Something doesn’t feel right. It’s aching or downright hurting. You don’t know what you have done to cause it. It just ‘appeared’…
I have lots of those moments and if you don’t yet you will most probably have them down the track. But I refuse to just accept this as the new status quo.
I think of my mum who is struggling with chronic hip pain. She is great, don’t get me wrong, in that she looks for many different alternative options to help ease the pain as she has the standard medical approach assessment and didn’t like the options offered. However, this pain, like every other pain other than acute trauma, took a long time coming until it begged to be noticed.
As we go about our lives, our movement patterns and attitudes are shaped as a result of what we are doing repeatedly. What we spend time holding in our thoughts – be they conscious or subconscious – also has great influence.
Then suddenly we get the feeling that everything is breaking down, our bodies failing us…. we are putting it down to getting old.
What we have overlooked is that everything needs a little adjustment along the way. Our shortening muscles need lengthening, our fast diminishing range of motion needs extending to maintain what we had. Lost strength and movement skills need brushing up and our thinking has gotten a tad narrowed as life beats us about.
And then end up with pain somewhere even though we did nothing….. That doesn’t seem fair, but life always pays in true coin.
It is my choice… if it is to be it’s up to me.
What tools do I have? What do I know, who do I know?
There is so much available to help if you are willing to learn. But what good is all the learning if you are not putting it into action?
Let’s take massage and self massage- learn what to do and how to do it and actually get to work in the suggested manner. Don’t judge the result after a couple of times- it took a long time of not paying attention to get to where it is now. Can you realistically expect dramatic change for the better in this time frame?
Specific exercises to remedy a dysfunction are another example… they only work if you do them. And if something took a long time to develop it will need diligent practice and attention often for the rest of your life.
You accept other habits you have formed during your life…. now it’s time to add the habit of paying attention to your body as it is speaking to you with pain. The only solution is acting on it before it becomes too hard.
I love the quote: ‘The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.’
Build the habit of refusing to live with pain big and strong so it won’t be broken. You only have this body, and you have it for the rest of your life. Keep it pain free!