Lessons Learned from a Foot Doctor
by: Peri Gilbert-Reed
I recently injured my foot and had to seek help from my podiatrist. Due to where the injury was, I had to get an x-ray to determine whether I had a stress fracture or not. He placed the x-rays up and the lessons began.
Lesson #1 - You want to feel pain because the body is trying to tell you to slow down
As previously noted, this is my foot he’s talking about, right??? But, as it is with the foot, so it is with our mental health! How often do we try NOT to feel the pain and NOT slow down? We want to stay busy, because if we stay busy we don’t feel the pain. If we go, go, go, we are less likely to feel the pain we are in because we are hiding behind whatever we are using to keep us on the go. However, like any injury, one day the injury will scream louder and make us come to a screeching halt if we don’t honor what the body is trying to tell us through the pain we are experiencing. Acknowledging the pain, slowing down long enough to pay attention to the body, and honoring the pain will help us reach the healing we need.
Lesson #2 - People often find themselves in more pain because they ignored the warning
That is somewhat how I wound up in the docs office. It started hurting earlier in the week, and instead of paying attention to the warning (the pain), I just kept walking on it hoping it would go away. Sound familiar? We often try to “will away” the pain. We make rationalizations for it, use bypasses to ignore it (i.e. It’s not that big of a deal), and whatever else we can find to ignore the warning of the pain. We don’t want to face it because to face it may mean we have to feel it and work through it. Yet, if we would heed the warning, see the red flags, we may well avert more pain and work through the pain sooner rather than later.
Lesson #3 - The pain is there for a reason
This seems like a “no duh” moment, yet as previously noted, many of us are masters of ignoring the pain. Ignoring the pain in my foot would have caused me to be in even more pain because I would have been without the proper care I needed to heal the pain. We often try to disregard the pain believing possibly that we are too sensitvie, crazy, or making things up. However, the pain is there for a reason. Maybe it is telling us to slow down or completely stop. Maybe it is telling us it is time to take care of ourselves instead of everyone else. Whatever reason it is therefore, we need to notice it and address it so we can receive the proper care, or we will learn the next lesson.
Lesson #4 - Numbing ends careers
Ignoring pain can only go so far. Many choose to tak a more drastric step when ignoring no longer works: numbing it. My doctor explained how proathletes wind up with more severe injuries that may result in ultimately ending their careers. He stated that often times, when an injury happened, athletes would get steriod shots that “numb” the injury so that they would get back out on the field or court quickly. The problem: the injury isn’t healed; it is only numbed. Therefore, the playing resulted in more of a severe injury causing a more agressive treatment of the inury such as surgery and, possibly, ending the athlete’s career because of the further damage caused by playing on the injury. While our pain may not end our career, it can sure stop us in our tracks and result in irreversible damage. We may find ourselves severely depressed, addicted to our numbing choices (i.e. substance use, people, etc.), or out of control of our lives. In order to stop the damage, to regain control of our lives, we have to face the pain. We have to sit in the pain, address the reality of our circumstances, and it is then that we can begin to walk the road of healing.
Who knew going to the podiatrist could result in such great lessons! While pain is never a lesson we want to learn from, it is a lesson nonetheless. And, what good are lessons if we never learn from them? Hopefully, we can learn these lessons so that healing may be our journey rather than pain.