Can’t never could

I have a bum shoul­der.  Years ago, it ran­domly decided to seize up on me.  It was get­ting bet­ter, and then I was in a wreck.  Shortly there­after, I was unable to lift my arm above shoul­der level.  Sim­ply hold­ing my arms straight out to the sides was tor­ture.  The doc­tors told me I had a  frozen shoul­der and that not much was known about the con­di­tion.  I had two treat­ment options.  I would have to choose between a life­long addic­tion to pain med­ica­tion or a surgery that had only a 30% suc­cess rate.  I rejected those choices, and tried a new approach. The chi­ro­prac­tor I vis­ited next told me that the rea­son I hurt all over is that I had devel­oped fibromyal­gia.  That was even worse!  I didn’t want to have what many con­sider to be an imag­i­nary dis­ease that sucked the life out of me.

Not lik­ing any option I was given, I went fully into research mode.   I learned so much about alter­na­tive med­i­cines and cop­ing ther­a­pies.  I wasn’t going to sub­mit to pain like that at the age of 22.  It took years of work.  I did visit my phys­i­cal ther­a­pist and return to the chi­ro­prac­tor for a long time, and both helped tremen­dously. Tak­ing the time to truly take time off of work, and sleep, allow­ing my body to heal itself did a lot, as well.   I worked it hard, rested it harder, and truly changed my life and body.  I remem­ber how proud I was when I first could raise my arm straight above my head. Yes, there are days when it aches, espe­cially if the weather is chang­ing, but hav­ing full mobil­ity may as well be healed in my book.

It’s amaz­ing that an injury that was so frus­trat­ing and painful could be so life chang­ing for me.  Even though I had pre­vi­ously hated my body, dis­trusted it, and thought it was inca­pable and unath­letic, I had changed all that.  It was still the same body, but my out­look had changed.  Where before, I’d go to the gym and wuss out the sec­ond I encoun­tered dif­fi­culty, I learned that the phrase “I can’t” was poi­son.  That is one of the lessons I con­tinue to learn over and over.  Lately I’ve been try­ing some new things in addi­tion to my reg­u­lar work­outs.  I’m hit­ting some walls, though.  My impulse is to give up and say I can’t, but I know bet­ter.  I can do this, if I just will be patient.

For the month of March, I’ve been doing each of the daily exer­cises on Dashama’s youtube chan­nel.  Yoga has appealed to me for years. I have done a lit­tle on my own. I haven’t had access to a good yoga instruc­tor. The gym I use has a class, but it meets so early in the morn­ing it’s inac­ces­si­ble to me.  I tried using a book, but I had so many ques­tions and the descrip­tions weren’t work­ing out for me.  I had so many excuses to do poorly and give it up, that I did.  This time, I’m really enjoy­ing it.  I do a sun salu­ta­tion and then her ten minute daily stretch.  Even though it isn’t much time com­mit­ment, it’s often extremely chal­leng­ing.   Dashama makes it eas­ier though.  She’s sexy, upbeat, and lov­ing.    I actu­ally believe her when she says she hopes I have a beau­ti­ful day. Since I’m only using her youtube chan­nel, I’m get­ting an amaz­ing value.

I’m also doing another pro­gram.  The goal of this one is 100 con­sec­u­tive pushups by the end of the pro­gram. It is sup­posed to take six weeks, but my first time at this was right before the hol­i­days. I’ve been majorly derailed a few times, but every time I’ve picked up again.  I’m not strong enough yet for a full pushup, so I’m doing the mod­i­fied knee (girly) pushup.  The first time I tried this, I couldn’t even crank out that first pushup on my knees.  My wrists would not sup­port me.  This week, my sets totalled 80, 100, and 120. I’m match­ing the sets with equal sets of squats and crunches.

Both pro­grams rock, in their own way.  Com­bined with my reg­u­lar work­outs, I am kick­ing my own tail.  Every time I get sick or have a long day, I have to start over.  Day­light Sav­ing Time made it bru­tal.  I wasn’t sat­is­fied with the work I did this week, prob­a­bly because of the fatigue.  So I’m redo­ing this week, but not giv­ing up.  Part of me wants to scream, Fail­ure! 6 weeks, ha, more like 6 months. I just put the mute but­ton on that voice and remem­ber that I can do this.  Patience doesn’t come eas­ily to me. If I can’t grasp it imme­di­ately, I want to do some­thing else.  That won’t help me to grow.  Perserver­ence and refus­ing to give up will.