Thursday, August 14, 2014

Rehab

You know how you're in a situation and all the sudden a song starts playing on repeat in your head? I was trying not to cry while holding an...uhem... 3lb dumbbell. I guess my brain was trying to distract me, and my mental ipod started playing Amy Winehouse's "Rehab".

"They said I should go to Rehab, and I said No! No! No!  They tried to make me go to rehab and I won't go, go, go!"

My brain chose that song certainly because that is how my body was feeling.  I've somehow injured both my back and my shoulder, and yesterday was my first day back at the gym in a week.  He-who-trains was trying to teach me some dynamic stretches that would help, and we kept having that "How bad does it hurt, on a scale of one to ten?" conversation.  Only my version of the pain scale is more like one to "If you don't stop, I might actually kick you in the shins as hard as I can."   He wisely stayed out of kicking range.

He was very clear with me though.  If I wanted to be back to doing things, then first I was going to have to do the hard work of rehabbing the injuries.  I was going to have to do some really deep stretches that hurt like... well a whole slew of very unladylike words.  In other words, I was going to have to put myself in pain in order to bring about healing. And I was going to have to do it over and over.

My first thought was "No, never mind. I'm good.  Really.  I can do a lot without moving either my back or my shoulder.  Like sharpening pencils.  I could be a professional pencil sharpener."  My second thought was maybe "Why on God's green earth would anyone do this to themselves?" But then I realized limping along, paralyzed from pain, is no bargain either. And maybe that's not just a body lesson, but a spirit lesson too.

So today is looking to be an exciting day filled with ice bags and heating pads and foul-word inducing stretches.  It's a day where, even if I can't yet "embrace the pain", then I at least won't run from it. In the words of another great song, "If you're goin' through hell keep on going/ Don't slow down if you're scared don't show it/You might get out before the devil even knows you're there."

Because on the other side of the hellish and painful, is healing and wholeness.

So here's my slightly revised version of the song-- that I'm gonna keep singing (albeit through gritted teeth.)
"Gonna go to rehab, and I said Oh! Oh! Oh!" 

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