When I Run, Things Begin to Flow Again
Lately, I’ve been thinking about my shoulder tension.
And honestly,
sometimes I feel like many of the physical problems modern people carry around
could improve simply by running.
Maybe the problem is that things are no longer flowing.
Blood flow.
The nervous system.
Even eating, digesting, and releasing.
The body is constantly meant to move and circulate.
Running feels like a bulldozer sometimes—
forcing all the stiff, stagnant things inside us
to finally begin moving again.
Like—
grrrrraaaahhh.
Aerobic exercise is kind of amazing.
But at the same time,
when I see people running in the city “for their health,”
I often notice something.
Surprisingly few of them actually look… healthy.
Sometimes I think,
“That running style looks hard on the knees.”
Or it feels like they’re pushing themselves to run
even though something already hurts.
Maybe running itself isn’t the problem.
Maybe the body needs to be prepared first.
…Though I know that sounds a little arrogant to say.
I happen to notice misalignments in the body easily.
I know what neutral feels like.
When I run,
I naturally pay attention to my core,
to how my body moves without strain.
So maybe I’m able to receive
the real benefits of running more fully.
And maybe there are many people
who haven’t quite experienced that feeling yet.
For me, the “right” kind of aerobic exercise
is when I feel refreshed afterward.
When my body feels lighter after running than before.
When I feel like I could keep running forever.
When my face naturally softens and brightens.
When I can breathe deeply through my nose,
filling my whole body with air.
And then gently let it go again through my mouth.
When that happens,
a soft little sigh escapes me.
Like—
“haaah…”
A sigh that feels a little like happiness.
Becoming an Ally to Your Own Body
“There’s something wrong here.”
“You should do this.”
“Good posture is this, not that.”
When you try to improve your body,
you often run into words like these.
Sometimes they are helpful.
Of course they can be.
But when that becomes everything,
it starts to feel less joyful.
And when you keep adjusting yourself
to match what you should be,
even when it doesn’t feel true to you,
you can begin to drift away from yourself.
Before trying to “fix” my body,
I want to build a good relationship with it.
That is why, even when I work as a therapist,
I care less about correcting people
and more about helping them notice.
I love the look on someone’s face
when they suddenly realize something.
That little moment of—
“Oh.”
“Wait…”
“Really?”
When they try something for themselves and say,
“When I move like this, it changes.”
“This part doesn’t seem to work well.”
Their questions begin to change.
And when that happens,
I can feel their relationship with their body
beginning to change too.
Once that happens,
things often become surprisingly simple.
The parts that have gone quiet
just need to move again.
The parts that have been working too hard
just need a little rest.
What I really do
is offer the first small opening,
and then return what I see in words.
That may be all.
After all—
a painful shoulder,
an aching lower back,
a shallow breath that feels hard to take.
Why does it happen?
Getting a massage,
doing stretches at home—
the relief in that moment can feel wonderful.
Sometimes it feels like being rescued.
But if the same pain returns again,
and we only repeat the same cycle,
if it ends with
“Well, it helped for a while,”
then even that relief
can begin to feel a little thinner.
At times like that,
I try changing the way I look at it.
Why did this stiffness appear in my shoulder?
Maybe because I had been working hard every day.
Maybe because I had been absorbed
in something I loved.
When I look back that way,
pain and discomfort no longer feel like defects.
They begin to feel like messages
from myself.
When discomfort becomes a doorway,
I can think,
“I really was trying hard.”
“Thank you.”
And somehow,
my mood softens.
My life becomes
a little gentler.
I think I live with another version of myself.
The self who is living,
and the self who is watching.
When those two become allies,
physical discomfort stops being
just an enemy.
Maybe it is a message from the body.
When I can receive it that way,
discomfort becomes a chance
to look again.
And when I can say,
“Thank you,”
I think that means
I have already become
someone who stands on my own side.
Is It Pain, or Am I Paying Attention to It?
For some reason,
that night I decided I wanted to sleep deeply.
I felt like I hadn’t been sleeping well lately.
My sleep had been light—
the kind where thoughts wake you up.
For the first time in a while,
I played one of those “relaxing sleep” music tracks on YouTube
that I used to listen to.
And I tried to sleep without thinking about anything.
When I woke up,
I thought,
“That was short… but I feel like I actually slept well.”
And then I noticed something.
My right shoulder felt soft.
Usually, even before I fully wake up,
I think,
“Ah, my shoulder hurts again today.”
But that morning,
I thought,
“It doesn’t hurt.”
I felt grateful to my body.
That same day,
I was listening to a Louise Hay affirmation,
and something quietly clicked.
I think I had been going in circles in my head.
Trying to become something.
Trying to grasp something.
Carrying those heavy thoughts through the day,
and then bringing them straight into bed with me.
Even though, really,
I want to feel that moment when I lie down—
that release, that softness,
that simple feeling of, “this feels nice.”
But instead,
my attention had been pulled toward
anxiety and restlessness in my mind.
Sleep,
is actually such a full, nourishing time.
And yet,
I wasn’t really allowing myself to feel it.
I was just staying with those thoughts,
going around in circles.
No wonder my body felt tired.
The next morning,
I spent time doing small, simple tasks,
imagining the kind of life I want to live.
On my way to buy groceries around noon,
I suddenly realized something.
I hadn’t been thinking about my shoulder at all.
The moment I noticed it,
I could feel it a little again.
But while I was cooking,
while I was eating,
it faded away once more.
Pain is strange.
When it’s there,
it feels so overwhelming—
like something seriously wrong.
And yet,
when I look back,
there are actually many moments when I’m not feeling it at all.
Am I noticing it because it hurts?
Or does it hurt because I’m noticing it?
Maybe—
when we keep thinking,
“It hurts, it hurts,”
we’re living in a way
that keeps checking for the pain.
Maybe we’re constantly directing our attention
toward feeling it.
Of course,
when it really hurts,
it doesn’t feel that simple.
But still—
maybe
that’s one part of it.
What Is This Pain Trying to Tell Me?
Lately,
I’ve been thinking about this tightness in my right shoulder.
What is this pain trying to tell me?
What if it’s not just discomfort,
but a quiet sign saying, “notice me.”
As a physical therapist,
I’ve seen many people living with different kinds of pain.
Most of them just want the pain to go away.
But when it comes to why the pain started—
especially when it’s not from an injury or an accident—
very few people have ever really thought about it.
When I feel pain or discomfort,
I can’t help but feel that
something, somewhere, is slightly out of sync.
Just a small misalignment.
Maybe that’s just how I see it.
But the body feels more honest,
more sincere than we are sometimes.
So maybe it’s trying to say,
“something isn’t quite right,”
“maybe pause for a moment.”
Not loudly—
but quietly, and persistently.
When I look back at myself recently,
I realize I’ve been a little restless.
This feeling comes and goes.
I want to change the way I live.
I want to feel, from the bottom of my heart,
that I am truly living my own life.
And because of that,
I feel like I need to change right now.
Like something is missing.
Like if I just had that one thing.
That sense of lack
has been rising from deep inside me,
like a wave.
Even at night, when I got into bed,
I wasn’t thinking,
“today was a good day,”
or
“I did my best.”
Instead,
my mind was filled with thoughts like
“I’m not making progress,”
or
“another day has passed.”
Maybe I wasn’t really paying attention to my body at all.
And when I noticed that,
I wondered—
maybe this tightness in my right shoulder
isn’t just “stiffness.”
Maybe it’s trying to tell me something.
A Body’s Signals, Seen in the Act of Standing Up
Yesterday,
I visited someone for rehabilitation,
and I found myself thinking—
maybe the issue lies in the core not engaging well.
Stiffness in the neck and shoulders.
Pain in the knees when squatting.
As I watched their movements,
it felt like the center of the body wasn’t quite working.
The difference between when the core is working
and when it isn’t—
it often shows up in surprisingly simple ways.
In everyday life,
in the most familiar,
most natural movement.
For me,
that movement is standing up from a chair.
When standing up,
you might hear yourself say, “Here we go,”
or feel, “Oh, that hits my knees,”
or “My hips feel heavy.”
In those small moments,
I sometimes wonder
if the core switch is simply turned off.
Before thinking,
“Maybe my strength has decreased,”
or “I should exercise more,”
it might be interesting
to first look at how the body is being used.
When I observe someone’s movement,
I tend to first notice how they are sitting.
What angle the pelvis has
in relation to the seat.
How the hip joints—formed by the thigh bones and pelvis—
are folding.
Even when a posture looks “good” at first glance,
it’s quite common for the pelvis
to be slightly tilted backward relative to the thighs.
With the pelvis tilted back,
the spine and chest are often arched to compensate.
When I see a body like that,
it’s easy to imagine
why the lower back or shoulders might feel strained.
The position of the pelvis
is surprisingly easy to sense through touch.
Place your hands
around the pubic bone and the tailbone.
Then gently move the pelvis
forward and backward,
like a small pendulum.
When it tilts forward,
the pubic bone feels like it drops slightly.
When it tilts backward,
the tailbone seems to move downward.
As you sway between those two,
there comes a moment where you think—
“Ah, maybe here.”
A place where the pelvis naturally settles upright.
For me,
this is the position where the pelvis is aligned.
It feels as if the surface connecting
the pubic bone and tailbone
is facing the seat directly.
When I settle into that position,
it feels like the body is ready
before standing up.
From there,
I tilt the pelvis just a little forward.
Like a pendulum being gently drawn back,
the pubic bone lowers slightly,
and the tailbone lifts slightly.
And then,
the back of the hips suddenly feels lighter.
A small space appears—
as if you could slip your hand
between the back of your hips and the seat.
When this feeling is there,
the hip joints fold properly,
and the body is ready to move forward.
From the side,
the pelvis, spine, and head
naturally align into a straight line.
Like when you tilt a reclining seat forward.
As I write this,
I realize—
this isn’t about keeping the pelvis perfectly vertical at all times.
Rather,
it feels like the body has
a “position where the switch turns on” more easily.
Without consciously tightening the abdomen,
when the body’s alignment is right,
the center begins to work naturally.
And perhaps after that,
the deeper core muscles—
like the pelvic floor and transverse abdominis—
can engage more easily.
In a way,
taking care of the body
feels a bit like cleaning.
When you clean regularly,
dirt doesn’t build up as much.
And maybe the body is the same—
when small habits of posture are in place,
strain is less likely to accumulate.
These were the thoughts
drifting through my mind
as I watched someone stand up.
A Protruding Belly and the Body’s Natural Corset
As we age,
I feel that many women’s muscles
become thinner and softer.
Our past exercise habits,
how much we move in daily life,
and also the influence of hormones—
it seems like many factors
are layered together.
Every body has its own characteristics,
but when I look at people
who have lower back or knee pain,
I sometimes feel there is a common thread.
A protruding lower belly.
Even people who are slim
can have a noticeable fullness
just in the lower abdomen.
To me,
this kind of fullness often feels like
a sign that the core—
the center of the body—
is a little out of balance.
The organs inside the abdomen
are originally held
within a supportive wall of muscles.
But when posture collapses,
that wall seems to lose its tone
and soften.
And then,
the organs inside
seem to spread outward.
I feel like
that may be what connects
to the lower belly protruding.
The image that comes to mind is this—
If you place a plastic bag
inside a cardboard box
and pour water into it,
the water settles nicely
into the shape of the box.
But if you pour water
into just the bag alone,
it can’t really hold its shape—
it becomes loose and unstructured.
I sometimes feel
the body is a little like that.
The body naturally has
muscles around the abdomen
that are often called
a “natural corset.”
But I get the sense
that many people
aren’t really able to use
this corset very well.
The core,
the center of the body,
ends up feeling
like water inside a soft bag.
And then,
each movement
seems to carry that weight
as an extra burden.
On the other hand,
when the core feels more engaged—
I sometimes get the feeling
that my body is being gently lifted
from the inside.
My arms feel lighter,
my lower back feels easier,
my knees feel a bit freer.
When the center of the body
falls into place,
I find that everything
just feels a little easier.
2026.1
Thinking About Posture in the Kitchen
While standing in the kitchen the other day,
I suddenly found myself wondering:
“What kind of standing posture helps protect the lower back?”
I think back pain is often the result of
small daily habits accumulating over time.
When washing dishes,
we naturally look downward.
We also tend to lean forward slightly.
When people have back pain,
their attention usually goes straight to the waist or lower back—
but I realized
we rarely pay attention to our feet.
So I started experimenting a little.
First,
I placed my feet about one fist-width apart.
Then I softened my knees slightly.
Not exactly “bending” them,
but more like releasing them.
The feeling reminded me of when someone playfully nudges the back of your knees
and your legs suddenly relax for a moment.
As I let the tension go,
my center of gravity dropped slightly,
and I felt more stable through the soles of my feet.
Then I tried returning my spine
to a neutral position.
Standing like that,
I began noticing things.
“Oh,
my weight is leaning slightly toward the right side of my feet.”
Small habits in my posture
that I normally wouldn’t notice.
I held a dish in my left hand
and scrubbed with my right.
Because I’ve often worked with stroke patients in rehabilitation,
sometimes I intentionally switch sides.
Holding the sponge in my left hand,
the plate in my right.
What if I suddenly couldn’t use my dominant hand?
I try washing dishes with that assumption.
And immediately,
everything feels strangely awkward.
My right hand feels made for scrubbing,
while my left seems naturally designed
to stabilize and support the plate.
That’s how unfamiliar the reversed roles feel.
Both hands seem slightly confused,
as though they’ve been assigned jobs
they were never meant to do.
Hmm.
Honestly,
this feels surprisingly good for the brain.
January 2026
People Who Sleep “Perfectly” Might Actually Be Too Stiff
Lately,
I’d been noticing how stiff and achy my body felt when I woke up in the morning.
Especially my right shoulder.
At first,
I thought maybe my futon or pillow just wasn’t right for me.
But then I suddenly realized something.
Recently,
I had started sleeping while trying to keep my posture perfectly aligned—
whether I was lying on my back or on my side.
Very “correct.”
Very controlled.
And I wondered:
…What if that was actually the problem?
Even in the middle of the night,
if I noticed my posture collapsing,
I would half-wake up and quietly readjust myself.
Maybe that was also why
I’d been waking so easily lately.
Trying to maintain perfect posture
even while sleeping…
Maybe that wasn’t healthy at all.
Maybe it’s more natural
to loosen completely.
To sprawl.
To curl.
To let the body move however it wants to move.
When I sleep on my side,
I apparently curl up like a caterpillar.
And when I sleep on my back,
my legs flop around with absolutely no elegance.
But strangely,
it feels so comfortable.
Like my whole body is saying,
“Ahhh… finally.”
And maybe because of that,
the stiffness I usually feel in the morning
felt a little lighter today.
I don’t think many people
try to “correct” their posture even while sleeping
the way I do.
But people who wake up already feeling exhausted or stiff—
I wonder if some of them
might actually be people with “good sleeping posture.”
In rehabilitation work,
I hear this often.
“My sleeping posture is very good.”
“People always tell me I have excellent posture.”
People sometimes say it
almost proudly.
But at the same time,
many of those same people
struggle with stiff bodies,
lower back pain,
or neck pain.
The kind of “good posture”
people praise in everyday life
is often overly straight.
The spine loses its natural curves,
becoming rigid instead of balanced.
And people with that kind of posture
often struggle with rotational movement too.
In other words,
they may not roll over easily while sleeping.
So when someone says,
“I sleep perfectly still all night,”
it might simply mean
their body isn’t moving enough.
Rolling over during sleep
is actually an important natural movement.
It redistributes pressure,
reduces strain,
and protects the body throughout the night.
So honestly,
it makes sense that people who barely move in their sleep
wake up feeling painfully stiff.
And maybe,
without realizing it,
I had started forcing myself into that state too.
Maybe curling up like a caterpillar,
or having messy sleeping habits,
isn’t a bad thing at all.
Maybe it’s actually a sign
that the body still knows how to stay flexible.
These days,
the world often treats strength training
and “perfect posture”
as though they are always the correct answer.
But in the end,
I still think
the body itself already knows the answer.
January 2026
Walking with the Core Engaged
Yesterday,
I wrote about trying to walk by pulling my legs farther behind me
and pushing firmly into the ground through the soles of my feet.
But honestly?
It felt really hard.
I already knew I barely use my feet and calves properly in daily life,
but even so,
it was exhausting enough that I could already imagine myself giving up.
Even if something is “good for you,”
if it feels too difficult,
eventually you start thinking:
“Maybe my normal way of walking is fine after all.”
That’s exactly what I was thinking.
Later,
while sitting on a bench,
I noticed my posture had collapsed forward a little,
so I gently lengthened my spine.
The moment I did,
I felt my lower back arch strongly.
My body naturally tends toward a swayback posture.
And when that happens,
I always imagine something specific.
It feels like squeezing a soft ball in the middle,
almost like pinching it into the shape of a trumpet.
The area being compressed collapses inward,
while the untouched area pops outward.
That’s what my body feels like when I overarch:
my back compresses tightly,
while my stomach opens outward.
But then I wondered:
What if pressure were distributed evenly from above?
The front of the body
and the back of the body
would both maintain equal length.
So I tried applying that image to myself.
Keeping the front of my torso
and the back of my torso
equally long.
Not shortening only the front.
Not overextending only the back.
And the moment I did that,
my abdominal muscles engaged naturally.
Not forcefully—
just naturally.
It felt like my body suddenly had a center.
A quiet sense of internal support.
Then I started walking again
while keeping that feeling.
And suddenly—
all the effort I had been forcing into “pushing through the feet”
became unnecessary.
Instead of trying hard to push the ground away,
my weight simply transferred naturally into the floor.
The push happened automatically.
And I thought:
…Ah.
So this is why the core matters so much.
When the center of the body activates,
the right amount of force naturally reaches the places that need it.
Instead of desperately trying to control the outer parts of the body,
everything begins working together once the center is organized.
That’s what it felt like.
January 2026
Walking by Pushing the Ground
On my way to the supermarket,
a thought suddenly crossed my mind while walking.
How many people actually walk by pushing against the ground?
For me,
it feels less like “kicking”
and more like pressing the earth away
through the soles of the feet.
According to textbooks,
this way of walking is supposed to be the most efficient
and the least stressful on the body.
But honestly?
To me,
this style of walking feels much harder.
It uses the soles of the feet
and the calves intensely.
So intensely that it makes me realize:
Ah…
human beings were probably designed
to have incredibly active feet and calves.
When I walk this way,
everything above the knees suddenly feels light.
My upper body almost feels effortless,
as though it only needs to quietly exist there.
Meanwhile,
my feet and calves are truly working.
It’ll probably take time
before this becomes unconscious and natural for me.
The moment I stop paying attention,
I slip right back into my old walking pattern.
And my usual walking style is something like this:
The feet merely touch the floor.
The knees absorb the weight.
That’s probably why
my lower back gets tired after walking for long periods.
When I pay close attention,
I can actually feel the impact traveling upward into my spine
every time my body weight lands.
My hips barely move, either.
My legs swing forward,
but they don’t truly extend behind me.
And honestly,
in the short term,
this kind of walking almost feels like
the ultimate energy-saving strategy.
But many of the people I worked with in rehabilitation
seemed to be living with the consequences
of exactly this kind of movement.
Lower back pain.
Knee pain.
Neck pain.
And sometimes I imagine the body like a team.
If every member fulfills its role properly
and moves in harmony,
the burden on each individual becomes smaller.
That’s what creates endurance.
But maybe many of us move through life
with only one part working desperately.
Not because the other parts are lazy—
but because we never learned
how to use everyone’s strengths together.
The body probably could have shared the load.
But by the time we realize it,
one area has already reached its limit.
I sometimes wonder
if that’s what’s happening inside us.
Anyway—
what I really want to say is simple.
Try pulling your leg properly behind you from the hip,
and push the ground away with the sole of your foot as you walk.
Naturally,
your stride becomes larger.
Your speed increases.
And you begin to feel muscles working
that you normally never use.
Your feet and calves will probably get very tired.
But maybe that fatigue
is proof that you’ve been underusing
some of the body’s strongest muscles all this time.
So from now on,
I want to let my feet and calves
finally do the work they were meant to do.
January 2026