Peach Friedman
author, educator & trainer
intuitive fitness for women

I’ve been thinking about how so many of my friends love to post pictures of themselves (on Facebook or otherwise) in yoga poses, or competing in body building competitions, or finishing marathons. We love to move our bodies; we’re proud of how we’ve trained and refined skills. We are fascinated by the progress we make as we condition and improve.

Believe it or not, I think this is a good thing. Our ability to move our bodies is a gift! Especially with the perspective that not every body is able to move freely or with power, strength, and agility. Some bodies are limited to beds, or chairs, or connected to machines. Those of us who can explore the full range of motion in our joints, the power in our lungs and hearts…we have been given an amazing gift. The gift of movement.

In my work, I play a couple of different roles. As a one-time trainer and now yoga teacher, I’m a supporter, encourager, cheerleader and educator, all with the goal in mind of helping my students move their bodies pleasurably. My work with eating disorders, you might think, disagrees with my work in fitness, but actually this is not so.

Sometimes people think that, because of my history as a compulsive exerciser and anorexic, and because of my work to help people learn, ultimately, to relax around exercise and often to exercise less, that I would be on kind of an anti-exercise platform. But this is not the case at all.

I think moving the body is a beautiful, blissful experience. I move mine most days in some way that feels expressive, stress-releasing, and endorphin-raising. But I never, ever choose to exercise my body in a way that feels like drudgery, punishment, or a chore.

But I used to do this every day. I used to run a long loop around my hometown every morning. I even convinced myself that I liked it. The truth is, I liked when it was over–I liked that I had done it, that I didn’t have to do it for another twenty-four hours, and I liked that I was conditioned enough to accomplish something that would be painful for a lot of other people I knew.

But I never liked it while I was doing it; in fact, it was painful for me too. So painful that I had to drown out the experience with blasting music on my ipod to forget that I was running. I never looked at the flowers or the trees. I never stopped to pet a dog or smile at a mom strolling her baby by. I just pushed, and waited for it to be over.

The funny thing is, all the while I thought I held the secret key to power. What I didn’t realize until later is that I was actually digging myself into a deep dark hole of depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. It wasn’t until I let go of the idea that exercise had to be hard that I was able to develop a pleasurable, sustainable, and purely joyful relationship with my body in motion.

This is what brings me to yoga.
Having recently moved from California, where yoga studios are on nearly every street corner, to a town in Alabama that is home to only one (very lovely, by the way) studio, I’m feeling the lack of being surrounded by a common mindset: mindful movement.

Yoga agrees inherently with recovery. Yoga asks that we be mindful and respectful of our boundaries. Yoga asks that we seek our edge so that we can grow, but reminds us that our edge sometimes means taking child’s pose or modifying a challenging sequence. Yoga teaches us to handle stress with breath & body awareness, the support of community, and the ultimate trust that whatever we’re experiencing in the present moment is okay.

So now, a daily physical practice doesn’t feel like exercise; rather, it feels like a joyful celebration of my body and my health. It feels like time set aside to ground physically so that I might be more present to walk into the rest of my day. It feels like a reminder that I am living in a physical body, and I better take good care of myself! On great days, it feels like an effortless dance, and on hard days (we all have them) it feels like a sweet, self-lovin’ hug (my therapists would be so proud of me!).

So…I celebrate movement. In fact, I LOVE movement. And I would probably post photos of myself in crazy yoga poses too, if I had any that weren’t taken in my underwear.