Your Body Has Been Gaslighting You: The Hidden Posture Trap
YOUR BODY HAS BEEN GASLIGHTING YOU… WHAT?!
You’ve probably heard the word gaslighting tossed around before, usually in relationships. Romantic, professional, maybe even that one friend who makes jokes at your expense but then tells you you’re too sensitive. But here’s the twist you didn’t see coming: your body might be the biggest gaslighter of them all.
Yep. The very system you trust to tell you how you feel, how strong you are, or whether you’re fine has been spinning its own story, and it’s been doing it so convincingly you’ve been clapping along like, Wow, thanks for adapting, body!
Adaptation: The Hidden Gaslight Behind Pain and Posture
Let’s get real. Your body’s job is to adapt, and it’s brilliant at it, maybe too brilliant. It’s been quietly adjusting to your lifestyle this whole time: to sitting too much, to overtraining, to holding your breath when you’re stressed, to living in shoes that make your feet forget what ground even feels like.
It’s so good at covering for you that it hides the dysfunction. Tight hip flexors? Your glutes clock out. Stiff spine? Your neck and shoulders take over. Overworked nervous system? Your fascia cinches everything together just to keep you upright and operational.
That’s the gaslight. You think you’re fine because you can still move from point A to point B, but the truth is, you’re not moving well.
You’ve Adapted to Dysfunction and Called It Normal
You’ve adapted to tension and called it strength, adapted to fatigue and called it normal, adapted to stiffness and called it ageing. That’s what I call Tin Man Syndrome. You’re technically mobile, but your body moves like it’s made of metal. Your muscles, joints, and fascia become puppet masters, and you’re being yanked along by your own compensations.
Realizing that should make you angry, because your movements aren’t even as controlled as you think they are.
Movement Awareness: The Cure for Tin Man Syndrome
If you were able to analyze your movement, you’d see exactly where you’ve been compensating and what needs releasing or strengthening to restore true balance in your body.
A lot of what people blame on ageing is really imbalance. If you imagine how a game of Jenga ends, it’s wobbly and unstable. One wrong move and it collapses. That’s most people’s posture by midlife.
Rebuilding Balance: Ageing Isn’t the Enemy
What your body really needs is to play that game in reverse, piece by piece, rebuilding stability until the structure supports itself again. When you do that, ageing becomes less of a factor because balance, not time, determines how you move through the years.