It's been five months since I've typed up a new blog post, but today I got the itch to write.
I've been reading Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis this month with my Color Street team. I have found many amazing things in this book that have really stuck out to me, but I think the chapter I read today took the cake.
One of the things that really struck me was this:
You cannot ignore your pain. You cannot ever leave it behind completely. The only thing you can do is find a way to embrace the good that came out of it - even if it takes you years to discover what that is (chapter 15: The Lie: I will never get past this).
One of the things I've been learning about myself over the past 2.75 years that I've been doing myofascial release therapy is that I have literally been responding to trauma and painful situations the same way my entire life: I freeze or stiffen up. I was reminded this week while at one of my appointments of a painful experience that happened in my childhood.
I was in elementary school and was literally in a constant state of headache. My mom took me to the doctor and they ran a bunch of tests. One was some sort of CT scan. I believe it was a contrast CT, because I was being injected with some kind of liquid when this painful experience took place. The man injecting me was having an issue finding my vein, and instead of pulling it out and trying again, he was moving the needle in my arm back and forth to try to find it. Honestly, it was one of the most painful things I've ever had to endure! I literally could not move that arm for three days after. It was bent against my abdomen, like your arm would be if it's in a sling.
As I was recalling this story, my myofascial therapist responded, "So your reaction to pain has always been to stiffen up".
I don't know why I never put those two pieces together, but I realize now that she was right. Every time I've been in a painful situation, I have made myself stiff so as not to feel the pain, or at least not to feel it fully. And whatever brought on this intense stiffness that I'm experiencing now (which is more than likely my body responding to years of this), has been much more intense than those 3 days or any other episode ever were.
Knowing this information now, and realizing that this has been a pattern of mine my whole life, I'm more determined than ever to break these habits. I often notice that even when I don't realize it, some area of my body is not relaxed. Sometimes it requires a lot of energy for me to relax and let go of whatever muscles I'm holding on to. And it's not even because of something super traumatic! I have just conditioned my body that this is how I am supposed to react to negative situations.
So where do I go from here? What do I take away from this revelation and the words I read tonight? That I need to acknowledge my pain, feel it, sit in it as long as I need to but also try to see what good possibly came from it. Maybe not every situation in my life is there yet. I'm a work in progress, as we all are, and maybe my body isn't ready for complete healing.
But knowing what I know now, and being more aware of how I've functioned my entire life, I see a light at the end of the tunnel. For many years, I thought I might live with this forever. And while I can't predict the future, I honestly have a lot of faith and hope that this is not going to be my permanent state. I've been in this place for 7.5 years now. Not as severely as I was 2.5 years ago, but it also wasn't as severe as it is now when it started. But I know I have hope that this will change. That I will continue to learn and grow and work on the areas in my life that need work. That I will keep striving forward, tears in my eyes at times, crying through the pain, to be a better version of me. To not be a pain-free version of myself, but a version that doesn't stiffen up and freeze when the pain does come.
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Oh and in case you were wondering, my headaches were caused by the fact that my neck was out of alignment. My mom took me to a chiropractor after the doctors could find nothing wrong with me and my headache went away after a couple of treatments.