So, let’s be honest. I can be a pretty clumsy person at times – and ‘graceful’ is not really a word you’d use to describe me. But, this week at training (BJJ) I managed to clunk my way through one of my most clumsy, ungraceful moves yet.
I’d hurt myself a bit in the first drill of the night, but was far too stubborn determined to stop training. I was only 5 minutes in and I really needed time on the mats for some ‘Jits therapy’, so I just decided to take things a little easier but to definitely keep going.
During one move, I was particularly ungraceful and managed to wrench my back pretty badly, with some serious crack and pop noises to accompany the pain. So I stopped, gently moved around, and was pleasantly surprised to find that everything felt okay.
(Cue: false sense of security).
I took it fairly easy for the rest of the session, and rolled light – but did get a damn fine guard – sweep – mount move in, which I was pretty proud of (let’s not talk about how my foot was trapped under both me and my partner though…just let me have my moment of glory!).
Later that night I lifted my leg to get into bed and my whole back just fucked right up.
I was so. damn. angry.
I know that might not be the ‘correct’ response to have, but I was furious.
This back issue isn’t new to me, so I knew this meant days of resting and recovery, I knew this meant days of no exercise or training, and I knew this meant days of battling unwanted and destructive thoughts about how much weight I’d start to believe I was gaining because I’d be eating but unable to exercise it off.
So after throwing a mouthful of profanities around the bedroom, and having my husband help me into bed, I decided that I was going to choose again.
At the end of the day, it wasn’t going to benefit me in body, mind or spirit to be so angry or annoyed. And no amount of swearing or anger was going to make my back heal more quickly.
I couldn’t change that.
But I could change how I felt and responded to the situation.
So, I asked myself some questions to reframe the situation:
- What could this lesson be teaching me?
- What are the opportunities in this lesson?
- Using what I now have available to me, how can I make the most of this situation?
And, in response to these questions, I considered that maybe this lesson was telling me:
To not be a clumsy bitch on the mats again- To slow down
- That I needed to rest because there can be lot of pressure and stress in life, and these last few months have been very intense
- That my limited mobility for the next few days gives me extra time to exercise my brain instead
- That I could catch up on some reading and personal development studies that I haven’t had time for lately
Now, another factor in this is that I’m really, really bad at resting and ‘doing nothing’. I’m not great with patience, and am convinced that I was born 2 weeks early because I didn’t even have the patience to be born on my due date.
I want to do all the things, and I want them done yesterday.
But, when I looked at what this lesson might be trying to teach me, it helped me realise the importance and necessity of resting at times like this.
In situations like this, while we may not be able to do everything that we had planned, we can still use every single minute to our advantage by intentionally shifting our focus and efforts onto certain areas of our life, while we wait to be able to shift and share the focus with other areas again.
Whether injured or not, we can (and should) review and re-evaluate our priorities at any point in time, and decide where we want to place our focus.
What are your goals, and what can you prioritise for now, while keeping the others listed for actioning later?
So this injury doesn’t mean that I can’t keep achieving my goals – because I’ll just switch things up and do XYZ now, and then I’ll do ABC later.
It’s important that we remember that nothing should act as a complete roadblock on our journeys, even though there may be times where we have to dodge, swerve, or deviate completely from the preferred path.
So I know this whole resting thing isn’t going to be easy, but I know it’s the best thing for me.
Plus, if I actually stop and rest now, there’s every chance I’ll be back on the mats by early next week… (Hey, I never said I’d mastered this patience thing!)
Stay fierce.
With love,
Ellie.