This is why teaching the Feminine Core workshop means so much to me.

In almost every workshop I teach, there is always at least one woman who comes up to me afterward with a soft, almost defeated honesty.

This time she said, “I don’t really feel my body because I’m just so disappointed in it.”

Her words landed in me, because I have heard versions of this so many times. Women who have carried children, stress, grief, long work hours, sedentary years, hormonal shifts, and the quiet pressures of life. Women who believe their symptoms are inevitable because no one has ever shown them another possibility. Women who think their body is failing when all it is doing is adapting to the conditions it has been under.

I want to speak directly to that place in a woman.

• The place that decides her body is a disappointment.
• The place that assumes decline is the only direction left.
• The place that quietly believes she missed her window.
• The place that thinks she is somehow behind or broken because strength and sensation do not show up immediately when she asks for them.
• That place deserves truth, clarity, and compassion, not criticism.

And the truth is that nothing in your body is fixed or final.

There are no quick fixes, but there is always plasticity. There is always healing potential waiting to be invited back online.

With the proper stimulus and consistent practice, your body will respond. Not all at once, not overnight, but reliably. Biology is not the enemy here. It is simply waiting for the right input repeated often enough that change becomes possible.

Women walked in thinking their core was weak, fragile, or deteriorating.

They walked out realizing they had simply never been taught how their core actually works.

It is not a small isolated region somewhere between the ribs and the pelvis.

It is an entire system that includes posture, breath, pressure management, the deep front line, the feet, the nervous system, and the way their daily life shapes their tissues.

When you understand this, disappointment softens into curiosity, and curiosity becomes capability. You begin to feel your body again, not because it suddenly changed, but because you began offering it conditions where sensation, strength, and stability can return.

The changes I saw:

During the workshop,

• I watched women discover that upright posture immediately changed their breathing and pelvic support.
• I watched them feel the difference between downward pressure and upward lift.
• I watched their faces light up when they realized that their feet, arches, and inseams were directly connected to their pelvic floor.

These are not dramatic or intense techniques.

They were simple, repeatable inputs that reawaken coordination and timing. And that is the real source of core strength: timing, not tension.

Once women experience this, they stop trying to overpower their core and start learning how to organize it.

One of the most moving parts of the day was:

Seeing how many women had never touched the tissues of their own lower belly in a way that let them sense the deep connection between fascia and pelvic floor.

Some could feel the engagement immediately. Others felt it only subtly. Some weren’t sure. All of this is normal.

Feeling your center is not a test of worthiness. It is a relationship that rebuilds slowly as you offer your body new information. Consistent inputs cause adaptation over time.

That is the principle that runs through every stage of a woman’s life, whether she is preparing for pregnancy, recovering postpartum, navigating perimenopause, or settling into life after menopause.

Nothing is failing. Everything is responding.

This workshop also reminded me how:

Empowering it is for women simply to know the truth about their bodies.

• When we reached the walking portion, they could immediately feel the difference that upright alignment made in their energy, breathing, and pelvic support.
• When we explored sliding drills and squats, they could feel their body becoming capable again.
• When we practiced breath-timed movement, they could sense how much stability came from coordination rather than gripping.

These realizations matter. They dissolve disappointment. They replace discouragement with direction.

What I took away from teaching this workshop is that:

Women are not lacking discipline or strength.

• They are lacking education, clarity, and experiences that help their bodies make sense again. Most of the “problems” women feel in their core are not signs of decline.
• They are the natural consequences of years of adapting to sitting, rushing, holding tension, breathing shallowly, or living without awareness of how their structure works.

When we change the inputs, the body changes the outcome. It always has. It always will.

If you recognize yourself in that woman who told me she felt disappointed in her body, I want you to know this: your body has not given up on you.

It is waiting for you to return to it with attention, patience, and the right kind of stimulus. It will respond. It wants to respond.

And you do not have to do this perfectly. You only have to begin.

Before you go,

I want to leave you with a few simple things you can begin doing right now, not as exercises or tasks, but as ways of returning to yourself throughout the day.

• Stand a little taller than you think you can.
• Let your breath travel lower and wider than it usually does.
• Wake up your feet when you’re standing in line, or cooking, or walking across a room.
• Sit a little less when you have the option to stand.
• Walk a little more when your body tells you it needs movement.
• And whenever you walk, walk tall.

These small choices reorganize your body in ways that compound over time. They aren’t dramatic, but they are powerful.

Most of all, stay close to the truth.

Your core is not weak, broken, or disappointing. It is responsive, intelligent, and always adapting to the conditions it is given. When you offer it better conditions, it responds with clarity, strength, and support.

This is not wishful thinking. It is physiology. And it is available to every woman.

I believe every woman deserves to feel at home in her own center. Not because she worked harder, but because she finally understood what was true.

And truth is empowering. It gives you back your agency. It returns you to your body with compassion instead of criticism. It lets you participate in your own strength again.

Your core has been waiting for you. Now it’s time to come back to it.

Denise