Change requires acceptance

I wrote this in October. I am not sure why it did not post but I found it today and wanted to share it with all of you…this is my story.

Recently I was told I could not work out for five weeks. That was five days ago. If you take a scroll through my previous posts or facebook page you might quickly assess that one of my personal “go to” tools for peace of mind has been stripped away for the time being. That last part took a bit of time to process; this is not permanent, you will survive this. Five, very long, days is how long it has taken me to change my attitude. I could not quite accept that I was sidelined.
A glimpse at my external and internal dialogue:
This is hell…
So unfair…
I am going to lose all my tone…
I HAVE to move…
I cannot do this…
Followed by:
Maybe I can get cleared earlier…
I am not supposed to go for walks but if I do 10,000 steps in the house does that count?(reasoning…)
AND to escape my thoughts I spent more time than I care to admit sleeping.

I was grieving. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression.

This process gave me pause. How often does someone come in to my office in this state? ALOT. While I sympathize, until now, I had not been able to empathize. In my “self coaching” I pulled out all the dialogue with myself that I would use with a patient “You have a choice here. You can think different thoughts. You can reframe this. The story you are telling yourself is the source of the pain.”

Until today I was not ready to hear all that. Until today I was not ready to shift. I needed to allow myself the feelings (just like I tell my patients…) and then in MY own time I needed to surrender to what is. The beauty of that process is today I am okay. Good in fact. I still have 5 weeks of healing ahead of me. I am making fun plans between now and then while marking my first barre class, yoga return and run in bright red on the calendar.

What I learned…
Despite this work that I do every day I myself am still in the learning stage
Some people might judge my plight as small and insignificant. Please do not do that to yourself or others. Choose not to minimize your pain. Let go of making yourself wrong or bad for your feelings. It matters. You matter.