Unlock Your Body's Potential and Rediscover the Joy of Moving
Welcome to the Satiated Podcast, where we explore physical and emotional hunger, satiation and healing your relationship with your food and body. I'm your host. Stephanie Mara Fox, your Somatic Nutritional Counselor.
I was an over-exerciser for many years of my life. In my twenties, a typical day might look like going to the gym first thing in the morning, walking and being on my feet all day, and then taking a yoga class in the afternoon or at night. If a binge was included, sometimes I was back at the gym at midnight. Along with undereating and not properly nourishing my body to sustain all of this physical movement, my muscles started to twitch, it was hard to regulate my body temperature, I was cold all the time, and utterly exhausted. I wouldn't let an injury stop me. I would just find some other physical movement to do to work around the injury. It wasn't until the summer of 2008 that this cycle started to change. I knew that this was not sustainable and even had a doctor ask me, "Are you training for something? Why are you moving your body this much?" If that doctor had known anything about trauma or the nervous system what I wish they would have said was, "Sounds like physical movement is trying to help you move through something. Are you receiving additional support to look at that?" Anyways, I decided to take the whole summer of 2008 off from strenuous exercise. I walked and not excessively but that was it. It was that summer that my body began to heal. That took me on a new journey of how to listen to my body to decide what and how much movement my body needed day to day. I had discovered how much I genuinely loved to move in my body, but I had not learned how to look out for its cues for what kind of physical movement and the duration that would feel best to it.
When Dana Karen (or DK) Ciccone reached out to share her work with me on healing relationship with movement I knew I had to bring her on the podcast. DK is a comprehensively certified Pilates instructor who helps people in pain improve strength, mobility, and well-being in a weight-neutral environment. DK is a graduate of the MSMS Advanced Movement Studies Program and is also trained in pain reprocessing therapy through the Pain Psychology Center. Having begun her own journey with chronic back pain as a young teen, she has been exploring ways to help herself and others regain joy of movement for decades. After twenty years in the health sector, DK left a corporate career to follow her passion, later launching Movement Remedies, a chronic pain– focused Pilates studio and movement coaching business that began in Boston, Massachusetts. Her first book, You’re Meant to Move: A Guide to Conquering Chronic Pain, Increasing Stress Resilience, and Reclaiming an Active Life, was released December 2023. DK is now based in Edinburgh, Scotland and offers virtual classes and sessions. We chat about befriending movement, redefining movement goals, challenging fitness culture, understanding chronic pain and the role of movement in pain management, listening to your body's wisdom, and healing through movement.
In the Somatic Eating® Program, you'll learn how to gauge what and how much physical movement would work best for you. The next class will be in May and you can join the waitlist by going to somaticeating.com. Now, welcome DK!
I am really excited to connect with you today, and looking more and more into your work, I feel like what you're doing to help people like heal their relationship with their bodies and physical movement is something that I so probably needed, like in my early 20s. So I'm really excited to get into this conversation with you today. And you know, I always like to start out with how you got into the work that you're doing, so individuals can kind of hear a little bit of your adventure.
DK Ciccone 04:34
Thank you so much for having me and for that. So the work that I do is I'm helping people with chronic pain, try to find, you know, joy and confidence in moving their bodies again. Because, you know, my journey began with chronic pain in my teens, when I had dreams of being a dancer and did a lot of musical theater and had sort of an episode in performance that led to some like debilitating back pain. Pain that just kind of kept coming back with very kind of inconsistent triggers, and it was a very confusing and, you know, I feel like we would treat it differently now, kind of understanding a little bit about the neuroscience of pain, but of course, at the time, it was like just a mystery, because I hadn't fallen off of a ladder or something, you know, there was no sudden traumatic event, but my body was definitely now I know kind of throwing me all kinds of signals, because pain is ultimately nothing but a threat signal from your brain, right, that something in the environment is causing is dangerous. Fast forward 10, 20, years, and I'm still living with chronic low back pain, and I ended up actually herniating a disc in my back, and someone recommended Pilates to me once I was trying to get moving again, because I had gone through the 18 months of sort of the misery that is a herniated disc, and I didn't end up doing surgery because it was really murky, trying to navigate whether or not that was going to actually help. And I'm really glad that I've kind of followed my gut on that, and when I started moving in a Pilates class, it was like immediately reconnecting to some kind of deep identity in me that just loved to move my body, like from my young years and yet it also gave me a sense of kind of strength and the breath, kind of focus of it. It was just like a magical combination that really spoke to me, and so it became part of my toolkit, and that kind of was just how I managed and kept doing my corporate job, and then sort of a crash course of high stress corporate career, plus kind of coming to terms with some childhood and trauma and perimenopause was sort of a vortex of pain and anxiety that caused me to really rethink my career trajectory, and I really realized I had been spending so much of my life trying to meet external expectations for who I was, how I looked, my body size. I mean, I had been weight cycling and certainly as a dancer, and then also just through my life, going through various restrictive cycles, and then kind of bouncing back like a yo yo. And I had to figure out how to come to terms with all this in order to move forward with my life. But I also realized that I had never sat down and defined who I wanted to be in the world from as a professional, and that had me doing some real soul searching. And so it was kind of funny I was like doing my healing process while also trying to figure out my profession. And the healing process really required that I get underneath my relationship with food. That was sort of my entry point into addressing the underlying anxiety and trauma that really helped me kind of understand all along that my body was not trying to be the combative partner that I thought it was. You know, I had sort of been angry at it all the time. You had a prior episode talking about, sort of this idea that, like your body is, or even food is, sort of like a an unsafe place. And so I had been inhabiting my body as if it were an unsafe place for a really long time, and I realized I needed to sort of befriend it. So at the same time, I decided to go through Pilates instructor training for myself, because I just something I loved. And I thought, well, I'll give it a try. Worst thing that happens is I'm terrible at it, or I hate it. And then, you know, my healing process, alongside working with lots of people who were in pain, struggling with their bodies and food and like also trying to figure it out, kind of led me down this path towards where I am now, of having my own movement and Pilates, you know, business, because I wanted to create a safe space where all the people who felt like they couldn't walk into your typical fitness and health kind of location because maybe they felt unwelcome or marginalized or dismissed in those kinds of spaces. I wanted a place where those people could feel welcome. We have enough reasons in our environment to feel unwelcome. We don't need more. So that was kind of how movement remedies was born. And you know, still, I'm on a healing journey like 100% and so I think it's been really interesting as the working with folks and kind of learning together, that's how I got here to this moment.
Stephanie Mara 09:12
Yeah, thanks for sharing all that. I hear so many threads that I deeply resonate with of I also have a background in theater, and I feel like for many people, there is that question point of like, is this the lifestyle that my body wants to live, not necessarily like just what I'm called to do, but like, does this respect and support the body and like what I hear from your journey and mine as well, I had this point that it was just like my body is telling me that this is not what resonates with it, that, you know, it needs to move and sleep and eat in a very different way than this lifestyle would offer it.
DK Ciccone 09:52
I mean, frankly, I don't even think I got it to the point where I could find out that I probably wasn't even good enough to be on Broadway. You know, my body really just wouldn't it was so unpredictable. Like there would be whole weeks where it would be, I could be lying on the floor in my living room so, like, I couldn't commit to the rigorous practice schedule, like you're saying that it required. So, yeah, I think that that's definitely a big part of that profession and and from that point on, I never questioned whether the work I was doing was any good for me, because even the toxic corporate culture was not good for me. And I talk about that a lot in my book and in my work with people of sort of we have internalized these sort of norms around work culture that were established like a long time ago, not by us, right? Not by women, not by marginalized communities, not by people who have chronic illnesses, but by, you know, people, white men, patriarchy, like manufacturing, kind of folks. And so I think that we have a lot to question in terms of how we show up, because there's actually a lot of people who need the liberty to honor their bodies. I mean, all of us really do, and I don't think our workplaces are really set up for that, and we there's a lot of work that we can do and to help with that. But that was, I guess, my first learning about, if the body tries to talk to you first with a feather, it might come with a brick later.
Stephanie Mara 11:16
I totally get that. Yeah, I'm curious along your path, like, what you learned, both for yourself and others, of kind of the wisdom in bodily pain, like, I know some things that you even reference around, like a nervous system message, or there's a lot of pieces around why pain is coming up in the body.
DK Ciccone 11:38
Yeah. So, I mean, there's a couple different ways I could go with this question. But so first of all, there's the basics. I mean, we now fully understand, and there was a great recent New York Times article, actually, that did a beautiful job of explaining the nervous system complexities of pain. But we now understand that chronic pain, which we had previously seen as sort of a sub diagnosis of, like, other things, like, oh, I have multiple sclerosis, perhaps, and then as a sub diagnosis, I have chronic pain, or I injured myself, you know, and then the chronic pain happened. But we have lots of examples of people who have completely unexplained chronic pain that comes up out of nowhere. And you know, now it's very widely accepted that there's this biopsychosocial model of pain, which is that there is a spectrum of factors that can influence pain, being the response in your body, and the fact that it's the tissues are damaged is only one out of very many. And I think we imagine that there's always a physical reason for the physical symptom, but in fact, you can have a physical symptom, and I know this, you know the somatics, of course, would say so as well, but like a physical symptom, having nothing to do with the physical body, but actually a whole range of things, because ultimately, pain is as many things that we now have in our modern society that don't serve us very well. It evolved as a really super helpful survival trait, because if you, you know, step on something and causes an infection and that causes pain for you, you're probably going to stop and do something about it, rather than just die in the Savannah. So that was handy, right? But like now, our nervous system reacts to every stimulus like a potential predator. And I also really believe in and this is not my area of expertise, but like, really seeing more and more how there's this sort of spectrum of nervous system sensitivities as well for like, some of us, you know, and I know from as to my childhood, I was really sensitive to, like loud noises and like overs, and some people don't feel that. And so okay, we have this range now, and we understand that some people are sponging all kinds of stuff. And so I see it all the time, and people who will come into me and say, yeah, you know, my knee is really hurting me. I had this, like, high school tennis injury, and I walked my dog yesterday, and I probably overdid it. And I'm like, you know, I'm guessing that your high school tennis injury, like, healed quite a bit ago. So is there anything else going on? And it'll turn out like, oh, I had a huge fight with my mother in law in the in the afternoon. But we don't know to bring those things to the surface as, like a reason for pain. So it's always a bit of an educational kind of conversation of kind of drawing out, like recognition of the fact that, no, these are real causes of pain. It's not that you're there's something wrong with your nervous it's not like your mind is not working and causing pain, like it's working appropriately and causing you pain. And we have to identify, you know, all of those causes. And I think what's really interesting about it is that the number one thing that people actually usually feel better doing is moving, but because we've expected a physical cause of the pain. Now we're sort of like, in protective mode and thinking, oh well, I can't move because it's hurting me. And like, 9 times out of 10, unless you literally just, like, acutely injured yourself, you're actually fine to move. And moving would actually, you know, do the neurochemical responses that would actually feel good in your body, not to mention reduce that kind of fear cycle that we get stuck into. So when I'm working with someone, I'm really trying to dig into where they're afraid in their movement pattern, because that's usually sort of a an entry way into kind of where we need to work to build the confidence so that, like, movement can become a non scary thing. That's like the pain side of thing.
Stephanie Mara 15:24
Yeah, thanks for sharing all that. You know, it makes me think of in one of my somatic classes, many, many, many years ago, there was a class on touch, and it was basically like touching with permission, like one of my classmates, like, back, you know, shoulder, arm, something like that. And like, finding the subtle places where there's free fluid movement, and then find, like, really gentle touch. Like, right now, I know people can't see me, but I'm like, just, like, very gently, like, rubbing my shoulder, like, just with my fingertips and just kind of noticing, like, oh, where is their free fluid movement, and where is it stuck? And that, yeah, it's not always because of, you know, I always think, like, I always carried my backpack on my right shoulder, like, all throughout high school, and so, oh, that's why, like, I always have right shoulder pain. But it's like, no, when I get super stressed, my right shoulder hikes up and so, like, it's staying there in that position, getting tighter and tighter and tighter. Sure, there might be something from my past that might be more sensitive of a memory of that, but like, there's something in the present that's activating that I hear what you brought in of like, we have to bring in a lot of curiosity around, like, why is this pain? Or why is the body giving us this message in this moment?
DK Ciccone 16:50
I don't mean to diminish like, certainly, there's biomechanics. You know, a person's gait may be such a way that, like, yes, their foot is kind of, you know, repetitive issue. But I mean, I think what really sold me in my journey was so I did a training called pain or processing therapy, which has like a somatic tracking component to it. And you know, they brought in all these studies where they would take people off the street and throw them in an MRI machine and ask them, do you have any pain in their back? And be like, no, no pain in my back. My back is fine, great. And like, 40% of them had a herniated disc, you know, some kind of degenerative condition of arthritis or something like so they had tissue changes, labral tears in their hips and things, but they didn't feel anything so like you could even have a repetitive injury or a biomechanical thing and it not be painful. So why not the reverse? You know what I mean. So like, I feel like something kind of clicked for me once I once I really understood that, because it doesn't, it defies logic. I mean, our brains are automatically seeking to solve this problem. So of course, it seeks the body, because that's what it knows, and so it makes sense. So like, again, I just, like, can't emphasize enough, like, having a pain response, seeking a physical solution to a pain response and a physical cause, like all of these things, are super natural, and so we're literally having to swim upstream to teach ourselves to kind of seek out this, like ethereal contributing factor that is outside the actual physical body. Sometimes it defies reason, you know.
Stephanie Mara 18:20
Yeah, I'm wondering how you've walked the people that you've worked with through starting to befriend movement again. And I come from this at the lens of I've, you know, had injuries and things like that. I haven't knock on wood like experienced chronic pain in my life that didn't eventually go away. There were certainly, you know, things that have happened. I know when I was going through like long covid like I had a ton of chronic neck pain that eventually dissipated as I continued to heal, which I know came up for a lot of different reasons. But previous to even that, you know, a lot of my journey of healing my relationship with my food and body included healing my relationship with movement, because I really relied heavily on over exercising to manage living constantly in a sympathetic nervous system state. And so, you know, I know for myself, I had to both heal my relationship with movement and then build on to my sense of resources, of there are other ways, besides constantly pushing my body to move, to help myself move through different nervous system states. So I'm curious what you've discovered, both with yourself and those you've worked with to both kind of heal that relationship with movement, especially when you're in pain. Because, yeah, there can be that fear response of, like, what if I make it worse? And then, you know, also knowing, like, when to move and when to rest.
DK Ciccone 19:47
Yeah, so it's complicated. I mean, I think in order to get out of my really unhelpful, you know, eating and dieting patterns, I had to enlist the help of an intuitive eating coach and that required quite a lot of support, therapeutic support of sort of befriending my body and all that stuff. But then when I sort of returned to my life and tried to approach movement, I found that a lot of the kind of the old punitive, like internal self talk was coming up again. I was having a really hard time. I think I had used movement to numb out in a similar way, right? And then I also it's like, you have to really confront the physical vessel that you're in when you're talking about movement and being really honest with it. And it's like, how do I set goals? Because, of course, everything is always goal oriented and and that drives me nuts, how do I set goals that don't just completely send me back to a really bad place of diet culture and and that's really challenging as well. I mean, the whole thing is oriented around enoughness, right? You have to hit a certain amount of minutes per week, according to the American Heart Association. Otherwise, poof, you're dead, or you have to, there's so much fear language around it, too. And then it also becomes this kind of all or nothing thing where, like, if you didn't do an hour, or you didn't do whatever amount, you know, in the gym, then it's like, why did you bother going? You might as well have, you know, sat at home. And I think again, we're swimming upstream, because everything around us is constructed to make us have this relationship with movement that is punitive and also that is, you know, structured to kind of meet a kind of work schedule. So it's like when you have to go to this particular class and it has to be a certain duration. So I think the first thing is just really redefining the why of movement, and it has to be something that is really tied to like something that really lights your heart on fire, something that really speaks to your personal goals. Because I think there's nothing wrong with having goals and movement. And I do want my people to to be working towards something that feels really life affirming, but it should be, I really want to go on this epic hike with my grandkid, or, you know, I really want to take my niece skiing, or I really want to, you know, whatever it should be, like a life experience that you want to feel comfortable doing. And so I think that takes some time, is kind of orienting people around that, I mean, for me, like the why do I move, it's because I acknowledge that it's the number one thing that I can do to help me stay regulated in my nervous system, because I am sensitive. And so for me, it's about listening to what my body needs from that perspective. And that might be five minutes. And I think I really encourage people to almost go on, like, a movement detox. So you like, I hate to use that word, but like, start from scratch, right? And just do five minutes. Like the when I began my journey of, like, trying to figure this out, I made myself do no more than five minutes a day because I wanted to know what is the minimum amount that I can do that it's enough to make my pain be less, because I would wake up in pain. So like, what is the minimum amount I can do to make my pain feel less? And like, help me, put me in a good mood. But like, I thought it was going to be a really high number, and I kind of kept reducing, reducing, reducing, and then I got to five minutes, and I was like, well, if I do this five minute little sequence, it feels really good and like that's enough. And I had to do that for 30 days to sort of reorient myself around this idea that I do five minutes. I listen to my body. If it wants more, I give it more. But if it doesn't want any more, that's fine. And I think that, you know, if anyone's like me, then movement was historically a place to go to escape my feelings. It was where I went when I was angry, you know, it was where I went when I was anxious, it was where I went when I felt powerless. So it was a place to go kind of again, numbing out of my body. And I think that is one of the hardest things, is trying to figure out how to actually be with what comes up in your body as you're moving. And that requires doing it slowly and with curiosity. And there's maybe tears, like it can be really emotional when you really start listening to your body of kind of the way movement can bring things up for you as you're talking about that's feeling of, sort of some things might feel stuck and some things don't. Well, when something feels stuck, we kind of want to know why. I mean, I'm not here to say we like store memories in particular parts of our body or anything like that, but for whatever reason, like there are definitely certain movement patterns for certain people that bring up things. But once you've kind of worked through that, and you realize that this is actually, it's like taking yourself on a date. This is quality time with you and your body. I always say it's like, it's movement is a gift that you give to yourself. It's nourishment. It's not meant to be like a box checking exercise, or, you know, another chore that you have to do on your day, like, just like going to the grocery store, and it's like, oh, how am I going to fit it in? It's like, well, I mean, if you don't feel that you need it, then they don't need to fit it in, you know. But have you listened to your body, and does your body need it? The hardest thing for me right now is being in this perimenopausal period, and working with a lot of people and and women in perimenopause or menopause, and kind of recognizing that there is reason to actually build strength. I mean, building strength is important for longevity in general. Like there's no doubt about it. There's tons of research there. We want to make sure we're doing it because you're putting in your mind a picture of like a vibrant you who can do the trips that you want to do and be independent in the home as long, you know, those kinds of things. Rather than putting a picture in your mind of like you in a particular bathing suit or something, or whatever, the things we used to do to torment ourselves, and then having a partner who's like asking you, what are you visualizing right now? And making sure that that we're continuing to reinforce that. I mean, it is a challenge. I think every person's journey is a little bit different. But when we solve the eating part in terms of, you know, addressing our diet culture, you know, drama essentially, and we don't address the movement part, we're really at a disservice, because as much as we need food to survive, so we need to figure out how to have a relationship with food. We need movement, and we need to maintain our movement vocabulary as we age. So we have to figure out how to also befriend movement and to wait until the you know, till you start to lose it is really putting yourself kind of behind the eight ball.
Stephanie Mara 26:28
Oh my gosh. I resonated with so many things that you just said. So first, I agree with you that addressing relationship with food and physical movement kind of go hand in hand, because sometimes our relationship with moving in our bodies, like just so you were saying that it's not a chore, it's actually something that the body loves to do, is to be in movement in ways that resonate with it, and it lights it up and makes it feel good, and moves that lymphatic system and produces endorphins and all those good things and that to kind of see movement in a different way, or experience it in a way that actually feels regulating that we have to look at, am I using movement as a way to push myself further away from myself, or to coerce my body into being something that actually it doesn't want to be, or am I using movement in a way that further connects myself back to myself? While you were talking, I was having flashbacks of myself in undergrad. You know this little 18, 19, 20 year old that's like waking up at 6am in the morning to get to the gym before her classes, and I was tired and exhausted and pushing myself way too hard, just as you were saying to like, fit it in, and that wasn't leading to further health. That wasn't actually leading to further vibrancy in my body, if anything, by later in the afternoon, I was struggling to walk up a flight of stairs because my body was so tired and depleted, and so, yeah, I love your suggestion of first starting to break it down. And yeah, I hear you in not using necessarily the word detox, kind of like looking at your physical movement, and if you start to experience anxiety, imagining not doing the run or the HITT or the weight lifting thing that you normally do, like, yes, it's so great, those things are calming and supportive, but if you feel so much anxiety that it feels debilitating to not do those, you kind of have to look at that a little bit and be like, okay, how do we start to tap back into what the body wants to do? And that might not be the movements or even the amount of time that you've been pushing it to do, and starting from there.
DK Ciccone 28:52
Yeah. And I think what makes solving the movement problem hard, so like, okay, we address the food issue, and like, 90% unless you're really eating out a lot, 90% of like your food conversation is happening like in your home. So like, you can set up boundaries and like supportive systems inside your home to kind of make that a thing. But part of the problem with trying to fix it with movement is that for a lot of people, that requires being in another environment, and those environments are the antithesis of the kind of, like structure. I mean, you know, I've been taking these classes lately because I have moved and so what's available to me is, like, you know, station based, kind of workout and things, and people are screaming at everyone to go faster. There's like, loud buzzing noises and like, I'm like, this is the opposite of listening to your body. This is, like, push through until you pass out, kind of, it's like, how do you exist inside? Because you can't, and like, unless you're planning on building a gym inside your home, because you'd be really honest with you, like, I love Pilates. But like, I don't think Pilates by itself is enough for me, because I do want to have muscles and be stronger. And like, you know, in a way that Pilates is only can bring these so far. So it's like you have to constantly engage the dragon, like, you know, the lines down or whatever. And that is really, really challenging. And I'm just like, waiting for us to finally figure out in the fitness industry that we're not actually helping people. We're doing the opposite of encouraging them to be be active, or, like, only creating spaces that are habitable for, like, this really tiny portion of the human population. And it makes me absolutely bonkers, but being able to do that and kind of resist or maybe find community with other people who kind of share your values and are able to support each other in the face of all of that, you know, push past your body and ignore it, kind of conversation, and that's really challenging, and we need to solve that.
Stephanie Mara 30:40
Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you and that this is such a larger picture that you know so much of what we explore here is like how to offer new perspectives for self, what to explore within self, what can I do with myself? And that we have to bring it in, into the context of the greater society that we live in, that we do have this whole fitness culture that is very infused with weight stigma and the thin ideal, no pain, no gain, and you know, all of these kind of very toxic messaging that actually kind of is telling you to not listen to your body, that your body is something to control and that you shouldn't listen to your body, that if it's saying it's tired, that's just happening in your brain, you just need to push past your brain and not listen to your body saying it's…
DK Ciccone 31:33
And it's a motivation issue, right?
Stephanie Mara 31:36
Right. You know that it's like, don't listen to that. You just need to keep pushing forward.
DK Ciccone 31:40
I agree. And I think, I mean, there is a lot that we can do on our own. Like, I really, I believe that there I talk about sort of refuge movements and reach movements. So I think everyone has some set of movements that, for whatever reason, really speak to them and kind of create a really safe space. I do think that's a thing we can explore on our own by just being curious with our bodies and so, I mean, in terms of, like, getting started, I mean, definitely you can have some of that, those you can use the internet to find different things if you want kind of inspiration. But like, there is a point where, if you want to sort of challenge yourself in a certain way, or if there's like, dance or like, you know, based kind of things that require that you participate in someone else's environment that you can't control. Like, that's really challenging. And, I mean, I have been there before. I kind of came to this place of really resolving my own issues, of sort of, you know, pull those straps so you can have those strong triceps, or whatever the heck. You know, we all say it. It's like the expectation inside a wellness space, I like put in my client agreement that I'm not even going to tolerate if you talk about your body or anyone else's body, like in the studio, because even people will walk in and say, like, oh, we got to work hard today. I had a pizza at lunch, and I'm just like, oh my god. Okay, that's not why we do this and like that could really be triggering for other people in this space, and you can't say stuff like that, but it's so ingrained and natural. It's almost like it's a around the water cooler, like, way that we that we socialize. It's really just deeply entrenched.
Stephanie Mara 33:17
Yeah, so I'm wondering, because you just said, like, as you started to heal the pain, like, what was it, the things that you felt like, started to dissipate that pain kind of coming back to when you were talking about, like, it started with, what's just the minimum amount of movement that I need to do that will kind of help my body. I'm curious what other factors kind of were a part of finding both the like, small movements that you could do and like, what else?
DK Ciccone 33:43
Healing my relationship with food, first of all, addressed a lot of GI issues, tailbone pain and other things that I was having that were, I think, very much tied to that and my kind of original. So I had my little experiment to see how how little I could move in order to feel better. And then I started to explore into the areas that I felt most afraid of and for me, that was weight lifting, because I had enjoyed doing that as a young person, but when I herniated the disc in my back, the doctors all said, you know, like, never bend at the waist again. And I had repeated, you know, hip and sacroiliac joint pain in my low back. So people were kind of like, oh, your sacrum is out of line, and you're twisted in your pelvis, and you should never bend over again. And like, all this, like, doomsday talk about my body, that had me so petrified, like, I didn't even want to put stuff in the dishwasher. You know what? I mean, I'd be like, dropping a plate and, like, squatting down, you know, like, and I'm like, I can't live like this. I have to be able to get on a toilet and get up again. Like, I mean, how do I not bend over? So just following my own advice is sort of, like, I don't know if I realized it at the time, like, I had to sort of lean into things I was afraid of. And so, so in order to do that, I had to start voicing what I was afraid of to the people who were in my circle of like, helpers. like, I really do think it takes a team. I had a, you know, a physical therapist for my hip, but then I had a pelvic floor physical therapist who was helping with the tailbone pain. I had a really great personal trainer at the time where I was like, if you approach me with that body scanner thing, it's over, and she got it, and then I had my Intuitive Eating coach and my therapist, so, like, there was a whole little team assembled, and I had to start voicing, like, okay, these are some movements I'm afraid of, and these are some things that I really want to be able to do again, but I'm afraid of sitting with my fear was itself a process, and then having just really good people on my team who knew that the thing I needed to do was actually start doing the thing I was afraid of, and kind of be patient with me. And while I cried and was scared and like, would kind of bail and, you know, coax me into it and and help me kind of get over that barrier. I mean, eventually, you know, within six months or so, I was, you know, very close to dead lifting my own body weight. And that was such an incredible triumph for me. And so what I learned from that process is like, what feels really far away in terms of that goal of like, I just wanted to pick up, like, something weighted off the floor. I wasn't, I didn't have, like, a number, but once you have that like, tiny moment of doing a thing that you were afraid of, before you get that little boost of, like, oh, okay, I just learned that I can do that. And so now I have this confidence. And so it kind of goes exponentially from there. And I've seen this over and over and over again with clients who are like, you know, so afraid of of a lunge, or standing on one leg, or, you know, leaning backwards because of various injuries or falls or things that have happened or a sense of being out of control. And then once they do it a little bit, it's like, then all of a sudden it's like, oh, okay, well, I can do that 12 times next time. And then before you know it, they're just by themselves, up on the machine, you know, in a very precarious, I don't know how familiar you are with Pilates machines, but it's all spring loaded, and it's lots of balance if you depending on how you use it. And I've just seen that, like people will really kind of jump from there, and it quite a curve. And so that was how I experienced it for myself as well. That being said, every single time I go to pick up a bar, I panic inside a little bit. And it's not like all of this is a journey, right? Like, I think we even when we're quote, unquote healed, like we're healed because we know what tools to apply, not because we don't. We no longer, you know, face challenges, and for me, you know, getting underneath my anxiety, which you know, I'm still doing, and I I try again to really just be open with that about people, because I don't feel like people were open with me about that being an acceptable way to go through life. You know, you had to sort of like numb it and pretend like it wasn't happening, because having, you know, mental health challenges with is inconvenient for other people. I want to live in a world in which we can show up exactly the way that we are, and so those are the spaces that I want to fight for. So I think that being able to sit with that and try to work on that, and it's also like, I mean, I feel better in my body in my 40s than I did in my 20s, like 100% there's, like, no doubt about it.
Stephanie Mara 38:13
I completely agree with you. I will be in my 40s in two years, or well less than that. I'm turning 39 in March, so...
DK Ciccone 38:23
Don't rush it, Stephanie, take your time. Take your time. It gets weird!
Stephanie Mara 38:27
Sure! But I hear you in that I feel better and stronger in my body now than I did throughout my entire 20s, when I was pushing my body and exercising the way that society was telling me to exercise, and I felt so weak, and I really appreciate and thank you for bringing back around that this is an ongoing journey. To this day, I still ask myself the question, before I move my body, am I doing this because I think I should, or am I doing this because I'm getting the feedback from my body that this is the movement that it wants to do? I still ask myself that question, because we are so indoctrinated by our culture about what we should be doing and how we should be moving also based off of how we should look, and so it is a constant practice to check back in with oneself, to be like, why am I doing this? Am I doing this from feedback from my brain, of what it's been taught of shoulds? Or, am I doing this from feedback from my body of it really wants to do this kind of physical movement right now?
DK Ciccone 39:36
Yeah, 100% and you know what I had basically done my last diet right before the pandemic, and that was when I really started to spiral because I was like, I'm literally thinking about nothing else but food, like, I cannot live like this. Like, surely I can't live the rest of my life like this. And so I started devouring all the books. Like, is it Christy Harrison's Anti Diet, and then the intuitive eating and body respect and Linda Bacon and all the books, and I can't remember which one talked about the relationship between evangelical Christianity and diet culture in the US, and sort of how we developed this moralistic relationship with food. And I think, so I was raised evangelical Christian, which is a part of my trauma. I know this is not that kind of show, but just saying...
Stephanie Mara 40:23
That's okay. Comes up a lot!
DK Ciccone 40:24
Right? There's a lot of us out there. So there's also this deeply entrenched, am I a good person that gets really convoluted in my brain, I think, with the sort of shoulds, right? And like you saying the shoulds made me think of it because, I mean, it's not just should I because, you know, I want to be in this smaller body, but it's sort of like somehow along the way, it got really twisted in my head where it's like, well, a good person, you know, does x, y, z, in terms of eating and exercising, and so we have to unravel a lot of things and and sort of, you know, remove this idea that even judging other people you know about how much exercise they do or don't do, and whether you know, is it, is it a moral choice to pursue a healthy body or not healthy body? And like, what does healthy even mean, right? You know, like having, like, a low BMI and then having paralyzing anxiety, like, is that a healthy body. I mean, I just we've gotten really, really away from the point, I think and I would just really love to see us stop moralizing it as well. And all bodies are good bodies all of the time. And yeah.
Stephanie Mara 41:34
Yeah. It makes me think of someone else who just came on the podcast and we were talking about how, just like, even the idea of health gets to be a value that some people hold and some people don't have to hold. And so it also goes back to like, okay, what's your intention in moving your body? And you were talking about this earlier, that it's like, yeah, do you want to be able to do that hike with your grandchildren when you're 80 years old, do you want to be able to live in your house self sufficient for as long as you possibly can? That there's so many other intentions around why to move your body, or why to help your bones be strong or to build muscles that goes way, way beyond the physical external appearance of what that looks like. It's like, what is it also doing internally? And I know that in the somatic world, you know, there's the work of like Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen that created Body Mind Centering. And you know, just in that, we have all of these many different systems in our body that are facilitated by movement to be able to optimally function. And sometimes we're so focused on like, one part of our body, like just the muscle, because that's what we can see, rather than, like, well, how does taking a really long walk today help my liver? Like, a question we ask ourselves.
DK Ciccone 43:03
Yeah, and that's really, I think it's also, again, a failure of the health industry. And because I've worked in the health sector my whole career, I have a background in public health and health promotion, I get really frustrated because they don't put it in those terms of, like, why don't you take a walk today or because you know that way, you know you can walk to your kitchen and back when you are, you know, 85 and want to live by yourself like, I feel like that's such a more powerful message. And I don't know how, I guess I mean, I know how. I mean, because of consumerism and how profitable it is, it's we'd much rather encourage people to hate themselves because they buy so much more crap when they do. Shame on our public health institutions, which could be a lot louder I think about that. And, you know, acknowledging the fact that there's many, many values or benefits to movement, like for your immune system, for everything,
Stephanie Mara 43:54
Yeah, and I'm curious, as you started to build that inner confidence that like, oh, I could lift really heavy things. I'm curious, what else did you notice change for yourself?
DK Ciccone 44:07
I think that I really started to reconnect with my body as part of my power, rather than a liability. And I think I had seen it as a liability for so long. I mean, I had been so angry at it, right? Like, it broke my dreams. It showed up, you know, in this, like, really unhelpful way for a really long time. And I'm like, can't you just get with the program? But, you know, it made me realize, like, how we could be kind of partners. But it also because in that process, I did, you know, overdo it and injure myself. I also learned that, like, I was still trying to push her. It did make it a conversation, I think. And so I have that sort of split second of checking in and being like, okay, I know I said we were gonna do eight of these, but like, are you really okay with eight? Like, it was really helpful to shift it into a partnership. I think that I also had to, I had to become more comfortable with the emotions that were at the heart of moving for me and being okay to be vulnerable in those spaces. And I routinely, like, get emotional in movement spaces. And I'm just like, if you don't want to see a middle aged woman cry, look the other way. But it wasn't like a immediate shift, right? Like, I think since then, it's just been sort of a because then it became, well, what else can I do? And then I picked up jogging again, which I had put down for a long time due to knee pain in my 20s and and I was like, how do I do jogging without, without, you know, making it a punitive thing. And so, you know, like, how do I do this? And how do I do that? And I think again, it just becomes, when you shift the paradigm for the conversation, it opens up a lot of doors, but you have to be ready to kind of do that.
Stephanie Mara 45:52
Yeah, thanks for sharing that. I have experienced something similar in it took me about two years to heal from long covid, and I share that openly here, and my lungs were so kind of took a hit from that that really I could only do about five minutes of yoga when I started to feel like my body was ready to move again. And it was really such a fascinating that first year journey to be able to witness and watch where it was like, okay, I'm just going to do five minutes of yoga. And like, I kept asking, could we do anything else? And it did not want to walk, it did not want to lift weights, it did not want to do anything else but yoga. I was like, okay, I hear you. Sometimes I would just cry on the mat of what I knew, what I remembered how my body could move and how long it could move for, just even crying for what I had to relearn and get to know well, who is this body now that all it can manage is five minutes of yoga that turned into 15, that turned into 30 that eventually got back to my hour long yoga practice, and then slowly opened up into wanting to do other physical movements. But I experienced something similar, as I saw my body's ability grow to be in different movements, that it extended way beyond that of like, oh, I feel like I want to get back out in the world. Like, oh, I feel more like I want to try new things that it started as physical movement in the body, but because of that deep connection of my body can be in movement, it does lend itself to a more bigger picture, so to speak, of like, oh, how do I also extend myself out of my comfort zone, if now my body feels more confident to do other things as well.
DK Ciccone 47:46
Yeah. I mean, so I think ultimately, what I've learned from my experience, but even more so from all the people that I've worked with, is just the incredible hope that exists in the ability of the body to adapt at any age, literally any age. And I think, yeah, it's true, we grieve what we had before. I don't know that that ever goes away, but you can also find joy and solace in the things that become newly nourishing in the body in a way that maybe it wasn't before, but it's now a new explored terrain, and I'm always just encouraged of the stories of people who either felt pain for a really long time and then suddenly are able to do incredible things that they've never done before. Or, you know, lost the ability to do one thing and replaced it with a new you know, couldn't ski anymore or whatever, so now they do the cha, cha or whatever. I mean, I have seen it over and over again that, like, it doesn't really matter when you start. And I do think that there is sort of a generation that was taught to just give up and rest when you're in pain and, like, are starting to learn this new information and go, well, is it too late for me to, like, use my body in that way? And really is never, never is too late. And I think that's what's so beautiful about being in a human body and learning to appreciate that, and also going through healing in the nervous system and seeing what is possible to heal in that regard. And you mentioned it actually earlier, and it just came back into my mind, but I say all the time that all the knowledge that you need to heal is actually within you. That's not to say that we don't need all the clinicians and all the partners and all the wonderful care team members, you know, they offer incredible insight, but like, ultimately, what's going to give you the answers about what your body needs and in terms of what's a safe place to explore movement, you know, through discomfort, to try to get past pain, like it's inside of you. And so until we all turn in and kind of have that conversation, like, chronic pain is not something we're going to be able to address, like there's nothing external to us that can actually really offer that much insight, even all the imaging in the world, it just gives you more things to fear. I mean, imaging is not a bad thing, but, like, there are definitely lots of studies that show people actually kind of spiral down into worse pain symptoms when they see the full picture of what is happening in their tissues because of degenerative changes. And we're starting to wonder, you know, what are we actually offering people when we're giving them so much information and it doesn't change a situation, it just makes them more afraid. That can increase pain 100% and then it increases avoidance of movement. And then when you avoid the movement, then it becomes more scary. And then, I think that that is a hopeful message that, like ultimately, the tools are inside of each of us. It's just that we have to figure out how to listen. And there's everything about our environment is teaching us not to listen. You know, it's not just diet culture, it's everything. It's the barrage of stimuli and the pace at which we move, and the number of human interactions that we're expected to have now compared to 200 years ago, or whatever, anything that we do to try to kind of to be still, to turn in, is going against the grain, but yet, it's really the thing that needs to happen for our healing. And I mean, of course, I don't mean to dismiss anyone who has, you know, a neurological condition where pain is going to keep coming up. I'm really speaking at this point more to people who have, you know, chronic pain that's related to maybe an injury that kind of flares and so on. But you know, the bulk of molecules, musculoskeletal pain is really something that we can, at least, you know, mitigate the symptoms of by having that that conversation. And I've really seen it from all kinds of conditions. I've seen people improve, and I think that that is really beautiful and magnificent, that we spend so much time trashing the aging process and how we adapt. And, you know, our bodies change over time, but like, they also can do incredible things. So I think that that is, you know, you can, like, learn gymnastics at 90. I mean, I've seen, like, all these incredible stories. It's like, think, you know, it's like, the one great thing that's come out of social media is, like, the amazing stories of, you know, folks who have done incredible, inspirational things with their bodies, so I'm glad for that.
Stephanie Mara 52:06
Yeah, so well said, completely agree with everything you just said. And you know, as we move towards wrapping up, usually I like to end with a baby step. And I know you offered the baby step of breaking things down into, like, the smallest, doable movement that you can do. And, you know, I just like to offer people a starting point, especially if they are inspired by this conversation. And I'm wondering if there's any other baby step you would offer someone who's maybe just getting started on yah know healing their relationship with physical movement, or even navigating pain and kind of scared to get back into physical movement.
DK Ciccone 52:40
Yeah. So, I mean, I think my baby steps would be doing the small amount of movement. I mean is obviously, you know, a clear baby step, but doing it in a way that is super mindful and curious. So I think it's a new way of moving where you like do a thing. And it could be a really simple thing, right? It could be sitting down and getting up. It can be rotating your body, and then you sit there with it and go, what was that like? You know, what sensations are coming up for me, you know, almost like a bit of a somatic tracking kind of exercise, where you're just sort of sitting and not judging, but just observing, and then starting to learn that conversation with your body where then you, you know, you try something, you kind of take note of how that felt for you. And then ultimately, what you want to do is you want to build up a toolbox of three to five things that are your refuge toolkit that just feel so great that on the days that you feel crummy, you can do your refuge movements, and that's all you do, and you've nourished yourself and given yourself a little bit of a twist and a stretch and gotten your things moving, you know, and on the days that you're feeling great, you start with your refuge, and then maybe you challenge yourself into something that's closer to a longer term goal for yourself. But really the beginning is learning how to have a conversation with your body about how it felt about certain things an honest conversation. So if that's journaling or taking a voice note, or just some way of kind of tracking, and I think that that can be just really impactful.
Stephanie Mara 54:14
I love that. And so doable just to even, like, stand up and sit down and then notice what that movement was like is such a small place to start, and I know that even for anyone listening that may sound kind of silly like, what's that going to do? But you have to start somewhere when, as we were discussing earlier, when movement has been used to disconnect yourself from yourself, sometimes it is breaking it down into these really small movements of just even twisting your spine and being like, well, what was that like? Did I notice stiffness? Like, how did my body respond to that? How does that feel now after I've done it? So I love that suggestion of just really breaking it down to start to reconnect with yourself in movement.
DK Ciccone 54:57
I think also just kind of taking note of how you generally feel, like head to toe before you do any movement, and then doing it again after. Because a lot of my work, when I start working with people, they'll be very convinced that they're going to feel terrible once we're done. And every time you know, they feel better. Even people, I always say, I've never had a person come in in the middle of a flare up and regret it, because they'll call to cancel, and I'm like, no, you're coming in. If you can get here, we're going to do something. And if you 10 minutes in, you hate it, and you're like, this is worse, then we'll just forget it. And they are always glad. So, I mean, I think it's really important also to kind of build up that positive feedback loop in your mind of kind of, I was feeling, you know, a seven out of ten or whatever, when I started and, like, now I'm a six or five out of ten. So that story I was telling myself about how moving was gonna make me feel worse. You know, I'm if I'm same or better, like, maybe I need to start kind of attacking that story a little bit. So we're really just trying to build evidence. That's how we start.
Stephanie Mara 55:58
Yeah, it's, I talk a lot here about interoception, so learning the felt sense of your body, and that's what I hear you talking about, is that sometimes we have a story about how we will feel, and it's kind of updating the body's story and kind of bolstering and enhancing your interoceptive awareness of actually, when I do these things, this is how I actually feel, rather than the story of how I think I will feel.
DK Ciccone 56:23
100%
Stephanie Mara 56:24
Yeah, well, I love your work, and I feel so inspired by our conversation today, I'm wondering how individuals listening can keep in touch with you and the work that you're doing in the world.
DK Ciccone 56:34
Yeah, thank you. So I mean, I can be found at movementremedies.org. I am currently located in the UK, but I do offer some online classes, and one of them is uses a chair, so it's like seated and standing for folks who find getting on a mat really uncomfortable. And then I also offer some online mat classes, which, you know, I'm happy to offer listeners a free pass to check one of those out. But yeah, DK at movementremedies.org, is the best way to get to me and get that.
Stephanie Mara 57:01
Amazing. I will put all those links in the show notes and just thank you so much for being here and sharing all of your wisdom today.
DK Ciccone 57:07
It was my absolute pleasure. It was lovely chatting with you.
Stephanie Mara 57:10
Yeah, well, to everyone listening. If you have any questions, as always, reach out anytime. I will leave our contact information in the show notes as well. And I hope you all have a satiating and safety producing rest of your day. Bye!
Keep in touch with DK:
Website: https://movementremedies.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/movement.remedies.ltd/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/movement_remedies/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dana-karen-ciccone
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@movementremediesllc
Email: Dk@movementremedies.org
Book: You’re Meant to Move: https://amzn.to/3CSyZem