You’re Not Broken. You’re Not the Problem.
(And I’m not here to fix you.)
“When we position ourselves as the expert and the patient as the problem, we risk robbing people of their agency in the healing process. That’s not help, it’s hierarchy.” — Chris Johnson, PT
Damn. That one hits hard.
When I first went into PT school, my dream wasn’t women’s health…(wasn’t even on the radar!)
I actually thought I’d be working with spinal cord injuries, stroke patients — “classic rehab stuff.”
I pictured myself diving deep into every little detail, getting my Neuro Clinical Specialty Certification, becoming the expert.
The person at the top of the hierarchy.
The one who knew everything.
Fast forward a couple decades… and life had other plans.
Today, I’m a women’s pelvic health physical therapist, Women’s Health and Orthopedic Clinical Specialist, Certified Running and Weightlifting Coach — working with moms, runners, lifters, women navigating pregnancy, postpartum, prolapse, perimenopause and menopause.
And if I’m being honest?
The biggest thing that changed wasn’t just my specialty.
It was how I see myself in the healing process.
The best parts of what I do now?
They don’t happen when I rattle off a list of exercises and hand you a perfect little plan.
They happen when we sit down together and say:
“Ok. The kids are sick again. Work is blowing up. The daycare called — again. You’re exhausted. You still want to move your body and feel strong. How do we keep progressing with your symptoms AND make this doable, for real life?”
They happen when we talk about how motherhood feels like walking through a minefield every single day — and instead of pretending we’re “bad moms” for not checking every box, we expect the grenades, plan for them, and still find ways to take care of ourselves alongside the chaos.
They happen when we swap war stories about trying to get family support without losing our minds — and learn how to ask for what we need without guilt.
Those are the sessions that change lives.
Because they’re real. They’re messy. And they actually work.
When we work together, here’s what it looks like:
✅ I teach you to notice what’s happening — not just blindly push through.
(You can’t change what you don’t notice. But once you see it, you can’t unsee it — and that gives you power.)
✅ I explain what’s happening in your body — WHY you might be feeling pain, heaviness, prolapse symptoms — so your brain can stop spiraling into “emergency mode.”
(Fun fact: just understanding why symptoms are happening can turn down the volume of the flare.)
✅ We decide together:
- Are you in a season where survival mode is the goal?
- Or do you have a little extra capacity to push and build momentum?
Both are ok.
We meet you exactly where you are.
We build tiny habits, because tiny habits work.
Sometimes that looks like setting your yoga mat down next to the bathroom.
So when you get up to pee in the morning, you walk straight to the mat without thinking about it — and knock out three quick exercises that make your body feel better.
Sometimes it’s scripting the “baby’s awake” plan with your partner:
“If the baby cries in the middle of my second set, you’re on it. I need five minutes to finish.”
(Yes, you can ask for that.
No, you’re not selfish.
You’re building a system that supports everyone.)
We talk about seasons too.
Because sometimes you’re gonna be in a season where the goal is literally:
“How little do I have to do so nobody dies?”
And sometimes you’ll have more in your tank.
Both seasons are real. Both seasons are valid.
I share this story all the time:
When my kids were little, I used to pack my running shoes for every trip.
Not because I was sure I’d get to run.
But because I was practicing hope.
Hope that someday there would be space for me again.
And now?
Now my teenager sleeps late (thank the sleep gods), and I actually get to pack my shoes, plan the route, and go for the run.
It took years to get here.
Years of chaos, missed runs, exhaustion, tiny scraps of self-care.
And because of that, the runs feel that much sweeter now.
The exercises I give you?
They’re not commandments.
They’re experiments.
If they’re too hard, confusing, painful, or just not working — that’s not on you.
That’s on me to adjust, to find a better fit.
You’re not here to guilt trip yourself because you didn’t do your homework.
You’re not a bad patient because an exercise didn’t feel good.
You are the expert of your own body.
I’m here to listen, adjust, collaborate.
Not lecture.
If you didn’t do your homework or an exercise didn’t help, it’s on ME to find what will make exercise consistent with your lift and find exercises that DO help and DO feel good for YOU!
I was taught to be a gatekeeper.
The keeper of “what’s safe” and “what’s dangerous” for women’s bodies.
If you didn’t do what I said?
You were “at risk.”
(Sound familiar? Because that’s exactly how marketing preys on moms…don’t lift in early postpartum, no planks, sit-ups or squats for your diastasis recti or your prolapse! All untrue BTW.)
But the truth is:
I know A LOT…a TON more than I knew 25 years ago. But I don’t know everything, because research still doesn’t know everything.
And the day I finally admitted that out loud to my patients was the day I became a better therapist.
Now?
I lay out everything we know together.
We talk about what can change, what might not.
We prioritize what matters to YOU.
We make a plan.
We stay flexible.
We treat setbacks like information, not failure. (Did I mention no guilt trips?)
If you miss an exercise?
If a strategy doesn’t work?
If your prolapse symptoms flare again?
You don’t have to apologize.
You didn’t do anything wrong.
It’s just feedback.
It just means we look closer, refine the plan, and move forward.
Healing isn’t about grinding yourself into the ground.
It’s about finding the smallest changes that make the biggest difference — and actually feeling the results, so you want to keep going.
Because when healing feels possible — not like a punishment — that’s when you stay consistent.
That’s when you build something real.
🌟 What if healing your body didn’t mean changing who you are — but finally supporting who you’ve been all along?
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