Barbara Anderson's Key to Movement Fluidity & Self-Care

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi everyone. My name is Wendy Manganero and I am the host of the Wellness and Wealth podcast. I'm so happy to have you find us and if you could take a moment and hit that subscribe button, I'd appreciate it. This is the podcast where we believe when you show up better for yourself as a woman business owner, you show up better for your business. So sit back, relax and learn from the practical to the woo-woo how to best take care of yourself. Have a great day, stay blessed and leave a review when you're done listening to the show. Thanks so much. Hi everyone. Today we have the topic of how to transform painful movement into easy, comfortable movement, and our Barbara Anderson joins me. I'm going to read Barbara's bio and then we'll get right into it. Barbara is a movement specialist currently teaching online classes in yoga, beginning through advanced levels and the Belden Christ method of functional integration and awareness through movement. Teaching people to move better has been her passion and profession for 35 years. Whether it's big, active movement that builds fitness and strength, or slow, small, gentle movement that leads to increased body awareness and deep release, she loves it all. As a Belden Christ practitioner, barbara is partial to the profound effects that slow, small and gentle movement can have in leaving pain and improving performance. Her clientele is mainly women over 60. Together they move younger every year. Welcome, barbara. Thanks for coming on the show.

Speaker 2: 1:35

Hi, I'm delighted to be here.

Speaker 1: 1:38

And I love the end of your bio where it says together we move younger every year. That's awesome, that's a great line. So I'd love to know from you what does being able to move easily and comfortably mean to you To me.

Speaker 2: 1:52

It may mean more than it would mean to somebody who's just getting into this, but let's see if I can put it in words that make sense. I want my shoulders comfortable. I want my arms to be able to swing easily with my legs when I walk. I want my neck and my head to be able to turn easily. I want to easily get up and out of the chair down to the floor. These are like everyday functions. I want to be able to walk. I love to walk. I love doing yoga. There's not much movement I don't like, so I want to be able to do all of those things with a fluidity, with a natural fluidity, Maybe a little bit like a cat moves. That kind of I'm good, I want that.

Speaker 1: 2:38

I love that and I do know from all age levels that sometimes doesn't happen. And I'd love to know how does non-movement start in women? Because I think when we're young we move and then as we age it stops. So what's been your experience when you talk to women about why they stopped moving?

Speaker 2: 2:57

I think they get too busy really and it's just not a focus. But I think also there is a tendency in the way we now look at our bodies and look at movement that it's all outside If somebody else should fix this, if I have pain and I'm supposed to look good I think that's probably stage one and as it moves along it becomes oh, what happened to my neck? Oh, why can't I get up and down stairs? And again, I think that fluidity that comes from staying in touch with your movement and with your body gets lost when you're running and trying to do a million things and live up to some ideal of I'm supposed to look like this as opposed to oh, my neck doesn't feel good. I really enjoyed your guest that is talking about relationship, marriage counseling, and it's really so much like that. I was walking when I heard her talk and I thought it's like you lose touch. You didn't know you were supposed to have an internal relationship with your body. That would be something. That was two ways you could feel what you're doing and go ah, this is good, this isn't good, it just piles up over time and then it's almost like you need a marriage counseling to go over. What's the deal? Your shoulder's not happy, your neck's not happy. Let's start to bring a connection back, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 4:37

Yeah, it certainly does. So I know you've been helping people for a long time, but has there been thoughts in your journey that you found it harder and you didn't realize that you were slipping and not moving with ease and comfort?

Speaker 2: 4:51

I'll tell you how I got started. I started dancing when I was 26, which that's 20 years late, but I loved it. I loved it so much and early on I had a back spasm that led to cortisone shots and walking like a pretzel. And finally, someone who wanted to fuse my spine and put Harrington rods in my lower back and I was in graduate school in dance and it was like no, I don't think that's a good idea. And someone taught me a little bitty, tiny movement of the rocking my tailbone. That released that chronic tension in my lower back and I practiced that for about three months, 15 minutes a day, not that much, but I did and it changed how I stood and how I moved and so I never had a back problem in 40 years or something After that. I have great respect for the awareness part of movement and when something starts hurting, I think step one is to deny it often. But that's okay. And I did have some times because I ended up having not a back problem but need for a hip replacement, probably from bad instruction, because I was so mobile and I hadn't developed the support system to protect my hip in yoga. And anyway, it's a continuum where we all have a different relationship with our body and with pain, and a lot of people just don't know that there are things you can do for yourself that are soft and gentle and can retrain those places that are whatever you might call them stiff, stuck, inflexible, frozen, tense. There are ways of dealing with this. That then becomes more of an internal relationship with your body.

Speaker 1: 7:00

I like that you're talking about this because, right, and I even know for me. So I was a dancer and I had surgery on my hand and I don't know what correlation but I just stopped dance because I couldn't move the way I did when I was younger. And I know from that, as I've gotten older I have to be mindful about stretching. I know because I will feel my whole body tense up and I'm like what is this? And it's because of it, a lot during the day I have to frequently get up, stretch and lose. And so I know, for me I didn't realize it until probably two years later. I was like, why did you stop dancing? And it was because I just never felt like I got the movement back and it was a little stiff, but it just changed where my wrist could bend and that was it. And so I've always babied it more since then. But it's an interesting thing because you don't think anything of it. You're like, oh, the perfect, this little thing, and then it really can throw off. How do you feel about yourself in other areas? And I was young and I didn't know any better. Yeah, I didn't know any better.

Speaker 2: 7:59

Either I just happened to walk into one lesson with one woman I don't even know her name and applied that, but I do think that happens a lot, that my knees aren't good, I'll just stop doing steps or and it does seem to somehow people get in their minds that it's one body part instead of how are we going to do this fluidly through the whole body? One of the phrases that I use is move like a kid again, and I honestly think people can move very well at very advanced ages.

Speaker 1: 8:42

Which is very against what most people think. I know it's so funny. I have an uncle who was only 14 years older than me who used to say to be walking me in a wheelchair when I'm old, we have the expectation of what aging has to be that we're not going to be able to move, that you were supposed to slow down and live in this non-movement lives as we get older.

Speaker 2: 9:06

Yeah, I guess I didn't get that or I ignored it one or the other, but I know a lot of my clients are quite afraid that they're going to have this same there in their 60s and 70s, but they're afraid that they're going to have the wheelchair and all of these things that they watch their parents go through, and I don't think it has to be like that and I think you can learn to move better really at any age. I didn't make that up. Well, shea Feldigray said that. He said as long as you have a nervous system which means you're not dead, you can learn, and you can learn in terms of movement. You can change and learn to move better, and I'm totally in for that.

Speaker 1: 9:53

So I'd love to know for you what are the warning signs that someone, especially if you're an entrepreneur who sits a lot based on what you do that you could use more movement Because, as you were talking about, it seems like it's a symptom or a body part, but maybe it's more than that.

Speaker 2: 10:07

It occurs to me. You can think in terms of the habit. The longer you repeat the habit, the stronger it is. So then suddenly it's not age, it's how many years you repeated the habit, which does not mean you can't learn, it's something better. But there is this kind of built in now where this is how we do things. You have to again. It goes back to having a relationship with your body. But what would be some of the early signs? I know a woman in her very early 40s and her neck and shoulders it's like I tell my boyfriend every day rubbed on it and it doesn't get better because someone rubs them. So that's an early sign right there, little pains that you're ignoring. That could very well need some attention. You get that early on in the pattern. You know, just like me with my lower back, I changed that pattern. I've had 40 years of comfort as opposed to getting worse. Other things breathing breathing is a big deal. Maybe now a lot of sitting with the head forward that's enough to that changes the upper back muscles so much and it works them so hard that they freeze up just to carry the weight of your head. So working with that relationship can really make a big difference over time. Don't set it in stone, we don't want that. But then you start to little things like. You start to notice that your jaw hurts a little bit and you think that's not a big deal, and maybe it's not, but it definitely relates to your neck, your shoulders and your breathing, for that matter. So what are the early signs? That's a really good question, because I honestly I hear from people in their 30s that are having like severe lower back pain and then they go out and lift 150 pounds and then they do really well, except then pretty soon the pain starts again and they're down for a couple of months. So that would occur to me to be an earthly thought right there. Yeah, that kind of thing I would say.

Speaker 1: 12:28

Yeah, and I agree with you. I think that there is something and it does happen in our 30s that we start to ignore them or we think we're invincible and as we get older we go oh, that wasn't the greatest thing and that more profound the issue. And as you were talking, you said something and I was like oh, I've done that because I fit a lot. And I worked over my desk where I've had a jaw problem and I was like why can I not suddenly open my mouth? And I had to go to physiotherapy for months just trying to redo my jaw. And they said to me then you had to learn how to redo all of this so that your back, neck muscles aren't like that. And I went from oh, my jaw is cracking, that's weird. And then within a couple of weeks it was like oh, my jaw is not moving, I can hardly open it. And that's like, all right, maybe I need to go to the doctors because you'll bring some silly things that you just think that you're going to get over and not pay attention to. So for someone who does not move greatly actually for those entrepreneurs like me I had to really learn to get up and move and stretch and not fit for a long period of times like I used to. What's the first step to starting to do those stretches, without overdoing it too, because, as you said, you'll get better, you'll go with the 150 pound thing and then your back hurts again. So what's like for somebody who doesn't move regularly, what can be some first steps that they can take that will help start to ease them into it?

Speaker 2: 13:54

Okay To answer that. I got to tell you what I think is the usual way people think about stretching. They think there's one muscle that they have to force to do something, and I don't use that word because that's the connotation. I'm going to make this different and I'm pretty sure that never works. I'm pretty sure, with the neck in particular, you do it and you do it, but does it really change? It just gets you by to the next day at best. So there's a relearning process that has to go on and the first step in that is to realize some of what you are doing, to become aware. And then to be in a situation like in the awareness movement classes is where I find it again and again that's the Fulton Christ classes that I have a different experience and over the hour there's more ease. I didn't know that was related and turning my head was related to my ribs, but now my ribs are moving and my neck feels better. So there's this way where it's not one muscle but it's the function of the whole, and there's a bunch of value in slowing down enough to feel that, because it's like we're all hyped up generally, especially when there starts to be discomfort in the body. I think usually most people want to push that away. Some people want to just milk it for all it's worth, but most people don't. They want to go. Oh, I don't feel that, I don't feel that. So I think step one is to feel it and then slow down enough to become deeply aware and to begin to move and feel and introduce more new experiences. And then, after you've done that lying on the ground or sometimes sitting then you start to notice in your everyday life it starts to be of value. Oh, what am I feeling? Because most of the time that conversation between the body and the active person it's not a good conversation, there's not two-sided listening, so some of it is restoring that. What am I feeling? Oh, I felt that how could I recreate a little bit of that? And then you stick with it over time and you do change the pattern and then you realize I could improve so many things. This could feel better and better. So I hope that answered your question. I got a little carried away there.

Speaker 1: 16:43

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely, and I do think that's the first thing. It's like you have to admit that you might have an issue. That's always a good first step, because most people are in the ignore stage, especially women or, I think, a lot of times with us we just don't think we have time. I agree. Yeah, it's such a time issue, especially when our kids are young or we're new in our career. We just start to give to everybody else that we stop realizing that maybe I've stopped doing, that I could take care of myself, I'm going to be able to really take care of other things in my life.

Speaker 2: 17:17

In the end you're going to pay for it 10 times over If you ignore it. Is surgery not going to take time? But I understand. I raised a little boy and had a full-time business and a home and aging parents and all of that. But it's going to catch up with you. Sometimes it can be as much as 15 minutes a day. I think of mindful movement, meditation. It can be your meditation time.

Speaker 1: 17:46

I love that, and I do think that it is about knowing you're worth enough to give yourself 15 minutes a day. It can be a really big deal. I think it's been a lovely conversation. I know you have a offer that you'd like to share with our audience.

Speaker 2: 17:59

Yeah, it's been delightful. I do have an offer on my website, bodyansolkccom, and a little bit of information about what awareness-based movement is, and then I also have an offer of a free class there If you would like to come and try a yoga class or an awareness-driven class, and I have a couple of classes that are up on Thrive Cards. You can get them from Thrive Cards. I'll put that information in here. One is called the End of Kents and Herding Neck and Shoulders how to Relax and Enjoy your Shoulders in your Neck and then the other one is a live class on Zoom and it's called Happy, healthy Hips and Lower Back. That is very fun for me.

Speaker 1: 18:48

Thank you so much, Barbara, for being with us today. It's been a delightful show. Thank you. If you love what you heard today, please leave us a review and make sure you're subscribed for other self-care tips that the weeks go along In the meantime, have a Blacks and Abundant Week.