recovery
I started writing this post wanting to share insights and tools on how to cope with injuries and illness and how to ease back into regular activities and exercise afterwards. Pulling from my own recent experiences with covid, the flu, and a hard slip on the stairs, as well as how I approach clients who’ve returned from illness or injury. But then I wrote the word '“recovery” and something entirely different came out of me.
Recovery is an interesting word for me because it stirs up a lot of things inside. When I think of the word recovery, I think of recovery from drugs and alcohol, recovery from disease and illness, and recovery from physical and emotional trauma. I try to adhere to my 5 minutes of social media scrolling a day and yesterday in those 5 minutes I happened to read several IG posts regarding the challenges of recovery through the holidays. Recovery lives among us more than I think we realize.
Being in recovery has been a journey. For me, I used to push all the bad experiences and feelings away. I did this for a really long time. And then at some point I got tired of living in an anxious state. I was either high, low, or anxious. Then, I slowly began to problem solve on my own. At first I took things away, like alcohol, animal products, and competition. I wasn’t a huge drinker but when I did drink, I was not kind and once I took one sip it was hard to stop. I also gave up consuming animal products and I found that my mind was more clear and my heart more content. Another big thing that I dropped was racing and pushing my body to its limits. It feels good to push my body and racing has always been an outlet for me. It was a place where I felt worth and strength. But I became unhealthily obsessed with my workouts in both intensity and duration, so I had to reframe running and exercising in my mind. Making these changes helped me feel good, but they weren’t the cure.
The cure for me was being real with myself in a safe setting. I believe that it was a combination of therapy, yoga practice, and a sound and ritual course and practice that helped me heal. My therapist specializes in ADHD and anxiety, therapeutic yoga takes the edge and competition out so I can tune in to my body, and Suzanne Sterling (sound and ritual teacher and practitioner) is extremely gifted in helping people reclaim their voice and acknowledge their strength. In order to be successful in recovery, I had to be willing to look within, accept all the things and experiences that has made me, and do a lot of intentional work for growth.
Because life is a beautiful mess most of the time, recovery is constant for me. And if you truly sit back and think about it, don’t you think we all are recovering from something? Recovery is a spectrum, like injury, trauma, addiction all of varying degrees. I began at a place of shame, fear, and short of confidence. And I’ve grown to speaking my truth and not letting fear dictate my path, letting love and light in AND letting my love and light shine, and building community with supportive, like-minded people.
The same steps and tools I use to recover from life, are actually the same as the ones I’d apply to recovering from illness and/or injury, just like my recent illnesses and injuries. Accepting the situation, using tools to not have a sticky, perfectionist, obsessive mind, listening to the body, being intentional with how to move forward, and seeking support are just a handful of practices that I’ve used. And not only being OK with what one might consider the imperfect, like illness and injury, finances, various experiences, etc…, but also the patience, tenacity, and desire to heal and grow.
Recovery. It’s a spectrum. It’s ok. We can and will recover. We just need the right amount of self-efficacy and the right supports in place for recovery, for healing, for growth. <3
