The Day I Stopped Taking My Body — and the People in My Life — for Granted

There was a period in my life when I could barely get out of bed.

Not because I was tired.

Because moving hurt.

A hip and lower back injury had left me in a level of pain I hadn't experienced before — the kind that follows you from the moment you wake up until the moment you finally fall asleep and sometimes through that too.

Standing hurt.

Sitting hurt.

Lying down hurt.

The simple act of demonstrating an exercise for a client — the most basic part of my job, became something I had to think carefully about before attempting.

I had been taking pain-free movement for granted every single day of my life without ever once noticing I was doing it.

That injury changed that.

And it's one of the reasons I think about gratitude differently than most people in the fitness industry.

What pain teaches you, that motivation never can

Before that injury, I understood movement as a tool. Something I used to train, to demonstrate, to coach.

I appreciated it the way you appreciate a reliable car — you don't think about it much until it stops working.

When it stopped working, I noticed everything I'd been skipping over.

Getting out of bed in the morning.

Walking to meet a friend for coffee.

Sitting at a table and having a conversation without shifting uncomfortably every few minutes.

These weren't achievements — they were the texture of an ordinary day. And I had never once been grateful for them.

This is something I hear regularly from clients in Edmonton who come to me after a health event — a knee replacement, a cardiac scare, a diagnosis that reframes everything.

They say versions of the same thing:

"I didn't realize how much I took it for granted until I lost it."

One client put it to me this way recently:

"I didn't realize how much I took my body for granted before I experienced pain. Today, I'm truly grateful just to walk without my knees aching or get up off the floor on my own."

That's not a fitness insight.

That's a life one.

And it took loss to get there.

The afternoon at the picnic table

I lost my mother in July 2010.

I remember the afternoon clearly.

A wooden picnic table. Staring blankly at the shrubs in front of me.

Shocked, and if I'm honest — furious.

How could this happen to me?

And then a quieter thought, harder to sit with:

Really, Shane? You didn't lose your life. Your mom did.

Someone else lost a wife, a mother, a sister, a friend.

People experience loss every day. I was not a special case. I was just someone who had never fully understood, until that moment, that nothing in this life is guaranteed — not the people you love, not the body you live in, not the ordinary Tuesday morning you breeze through without a second thought.

A mentor had told me years earlier: the world doesn't owe you anything.

I thought I understood that. I didn't.

Not really.

Not until I was sitting at that table.

Why this matters more as we age

I've spent 15 years coaching adults in Edmonton and the clients who make the most meaningful progress, not just physically, but in how they feel about their lives — are almost always the ones who've developed a genuine relationship with gratitude.

Not the performative kind.

Not the journaling-five-things-every-morning kind, though there's nothing wrong with that.

The real kind, which is quieter and less consistent and harder to manufacture.

The kind that shows up when you notice, mid-workout, that you can do something today that you couldn't do six months ago.

Or when you finish a session and realize you feel better than when you walked in.

Or when a hard week at the gym reminds you that having a body worth training is not something to take for granted.

For people in their 50s and 60s, this shift tends to arrive naturally, prompted by a health scare, a diagnosis, the loss of a parent or a peer, the first real encounter with physical limitation.

The challenge isn't recognizing the value of what you have. It's remembering it consistently, once the crisis passes and the ordinary days resume.

Because that's when it fades. Not out of ingratitude — just out of normalcy.

The reminder disappears when life stops forcing it on you.

What I try to carry into every session

When a client tells me they don't feel like training today, I don't push them with a lecture about discipline.

But I do sometimes ask a quieter question: can you?

Because the ability to show up — stiff, tired, unmotivated, imperfect and move your body through something hard is not something everyone has.

It won't always be something you have.

The window is open now.

That's worth something.

Not as a guilt trip.

As a genuine reminder that the capacity to do this work is itself something to be grateful for.

If you're in your 50s or 60s and thinking about what your body is still capable of — I'd love to help you find out.

Book a free consultation at shanekokas.com/contact