20/10/2026
I’ve been thinking about agency. Particularly women’s agency over our own bodies.
And how, for me, lifting weights has become a profoundly trauma-informed practice.
I decide how much weight I lift.
I decide how many repetitions I do.
I decide when to push myself, when to rest and when enough is enough.
I am the one making those decisions.
When I lift, I tune into my body.
I feel the weight in my hands. My feet connecting with the ground. The resistance as my muscles respond.
There is something deeply grounding about lifting weights. Something that brings me into my body, into the present moment.
Sometimes I close my eyes and visualise the muscles working. I feel them contracting, releasing, responding.
I count each repetition.
One. Two. Three.
A moving meditation.
I am not thinking about how my body looks.
I am experiencing what my body can do.
I can feel strong.
I can be strong.
I am strong.
And there is something deeply powerful about that.
Because trauma can disrupt our relationship with our bodies. Our sense of safety, our ability to trust what we feel, our experience of choice and control.
For me, lifting weights creates a space to practise those things again.
To feel grounded in my body.
To listen to my body rather than override it.
To make choices rather than have them made for me.
To recognise my strength without needing to prove it to anyone.
I took this photograph today after finishing a set. I’d been sitting with some feelings, reflecting on who I am and what strength means to me.
And I think there is something about moments like these, when we are stripped back, sweaty, vulnerable and present, that allows us to reconnect with ourselves.
Not the person the world expects us to be.
Not the person we’ve had to become to survive.
But the person who is still there, beneath it all.
Who I am - laid bare.
My body. My choices. My strength.
With each repetition - I find power.
I find Spirit …
and I come home.
I worship at my altar.
