There’s something I’ve always believed deeply in my work: your body is not something to be forced into shape, it’s something to be listened to. This has been the foundation of how I approach Yoga and movement for many years now. Using a functional approach, for me, has never been about perfection or performance. It’s about adapting to what is actually true in the body you have today.

Right now, I’m living that truth in the most personal way I ever have. I’m seven months pregnant.

After 12 years of fertility treatments, multiple losses, and a long and painful journey of grief and acceptance around the possibility of never becoming a mother, this pregnancy is nothing short of extraordinary, and I don’t take that lightly for a second.

But what I’ve found difficult is the unspoken expectation, from others, and honestly from myself, that such a long-awaited pregnancy should naturally feel joyful, easy, and glowing. The reality has been much more complex than that for me. It has been joyful, deeply so. Yet it has also been physically demanding, emotionally disorientating, and at times quite isolating.

The reality behind the experience

My pregnancy has come with ongoing physical challenges:

• Debilitating round ligament pain that can leave me doubled over

• Daily blood thinner injections, which leave persistent and painful bruising

• A 19kg weight gain so far, which my body clearly needs but has made everyday movement, teaching, and even simple comfort significantly harder

• Persistent hip pain that started early in my pregnancy, and continues to prevent me from getting sufficient rest at night

There are days when I feel at complete odds with myself, days when I try to move in the way I used to (the way I remember my body being able to move), and I’m met with a very clear and different reality.

That can be emotionally tough in ways that are hard to explain unless you’ve lived it. Even when something is natural, necessary, and temporary, it can still feel like a loss of familiarity with yourself.

Holding joy and difficulty at the same time

What I’ve learned through this experience is that joy and struggle are not opposites. They can exist in the same breath.

I am profoundly grateful for this pregnancy. I have wanted and worked so hard for this for over a decade, and that longing does not disappear just because things are physically uncomfortable or emotionally challenging. However, in all honesty, it hasn’t matched the “fairytale” narrative that people so often project onto pregnancy. When you’re surrounded by that narrative, it can make your own experience feel somehow wrong, even when it isn’t.

Coming back to functional and adaptive movement

My journey into functional yoga and functional movement began years ago, originally through injury. It was about learning to move in ways that supported my body instead of pushing against it. As a pregnancy yoga teacher myself, I've known for years how to offer adaptable movement and relief to others. However, I never imagined how much I would depend upon it so deeply in my own pregnancy. Now, it is what helps me navigate a changing body that needs gentleness, space, and adaptation.

Some days, movement is incredibly supportive. It gives me relief and a sense of reconnection. Other days, it’s not about “doing” much at all, it’s about one single gentle, alleviating stretch, or allowing rest without guilt, which is sometimes a difficult mental shift...

Letting go of the version of myself who used to move differently, more freely, strongly, predictably, is an ongoing process. Even when you understand and have lived the theory in particular circumstances, when faced with a new physical challenge, your mind can still resist at times and only reluctantly and sluggishly catch up.

What I keep coming back to

Functional movement, at its heart, isn’t about what your body should do. It’s about what your body can do - safely, kindly, realistically, in this moment. That applies whether the change is permanent or temporary, whether it comes from injury, illness, pregnancy, stress, ageing, or simply the natural ebb and flow of life.

The invitation is always the same:

Can you meet your body where it is, without trying to negotiate it into something it’s not?

Some days I can answer that question with ease. Other days, I have to keep coming back to it again and again. That, I think, is the practice; not perfection, not consistency, but return.

A final thought

If you’re in a body that feels different right now, for any reason, I hope this reminds you of something simple but important:

You are not behind. You are not failing. You are not meant to move through life unchanged. Bodies change. Life changes. Needs change.

When we allow movement to change with us, instead of against us, something softens, not just physically, but emotionally too. That’s what I continue to learn, slowly, every day, as I work to bring my body, mind, and heart into harmony through functional movement, which, for me, is Yoga lived as a daily, embodied practice rather than something we ever complete.