By John Sutherland — Creator of Adaptive Bodywork Structural Integration. Twenty-plus years as a therapist, still learning what the body has to teach.
Own It or Practise Losing It — Self-Respect, Presence & the Body
I walked down St. Catherine Street this morning, past where the Bay and Eaton used to be, and did something I do often. I watch people coming toward me and try to feel what they’re carrying, understand what they’re dealing with — in my imagination, anyway. How does their presence, their projection, affect me or not?
Amongst the multitude of people I passed, only one person stood out. Something in how he moved and held himself was refreshing — it said he was cultivating that presence on purpose, not just wearing it by accident. I noticed him the way you notice the one thing in a room that’s actually alive.
Dress, grooming, how you carry yourself. This is self-respect.
It’s decency. It’s dignity and integrity, made visible.
That doesn’t mean artificial. It doesn’t mean pretentious, and it doesn’t mean your best clothes for a Wednesday errand. It can be minimal. Simple. Clean, kept, fluid, unfussy. None of it has to cost you time or effort you don’t have. Before it’s anything else, it’s a mental state — a decision about how much you think you’re worth, made fresh every time you walk out the door.
The body doesn’t hold a version of you in reserve
There’s no polished self waiting backstage for the occasions that matter while a lesser one runs errands and stands in line. There’s only the one you’re rehearsing, every time you move through the world.
I’ve said this before, and it’s worth saying again: you become what you practise. Every outing is a rep. Neglect the standard and it erodes on its own — that’s not a failure of willpower, it’s just what happens when nothing is being maintained. Hold the standard and, eventually, you stop having to think about it. It becomes who you are.
Nobody needs to be perfect. But it would be nice to see ownership.
Not flawless. Not polished. Just someone who looks like they’re glad to be who they are, going where they’re going — proactive, dynamic, present.
Most of what I saw on that street didn’t project that image. Not damaged, not judged — just absent. People moving through their own lives like tenants rather than owners.
Don’t abandon yourself. Don’t leave it to chance.
Every gesture you make is forming your future self. Every choice, however small, is a vote for who you’re becoming. Left undirected, that vote still gets cast — just by default, by whoever you are on the days you’re not paying attention.
Your intention, properly directed, is what determines the outcome.
I see the same thing on my therapy table
People come in braced, guarded, holding themselves the way they’ve held themselves for years without noticing. And the pattern doesn’t live in one muscle or one joint. It lives in how someone occupies their whole structure — the same thing I was watching for on the street. Neither state arrives by accident.
You are the proud owner of an extraordinary organism. You owe it your attention. You owe it your pride. You owe it the discipline of showing up, on purpose, even when — especially when — nobody’s grading you but yourself.
That’s not vanity. That’s self-respect.
The body you’ve been living in doesn’t have to be the body you keep living in.
About John Sutherland
John Sutherland is the creator of Adaptive Bodywork Structural Integration (ABSI) and a registered massage therapist in Montréal. He is also the only certified Anatomy Trains Structural Integration therapist in the city, and has spent years applying that work to his own body as a competitive masters sprinter.
His work is informed by decades of clinical experience, advanced structural integration training, and a lifetime devoted to understanding human movement—from elite international sport to the treatment of people seeking relief from pain, improved performance, and greater freedom of movement.
Adaptive Bodywork was built upon a simple conviction: the body is not a machine to be corrected, but an adaptive living system to be understood. Every treatment reflects that philosophy, helping individuals discover more efficient, resilient, and comfortable ways of organizing themselves rather than imposing change from the outside.
Whether working with chronic pain, athletic performance, or the ordinary challenges of everyday life, John’s goal remains the same: to help people better understand their own remarkable capacity to adapt.
The body you’ve been living in doesn’t have to be the body you keep living in.
