I used to run for exercise. After dropping off the kids at school and my husband at the train, I’d drive out to the local forest preserve with my dog and hit the empty trails.
Occasionally, I’d have a mild injury; step wrong on frozen grass or uneven ground and it’s easy to twist a knee or bruise your foot. I’d rest and be back at it after a week or so.
Just before the move to Oregon, I injured my knee but good. Packing and prepping our family to move across country took priority over rehabbing my knee and getting back to running, so the injury was never directly addressed. Once settled in Oregon, I took up hiking and exploring as my main exercise, since these hills provide the kind of cardio that running in the flat Midwest did before.
Predictably, the knee started giving me problems again. An x-ray showed I have arthritis in both knees, the left one — which had been asymptomatic — worse than the right. I’d become Limpy McGee.
The doctor prescribed PT, into which I dove with abandon. Clamshells, bridges, bike riding (shudder) all became regular parts of my maintenance. In strengthening the muscles around the knee and building a strong core, I helped ease the stress on my knees. Physical therapy led to weekly circuit classes at the PT office, which kicked my ass but fired up different parts of my brain and body.
Those weekly circuit classes led to work with a personal trainer, who helped me expand my understanding of my body’s weaknesses and learn how to push myself. One-on-one work with that trainer changed how I approach exercise altogether and gave me a foundation on which I am still building.
Around the same time as our move to Oregon, my mental health underwent significant changes. The stress of wrapping up our lives in the Midwest, separating from my two adult sons who still lived there, leaving my hometown, and dealing with two floods in the living area of the house we were renting the spring before we left just about broke me. My husband was already living in Oregon for that last year, so I was alone, and felt every second of it. The weight was more than I could support and on the drive across the country, I crumbled.
What I experienced was likely a brief breakdown, an overwhelm of my limbic system. Just like my knee injury sidelined me from exercise, my body’s mental and emotional protection system could not handle the additional load and just shut down. I slept for days on end, and when I was awake, I was lethargic, reactive, and had exaggerated moods. I wanted to do everything and nothing. Our financial situation hadn’t leveled out yet from the year of supporting two households and funding the move across country, which compounded my despair. Oregon was this shining wonder of a playground but I felt limited by my inexperience and our meagre funding.
I started seeing a therapist six months after landing in Oregon, thanks to my husband’s insurance. I started learning about the way my brain works, the way I was trained implicitly and explicitly by my upbringing, and the habits I had adopted through an adulthood of fending for myself.
My therapist gave me exercises to help my brain’s system handle the excessive input and wildfire emotional output. Deep breathing became part of my language. I learned how to meditate, and how to feel into my body for where the pain was settling. I discovered how to slow everything down and examine what was happening so I could respond with thoughtfulness, and stop reacting in emotion.
There was so much to unlearn, so many things to adjust in the way I face life. Just like the old knee injury left me hobbling around favoring one leg, putting more stress on the other, hurting other joints as I compensated for the lack of strength on one side, I had developed compensatory emotional and relational habits that were causing other problems.
The hard part about working out life’s complexities in therapy is that, unlike a knee injury, you can’t stop using your brain every day to give it a rest. You have to adopt new, healthier behaviors while you’re using the injured part. It’s a complex metric, rerouting your brain’s instant commands to a different pathway in the middle of a stressful event. Like adjusting your gait when you’re running to avoid reinjuring a knee, it takes work and preparation and intention.
Before I moved to Oregon, my father said, “You know, you’ll take your problems with you.” At the time, I reacted with defiance: Of COURSE I wasn’t trying to run from my problems. I knew that.
What he hinted at, though, was wisdom he had earned from his own struggles. No matter where you go, if you don’t take the time to sort out the whys and wherefores of the points of friction in your life, you’ll reinjure yourself in the same way over and over. Nothing changes if nothing changes.
People don’t feel shame for seeking therapy for a knee injury. Why is there so much shame around seeking therapy for your brain? Both are the result of improper or negligent use, and both are improved with the help of an expert.
My personal trainer and my therapist hold important roles in my life. Because of their training and education, they have tools and insight well beyond my understanding. Both have taught me how to slow down, focus on the source of pain, and strengthen my body with the intention of preventing that injury from recurring. With their help, I have learned to listen to my body, to rest when needed, and push myself beyond what I already knew how to do. Knowing where my weaknesses lie — like these knees that complain when I go down stairs, or my needy childhood heart that fears she’ll be left behind — guides my efforts. Clamshells, deep breaths, reminders to align my hips over my knees and to be curious about my fears.
Building a strong physical and emotional core is key to engaging with the world.
There is much to learn about my physical and emotional self. I gave up running and started rowing, which uses a bunch of different muscles. I gave up reflexively anticipating the needs of everyone around me and tuned into my own. Both adjustments have made me stronger and more capable of being in this painful, confusing world; no more risky knee joints, no more precarious emotions.
I’m headed out for exercise now to restore my once-wounded body. Later today, I’ll engage in some restorative emotional practice with a walk in the forest and some quiet. I need both efforts in equal measure for a healthy, long, joyous trip through this life.