Let me say this right up front. If you’ve ever thought, “I know I should move more, you don’t need to tell me that, but I’m afraid it’s going to make things worse,” you are not alone.
That fear makes a lot of sense. If movement has hurt you in the past, your brain remembers that, and it doesn’t forget easily. I lived that way for a long time. Movement didn’t feel helpful. It felt risky.
When Doing Less Seems Like the Answer
There was a time when I started avoiding all movement, because every time I tried to do more, my pain seemed to get worse. It’s a real fear, and it’s real pain. So I thought, well, maybe the answer is just to do less. It hurts, so do less.
That makes sense from the outside, and it makes sense to your brain and body on the inside. I wasn’t being lazy. I was trying to protect myself. I was trying to be careful.
But over time, as I rested more and more, something started happening. I got stiffer and more sore. I got weaker, and I became a lot more sensitive to pain. Even small things started to feel harder. My pain overall wasn’t getting any better, and I remember thinking, “Even this isn’t helping.”
I was stuck between two options, and that black-and-white thinking is exactly where the brain tends to go. Either “do, do, do” and suffer the consequences, or “rest, rest, rest.” The first felt right short-term but wasn’t. Neither one was actually the right solution.
Why the Brain Turns Movement Into a Threat
There’s a reason this was happening.
The brain starts to associate certain movements with danger. Sometimes, even when no actual harm is occurring, the brain connects what’s happening now to what happened in the past. Expectations are powerful. Your brain and body are simply trying to protect you.
For me, it wasn’t just “this movement hurts.” It was that in my mind, the movement might be making things worse. So I couldn’t win. It was a trap.
Once that association is in place, movement hurts, and your brain says, “If I’m keeping you safe, I need to keep you from moving. Let’s not do whatever you did yesterday, or five minutes ago.” Which leads to less movement, which makes things worse.
The hard truth is that avoiding movement doesn’t make us better long term. It just makes everything more sensitive, even while it feels safer to the brain in the short term. That’s the trap. And the less we move, the less confidence we have, until even small movements start to feel scary.
The Shift That Changed Things
Confidence turned out to be a big part of this. I needed to believe I could move, do small movements, without making my pain worse.
What started to shift things was learning that movement could actually be helpful, but I had to approach it completely differently. New mindset, new process, everything. I had to stop pushing myself and stop forcing myself to do more than I should do yet. I had been bouncing between resting too much and then telling myself, “I just have to push through and get this done.” The roller coaster.
Here’s an important distinction. A lot of people hear “movement is medicine” and interpret it as “you need to exercise more.” When you’re in pain, that feels overwhelming, and honestly, it feels invalidating.
That’s not what this is. What we’re really talking about is a shift. We’re gently shifting the brain’s understanding of movement from dangerous and scary toward safe. And that is not easy. None of this is easy.
Start Smaller Than You Think Counts
For me, the shift meant starting really small. Usually smaller than I thought would count.
We all want to be a good patient. We want to be making progress. We don’t want to be a burden, and we feel guilty about resting so much and having others help. So we push. But it could start with gentle stretching. It could start with a short walk. In an earlier video we talked about walking just to the door, or to the mailbox, and then not feeling like you have to push further next time. That “not enough” feeling is actually you building consistency.
Jim tells a story about recovering from surgery, where he was a little too eager. His instinct was, “If I can do one mile today, I can do two miles tomorrow.” That backfired. And that was the same instinct I had: if a little is good, more must be better. It almost always backfired on me too. That instinct is exactly why movement is so important and such a trap at the same time. Wanting to do more is a human instinct. But with chronic pain, consistency matters far more than doing, doing, doing. It’s not how hard you work. It’s how gentle and consistent you are.
The Question That Changed My Approach
The biggest shift for me wasn’t physical. It was building confidence.
I had to start asking, “What feels safe for me to do today?” instead of “How much can I do, or how much should I do?” Changing that one question changed how I approached movement.
So much of this journey is a mindset shift, especially with chronic pain. It’s no longer about performance, about how much you do or need to do. It’s about confidence. Confidence that you’re working a process, one that brings long-term health and growth. The work isn’t working harder now. It’s consistent, gentle movement now. You’re rebuilding the relationship between your body and your brain, and gently teaching your system that it’s safe.
Where to Start
If you’re thinking, “Okay, but where do I begin?”, the answer is: start small. Really small.
Pick one movement that feels manageable, that doesn’t come with a lot of pressure to perform, and that you can repeat regularly. You’re building consistency, so there’s no need to keep pushing for more. Even when you feel ready to do more, it’s often worth staying with the same small amount for a while, because that’s what builds confidence. Consistency builds confidence.
If you do nothing but something really, really small today, that matters more than one big step. Consistency isn’t based on how good you feel on a given day. It’s based on what your system can handle on a regular basis.
That’s the part I had to learn the hard way. I kept pushing myself, often out of guilt that I wasn’t doing enough, that I needed to catch up, that I didn’t want others doing things for me. You probably know those feelings. But what I needed was consistent, slow movement, not the pushing that just put me back on the couch and back on the guilt train.
A Few Honest Reminders
Movement might not feel perfect right away.
First, check with your medical provider or physical therapist to make sure the movement you want to try is safe for your condition. That part is important.
Then recognize that even with the green light, there may be some hesitation and even some fear. That doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It means your system is adjusting, and you work with it. You trust the process. And the process is gentle, consistent, and small.
If movement has felt scary or confusing, I hope this gives you a different way to think about it. You don’t have to push. You don’t have to force yourself. And you don’t have to do what everyone else is doing, or what you think everyone else expects. You just start where you are, get comfortable there, and build gently and consistently over time.
Movement isn’t about proving something to yourself or anyone else. It’s about doing what’s best for your body, redefining what movement means for the long haul, one step at a time. Gentle, consistent, and small.
