A sure-fire way to keep yourself stuck is to keep comparing yourself to your former self, a future version of your self or other people. In this episode, Ellie aims to give listeners a 'firm talking to' about how futile comparison is. If you want to progress with your posture, you can only meet your body where it's at right now. If you're treating your body how it was 30 years ago, treating it how you want it to be in the future or treating it like someone else's body, this is yet another form of disrespect and a lack of self-compassion. Give your body what it needs NOW and you'll progress quickly. Give your body what you've decided you think it needs, and you'll stay stuck. Which do you choose?

Pre-order my book 'Posture Power' now - https://watkinspublishinglinks.com/posture-power

Website - posture-ellie.com

Socials - @postureellie

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Intro theme: Life is Good 2 by Beat Mekanik

When it comes to our posture exercises, many people stumble because they keep pushing for more and won't stop. More exercises, more intensity, more effort ... there's a belief that change will only occur if you're pushing really hard and trying ALL the things. This is totally misguided. As per Posture Commandment No.4 'Don't force anything', you can only move at the pace your body is ready for. Give your body what it wants and accept where you're at, but keep chipping away everyday. This is where you'll make progress. In this episode, Posture Ellie talks listeners through the mental patterns that drive this incessant desire to 'do' and invites you to ask yourself 'why' you need to be busy all the time? Why can't you sit quietly with yourself and enjoy the more relaxing posture exercises? What are you hiding from?

Pre-order my book 'Posture Power' now - https://watkinspublishinglinks.com/posture-power

Website - posture-ellie.com

Socials - @postureellie

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Intro theme: Life is Good 2 by Beat Mekanik

In this episode, Posture Ellie seeks to manage expectations about how quickly you'll make longer-term changes that truly stick. As covered in last week's episode, when an exercise/routine suits your posture, you will know about it right away, as your body will start feeling less tense immediately. However, these changes don't stick for very well because, as soon as you get up, you go back to your old movement patterns and normal habits, and so the tension will wind back up again. It is through repetition, consistency and patience that you will start to notice longer and longer periods of pain-free (or reduced pain) time, but don't expect miracles. This isn't a quick fix, this is true healing. It's also super important to STOP avoidable activities that aggravate your pain ... posture doesn't happen in a vacuum and if you're expecting to carry on running/gymming/whatever-ing whilst your body is screaming at you not to, even if you're doing 30 mins of posture a day, you won't make progress. You've got to take a step back sometimes in order to move forwards.

Pre-order my book 'Posture Power' now - https://watkinspublishinglinks.com/posture-power

Website - posture-ellie.com

Socials - @postureellie

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Intro theme: Life is Good 2 by Beat Mekanik

In this episode, Posture Ellie dives into her 6th Posture Commandment: 'change happens quickly (when you're on the right track)'. Because so many more conventional methods of reducing pain are so symptom-driven (not root cause driven), change doesn't really happen. This warps many people's expectations of how QUICKLY change CAN happen, when you're doing the right thing and finding the root causes. Your body will tell you immediately if it likes what you're doing, so find what it wants you to do (and stop focusing on the bits that hurt or ache). If your pain isn't changing, you're not on the right track .... so change your track until the pain changes!

Pre-order my book 'Posture Power' now - https://watkinspublishinglinks.com/posture-power

Website - posture-ellie.com

Socials - @postureellie

Credits

Intro theme: Life is Good 2 by Beat Mekanik

In this episode, Posture Ellie (tries) to spell out the KEY differential between posture therapy and most conventional methods of reducing pain: symptom chasing is a waste of time and stops us from healing. Most conventional methods treat pain as if the pain (or area of pain) is the problem. Posture Therapy sees pain (or an area of pain) as a cry for help, but not the problem itself. When you can rewire your understanding of this, your whole approach to reducing your pain will vastly change. You'll realise that wiggling your hand might be the thing that fixes your herniated discs!

'Pain Free' by Pete Egoscue is the book I mention and this will really help you get to grips with your posture and your pain.

Pre-order my book 'Posture Power' now - https://watkinspublishinglinks.com/posture-power

Website

posture-ellie.com

Socials - @postureellie

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Intro theme: Life is Good 2 by Beat Mekanik

In this episode, Posture Ellie delves into Posture Commandment No. 4, 'Don't force anything'. Learning not to force, yank, crank or push your body to do things it doesn't want to do, is one of the quickest ways to learn how to respect your body's wisdom and is the basis behind yoga's famous phrase, 'sthira sukham asanam'. This is all about your finding your edge and encouraging challenge, but having the wherewithal when needed. Posture Ellie believes that learning boundaries and respect for yourself in this way during your movement practice, leads to wider psychological changes in learning boundaries and respect for yourself when dealing with other people.

Pre-order my book 'Posture Power' now - https://watkinspublishinglinks.com/posture-power

Website

posture-ellie.com

Socials - @postureellie

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Intro theme: Life is Good 2 by Beat Mekanik

In this episode, Ellie touches upon (just the surface of) how important the breath is and why it's integral to well executed posture exercises. The breath is both a symptom of and remedy to nervous system dysregulation. Many people are chronically breath-holding whilst under stress and many people are chronically mouth and/or over breathing whilst under stress. We don't want our posture exercises to be more stressful for our body and nervous system, and we need to use the breath as a tool to create calm, grounded energy which brings the body into ease and alignment.

The book I mention is Breath by James Nestor. If you're ready for a heavier read, try The Breathing Cure by Patrick Mckeown.

Pre-order my book 'Posture Power' now - https://watkinspublishinglinks.com/posture-power

Website

posture-ellie.com

Socials - @postureellie

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Intro theme: Life is Good 2 by Beat Mekanik

When starting out with posture, one of the hardest things to identify is the differences between 'bad pain' and 'good pain'. Whilst I disagree that any pain is 'good pain' (all pain is merely a warning signal that something is wrong), many clients will use 'good pain' to describe hard work. Hard work is exactly what we want for your body as you move through the posture journey, as you begin to remould and change how it levers itself around. Hard work feels weird, intense and, often, not comfortable ... but it's different to pain!

Pre-order my book 'Posture Power' now - https://watkinspublishinglinks.com/posture-power

Website

posture-ellie.com

Socials - @postureellie

Credits

Intro theme: Life is Good 2 by Beat Mekanik