The pole dancing studio was full of women spinning upside down like it was nothing, and I couldn’t even hold myself up for three seconds.
I’d just walked into Sisters in Motion in San Francisco feeling completely out of place. Three pregnancies had changed my body in ways I couldn’t predict or control. I felt disconnected from my physical self, critical of every stretch mark, frustrated by how different everything felt.
My first class was humbling. I couldn’t hold myself up. My arms shook. I watched women in their 50s do moves I couldn’t imagine my body ever doing. I thought I was too old, too out of shape, too late to start learning something like this.
But something happened over those first few weeks that changed more than my relationship with pole dancing. It changed how I show up in every difficult conversation I facilitate.
The Body I’d Been Fighting
For years after my third pregnancy, I’d been treating my body like it owed me something. It didn’t bounce back. It didn’t look like it used to. It refused to meet some standard I’d internalized about what a woman’s body should be.
I avoided mirrors. I wore clothes that hid rather than fit. I moved through the world trying to take up less space.
When I walked into that pole dancing studio for the first time, I was carrying all of that. The self-criticism. The comparison. The constant mental commentary about what my body couldn’t do.
The instructor, a woman named Jennifer with muscular arms and an easy confidence, smiled at me. “First time?”
I nodded, suddenly aware of every way my body felt wrong for this space.
“Good,” she said. “You’re going to learn things about your body you never knew were possible.”
I didn’t believe her.
Learning to Notice Without Judging
The first few weeks were exercises in humiliation. Or at least that’s how it felt in my head.
I’d try to pull myself up the pole and my arms would shake so badly I’d have to let go almost immediately. I’d attempt a simple spin and end up tangled and confused. I’d watch other women float into moves that seemed to defy gravity while I struggled with the basics.
But Jennifer kept saying something that started to shift my perspective: “Notice what your body is doing. Don’t judge it. Just notice.”
When my arms shook, instead of thinking “I’m too weak,” she’d say, “Your arms are working hard. That’s good. That means they’re getting stronger.”
When I couldn’t hold a position, instead of “I can’t do this,” she’d redirect: “Where do you feel the challenge? What’s your body telling you about where you need to build strength?”
This was completely different from how I’d been talking to myself for years.
I started paying attention to what my body could do right now, in this moment, instead of comparing it to what it used to do or what other bodies were doing.
My arms shook because they were learning new strength. My core trembled because it was engaging muscles I’d forgotten existed. My hands hurt because they were building the grip I’d need later.
Each sensation was information, not failure.
The Moment Everything Changed
Six weeks in, something shifted.
We were learning a climb that required you to grip the pole with your hands and feet in a specific way, then pull yourself up using mostly legs and core strength. I’d been trying this move for two weeks and could barely get a few inches off the ground before my arms gave out.
But this particular day, I stopped thinking about whether I could do it. I stopped watching the women who made it look easy. I just focused on what Jennifer had been teaching: one hand, then the other, engage my core, grip with my inner thighs, push up.
And I climbed.
Not gracefully. Not easily. But I climbed all the way to the top of that pole. My arms shaking, my breathing ragged, sweat dripping down my face. When I reached the top and looked down, I couldn’t believe I’d done it.
Jennifer caught my eye and smiled. She didn’t make a big deal of it. She just nodded, acknowledging that I’d discovered something I’d been looking for.
I realized I’d spent years thinking about my body as something that owed me something. It didn’t bounce back the way I expected. It didn’t look like it used to. It refused to meet some standard I’d internalized. But my body had created three humans. It had healed itself three times. It had kept going through exhaustion and change and everything I’d asked of it.
And now it had climbed a pole I didn’t think it could climb.
What My Body Had Been Trying to Tell Me
That night, something Jennifer said during cool-down stayed with me: “Your body knows things your mind doesn’t want to admit.”
I’d been so disconnected from my physical self that I’d missed what it was trying to tell me. The tension I carried in my shoulders. The way I’d cross my arms when I felt uncomfortable. The tightness in my chest when conversations got difficult.
These weren’t just random physical reactions. They were my body’s way of communicating what I was feeling before I’d consciously acknowledged it.
This realization would deepen years later in Paris, when I studied the Alexander Technique.
When the Alexander Technique Showed Me My Tension
It was the winter of 2023, one of the coldest I can remember. Each week, I’d bundle up and make my way to the 11th arrondissement of Paris, to a modest ground-floor studio where my instructor, a man in his seventies, guided me into the subtle world of the Alexander Technique.
The Alexander Technique teaches improved posture and movement by helping you unlearn harmful physical habits and develop awareness of how you use your body in everyday activities.
Each session lasted two hours. The exercises seemed deceptively simple. One week, he asked me to pick up a glass of water, encouraging me to use only the muscles absolutely necessary for the task.
Over and over, I reached for the glass, each time noticing how much tension I carried in my shoulders, neck, and even jaw.
“Why are you working so hard?” he’d ask gently. “Let go of what isn’t needed.”
Bit by bit, I became more attuned to my body. I began to notice not just the unnecessary tension in my movements but how my emotions lived in my muscles. When I crossed my arms in discomfort, my teacher guided me to relax, uncross, and explore the openness that followed.
By the end of each session, I felt lighter, as if my body and mind had been reset. But reentering the noisy world outside the studio was always a shock. The cacophony of Paris seemed unbearably loud. Every detail was magnified: the rush of cold air on my face, the rhythm of my footsteps on the pavement, even the weight of my coat pressing on my shoulders.
My heightened awareness felt like a double-edged sword, enriching but overwhelming. It wasn’t until much later that I learned how to embrace this sensitivity without letting it consume me, how to notice everything and yet let it pass without clinging to it.
Now I can notice subtle cues in my own body. Crossing my arms when I feel uncomfortable. Tensing my neck during moments of disagreement. These small physical reactions, though seemingly insignificant, influence the energy of a conversation.
Once I become aware of them, I have the choice to adjust: to uncross my arms, relax, or shift my posture.
I came to notice that these small adjustments often ripple outward. When I uncross my arms, the other person sometimes mirrors the gesture, signaling a subtle opening to dialogue. Relaxing the tension in my neck often softens my facial muscles, which can lead to a more relaxed expression in the other person.
The Alexander Technique taught me about my body: the subtle tensions, the unconscious habits, the physical signs of what I was feeling inside. But my journey into awareness was just beginning. Alexander showed me the body. Vipassana would show me the mind.