Have you ever noticed how when you hurt yourself you immediately start to protect that part of your body that is damaged? A small cut and a bandage goes on till it heals and all is fine again.  Hurt a muscle and it takes a while to heal, you may move differently to alleviate pain or stress on that area of the body.  Break a bone and it takes ages to heal and then once it has healed the chances are you will get the odd cramp or ache when ever the weather cools or changes.

I hurt my knee the other day playing with the dog. Running around (not a good runner I know) and it jumped in front of me with such a speed that I flew over it trying to enact a superman moment but alas I forgot my cape.  I landed on my knee and damaged it, the universe then painted it pretty blue, yellow, purple and made it double the size it was originally.  Its a beautiful art work now and no I will not photograph it, it’s one of those you had to be there to see it things. No, there were no videos of this said event either.

The day it happened I picked myself up and I went for an hour long walk.  Yes I know this may sound like madness, bear with me here.  It was agony but I got through it, up and down the hills, my knee stuck together like glue.  After that walk I’ll admit that I couldn’t move much, the knee was huge and made my ass look small compared (for once).

The next day, yesterday, I went for another walk just as long as the one before.  The swelling had started to go down though it was still really sore, putting major pressure on to it was a big no no.  The first 10 minutes of the walk was pure hell, think suntanned skin under a hot shower, each step felt like my knee cap was going to explode.  Slowly as the time progressed the pain loosened and I was able to put more pressure on to it.  I suffered a bit after the walk but not as bad as the night before.

This morning I woke up and my knee is almost back to normal size again, huge egg still ever present but I can walk properly without having to hide my limp (not the easiest to do).  I went for another walk and although again it was a little sore it was way better than the last two!  I managed a further distance, bigger hills and it only hurt every now and then.  I am a bit sore now but it felt good and I can’t stop grinning.

Someone told me that it takes 21 days to form a habit and the same amount to break one.  How often do we hurt ourselves and we alter the way we walk, move or talk so as to protect the injured part only to carry on with protecting it well past its heal-by-date.  Soon that limp becomes habit and we don’t even notice it anymore, we just accept it as if it were how we have always been.  As we continue to limp our other muscles start to adapt, pull, twist, our body learns to work with the new “addition”.  Sometimes those muscles that have been “put out” by the injured ones become injured themselves.

Physical pain is so like emotional, we go through a big “injury” and we have a choice.  Exorcise those demons or nurse them, encourage them to grow and allow them to rule your life, your spirit.  It is a choice.

Sometimes it is easier to nurse our emotional wounds, some are just easier to exorcise than others, it all depends on the depth and the damage.  At the end of the day though we mustn’t forget that because of our nursing those wounds will never really heal.  If we don’t take care to heal then we are allowing those emotional wounds to rule our actions, how we are to others and to ourselves, how we live.

I know that most say that one should sit and ice-pack it but from experience getting the blood flowing and working the area releases the build up of toxins enabling it to heal quicker much like our emotions.  Healing is never easy, more often than not it can bring about more pain but once the process has started it soon becomes far easier, the limp starts to fade and soon we run again.

Pick that scab on the infected wound, let the gunk come out, release its poison and start living again.

Day by day I am able to walk more and limp less, each day that passes my spirit is able to fly more, less crawling and more soaring.

How about you?