Avoiding Debilitation in Injuries from Traumatic Accidents, Chronic Pain or Fatigue, Fibromyalgia, Tension Myoneural (Myositis) Syndrome
We have a steep wooded trail just down from our house, which I had completed and was on the way towards the more gentle trail into Bethabara, when I spotted a figure darting and bobbing among the trees, weeds, bushes and flowers near the road. Since it was near the driveway of Martha Wood's house, I crossed the street to see, and sure enough, it was Martha. You may remember her - she served as the first (and, so far, only) woman mayor of the city, from 1989 through 1997. That day she was out in the heat (head- ing for 90 degrees) picking up trash on the roadside, which is one of the tasks our neighborhood organization performs on a monthly basis. Don't know why she didn't have help -- didn't ask -- but I pitched in
A
AWARENESS. CHOICE.
few weeks ago I was pursuing my daily routine of raising my heart rate beyond 100 beats-per-minute.
with her. I think it took us something over an hour, working pretty fast, stuffing sev- eral plastic grocery bags, then finally filling two large black bags with those. The straight-line distance is only a few hundred yards of street, but there are scraggly em- bankments to negotiate, thick, jungley undergrowth to snake through, guard rails to step over, traffic to watch out for and poison oak/ivy to recognize, avoid and work around. The point here is that Martha fell and broke her hip a little over a year ago, with the consequent surgery and challenge of a painful recovery period. That would have stopped many people. She could easily have said, "No more trash pick-up for me -- let the young people do it."
Not only did she steam through that task with ease, I didn't have to worry about whether I was keeping my heart rate up,
but more about was I keeping up with Martha. Her enthusiasm for the event was contagious. She didn't skip over small pieces like cigarette butts either. She got it all. I never heard her express anger at the people who'd tossed the beer bottles, candy wrappers, styrofoam to-go boxes -- even a pack of used spark plugs -- either. What was present was love of people and caring about her neighborhood. Clearly that attitude infuses her body, fueling the healing of a hip injury that she could eas- ily have dwelt in for the rest of her life. Anybody who's been injured, or is dealing with any chronic pain, knows that it requires something to move forward in the face of it rather than relinquish the life freedom that the injury takes; and the older we are, the more tempting it can be to give up. Don't we all know people who've allowed an injury or painful condi- tion to become the "Truth" of their being rather than a fact to be dealt with. This happens because we are not
ALL TOGETHER BETTER
YMCA OF GREENSBORO
At the Y, we believe that when people come together for a common cause, the whole community is strengthened. When you become a volunteer, you have the opportunityto share your blessings with those who need it most.
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adept at dealing with our emotions, our feelings. Feelings for many of us are un- wanted intruders into our lives, to be avoided at all costs -- so much so that many of us do not know what we are feeling at any given time. So, a thought such as "My hip is broken and it hurts to move it," which is an awareness, easily gets the feel- ing "...and I'm afraid" attached to it. Since it's a feeling, the fear is denied at a sub- conscious level (this is suppression in psychological language), thus is unac- knowledged, therefore outside of aware- ness. Now it is dangerous, becoming a force of its own that, being outside of awareness, begins to run the show. Unac- knowledged "I'm afraid," layered over "My hip is broken and it hurts to move it," discourages movement of the hip. Since the hip cannot be moved without pain, the knowledge that movement is desireable and possible merges with the fear of pain- ful movement, and the unacknowledged fear (feeling) trumps the knowledge of possibility of movement. Since there's not awareness of the fear, the mind easily
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