The Neurology of Pain & Why Movement Is Central to Well-Woman Care

Every woman I work with carries a relationship to pain. Some of you wake up stiff and achey and chalk it up to age. Some of you move in and out of hip pain, knee pain, pelvic pain, rib pain, low-back pain without ever knowing why it appears or why it leaves. Others are holding chronic injuries that flare unpredictably—one day fine, the next day unbearably loud.

And so many of you have been told unhelpful stories about that pain.

“It’s all in your head.”
“You just need to relax.”
“That’s normal after birth.”
“Be careful—don’t move too much.” 

Yet pain is never just neurological, and it’s never just structural. You are not a mind on one side and a body on the other… You are an integrated, sensing, moving whole. And when we talk about well-woman care, this is the level of integration we are pointing to—not a menu of disconnected services, but a way of tending to a woman’s lived physiology in motion.

This is why the cornerstone of Faith in the Body is not labs, or supplements, or protocols.
It is movement.
Not workouts.
Not “fitness.”
Movement as the primary language of your female physiology.

Because when you understand your pain, you understand your body. And when you understand your body, you can finally care for yourself in a way that is whole.

Pain as a Neurological Experience (Not Because You’re Making It Up)

One of the most relieving things women learn is that pain exists in the brain, not because it’s “in your head,” but because sensation travels through nerves, gets filtered through your history, your thresholds, your bracing patterns, and your sense of safety, and is then interpreted centrally.

This is why the exact same movement can feel totally fine one day and almost impossible the next. It is why an old injury site can feel loud long after the tissue has healed. It is why a new pattern (especially one that challenges your coordination or your sense of support) can feel threatening even when it is structurally safe.

Your brain is simply uncertain, and uncertainty often triggers bracing.

Bracing limits movement.
Limited movement alters coordination.
Altered coordination changes load.
And that shift in load is often what you experience as pain.

Not because you are damaged, but because your system does not yet have the somatic availability to do what you are asking of it.

When women understand this, pain becomes less frightening. It becomes something we can work with, rather than something we shrink from.

Pain as Structural Information: The Four Root Contributors

Of course, pain is not only neurological. There are four primary structural contributors that shape tissue sensation:

Compression

Pain in the direction of movement—often a pinch at a joint, lack of space, or the sense that something simply cannot yield.

We elevate the stabilizing structure and move the mobilizing structure distally to restore space.

 Adhesion

A deep, dull, “stuck” sensation caused by fascia not gliding. This is the classic “tight back,” “tight hip,” “tight pelvic floor,” even though the muscles themselves are often strong.

Fascia responds to pressure over time, followed by coordinated load within the new space.

Inflammation

Heat, tenderness, swelling, diminished landmarks—your body’s healing response.
We support lymphatic movement, gentle load to surrounding tissues, and nervous system down-regulation so the tissue can recover.

Rupture

A true tear or separation.
This requires supported approximation of tissues, adequate nutrients, time, and then a careful reintroduction of load so the tissue doesn’t become chronically adhered.

When women can distinguish these sensations, everything gets quieter. Instead of panic—“What is this? Why is this happening again?”—there is understanding. And understanding is profoundly regulating to the system.

Why Movement Is the Foundation of Well-Woman Care

One of the things I say often is that there is no version of healing that bypasses movement, because nothing else reorganizes the entire female system at once. You can change your diet, adjust your supplements, stabilize your blood sugar, or support your hormones (all of which matter), but none of those things will teach your body how to yield, how to take coordinated load, how to re-pattern bracing, how to restore fascial glide, or how to rebuild strength as a skill.

Movement is the only place where:

•  your fascia receives pressure and then reorganizes through load,
•  your nervous system expands its threshold for novelty and sensation,
•  your pelvis regains its rhythm and mobility,
•  your diaphragm and pelvic floor re-learn how to respond to each other,
•  your joints receive synovial nourishment,
•  your sensory map broadens so “pain or nothing” is no longer your only available experience,
•  your coordination improves so movement becomes efficient rather than threatening,
•  and your whole system begins to trust itself again.

This is whole-woman care—not because movement fixes every symptom, but because movement is the environment in which every other system of your body expresses its health.

Women are fascia-rich, hormonally cyclical, coordination-dependent beings.
Movement is how our physiology communicates with itself.

What We Mean When We Say “Well-Woman Care”

As we move into the next season of Faith in the Body, I want women to truly understand that well-woman care is not a protocol you follow. It is a relationship with your physiology. It is knowing what bracing feels like in your system. It is knowing where your fascia holds and where it yields. It is noticing when your nervous system is at the edge of its capacity and choosing movements that bring you back into safety. It is recognizing when pain is a call for more support and when it is simply unfamiliarity that will soften with repetition.

It is not just pelvic floor, not just hormones, not just strength, not just fascia, not just stress.
It is the integration of all of these, expressed through movement.

Inside the FitB membership, we are building a home for that kind of care. A place where your strength is a skill, your pain makes sense, your fascia has time to change, your nervous system is invited to expand, and your body becomes a place of deep familiarity rather than fear.

This is what well-woman care actually is.
This is what we are redefining together.
And movement is the doorway.