We Turned Our Lives Upside Down Again…

Hi friends,

My husband and I have this funny habit of turning our lives upside down every so often.

Do we thrive on it? Apparently.

Does it stress me out? Also apparently.

Last week Adina and I flew to the U.S. to reunite with Micah, (my 2 months of solo parenting has finally come to an end!) and now we’ve launched into what can only be described as the logistical Olympics of summer 2026.

Our itinerary: Pittsburgh. Rural Pennsylvania. Brooklyn. Back to rural Pennsylvania. Back to Brooklyn. Back to rural Pennsylvania.

Why? Honestly… because we seem to enjoy making life unnecessarily complicated.

Somewhere in there we’ll be cleaning out the apartment we’ve had for 18 years, emptying a storage unit, loading a U-Haul, coordinating multiple rental cars, sending Adina to her first sleep away camp (I am NOT emotionally ready for this), getting her to Broadway camp the day after sleep away camp, and trying to decide what to keep and what to let go of after nearly two decades of life in New York City. Oh, and I'll be running workshops, teaching classes and running a business in the midst of it all. (More on that down below!)

It’s a lot. Emotionally, logistically, mentally.

So naturally… my hip decided this would be an excellent time to remind me it exists. Not a new injury. An old one. The same left hip that’s been cranky ever since my professional dance career left me with three herniated discs and a little souvenir numbness down my leg.

Every once in a while it likes to pop up and say, “Hello. Remember me?” Actually… that’s not true. It’s more like, “HELLO. REMEMBER ME?!”

Nothing like a good bout of sciatica when you’re supposed to be lifting boxes and driving hundreds of miles. Perfect timing.

Has this ever happened to you?

You’re holding it together. You’re checking all the boxes. You’ve convinced yourself you’re managing just fine. And then your body taps you on the shoulder and says, “I hate to interrupt… but we’re done pretending this level of stress is sustainable.”

It’s incredibly annoying. But it’s also incredibly smart. Because our bodies are constantly paying attention to things we’ve stopped noticing.

One of the biggest misconceptions I see is that pain always means something is damaged. Sometimes it does. But often it’s your body’s way of saying, “I need you to change something.”

Slow down. Recover. Sleep. Breathe. Ask for help. Stop carrying all of this by yourself. All the things we KNOW we should be doing but don't. We’re not really built for the amount of input modern life throws at us.

Think about it.

Our nervous systems evolved to help us survive things like predators, food shortages, and the occasional angry neighboring tribe. Not 147 unread emails, political robocalls and social media notifications every twelve seconds. And can we talk about pharmaceutical commercials for a second? We’re staying with my mom right now, and every commercial on her TV is basically: “Do you have this disease?” “No.” “Would you like one?”

No wonder we’re all walking around a little dysregulated!

I know this is an oversimplification, but sometimes I think we’ve forgotten that we’re still animals underneath all of this. The assignment our body has been given is to just keep us alive. So when stress piles up and we don’t make changes, eventually our bodies start making them for us.

Maybe it’s a flare-up. Maybe it’s exhaustion. Maybe it’s getting sick. Maybe it’s the migraine that forces you into a dark room for a day. Whatever it is, the message is usually the same:

Something has to give.

If your body has been trying to get your attention lately—through pain, tension, weakness, or that vague feeling that something just isn’t quite right—I can help you figure out what story it’s trying to tell. Schedule a free consult- we can chat!

Sometimes it's not about fixing the symptom. It’s about understanding why it showed up in the first place.

And on a much more exciting note…

📍 NYC friends!

I’ll be in Brooklyn and Manhattan from June 30–July 17 and again July 27–30, and I’m opening a limited number of in-person sessions while I’m in town.

I’ll also be teaching an in-person workshop at Freya Movement Studio on July 14 at 6:30 PM, and I’d absolutely love to see some familiar faces there.

You can grab your workshop spot HERE​

Or if you’ve been curious about working together one-on-one while I’m in the city, just send me an email at joanie@transformation-nation.com.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a storage unit to emotionally process.

Big love,

Coach Joanie