Keep Pushing, No Pain No Gain
Welcome to Day 2 of week 2 of the Body Theme—for the next four days, we are talking about four common messages that keep us out of our bodies and prevent us from slowing down, a key step in quieting anxiety.
Today's message is Keep Pushing No Pain, No Gain. Often when I hear this one, we think of sports and exercise–how about you? AND if you were raised playing sports, this one will probably be a common message for you.
I ran cross country for my first and second year of high school—let me clarify, I ran cross country in major pain during my first two years of high school. At first, they thought it was shin splints, so I spent a lot of time icing my shins after every practice. But at the time, the advice for shin splits was to keep going—eventually, your body will get over it. I kept running—in pain. Finally, after ending one too many races in tears, my parents took me to the doctor, where I was diagnosed with Compartment Syndrome in my legs— a serious condition if I kept running. I had surgery on both legs and spent months recuperating. All because no pain, no gain was the mantra of choice.
Fast forward to my 30s, and working out had become a staple in how I dealt with my anxiety and emotional eating. If I worked out enough, I could eat whatever I wanted, and I would be too tired to hear my Monger. I worked out for 60-90 minutes a day. No pain, no gain was my Monger's mantra--with an added zing of stopping is for weak people, and you are strong—I worked out through injury, sore muscles, and sickness. It didn't matter; I was obsessive about doing my workout until I needed major surgery and broke my ankle in the same year, which forced me to stop working out altogether.
Now in my late 40s—no pain, no gain is still one of my Monger's favorite go-to's.
Recently, I decided to try physical therapy to learn how to move my body in a way that didn't cause pain. I loved working with the physical therapist– I worked out twice a week with the PT and three days on my own. I was getting back in the groove. "This is working," my Monger said, "just keep pushing, no pain, no gain."
For a couple of weeks, I rode the high that I COULD get back to where I was. Squats–no problem! Lunges-I got this! Weights with lunges–bring it on!! My Monger was right; I just needed to push harder. So I did. I kept pushing myself harder. One night, getting ready for bed, my leg gave out, and I couldn't walk. I had inflamed my Achilles heel, and it was excruciating.
The next time I went back to PT, he decreased my exercises, and I was devastated–"It's ok," he said, "You will recover. You just need to rest it and go easy. No more lunges, no more squats." A few weeks later, after I hadn't made any real progress, he said, "ok, I think we have maxed out what I can do for you. You have the exercises, keep doing them at home. But I didn't. I stopped altogether. "If you can't get back to where you were, there is no point," said my BFF.
I wish I could say, and then I started slowly and doing baby steps, and poof, I am no healed and no pain no gain is no longer a Monger mantra. But the truth is building a loyal relationship with my body and letting go of the no pain, no gain mantra is probably going to be a lifelong struggle.
Loyalty to my body looks like: being gentle with my body, listening for when it is tired, and noticing it. Some days I am awesome at that, and some days my Monger wins, and my anxiety is high--the critical element is to keep bringing myself back to my body and not beating myself up when the Monger takes over for the day.
Questions...