When You Stop Forcing and Start Listening

I’ve been coaching Heather for eight years.

Recently, we filmed a short conversation at my gym Pure Strength NYC here in New York (thank you to Afnan Faiza for capturing it). We’re working on a longer Stories of Strength piece about her journey, but I wanted to share this clip now because of two things she said.

"This work didn’t just change my body. It changed who I allow myself to be. I stopped seeing my body as something to control and started trusting her as the guide I’d been ignoring for years."

And a moment later:

"My back healed when I stopped forcing and started listening. Deep trust became something I could feel in my body, not just think about."

After more than 25 years as a coach, I’m still moved when a student puts an experience like that into her own words.

It would be easy to present a quote like this as a neat before-and-after story. She had back pain, we did the right exercises, and now everything is fixed. That isn’t how it works. And honestly, what happened is so much more interesting!

When Pushing Harder Is Already Your Specialty

Many of the women I work with are already very good at effort.

They’ve built careers, raised children, managed households, and kept going through seasons that asked a great deal of them. Persistence has helped them take care of the people and responsibilities they care about.

The trouble is that it can be hard to tell when that approach needs to change.

When Heather and I began working together in the fall of 2019, she was carrying an enormous amount. She was navigating a demanding, male-dominated corporate environment, caring for her young son and family, and trying to hold everything together without dropping a ball.

In her first week of reflections, she wrote that she felt as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders—and that if she took a second to breathe, everything would fall apart without her there.

She was also dealing with a back that kept going out on her during ordinary, everyday movements.

When you spend your days bracing, solving, and pushing through, it’s very natural to bring that same habit into exercise. You treat the body like another thing to manage. You try to get it under control.

Imagine driving with one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake. Pushing harder takes a lot of effort, but it doesn’t resolve the conflict.

What struck me on our very first day together was what Heather wrote down under her goals. She didn’t write down a weight goal or a punishing fitness target. She wrote two things:

• More awe and respect for her body and where it is right now.

• Less fighting against herself and her body, and more harmony.

She already sensed what needed to change. We just needed a way to practice it.

What "Starting to Listen" Actually Looks Like

"Just listen to your body" is advice that gets thrown around a lot in wellness spaces. It’s a bit like saying “just speak ancient Russian”.

As I wrote in Learn the Skill of Relaxation, that can feel like asking someone to listen to a language they haven’t been taught yet. When your days reward thinking, planning, and getting things done, you may only hear from your body when something hurts or you’re completely exhausted.

Learning to listen requires slowing down enough to notice subtler things.

With Heather, that meant doing the opposite of what most trainers do. Instead of adding more intensity on top of an already overloaded system, we started with simple movements where she could feel supported: Qigong, breathing practices, and floor movements from what I call Primal Energy.

In real life, that didn’t look like a quiet mountain retreat.

Looking back through her early practice notes, it looked like lying on the living room floor while the house was chaotic and letting the earth take her weight for a few minutes. It looked like doing gentle windshield wipers and back rolls before the baby woke up. One Saturday, she wanted to practice the Tai Chi we had explored in our session, couldn’t remember the exact sequence, and decided to improvise anyway because it felt good to move.

I love that detail.

She wasn’t trying to perform a perfect routine for me. She was paying attention to what her body wanted and responding to it.

During one early session, while lifting her right leg, a wave of sadness came over her. Instead of brushing past it or tightening up, she noticed how much her body had been holding. Her reflection afterward was simple: her body wasn’t damaged. It was trying to help.

When we give the body patient, curious attention, the relationship begins to change.

Building Strength From a Place of Safety

Slowing down wasn’t a replacement for getting strong. It was what made real strength training possible.

When someone has a history of throwing her back out, heavy weights or dynamic movements can understandably feel risky. If her body is bracing against the movement to protect itself, adding load only adds tension.

Once Heather began to recognize when she was forcing and when she was supported, we had a foundation we could build on. We worked progressively on squats, step-ups, hinges, planks, and eventually jumping—combining in-person sessions at CompleteBody with virtual check-ins and practices she could adapt at home.

Over time, the back flare-ups stopped. For years now, she has been squatting, jumping, and lifting without injuring herself.

And when a minor ache or busy season does show up, she doesn’t treat it as a betrayal or try to bulldoze through it. She recognizes the signal and adjusts. As we talked about in Stop Confusing Sweat With Strength, there is a big difference between forcing a workout and building a practice that supports your life.

Learning to Take Your Own Side

In another conversation we had while preparing this project, Heather described the biggest change in a phrase I haven’t stopped thinking about.
She called it "learning to finally take my own side.”

That phrase helped inspire my back-to-school piece, The Rest of the Family Has a Back-to-School Schedule. Where’s Yours?. Because for a capable woman who spends much of her day being responsible and available for others, taking her own side isn’t just an idea she decides to agree with.

You can’t think your way into self-trust or healthy boundaries. You have to experience them in your body first.

For some students, that starts with five minutes on the floor where nobody needs anything from them. For others, it includes optional, consent-based supportive touch, or learning to adjust the weight on a lift because today asks for something different than last week.

What matters to me as a coach is watching the work become hers.

When Heather says she stopped seeing her body as something to control and started trusting her as a guide, she’s describing a skill she practiced over years of ordinary days, busy weeks, and honest adjustments.

Heather, thank you for eight years of trust, candor, and willingness to explore. I’m grateful to walk alongside you, and I’m looking forward to sharing your fuller story soon.

A Question for Your Own Practice This Week

When you move this week - whether you’re lifting weights, taking a walk, or stretching on your living room floor - notice one place where you’re working harder than the movement actually requires.

Are you holding your breath? Bracing your shoulders? Rushing through a sticky spot just to get the rep done?

See what happens if you slow down enough to feel the ground underneath you and let your breath lead the next repetition.

If you’re a woman over 40 in New York who’s very good at pushing through AND you’re ready for a more sustainable, grounded way to build strength and energy, you’re welcome to book a free 15-minute Clarity Call. We can start with where you are and identify one practical step that fits the life you’re actually living and see if I might be the right coach for your goals.