So recently I injured myself while kickboxing, which is one of those things to which people say “Well, what did you expect?” While I am not thrilled about being less able to do the physical activities I enjoy, I have been doing the best I can to remain curious and mindful about the experience of healing.
Many people I know consider an injury to be a really bad thing. I notice there is a lot of drama surrounding being hurt, a sort of dark cloud that follows and surrounds not only the story of the injury but even hovers around the injury itself, and by extension the person with it. The last time I hurt myself it brought a lot of fear and frustration. I was terrified about my inability to keep doing my work, and disappointed in myself for having incurred the injury in the first place.
But.
The first lesson I learned from that injury happened while I was doing a massage. The throbbing shooting pain in my back kept distracting me and I wanted to cry. I remembered a book I had read, Healing Back Pain by Dr. John Sarno. In the book essentially he said to decrease the focus on the pain. So in that moment I spread my awareness out all over my body, giving equal attention to my feet, my hands, my neck, my belly, my face, as well as my back. As soon as I did that the volume of the pain went from about an 8 to a 2 or 3. I paid attention to my breath and to my client and my pain became just a small noise in the background.
So now I find myself with another injury, one which has its own particular brands of frustration. Here’s how I’m using it in my favor:
1) Alignment – I am paying consistent attention to the placement of my body as I walk, work, practice, sleep, do chores, etc. This helps because I know that by doing it I will not only keep my bones and muscles in good position throughout the healing process but also will not have to deal with having to undo any patterns that I establish while I’m injured by walking funny or limping or changing my weight placement.
2) Pain management – I used ibuprofen. Yup. I did it. And it helped. Oh did it help. There’s no deep character flaw in occasionally taking pain medication if you have pain and it helps with it. I think taking it consciously is what matters.
3) Fear – there is nothing like dealing with fear. Pain helps me come right up close and personal with my fear. I’m afraid I’m broken I’m afraid I will never be the same I’m afraid I won’t be able to do what I want I’m afraid I’ll get fat I’m afraid I won’t be able to work blah blah blah blah blah. Thanks to yoga and meditation I am learning to greet more experiences with breath first. Then I talk to my fear. I let it have its moment. I talk to my friends and support network about my fear. I breathe more. It passes. I learn it’s not as big of a monster as it seems.
4) Self-care – this one is probably the hardest for me. Like my mother I have this vision of myself as kind of invincible, that the things which bring other people down I can handle with grace and ease. Ego much? Nothing like a fracture to cure one of that fallacious thinking. So I am NOT running and jumping and kicking, well at least not now after I tried it for a few days and things got worse. I am soaking and wrapping and balming my foot, taking Cissus and comfrey and Omega-3’s and all my vitamins and dedicating my energy to healing myself. What’s amazing is watching this truly miraculous process occur. I know, I KNOW it feels like every day is an eternity, but in the grand scheme of things, we have these amazing bodies that heal themselves with comparatively minuscule input on our parts. It is awesome, in the purest sense of the word.
What can your injuries teach you? How can you respond differently in an injured state so that the injury doesn’t “cripple” you? Feel free to let me know!
