The Practice Beneath the Practice

I wasn’t planning to write today.

I had fallen down another health rabbit hole, reading about a new protocol and all the reasons it might be exactly what my body needed as I move through my forties.

About halfway through, I caught myself.

Not because the information was bad. Much of it was thoughtful, well researched, and genuinely helpful.

But I realized I was beginning to outsource something that couldn’t be outsourced.

I love science. I love books. I love podcasts. I spend an embarrassing amount of time asking ChatGPT random questions. I genuinely believe we are living in one of the most interesting times in history, where information is more accessible than ever before.

That’s a gift.

The problem isn’t information. The problem is how easily information can convince us that someone else knows our body better than we do.

Every day we’re presented with new studies, new supplements, new movement trends, new experts, and new opinions about what it means to be healthy.

Some of it is excellent. Some of it is questionable. Most of it contains at least a grain of truth.

But somewhere along the way, I think we’ve confused access to information with access to wisdom.

We’ve become incredibly good at collecting answers. I’m not convinced we’ve become equally good at listening.

Most of us aren’t born disconnected from ourselves.

As children, we move because movement feels good. We climb trees, ride bikes, jump on trampolines, dance like no one is watching, and race our friends simply because our bodies want to move.

Before we’re taught how movement should look, most of us already know what it feels like to move with joy.

I know I did.

I spent hours outside on the trampoline. I taught my friends back walkovers in the back yard. My body wasn’t something to fix or optimize. It was simply the way I experienced the world.

Somewhere along the way, that relationship changed.

As I became more serious about athletics, I slowly learned that improvement meant looking outside myself instead of within. Coaches knew best. Pain was something to push through. My changing teenage body became something to manage instead of something to understand.

None of this came from bad intentions. I had wonderful coaches. But they were teaching what so many of us believed at the time. In the 90s and early 2000s, girls were often told what to do with their bodies long before we were taught how to listen to them.

Looking back, I don’t think the greatest loss was my relationship with movement. It was my relationship with myself.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped asking, What am I feeling?

And started asking, What should I be doing?

When I found yoga at twenty-one, everything didn’t magically change overnight. But something profound shifted.

It was the first practice I’d ever experienced that wasn’t asking me to override my body. It was inviting me back into relationship with it. That relationship changed everything.

Ironically, what I discovered wasn’t radically different from what much of the research already suggested. I naturally gravitated toward whole foods. I wanted to move most days. I slept better. I spent more time outside. I found practices that calmed my nervous system.

The behaviors weren’t revolutionary.

The relationship was.

When something becomes deeply felt instead of simply understood, discipline begins to give way to relationship. You don’t spend every day convincing yourself to make healthy choices. You begin wanting to.

Over the years, I realized this way of relating wasn’t reserved just for my yoga practice.

It quietly followed me into the rest of my life.

Running became less about checking off miles and more about sharing trails with close friends as the desert wakes up around us.

Strength training became less about changing my body and more about understanding it.

Nutrition shifted from following rules to asking better questions.

Yoga didn’t stay on my mat. It changed the way I relate to myself.

Recently, I found myself exploring another health protocol. Some of the ideas resonated deeply. Others didn’t.

Years ago, I probably would have felt pressure to follow the entire protocol exactly as written.

Instead, I found myself borrowing what felt true, questioning what didn’t, and staying curious throughout the process.

Not because I think I know more than the expert. But because no expert has ever lived inside my body. That feels like an important distinction.

There’s truth in most things. The challenge is learning which truths belong in your own life.

I don’t believe wisdom comes from finding the perfect expert. I think wisdom comes from learning how to meet good information with a deeply cultivated relationship to yourself.

This isn’t an argument against science. Or research. Or experts. Or AI.

It’s exactly the opposite.

I don’t think the answer is less information. I think it’s a deeper relationship with ourselves as we receive it.

I hope I never stop learning from people who have dedicated their lives to asking thoughtful questions.

They expand the buffet. They introduce possibilities I may never have considered on my own. But they were never meant to replace my discernment. Only refine it.

Because no study can account for your entire life. Your history. Your nervous system. Your relationships. Your joy. Your grief. Your season. Your body.

Those variables aren’t weaknesses in the science. They’re what make you human.

The older I get, the less interested I am in finding the perfect protocol. I’m far more interested in becoming someone who can hear herself clearly. Someone who can remain curious without surrendering her agency. Someone who can learn from everyone without becoming dependent on anyone.

Maybe that’s the practice beneath every practice.

Not learning what to eat. Or how to move. Or which supplement to take.

But learning to hear ourselves well enough that we no longer need someone else to tell us who we are.

Because if there’s one thing I hope every health practice gives us, it’s not another set of rules. It’s a deeper capacity to hear the wisest voice we’ll ever have.

Our own.

Health practices should increase our capacity to hear the body, not replace it. :)

-Shae