Is Your Mother Living in Your Hips?

“I still remember my mom telling me, over and over again throughout my childhood, to be proper. I am supposed to sit with my legs closed.”

Claire tells me this as she sits in her chair, legs neatly crossed, her posture composed and familiar. At ninety-two years old, this way of sitting is not something she thinks about—it is something she is. It lives in her body as much as in her memory lies in her mind.

Claire came to me with persistent knee pain. Over the past year, we’ve worked together consistently, supporting her overall mobility and well-being. While she is remarkably vibrant for her age, her knees have been a constant source of discomfort. As I assessed her movement patterns early on, one thing stood out clearly: her hips were extremely restricted.

The body is always compensating. When one area lacks mobility, another will take on the burden. In Claire’s case, her hips were not offering the range of motion needed for walking, standing, or transitioning between movements. So her knees—joints not designed for lateral or rotational strain—had been quietly picking up the slack for decades.

Over time, that compensation came at a cost. The cartilage in her knee joints had worn down, leading to arthritis, inflammation, and chronic pain. Her knees were not the original problem—they were the messengers.

The Messages We Inherit

As our sessions deepened, I gently introduced an idea that can feel both obvious and revolutionary: our bodies are expressions of our lived experiences. The way we move, hold tension, and inhabit ourselves is shaped not only by physical habits, but by beliefs, conditioning, and social expectations absorbed over a lifetime.

For Claire, this connection began to surface through stories of her upbringing. The messages she received about what it meant to be a “proper” woman were not just abstract ideas—they were instructions that became embedded in her muscles, her fascia, and her nervous system.

One day, I asked Claire to stand up and walk across the room. I watched carefully, not just at her feet or knees, but at the quality of her movement as a whole. Her gait was controlled, contained. There was no natural sway through her hips, no fluidity through her pelvis. It was as though her lower body had been trained to move within invisible boundaries.

I shared my observation with her.

Without hesitation, she explained: “A respectable woman doesn’t sway her hips when she walks. That’s something women do when they want attention from men. I’m not like that.”

There it was—decades of conditioning, still actively shaping how she moved through the world.

This is not just Claire’s story.

Many of us are carrying similar imprints, whether we recognize them or not. Even if the messages didn’t come directly from our mothers, they were reinforced by culture, media, religion, and social norms. The “ideal” feminine posture—legs together, hips contained, movements minimized—has been subtly (and sometimes explicitly) taught across generations.

A Brisk Walk Through The Politics of Posture

When you picture an exaggerated feminine posture, what do you see? Perhaps a woman sitting with her knees pressed together, ankles crossed, her body angled to appear small and contained. Even in stillness, there is a sense of restriction.

Now imagine an exaggerated masculine posture. The legs are often wider apart, the stance more grounded, the hips freer. There is an ease, a sense of taking up space without apology.

These patterns are not accidental. They are learned, practiced, and embodied over time.

And the body adapts.

When we consistently limit our range of motion—when we avoid opening the legs, rotating the hips, or allowing natural pelvic movement—the tissues begin to reorganize around those limitations. Fascia tightens. Muscles shorten. Joints lose their capacity for full expression. What was once easy becomes difficult, and eventually, it can feel impossible.

This is how cultural conditioning becomes physical restriction.

The Radical Act of Taking Up Space

The ability for the legs to move apart, to internally and externally rotate, to support fluid, multidirectional movement—this is not excessive or indulgent. It is natural, healthy, and necessary for long-term joint integrity.

When that movement is suppressed for years, or decades, the consequences ripple outward. Knees compensate. Lower backs strain. Balance becomes compromised. Pain emerges.

But the story does not end there.

What I find most compelling is not just how these patterns form, but how they can begin to shift—sometimes with the smallest spark of awareness.

A Wider Opening

After one of our deeper conversations about her mother, societal expectations, and how these ideas had shaped her body, Claire came back the following week different.

Not dramatically. Not performatively. But subtly, unmistakably different.

At one point during our session, I asked her to do a wide legged forward bent (Prasarita Padottanasana). Her stance was wider than I had ever seen it. Her base of support had expanded. There was a quiet experimentation happening—an openness.

It was not about rebellion. It was not about rejecting her past or judging the values she was raised with. It was about curiosity. About giving her body permission to explore something new after ninety-two years of holding a particular shape, and I don’t event think it was totally conscious.

That moment has stayed with me.

Because it speaks to something essential: awareness creates possibility.

We cannot change what we cannot see. But once we begin to notice the ways our bodies have been shaped by inherited beliefs, we gain a choice. Not an obligation to change, but an opportunity to explore.

So I offer you this question:

Is your mother living in your hips?

Or perhaps more broadly—whose rules are shaping the way you move?

This is not about blame. Our parents and caregivers did the best they could within the contexts they were given. Social norms are powerful, often invisible forces. But as adults, we have the capacity to listen inwardly and reassess what truly serves us.

You might begin simply by noticing.

How do you sit when no one is watching?
How do you walk when you are not performing for others?
Do your hips feel free, or held?
Is there tension where there could be ease?

And perhaps most importantly—what might it feel like to let your body move in a way that is not governed by old rules?

This kind of inquiry is not just physical. It is deeply personal, even relational. It asks us to renegotiate our relationship with ourselves, our history, and the cultural stories we have inherited.

In my work, I have seen again and again that when the mind begins to open, something else opens with it. There is often more breath, more presence, more aliveness. Movement becomes less about control and more about expression.

Claire’s journey is still unfolding. At ninety-two, she is not trying to become someone new. She is simply allowing more of herself to be available.

And that, in many ways, is the work.