What My Postpartum Body Is Teaching Me About Healing (and Therapy)
Recently, my back went out.
Or I threw my back out.
Or my back went into spasm.
Whatever language you use—that happened to me.
And if you know… you know…it is an awful thing to happen.
And it happened at the office right before a session. God bless the client that legit sat with me on the floor while I stabilized and waited for adam to come help me up and to the car.
And it wasn’t the first time.
In college, throughout my 20s, and well into my 30s, this was a familiar pattern. I was a dancer and musical theater performer, spending long days rehearsing, performing in three-inch heels, kicking my face in choreography, waiting tables, hauling bags with shoes and binders and a change of clothes all over New York City. It all did a number on my body, especially my back.
But back then, I didn’t know the whole story.
The pain wasn’t just “my back.”
It was my psoas, my glutes, my core, my posture, my nervous system, my lifestyle. and my stabilizers all trying to compensate for each other.
Eventually, after dating my husband for a while he was like “ this is unacceptable for you to be living with this much pain this young.” He helped me find a chiropractor who truly taught me that my symptoms were part of an interconnected system. Once I rebuilt my core and functional strength, I lived pain-free for years. Grateful for Dr. Ryan Price at High Class Chiropractic…
And then, two weeks ago—postpartum—my back went out again.
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Pregnancy: The First Big Shift
What’s important to say here is that my body didn’t arrive at this moment randomly.
Pregnancy was an extreme strain on my system.
I was sick for nearly seven of the nine-ish months—really sick. Nausea, blood sugar issues, weakness, hormones doing who-knows-what. I wasn’t moving the way I used to. I wasn’t eating normally because I couldn’t. I gained a significant amount of weight—not from cravings or overeating, but because my body was in survival mode. My metabolism changed, my activity level changed, my hormones changed.
My body was doing the sacred work of growing a human, and it dramatically shifted how I moved, how I stabilized, and how I functioned.
Then came the C-section—major abdominal surgery. Unplanned and so upending. So grateful for it in the end because we are both well and safe but WOW.
Then the newborn months—constant nursing, lifting, rocking, leaning, holding, soothing. Then the sleep deprivation, the hormones, the emotional load, the identity shift.
All of this changed the architecture of my body.
No amount of “bouncing back” thinking could change the truth:
I am not living in the same body I lived in before pregnancy. And that’s not a failure. It’s a reality.
And now, when I’m experiencing pain and spasms and instability, I can trace it back to what my body has carried, endured, adapted to, and survived.
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Where Therapy Comes In: Mind–Body Parallels
The more I pay attention to these physical symptoms, the more I see the exact same patterns I work with in therapy every day:
Significant life experiences—good or bad—shift our internal functioning. How we think, feel, believe and behave.
Just like pregnancy transformed how my core works, how my posture stabilizes, and how my muscles compensate…
loss, grief, trauma, transitions, identity shifts, relationship changes—and yes, even beautiful things like having a baby—transform our emotional and mental functioning.
We often expect ourselves to “just keep going” or “bounce back,” not realizing that our system has fundamentally reorganized itself.
When something major happens to us:
• our stabilizers get tired
• our protectors jump in
• our nervous system shifts
• our emotions rewire
• our capacity changes
• our coping mechanisms compensate
Just like a body trying to stabilize a weakened core, our inner world tries to stabilize around whatever has changed.
This is not dysfunction.
This is adaptation.
This is intelligence.
This is resilience.
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Listening to What Has Happened to You
What I know now—both personally and professionally—is that healing requires acknowledging the full picture:
🧡 What has my body gone through?
🧡 What has my mind and heart been carrying?
🧡 What systems have been strained, stretched, or overwhelmed?
🧡 Where am I compensating because something at the core needs support?
Pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum, and motherhood changed the way I move.
They changed my center of gravity.
They changed my core strength.
They changed my nervous system.
They changed my emotional landscape.
They changed my entire lived experience.
So the symptoms I’m feeling now—pain, spasms, tightness—are not random. They’re the natural result of what I’ve been through.
And this is exactly what I invite my clients into in the therapy room:
Take a moment to acknowledge what’s happened.
Acknowledge how it has affected your mind, your body, your emotions, and your behaviors.
Then begin the slow, intentional work of rebuilding your core strength—inside and out.
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Rebuilding the Core (Body + Mind)
So right now, I am stepping into a new season where I’m taking my body and mind more seriously—not from a place of perfection or pressure, but intention.
I’m relearning functional movement.
I’m rebuilding my core.
I’m supporting my stabilizers.
I’m listening to my symptoms.
I’m treating my body with curiosity rather than criticism.
Because I want to live with less pain.
I want to be more present.
I want to feel like I’m inhabiting my body with strength and compassion.
And this is also what we do in therapy:
We help people understand the story of what happened to them,how it shaped them, how it changed their functioning, and how to gently, intentionally rebuild inner strength—the kind that helps them move through the world with stability, presence, and freedom.
The body isn’t separate from the mind.
The mind isn’t separate from the story.
The story isn’t separate from the system.
It all belongs.
It all matters.
And it all can heal.
We would be honored to hear your story and help you find your core again.
