34. Sprains

So I was recently talking to a friend about how life has its cycles and how they’re so hard to wrap your head around.

Some things, like physical injuries, are super easy to deal with. You do a thing, you hurt yourself, you’re stuck only performing at like 60% for a few months, then you eventually ease back into it and you’re good.

…or you rush it and try to be a badass about it, and you end up furthering your injury and now it’s four times as awful.

Intuitively, this makes a ton of sense with physical pain. Where it’s a bit tougher to see the wounds is with emotional pain. Mental strain. Emotional exhaustion.

Let’s say that you start a company, spend five years pouring your heart and soul into the company, then (while on vacation) discover that everything exploded over a three-day span, and it’s over.

…whoa.

That’s trauma. That’s what it feels like after getting hit into the boards playing indoor soccer. That’s the emotional equivalent to crashing a motorcyle. That’s tendon-tearing, bone-breaking truma.

Like a sprained ankle, boy, I ain’t nothin to play with.

The issue that arises is that since it’s not physical, it doesn’t slow me from walking the dog every morning, and since I can’t feel it the second I climb out of bed it doesn’t feel real.

Wrong. It is.

Shock, trauma, stress, whatever you want to call it, all has a long and lasting effect on you that you need to spend the time nurturing back. If you push it too hard for too long, you get hurt, and you don’t heal yourself, you’re going to make it worse. It’s going to become more damaged. Heal yourself.

It’s okay to admit that you’re hurt. Take yourself out of the game for a bit and let that ankle heal.

If you don’t look after yourself, who will?