The first time I tried moving intuitively — that is, exercising in a way that honors my physical and psychological needs rather than as a way to control my body and mind — it didn’t feel intuitive at all.
I’d spent so long believing that exercise was a tool to manipulate and fix a body I understood to be imperfect, to shrink it down to a size that fit the world I lived in. As a teenager in the ’90s, I exercised for washboard abs and a thigh gap, then hid myself away under baggy sweats and loose jeans; the way I saw it, there’s was always more to lose.
If I could have exercised my way into oblivion, I would have.
By the time I heard the phrase “intuitive exercise,” I was 29 years old and convinced that I couldn’t listen to my body because it wasn’t talking. In truth, my body was screaming: I’d stopped getting my period, my hair was falling out, I suffered from hot flashes and insomnia.
Deafened by the voice inside my head that insisted that more exercise (and less food) would solve all my problems, I couldn’t hear the cries for help. It took moving halfway across the country for a new job before my intuition found the opportunity to cut through the noise of my inner critic.
Settled in my new home, I backed into the practice of intuitive movement at my neighborhood strength gym. “How are you doing today?” the coaches would ask each member when we arrived. Upon checking in for class, we’d fill out an optional readiness questionnaire that surveyed our energy, mood, focus, stress, hunger, and more. And each workout included options for different movement variations that we “tested” using biofeedback checks like range-of-motions assessments and heart-rate-variability (HRV) tracking.
The entire approach was based on the idea that every stressor — no matter how big or small — pushes us toward either better or worse. What constitutes better or worse one day will not necessarily hold true the next.
At first, it felt like I was outsourcing my training to some invisible, metaphysical force. It seemed as arbitrary as conjuring a jinn to tell me how to work out based on their supernatural whim.
Over time, I grew to understand that I was doing the opposite. I was insourcing my movement to my higher self, the part of me that was in tune with my psychophysical landscape rather than trying to exert control over it.
I’ve been practicing intuitive movement for more than a decade now — and it is no error to call it a practice. Just because something is intuitive doesn’t make it easy. Listening to my body requires paying attention. It requires reminding myself that my body is talking to me. Sometimes the noise of the modern world and my inner childhood critic — both of which hold fast to outdated beliefs that the body must be controlled and fixed and whittled down — threaten to drown out my intuition and disconnect me from myself.
Over the years, I’ve collected a box of tools — a four-part checklist — that helps me reconnect.
1) Check in. Before working out, I ask myself, How am I feeling right now? There was a learning curve to answering this honestly. My default answer is “I feel fine” with a big smile on my face, even when replying to just myself because it seemed like the fastest track to just getting on with my workout. But assessing how I’m feeling physically, emotionally, mentally, and energetically gives me a foundation to start where I am.
2) Start small. I grew up with the idea that a bout of exercise had to be 60 minutes to count, and that anything less wasn’t worth doing. Now, I commit to five- or 10-minute workout “snacks” — mini servings of movement — followed by another check-in: Now, how do I feel? I often feel good and want to continue moving my body. Sometimes I want to change to a different modality. And sometimes I want to stop.
Giving myself permission to heed the call to change direction or call it good has helped bolster my self-trust, making my intuition, once a hesitant whisper, more confident.
3) Find what feels good. I didn’t realize how much I associated exercise with punishment until I challenged myself to move in ways that felt good. If it feels good, it can’t be good for me —right? But a core teaching of intuitive movement is to find pleasure. A workout doesn’t have to be grueling, painful, or feel like a chore to be effective. Suffering is not the only way (or even the best way) to get stronger.
I had to let go of my preconceived notions and judgments around what constitutes the best workout or exercise and give myself permission to feel each movement in my body. At first, as I got used to noticing, I thought everything hurt. This inspired me to explore new activities and experiment with movement variations. Not only did this improve my ability to heed my intuition, but it also made me a better mover and improved my fitness overall.
4) Just do it. On the surface, this famous tagline seems to fly in the face of feel-good, needs-based intuitive movement. Yet it represents one of the biggest stumbling blocks I faced when beginning my intuitive movement journey: I expected my intuition to motivate me to move. But when I listened to my body after a long day of sitting at my desk, it rarely told me to move. Sitting begat a desire to keep sitting. I had a great aha! moment when I realized that inertia isn’t intuition. To move intuitively, I actually have to move.
