When Healing isn't Linear (spoiler: it's never linear)

I just hit 3 months post-surgery on my ACL reconstruction.  It's been a tough three months. 

There are three main components to the healing: mobility, strength, and reintegration.  Mobility was the first one to check off my list.  I worked hard to bend and extend my knee, and by week 5ish, I had pretty full mobility (with some stiffness now and then).

The next is strength.  This is a long, slow haul to get the quadracep to re-engage.  Post-surgery, the body basically says, "um... something terrible is happening over there on that leg, so we're just going to ignore it," which would be a reasonable response except that I really want to be able to use my leg, major trauma included.  So rebuilding strength involves seemingly endless repetitions of squats, electric stimulation, and quad engagement to talk my nervous system into rebuilding quad connection and strength.

And, lastly, we have the reintegration of my ACL.  This is the process by which my bone and my new ACL (formerly part of my hamstring) grow together to provide long-term stability. This process takes up to six months, is integral to healing, and there's nothing you can do to speed it up. It's just going to take the time it takes. 

Why am I walking you through all of this? One, I want you to commiserate with me on the long road I'm on. Sigh. But, more importantly, I think that all healing (physical, emotional, spiritual, mental) has some portion of each component:

1. The part that's pretty much under my control, and if I work on it, I can heal. And the "amount" of healing is directly related to my daily efforts.
2. The part that needs a lot of reps. I have to put in daily work, but I won't see daily progress; I'll just see the evidence of the healing if I zoom out to weeks and months.
3. The part that is just going to take the time it needs. I can't control it, I can't speed it up. It's integral but nonlinear and uncontrollable. And, really, I only see the evidence of the healing when something catastrophic happens and either the healing holds, or it doesn't. 

How have you seen these patterns play out in your own healing journeys? And how do you cope with part 3, the stuff that's just going to take the time it takes? Asking for a friend 🙃

There is No One-Size-Fits-All

The other day, I was partaking of the collective wisdom of Instagram and came across the classic, "somewhere the narcissist in your life is reading an Instagram post that assures them that they are not the problem." So good. So true. Insta/LinkedIn/whatever are brimming with tips and suggestions, and we have to be wise consumers of that self-help content. 

Take my posts, for example. Of course, I try to share themes and ideas that will be generally helpful and avoid harm. But at the end of the day, I'm really just sharing what resonates with me and what I see working for my counseling and coaching clients. It's "generally applicable help."

But there's no one-size-fits-all for advice. And we all need to be careful consumers of the opinions we subscribe to. And we need to look inside to decide whether the advice we're hearing is helpful and appropriate for our unique selves in our unique situation. 

But what if we don't know whether the advice we're considering is a pearl of wisdom, pop-psych junk food, or simply doesn't apply to us and our needs? That's a great time to tap into your community. Ask a trusted friend or family member whether this advice seems helpful for you. Collect data from trusted sources and your internal compass, and make an informed choice based on the data at hand. But - here's the trick - treat the application of the advice as an experiment. Try it out and observe the results. Do you see positive or helpful results in you and around you? If so, maybe try it some more and collect more data. If not, then maybe it's not such an applicable idea for you right here and right now. 

All the advice we see and hear belongs in one of two camps:

1. It's generally appropriate advice that applies, more or less, to most people (but maybe not to unique you in your unique situation!)
2. It's specific advice for folks in a specific situation (which won't apply to you unless you're the target audience)

Be a smart consumer and run open-minded experiments; there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution. 

Functional Anxiety

I've been noodling through the concept of "functional anxiety" lately. Basically, the idea is that stress isn't inherently a "problem." Stress is simply our bodies preparing us for something big. And anxiety likewise isn't a problem; anxiety is stress about the future. And both stress and anxiety can, if managed well, used well, and not overwhelming, be helpful focusers for our energy and preparation. Can it all go sideways and dominate our lives? Yes, yes it can. But both stress and anxiety can also help us notice and focus on big things ahead. 

I was thinking through "functional anxiety" in the context of my daughter. My daughter recently made the US Paraclimbing Team and competed in her first worlds event last month. On her first climb, the anxiety was not functional. She got jittery, started too fast, and ran out of steam too quickly. She recognized that she wasn't using her anxiety to her advantage; instead, it was taking over. On her second climb, she used her breathing exercises to slow herself down a little, and her performance really improved. 

It was astounding to see the performance difference between non-functional anxiety and functional anxiety. At first, the stress was running her. But she learned to use the stress rather than let it run the show. 

When functional, her anxiety helped her focus, feel the gravity of the moment, and prepare well. She had to find the balance between caring (wanting to improve, to do well, to learn) and caring too much (descending into harsh self-criticism or over-indexing on this one moment in this one competition). It's a fine line and a tricky one to find. But the stress and anxiety are going to be there either way, so we might as well learn to use them well for their intended purposes in our bodies!

By the way, if you want to watch my daughter's comp or learn more about her story, check out https://www.gofundme.com/f/paraclimbing-worlds-for-wanying - there's a cool video, and she also wrote a bit about her background and love for climbing.