The Hypermobility Coach

13/09/2025

It’s more than being a bit bendy…

30/08/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/15xbgwD2MG/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Alan Alda once smuggled feminist essays into the writers’ room of M*A*S*H — and demanded they shape the scripts.
It wasn’t grandstanding. It was 1970s Hollywood, where women were still written as nurses or foils, and Alda refused to let the show slide into cliché. Castmates recall him pulling out dog-eared copies of Ms. Magazine, dropping them on the table, and insisting, “If we’re going to show war, let’s also show the women who live it.”
That stubbornness made him a target. Critics called him “too serious” for comedy. Executives tried to sideline him. Even fans sometimes bristled when M*A*S*H leaned into issues of sexual harassment, reproductive rights, or the quiet dignity of a nurse tending to broken bodies. But Alda knew sitcoms could do more than entertain — they could provoke, unsettle, reflect the real world.
The irony? Offscreen, he hated being called a “male feminist.” He once laughed, “That’s like saying you’re a male human being.” For him, it wasn’t a badge, it was common sense. What mattered was action — pushing scripts, challenging producers, refusing to accept the easy joke when a deeper truth was waiting.
Decades later, when younger actors asked him why he risked being labeled “difficult,” Alda shrugged: “If you’re comfortable, you’re not learning.” That line — equal parts gentle and defiant — captures his entire career.

25/08/2025

This perfectly captures the essence of my belief that we are all valuable and contribute, even if we don’t always realise. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19bGH5nXAD/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Have you ever considered
that, at any given moment, you are exactly who the world needs?

That you're the tune to someone's lyrics when no other melody seems to fit.

That you're the stars to someone's sky when it is drowning in inky darkness.

That you're the moon to someone's ocean when it cannot find its way back to the sand.

And it might not be forever.

Songs end,
the sun rises
and the tide turns.

But maybe for a while - maybe in this moment -
you are exactly where you're supposed to be.

Because it gives you a chance
to sing, to shine and to make waves.

And your light,
your music,
your guide...
Oh the world needs it.

It really, really does.

*****

Becky Hemsley 2024
Beautiful artwork by André (GoblinGlade via Etsy)

This is from my fifth collection, Words to Remember, here: https://a.co/d/a1lVoOK

15/08/2025

Mathematical model supports the Grandmother hypothesis

For years, anthropologists and evolutionary biologists have struggled to explain the existence of menopause, a life stage that humans do not share with our primate relatives. Why would it be beneficial for females to stop being able to have children with decades still left to live? What does research say? https://bit.ly/45Rx856

📸: Juan Pablo Serrano Arenas / Pexels

08/08/2025

Pain is our body’s way of letting us know how safe we are/how much danger we are in, how healthy and well we are.

Constant chronic pain is not ‘normal’, whatever normal is, (see Gabor Maté’s ‘The myth of normal’ for more on this).

Pain, bloating, headaches, allergies and digestive difficulties, as well as disruption to sleep, low mood, high anxiety etc. are often associated with high histamine levels and high inflammation levels in the body.

Focusing on bringing inflammation down through appropriate beneficial inputs can help greatly reduce or even eliminate pain.

Beneficial inputs include:

- restorative sleep and constructive rest,
- gentle functional and somatic movements
- stillness, quiet,
- enough mental stimulation but not too much (sustained overstimulation stresses body and mind)
- deliberate intentional relaxation,
- adequate nutrition to meet your body and mind’s basic needs, support effective elimination and nourish cellular replenishment and renewal.

Nutrition is an easy way to change the state of your whole body and mind: working out what foods make you feel good or better and what foods make you feel worse is a good start on the path to recovery.

If you aren’t sure where to start,
➡️ try cutting out or at least cutting down on pre-packaged, highly processed foods,
➡️ look up high histamine foods to avoid and how to make them less high in histamine and look at low histamine diets eg. FODMAP.

➡️ Try tracking your symptoms and sleep through an app or on paper - Apple Health App is free if you are an iPhone user and there are others for Android and Samsung users.

If you want to look at things a different way you could use an app like the Visible App which enables you to track the impact of specific inputs, track your activity and monitor signs of stress on you your body. It also prompts you to take a break when you are overdoing it, encourages and supports you to pace yourself effectively.

Chronic inflammation depletes energy and aggravates any pre-existing conditions. It disrupts hormone balance and can trigger allergic and autoimmune conditions too, making bringing inflammation down a priority for dealing with any kind of chronic pain.

04/08/2025

I was reminded reading this piece on the Mighty of sitting in the café of one of our local hospitals and overhearing a conversation that went like this:

A young woman sat down at a table with her father. After a moment or two I heard her say how she almost wished she had a serious car accident so she could be properly assessed and have the issues she was experiencing identified so she could receive treatment.

She was in a great deal of physical pain and had just seen a medical professional who had fobbed her off with a wrong diagnosis.

After waiting many months and having hoped for answers and a treatment plan to receive some relief this young woman was understandably distressed and frustrated.

Despairing even.

We got talking and I explained how I could relate to her experience personally and how I studied and trained to help people living with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and Hypermobility Spectrum conditions to have a better experience of living in their bodies.

I offered suggestions of where to look for further information and access resources to empower her to help herself.

I could relate to her story not least because it took me years of experiencing issues including chronic pain, self referring for physiotherapy, osteopathic and chiropractic treatment practicing yoga and spending hours in the gym experimenting with what helped, figuring out a program that worked for me practicing pilates as well as yoga and bringing in specific strength, resistance and mobilisation training to see a significant difference and shift in the way I felt.

Then a relatively minor car accident reignited head and neck pain from a previous injury and I got referred to the MaxilloFacial department, again.

It took seeing a top head and neck trauma surgeon to have my issues taken seriously and properly investigated.

After years of asking.

This lead me to (again) request a referral to rheumatology to be assessed for a hypermobility spectrum condition.

Like so many others before and after me, this process was not without pitfalls and difficulties: it required perseverance and determination.

Sadly some version of this story is a common experience for people living with what is largely an invisible condition.

What often isn’t invisible is the pain people are in: if you look you can see it in someone’s face, if you watch them move you can see how they hold themselves taut, braced against pain or injury.

Often people move more or fidget about because being still is more taxing and less stable: sitting, standing or lying still typically increases pain or discomfort.

Below people describe what Ehlers Danlos Syndrome feels like.

As always each person’s experience is different in presentation and severity.

There are various subtypes and whether someone was correctly diagnosed and able to access appropriate care and support has implications for their pain, management and treatment.

Not to mention their mental health.

Years of having debilitating symptoms minimised or dismissed, put down to life stage or age is damaging and in itself traumatic.

As a condition that affects connective tissue throughout the body, any and all tissues can be affected, including brain tissue, joints, ligaments, membranes, muscles, organs, skin, systems, tendons, even bones in one subtype.

All bodily systems are involved, especially digestive, pulmonary and cardiovascular systems also reproductive and genito urinary systems (bladder, bowel, kidneys reproductive organs etc.) and nervous systems.

Symptoms often present in a cluster or constellation and seemingly unconnected issues often share a common connection - connection tissue.

Ehlers Danlos Syndromes and Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder conditions are heritable connective tissue disorders.

Athletes, creatives, dancers, gymnasts are commonly hypermobile and have variation in yhe their connective tissue consistent with a connective tissue disorder.

As are ADHDers, Autistics and entrepreneurs innovators.

My belief is that the ability to think flexibly and creatively requires more flexible connective tissue.

I don’t have evidence for this, it’s a just a hunch.

“It’s like riding a bicycle with very loose bolts.”

07/06/2025

Hypermobile bodies tend to be more sensitive to inputs including diet. More frequent injuries requiring repair and slower healing as well as difficulties with absorption, allergies and autoimmune issues means we need a high quality diet to provide the building blocks for our health growth, cellular regeneration and recovery.

You don’t have to be perfect. But you do have to be intentional.

If you’re not eating real, whole foods most of the time, you’re not giving your body the raw materials it needs to function, heal, and thrive.

Every cell in your body is built from the food you eat. Your hormones, your neurotransmitters, your immune system, your skin, your brain, they’re all constructed and regulated by what’s on your plate.

Real food is information. It speaks directly to your DNA, turning genes on and off. It sends signals that calm inflammation, balance blood sugar, repair your gut, and boost your energy.

Ultra-processed food, on the other hand, confuses your metabolism, hijacks your appetite, and fuels chronic disease. It’s not just empty calories, it’s harmful instructions.

Avoid the fake stuff: added sugars, seed oils, chemicals, and packaged “food-like substances.” I call them Frankenfoods. If you can’t pronounce what’s on the label, don’t eat it!

The rest will follow.
Your cravings will shift. Your energy will rise. Your mind will clear.

When you feed your body what it truly needs, it knows what to do.

08/04/2025

Too funny!

If you know you know!

19/03/2025

People sometimes wonder what coaching is all about and what it looks and feels like to be coached -

In a nutshell, coaching is
creating space to sit with whatever is being experienced and feel into what’s needed, instead of prescribing solutions or offering fixes.

It’s a collaborative process with the coach as facilitator and guide of a process of enquiry, embodied self - engagement amd reflection.

Coaching is based on a deep seated belief in each individual’s own agency, autonomy and ability to effect the changes they need to make to thrive in their lives, founded on the principle that an individual is uniquely competent and capable of determinong their own path, in way that is right for them.

If you’d like to explore more about my own unique approach to coaching please like and follow my page and message to find out about working with me.