.
Speaker 2:Do you feel like the do it yourself approach to improving your healthy habits does nothing except feel overwhelming, guilt inducing and defeating? You don't need more rules, influencers or structured programs. Let me help you discover what you want, what works for you and how to maintain healthy habits during the ever changing circumstances of your life. If you're ready to create systems that stick head to heathersayerslaymancom backslash health dash coaching and click, let's do it. I think it's so interesting because I find so much value in everything that you're talking about, like, especially you know, as my life changed when I had my thyroid out, like I cannot do what I used to do, and I mean I also had this intersection of you know, also had this intersection of you know, exercising for size, body maintenance and then illness.
Speaker 2:That's like, haha, that's not gonna work anymore, you know, eating disorders sprinkled in, and so you know, redefining my relationship with how I move and I think one of the pieces that I see that's very challenging for others and and I think it's easier for me just because I grew up in the business.
Speaker 2:So I know that my darling, you know 22 and 23 year old trainers that do our group training, you know, are trained to do their best and like I'll be doing this exercise, or trained to do their best and like I'll be doing this exercise. This is my modification, which they don't even ask anymore because you know, um, or it's funny, I'm we're going to be out of town for five weeks and we'll go to a different gym and I always have to gear up for the. Yeah, I, I don't do those, I do this, I don't do that one, I do this Cause some people are, you know very much, like Ooh, we need you to, and it's like no, absolutely not. But I think it makes a difference because I, you know, certainly value, like I don't want to get injured, like it's a hassle, it's expensive. So like what is it that you feel like you do to help people, feel like they actually have the knowledge and authority to speak up for themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a couple layers to that project and it depends where the person is starting from. So even in my group programs, I do like a one-on-one intake with people to kind of get a sense of like, okay, what's the state of the union right now? Like what is? How would you describe your relationship with your body? How, in tune with your sensations and internal environment do you think you are, which is different than what actually is happening sometimes? And then kind of, what's your history with movement and exercise and what do you want that to be Right? And and then we kind of know where we're starting from, right.
Speaker 1:So I think, like one of the biggest pitfalls in the fitness industry is that we don't spend enough time using movement as an awareness practice. Like we don't know what is what is in terms of movement. But then we're like, okay, I got to go over here where it's intense and hard and I got to push hard to get there. And it're like, okay, I got to go over here where it's intense and hard and I got to push hard to get there, and it's like, but you don't know where you are. So how do you take the right amount of intensity to get the adaptation that you want.
Speaker 1:So I tend to start with teaching people that like using movement as a self-awareness practice, moving as a way to like acquaint yourself with your body and with your ranges of motion, with your body and with your ranges of motion and with your strength and with your endurance, so that you can help build the vocabulary of where you are now. Sometimes there are some immediate sort of gains just doing that, especially if someone isn't moving much at all, because motion is lotion and so we often like feel better if we're just doing a little bit more. Movement also like supports the mental health weasels, right, but that's a big part of it is just like can you engage with movement not to fix or change your body, but to know it and to compassionately, curiously, explore it and accept it? And that is often like revolutionary for folks because they've never been invited to do that.
Speaker 2:No, because I think the the overarching vibe, whether it starts, you know, in athletics when you're young, you're a PE teacher, is there somebody here that knows more than you? And then that's right. That person will be in charge of this experience and even down to like you know if you're in athletics, I mean your coach is your feedback about your technique or you know your training, anything like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I used to. I came from that paradigm. You know I was a high achieving, people pleaser, perfectionist type. I definitely took that into my exercise journey. You know, pilates, hello, inhale as you do this, exhale as you do that You're literally like prescribing when the breath happens. When the breath happens and you know I would like the Pilates studio was full of mirrors, so I'd be watching myself and checking my body the whole time. And I remember when I moved to Oakland I started working at the like you know, bootcamp light, crossfit light place and there were no mirrors. And about a month in I was like I feel way less bad about my body. Oh, I think that's because I don't stare at it all day long in all positions. Huh, fascinating, fancy that.
Speaker 2:There's a whole thing about body checking and this is really. That's funny. When I have my gym, I was in two locations and my second locations I didn't have mirrors, because I couldn't afford it, because it's really expensive to you know, yeah, um, and I enjoyed it, and I did have feedback from some people like, oh, I wish I had mirrors and I'm like I, I think we're good because also it's it's learning that feedback from yourself, um, yeah, and then what it looks like here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the way that we naturally acquire movement skills and you can see this if you watch children under five is that we relate to our environment and try to do things right. You watch like a toddler trying to pull up for the first time. They try and they fail and they go. Well, that didn't work. They don't beat themselves up about it or make a story about that failure, they just try again until they figure it out. And then it kind of becomes a game like oh, if I can do it like this, can I do it like this, can I do it like that, can I do it like this? Right, they're building strength and endurance that whole time, but it's a game for them.
Speaker 1:So like the way that we are evolutionarily wired to acquire physical skills and expand our physical capacities is through like curiosity, play and experimentation and internal feedback loops slash, like environmental feedback loops, right, like if you fall on the floor hard, that hurts and you go, oh, I don't want to do that again. And so then you figure out how to land softer next time. But like that's the coach that we're meant to have. But we've been completely cut off from trusting that pathway as adults because we've had these, like you know, pe great example, right, the presidential fitness test was big when I was in middle school and high school, and so it was like all human bodies should be able to do a pull up or at least a bent arm hang. And I was like, have you seen my lower half compared to my upper half? No, that's not the same lift for me that it is, for you know, skinny legs, friend, over here with the buff arms, like it's not an equivalent task. Yeah, anyway, uh.
Speaker 1:But yeah, we have pe, we have fitness videos right, where we've got instructors largely have like skewed toward believing and reinforcing the laziness myth. Right, human beings are inherently lazy. Uh, some people even back that up with some weird evolutionary biology stuff that doesn't totally track for me. So they're always going to need someone to like prod them into doing what's best for them and exercising. And so then we're already in this coercive dynamic with the instructor where they are assuming that we're going to be resistant and that their job is to force us to override that resistance. How, in that environment, are you supposed to listen to yourself and honor yourself? Like it's impossible, right, so we get really cut off from trusting our internal information well, I mean, what's the profit motive of you listening to yourself Like?
Speaker 1:okay, well, now.
Speaker 2:Janet's just exercising at home by herself, Like how am I supposed to make any money off that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean I I realized this is maybe not the best for my business model, but like I would love for all of the people I work with to graduate from my services. That's what feels morally correct to me, because I feel like the only reason I have a job is that our society is so messed up that I have to go in and like repair. My friend calls me the couples therapist for the relationship you have with your body. I'm like, okay, I'm here to intervene and restore communication and restore goodwill and remind you that you're on the same team, and then off you go, like there should be a point at which you do not need me because this, this thing that I'm teaching, is a thing that belongs to human beings inherently and then gets like yanked away from us yanked away from us.
Speaker 2:Do you feel like, do you talk about, like the systems that created this? A lot Cause I find I do that all the time, because I feel like people blame themselves for wherever they are and I'm like, oh my gosh, you have been a perfect soldier, like for capitalism, for misogyny, like for patriarchy, like whatever you, you've aced this, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we, we do especially in. So in body liberation playground we have like community circles, which is kind of like kind of like an AA meeting, like you share part of your story. People listen. If you want responses you can ask for them, but we don't give advice, and so a lot of what we end up talking about and kind of lovingly commiserating on are those pieces where the person is like self blaming or internalizing that system and then the people listening can be like, hey, that sounds like ableism and that's not your fault and like you deserve the accommodations that you need. And like part of what's cool about that sort of technology of circling is that when you're the listener, you access compassion so immediately for the other person and if they're saying something that they're struggling with, that you also struggle with. You have this moment where you're like, huh, if I can be nice to them about this, maybe I also deserve kindness and it's a.
Speaker 1:It feels like a shortcut through a lot of the like unshaming work that so many of us need around our bodies and our relationship to movement or not moving enough or not looking the way we think we should look or not being as able bodied and like healthy as we think we should be. Like that's the other thing. I end up talking with folks a lot in the fitness space, like even if you manage to get yourself out of the diet culture storm and that's what happened to me then you often land in the like wellness version of fitness, which is all about like deifying this health archetype that is like so inaccessible. It's like the new thin woman for health thing. You're supposed to be able to like deadlift 300 pounds and never get sick and like be able to do a backbend. And like if you get injured it's completely your fault because you were overtraining or you weren't listening right, like there's so much.
Speaker 1:Your hair should also be very glossy while you're doing this yes, and your skin should be smooth and never break out if you're eating the right foods and sweating enough, but not sweating too much. Yeah, and it's just a. It's like you kind of swap one demon for another, and it's essentially still the same paradigm of like your enoughness is at stake if you don't perform X, y and Z correctly. And that's another piece that I really work with folks to unlearn is be like, hey, as you're having this sudden desire to pick up running again, is your enoughness at stake or is this actually something that you're adding to your life as an enrichment, as an enjoyment, as a service to you, from a place of like oh, I'm enough and I'd like some more endurance because I want to be able to keep up with my two-year-old.
Speaker 1:Or like I want to be able to go hiking for longer Cause I like being outdoors and it's good for my brain, right, like those kinds of moments where we're able to connect fitness goals to like values and like life enrichment goals. Like that's a really fertile place to explore, but it's, it's nuanced, it's it's a little tough as soon as we're seeking change and improvement. Quote unquote it's a. It's a place that we can wobble and sort of get into that like oh, like. Am I defining my worth by how well I expand my endurance or how much I can deadlift, or speaking for a friend?
Speaker 2:Somebody I knew. But yeah, I think that metrics Um, and I did an episode recently with like um, two of my closest friends of you know 30 some years about. You know that early message of being exceptional and the awards and the kudos and admiration and your parents tell other people you're exceptional and then when you get to a place of like okay, well, now I feel broken because I'm doing all of this work to be exceptional and learning to like. I was just doing a talk yesterday and talking about like being good enough and I think that is such an assault on the value so many of us grow up with like good enough. Are you talking like B minus like?
Speaker 1:Oh boy, that's going to be in my wheelhouse, um no, I was definitely the kid that got an A plus in the like AP course. Like, yeah, definitely always striving for the top marks, and yeah, I really I had a deep nod when you were, like when you're told that you are exceptional early on and then you feel like it becomes a standard you have to maintain, or like who doesn't love that applause, you know?
Speaker 2:and admiration and like, who doesn't love that applause and admiration and like, okay, now I'm valid and this is when, and then what? Then everything else feels like sub and it's like, yeah, this is just a Tuesday, we're all good, it's fine, but you're missing that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think too, like just to pull these two things apart a little bit, I think the desire for affirmation cause I've realized like that's really one of my love languages.
Speaker 1:Like I like attention, I like positive attention, hello, performer, I like, I like to be hyped, I like to be, like you know, lavished with praise.
Speaker 1:I don't think there's anything wrong with that if I'm not making my enoughness at stake and if I'm allowing and inviting the right people to like celebrate me for the things that are important to me. So, like, another thing we practice a lot in the body liberation playground is like let's help each other celebrate the things that don't feel worth celebrating. Right, because, like, when you're healing, the tiniest incremental progress sometimes is like so hard and you're like from the outside, like no one's going to even recognize this, like this is not impressive to anyone. But it's like if we can get in there and be like, no, we know this is a big deal for you, like that we can kind of use that like desire for praise and affirmation to help ourselves celebrate the tiny little milestones that, like your inside brain is like that's not enough, that doesn't count, that's not exceptional, right? Like we can kind of like there's a component of it that can be maladaptive, but I think there's a component of it that we can use to support ourselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I get that, and I think that community like you have is really important, because things sound different in our head and I think once we start saying things out loud but also listening to other people like if you're listening to somebody who's being cruel to themselves, it's so much easier to be like Whoa, like you know, we don't need that, and you know to be able to speak up and I think that is the beauty of of having a community, because what it's hard to find like a community that you have, that is about positivity and tuning in.
Speaker 2:Um, and you know, taking care of yourself in a healthy way, um, like you know you're going against. You know the other 23 hours of the day that are like I don't know. She did full pull ups so I don't know if your pull-ups really count. You know everything is comparing and contrasting and all of those messages about you know badassery or doing the most like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. It's like let's celebrate doing the least, but like doing it somewhat consistently. That's what we're about in BLP. Yeah, I literally say to people do less more often. That's my most common fitness advice. So you've got.
Speaker 2:You've got some t-shirts um, because I think. Um, what did you say about? I feel like one had moist in it.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll have the recording. So yeah's something about you know um which.
Speaker 2:Now I know a couple people that are like I can't believe. You said the word moist. I don't have a problem with word moist. Some people really don't like it.
Speaker 2:It sounds like what it is it just yeah means it's a little bit wet. I don't understand the problem. Um, and now I do have a question, a listener inspired question, about being able to develop skill sets to know when going back to activity is good. So, if this, this is after the flu or you know an injury, like how to assess, because I think illness is very challenging for people because, again, there's like rules of like oh, if it's in your head, if it's in your lungs, but I feel like there have to be like more innate tools than like a mnemonic device to tell you like yeah, to go.
Speaker 1:That's a really good question. Well, and especially with COVID, my friend sent me these like return to exercise guidelines for COVID and it is way more gradual than I would have thought. So one anytime we get derailed from an established movement routine by illness, injury, travel, what have you? That is often a place where there can be a lot of anxiety for folks of like oh no, I'm out of my groove, am I going to get back in? How soon can I get back in? And so number one is like can you notice that anxiety and like create a little space there? Because I don't believe the laziness myth. I again watching young children. All they do is move and explore their movement capacities. That is like wildly entertaining for them.
Speaker 1:So I personally believe that when we strip away all the things that are in the way of us enjoying curiously enjoying movement, we will come to a place where we inherently like crave it and we can trust that craving to return. So that's sort of like. The overarching thing is like if you've been sick and you're feeling run down after being sick, like do you want to move? Then like move a little bit. If you really don't want to, like, trust that.
Speaker 1:I think often there's a like in that anxiety. We're trying to like get back in the groove as soon as we can, because we're afraid that the longer we go without, the more likely it is that we will never get back in, or something like that, right? So I think? I think it's actually really good to have experiences of falling off the wagon and getting back on, because you start to trust that that can be part of your cyclical, seasonal relationship with movement. Yeah, I think the biggest bit, one of the biggest problems with the way we conceptualize a fitness, is that it should be like a linear upward trajectory at all times and nothing in nature operates that way, like we are a part of nature.
Speaker 2:Hello, yeah, I think it's. Oh, I was just going to say being comfortable, modifying or stopping because obviously, like after you are sick or well, it was me a sec, like my husband, I donated blood, my gym had a blood drive and then we went the next day to work out and I was like I haven't donated blood in 20 years and I I didn't know. And then I was just like what is happening? And so I was just there, like you know, doing a little, some dying bugs on my back and like just stretching. I was like I tried to lift up some stuff and that didn't go well. So step down, step down, step down. And I think that can be uncomfortable for people to stop and and change directions when really it's so smart to do yeah totally yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think the other thing that can be helpful in this instance, uh, is like, if you think of movement as like a slider or like a spectrum, there's like high intensity at one end and there's like very low intensity, like just the natural movements of your body, right, if you are alive and breathing, you are moving, even if you are sitting still, because your lungs are inflating and deflating and that creates a certain amount of movement. If you're fidgeting at your desk, that is moving your body right. But we tend to think of it in terms of like an on-off switch, like you're either active or you're sedentary, and that's just incorrect. So if we can like start to think of it as a slider, most of the things that we think of as exercise or like movement, that quote unquote counts, which again really comes from that weight centric paradigm. So something to interrogate. But like most of that is on the like mid to high intensity spectrum. We don't have a lot of vocabulary for movement in the like medium, low.
Speaker 1:Gentle, I was just talking with my friend who's a pole vaulter and she was like I might do active recovery and I was like, right, like most people don't know about, like that's not a general population concept, that's only something that like really high level athletes who prioritize recovery start to get into. But like moving your body in ways that just feel good is active recovery. That has like incredible benefits for your physiology, your mental health. It helps you get back to the intensity sooner. So like, if you're feeling a little crummy or a little under the weather, like what is the gentlest way that you could imagine moving your body, try a little bit of that and then see how you feel.
Speaker 1:In BLP we call it the saltine method, which is like if you're feeling a little nauseous and you can't tell if you're hungry or you need to throw up, you take the tiniest nibble of a saltine and then you go how's my body reacting to this? So, like similar with movement, do like you know a few cat cows or a little like stretch or some you know shoulder circles and then go. How do I feel? Do I want more like that? Do I want more of something different? Do I feel a little woozy? And I want to lay down and then follow where that leads. Right, like the body is a really great self experimentation container. So if we just like give it a little input and then notice what we notice and then adjust what we do next based on what we notice. You can trust that.
Speaker 2:Excellent, excellent, I think, information for somebody to really start thinking about, which, you know, talking about noticing instead of following instructions. Notice what's going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, and I feel like even with that question that you asked, I was like, oh, I'm not giving an answer here, like I'm giving frameworks because that's what makes sense to me. Like human individual bodies are so different and unique, which is why guidelines on return to exercise from any sickness for the population makes zero sense to me, like that is like deeply unscientific.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, where can people?
Speaker 1:find you. So my website is hannahusbandcom very creative but gets the job done. Um. You can check out body liberation playground there, um, and my other programs and offerings. Uh, I'm also on instagram, though. It's a love hate relationship, uh, which is also at h husband.
Speaker 2:Excellent, all right. Well, I hope people reach out because again, I think you just never have enough community that's telling you you're enough, you're doing a great job and really focusing on like what works for you and helping you design that. Yeah Well, thanks for being here. It was very fun chatting with you.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you for having me. This was a delight. All right, take care.
Speaker 2:Bye. As always, please follow show or you can leave a five-star review on Apple or Spotify. That would be fun too. See you in the next episode.