Interview with Diana May on Movement, Mindfulness, and Building a Stronger Connection with Your Body
- Apr 30
- 7 min read
Diana May is a yoga educator, Somatic Experiencing® practitioner, and applied-neurology specialist who helps people reduce pain, restore mobility, and deepen connection with their bodies and nervous systems. She discovered yoga at age 19 during a challenging period of early adulthood, an experience that opened a lifelong path toward embodied awareness and integrative healing.
Diana May, Neuro Somatic Practitioner & Yoga Teacher
What first shifted for you when you discovered yoga at 19, and how did that shape the way you work with the body today?
At the heart of yogic philosophy is this: yoga is when the mind chatter stops. And in that stillness, you realize something profound about who you are.
I didn't grow up religious, and I definitely didn't grow up connected to my body. At 19, I became seriously ill, the result of years of ignoring my body's signals, pushing for grades, performing competence, suppressing my emotions. I had inherited a belief that I was unlovable unless I constantly proved myself.
When I found yoga and genuinely sensed the difference between my swirling thoughts and the possibility that there was something else, that was the beginning of my healing. I remember a whisper, barely audible compared to my usual inner noise, that said: What if things could be different? What if you're already good? It stopped me in my tracks. I've practiced ever since.
That experience shapes everything about how I work with people today. One of my core principles is building right relationship with your body. I don't care what shape it's in, how injured it is, or how long it's been ignored. The body you have right now is enough.
In my work, two yogic principles guide what I do and their order matters. First, santosha: the practice of contentment. Meeting this moment exactly as it is, and trusting it. Then, tapas: the burning desire to grow. When contentment comes first, the drive to change stops coming from judgment and starts coming from love.
Where do you see the biggest misunderstanding between pain and movement in traditional yoga or fitness spaces?
One of the things I loved most about yoga was how it seemed radically different from the fitness world. No competition, no "no pain, no gain,” just listening to your body. Professional dancers and gym athletes would come to my classes specifically for that reason.
Yet I still saw people pushing past their limits into injury. I used to believe that if someone got hurt in yoga, it was a matter of ego or disconnection, a shadow to examine. That assumption sat unchallenged in me for years. Then I studied pain science, and it changed everything.
Injury is a part of life. And even when tissue damage is present, it doesn't always produce pain. One meta-analysis of people with asymptomatic low back conditions found herniated discs, spondylolysis, fissures, and more, across every age group from 20 to 80, in people who felt no pain at all. Real structural damage, zero symptoms.
Pain is a complex, whole-person experience. Yes, it involves your tissue but also how your brain interprets threat signals, your emotional state, and your social environment.
I was trained to modify postures and avoid movements that hurt. That's sometimes the right call. But I've learned that consistently avoiding painful movements can actually teach your brain that those movements are dangerous which potentially reinforces and amplifies pain over time.
Now I bring more tools, more curiosity, and far fewer assumptions. We find a path forward together.
How does applied neurology change the way you approach something as simple as mobility or stretching?
I see movement as a relationship. Applied neurology is what makes that relationship complete. In the yoga and somatic world, there's almost an unspoken avoidance of the mind. Which makes sense as we live in a culture that glorifies rational thought, and so many people are completely disconnected from their bodies.
I was one of them, and it literally made me sick. So the emphasis on embodiment in yoga and somatic work is something I deeply needed, and I think a lot of people do too.
But applied neurology reminded me of something that was being cast aside: the brain and body are not separate. They never were.
The movement we love so much? It originates in the brain. And every sensation the body experiences, from temperature to the pleasant buzz of a good stretch and our proprioception, it gets sent right back up. It's a conversation, constantly happening.
Applied neurology looks at how signals travel along that pathway. And one of its most powerful insights is this: when your brain and nervous system feel safe, your brain opens up more movement. When your brain perceives threat, it restricts mobility to protect you.
That changes everything about how I approach even the simplest stretch. If we're only working with the muscles and joints and ignoring the nervous system, we're missing half the story, maybe more.
Bringing the brain into the room doesn't make movement more complicated. It actually makes it more effective, more sustainable, and far more interesting.
When someone wants to “listen to their body,” what are they often missing or misinterpreting?
The mind speaks in words. The body speaks in sensations. And most of us only learned one language.
Eugene Gendlin coined the term "felt sense" to describe a full-body, multilayered experience that exists beneath our words. The stories we tell ourselves, the thoughts that run on repeat are usually being driven by something deeper: physical sensations, emotions, impulses, an inner atmosphere we've never been taught to name.
Most people grow up learning to articulate their experiences verbally. But the body was communicating long before language showed up. So when someone tries to "listen to their body" and only has words as their tool, they're missing most of what's actually being said.
Part of the work I do is help people build fluency in those other channels. And because the body has often been ignored for a long time, there's usually some judgment layered in too, or an urgent need to immediately interpret whatever arises. Someone notices tension in their belly and within seconds it becomes: that's bad, let’s fix it or they explain exactly where it comes from.
What I try to support people in doing is slowing that down. Staying in the experience a little longer before reaching for an explanation. Letting the sensation just be a sensation for a moment, without rushing to categorize it.
What’s a simple way someone can begin regulating their nervous system through movement in daily life?
Eye exercises. Genuinely, it's one of my favorite entry points. It’s accessible to almost anyone, at any time of day, and it’s completely free.
Working with the visual system is one of the most direct ways to communicate safety to your brain. You can find a full guide in my article on eye exercises, but even the simplest version makes a difference: just orient to your space.
Right now, take a few moments and consciously look around the room you're in. Try not to get caught up in the story of what you see, if the living room is a mess, don't spiral into that. Look at it like abstract art instead. Just take in the shapes, the light, the space.
Doing this consistently gives your brain real-time information that you're safe. And a brain that feels safe moves better, thinks better, and heals better.
What does it mean in practice to treat movement as a moment-to-moment conversation rather than a fixed routine?
I'm far more interested in your present-moment experience than I am in perfecting your alignment. The movement itself is just a doorway. What we're really exploring is your brain, your body, and who you are right now in this moment, your strengths, your edges, and everything in between. When you approach it that way, movement stops being a performance or a checklist. It becomes a way of understanding who you are, not what you can do.
How has your background in environmental activism influenced the way you understand the body as a system?
It taught me patience. And it taught me that solutions alone are never enough.
With the climate crisis, what's so frustrating is that we actually have the tools. In her book What if We Get it Right?, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson has written beautifully about innovative solutions already happening across ocean health, transportation, food systems, and more. The knowledge exists. But knowing what needs to change and being ready to change it are two very different things.
The body is the same way. Most people already know the general outline: move more, eat better, tend to stress, try somatic therapy. But a list of solutions has never healed anyone on its own. Real, lasting change takes something else entirely. It takes joy.
When I was deep in environmental activism, the weight of it was immense. What kept me grounded wasn't more information or more urgency, it was staying connected to my love of nature itself. Swimming, hiking, playing. Remembering what I was actually fighting for.
Our bodies need the same thing. Especially when we're in a tough season or just beginning a healing journey, it can feel like an overwhelming checklist. But what's essential is simpler than that: keep living your life. Laugh. Do silly things just because they're fun.
The nervous system doesn't heal through discipline alone. It heals through moments of genuine aliveness. As seriously as I take this work, joy is always at the center of it.
If there’s one shift people could make to feel more at home in their bodies, what would it be?
Show up for yourself consistently, regardless of how you're doing. When you're thriving, take care of yourself. When you're struggling, take care of yourself. Good mood, bad mood, somewhere in between, take care of yourself anyway.
That consistency becomes a kind of balm. It builds a trust with your own body that runs deeper than any single practice or breakthrough moment. A trust that says: you deserve care no matter what.
When your body begins to believe it is seen, heard, and tended to, that's when life starts to feel genuinely full.
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