The Chapters Still Ahead | No. 2
In my twenties, I was obsessed with exercise. Not that I was training for a marathon or anything particularly impressive. I really enjoyed aerobic dance and I liked Zumba. Something about the music and dancing made working out fun. Much better than spending an hour staring at baking shows on a treadmill screen.
As a younger person, one class wasn’t enough for me, so I signed up for two. One at the gym and another in the water, where I’d bring my daughter along. We enjoyed every minute of it, although looking back, I probably could have dialed things down a notch or two.
My mother always had strong opinions about maintaining a certain appearance. Growing up, I absorbed many of those ideas without giving them much thought. It’s what we do as kids. We assume the people raising us have it all figured out.
Then you get to a certain stage of life and realize they were figuring things out, too.
By the time I had my daughter, I’d already started questioning some of those ideas. I still wanted her to be active, so I put her in just about every sport that kept us moving. But I didn’t want her to grow up believing that exercise was something she needed to maintain for a particular dress size.
I truly wanted her to enjoy it.
The funny thing is, even though I’d started developing my own ideas about health, I hadn’t entirely figured out how to apply them to myself.
And then one day my body decided for me. Just one quick move and that’s all it took.
I heard a noise almost immediately and felt a pain in my back. I thought I could sleep it off, but I only realized later it was a slipped disc that left me struggling with pain for months. At first, I tried to manage it on my own, but eventually I went to the doctor, had X-rays and other imaging taken, and was told I had a disc problem.
I’ve heard people say that back pain and toothaches are two of the worst kinds of pain. I’ve had both and certainly understand why they continue to say it. But by then, I’d already started compensating for the pain by putting more pressure on one leg. I was only in my twenties, so I kept pushing the pain aside. Of course, that wasn’t helping matters. I was basically trying to solve one problem by creating a whole new one.
My doctor recommended seeing a physical therapist and a chiropractor.
I wasn’t exactly thrilled with that suggestion.
A few of my family members had dealt with similar back problems, and their experiences with chiropractors weren’t very successful or encouraging. One had undergone six surgeries without much success, and another was still struggling with a debilitating back injury. So, I wanted to avoid that road and instead tried different physical therapies, hoping something would finally make a difference.
There were days when I would be on the ground stretching and the pain was so unbearable I would begin crying in a fetal position. Eventually, I surrendered. What would it hurt to give a chiropractor a chance, right?
Back then, we still had phonebooks. Remember those? I opened one up and found a chiropractor close to home. After my initial appointment, I found him interesting because he’d grown up with a father who was also a chiropractor. You might think he’d simply followed in his father’s footsteps, but he’d taken a slightly different path. He’d gone to school and developed an interest in other approaches to treatment, including some I wasn’t familiar with.
During one appointment, he asked whether I’d be interested in trying electroacupuncture alongside my regular sessions.
Now, I don’t know about you, but the idea of someone sticking a bunch of tiny needles onto my back sounded terrifying and not my definition of a relaxing afternoon.
Naturally, I said no. But after another night of little sleep, I finally agreed.
The first session was intense. I lay face down on the table and remember thinking,
This is how I die.
But at that point, the pain I was experiencing was excruciating, so I pushed my negative thoughts aside. With my face resting in the table’s cutout, my mind began working overtime. One by one, I felt the needles being inserted into my skin. I decided that I should probably remain as still as possible while he connected the electrode clips, which delivered a mild electrical current through the needles. After all of that, I still didn’t know whether it would accomplish anything. But I went back.
After the second session, I began noticing a slight difference. I wasn’t compensating for the pain as much, and by the third time, I began experiencing more relief. And for the first time in months, I felt like I was beginning to feel the payoff.
I couldn’t tell you how much of the improvement I could attribute to electroacupuncture, physical therapy or the combination of the two. I only knew that something seemed to be changing, and I was so grateful. Of course, back problems don’t always disappear for good.
Down the road, in my thirties, after sleeping on rough terrain during a camping trip, I found myself dealing with the same pain a second go around. Not a lot of fun for the rest of that summer. But this time, I recalled my initial experience. I found a local acupuncturist and once again experienced relief shortly after treatment. During that time, I’d been looking at exercise slightly differently.
When I was younger, I’d convince myself that doing more was always better. That way I could eat whatever I wanted and just work it out later in the day. In my young mind, math was simple, just another class, an extra workout, or even additional time at the gym would solve it.
There wasn’t a specific morning when I woke up and decided I needed an entirely different routine or philosophy about my health. I didn’t throw out my workout clothes or sell them on eBay or anything like that. I just started making one small change at a time.
Some of these choices came from getting older and perhaps wiser. Others came from becoming a mother and realizing I could decide which beliefs I wanted to pass along to my children. And then there were the experiences I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, including those months of back pain.
It’s funny how we tend to recognize change only when something dramatic happens. A career shift, moving across the country, or going through a nasty divorce. But gradual changes are harder to notice, even though they can be just as important, sometimes more so.
These days, I still enjoy exercising regularly and I haven’t lost my appreciation for movement or the satisfaction of a good workout. I still hear my mother’s voice in the back of my mind and sometimes right in front of me when we talk. Those lessons she taught me haven’t disappeared. I’ve just come to understand them differently. And I’ve learned that I don’t have to push myself so hard to feel like I’m doing enough.
I also see this as another way a new chapter begins. Simply because we’ve always done something a certain way doesn’t mean we have to keep doing it that way. Many things evolve along the way. It also doesn’t mean dropping everything we’ve learned and beginning from scratch. I see it as deciding what works for us and what doesn’t.
I wonder how many of us are doing something similar without even realizing it. Making small changes, questioning beliefs we’ve carried for years, and gradually finding our own way of doing things.
~Bonnie Bluewater
