Why Sh#t Happens When You Make a Big Life Decision
Just when I was starting my sabbatical, I broke my foot. Strangely, it was just what I needed.
I’ve noticed over the years that I become wrong-footed and accident-prone when things are not quite right around me (…). It’s as if my body turns in on itself trying to signal that something is wrong, trying to get my attention. I’ll take a tremendous digger. Or fall down some stairs. Or my knees and elbows will trade places while I’m trying to get out of the car. It can be spectacular, these falls, these bruises and blunders (…)
In I Will Always Inhabit the Water by Lidia Yuknavitch
A friend of mine took a spectacular fall recently. He broke a few ribs and was really bruised. In commiseration, I told him that there was a good chance this accident was related to his divorce. In my experience, major life transitions are ripe for injury. I fell three times during my divorce. A few months into it, I slipped on the fringes of my flamenco shawl during a dance rehearsal and broke my left wrist. A few months later, I stepped on the long plastic tail of my dry cleaning bag, dove into the neighbor’s gate and got nine stiches on my forehead. By the third time, I had gotten the hang of it, so when I tripped in the parking lot at work I just scraped my knee.
Fast forward a couple of years to November 2020. On the very day that I officially quit my coaching job to take a sabbatical year, I broke my right foot. It happened during a Krav Maga class where I was learning self-defense. There was nothing dangerous about this class. My trainer and sparring partner were both very attentive and competent. I just happened to lose my balance and roll my ankle. At the hospital, I asked the orthopedist if I should be worried, “I’ve had so many accidents. What if I have balance issues? Osteoporosis?” His response: “No. You just have bad luck”.
Why transitions carry a higher risk of injury
An important life transition is triggered by anything that fundamentally changes life as we know it. It can be something that we initiate (like I did by taking this year off) or we are thrown into it by the unfoldment of life itself (for example, we get married, we lose someone we love, we get laid off). As Lidia Yuknavitch so beautifully describes it, injuries that happen in these key moments in our lives are not just bad luck. They typically occur when we (consciously or not) ignore, avoid or are not able to process the intense emotions that we are experiencing.
For example, things can feel out of control in these situations. One of the not-so-helpful ways I avoid this uncomfortable feeling is to go into my head, where I spend a long time planning my next steps and having imaginary conversations. This gives me the illusion that I am solving the problem, but it also makes my body tense up and I end up moving through life like a ghost. This is what happened when I broke my wrist. I was traveling across the dance floor with a six foot piano shawl while lost in thought about the end of my relationship. A silly slip was all it took to fall like a block of cement.
But transitions can also be really fun and thrilling. When I leave things behind that used to drain me, I get flooded with excitement an I feel like a champagne bottle just waiting to pop. A friend of mine is experiencing something similar right now. He is on sabbatical as well and has moved overseas to pursue his art. He is elated — and also very jittery, dropping his keys all the time, little accidents like that. He didn’t really connect two and two together until he attended a Stanford University webinar called The Science of Stress, Calm and Sleep, where neuroscientist Andrew Huberm showed the diagram below. My friend realized that he was in the “red zone”, and needed to find his way back to a healthier, sustainable state of arousal.
I believe that my most recent foot fracture was a case of feeling lonely and lost, and trying very hard not to. This sabbatical was meant for me to pause, reset and reimagine the next chapter of my life. Like in all transitions, there is a messy middle. I had left an “old me” behind in California but I still didn’t know who the “new me” was. I was also taken aback by how big of a cultural shock it was to be back in my home country after 20 years away. One thing is to visit for a week where everything is a celebration. The other is to stay long enough that you start noticing how everything — including yourself — has changed. I was out of sync with the pace of life. I struggled to communicate in my native language. Had become “too American”? My old friends were kind and welcoming, but I felt disconnected. I wanted their support, and I didn’t know how to ask for it. I felt unmoored. No wonder I lost my footing.
Injuries can change your life for the better.
I had a goal for my sabbatical, and it was to study flamenco in Spain. I had been dancing for years in California, but Spain is the motherland. When I broke my foot in November, I was scheduled to start training at a professional dance school in February in Sevilla. I worried that I wouldn’t make it. But my doctor sent me home with crutches, an orthopedic boot, and a glimmer of hope: “Do as I say and you will heal in eight weeks. You will go to Spain.”
I love a good challenge. I take it on like a forcado takes on a bull (which I actually have done, but that’s another story). After eight weeks, not only was my foot healed but I was also stronger and happier. Before my injury I could barely do five push ups. Now I was doing 15, and my dance footwork had never sounded better. Those feelings of being lost, lonely? Gone. In fact, I hadn’t felt this joyful in a long time. In the book Antifragile, Nassim Taleb describes things and people that actually need adversity in order to thrive. This was the first time I experienced what he was talking about. Looking back, there were five things that made all the difference for me:
Single-minded Focus. I had one goal - to be in Spain on Thursday, February 4. In my mind’s eye, I could see the date on calendar. I visualized myself attending class, walking around in Sevilla, eating tapas at restaurants. I upped my meditation time so that I could ride the emotional ups and downs without getting sucked into them. I found Tonglen meditation especially powerful to contact the pain of others and put mine into perspective.
Daily Movement. Once I stop moving, strength leaves my body like rats leave a sinking ship. I had to stay fit to keep up with four hours of dance training per day. So I moved my body every single day. I discovered a seated version of gaga (created by Ohad Naharin, the choreographer of the Israeli Batsheva dance company) that is all about finding pleasure and ease in movement. YouTubers were my coaches, especially Caroline Jordan who created these amazing hurt foot workout videos. As soon as I was out of my boot, my Krav Maga trainer designed an intense training program to build back my muscle mass. It was such hard work. But it left me feeling like a Viking warrior.
Loving Support. Walking with crutches and not being allowed to set my foot on the floor meant that something as simple as getting a glass of water from the kitchen was now a multi-step project. I crawled a lot. I was dependent on my family and close friends who fed me, drove me around, shopped for me, cleaned my place, and cheered me up. Friends from afar checked in and showered me with affection through technology. Letting people know that I was hurt and needed help not only brought me closer to them but also helped me discern my most important relationships.
Pleasure. When I’m working hard on an area of my life, I need to let go and celebrate in others. I decided to let myself eat all the things that I love. I celebrated the end of each day with dark chocolate. I took online singing classes from a flamenco school in Granada so that I could stay connected to my art. I discovered the amazing podcast Song Exploder, and watched a bootleg video of a Prince concert in Berlin that made me weep like a baby. I embroidered a pillow for my future home. Anything that I could do to experience beauty, inspiration and joi de vivre.
Deep Rest. I find it hard to rest. The first weeks of my sabbatical were a frenzy of activity, reconnecting with people, looking for a place to live, settling in... If it weren’t for this injury, I don’t think I would have actually stopped. I rested deeply. I moved slow. There was nowhere to go, nothing to accomplish. My sense of time shifted. I discovered that most phone calls and texts don’t really require my immediate attention. It the pandemic lockdown of the privileged on steroids. The day I was able to walk down the street by myself for the first time felt like a rebirth. Everything I used to take for granted was now fresh and bright-colored, every interaction an opportunity for connection.
As I am writing this, I’m in my small apartment in Sevilla. I’ve been here for some time now. I’ve been enjoying my training so much that I am staying a few extra months. I am very lucky that I can take this time for myself. I sense a subtle shift in my attitude towards life. I used to love reading Agatha Christie as a kid. And life feels very much like that now, a mystery being solved one clue at a time. This time, the ground feels solid even though the future is unclear. This time, I feel unbreakable.
I’m offering complimentary 1 hour coaching sessions- no strings attached!
I’m currently on sabbatical (read my blog!) following two decades of coaching leaders in large organizations- but I want to keep connecting with the people who inspire me the most! So I am offering complimentary coaching to leaders who do not usually have access to executive coaching (for example, change agents without direct reports, small business owners, non-profit leaders and mid-career professionals going through transition). Schedule your session here.
