Injuries as teachers

One of my mentors always used to say that insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect different results. But this is how most people end up with injuries that affect the quality of their lives.

Most of my clients have found me because of their injuries and pain and most people that I work have injuries that got worse over time, from the low back pain that started in law school and then became utterly debilitating after a few years of work to the generalized achy knee and hip that made distance running impossible. It seems to me that there is always an element of mystery to many people about their body that stems from a lack of understanding of how it works and an inability to listen to it—or to trust their own instincts about their body. I think that it is this, this unknowing, that keeps people from moving out of the ruts and patterns of habit to try new things when pain presents.

At any rate, so many people that I work with seem to have waited until what had been a minor injury has become debilitating and its effects have spiderwebbed out into their lives, stopping them from doing what they love or, worse, making day to day functioning a challenge. 

I think that injuries can be our teachers. They can be the way in to understanding and knowing the body and learning a new way of being and doing what you do. The trick is learning to listen, to not freaking out or denying the first sign of pain but to sit with it and to begin to reach learn what is going on with alignment or movement or stress to unwind it. As we go down the route of reaching out to various practitioners, we can learn from them and start informing our own choices and understanding of the body, choosing to supplement or weave in new habits not just to alleviate pain but to promote a healthier more resilient body overall.