Pain: The best motivation. The worst motivation.

"I'm bad about exercise....I can't get motivated..." Do these sound familiar?

We are made to move, and the less we move, the quicker we move into feeling bad in lots of ways: physically, mentally and emotionally.

Life's consequences can sneak up on us as we age. 
Suddenly you discover you can't do something you've always done......mine was kneeling.  Through all the years I taught children, I sat on my knees. I just didn't think about it.  And then, a bunch of years after I'd quit teaching, I couldn't.  I'd always had a tweak or two in my knees. But I didn't realize what was happening with them.  I went to PT and got exercises to strengthen the muscles around my knees. It helped.

But what really helped was learning about the route that the weight of my step was taking as it flowed down my legs and rebounded back up. My route was definitely leading to a crash landing!

There's a saying in Aston-Patterning: "The body has a sensitive dependence on initial conditions."
One example of this is that if your foot, with its many joints, can touch the ground in a new and better way, then everything above it will respond in a bigger, and better way.

To take this in the direction of can't-get-motivated, if you experience a way that allows you to move with less pain, and you know how to re-create that experience, then the good feeling in your body will influence the hunger in your mind-set to continue.

That's why getting individual attention to address the many ways your history is affecting your movement is so useful. This includes hands-on bodywork to change tissues that are stuck in the old pattern, and movement re-education with review to help you remember how good it feels to move in the new way.

---