I happened to mention to my chiropractor the other day that
my knee was hurting. What followed was no fun at all, an exploratory rotation
and feel, that nod you never want to see and then a quick twist and shove. He’s
helped so much with chronically sore places in my back that I trusted all this
twisting implicitly. I walked away assuming everything was all good now. A mere
flight of stairs disabused me of this opinion. Nope, nope, nope- I still hurt
only now it aaaaaached even when I wasn’t running. Or walking. Or doing
anything other than sitting or, perhaps, lying in bed trying to fall asleep.
I’m not very medical so I was very proud of myself when I
came up with a reason for why I was hurting. When I first hurt my knee due to a
very simple tweak during an evening of bowling, I babied it, doing rehab at the
gym instead of powering through the pain. Lots of slow paces on the elliptical
and knee strengthening exercises. Only I never had anyone make sure I was strengthening
the knee back into alignment. I thought that since I was taking care of the
hurt knee at all I would be fine.
Only now it’s not fine and not only is it not fine, but now
there is a whole heap of muscle I so carefully built up that holds my knee in
the wrong place. I can function just fine, live a nice painless life until I
put stress on that knee. A minute of running and I can feel every out-of-line
ligament and bit of cartilage. I healed it, but I healed it wrong.
There have been tumultuous times of my life, times that
tweaked my soul out of alignment. If you’ve followed this blog for any length
of time you might already know the sorts of times I’m talking about. These times
hurt me deep, in places I never identified. I either healed those hurts up or
ignored them but either way I healed them wrong. And I go along just fine until
some stress comes along and then I feel every single out-of-line emotion and
memory.
I’ve been seeing a counselor for the past six months or so,
trying to put back some of the things that healed wrong. He says I make
counseling easy, that I already have the framework of insight, self-awareness
and introspection ready for him to build on. That makes me feel like the A+
student of the crazy ward. And it doesn’t help when everything hurts, when we
work together to wrench my out-of-joint soul back into alignment. There are just
so many muscles built up to keep it in place.
It has been an amazing six months or so, times of healing. I
told him this week that I can run my fingers down the walls of my mind and only
catch them on one or two issues. There used to be sharp edges everywhere. There
is so much progress happening it seems petty to whine about some pain that’s
happening along the way. But my knee really hurts, even while I try to build up
new muscles to hold it in its rightful place.
I’ve had to learn how to do rehab on my soul. Some of this
involved a job that gave me mind-space to do that rehab. Other exercises
involve learning what self-care looks like for me. I’ll give you a hint- it’s
not a spa day or a shopping spree or a hot bath or anything that I expected
self-care to look like. For me it’s a book that makes me think, a movie that
makes me want to create something, media that births thoughts in my mind and
then the space and time to cultivate those thoughts. There is little that makes
me happier or feel more fulfilled than having a mind full of thoughts.
So I’m sitting at Leaves N Beans on Main, my foot up on a
chair to ease the ache in my knee, telling the world about my counseling to ease
the ache in my soul. I’m in the midst of the healing process so everything
hurts, but I can see the end in sight. I will run again someday. I will be
whole again someday.
Now is the time to do the work.
Not only is this beautifully written and a poignant pulling together of a symbolic parallel, it's very timely for me. Thank you for taking the time to put this out there.
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