Ep 148 What If Your Body Isn't the Problem?

You've tried harder. You've been stricter, more disciplined, more consistent. You've read the books and listened to the podcasts. So why doesn't anything seem to stick anymore, and why have you started to wonder whether the problem is you?

In the first of a three-part series, Carly shares a shift that changes everything: what if your body was never the problem? What if it isn't fighting you or letting you down, but quietly trying to protect you all along?

Drawing on fifteen years of supporting women through menopause, burnout, chronic illness and every kind of life transition, and on her own hard-won lessons, Carly explores how to move from fighting your body to working with it, with a real client story that shows what becomes possible when you stop treating yourself like something to fix.

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Transcript

Carly 0:47

Hello, and welcome back to Rooted in Presence. I'm Carly, your curious midlife guide and founder of Still Space Hull, and this is episode 148. So let me just start with something today, see if any of it lands with you. You've been trying so hard. You've eaten differently, exercised more, worked harder, been stricter with yourself. You've read all the books. You've listened to the podcasts, even this one. You know what you're supposed to be doing, and yet somehow nothing quite seems to stick anymore, and quietly maybe you've started to wonder whether the problem is actually you, whether you've lost your motivation, whether you've just become a bit lazy, or whether this is just simply what getting older feels like. Well, if any of that sounds familiar, I want you to stay with me because I don't think that's exactly what's happening at all, and over the next three episodes, I want to share something with you that genuinely changed how I work and how I understand myself too Because over 15 years of supporting women through all sorts of transitions, I have started to notice quite a few things. That the reasons that women came to me can be wildly different, from wanting to lose weight, to feel stronger, many of them navigating menopause, burnout, chronic illness, and even more have simply said that in one way or another, "I just don't feel like me anymore." Completely different conversations on the surface, but underneath them all, I just kept seeing the same patterns again and again. And once I started joining the dots, everything about the way I work began to change So across this little series, I want to talk you through three of those shifts. So it's not about having another plan or-- because if you're anything like the women I work with, you've tried plenty of plans already. Something a bit deeper than that, actually. So today, we're gonna start with the first one, The shift from fighting your body to working as one So the first pattern I've noticed then, almost every woman who comes to me has spent years trying harder, being more disciplined, more consistent. Consistency is key. Have you heard that one? They're pushing through tiredness, they're ignoring aches and pains, and still find themselves starting again every Monday because that's what we've all been taught, right? Isn't it? If something isn't working, the answer is always try harder, push more, be stricter, and summon that willpower. And I understand the logic, it feels responsible, it feels like the grown-up thing to do. It feels like you're doing something, right? If you're trying, then it's not your fault if it's not working. But over the years, I've started to wonder whether that's even the right question to begin with, because what if trying harder isn't actually what your body needs? What if your body isn't fighting you or letting you down or failing you at all? What if it's actually trying to protect you this whole time? Because I think for a very long time, we've been taught to treat our bodies like a problem to be solved, something to fix, something to control, to overcome, something to push and override and force into the shape we've decided it should be. Did we even decide, or is that some other part of society? But I've also noticed something really different in my work. The body rarely needs to be fixed. Far more often, it's simply asking to be understood, to be met, to be supported, which is a completely different relationship So let me tell you about one of the women I've worked with whose story has really stayed with me. She's kindly given me permission to share it, though I'm still gonna keep her name and the details private, as I always do. I really like to honor the stories I've been given to hold. So she came to me with a chronic illness that drained her energy and had stopped her from being able to work. And she'd reached a point where she no longer trusted her body to meet even the ordinary demands of everyday life. And she'd gone on this long journey of trying to fix herself, and she kept finding problem after problem. As soon as she felt she'd sorted one thing, the next thing appeared, and every round of trying just depleted her a little more each time. Every decision had become a negotiation. Will I have enough energy for this? Will I pay for it tomorrow? And underneath all of that was this quiet, corrosive belief that she was somehow never quite doing enough. And when we finally got to what she longed for, it wasn't perfection. It wasn't even, in the end, to be completely better. What she longed for was freedom. Freedom to make a choice without second-guessing it. Freedom to stop living in a battle with her own body. So that's what we worked on. And notice, we did not go looking for a better way to fight. We didn't find her a stricter plan or a cleverer regime. We built a different relationship with her body altogether. She began learning how to work with it instead of against it. Movement became something that helped her feel steady, rather than one more thing to force herself through and end up paying for days after. And slowly, when I say slowly, but it did happen, and she began to trust her body again. And today she's living a life that for a long time she genuinely didn't believe was possible for her Now, I'm not sharing this story because I think your experience needs to be the same as hers. Maybe you don't have a long-term health condition at all. Maybe your version is navigating menopause, or burnout, or ongoing pain, or stress, or just that bone-deep feeling of being tired all the time The details are different for everybody, but the pattern so often is exactly the same. Somewhere along the way, we've absorbed the belief that if we're struggling, it, it must mean we need to try harder, push more, grip tighter And what I've found over and over is something quite different. Real strength, the kind that actually lasts, is not about winning the fight with your body. It's more to do with building that relationship where you no longer need to fight at all And I'll be honest with you, this is not just something I teach, it's something that I've had to learn myself, often the hard way as well. I spent years treating my own body as something to manage, to discipline, to override. I knew all the health information. I was a dietician. I was a personal trainer. I understood nutrition and exercise inside out. But knowing what I should do and knowing what I actually needed turned out to be two completely different things. So learning to stop fighting with myself, fighting with my own body, and start listening to it, that was some of the most important work I've ever done, and it's ongoing. This is not a one-and-done thing So what might this look like for you? if any of this is landing, I'd like to gently invite you to notice something this week. Nothing big to change, not to change anything, not yet. But can you just notice where in your life are you currently fighting your body? Where are you pushing through, overriding, gritting your teeth and treating yourself like a problem to be solved? And what might shift if just for a moment you got curious instead? If you asked not, "How do I force this or make this happen," but, "What is my body actually asking for here? What is it trying to protect me from, or tell me, or ask of me?" And you don't have to have the answer. That question alone can start to change that relationship without you having to do much else. Because the moment you stop treating your body as the enemy, you stop being at war with yourself, and it's very hard to feel like yourself when there's a war going on inside you all day. So that's the first shift, from fighting your body to working as one, from trying to win a battle to no longer needing to even fight. Next time, we're gonna look at the second shift, which is about what happens when it feels like absolutely everything needs fixing all at once and you don't know where on earth to begin. So do come back for that one And if today has stirred something in you and you'd love some support in actually building this different relationship with your body, this is exactly the kind of work I do with my people. It's the reason I created something called the Embodied Strength Profile, where we spend proper time together looking at how you move, how you breathe, and how your body responds to the demands of your own real life, so you can stop fighting yourself and find a next step you can genuinely trust. And we can do that together in person at Still Space Hull, and we can also do that online where, from wherever you are in the world. The conversation is just as rich either way. You'll find all the details at carlykillen.com, and I'll put the direct link in the show notes. So until next time, may you meet yourself with compassion, walk with presence and remember, you already have everything you need