Is it easier to deal with a set back after progress; or when you’ve been knocked on your arse for the twentieth time in as many months, days or hours?
No one can know that answer for sure until it’s them. We can hope we’ll get straight back up and be gritty and determined; sadly reality is often quite different. Lack of sleep and the emotional pain of failure or setbacks can sometime hit us like a sledge hammer or slowly press down on our chest until it seems like it’s simply impossible in any way to gulp anything but the tiniest breathe in.
I was given a reminder of life’s little setbacks recently. The pain that flooded back was overwhelming, scary, really scary and immediate. I had experienced a little bit of twitchiness a day or two earlier but that wasn’t unusual so hadn’t thought of it as a precursor to anything much more substantial. The pain was actually terrifying and crushing as it had arrived with such bewildering power and velocity, it took me a good few minutes to get my breathing under control and rebalance myself. I couldn’t understand how intensely the nerve pathways had fired up and wanted to stay fully vehemently switched ON! The shattering weigh that descends down upon your brain and body is compounded by the panicking thoughts of “Wasn’t I past this?” “What the bloody hell have I done!” These words were pounding in my ears. I know it doesn’t make logical sense. The simple series of action prior to this moment, doesn’t equate to the searing pain I’m now experiencing. I can’t have re-broken anything – unless – is it possible?? Perhaps I’ve some how cracked a pin and then that’s done further damage I’m unaware of. Maybe I have! – my senses are spinning and my brain has been thrown into a dark pit. The trouble is the fear is gaining momentum; making me want to free fall all the way to the bottom. And the worst part is, I haven’t found rock bottom yet!!! The surges of pain; were the only thing lighting the murky blackness. Everything else has kicked into over drive as well. Sweating, shaking and fighting the urge to vomit.
This was me on an early June day 2019. Life had been good too me recently, We had been on two amazing trips over the first half of that year, each as transcending and life enriching as each other. Managing to be active and feeling quite robust. Really giving me a galvanising impression that things were on track in a beautiful encouraging whole of life way. My body was further and further away from the traumas of the past. Re-building and re-shaping is always one of life’s big continuous challenges, no one is immune from needing to work at staying strong and fit into ageing. However for that moment I was standing on my own hill top, proudly looking forward to possibly conquering bigger mountains in the future. I was allowing myself to have a little pride in the journey and the hard work it had taken to date to reach this view. Sure things could have been better and I could have stayed more narrow focused and progressed harder and faster. But let’s face it I wasn’t in my early 20’s any more. I had been in a similar accident nearly 20+ years prior and even then it had taken 6 days short of a year to get back out competing again. To be honest this time round even though it had taken 6 months longer I was standing on a much stronger foundation. No, on going, debilitating pain as the pervious accident had. Plus every single journey is different and throws up new challenges. Some give you free passes when you don’t expect it and others slam you down when you don’t deserve it. That first accident had left me with on going intolerable incapacitating pain for over a decade and a half. Then through a series of actions and events I had a complete switch, where I got vast improvement in my poor physical and mental state. This in turn lead strangely for a time where I had a very low threshold to pain however finally finding a good equilibrium.
Though the initial wash of pain subsided, it was the return of utter fatigue that shocked me the most. The weariness is a combination of feeling like you are in a drug induced fog, after having merciless collided with a concrete wall at 100km per hour, sliding to the floor without the ability to even lift a single finger. The effort required is simply now well beyond your resources capacity. Not the sort fatigue where, I need to get to bed a little earlier but the sort, where I could actually fall asleep while hobbling to the bed or the moment I sit down my eyes could close and a coma swept immediately over me that would make Sleeping Beauty’s thousand year slumber look like a short cat nap. It took a good few weeks to balance out again. It was through this period I knew I needed to start hitting the reset button. Getting a routine going again from what ever level it took to start – get active – get moving – find the light.
I leaned heavily at first on some health care professionals to make sure all was structurally intact. Then I got back to taming the nerves endings that had been smashed into emotional fragments during this period and sent everything into paralysing fear induced over drive. I’m lucky in this way to have found a team I can trust and talk with openly. Knowing the questions to ask makes such a huge difference, so I could quickly hunt down the answers I required. That doesn’t make the next steps any easier; however you are moving from a stable informed platform. Having fallen down the dark well of unrelating pain before and clawed your a way out. It gives you the strength to remain calm and open to finding workable growth solution. That knowledge prepares you for taking on the next unbearable overwhelming challenge. And that next challenge is, honestly dusting yourself off and standing back up. Starting again. It doesn’t matter if it’s the first, second or three hundredth time, you are starting again, and if you want to grasp a full life; with as many choices included as possible then rise up you must! What ever shape that takes.
During this time I was listening to an interesting podcast from Cloudbase Mayhem – Gavin McLurg which actually describes it really well. He was taking about training and then doing a very gruelling adventure race called the Red Bull X-Alps 2019. All the training and lead up work is hopefully about climbing the top of your Performance Pyramid. So if everything goes well you are exactly at the very pointy end of the Pyramid during the race, giving your absolute maximum effort. Which is hopefully how it should be. However afterwards there is only one place to end up; which is on the downward slide of that triangle. He was basically saying win or lose your going to be on that back side of the triangle and how you pick yourself up from there is how the next few weeks, months or even years effects getting motivated again. Being hit with pain or anxiety is a lot like that pyramid moment except you didn’t realised just before that moment you were standing on that top of your pyramid because now everything is sliding down – how you handle that slide will make a huge different to the period you stay bouncing along at the bottom of your pyramid. Discover a reason, idea, dream, strategy for continuing to find a rational which allows you to shift away from self punishment either consciously or unconsciously. Don’t allowing the wounds, circumstances and invertible slide down the pyramid to turn you into the person you are not. Your past can either be embraced as a lesson or a weight to hold down your future recovery.
The five things I’ve found help me.
- Try to find a goal, ambition or intention that drives the desire so the need to fulfil becomes fiercely strong. You can see in your minds eye that inspiration. Because if you can’t, then it won’t hold you through the tough times and/or de-motivating low moments.
- Bite off a tiny chunk each day or week. Make the commitment strong and the task as easy as possible. Not the other way around, because than it’s simply not repeatable or even engaging enough to start.
- Find a friend or professional that helps to keep you motivated and on track. There is nothing Truer then a hardship shared is a hardship halved. You won’t be motivated every day or time to do things, however if you have a friend who’s engaged too than knowing they’ll be showing up helps you too. If this consistently doesn’t, then check to see if the chunk is too big. Nothing is too small if it makes you build to repeatable success.
- Keep reshaping the why. Make a journal in words or photos or even simple thoughts from the day that help you see the tiny gains of sand in the glass adding up.
- Understand when the brain is trying to protect you and when it doesn’t need to anymore. It’s always nice to have a protective friend isn’t it. however that protective friend often doesn’t give you GROWTH. Re-shaping how that protective friend works for you is actually the greatest gift of self care you can give yourself. Don’t be rude or angry at your friend (after all it is you) just learn the tools to understand and re-shape the conversation. Understand the cost of staying the same but equally buy into the cost of change, because initially it’s not going to be all sunshine and roses. We sometimes want the change and forget to account for the cost of change so once we set out, think the cost is too high. If you already acknowledge the cost before you start it’s easier to overcome the roadblocks and hurdles that loom up with any change. The courage to start and the habits to continue make change of any sort possible and lasting.
The featured picture is from the Kings Cannon NT area. The surrounding ranges face the setting sun. When I look at this photo now I think of those bright brilliant last rays of sunshine that light up the range and show cased all the gorges and jutting rocks to give them a last story before the shadows of the night swallowed them up. How many times do we waste those last rays of light each day and say I’ll start that tomorrow or I’ll begin my new life in the morning or after such and such. There was still brilliance to be had even as the shadows approached. Tomorrow will come; however by then the brilliant from now will be in the past. Find a small baby step to do right now and soak up those dazing rays. Write the meal plan now, put out the joggers ready for the lunchtime walk. Even the must jagged rock has a chance to grab the last rays of light from each day and looks amazing in the moment. So grab your moment; talk to your protective best friend (your brain) and simply make a start in what ever shape that takes.
Good Luck.
