Injuries and the emotional affect

When you are used to working out and you cannot, it hurts.
When you have a physical injury, it hurts.
When you try to recover from an injury, it hurts.

So, when does it get better? Do you have to put your life on-hold while your body heals? 

These are questions I get asked a lot. Having gotten older and hopefully wiser through the years, I put into practice for my clients what has worked for me. I've been injured before and it is not fun. It hurts your pride. It hurts your body. It hurts your emotional well-being. But bear with me while we look at some of the most common conditions surrounding injuries. Causes and affects:

Causes: 

• Overtraining. Doing too much too soon. 
• Poor form. Lifting too heavy or not having proper form during exercises. 
• Equipment. Poor shoes cause many feet issues.
• Just a fluke. Hate those. An accident or a twist of the body. Unfortunate, but still an injury.

Affects: [on you]

• Not making a goal. 
• Hurt body. 
• Doctor's visits and frustrations. 
• Broken, strained, sore body part. 

Now, let's add one more cause and one more affect:

Cause - Emotional stress over a situation.
Affect - More emotional stress over a situation. Lack of resolution to situation.

What? Have I eaten too much turkey this Thanksgiving? What do you mean by emotional stress?

I truly believe that most injuries are the cause of emotional stress that is not resolved and it is your body's way of:

1. Slowing you down 
2. Making you look at the problem and then 
3. Resolving it

However, most of us skip #2. Really we do. #1 is easy - we have to slow down. We have to rest and recover and let the injured part of our body heal. #3 is hard, but we do it. We eventually go back to our previous exercises and get back to it. But #2 - actually looking at your "problem" - that's not fun. That's not necessary, you may think. But I truly believe it is a part of the healing process. And if you continually skip #2, you will continued to get injured and frustrated, injured and frustrated, and never totally get healed. By the second or third time, you may just give up and stop trying. And this doesn't just have to do with a physical injury - this may apply to your life in general. Push it under the rug. File it away. Don't deal with the real issue.

The real issue is uncovered when you:

• Admit the emotional stress
• Deal with the problem causing the emotional stress
• Recover from the problem causing the emotional stress

Every injury is an opportunity to heal what is really going on in your body. But, will you listen?