I have just returned from an extended family vacation, and while I felt focused and clear nearly the whole time I was away, I was woken this morning by a racing mind. Possibly due to the fact that I had a big meeting scheduled for this afternoon and have been ramping myself up for it all week. Possibly due to the book on Focus which I was devouring on the plane (devouring despite the warning from the small voice inside me that said perhaps reading a book which encourages me, the queen of to-do lists, to make a bunch more to-do lists might not be the best course of action) -- that could have been part of it.
The feeling was so distinct upon waking that I thought it must be due in part to some sort of dream from the night before, but the only thing I could remember dreaming about had something to do with leaping off a building into a mountain of books.
(Hmm...)
Anyhow, I spent much of the morning sort of ambling from one half-cocked task to the next before learning that my meeting scheduled for this afternoon is now postponed a week, and sinking into a brief "what now" paralysis.
That the meeting was about my actor life and that my feeling of distress all morning had been about the existence (or non-existence, depending on my mood) thereof, did not help my "focus" in the least. Alone in the apartment, the sun shining outside, utterly incapable of choosing from the myriad of things I "ought" to be doing in order to find the one perfect thing I "should" do, I wandered from computer to couch, the poster-child for unproductivity. The only thing I really
wanted to do, faced with a free afternoon, was go to a yoga class, but folks, I can NOT go to a yoga class, because I, being the grand show-off-y too-proud-to-say-ouch girl that I am, I royally screwed up my rotater cuff over the weekend while dangling from a swing-set at an ocean-side resort.
"Now, Lia," you might be saying "that sounds pretty dramatic. Were you being held hostage by fisher-people when this happened?"
No. No, I was not being held hostage by fisher-people.
"Well, were you trying to rescue a small child who had become entangled in the swing-set and the only way you could rescue him or her was to swing like a monkey to his or her rescue?"
No. No, there was no child-rescuing.
"Then what on earth were you doing?"
So....now, don't laugh. My brother, martial-artist/personal-trainer/all around incredibly fit exercise guru that he is, was demonstrating this new device called the
TRX Suspension Trainer, which is essentially composed of two hand/footholds, a caribiener, and some spandex-y straps. He swears by it, my brother, and I took one look at the thing and immediately began thinking of ways in which I might be able to go upside-down in it, so I was all for participating in said demonstration.
Small bit of history: my brother has been a martial artist since he was 9, and for that long and longer he has loved nothing more than to "try out" things on his little sister. I will leave out the story of him putting a paper bag over my head and punching me through it to see how close he could get to my nose without actually hitting me (he failed), but I will say that I should know better! My brother is like in 10,000,000 x better shape than I am and as much as I would like to be able to do everything that he can do...I. Can. Not.
Anyhoooo...he hooked the ole' TRX up to the swing sets outside the cabin where my family and I were staying for the weekend, strapped me into it, and began to show me all the different ways in which a body can be thoroughly stretched and strengthened on the system.
(Side Note: This thing ROCKS! It really is kind of mind-blowingly effective, you can feel it right away, and I really want to get one. As soon as I heal.)
So, I'm happily working my little patootie off...performing in front of the audience of my family, and even though I'm feeling fatigued, there is no way that I am going to give up before the end of the demo. That would just be too embarrassing. Not warmed up in the least? No problem! Feeling a little nervous about the small twinge that's been going on in my shoulder during yoga class the past couple weeks? Fuggidaboutit!
And forget about it I did, until, towards the end of the demo when I had moved on to the exercises where my feet were suspended in the straps and I was doing a combination of push-ups and crunches supported on my hands, when I landed a little weird on my right shoulder and felt a pretty excruciating pain which I knew (having experienced pain like it in the past) was my rotater-cuff.
"Well, gosh, what did everyone say when you stopped and told them you couldn't do anymore because you'd just hurt yourself?"
Um...
"You must have at least STOPPED, right, even if you didn't admit that you'd hurt yourself like a big show-off-y bonehead?"
Um...
!!!!!!
I mean seriously! You should just stop reading this blog right now, for good. You should honestly just be like, you know what, this girl sounds like sort of a bonehead and I think that maybe I should look for sources of yogic-ly-inspired insight elsewhere, seeing as how she has too much pride to even end a backyard demo of a piece of fitness equipment she's never tried before when there's no one around to be embarrassed in front of but her OWN FAMILY!
I won't hold it against you, I promise.
In my own defense, the excruciating part of the pain sort of stopped after a second and I even thought, oh...maybe I just sort of knocked something back into place. That's right. Not only did I not stop to make sure I didn't do any damage, I convinced myself that maybe I had done something GOOD for my shoulder and the pain was just some last vestige, some cork on my shoulder's full range of motion...like popping open a bottle of champagne.
Cut to hours later, after having completed the demo AND done some yoga AND swung around a 45 lb.
kettle bell...and my shoulder is VERY very unhappy. It is making me wince with pain every time I move it in any kind of rotation and I am reduced to slathering myself with muscle cream and popping my brothers Arnica pills every few hours. Thank god he travels with all that stuff.
It's been several days now, and though my shoulder is definitely feeling better, it is not anywhere near ready for a yoga class...which extends my absence from classes to over a week...which makes me feel sort of cranky and deprived, and my larger self keeps annoyingly reminding me that THIS is why our injuries are our greatest teachers. It's not just because they teach us how to do things correctly in future, so as not to continue to injure ourselves, but, as is so often the case for me...they teach us how to slow down, how to be more honest about where we actually are, and to not try to do too much too fast.
I am trying to take that in this morning, as I race around making to-do lists, punctuated by bouts of staring out the window trying to lock in on that one thing that is finally going to help me break through some kind of stalemate. As if I can will the universe into providing me with the things that I want, if only I try hard enough. I am trying to remember what it felt like to wrench my shoulder all because I was moving too fast--the embarrassment of it, the price I am paying now--and that if I had only taken a moment to really ask myself what was right for me, I might have known to hold back, to take it easy, to go one step at a time. I can't help but think that the same thing happens in my own life when I am racing around, trying to get to the finish line or get it all accomplished right away--not only do I not get it all done, I can actually end up setting myself back while I recover from whatever injury I may have incurred. Physical or otherwise.
Please be ashamed of me, dear readers, for being a giant goober and hurting myself, and please, so you don't end up like me, take a minute, if you're feeling rushed...if you're feeling that someone out there needs you to prove that you're good enough...if you have left yourself in order to pursue some imaginary trophy out there in front of you...take a moment. Breathe. Ask yourself--is this a good idea? Am I ready for this? Do I NEED to do this right now? And if I rush right on ahead without taking the time to ask these questions, am I possibly going to end up having to bowl left-handed when I take my nephews to the arcade because my right shoulder feels like it's made of glass whenever I move my arm?
Save yourselves! Do it for me!
Yours in Recovery,
YogaLia
