How We Reclaim Movement in Everyday Life with Wendy Welpton

What happens when movement stops being something we measure, earn, optimise or squeeze into a busy day, and becomes something much simpler?

In this episode, I’m talking to Wendy Welpton about the idea that everyday movement matters just as much as exercise. It’s a conversation that begins with movement, but quickly becomes one about trust, self-compassion, ageing, wellbeing, and our relationship with our bodies.

Wendy shares her own experience of living with chronic pain, the fear and frustration that came with it, and how it led her to rethink everything she thought she knew about movement and exercise. Together, we explore what happens when we become disconnected from our bodies, why so many of us have absorbed limiting messages about ageing, and how we can begin to rebuild confidence in ourselves through small, everyday acts of movement.

Whether you’re navigating chronic pain, feeling disconnected from your body, wondering how to stay active as you get older, or simply tired of wellbeing becoming another thing on your to-do list, this conversation offers a gentler way of thinking about movement, health, and everyday life.

Wendy Welpton is the founder of Reclaim Movement, host of the Make Movement Matter podcast, and author of Move Well for Life: Unlock the Life-Changing Power of Everyday Movement. Through Wendy's coaching, writing and teaching, she helps people rediscover movement as something that supports wellbeing, confidence and freedom throughout life.

So if you've spent the morning sitting at a desk, if your shoulders are somewhere near your ears, or if you've ever wondered whether movement could feel less like a task and more like a companion, I hope you'll stand up, walk around and join us.

Mentioned in this episode

• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of A Thought I Kept, a weekly podcast about the one idea that stayed. I'm your host, Claire Fitzsimmons, well-being writer, coach, and the co-founder, and now co-author of If Lost Start Here, well-being for the anxious, disconnected, or uncertain. Each Monday I sit down with someone whose work I greatly admire, and together we explore one thought that they have kept. I knew I wanted to talk to this week's guest when I picked up her book, and it shifted so much about how I thought about my body, how I thought about exercise, how I thought about movement. My guest this week is Wendy Welton, founder of Reclaim Movement, host of the Make Movement Matter podcast, and author of Move Well for Life, Unlock the Life-Chinging Power of Everyday Movement. I knew that I wanted to talk to Wendy when I was trying to understand a period of chronic pain in my life. When I was conscious that I was becoming increasingly mistrustful of my body, that I was somehow deliberately restricting movement, and that I had started to become afraid of aging. And that I was witnessing my own body in decline. Watching Wendy's reels on Instagram, listening to her podcast, now reading her book, has really helped me understand some of the messages that I had absorbed from the culture around me about aging. But also really understand that by stopping movement, that I was in fact hindering myself even more. This is a really wonderful conversation for anyone who is looking to maybe go beyond exercise. We talk about what happens when we stop treating movement as something that we have to earn or even measure. We get into what happens if well-being is less about transformation and huge goals, but more about noticing how we're moving through our everyday lives. And we get into what happens when we do lose trust in our bodies and how we can very slowly, very intentionally begin to rebuild that again. So if your shoulders are somewhere near your ears, or you've barely stood up properly all morning, or even the idea of well-being feels like another thing to add to your to-do list, I think this conversation could be a really useful one to begin your week with. So let's discover the thought that Wendy is bringing to the podcast that you might want to carry with you into the days ahead, and maybe into the decades ahead too. Wendy, it is so good to see you. Welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

How are you arriving today in this conversation?

SPEAKER_00 3:27

We're in a very hot phase in the UK, um, but quite relaxed having had a nice bank holiday weekend. So, yeah, really quite good today.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

I am really intrigued. Having read your book and listened to your podcast, I remember reaching out to you and being like, I absolutely must talk to you because there's so much here that is in alignment with how I think about and approach well-being. And I am so curious about what the thought is that you're bringing out of all those different well-being messages that we consume, particularly around exercise and fitness.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Yeah, exactly. My my space is that I I like to be housed in is movement. But I love the fact that on a lot of your messaging, you talk about everyday well-being, because my focus is everyday movement, which means not all the movement you're doing all the day. And I actually actively don't talk about exercise. And the reason for that is that my thought is how important everyday movement is. It's as important as exercise, and yet I'm pretty sure a lot of people will say, really? Because there's less studies, there's generally less emphasis. There's so much emphasis in the well-being world about exercise, so much messaging around exercise. And I push back for very personal reasons. So, yeah, my thought that has stuck with me for the last, let me see, 12 years has been very much the everyday movement is just as important as exercise.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

What helped you arrive at that thought?

SPEAKER_00 5:15

It's a long one, but I'll try and keep it short. Um, it was the fact that I had been exercising the way I was told I should, in the sense that we there's so many shoulds. We've just mentioned this before we came on air. There's so many shoulds. So I was making sure I was fastidiously checking all the exercise boxes, the amount of cardio I should be doing, impact, load, etc., etc. Um, but at no point did anyone really talk to me, I felt, about how I was moving the rest of the time. Um and I then got myself into pain from running. Basically, I became absolutely addicted to running. I wasn't great at it, I'm no athlete and I'm no sports person, but I absolutely loved running. And that took me, unfortunately, to a place of pain. So part of this realization was through that those years and years of pain, I was in chronic pain for four years, the point that thought came to me was actually much later into that journey where I was searching for how can I, given that I've been an exerciser and doing everything in verted commas right, what has been missing in my life? What was the piece that wasn't working, and what can I learn? So through masses of research, deep diving, I started to look much more into how I was moving and realized that I really wasn't moving, or I wasn't thinking about how I was moving, I wasn't getting those sort of nutrients in. So for me, the point the thought really resonated was probably halfway through my pain journey. And it was at that point that I started to lift out of pain. Um, so it was really a moment in time, but a very large moment in time, if you like.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

My sense of having gone through some chronic pain is that we can become quite fearful of movement and we can start to lose our confidence and our trust in our bodies. And this idea that the thing that you're seeking out at that point and the reframe at that point is movement, can feel confusing or confounding. How did you find that you were able to start to trust that movement was the thing for you at that point?

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Because the type of movement I'm talking about is and that I now coach is not a yoga class or a Pilates class. It's about how you choose to bend and pick something up. It's about getting down and sitting on the ground and moving in positions on the ground. It's about how you reach for things, not in a prescriptive way, but in a way where, as you say, if you have been struggling with pain and your confidence is low, you can then start to expand your movement repertoire to help you with that pain, to help you with that confidence, and to sort of express yourself again. Because when you've been in chronic pain and haven't been able to exercise, or you've been able to walk, let's say, or do light exercise that was very different to the type of exercise you thought was what made you feel really good, because it does release a lot of endorphins. You do feel good if you exercise, especially to a certain extent. But instead, this is talking about rebuilding that relationship ultimately with your body, where you can become a little bit more playful again and you can hold yourself less. There's a lot of when you're in pain, there's a lot of guarding. Sometimes you've got into that pain because you're already holding a lot of tension, and you know, and to your world, a lot of what's happening in terms of your general well-being can really affect your movement. And interestingly, the way you move can help you to get out. It's it's a it's a two-way street. But as you say, having confidence to start moving again is hard, but that's why I start slow, gentle. I don't actually in any of my stuff get particularly fast and fierce. That's not what I'm about. It's much more about focusing on how does it make you feel? Do you feel more capable? Does it bring you some joy? And those are the for me the most important things.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

And there's something there about like how it all interconnects. Because sometimes I think we think about exercise as we are the traditional view of exercise, we're working on one aspect of our bodies, we're working on a metric, we're working on something that we can measure. And what I get excited about from hearing you talk is that it's about mental clarity, uh well-being, it's about how we get out into the world, it's about bringing in play. There's something really expansive about it. How have you found that this kind of movement has expanded your world and expanded beyond just your physical self?

SPEAKER_00 10:35

Hugely, because, as you say, because it's not metrics-based, so I won't talk about sets and reps, that's the and I can't say this word very well, antithesis. Is that right? Antithesis. Yeah, antithesis of what I'm about. And that's because it when you are embracing what your body is capable of doing, and even it from a place where that capability feels small, it's incredibly freeing to give yourself the permission to not be held by metrics and I should be doing this at this age, and how heavy am I lifting, and so on. And don't get me wrong, I exercise now. Now that I'm pain-free, I love exercising hugely, but I don't talk about it so much because it's the rest of the time where so I do it in a very different way because of how I sort of celebrate the fact I can move in between times now. And there's it's an incredible thing for connection as well. I mean, I talk in my book about the importance of getting outdoors, and I love walking. This it we're currently in May when recording this, and this is National Walking Month, so I post about it a lot on social media, just to encourage people out, just to give them that little reason to get out. But it doesn't, you know, in the context of walking, it doesn't have to be a walk. It doesn't have to be X thousand steps, it doesn't have to be you d do a certain sized loop. Because if you're walking and and enjoying the fact you're doing it and you're out, and you can be listening to something, talking to someone, whatever, that's all good. And I think the problem we've had is there's so much in the exercise world that sort of makes you feel like those things are not good because they're not good enough, and yeah, of course they are, because my my mantra is every movement counts, and it's the same with steps. Every step counts. It's far better to be getting that movement in, but in a way that's nourishing and pleasurable, than beating yourself up, thinking, have I walked quick enough? Have I how many kilometers have I done? It's such a different mindset, and therefore that does affect how you're using your body.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Yeah, I've definitely found myself thinking. So I go for a walk every day and I love it, and it makes me very happy. But I have found myself thinking occasionally, am I walking quick enough? What is the optimum? So I'd read these articles about what is the optimum speed that I should be going in order for me to maximize that walk. How long, how far, what incline, what time of day, what in this in terms of seasons, how is it changing? And I was like, gosh, this thing that I love and adore doing is becoming reduced to a set of optimal principles, and it just can take the fun out of it. And there is so much that I think in the well-being space that is about sort of looking outside of ourselves for information and forgetting that we get to choose.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Very much, very much. And to sort of bring that into context of pain versus not, about halfway through my four-year pain journey, I kind of started to reject a lot of the treatment I was having. I kept thinking this is not working, they're not fixing me, I don't know where I'm going with this. I was really battling and I was still feeling really like a victim and hugely frustrated and angry with the situation I found myself in that I hadn't expected to be in, and yet I was just still battling. And then when I started to, I read a couple of books, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Koke, that everyone is everyone's absolute Bible, and then another one that the name that escapes me, which was teaching you about surrendering emotion and understanding the power of that. And it's amazing how then my movement started to change, and it's exactly what you're saying when we are pressurizing ourselves to move in a certain way, when we are constantly sort of goal and future focused and not really celebrating the here and now, it's amazing how limiting that is for us. And yet, if we can free ourselves of that, from my perspective, I started to shift out of pain. Obviously, alongside all the physical and rehabilitative work I was doing, but it I could see the progress from then on because I was being kind to myself, I had self-compassion that wasn't there before. And to sort of broaden it out, I often feel this about movement and exercise in general as well. Though a lot of what the exercise world is saying is kind of making us all mentally beat ourselves up because it's so target focused. And as you say, with it in the all the well-being shoulds and all the getting this right, being optimal for longevity, it's key that you achieve this score and that score. All well and good if you can take that in a positive way, and it really feeds you and makes you improve yourself in a really positive way, but not if there's any feeling of shame or that you're slightly failing because you're not achieving and so on. And I had come from that mindset when I had been doing exercising before. It was all about getting the next longest run. Could I get to marathon stage? I didn't achieve it, I got to half marathon, and it was after that that I got into pain. It was entirely framed differently. And now, if I want to run, which I don't run long distances, but if I want to run, I can, and I can run for the bus if I want, and I can run around when playing and being playful about it, but it's my choice, and I don't feel driven by those things anymore. And certainly, if I ever find those things coming up in me again, you know, if I'm ever thinking how many steps have I done or or whatever like that, I push back straight away and say, that's not healthy. And I try to look at, well, what have you done? And for me, that is how I've moved all day long, the choices I've made about movement, the any of the playfulness that I've brought in, the choice, the positive choices that I've made.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

So much of what you talk about is about mindset, particularly in the book and in your podcast, and and so there's a sense there's there's movement, like the practices that you're doing, and then there's the minds that you're bringing to that. What is, do you think, a healthier mindset that people can bring to movement?

SPEAKER_00 17:26

It's all about that self-compassion, because we all start, as in from today, from entirely different movement places. We all carry baggage in our bodies, that's also created in our minds, by decades, if you're at my age, of decades of experience. And I want to say that it's experience because it's a lot of it has created the shapes and ways that we move our body, the confidence we have in our body, that can be you know, more severe things like surgeries, accidents, trauma, issues that have made us feel physically smaller, that have changed the way we carry ourselves. But even just down to very small things where you know you've had plantar fascitis for you know nine months and it's it's really affected the way you could move through that period, and you all carry some of that forward. There's so many things that make up who we are now, so therefore, we need to be kind to ourselves about the fact that we are. Talk about onion skin layers because you can just imagine them all building up. And yes, we want to peel back as many of the sort of dead layers if we can, but we really can't. They are a part of who we are, and it's to be celebrated that if we have the capability to be able to move to whatever level, because some people are a lot more limited than others, but the fact that we can move and that we can always sort of improve and progress with that movement, but we can only do it from a place of self-compassion because if it comes from a more negative space, it's not expansive, it's not fun, and we're much less likely to be able to progress.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

What are some narratives that you've seen around this that are maybe unhelpful? The obvious ones that I'm thinking about is I'm too old, I'm not the kind of person who can do that, I can't possibly fit another thing into my day, I'm not fit enough to begin with.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Okay, okay, should I keep going? Which one do I start with? Like everyone I'm nodding and saying yes, yes, okay, okay. And everyone I hear, uh lots of them I've experienced myself. Um, I I'd love to start with the aging one because it's never too old to move, you're never too old to move or there's it's never too old to make progress. It depends what your definition of progress is ultimately and how you can get yourself there. But it's like looking at the whole mountain. You can't, you've got to start with that first step and then take the next step. And usually that sort of level of consistency with small moves forward, then you start to more easily notice the progress because actually the progress comes quite quickly from the sort of standing start, let's say, or I would say sitting start because I talk about getting people down to the ground, but then they see that progress more easily because they feel better, they feel better in themselves, and that is honestly at any age because the way we move, we can make choices. In my course that I do, the the each week they get a set of movements, and I call them your move choices because it's very much about where do you want to start? How does this fit in your life, and what level are you at? And what I don't even like using the word level, but you know, where what feels right for you right now, and then we've got these these sort of other options. And in my book, I talk, there's I saw a brilliant Instagram reel once of this 103-year-old lady who was obviously in care and in in a look like a hospital setting, and she had a young man who was helping her get up off the bed. So she was seated on the edge of the bed, and he would video it every time, presumably to prove to her that she could make progress. 103, and he had to pull her out of bed every time. By the end of the reel, which has obviously gone through lots of different moments, and I don't know what the time span is, and it's immaterial. By the end, she could push up and get up herself because she had regained that muscle mass required to do that movement because they'd practice and practice, and he had given her less and less help. Now, if we can do that at 103, I think then we the age conversation gets thrown out.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

I don't know why that's such a surprise to me because maybe it's because the narrative is so strong that we decline that from midlife, maybe onwards.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

It's everywhere, this idea that everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

We yes. It's on every birthday card that you buy over I don't know what age it starts, but it's on every birthday card. There are so many, I don't know if it's the same in other countries, but certainly in Britain there are so many sayings that involve the fact that you are kind of kaput if you are over again a certain age, but also that really start to limit your expectations of yourself. And yet, sadly, the opposite is the requirement. We need to stay active and be more active as we get older, and that's what's going to keep us vibrant and thriving. But it doesn't need to be in these massive, difficult ways that everyone expects it to be. And again, as I say, you can start where you are now and embrace that and slowly progress, just as that 103-year-old lady did.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Yes, and it also makes me think about how we support other people to do that too. I have an extraordinary great-aunt who's in her 80s, and whenever we go into London, I would be with my preteen daughter who would be standing in the tube, and my great-aunt would consciously stand on the tube, even if there were places to sit. And she'd be offered constantly, like, would you like to sit down? That's what we're taught, isn't it? Offer your seat to an older person. And she would get so deeply vended because her belief in her body, she strengths trains every day. Her belief in her body is that she is strong and she is able and she is capable. And she feels like she has to fend off messages every day that are contrary to that. And I'm just wondering about the role that we all hold for each other. That's that we can say it is okay to move irrespective of age, and how we encourage each other to do that, particularly when maybe we are going through periods of restrictive movement, and our messaging can be like, oh, don't do that, you may make things worse, damage yourself. How do you contend with the idea that we are in relationships as well around movement and we can help or hinder each other in how much we are able to move?

SPEAKER_00 24:18

So, again, going back to my book, I talk about the movement ripple effect. And I think it's a really important thing to discuss for exactly the reasons that you're talking about. And we all know that when we have really little kids and we're trying to get a concept across, it's not gonna work if we are doing the opposite. So, for example, if they are watching TV all morning on a holiday morning or something and just not moving, if we were doing the same, then how could we be showing the right thing to them? We're not giving them that example. And it's exactly the same at any age with anyone around you. And I start the conversation about movement ripple effect more within yourself because I really believe that once you start to see how you move in everyday life differently, using the tools that I suggest, but also the principles that I suggest, but also by feeling it and embracing it and enjoying it, then one of the things that happens is you start to see more opportunities around you for movement. And what you were just saying about your great aunt is that she has identified that sitting on the tube is not a great plan. And so therefore she chooses to stand and she's clearly made that a life choice. This is what she's going to do. And the reason that's that she is doing so well is because she has life choices that just standing versus sitting, and it seems so simple and it seems like it's not valuable, perhaps even for people who are younger. But I would really beg to differ. And I really like the classic example all the time because I think it's such a classic that we sit on trains and planes for hours at a time, completely sedentary, and then when we get off, we walk up, and there's a cue forms for the escalator to move our bodies up to go and get our baggage or to get out of the train station, and the stairs are always right next to it. And I'm not shaming the people for doing that, and some people have to do that for whatever mechanical issue they've got, but most people don't. Most people could go to the stairs, and I think um I remember seeing something where there was an experiment where they actually put, you know, footstep stickers um over to the stairs to basically give them that sort of encouragement and still people went escalator because we are naturally designed to conserve energy, and the modern world is the modern world that's the classic example of where when the modern world makes life easier, these days we sadly have to intentionally choose the other thing, and that is standing on the tube, which is by the way, also great for her because it's moving and she's getting lots of wobble, that's fantastic, even if she's holding on, she's getting great inputs from her feet through to her brain. But we have to be more active and seeing the opportunities and perhaps, like your aunt, saying, I'm choosing that for life now, and it's going to sustain me for life in ways that everyone else won't. I don't think we can, in that movement ripple effect, we then have people around us who learn from that. So you, by telling that story, obviously by being on this podcast as well, you're sharing the fact that was a choice she's made in her 80s, that she's fiercely independent and wants to stay that way. And this is one of the ways she's doing it. But it's very likely that you're you saw that and you it makes you think and it might make you choose to do the same. But also your kids saw it. Your daughter was there, and she saw her making that active choice, which is so, so brilliant. Intergenerational learning just by showing, and that ripples out, and other people in the carriage will have seen this lady in her 80s making that choice, and it might have made them think too. So it does ripple out. It's a really important thing that we have got people like that, and people like me, and all my family now go upstairs instead of the escalator, and you know, there's a bit of they're all male and you know, six foot whatever, uh, and they go flying up, and I'm chasing behind this little five foot four year old lady. Um, it's a thing now, it is a thing we do, and I know they will keep doing it because they've got me in their minds.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

I had you in my mind this weekend. We were in a like a multi-generational like house for the weekend, and I was encouraging everybody to get up off the floor with as few points of contact as possible. This is something that I read in your book, and I was like, oh, this would be really fun. And I became probably annoyingly evangelical about it. But there was like a 10-year-old, and like through all the different ages of all us trying, and what was really fascinating is it's something I'd never thought about. And I think so much of your work is about all these movements that we have that we've never really thought about and where in space our bodies are. And I wonder whether you could speak about there was something that I found really interesting about our relationship to the ground.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Yeah. Don't get me started. Oh dear, Claire, what rabbit hole have you opened? Um, it was when I was starting to do some natural, no, I'm a natural movement coach, and when I was starting to train to be one, not with any thought of becoming an actual coach to other people myself. This was literally me coming out of pain and thinking, I love this modality, I love thinking about how we're moving all the time, and I want to see how capable my body can be again. I want to really sort of reinvest in it. It's a slight test in a sense, but also one part of it I didn't quite get, and I never would, and I'm so fine with that. And some of it now I wouldn't be doing because it's not the kind of thing that is in my life, but I took so, so much from it, and it is hugely informed my work. And one of the key things there was the realization that since not having to clear up plastic rubbish from my kids when playing or jigsaw pieces or whatever, I just wasn't getting down to the ground anymore. And I didn't see that it was necessarily important. It hadn't occurred to me until I started to do it. And yes, I had done Pilates for years. It wasn't that I was never going to the ground, but I just wasn't doing it as part of my life, and I certainly wasn't thinking about the way I did, I just got down. And as you referred to before, that sort of autopilot movement is fine because you're moving, but if you can slightly break the autopilot, then you can bring in variety, and it's variety that our bodies really lack in this modern world. We're in a couple of set positions. The wonderful thing about the floor, as compared to sitting on a chair, is that you get yourself automatically into those positions because you've got to do something with your legs. They can't just hang off a chair. So, therefore, because you are sort of configuring your legs differently, and I really don't just mean cross-sitting here because everyone just thinks straight away about sitting cross-legged. And actually, that's really hard for some people. There's so many different positions you can sit on the ground, and the lovely thing about each one is that they bring a different angle to your ankles, your knees, your hips, and therefore your spine. Your core has to work unless you're leaning on a hand, which is an option, but trying to not and build up the ability not to means you're building that core. It's holding you up in a way that when we lean against the back of a chair, it's not. Things go to sleep. And the lovely thing about the floor is that you get these physical nudges where you suddenly, everyone, every every time I start talking about sitting in a chair, everyone reconfigures themselves.

unknown 32:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Didn't even know I did it until you smiled at me.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

It's so funny. No, it's just every time I know it's so funny. Um, but when you're on the ground, you also get these nudges to your body where you so the reason that you just moved there was because we were talking about it. So you sort of shifted because you you realized you perhaps hadn't moved for a bit. But normally that realization doesn't happen in a chair very much because it's so comfortable, and that comfort is causing us problems. Whereas on the floor, we get these nudges that make us shift and move because you do get a bit uncomfortable, but that discomfort's a great thing because it then encourages movement, it encourages you to go from one sitting position to another, or even in my world, add in a bit of movement in between, and then your body is getting these inputs just by being on the ground, and that's not even talking about getting up and down from the ground as you were. So the lovely thing about spending time on the ground and putting that into your daily repertoire is that you have to get down and you have to get up. You may be starting to do that using furniture, you know, your knees might be complaining, your hips, whatever. That's perfectly normal. If you haven't done something for a long time, you can't expect it to just, you know, appear from nowhere and be easy. For some people it will be, for some people it won't. But everyone can progress with it, and it's about building that strength and mobility that the ground really brings you in a way that upright movement just doesn't quite get to. So I work at a standing desk that I have on the ground. I sometimes sit in a chair and I sometimes stand, but I'm more often on the ground, shifting between different positions. As soon as the doorbell rings, I've got to get up and down. Need the loo, got to get up and down. Going for to make some food, got to get, you know, going to coach, going so I can't tell you how many get up and downs I do in a day. I've never counted, but there's a lot. And that's my reps. But I don't need to count them because I know I'm getting plenty and because it's a part of my day. My main focus with people is not saying you should do X, Y, Z a day. It's saying what are the moments you have in your day that you could bring in this thing that I think is useful and get your own ideas for how you can do it. And on my courses, people come up with great ideas and moments that sometimes are so amusing and they would never have seen themselves doing, but they know that it's fun and it's something they've come up with in their daily routine, and that's when things stick because they make sense to you, they feel good, you can have a giggle at yourself, but you know that in the long run that thing has become a permanent structure. I know, for example, that every time I do the laundry, I take it to a clean-ish carpet, and I have carried it there, I get down to the ground, and then I move to create all the different piles of the thousands of box shots and so on that I have. And I move between them in different ways because I've learned how to do that. That's what I coach people, and therefore I've done the washing and I've got a movement break in and I get up and go win. So when to come back to one of your earlier questions about so, how do I fit it in my life? I have no time. Yeah, you don't, there's so many moments that are there already. It's just about seeing it differently. It's just shifting your lens on how you can move differently. And even though these feel like small things, because the world of exercise perhaps makes them seem small, they're hugely valuable, and they rebuild a foundation that will allow for much better upright movement, to age better, great for your joints. Everyone knows all those the benefits of moving. Everyone knows them. But this is just rebuilding that foundation, and that's why I believe I'm still pain-free.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Yes, and you said that everybody knows them, but there is something, isn't there, like you had mentioned, I think in the book about the is it the exercise paradox, this idea that our bodies naturally want to conserve energy.

unknown 36:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

And so although we know what would help us, our natural inclination is not to do the thing.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Exactly, because most of our time on this planet, we were early man and woman. We weren't who we are now, and it's this is literally a bl a sort of a blink of an eye at the end of the most of the time that humans have been around, and our bodies are for the most part, and I'm really meaning the absolute most part, we've hardly, hardly changed since. The reason that we kept going was because we moved when we had to do things, to get water, to cook, to go hunting, to look after our families, to create shelter. There was a lot more movement. There was also a lot of um uh not stillness such, but um less more relaxed times because ultimately we didn't know where our next meal was coming from. We didn't have guaranteed food sources that we do now, so we didn't in those days go off for a run and expend calories that we didn't need to. Our bodies absolutely said no, only do what you need to, and our bodies still do, so we're fighting against that all the time. And I think it's really important when people are struggling to move more for whatever condition they have, whatever, it's nice to start again with that idea. With and that brings that sort of self-compression that it's not just me, it's humanity. We're all having to do that. Some find it easier to battle than others, but that it is still an important thing to say, okay, I do need to resist that. A bit like I was talking about the modern world things around us. Um, I'm ashamed to say that my husband's bought a robot mower. Um, and you know, you've you heard it here first. It's a thing in our family, it really is now. And he started talking about buying a robot hoover, and I said, in absolute no.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

It's very off-brand.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

It's very off-brand, and it just takes some improvement. And obviously, there were then the comments, well, how many times do you hoover in brush and so on?

unknown 38:36

Well, you know, enough.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

But it is about making sure that the choices that you make are choices that are going to continue benefiting you and that make you feel good.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Okay, so I they said to you earlier that we'll look at some words around like three to five words. We'll see how much time we have around movement and exercise. And I think it's really interesting because the words we use, even for this, really matter, and because they speak to our assumptions and our expectations of ourselves and other people. And one of the ones that comes up for me again and again when I think about any form of movement or form of exercise is motivation. And I find that I get stuck thinking about motivation, and I'm just wondering what motivation means, having been in the space for a while.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

I completely get you. I completely get you. Um, and I think there's this expectation that everyone is motivated, and that we don't have lulls in energy, that we don't have phases in our life where things are far more difficult, where you know, with hormonal fluctuations, times where we have got all men are being pulled by difficulties with parents, difficulties, you know, this, and then they expect you to have easy levels of motivation on top of that. I just think that's hard. And again, it it to me it speaks to this kind of all or nothing mentality that you know we've got to be absolutely going for it, for it to be meaningful. I just don't agree at all. And it doesn't take a lot of motivation to just lie down on the ground and roll around a bit and see how it feels because it's so nurturing and lovely. And I think so, when you start with some of the lower hanging fruit that potentially is what I'm talking about, it's much easier to not have to rely on motivation because then you start to tune in so much more easily with how your body feels, with how your brain feels for having done it. It's just lighter and more approachable than it is when it's this big thing. And I think that's when motivation becomes the difficult piece.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Absolutely. Okay, so this leads on from that, which is habits. Where are you on habits?

SPEAKER_00 40:56

I I'm everywhere on habits because um I think we get ourselves into tricky habits with movement. I'll only speak to movement. Um, and I think habits are hugely powerful. The habits we, as we know, we've all you know read lots of things about habit formation and how actually a huge proportion of our day is subconscious habits. It's what we're doing on repeat all the time. And I like to try and help people, as I said, break autopilot, but more to create new, slightly, let's say, upgrades on their habits. I have in my book something called what I've coined the everyday ease method, and that's ways to remember to move differently in your day. I need an acronym to remember anything. So I put B O S, so be the boss of your movement was kind of the way I could remember it, but I never teach it as B the B first, O, and then S. I teach it as S first, and that S stands for stacking. And everyone's heard of habit stacking, and this is movement stacking. This is the same thing. So it's what I was saying before about the laundry. Now that I have made that decision to do my laundry at the ground because I know I can get movement in, then that is a new habit that I've formed. Every time I go to the washing machine, I look at it and think, oh yeah, I have to squat now because it's linked. Lots of people do balancing when they're brushing their teeth. I actually do a calf stretch on a foam dome. So sometimes it's about having props or things nearby that will always remind you to help you to do the thing. But I don't think it takes long for these things to become new habits. The reason I don't think it takes too long is because each time, in my opinion, if you applaud yourself for having made the choice to do it and trying to do it, regardless of the outcome, you're more likely to do it again and it's going to become a fixed thing. And we have to sort of help ourselves create these small habits, but it's the fact that they're small, they're easy-ish, they're gentle, and that they're yours. If they're part of your day in the way that you run your life and moments that you've come up with, then they're far, far more likely to stick. Whereas if someone says, and you know, I've heard it so many times, and I I was reading some of your things earlier, the whole morning routine, and you've got to do you know these five things before breakfast in this order and this amount, blah blah and you know, fiercely write out a list. And that would have been me. I would have been fascinated by that. But am I still doing those things? Can I remember what they are? Nope. And and yeah, and yes, I am obsessed now with movement, but 12 years later, I'm still doing my laundry on the floor and I'm still deep squatting when I cle clean the showers, the sprinkling of things that I know benefit me and that fit my life, and that I take the stairs instead of the escalator or the lift and all these things. And what I really want to impress is that they do all add up. It's not that because they're not long and intense. Tense and difficult that they're not worth anything. Literally, through the day they add up. And if I could just add one more point, and my it's very much about it being through your day, because that's what breaks up the longer stretches of sedentarism. And that's a harder thing to achieve. So B sorry, S was for stacking. O is opportunities because I think when you start to move differently, you start to spot opportunities around you, but you also start to like creating those opportunities. So if you're out on a walk and you see a fallen tree trunk, you think for Wendy, as people say, and you think I'm gonna go have a little balance on that, I'm gonna have a little play, see how it feels. You see some stones and you climb up on them like a you know a goat because you can and you want to. Not you could walk round it, but that opportunity is now presented to you for a bit of fun, playfulness, and see how your body responds. And then the final one is breaks, and breaks are that more difficult habit to bring in, the more difficult thing, because that is when you have to sit for work, you are on a Zoom meeting for back-to-back hours, you only have moments, and then perhaps you do need to have a post-it note on your screen saying, no, uh, take a break. You do need to have a reminder on your watch or an alarm on your phone, mainly to get and you need to honour it as much as you can, because once you've started, I guarantee you do one day where you do those breaks really well for let's say five minutes at the end of every hour, I guarantee your body will feel and your brain, everything about you will feel better at the end of that day. And I'm not talking like, whoa, this has changed the world. I but I am talking about just feeling better in your body and feeling like you've also achieved something as well. And you may not be able to do it at the end of every hour in every day, of course not, but doing as much as you can and noticing how that feels and having the tools to do it, and it can be formulate. You can I do mini movement breaks for people, but you can also just get up and move in ways that your body hasn't been moving, and you will feel better.

SPEAKER_01 46:10

Yes, and actually, you did something very lovely there, which is you gave me the three other words, so you did my job for me today. And actually, what I really like is that chapter at the end of your book. That is so much. There's so many wonderful ideas about you know the Pomodoro technique or on the hour every hour, or there are ways to really bring this in and integrate it and embed it. I just have one sort of question before we almost close, and I'm just really curious about what it's been like to be an author for you because we've been talking about movement and we've been talking about this real change in your life that started 12 years ago, and now you're in the space of coaching, thinking about movement, talking about movement, having a podcast about movement, and writing a book about it. What has that real shift in your life been like and now coming to the point of writing this really, really helpful book?

SPEAKER_00 47:00

Thank you so much. That's very kind of you to say that and to have read it as well. I'm very grateful. It's it's been bizarre because 12 years ago I was coming out of four years of feeling very low, feeling like I wasn't sure where my future was going to be. I certainly was fearful of my 80s and my 90s in a way that I never had been before. I had was full of confidence and it literally pulled the carpet from under my feet. I was very, very scared and I couldn't do a lot of the things that I like doing and wondered if I ever would again. And that's a horrible place to be. So for anyone who was in that place, I understand so much, and it's very difficult. I was very lucky that I was able to access some good help, but I also did a lot for myself, and I think it has to come from yourself. And I think the thing was that I'd done so much fact-finding, I'd done such deep diving, I had intellectualized it, I had um embodied it, I'd done everything. And then when I started looking around, thinking, you know, I'm feeling good here and I'm training in these things, who's talking about this? And I couldn't find anyone. And I thought, right, I'm making a plan for my future. This is what I feel is really, really important, and surely it's important to everyone. When I started talking to everyone, it took a while to explain what on earth I was talking about because it wasn't yoga or belati's or any of the traditional boxes. But once I sort of conveyed it, everyone was like, Yeah, that makes sense. And I think I could do with some of that, and yeah, I need to try more. I started posting online, having been petrified of social media and literally wasn't on it. And I, you know, I was sort of almost against it because for fear of it, I'm sure. And it resonated, then it was locked down as well, so I had to be online for a lot of my coaching, and yeah, and so I was lucky enough that a lot of people showed interest, and from that, a but a publisher got in touch. So at no point had I thought I'm gonna write a book. But if someone ever says to you, Oh, could you write a book about it? I think you probably have quite strong reactions either way. And yes, there was sort of fear, and you know, could I do that? And then there was straight away a little voice going, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, do it. And I'm so glad I did. I mean, it took about two years almost to do, and it was a process that overloaded me hugely in ways that I really didn't, and and actually the writing was the easy bit, it was the editing that was over and over so much more difficult, but and so many sort of iterations. I'm so glad I did it. I'm really proud of it. And I think when you work in the digital space and online a lot, to be able to hold something, and I'm a real book person, I love a book, so be able to hold that, I have huge pride, and it's it's my heart in a book, it's everything that I really believe in. There's nothing left out. So I know that anyone who gets it can take as much or as little as they want from it, but whatever they take from it, I hope will be good. So I am I'm really surprised to find myself being an author, but also hugely grateful.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

Huge congratulations. It's a really wonderful we've been experimenting, as I said, in our house with all the different because you have so many exercises too. I'm the sort of person has similar, I go deep into research and deep into thinking, and the next step for me is always the practical piece. So it's really wonderful because there are lists and lists and lists and lists of things to try, which I love so much. Okay, let's go back to your thought. So, of course, everything you do is about everyday movement, and I think what I'm wondering is how you let's think, how you hope that you'll h hold on to this thought going forwards.

SPEAKER_00 50:49

I think do you know what your example of your great aunt that's what I want to be, that's who I want to be, and I kind of hope that I'm like her, where I'm a bit feisty about it as well, and tell everyone, you know, in that way that you just don't care what anyone thinks anymore, I'll be saying, come on, stand up, do that. And I find myself doing it a little bit with people who know me well. Not people who don't, because I don't want to put pressure on anyone or shame in them. But I want to, that's what I want. And the reason that I, in inverted commas, got into this was for myself. Ultimately, it was me making a plan for how I could move well for my whole life, which happens to be the title of the book, because that was what I needed. I needed a plan, not a sort of formulaeic plan, but a route, a guide for where I could go because I didn't feel I had it anymore, and I felt I'd lost that. So for me, making sure that movement and exercise are equivalent in my life is basically my North Star. And I hope other people will adopt that North Star too.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

I'm sure, I mean, I'm sure they will. It's just been such a delight talking to you. Thank you so much for sharing this. The thought is so pivotal, and I can see, as you were talking about ripples, that kind of gave me the you know the shiver of. I can see it, I can see how important it's such a huge reframe. So thank you so much for being here today.

SPEAKER_00 52:13

Thank you so much for the opportunity. I'm always hugely grateful. So, and it was lovely, lovely to be on.

SPEAKER_01 52:17

Okay, thank you. I would really love to know whether Wendy's thought is one that you will keep, share, perhaps even forget, though maybe it'll come back to you when you least expect it. This idea of the importance of everyday movement. If this episode stayed with you, you can join me over on more good days at Substack, or you can come over to if loss. We do cover Mind Body Connection there. There's a whole chapter, a whole pathway, a whole month for you to explore your movement mindset and how you might bring movement into your well-being practice for your everyday life. If you don't already, you can follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts so that every Monday morning there's a new thought waiting for you. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for spending some of your podcast listening moments with me. And I will see you next Monday with another thought that one of my guests has kept, and you might want to as well. Bye for now.