I hear this a lot, this “movement is medicine” mantra. I’ve adopted many perspectives from this phrase as my journey on this Earth continues unfolding. If we break it down to its roots and study the etymology, we discover these origins

Movement (n)—from the Proto-Indo-European root ‘meue’ meaning “to push away”, also “change of position; passage from place to place”, “to move, set in motion”

Medicine (n)—From the PIE root ‘med’ meaning “take appropriate measures”, also “practice, theory, or study of curing, alleviating, or preventing disease in humans”

When derived from its root meaning this phrase quite literally translates “to push away or set in motion by taking the appropriate measures to prevent disease.” Thus, raising the questions—

What are we pushing away or setting into motion?

What appropriate measures do we take to prevent disease?

I’ve spent the better part of a decade sifting through the subconscious perspectives of my lived human experience. When I recall my younger years as a competitive athlete, I am hit with the feeling of exhaustion. Movement in my youth was an escape, was a necessary activity that kept me spinning cartwheels in the front lawn and timing my tries for the longest hula hoop. My sympathetic response was so activated and rest seemingly unfathomable that at the age of 23, I was diagnosed with the auto-immune disorder Epstein-Barr.

The constancy of movement in my earlier years was a poison flooding my system. Hyper-awareness of my environment and the obsession of chronic activity slowly wore me from the inside out. Movement as an external response to my internal system was pushing me away from my true self, and the appropriate measure needed was learning to move in a new way, in a new direction. The source of movement, my subconscious thoughts, needed to be studied to prevent me from further burning out.

Movement, with its root meaning “to push away” resonates in a way that feels universal. There reaches a point in all of our journeys where the path we’re traveling suddenly ends and we’re faced with a decision. Continue down this road with the inevitable in sight, or “set in motion” an unknown path. The hardest part is the small initial steps to tread that way because the old way has been deeply tread.

From a neurological perspective, habitual patterns have formed and solidified between the mind-body connection. Protection measures from the psyche have been established, and the familiar way, although it continues to guide us towards suffering, has us believing this is the only way.

And yet movement requires a push, a change, a moving away, and I believe this is what it means to evolve as humans. We are ever growing, ever striving, ever becoming, and ever in process. Change is our only constant and when we’ve built systems into our bodies that mimics permanency—whether as beliefs, identities, or ways of doing things—our mind becomes rigid and our bodies reflect the same.

“Only when there is stillness in movement can the spiritual rhythm appear which pervades heaven and earth.”

—Ts’ai-Ken T’an

Movement had to be a poison so that I could work out its antidote. I love this quote by Ts’ai-Ken T’an because it reminds us of the paradox of earthly life. There can’t exist one without the other, movement cannot be without stillness, and life cannot thrive without balance.

Stilling my body through forced exhaustion opened my awareness to a tornado of thoughts and the truth of a mind-body connection. The constancy for external movement reflected the urgency of thought patterns, and highways of

In all of our striving and all of our becoming, it is the essence within for which we are returning. This very essence is The Great Balance, the synergy of Yin/Yang, the still point, the Middle Way; by whatever name it is given, the essence remains the same, and it is the same within us all. I love this quote by Ts’ai-Ken T’an because it reminds us of the paradox of earthly life. There can’t exist one without the other, movement cannot be without stillness.