As I’m sitting down to write this right now I’m actually on
the verge of balling my eyes out… like that uncontrollable, messy, releasing
everything on my chest type of tears. But I’m at work, and I can’t do that, so
hopefully later I can have that type of release in my own space hahah. But no
seriously, I had to start writing this entry immediately because I could feel
the words rumbling in my belly, and sitting in my heart, with a fierce need to
be expressed. Writing is how I express my truth and this is my truth.
I’ve just recently been feeling good
about my hamstring healing which has taken over 3 months to improve. I was not
able to do my leg weights, touch my toes to put my socks on or flow through every
yoga pose in my practice. For a couple weeks at the beginning of my injury I
ignored the pain and kept playing hockey 3-4 times a week, until I literally
couldn’t move it was so painful. Arguably the injury was actually caused from a
tool in therapy after my hamstring was tight, but that doesn’t really matter.
What matters is that I know I prolonged my healing and also made it much more
painful by trying to push through, and keep going no matter what. That athlete mentality
has stuck with me my entire life. My stubborn way of being is not
helping the matter either. So just last week I started dead-lifting lightly
again, I also tried to play shinny hockey once and experienced some tightness,
but that was it so I was incredibly excited.
The morning after when I was rushing to work as I got called
in late, I slipped on ice and fell down the stairs outside my home. Ironically
I had stepped out of the front door in my little booties, and thought to myself
“oh wow it’s snowing, it could be icy, I’ll be super careful here” while
holding my celery juice in my hand and my glass coffee mug in the other. I
tripped while I was thinking those thoughts, somehow landed at the bottom of
the steps with my foot bent back underneath me, still holding my mug, with some
spilled coffee in my hair. I just sat there for a second and thought to myself “UNIVERSE
W T F”. Then I got up, picked up my stuff and got in the car to go to work. I
knew my foot was a little bit tender, but I actually was able to walk normally
throughout the day. That night I went to hot yoga, and pushed myself to do all
the regular poses even with a bit of discomfort on the left foot. I woke up the
next morning and the internal part of my foot was bruised and throbbing a bit,
so I had to limp around. I was fine limping around for a couple of days, still
going to yoga and slightly modifying a couple poses so I wasn’t putting
pressure on my left foot. I even did a leg weights workout because squats and
dead-lifts didn’t cause any pain, I just had to avoid lunges or toe
flexion exercises. Then last night at hot yoga in the middle of the balancing
series my big toe made a popping noise and started to throb a bit more,
but I continued on, as it wasn’t the worst pain I've ever felt. I got home and realized though that my
practice definitely made it worse than the original fall, but it wasn’t the
whole internal foot anymore just the big toe. I iced it, worried about it,
complained about it, and repeated that cycle for the next few hours before bed.
I looked up what it’s called, often referred to as “turf toe” because athletes
get it from artificial grass. I put lavender oil on it and taped it just as
sports therapists do online, after watching a video and reading the
instructions. I fell asleep with it elevated and woke up with less pain, and
was off to work (that’s this morning).
I’ve been googling recovery times and treatment protocols, there’s a wide range of possibilities depending on the
grade of injury, and I might need to get a foot boot to stabilize it. I’m actually
debating doing that because I’m supposed to travel in 4 days and I would really
like to be able to move with less pain than I feel right now with my half-ass
tape job. As many of you know, I really believe the universe is always sending
you messages and if you don’t listen energy will slap you in the face one way
or another. I know I haven’t been
listening, I’m trying to listen now. Louise Hay, a well-known spiritual writer and entrepreneur, says that toe injuries are
physical manifestations of a needless emotional worry about future details.
That resonates with me so much because I probably spend a few hours a day
imagining what my future will look like, worrying that I won’t be enjoying what
I’m doing and then retreating inward instead of being out there in the
beautiful world enjoying right now. I have had an awareness that I do this but
I haven’t spent much time trying to show up different, I’ve been stuck in the
same pattern, because it's what I know, it's safe.
Anyways, relating this experience back to my intense urge
to ball my eyes out right now is because of the fact that I am intensely afraid
of resting. I’ve written a lot about my eating disorder and how I used to
over-exercise every day to compensate for eating however back then when it was
at my worst I was doing hours a day of fitness I didn’t even want to do, after
binge eating on thousands of calories, using laxatives and then starving for a
day. This was the epitome of my suffering and it went on for years. Although I
still struggle with some odd thoughts and worries around food, and even
restriction or fear sometimes, I am in a MUCH better place than I was 2-3 years
ago. However, as much as I enjoy the physical activity I chose to do on a daily
basis now I am still so afraid of being still. Don’t get me wrong, I actually
regularly watch my Netflix series, take a day off a week, sit down, etc... way
more than I used to. But I don’t like to take more than one day off in a
row. I enjoy going on long walks even in
the winter (except when its -30 like the last two days) and going to yoga most
days, hockey some days and the gym 1-2 x a week. I don’t force myself to go hard
when I don’t want to anymore, but I still have trouble coping with the
crippling fear that washes over me when I feel an injury because I do not want
to rest. This is an overwhelming feeling that I am choosing to confront right
now, sit with and absorb. I’m reminding myself the universe has my
back and that I will heal if I give my body what it needs, if I listen, FOR
ONCE. I should also listen to my best friend because she tells me the same
thing, thanks Melissa.
Anyway, this writer Tabitha Farrar is an eating disorder specialist who
recovered from anorexia and strongly believes in the migration theory. “ For those of us with the predisposition for
this migration response when we go into energy deficit, we develop an aversion
to resting and eating — because both stopping to eat too much and resting are
threats to a mammal’s ability to migrate successfully. Migrating
animals don’t stop to eat often, they eat only what they need to in order to
keep going. Migrating animals have a strong urge to move. Based on my own
experience of anorexia (complusive exercise, and fear of eating more than the
minimal amount need to survive) I have developed a biological approach to
recovery using theories of mammal migration (Adapt to Flee Famine theory).”
I have been reading her blogs a lot lately and everything she speaks about
experiencing in regards to intense urges to move resonate so much with me. I
actually wrote a blog related to her
theories right before I injured my toe but it didn’t feel authentic enough so I
didn’t post it. Then this feeling came over me this morning and I knew it was
time to write. This is another example of how illogical thoughts are so easily
accepted and acted upon because they are how I have always been and they make
me feel safe. Other people and athletes who get injured know they need to
recover so they can perform again, so they rest and although they may feel
antsy to move or impatient it’s not a feeling of a 10 thousand pound weight of
anxiety on their chest when they think about what resting will feel like. These
illogical thoughts also relate to obsessive compulsive tendencies that people
with eating disorders may embody, such as hoarding food or safe foods, having
odd food rules about eating timing, rituals surrounding food choices, hoarding
other items (random items like grocery bags, soap, etc), which Tabitha writes a
lot about. She also writes blogs about how low level movement urges such as
walking, obsessively cleaning, and more are all related to this biological
process from our evolution to keep moving, and keep migrating to survive. Not
all of those tendencies relate to my personal experience, but some do and I
find the connections very fascinating to reflect on. Likewise restrictive ways
of thinking relate to scarcity mindset and that affects more than just limiting
food intake. It changes entire personalities and relates to limiting pleasure in all forms, limiting spending,
social interaction, new experiences, etc. This couldn’t be more than true and I
will write about my experiences changes in a future blog.
I find that saying my irrational thoughts out-loud as if I was telling them to a friend helps me recognize how
harmful they are when I accept them as truth and act upon them. An example of
some thoughts I verbalize to help me challenge them are:
“I already ate carbs
earlier I can’t eat any more now.”
“I just ate an hour and a half
ago I need to ignore my hunger cues for a couple more hours.”
“I didn’t exercise today
so I can’t eat as much during this meal.”
“If I rest I won’t burn
enough calories so I need to push through this injury.”
“When I feel full I feel
fat so I don’t want to feel that sensation.”
These are just some
examples that resonate with me now or have in my past as I’ve been working
towards recovery. I enjoy providing some insight into my mind’s dialogue,
whether you’re someone reading who’s
struggled with eating or someone who cannot relate at all. Eating disorders have strong routes in genetics, and then it is ultimately environmental factors that determine whether someone will develop one. They may not make sense to many but they are not a choice. Although choosing to recover and commit to that process, is indeed a choice. Obviously the irrational thought that is smacking me in the fact right now is regarding rest and confronting my
intense need to keep moving on a daily basis. I don’t think there is anything
wrong with loving to move but I think there is something wrong with my
inability to remain calm and rest when I am hurt. I am probably going to go to
a doctor today to determine if I should wear a boot to immobilize my toe or
another shoe insole to assist healing. I travel in 4 days and its unlikely my
toe will be fully healed by then but I am willing to do no physical activity
until I leave, and longer, simply because I am tired of limiting my own healing by living
out my irrational thoughts. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over
again and expecting different results. I’ve been doing the same thing
for years and this is my chance to consciously choose to respond differently.
Xox
Ash
