Uberman

I have a fondness for wilderness.  A deep respect.  It often inspires awe in me and so I seek out wild places any chance I get.  Recently, a friend and I traveled to Muir Woods in the north bay area of California and I found myself surrounded by the most immense beauty, tons of trees, and very few people.

Something I particularly enjoy about northern CA wild areas is that there are usually fewer people so you get a lot more privacy while on the trails.  Well, due to this fact I had plenty of room to really have a good time and enjoy the beauty of the trail.

Soon after realizing this, my friend and I decided to run a trail which started out great.  I was in track and field as a sprinter when I was younger and I really enjoy just taking off on a good run.

Trail running, looking back on the day, is a lot like drinking lots of beer or wine.  It feels great in the moment, yet the effects can be less than thrilling.  Two days after the trail running experience: enter Cankle. 

Long story short, I was running fast on uneven ground and somehow lost coordination for that split millisecond which then leads to severe and relentless pain that somehow called to mind child birth.  Now, that’s not to say that child birth and a sprained ankle are comparable in pain, but for someone who has never experienced such pain, the similarities between pregnancy or child birth and jacking a delicate ligament in the body have more in common than cankles. 

After the injury my poor friend had to endure the sight of a usually composed and strong female deteriorate into a sniveling six year old in some serious need of ice.  The ice came relatively quickly from the nearest 7-11 while a biker sat staring at me while I was in severe pain.  I remember him looking over as if to say, “Did he hit you?!” I had not the strength to laugh at the ridiculousness of it.

The drive home was spent with me in and out of delirium.  A sprained ankle people.  I thought my foot would fall off.  Things were not moving right.  I had visions of amputation and gangrene setting in.  The mind can be fabulous during a crisis I learned, by creating a variety of diversions with which, in our tortured state, we may invest all our energy.

My friend was great.  He kept saying, “Smile at it.  Come to peace with the pain.” So, I obediently looked at my foot and smiled.  I thought of how much I love my foot, I thought of how it had supported me all those years, and I thought of how fortunate I was to have been trail running in the beautiful Muir Woods.  I thought of where I would be today without that foot.  I began to laugh.  The laughter was less out of delirium this time and more related to my silly imagination which had created all sorts of random outcomes not even an hour after the event.

Healing

As I write this I am sitting on a couch with my foot elevated and a heating pack assisting with circulation.  Yesterday, Cankle was the size of a…well, you get the picture.  I thought things were going wrong, very wrong.  I had never seen my foot so large.  My friend Dawn Brown Davis, a doctor of osteopathy, checked the foot out and said it looks fine, that it’s healing well, and recommended that I try some arnica for the swelling.  Really?  It’s just fine?  Apparently the body does some funky things while it’s healing.  I thought that the circulation was done for and that some wires had been crossed on that fateful trail.  Apparently my imagination was at work again.

My friends were teasing me and asking if I wanted them to take it off.  One even came over with a dull wooden instrument and pretended to saw it down.  They were teasing me like brothers would and in the moment, I wanted nothing more than to slap them both and go lay with a pillow to cry over Cankle.  “Use more empowering language, Holly, please.” (It’s always nice to surround yourself with living, breathing, and talking mirrors).  I realized I was just being silly while focusing overtly on the injury and seeing only the pain instead of the healing that my body and mind was experiencing. 

I view the injury itself as a message.  Many changes have been taking place for me and Cankle came to remind me to slow down, be aware of my mobility, enjoy the process and journey of this path I have embarked on, make the powerful changes enduring, and acknowledge that I am healing on a number of levels.  This creates a much more powerful experience out of the situation, and one which has my highest good in mind, despite the initial pain that was involved.

When we feel pain physically, we are reminded of the life force behind all change because we are in a state of flux and await that shift back to our functional and “normal” selves.  Focusing on the body’s health and the healing process itself is always powerful, as is giving the body love and attention so that it responds accordingly to the injury.  Somehow while enduring the pain and experiencing it, I felt very normal however.  It felt as though this physical pain was part of what was essential for me to really focus on the changes in my life and to heal. 

Through this experience I realized that I was not as aware as I could have been and that this lack of awareness led my body to remind me that, hey, you still have to focus on the health here and you are working on some things that still have to be mastered.  The body will inform us when we are not quite attuned to its needs or the needs of our entire existence as a whole.  It will respond and slow us down.

I have come to really appreciate the moments when I am moving at a slower pace, both physically and mentally.  I have found that the ability to sit and be and interact with those around me, laugh, enjoy myself, and become free in that way is a critical part of transformation.  It helps to ensure that we are not merely operating in haste.  It ensures that we are really integrating all we need to integrate and that we are present to the lessons around us. 

I am more mobile today than I had been and the healing powers of my body are amazing.  I am proud of my body and its ability to really take care of me and guide me so that I am present to what I am learning and to what I really need.  Thank you Cankle!  Your time here is well spent and well deserved. 

Tagged: cankle, healing, healing power, energy, travel, change, story, awareness, holly lewis