Bonus Episode: Pleasure and Movement

This is a bonus episode, where you'll hear ME be interviewed by my friend Unyime Oguta on HER podcast "Permission Granted"

If the idea of moving your body makes you want to run for the hills, you’re not alone. As we wrap up our series on pleasure, our guest, Kim Hagle of Radiant Vitality is unpacking why movement sometimes feel punitive and unattainable.
 
Tune in to learn Kim’s simple practice that will help you connect back to your body in less than a minute a day, why the way we’ve learned to exercise disconnects us from our bodies, and how you can start building the practice of movement into your life today. You have the permission to let whatever your body is saying be enough.

Let’s dive into the episode!

Connect with Unyime:
Permission Granted
Instagram
Website


About the Host

Kim Hagle (she/her)  is a Body Image Coach, Certified Personal Trainer, Registered Holistic Nutritionist, and founder of Radiant Vitality Wellness. 

Through mindset and movement coaching she helps women develop a kinder relationship with their body so they can consistently fuel and move it in a way that supports their health without restricting food, doing tortuous exercise or constantly worrying about the number on the scale

New Here? Join our exclusive email community: “Embrace Your Radiance” is our weekly email series that helps women overcome feeling limited by their body. Each week you'll receive exclusive coaching tips to help you feel healthy, happy and confident no matter what the scale says. As a subscriber, you'll be notified when new podcast episodes drop and will also be the first to hear about all of my free and paid offers. Emails come out every Sunday at 7 pm.  

Want to learn how to support your body without obsessing over the scale?  Register for our FREE mini course. Learn simple, sustainable habits and mindset shifts so you can feel healthy, energetic and confident without rules, deprivation or willpower

Ready to take the next step?  Book a free consultation call to discuss how coaching can help you reach your goals.

Let’s stay in touch! Kim is on Instagram and Facebook @radiantvitalitywellness.  

Disclaimer.  The information contained in this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice.  Always consult a health care professional about your unique needs.

Transcript

0:47

Hey friends, welcome to the Power in Motion podcast. This is a bit of a different episode today. It's actually a bonus episode and it's one where I was interviewed for another podcast. So on this interview, you'll hear me chatting about experiencing pleasure with movement with my friend Uyeme Oguta on her podcast, Permission Granted. So I'm just going to stop talking and Uyeme will take it from here and explain what this episode is all about. And I hope that you enjoy.

Unyime: 1:16

Hello friends. Welcome back to the podcast. It is Ouimah here. with another episode as we talk about pleasure this month on the podcast. Now for this episode, we're talking all about movement. And one thing I realized is that the topic of movement can be quite touchy for a lot of us, especially if you're someone who has had kind of a tumultuous relationship with your body. However, I do not think the conversation around pleasure can be complete if we do not talk about movement. And so this week I'm joined by my friend and peer Kim Hagel of Radiant Vitality Wellness. We're going to talk about movement as a gateway to more pleasure filled life. Now one thing that we talked about on this podcast is this idea of movement being pleasurable and not having to be joyful, which I think is such an important conversation to have and I'm very excited for you to dive right in. So let me tell you a little bit about Kim. Kim is a size inclusive fitness specialist, non diet nutritionist, body image coach, and the founder of Radiant Vitality Wellness. Offering cognitive behavioral life coaching and weight neutral fitness training, she helps women to develop a kinder relationship with their body so that they can consistently fuel and move it in a way that supports their health without restricting food, doing torturous exercises, or constantly worrying about the number on a scale. This is my jam. Kim also hosts the Power in Motion podcast where she inspires women to think differently about health and their bodies so that they can feel strong and confident. in their body and mind, regardless of the number on the scale. And this allows them to confidently create their fullest lives. Friends. This is a conversation that needs to be had. And without further ado, here's my conversation with Kim and Joy. Well, welcome to the podcast, Kim. How are you?

Kim: 3:13

I'm doing well. Thanks so much for having me back.

Unyime: 3:16

You're welcome. I'm very excited for our conversation. Just before I hit record, I was saying we always have such good conversations every time we get together and I'm sure today's going to be similar. So just starting off with talking about pleasure. Um, I would like for you to just Maybe give us a little bit of a background for people who don't know you and obviously you've been on my podcast before but this is a new name permission granted some people might not be familiar with you if you just want to share a little bit about yourself and the work that you do as it relates to, you know, movement and body acceptance.

Kim: 3:51

Yeah, a hundred percent. Um, so yeah, I'm Kim Hagel. My business is Radiant Vitality Wellness. I'm in Ontario and I specialize in helping women to find movement that feels good. And it really, the overall theme of the work that I do is helping women create a respectful and trusting relationship with their body so that they can nourish it and fuel it and move it well without It being a slug. I know there's so much about movement being punitive and dreadful and, and, you know, those, we can talk about this as the conversation unfolds, but I think that's really what gets in the way of so many, so many people experiencing the benefits of movement. So, you know, that's my mission is to help make those benefits available to everyone by helping them change their relationship with movement and also food and their body in general.

Unyime: 4:44

Amazing. It's funny that you talked about the punitive piece and we can definitely just go right into it. Tell us a little bit more because I think that in order for us to get to the pleasure conversation, there are challenges, there are kind of blocks in the way. And let's just open that conversation and chat about that piece before we get into it. Yeah,

Kim: 5:04

absolutely. Like, I think it is a really important part of the conversation because to just tell people, well, just start moving your body for fun. There's going to be so many thoughts that come up, right? Around. Like, well, first, I don't know how to do that, because we haven't engaged in movement in a fun way, probably since we were children, and we played, you know, and we did all of that very intuitively, but somewhere along the line, we learned that exercise, we changed the word from movement to exercise, has a purpose, and that purpose is to shrink your body, and that in order for it to count, it has to be as hard as you can, Possibly can work for as long as possible, as many days of the week as possible, and we start to internalize all these beliefs that movement needs to look a certain way, it has to be a certain intensity, a duration of time, and is it any wonder that we start to dread it? Right? So this often comes up as I, I used to, um, have a podcast called the Joyful Movement Show, and I changed the name for exactly this reason, because when you talk to people about joyful movement, they're like, well, one, I don't know how to do that. And then two, if it's not joyful all the time, am I doing it wrong? Like, should I not do it if it's not joyful? Like, does joyful movement count as exercise? Like, it's just so much, there's so much baggage, right?

Unyime: 6:26

Yeah. And that's so interesting because as you were saying that I could see people having a little bit of a cognitive dissonance with the joyful and then movement. And so one of the things I always go back to is a confused mind will always just, it'll just not do anything. It'll just not

Kim: 6:44

do it, right? Yeah.

Unyime: 6:45

And so I love that. And I love that new name for you. I love that name change for you. And if someone is thinking about. the connection between movement and kind of their body and this idea of pleasure and enjoyment. Can you help us to kind of marinate those two together and bring them together so that someone can understand where that, why that matters?

Kim: 7:12

I think that movement that we enjoy, maybe isn't joyful all the time, but that, you know, brings us back to that childhood state, or that lights up the pleasure centers in our brain, can be a really great way to connect with our bodies, to bring us into our bodies and feel our emotions even, right? Like, I know you talk about this all the time that we spend so much time in our heads. thinking, but like the real wisdom of our bodies and the emotions that we're feeling are felt in our bodies and, and movement that's enjoyable can be a really great way to build up your emotional intelligence and connect with your body and then start to understand your needs and advocate for your needs.

Unyime: 7:59

Yeah. So for me, one of the things I've been thinking about as I've been talking through the podcast in May around pleasure is There's always that block between what is pleasure for me and what I'm hearing you say as you're talking about connecting to the body, feeling the feelings coming back into our bodies is part of pleasure is really being attuned to our senses and your senses are in your body for your body. So if we're mostly head people, obviously we're good, we're good with seeing, we're hearing, but sometimes it doesn't translate to the rest of the body. And I think this is where movement does help because, and you can tell me if I'm wrong about this, but some of the work that I do with clients is around somatics. And so moving energy, or if they're having emotions, they think, think, think, think, overthink, end up with headaches, end up with migraines. But when we start to incorporate movement. And just helping them to get right into the body, spread out that energy. They find that things start to change. Like people come and they're no longer having migraines. They're no longer having headaches. And I'm not saying like that's the solution. But I do see this connection in my work. And I'm curious to, for you to speak a little bit more to that. And maybe something that you've noticed in your own practice.

Kim: 9:22

Yeah, I think you're right. Like, there's a few things that came up for me as you were talking in that, you know, uh, we're, we're very aware of our, our hearing and our sight, right? And, and even like the traditional way that we've been taught to exercise, I feel we're very disconnected from our body. You're counting,

Unyime: 9:39

you're counting, you're counting your reps, you're like

Kim: 9:42

looking at your form, maybe you're listening to the music, but are you really tuned into how each movement feels? Like, have you ever stopped to consider how many reps feels right for me? Or how much weight do I feel is enough to lift today or too much? Right? Do I even want to lift today? What does my body actually need? And, and the other part of that is, is I don't want to just center on exercise because a big part of the conversation is we, we tend to think that only exercise counts as movement, right? But what I teach people is all movement is a way that we can care for our body. It's one of many ways that we can care for our body. Like you said, through somatics, right? There's lots of self care practices that people think of, but do we ever think of movement as a self care practice? And when we look at it that way, then I think we have so much more to learn. So many choices like sure you can go lift weights, you can go for a run, or you can lay on the floor and roll around and just respond to what your body's asking you to do. You can do some stretches, you can do some mobility work, you can dance, there's so many things that are available. And when we come into our body and we're aware of all that we're sensing and in communication with our body, then we can pick up on those signals and we can respond. A good way of, of explaining this is, you know how we have cravings for food, and if we're, if we're, um, intuitive eaters, our body lets us know when we're hungry, how hungry we are, what kind of food we're after. It's no different with movement. We have movement cravings too. And when we're tapped in to what our body is asking for, then, then we can really, you know, Intuitively know like what kind of movement do I need right now? How much? What intensity? What's enough for me? Rather than just what the fitness culture tells us is enough. It's a long winded way of answering your question. You're

Unyime: 11:49

so right about it. And I'm giggling here because In a past life, many, many years ago, I used to be a community nutrition educator. And one of the things that we would teach people was the exercise. And I remember just having to learn all the like 30 minutes a day counts as vigorous and this and mediums and things would change in two years. And I'm like, now I have to remember to learn that all again. Exactly. And this is me teaching people. Well, imagine just the regular person, like a mother. Who is busy with work. She's got kids. She's got a family to run. Maybe she has a business. There are all these things. And it just feels like, well, now movement is one other thing on the list that I have to check off. So I love how you say it's not about going to the gym and picking up weights. Like if that's your cup of tea, fine. But can you lay on the ground and move and kind of tune into what does that, what do I need today? So, I will share for me because I experienced sciatic nerve pain, and one of the things that really hit me was when my I had gone to my chiropractor, and he said something really interesting he said you know I don't think that you have. tightness where you thought that you had tightness. It's more like your muscles get really angry and then they just trigger your nerve. And the best way he explained it was like, you have to be paying attention to the kind of exercises or movements that you're, you're making, because those are the things that are irritating your body. And your body always tells you ahead of time before your nerve kicks in. And I will tell you that has been a game changer for me. So because I've been working on my core strength, That requires a lot more effort on my part, but I've been paying attention to. Okay, how am I exerting myself? What does it feel like? I can start to tell when my muscles are tensing up, and that has greatly reduced the amount of flare ups I get. So I think it's so important for us to pay attention, even if you cannot do, you know, all the things that you're told that you have to do, which if you're doing that, I highly recommend you stop.

Kim: 13:55

But

Unyime: 13:56

can you listen to what your body is asking you to do? It doesn't have to be going to the gym, you can Gardening season is here for some of us in this part of the world. That actually is a lot of work, like people kneeling down and bending and carrying things and lifting things. That's all movement that counts towards helping you to have a healthier life. I see you shaking your head, so I'm curious to hear what's going on. I am.

Kim: 14:22

Well, and the gardening is a lot of work, but I'd also challenge the belief that like, do we always have to do a lot of work? Right? Like, there's seasons in life where maybe vigorous activity isn't right for you, and only you are the judge of that. I, too, live with, I was going to say suffer from, but I live with chronic pain. And, you know, that's, that's been a, it's been a challenge, but it's been a real invitation to, like, get in tune with myself and give myself permission and grace to do what serves me. We don't always have to work hard. I know that that's what the recommendations are, but when we look at it as a self care modality, we can choose anything. I have a little practice that I teach people in how, how do you do this? Like, how do you tune in and know what your body is asking for? Would you like me to share that with your folks?

Unyime: 15:12

Absolutely. Go ahead.

Kim: 15:13

Yeah. It's very simple. Um, all you do is you get quiet, sit somewhere where you can be grounded, like really feel your hips being held by the chair or the floor, feel your feet on the ground, close down your eyes, start to notice your breath as it moves in and out of your body. And like your brain will continue to think thoughts cause that's what brains do, but drop your awareness down into your body. noticing sensations that are currently present without judgment. And then there's three simple questions that you can ask yourself. How am I feeling right now in this moment? How do I want to feel and what do I need? And that's it. And then your body will give you an answer and then your job is just to listen, right? And not let all of those things that we've been told get in the way. Like, oh, my gosh, walking doesn't count or like five minutes of stretching. That's not enough. Like, resist the urge to, to compete with your brain or compete with your body and just give your body what it's asking.

Unyime: 16:16

Yeah, I love that. And. What you're speaking to is this idea of mindfulness because when you're sitting in tune you're being mindful and connecting to the senses in your body like we already talked about many of us are head people where we kind of listen with our ears but nothing really gets down into the fingertips or kind of feeling like what's going on in my body in my abdomen. And. I know this is not the easiest thing if you're not someone who's been used to connecting with your body if that hasn't been a way of life, but it's not impossible.

Kim: 16:53

No, it's not

Unyime: 16:54

impossible it is possible for you to connect back there and as you were speaking the thing that came to me was this idea of permission.

Kim: 17:02

of

Unyime: 17:02

giving yourself the permission to just welcome and start to explore. Can you speak a little bit more about that?

Kim: 17:08

Oh, I love that question. I love it. And yeah, the permission to let whatever your body is saying be enough. Like I have a client who I'm still working with. We've been working together for a couple of years. And, who has, I would say a pretty traumatic relationship with exercise. Like she went to a couple of different gyms that were very hardcore. Like you don't get out of your plank until I say you get out of your plank kind of thing, um, left her really resistant to movement and she's done all the body image work and she's worked on her relationship with food, but she wanted to get moving her body and she just had so much resistance. Like she just couldn't. So we've been working together like as a personal training relationship, but for the first several months that we were together, we did no exercise, no movement. We would just simply do this embodiment work and her body would tell her what it wants. And then all those thoughts would come and we would do some coaching on, you know, where that thought's coming from. Why is that present? Can you. Give yourself permission to be okay with what is to not exercise today, or maybe for six months and be with your body and listen to and you know, and over time, she really rebuilt that connection with her body. She rebuilt trust with herself. She's back to doing movement that she used to enjoy like weightlifting and a little bit of running spin classes. She started a kickboxing class recently that's something new for her. She's doing it in a totally different way. She's the boss of her body. No instructor is going to tell her to do something that she doesn't want to do. She decides what's enough. She knows how to modify movements to make it work for her. It's not maybe always joyful, but there's pleasure. She's enjoying it.

Unyime: 18:52

Yeah. Yeah. I love that story. Because of a few things, when we're children, as women, when we're kids, Remember those moments where you thought I can't wait to be older and no one will tell me what to do. And then we, we become adults and then people start telling us what to do. And we're looking for the people to tell us how I need to do it this way or how I need to move. And because we've been taught and socialized to think that way, the idea of giving permission sounds a little bit far fetched. And I love how you talked about really just putting the exercise and movement to the side. To come back into your body. And I think this is where a lot of us miss it because when we talk about movement and pleasure, automatically people start to, like, if you were to ask them to tell you what they think you're saying, people will show you exercise and the gym and body and movement and dumbbells and all these things, but it's like, no, that's like a little bit far off. Can we just start right here? With that permission, knowing that you are a grown woman, you have the autonomy to make that decision for yourself and decide how that needs to go. And that can be really challenging, but it's not impossible. This word of not impossible keeps coming back to me. So if someone were just to start today, I know you kind of gave us a few tips, but if someone were like, I've not been moving my This idea of pleasure seems very far fetched, but I'm curious. How do I start to just give them some tips that could get them started today?

Kim: 20:32

Yeah, I'd start with that embodiment practice that I, that I shared with you maybe once a day without any expectation that your body's going to ask you to do some exercise or any sort of formal movement, just tune in and ask, what do I need? Maybe your body will tell you you need to go to the bathroom or you need to go grab a glass of water or you need to go sleep, like, whatever. Like, that is the process of building back trust with your body. And then just start to challenge those beliefs of, like, notice when fitness culture is going through your head of like, well, but should I be exercising? But should I be getting my heart rate up? Shouldn't I be getting outside more? Shouldn't I be stretching? Shouldn't I be building muscle? Like, notice all those thoughts, then they're simply just that. They are thoughts that are running through your brain and you do have a choice about whether you want to continue to think those or not, like noticing when I think that it has to look a certain way to count. How does that make me feel? And is it actually helping me get more active? Is it working for me? Probably not, right? You're probably having to rely on a lot of willpower and you're probably hating your life. So notice, notice that, you know, these are all just thoughts. Those can be reframed. And then of course, if you need support, that's where working with a coach like yourself or me or anybody else who's got experience in this modality can help you fast track those results.

Unyime: 22:05

I like that. And I'm giggling because I used to be one of those people who counted and wanted to pay attention. But when you were talking earlier, this is something that came to mind for me. I'm, I don't watch TV or any sort of shows or anything when I'm working. Working out like when I'm exercising or moving my body, and it's because of something that you said before, which is the tuning into knowing what your body needs, because I find, and this is just for me, I don't know, maybe other people experience this, but the, the attention to the other thing distracts me from paying attention to my body. Yeah.

Kim: 22:45

And we set it up that way, right? Like all of the cardio equipment at gyms have TV or have TVs right in them, right? So we can tune out and not have to think about how boring this is or how, like outta breath we are or whatever, right? Mm-Hmm, Yeah. But like, you want to feel those things. If you're bored, maybe you wanna do a different activity. Or if you're out of breath like that, maybe that's just something you wanna observe and notice.

Unyime: 23:10

This is true. This is true. I love that. I love that we're on the same page with that because I often thought, and it never occurred to me, it was a lady who was working with me in a group fitness practice and I had told her that I had, uh, I experienced dyadic nerve pain. And so she had to modify some of the movements for me. And I remember she would always turn the TV off. And one time I asked her and she said, yeah, because when you're watching the TV, You're not paying attention to what's happening in your body, and I've held on to that thing for so many years now, and it's been a life changer. So before we wrap up, I want to ask you about something you said earlier. You said you can experience pleasure. It doesn't have to be joyful. When you were talking about movement, can you speak a little bit more about that?

Kim: 23:58

Yeah, this is where it gets a little nuanced and like there's, there's so much, there's so much room for interpretation here. But I think when we use the term joyful movement, our brain defaults to like the runner's high, right? Where we're totally blissed out and like, we've forgotten all of our problems and like, It's just everything's great and wonderful, sunshine and rainbows. And that is such an elusive feeling. Like, it can happen. It certainly does happen, but I don't think we should hang our hat on that, right? Like, you're not doing anything wrong if you don't get that. But pleasure, like I was listening to one of your recent podcasts, you talk about pleasure being a state of gratitude. And like, So even if you're not like blissed out with your movement practice, can you be grateful for what your body is able to do? Can you experience the contentment that comes from moving your body this way and how your muscles feel after or what it allows you to do? And the stress release that you get from the movement or like, just there's so many benefits to movement. And we always like, people always say to me, Oh, I always feel better after, right? Like, so that feeling, like, can you notice that and let that be the pleasure in the practice, right? That there's something good in here, even if it wasn't exactly joyful.

Unyime: 25:20

Yeah. And I think that's, there's something there that It's so important for the listener to hear, because if you're going into it thinking, I'm going to get this runner's high, you have expectations, then you might be disappointed, and you might miss the experience of the pleasure because The movement itself, when you think about releasing endorphins, that's what actually helps your body to feel good. But you have to

Kim: 25:49

work hard to get there, right? Like the runner's high comes after an intense workout. So that's maybe not joyful. No. But that feeling after is pretty fun. Yeah.

Unyime: 26:03

Yeah. And so we have to kind of think about it. It's, it's, it's a little bit, I'm thinking about it. I think my brain is like, yeah, if someone has been very resistant, they might have questions. But when you really think about it, like what is on the other side for you, and if you're really paying attention to your body. It will tell you, and maybe it's not like to go for miles and miles of running, it could just be a stretch. And then you feel that release in your body, you feel yourself just relax. And that feels really good. Yeah, it feels really good.

Kim: 26:35

Yeah, when your body responds to that, that little bit of care, it's like, Oh, yeah.

Unyime: 26:40

Yes, yeah, I, it's almost like you just, your shoulders kind of drop. And it feels like, Okay, this is good. So for me, I always think about, I always think about pleasure. I'm like, how do you explain it to someone? You can't really explain it. It's almost like you have to feel it. And it's not something that you shout from the mountain tops. It's just that inner knowing.

Kim: 27:06

That subtle, subtle experience, right? Like, even if we all just take a moment and like roll our shoulders back and down and feel that opening across our chest, I think we'd all agree, like. Oh, that feels better. Like, pleasure can just, it can be a little micro dose of pleasure,

Unyime: 27:24

but it goes a long way. Absolutely. This has been a fun conversation. I don't know if there's anything else that you wanted to share that I haven't asked you.

Kim: 27:33

Um, nothing that's coming to mind right away. This has been a great conversation as always with you.

Unyime: 27:40

It's a little bite that's very potent. And I'm, I think one thing I want to share is. Just watching your growth and the conversations that we've had, it's important for us to come back into what does it feel like in my body? Yeah, how can movement be pleasurable? How can movement connect me back to this experience of pleasure and open up that door. And I just want to say thank you for for being here and kind of opening up that door to a lot of us, and hopefully people. Can go back, especially that practice. If you want to snip that piece out and pay attention and play that even if you can't think about it, but just remembering to just sit and ask yourself those three questions because I think it's going to make such a difference in your life. Thank you so much, Kim. I really appreciate you.

Kim: 28:32

Oh, thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure to chat with you always.

Unyime: 28:36

Absolutely. And where can people find you? They want to learn more. Sure.

Kim: 28:41

Sure. So I also have a podcast. It's not called the joyful movement show anymore. It's called the power in motion podcast. And so you can find me there. I'm also on social media, all the different channels at radiant vitality wellness. And then my website is radiant vitality

Unyime: 28:57

And I will include all the links in the show notes so people can come find you. All right. Absolutely. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you.