Such a big word, trust.
What does it mean to you?
How does it make you feel?
When I am thinking about trusting someone in an area of my life where I have been hurt, it produces a lump in my chest and throat that really raises my heart rate, causes me to start to sweat and my breath gets shallow… I know I have to make a choice, I have to decide to share the burden with someone else, to trust my care with someone else, to trust my BODY with someone else. Ugh, I hate it. I hate that 20 years in chronic pain with so few providers that listened and helped has produced what I can only describe as medical anxiety.
I’m getting better in this area. I can go to any massage place now and I don’t freak out that I am going to be hurt, exercising isn’t as stress-inducing, I am not as afraid to use my body in various ways, and when I do get freaked, it is easier to talk myself down, to figure out how to baby step into the situation, and I realize it is all the work I have done over the few years that have gotten me here. There are days I wonder how I am years out from surgery, have been doing all the amazing things I have, and STILL, deal with anxiety over the smallest of things. It seems insane to me. Yet, if any of you were to write me and tell me you were stressing over this stuff I’d tell you it was normal, and how could you NOT expect to feel like this after living such a careful life?
I have come to realize when we do certain things in class, I experience periodic pain. It’s predictable, and the moment we stop those things it goes away, but MAN it freaks me out. I don’t like it. I panic. The panic is not as large as it was, but I want it to stop. I have a feeling if I want it to stop I know what I need to do. I need to keep moving forward.
I al
so realize that I want to be more fit. Yes, I said more fit. I am realizing more and more that to be the best PTA I can be when I graduate, I need to be in the BEST shape I can be, and that means getting back in the pool and hitting the gym. Guess what happened the minute I gave into that realization…. fear. GOSH, I hate that emotion, a LOT. It makes me want to crawl into bed and say, nope life is good the way it is, I don’t need more, don’t want more, and simply by not lifting anything heavy I will not have to experience these unpleasant emotions. So Settle Amy, just settle. Settle for less than what you want, what you think you can do, cause you can’t. Why work this hard, why not just be happy……. FEAR IS a liar… and a nasty one at that!
It’s been a long while since I have called my PT in need of help. I am trying to keep it that way and to use the things he has taught me to stay independent. There is a beautiful young woman in my PTA classes that will make an EXCELLENT PTA when we graduate. I stepped out in trust this week and asked her to help me get into a workout routine at the gym that will increase my ability to squat and help me be fitter and have more movement choices. I knew with her tender spirit, her prior experience as a bodybuilder, and the relationship we have built, plus my knowledge of my own body, that we will make a good team. I decided to trust, to reach out, to believe that this isn’t a horrible idea waiting to end in bedridden pain. Because frankly, that’s always deep in the back of my mind…. if I do this will it all fall apart, will it all come crashing down….. will this amazing ride of being active and off medications end? Fear lies. I owe myself the truth, and so do you.
We must learn to trust.
Others and Ourselves.
