The Way Forward

Photo: Jill 111 – PIXABAY

By Peg Ryan
Mile High Pilates and Yoga
May 28, 2017

In last week’s blog post I talked about acknowledging changes in our lives and finding the resilience necessary to accept the changes and adapt to the new reality whatever it might be.  Acceptance is the first step toward moving forward.  But what comes after that?  Depending on the type of setback, it’s length, your age and a host of other variables, the next steps will be different for each of us.

For some of us, the idea of returning to any kind of routine might seem impossible.  The change feels so great we may feel like the darkness is permanent and unyielding.  We can easily sabotage ourselves and become our own worst enemies.  For example, if you’ve fallen and suffered an injury you might develop a debilitating fear of a recurrence.  This might keep you from making even simple moves toward regaining your strength.  We’ve all heard the expression “get back on the horse that threw you”.  This can be a totally daunting prospect.  And, in fact, might not be appropriate in all cases.  Still, inertia can become a wall and finding a way through or around that wall can be overwhelming.  In previous blog posts I’ve often talked about the difficulty of resuming activity, especially exercise, after being away for a while for whatever reason.  Of course, it is important to take steps to avoid the circumstances caused the fall, but that shouldn’t become an excuse to stop you from all activities.

On the flip side of that coin, there are those of us who throw caution to the wind and get back on that horse way before we should.  Perhaps we have not fully recovered from the injury, illness or whatever precipitated a change in our lives.  Some of us might even have the hubris to believe that our case is special and the usual rules don’t apply.  This type of thinking might lead one into that “danger zone” referred to in an earlier post when your energy begins to feel restored and you start to feel like your former self again.  This is a place I know all too well.  The desire to return to the way things were overshadows the reality of the way things are.  Returning too quickly can lead to discouraging setbacks.  At best, the process of recovery will take that much longer or, at worst, may be jeopardized altogether.

Actually both cases call for the same prescription – courage, patience and above all the decision to go on with your life taking whatever baby steps are necessary to follow through on that choice.  Interestingly, in my opinion the same leap of faith is required wherever you’re at.  If you are the fearful type described above, the decision means taking that first dangerous step back into your life no matter how scary that might be.  If you want to start moving again, the first step is the hardest.

After my back surgery a physical therapist gave me some exercises to do right away.  They were pretty simple movements, but they were difficult at first.  Among them was the suggestion to walk for 5 minutes several times a day.  For a person who used to run ultramarathons that might sound easy, but just getting up and overcoming the initial stress of moving was itself a formidable task.  My doctor had given me the simple instruction, “If it hurts, stop; if you think it’s going to hurt, don’t do it.”  Sounds reasonable enough, right?  For the fearful person, that initial hurt might be enough to encourage stopping altogether.  In fact, I even found myself thinking I would never overcome that initial discomfort.  But what I discovered was that if I just got started, I would eventually start to feel better.  If I began to feel pain I stopped for a few minutes.  The pain would usually stop and I could resume the walk.  Or I could simply try again later.  I would set a timer for 5 minutes, stop it when I needed to wait for pain to subside and start it again when I started walking again.  It might take me half an hour to do 5 minutes worth of walking but I quickly learned that the more I walked, the easier it got.  I noticed too that once I got going and my body adjusted to the movement, the initial soreness would usually subside.

Our bodies are made for movement.  Fortunately, the medical profession has recognized that movement following a trauma like surgery is actually beneficial.  Anyone who has had surgery recently knows that patients are required to get up and move as soon as possible.  Although rest and sleep are important to the healing process, retraining your body to move as much as it can is also essential.  Still it’s not easy to overcome the many excuses that loom in front of the starting line.  That’s where the decision-making process comes in.  Making that decision to try to move even for a few minutes takes courage.  Beyond that is the resolve to follow through even if it the first few efforts are unsuccessful.  I knew the physical therapist would not have told me to walk if it wasn’t the right thing to do.  But I also knew I had to abide by my doc’s advice and stop if it hurt.  Even that was hard for me having been a person schooled in the old notion of “no pain, no gain.”  So both starting and stopping required decisions.  I had to consciously remind myself that extremes in either direction would not help my recovery.  That meant believing that I would, in fact, recover and that the directions given provided the road map to get there.

Bottom line – moving forward is not rocket science.  Have patience and be kind to yourself.  Do what is recommended and stick to it until you’ve healed.  After that be mindful in all your activities and avoid being careless, head strong or just plain stupid.  If it hurts, stop; if you think it’s going to hurt don’t do it.  That’s not an invitation to do nothing.  It just means pay attention.  Simple, right?  But not easy.

Making the decision and taking that first step is the hardest part.  Especially if you’re not used to moving in the first place.  If you keep at it, no matter what you are doing will get easier.  Although we often think of stress as a negative, your body needs a certain amount of stress to adapt to a change.  The trick is to know when to back off.  As acknowledged in last week’s post, life may be different after a set-back.  Those differences need to be honored.  But that shouldn’t be a license to drop out.  No matter what has changed, there will still be things you can do.  Give those positives a chance to shine and they will lead you forward.

Independence Days

Photo: Thomas Hawk

By Peg Ryan
Mile High Pilates and Yoga

Custer, SD – Recently I gave a birthday card to a friend which featured an elderly woman wearing stereotypical motorcycle gear including black leather jacket and hat complete with metal studs.  The message on the cover was something like “We’re young enough to be rebels” followed by the punch line inside: “but old enough not to give a crap!”  We had a good chuckle over this sentiment, but it got me to thinking.  How many of us really get to a point where we stop caring what other people think? Of course, there are some of us who have never cared.  Personally I admire those free spirits.  But most of us have public perception so deeply ingrained in our psyches that it is difficult to avoid dancing through our lives to someone else’s tune.  Even if we manage to avoid the trap of wondering “how will this look to others?”, we often create arbitrary standards for ourselves by which we gauge our actions or appearance.  We berate ourselves when we fall short and feel pleased when we meet the measurement only to be disappointed when we find it difficult to sustain.  We’re all guilty of this at one time or another, myself very much included.

Another friend recently described an incident in which she found herself running through a crowd trying to catch up with a group she was with that had moved on without her.  “I was so embarrassed!” she said as she recounted the story. “What if I had tripped and stumbled or fallen?”  Thankfully, she didn’t.  And she did manage to reunite with her group.  But I could not help but wonder why this should be embarrassing.  The fact that she could run at all was, to me, something to celebrate rather than something to hide.  And even if she had slipped, someone in the crowd would certainly have helped her.  In my opinion, the fear of “looking silly” limited her freedom.  Instead of enjoying that run, she probably just wanted to get it over with hoping that no one would notice.  Our society places a high value on the concept of freedom and yet as individuals we consistently limit our own.

Sometimes the fear of being judged by others can, unfortunately, be justified.  It never ceases to amaze me how easily people are willing to condemn perfect strangers based on nothing more than third party hearsay.  Judgments can be pronounced without any personal knowledge of the individual being judged or the circumstances that person finds themselves in.  Our modern society seems to be particularly segmented these days with people forming like-minded groups and listening only to those that agree with them.  Regrettably, this is not a new phenomenon.  It has been going on for as long as humans have engaged in social structures.  In fact, it may well be the reason we all have built-in judgment meters. Centuries of rules and standards of behavior have been established to mark the differences among tribes. These standards have given people observable methods for determining who is like me (safe) and who is different from me (dangerous). It has been programmed into our DNA to abide by the rules others have laid out.

But I digress. This article is not about the rules societies need to survive and thrive. Instead I’m referring here to those quirky internal rules we think we need to follow that are more related to perception than they are to survival. In fact, rather than contributing to our well-being, these rules can instead be a source of resentment and self-destruction. Still there is an upside.  Since we created these rules, we have the power to change them.

Here is something to keep in mind when you’re worrying about how others will view you:  most people are so focussed on themselves that they won’t even notice what you’re doing.  Which brings me back to my favorite topic:  exercise. These ideas, though, can apply to anything done in groups or in public.  In general, whatever it is that concerns you, the person next to you is probably worrying about the same thing. Or maybe something completely different, but whatever they are thinking it is probably not about you. The stress you create for yourself by stewing about what you look like is keeping you from paying attention to the movement itself, how it feels and the positive benefits it is providing for you.  It also keeps you from experiencing the freedom of customizing the rules and moving in a way that is uniquely your own.

In the days when I was running I knew that my biomechanics and body type would probably never allow me to become a really fast runner.  Once when I asked a shoe salesman if he could recommend a style suitable for my foot type and running style he said, “There really isn’t anything.  Most people with those characteristics find it too painful to run.” As discouraging as that sounded, it did not keep me from running.  I ran for the love of running, not because I ever expected to be any good at it.  I learned to do the best I could with what I had to work with regardless of how it looked.  When injury and other circumstances meant that I could no longer sustain running, I changed my goals and found other ways to continue moving that have been just as satisfying.  Goals are an important motivating force, but all goals need to be flexible.  Everything is always changing.  Goals and the rules we establish to get to them should always be adaptable to changing circumstances.

One more thing to remember – we are all individuals with our own gifts, characteristics and idiosyncrasies but ultimately we are also interconnected.  Despite our fear of “the other”, we all have more in common than we might recognize. Everyone wants to survive; everyone wants to be loved.  We all need the basic elements of survival – food, shelter, etc. – and we all want to provide for ourselves, our families and loved ones.  Similarly everyone has experienced their own trials, mistakes, regrets or other foibles.  No one is exempt, no matter how perfect they appear or how good their lives look to us from the outside.  So do your own thing and stop worrying. If you stumble, have some compassion for yourself. Pick yourself up and keep moving. The person next to you has had their own stumbles and knows what it feels like.

On Transgender Day of Remembrance

John Kerry
Secretary of State
November 20, 2016

Washington, DC – On Transgender Day of Remembrance, the United States solemnly honors the memory of the many transgender individuals who lost their lives to senseless acts of violence.

Transgender persons around the world are targeted by rising levels of violence fueled by hatred and bigotry. This is a global challenge and we all must do more to protect transgender persons on the basis of equality and dignity.

In the United States, our Constitution enshrines freedoms of peaceful assembly, speech and association, and it affirms that everyone has equal protection under the law. Around the world human rights and fundamental freedoms are recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that every person is born free and equal in dignity and rights. Every person includes transgender women, transgender men, and other individuals who face marginalization on account of their gender expression or gender identity.

Today we stand in solidarity with the incredible resilience and leadership of the transgender community in responding to stigma and marginalization. Transgender persons deepen our diversity, broaden our communities, and strengthen the values we cherish. When all persons reach their full human potential, free from fear, intimidation, and violence, nations become more just, secure and prosperous.

The United States remains committed to advance the human rights of all persons, including transgender persons. On this Transgender Day of Remembrance, we reaffirm equality for all as part of our core constitutional principles and as a human rights priority of U.S. diplomacy.