Peace and Contentment from Unglamorous Tuesdays

It was Saturday morning, and my back was creaky. Not alarming. Just the kind of creaky where you know a little blood flow would help, but too much of anything could be detrimental.

The Peloton was right there, and I’ve learned that for me, it’s a safe place for a cranky back. I can get the blood flowing, a bit of support for my back, and wake up my legs and glutes, the base that holds it.

Steve was just about to start his own lower body day. Wanna to join?

I love how a leg day feels. I love connecting with my husband. So: yes.

We got to the last lift. Romanian deadlift, double-legged. I remembered something. Twenty years ago, RDLs were the thing that turned my glutes and hamstrings back on, and turned the faulty pattern in my back off. It's helped me. I also know that for me, deadlifts aren’t super forgiving if I do them wrong.

Even Steve paused. I’m not sure you should do this.

I had a history of this being a good idea and a bad idea.

I stepped to the bar. One small tug, before the weight even left the ground.

Electric shock through my spine. Body to the floor.

And I knew exactly what it was, because it wasn’t the first time.

The first time I was eighteen.

By then I’d already done four years of physical therapy. Tears in my right ankle, my MCL, my meniscus, my adductors, left side and right. I won’t give you the whole résumé.

Back then, part of my identity was playing through pain, even when the doctors said don’t. I loved being tough.

On the first day of of my senior lacrosse season, with a full D1 scholarship on the line, and offers to play soccer and lacrosse at NESCAC schools, I played through what felt like knots, roping up my back. I came home, bent down for my gym bag, and got my first taste of the shock. The only thing my brain could reach for was that episode of Fresh Prince, where Uncle Phil throws his back out and freezes mid-room. Locked in space.

This was humbling. There was no playing through this. It's essentially a neurological lock of all my muscles, one foot on the gas, and the other on the breaks.

I won’t take you through the whole journey. What I will say, is that it was physically and emotionally painful. It was a complete ego death. Everything I’d built myself out of, dissolved.

After a year of PT and doctors and surgeons, nothing seemed to help.

This was my invitation into mind-body healing. It was gateway into yoga, visualization, emotional anatomy, and energy work that finally led to a new level of awakening and freedom.

The next humbling thing is that awakening and freedom is not a final destination. It's a continuous process of forgetting and remembering, falling asleep and re-awakening, deaths and rebirths.

So here we are, twenty-five years later!

The same lightning down the spine, but my path was clear and recovery felt like a given.

I’ve been doing the reps, so my recovery time tends to be super fast these days. It feels like a freaking miracle.

On top of the emotional work, and nervous system work, I’ve added physical therapy back in. For three years now I’ve been at PT every Tuesday and Thursday morning, an hour-plus each time. We’re talking progressive, smart weight lifting as pre-hab. As a foundation.

By Monday, just two days later, when my parents came by, I was genuinely, almost embarrassingly, fully mobile. (I had skipped mother’s day travels Sunday because I wanted to keep horizontal with some smart movement- no car ride!)

And this is where I want to grab my megaphone: The medicine is in the unglamorous reps.

The work doesn’t delete the old response. The work spaces the episodes out, and shortens the recovery.

So when the very thing that took you out years ago happens again, but this time you've done the reps and built the ecosystem, the way back is faster and less disorienting.

In the middle of all this, I also caught an unrelenting cold. Lost my voice entirely, was congested at night, and a had cough. So on paper: my back goes out and I'm sick. That story sounds like it should be miserable.

It wasn't. I wasn't.

I could zoom out and hold two true things at once: this cold will end, and this back pain is temporary. My back was uncomfortable. It wasn’t the chronic, severe, can’t-find-the-bottom kind. The cold was inconvenient. No fever, no nausea. I’d rather feel fantastic, obviously.

And still, I got to keep my contentment and peace while things were not perfect.

That used to be impossible for me. My peace used to be welded directly to my environment. Environment goes bad, I go bad.

Here’s my disclaimer: if this were chronic high-level pain with no bottom, or forever sleep deprivation, (you name the forever thing) at some point I would not be okay. (enter dark night of the soul and reawakening). I know that line exists. What I’m noticing is that right now, I have enough reserves to stay okay when things aren’t perfect. And I’m celebrating that.

So this is me cheering you on from afar: the reps matter. Building your reserves is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. And if you’re in a cycle of depletion, the smallest doable step of care is a great place to begin.