08/10/2026
There’s something a wee bit disorienting about being a Pilates & Yoga teacher & suddenly finding yourself unable to trust, or even control your own body.
My body is usually such a familiar place to me.
I teach through it. I move it. I challenge it. I listen to it. I know what it can do. I always know what I can do.
Then, very suddenly, none of that matters or even applies anymore.
A bowel perforation.
Emergency surgery.
Life-saving surgery.
I went from being someone who is used to doing, moving, teaching & feeling capable in my body… to having to surrender it to surgeons, nurses, medication, healing & time.
I think that loss of control has been one of the strangest parts of this whole experience.
I can’t do anything to move through this experience any faster.
The process is the process & my body is setting the pace now.
That’s incredibly frustrating and I won’t lie, I don’t like it!
Things that were completely ordinary before suddenly feel enormous.
My strength isn’t where it was.
My energy isn’t predictable.
I can’t just decide I’m going to do something & expect my body to come along for the ride, because I’ll probably be wiped out afterwards.
For someone whose work is so connected to movement, strength & physical autonomy, that feels very, very strange.
But perhaps there’s something here for me to learn, too.
We talk so much in Pilates & Yoga about listening to the body, respecting where it is today, letting go of ego & meeting ourselves without judgement.
It turns out those ideas are considerably easier to teach when you’re standing at the front of a class than when you actually have to live them.
Right now, I’m healing, impatient, grateful.
I’m learning that recovery isn’t another thing to achieve.
It looks like rest, accepting help & celebrating tiny bits of progress that the old me wouldn’t even have noticed.
I’m still me.
I’m just learning a very different kind of strength & to live with the fact I’m ‘a mystery’ & this could happen again, as no cause has been found.
❤️🩹
