Last weekend, I walked seven kilometres (4,3 miles) through the Volcanic Eifel in Germany.

Not on a flat path. Not at a leisurely stroll. Through hills that made my calves burn, over slippery rocks that required actual concentration, with a backpack, in proper hiking sneakers, and a dog who — until that moment — I had genuinely believed was more of a sofa creature than a mountain animal.

Poppy, it turns out, has an inner wolf. The moment she hit those trails, she transformed from her usual self — the dog who yelps at every tree stump she bumps into — into something resembling a mountain goat. Leaping over boulders. Bounding up inclines. Completely unbothered by the terrain that, not long ago, I would have told you was simply not for me.

And here I was, keeping up with her. A little stiff maybe but completely pain-free. Something that once would have felt impossible.

If you had told me this five years ago, I would have laughed. Politely, but still.

The Diagnosis That Became a Story I Told Myself

In my twenties, I was told I had pelvic instability and a rotated hip. And I believed it — because why wouldn’t I? It came from a professional, it matched how I felt, and it gave a name to something that had been quietly limiting my life.

I couldn’t walk for more than half an hour without pain setting in. And the consequences didn’t stop when I stopped walking. The days after a longer walk — sometimes the weeks — would be coloured by discomfort and pain that made me careful, cautious, and quietly smaller in my choices.

So I adapted. I stopped expecting more from my body in that particular department. I had already done enormous amounts of mind-body work by that point and resolved so many other symptoms — things that had once felt permanent had simply dissolved once I understood what was driving them. But this? The pelvis, the hip? Somehow I filed this one under “just how things are now.” I even had a story ready for it: I’m not really a hiking person anyway.

It was a comfortable story. It required nothing from me.

The Moment the Story Started to Crack

I’m not entirely sure when the shift happened. Somewhere in my forties, with a dog who needed walking and a growing hunger for something I can only describe as wilderness — wind in my hair, rushing streams, the smell of pine and cold air — I started to want more.

And wanting more made me look more carefully at the story I’d been telling myself.

Because here’s the thing about having a thorough understanding of how the brain generates pain: at some point, you start applying it to the corners of your life you’d quietly given up on. And I found myself thinking: “Wait a minute….Pelvic instability? A rotated hip? Is this not exactly the same pattern I’ve seen in everything else?”

The research says that structural findings like these correlate poorly with pain. That plenty of people walk around with rotated hips and asymmetrical pelvises and feel nothing. That the body is not as fragile as a diagnosis can make it sound. I knew all of this. I teach it. And yet I had let a label quietly build a ceiling over what I thought my body could do.

So I decided to test it. Carefully. Respectfully. But deliberately.

Walking Towards a Different Belief

I started with a little more than half an hour. Then an hour. Then an hour and a half. Each time, I noticed what happened — not just in my body, but in my mind. The old pattern of bracing, anticipating, catastrophising. And the gradual, deeply satisfying experience of nothing terrible happening.

A year ago, I decided to challenge myself a little bit more and walked five kilometres (3 miles) on an easy trail through the Dolomites. No pain. That was a quiet triumph I held close for a while before I was ready to say it out loud.

Last weekend was something else entirely.

Seven kilometres (4,3 miles). Volcanic terrain. Proper hills. Steep descents. Rocky paths and unstable ground. Far more demanding than the easy Dolomite trail, even if those mountains stood much higher. And Poppy, who had apparently been hiding her feral mountain self all this time, charging ahead like she’d been doing this her whole life.

I came home with slightly tired legs, a little stiff here and there, a very muddy dog, and something that I can only describe as joy. The uncomplicated, physical, embodied kind. The kind you feel when your body does something you had genuinely stopped believing it could.

What “Stiff” Does Not Mean

There’s a belief that creeps in as we get older — and I hear it constantly — that stiffness and pain are the same thing. That feeling a little tight after exertion is a warning sign, a signal to slow down, evidence that the body is breaking.

It isn’t. Stiff after a seven-kilometre hike over volcanic rock just means you used your body. It means you actually did something. Muscles that worked hard feel different the next day — that’s biology, not damage.

This distinction matters more than people realise, because the moment we interpret normal post-exertion sensations as dangerous, we feed the very fear cycle that makes pain worse. The body tightens. The brain amplifies. And we end up doing less, which makes us more fragile, which makes us do less still.

My mantra, which I offer to you freely: stiff is not the same as pain. Your body doing its job is not your body failing.

The Fleece, the Leggings, and the Point of All This

I’ll be honest: I am now fully committed to becoming a hiking person. We’re talking fleece, leggings, body warmers, and — yes — wool socks. Full transformation. Poppy is on board.

But underneath the gear and the slightly ridiculous enthusiasm, there’s something I want you to take from this.

If you have been living with a diagnosis — pelvic instability, a rotated hip, a bulging disc, whatever label has built a ceiling over your life — I am not telling you to ignore it. Please do the sensible things. Rule out what needs ruling out.

But I am asking you to consider: is this label describing a permanent physical reality, or is it a story your nervous system learned to protect you, that has quietly become the walls of a smaller life than you deserve?

Because sometimes the most rebellious thing you can do is take one slightly longer walk than you think you’re allowed.

And see what happens.

Ready to Find Your Own Seven Kilometres?

If something in this resonates — if there’s a ceiling you’ve quietly accepted that maybe, just maybe, doesn’t have to be permanent — I’d love to explore that with you. Book a free 20-minute call and let’s talk about what might be possible.

Book your free call here.