Working with the Body

Work With Your Body, Not Against It

On the friends who showed me what a vibrant life looks like, the quiet genius of a body built to heal, and learning to support it instead of fighting it.

I just read a Facebook post from a friend who’s on her way to the hospital to have her first baby. What a tender, exciting moment in a life! It made me think of her mother — a dear friend of mine, too — who’s about to become a grandma. Life moves so quickly. What felt, years ago, like an endlessly long trial — all that searching for answers to my health — looks so much shorter now, set against all the living I still have ahead.

Two friends who taught me what “alive” looks like

I have a friend who runs marathons, bikes year-round (yes, in the snow), kayaks, skis on snow and water, hikes, and mountain bikes with such abandon that she’s broken bones in her face, her arm, her ribs. And she is radiant — overflowing with energy, laughter, love, and enthusiasm every single day. She keeps doing what she loves, right through the hard parts.

Another friend, from my old dance company, is a grandmother now — and her daughter is a professional boxer, a real one, who steps into the ring looking almost like a ballerina and hits like a freight train. That whole family eats from their garden; they even grind up their avocado pits and food scraps to feed the soil. My friend is in her late sixties, and honestly, you’d never guess it — she has the vitality of someone half her age. Every morning she walks out her back door, which opens right onto the mountain, and heads off for a brisk hike of several miles.

So where does all that energy and life come from? For a long time I told myself, simply: it’s the food. And food IS a huge part of it. But watching them, I’ve come to see the fuller truth — it’s a whole vibrant way of living, all woven together: bodies in constant, joyful motion; hours spent outdoors; real food straight from the earth; and hearts full of love and enthusiasm. You can’t bottle just one of those. It’s all of it, at once.

At dance rehearsal, when the oldest in our group turned sixty-five, someone brought a silly “over the hill” diaper, and she gamely put it on while we gathered around, laughing, for the photo. The sweetest part? She stood there surrounded by dancers decades younger — and she belonged right in the middle of us. What a memory.

So whenever I hear someone chalk every ache up to “getting old,” my mind goes to my dancing friend — and to Martha Graham, who performed into her mid-seventies and kept choreographing into her nineties.

Age, I’ve decided, has as much to do with how we live as with how many years we’ve counted.

The quiet genius of a body built to heal

At the School of Natural Healing, I’ve learned to notice something I used to miss: how hard the body works to heal itself. A fever, some inflammation, deep tiredness that begs you to rest — so much of what feels like “something’s wrong” is actually the body doing its work. And sometimes, in our rush to feel better right now, we get in its way.

Now, that doesn’t mean ignoring real problems or skipping the doctor — please hear me clearly on that, especially for anything serious. It means partnering with your body: giving it rest, water, real food, movement, and sunlight, so it can do what it was so beautifully designed to do. Work WITH your body, not against it.

One important word: supporting your body’s healing and getting good medical care are teammates, never rivals. Rest, nourishment, and calm belong alongside your doctor’s help — for anything serious, please never choose one instead of the other.

Sun, earth, water, and breath

I’ve come to see the ordinary gifts all around me differently.

I look at the sun as a blessing — sensible time in it helps our skin make vitamin D and genuinely lifts our mood and spirits in a way this weary world sorely needs. (Sensible is the key word: enough to feel warm and well, never enough to burn.)

I look at the earth differently now, too — and here’s the part that delighted me, because the science is real. Spending even fifteen to thirty minutes outdoors — walking barefoot in the grass, sitting in a garden, standing in freshly turned soil — measurably lowers cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone, and raises the feel-good chemicals in the brain. Researchers have taken to calling it a “nature pill.” So when I slip off my shoes, walk through the grass, and feel something in me settle and go quiet, that’s not my imagination. That’s my nervous system exhaling.

And I’ve come to treasure plain water and breath — nothing exotic, just the simple, well-proven things: drinking enough good water, and slow, deep breathing in fresh air, which truly calms the body and clears the mind. That steadiness is its own kind of medicine.

Which brings me back to my friend, on her way to meet her baby.

By now she’s likely breathing through contractions, working to stay calm — and that calm is doing something real. A relaxed body can feel its own rhythms and move with them; a panicked, clenched one fights itself and hurts all the more. Birth may be the clearest picture there is of the whole idea: trust your body, breathe, and work with it.

So here is my gentle encouragement, whatever you’re facing today. Breathe — you think more clearly when you’re calm. Listen to your body. What is it telling you? What is it already doing to heal you, and how can you help? Give it rest, water, sunlight, movement, and real food — and for anything serious, give it a good doctor, too. All of that is working WITH your body.

And please, try not to clog it up with food it doesn’t even recognize. I picture my cells meeting a load of processed particles and sighing, “Hmm… I don’t have time for this right now — let’s just coat it in fat and tuck it away to deal with later.” Don’t hand your body a pile of hmm’s. Give it some big, grateful ahhhh’s — the real food it knows exactly what to do with.

My thoughts are with you.

“What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost…? …therefore glorify God in your body.” - 1 Corinthians 6:19–20

With much love,

Steffanie

A note on sources: The “nature pill” findings — that 20–30 minutes in a natural setting significantly lowers cortisol and supports mood — come from research summarized by Harvard Health, UCLA Health, and the Cleveland Clinic (and a University of Michigan study in Frontiers in Psychology). Time outdoors is also linked to lower blood pressure and reduced anxiety. This post reflects our family’s personal approach to wellness and isn’t medical advice; for any health concern, please work with a qualified provider — supporting your body and getting good care go hand in hand.