For years, exercise was something I did to change myself. To shrink, to “earn” food, to tick off a box that made me feel temporarily worthy. It was all about punishment, not joy… and definitely not connection.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

In this blog post, I want to talk about reclaiming movement: shifting the narrative from discipline to celebration, from shame to self-respect. Whether you’re in recovery, rebuilding your relationship with fitness, or just trying to move in a way that actually feels good again, this is for you.

Let’s unlearn the “no pain, no gain” mentality and rediscover what it means to move because we can, not because we have to.

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There was a time when I couldn’t walk into a gym without scanning the room for who looked the smallest. I couldn’t go for a run without tracking the calories. I couldn’t do a single step without questioning if it “counted.” Movement was transactional. It had rules. It was a currency I used to bargain with my body – and in the end, I always lost.

The truth is, when exercise becomes punishment, it strips away everything it was meant to be. You stop hearing your body and start silencing it. You ignore pain. You push through exhaustion. You chase goals that aren’t yours, just to prove you’re in control. But it’s not control – it’s fear dressed up as discipline.

Recovery asked me to sit with all of that. To let go of the metrics, the apps, the idea that sweat equals success. At first, I couldn’t even hear the word “exercise” without feeling my chest tighten. It felt unsafe. It felt like slipping back into something dark.

So I stopped completely. And honestly, that was necessary. Because sometimes we need to go cold turkey to figure out what we actually want. Not what diet culture told us we should want.

When I did start moving again, it was gentle. It was clumsy. It was quiet. Walks with music that made me feel good. Yoga or pilates on the floor with my cat sat with me. Dancing in my bedroom while I got ready for the day. It didn’t feel like “exercise”… it kinda felt like freedom.

Eventually, I re-entered the gym, but this time, I wasn’t chasing smaller. I was chasing strength. Not just physical strength, but the kind that comes from listening to your body when it says enough. From choosing rest. From staying grounded when your old thoughts tell you to keep going until it hurts.

It took a few attempts to learn to trust myself again, and I’m not saying it was easy. It was incredibly hard, and still something I battle with from time to time. Now, movement is something I get to do. Not something I have to earn. It’s how I say thank you to a body that’s carried me through hell and back. It’s how I process, release, reconnect. There are still days when I slip into old mindsets, but I think that’s normal. But now I have the tools and self-awareness to pause, to ask myself why am I moving today? And if the answer is punishment, I choose differently.

Exercise doesn’t have to be aggressive. It doesn’t have to hurt. It doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s version of fitness. It can be soft, playful, empowering, silly, sweaty, slow. It can be a celebration of recovery, of aliveness, of resilience, of you.

And you deserve that.

Always.