When we become parents, taking care of our bodies becomes a luxury. We can really struggle to find the time, childcare and even the budget to exercise.

Once we step into motherhood and find ourselves living in uncertainty most of the time, and we realise that we can’t get much done with the total unpredicatability of everyday, and we are pushing through the discomfort of daily chaos and messiness, and realise most of it is not in our control, it becomes too much to even think about exercise, and building a consistent exercise routine seems totally unattainable.

The way around this is to start small. Very small. Once you have worked on rebuilding your foundations, like your core and pelvic floor, you can begin to build up exercise slowly over time. We can get to where we want to be by taking consistent small actions.

After the birth, I didn’t feel safe in my body, because the experience felt very alive in my skin and in my bones for a long time. I lost confidence in my body. Yet, I have always felt a need to sweat and to raise my heart rate to feel alive, and I couldn’t wait for that feeling after having ilan.

Learning to go slowly was completely new to me, but it has transformed my life, and I am so grateful for what my slow recovery taught me.

I understand the feeling of impatience to rediscover our bodies and the rush to feel strong in our bodies again. I know we once used to jump and run and stretch freely. I can see how much we want to feel our bodies back, but slow and steady is the healthy way.

Six months after the birth, I started by jumping on my bike once/week for 10 minutes. I slowly added a second ride. After three months I did 15-20 minute rides. By the time ilan turned one, I did 3 rides/week. Now I’m fully committed to 6 days/week of exercise, and one of my weekly rides is 2 hours long.

Taking it slow and steady can lead us into feeling even stronger, jumping higher, running freer and stretching deeper. More importantly, it allows us to appreciate our bodies more than ever before.

The more I built consistency with my exercise routine, the more I realised that it allows me to deal with the uncertainty, unpredictability, lack of control and the messiness and chaos of motherhood.

I’ve learnt along the way that consistency in motherhood looks entirely different. Like Shakira Akabusi says, “it’s not about not changing your routine or never taking time off, we have to make routines flexible throughout motherhood, it’s about staying consistent with your goals and mindset.”

Pregnancy and birth teach us that our bodies are capable of absolute magic and miracles. We must honour that, and trust that our bodies will heal at their own pace, gently, with love and care.

Join my free post natal yoga therapy class

10:45 am - Tuesday 5th March

It’s a free class because there will be a photographer at the beginning taking a few pics & clips