Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:04] What's up? It's me, Dana, alone on my podcast. No guests today, you guys. I'm just talking directly at you today.
[00:00:14] How are you directly?
[00:00:18] Good, I hope.
[00:00:20] It's pumpkin spice season, so there's that. I am talking about that on the podcast right now. This is not where I expected this to be going, but it is freshly on my mind because it's also freshly on my tongue. I have become a Whole Foods person because my sister is a Whole Foods person, and I spent the summer at home in Colorado. And one of the things that Whole Foods does really well is make you think you need shit that you don't need. And that is what they are doing. With pumpkin spice dialed up to 12, there's like, a full pumpkin spice section. Pumpkin spice section of just pumpkin spice creamers. Like, there's a full, like, taller than I am area of whole foods that's just pumpkin spice creamer. And like, various, like, an oat one and like a cinnamon one and like a horchata pumpkin spice and like, non dairy every version, and then like regular dairy every version, and then like, small medium lot. Like, every very variable that you can imagine that's still pumpkin spice is there.
[00:01:27] And so I bought one, and it's the sweetest actual thing I've ever tasted. And if you know me, you know I'm not like a. I. I do love sweet shit, but I keep myself from it because I know it's not good for me. And I. So because I don't eat a ton of sugar, I tried this pumpkin spice creamer, and I almost spit it out. It's way too sweet.
[00:01:53] I can't eat. Like, I've had desserts that are not as sweet as this almond milk creamer from Whole Foods. So if that's what you're into, you would love it. I'll leave a link to it in the show notes. I don't know.
[00:02:05] I could not handle it.
[00:02:08] Anyways, shall we get into today's not so sweet subject? Today we're talking about injury, specifically my own that I'm going through as we speak. But before we get into that super fun topic, let's do a super fun win, you guys.
[00:02:27] My dog is just licking her own self right now. Riz. She. I think she ate something.
[00:02:34] Oh, no. She's pretty good with turkey. I looked directly at Riley and I was like, you gave her turkey last night, didn't you?
[00:02:42] But she does eat turkey. It's chicken and beef that make her itchy traditionally.
[00:02:46] Well, I don't know what it is, but she's super cute over there. Are you seeing that?
[00:02:52] Wow. Okay, so I have a really big win that I'm really not allowed to share, but we really will talk about it on the podcast someday. I might even call that episode really, really Big Win.
[00:03:04] So if you're searching downstream for that episode, really, really Big Win, I think is what we're gonna have to call that. It's insane. It's the biggest win that I have been around for in over a decade.
[00:03:17] I can't even. I can't. I'm so excited.
[00:03:21] I know that some of y' all that know me personally are going to reach out and be like, yo, what's this really, really big. I can't tell you. It's really, really secret.
[00:03:30] Riz, stop scratching.
[00:03:33] It is worse when you scratch.
[00:03:40] Blur it out, y'. All.
[00:03:51] It got real. We had to put the collar on.
[00:03:56] Now Riz can't itch herself because she's a flower.
[00:04:02] Oh, I love my life so much. Okay, that's what's going well in my world. How about yours? What are you celebrating? I can't wait to hear. And I do think you have to say it out loud or text me.
[00:04:25] Yay.
[00:04:27] W.
[00:04:29] Okay, it happened.
[00:04:32] I am 39 years old and experiencing my first ever back injury.
[00:04:39] What the heck?
[00:04:41] Okay. Don't worry. First of all, I'm okay. Thank you for your concern.
[00:04:46] But inside this injury, there are many teachable moments. This episode is definitely not going to be a comprehensive list of what to do if you're injured. I'm not a medical professional, but I learned a lot in the past few weeks in dealing with my injury and my thoughts and feelings around it. And I want to share a few keys with you that I've learned for when, not if, but when, you get injured. Yeah, all of us with human bodies that don't live in a bubble and pursue physical activity will get injured in some, like, kind of way.
[00:05:24] Even if you really, really take care of yourself and eat exclusively at Whole Foods, you might scrape your knee because you were wearing Crocs and you tripped and fell. Raises hand.
[00:05:34] You might get a blister from wearing really, really cute heels or pointe shoes. Also, raise his hand, even though it's been a long time since the pointe shoes part. You might get patellar tendonitis from dancing on an entirely metal and polycarbonate stage on a world tour for years.
[00:05:50] Or, you know what? You might tear your ACL teaching yourself a 540.
[00:05:55] That was not me. That was my friend Azuki. Umeda, shout out. Azuki, you're a hero. Anyways, for most mover shakers or people who use their bodies, period, it's really not an if, it's a when.
[00:06:09] So my first key is to stop pretending it isn't happening. When it is, stop denying it. Stop pretending that you aren't injured.
[00:06:21] The first key is to assess the situation and determine the severity of it, not deny it.
[00:06:28] You know, you talk to your body every single day like you know when something's off.
[00:06:36] Our default is to please. Our default is to keep it pushing. Especially dancers with our high pain thresholds and higher desire to please, so often we are inclined to pretend we're not injured when we are. You know what's funny?
[00:06:53] The first stage of grief is denial.
[00:06:58] I think somebody wrote that or somebody says that the first stage of grief is denial. I think for most dancers and athletes, the first stage of injury is also denial.
[00:07:09] For me personally.
[00:07:11] Do you want to know what happened? I'll tell you what happened.
[00:07:14] For those of you that listen to the podcast closely, you know I'm on a fitness journey.
[00:07:22] Menopause is not going to get these bones. Listen, I am lifting heavy shit. I am taking care of my bones by getting really, really strong.
[00:07:30] Really, really strong in the process.
[00:07:33] So strong and so stupid, in fact, that I thought I could move my probably 600 pound couch by myself.
[00:07:43] My brain in that moment could not recall the two fully grown men huffing and puffing while moving this motherfucker in here.
[00:07:52] I digress. Anyways, I moved my couch.
[00:07:56] There was no, like one moment where I felt something tear or pop or pinch or whatever. But I moved my couch. And as the day went on, I could tell that something wasn't really right.
[00:08:06] My brain was offering me things like, it's probably tight from sitting all day, or you probably just worked out too hard yesterday.
[00:08:15] And then later that night, as the pain was getting more real and the adrenaline of the day was over, I could not deny something was not right.
[00:08:23] I lifted and moved a 600 pound couch without doing a warmup or bending over to touch my toes. I could not deny it.
[00:08:31] I knew something was up. I knew I was indeed injured.
[00:08:36] So let's own the injury. Shall me, shall me, shall me and shall we. That's my first key.
[00:08:43] Assess, don't deny. There is no job that is worth pretending you aren't injured for.
[00:08:51] Period.
[00:08:52] So practically speaking, and obviously the next steps after assessment is to call an emergency number if this is an emergency, and. And other obvious stuff like control the bleeding or immobilize the injured area.
[00:09:07] The Internet even says that you should remove jewelry or tight clothing that might restrict blood flow. I did a little research for this episode. Fun story.
[00:09:17] I broke my arm in seventh grade, and I had to get an ambulance to the hospital because I was laying in the middle of the street with two bones sticking out of my arm. And when I got to the hospital, they cut off off my clothes. And I was wearing my favorite outfit. And if you remember middle school, you know, a favorite outfit is really, really important.
[00:09:38] And they cut off my favorite baby blue and baby pink argyle terry cloth baby tea. There's a lot of babies in there. And these white pants.
[00:09:48] And listen, especially if you're a woman listening to this, you know how hard it is to find a favorite pair of. Of white pants. Like, those two things do not usually go in the same sentence. Anyways, they cut off my clothes. I was devastated.
[00:10:04] So you might need to remove your own clothes so that they don't destroy them for you. Anyways, there's also the regular rest, ice, elevate, compress, and repeat. But something that you might not have thought of is that you can just simply straight up ask for help.
[00:10:22] If it's not an emergency. That doesn't necessarily mean you don't need help. You can call a friend. Hey, friend, can you help me find my insurance card? I have no idea where it is and it's hard for me to get around right now. Or hey, friend, I can't grab my bag and I don't think I can drive to urgent care right now.
[00:10:41] Are you busy? Like, please don't be a hero. Ask for help.
[00:10:45] And if step. If step one went well and you assessed your injury, then you've kind of assessed the kind of help that you need.
[00:10:53] Just ask for it, okay? And then let's circle back to can you help me find my insurance card?
[00:11:00] Because do you, listener, viewer, know where your insurance card is?
[00:11:04] Like, please take a pause right now. Just hit pause and go find your insurance card. It is worth knowing where that is. But do come back because there's more good stuff coming up.
[00:11:14] My next question, a humbling one, is, do you have insurance?
[00:11:19] I'm going to include in the show notes to this episode a few really great resources for performers, ways to find it and compare different things that might be different plans that are a good fit for you. Please check that out, because I know so many young people think they don't need insurance because they're young and healthy.
[00:11:37] But if you're a young and Healthy mover and shaker. Not to beat a dead horse here.
[00:11:41] That's a shitty thing to say. Not to over emphasize this enough.
[00:11:47] It's not an if, it's a when.
[00:11:49] So immediately following this episode, go get insurance. And then immediately following key number one, which is assess your situation.
[00:12:01] My follow up to that, key number two is that there is no need to compound the already very real injury pain that you're feeling with emotional pain of embarrassment or shame around being injured. So to build on what we already know, everybody gets hurt. It's you this time. And you're not bad or wrong because it is. Even if it was quote unquote your fault for trying to move the couch by yourself without warming up like you know better. And that's okay. You're not bad or wrong for knowing better and doing it anyways. You're a human. You're a human who didn't warm up you to move the couch and that's okay. You're a person who thought that you could and then you turned out you weren't, and that's okay. I even did this earlier in this episode. I called myself stupid. I said, I'm getting stronger and stupider, and I'm not stupid. I'm a smart person who thought I could move my couch by myself. And I'm not. So that's key number two. Stop compounding very real injury related pain with emotional shame and embarrassment around being injured. You. You can tell people that you're hurt without shaming yourself.
[00:13:08] You can tell somebody that you're not available because you're healing from an injury without kicking yourself while you're down.
[00:13:16] Stop kicking yourself while you're down. Please let that go.
[00:13:20] Okay, that brings me to my next step. And this might be shocking to you. I think one of the best ways to cope with embarrassment or shame or even the straight up fear or devastation that show up when you're dealing with an injury.
[00:13:34] The best way to let them go is to actually feel them, to process them.
[00:13:42] The key is this. Letting go of unwanted emotions doesn't mean ignoring them or resisting them or reacting to them. It's quite the opposite. It means to feel them. To let it go means to feel it. That night, when I stopped denying my situation, I. A lot of feelings showed up.
[00:14:04] Resistance was the first one. And resistance, I think, is the cousin of denial. Denial says, I'm not injured, I'm fine, it's just a scratch.
[00:14:12] Resistance says, I know I'm injured, but I really don't want to be. I can't be injured right now. I have to be healthy right now because I've got this and this and this and abcdefghnope I'll talk you through my flow for processing feelings, all of them, but specifically the unwanted ones. Whenever I'm feeling an unwanted feeling, I have a handful of different tools for processing and several of these I teach and use in my coaching practice daily. But it's not so often that I sit down with them with myself. So once I had gotten over the denial of my back injury, I sat down and processed this resistance that showed up. This thought that said I know I'm messed up, but. But I can't really don't wanna be. I really don't wanna be hurt right now.
[00:15:00] When I think that thought, I feel in my body the emotion that is resistance. And I personally feel it in my skin. I feel my skin confining around my body. So the first part of my processing journey is to name it. I'm gonna call it Resistance. The next part is to identify where it lives in my body. For me personally, resistance lives in my skin and it feels really tight.
[00:15:27] The next phase is to discuss it with an insane degree of detail, as if it were like character description in a movie script. Where, where is it from? What does it look like? How does it sound? What is it? How much does it weigh? Like really, really describe in insane degree of detail this feeling. For me, resistance is like a paper thin but really strong body wrap that, that squeezes me in. I don't know why you guys, but in my mind it's light blue.
[00:15:56] Like this papery, light blue thing that's see through. And if I touch it, it's like kind of rough. It doesn't have a temperature other than maybe my body temperature, I guess.
[00:16:07] It's definitely light. Like spider web material is light, but also really, really strong.
[00:16:13] That's resistance.
[00:16:15] And if I look really closely, it's specifically around my arms and my legs that I feel it. The area of my torso is kind of like egg yolk, gentle like egg yolk, runny and smooth and easy to compress.
[00:16:36] So this outside layer, this papery light blue thing is compressing everything. And then my soft egg yolk self is just getting smushed by it. That's resistance for me. That's what happens in my body when I think something is and shouldn't be or can't be right now.
[00:16:56] So the longer I sat with that resistance, the longer I looked at the compression of this papery layer and this ooey gooeyness of my egg. Not the egg yolk. The egg white part. That part getting compressed. The more I saw that egg. Why do I keep wanting to call it a yolk? I'll tell you why. Because my family and I are obsessed with Gudetama. And I've watched more Gudetama egg on TV than I care to admit right now.
[00:17:26] Here's what happens. As I continue to look and get curious about resistance, the egg white softens the paper layer.
[00:17:36] And the paper layer stops being so tight, the egg white bleeds into the paper layer. And then that paper layer becomes like dough itself. And then I'm able to relax. And wouldn't you know it, my friends, Once that runny egg white. I almost said yolk again. Once that runny egg white has bled entirely into this light blue paper layer, I'm able to breathe.
[00:18:06] And that was something I hadn't done since probably I moved my couch. I hadn't taken a deep breath.
[00:18:13] So here in this processing phase, my friend, is going to be the first time that I tell you to breathe.
[00:18:21] Should have been in the first step. Also assess and breathe.
[00:18:26] Second step.
[00:18:28] Excuse you, Riz.
[00:18:30] Second step. Don't kick yourself while you're down. And breathe. Third step. Process the unwanted feelings and breathe. Like that part is essential.
[00:18:41] Once I allowed myself to breathe, I was also able to see that there were other thoughts available to me than I know. I'm injured and I can't be right now. I don't want this right now. These are the thoughts that showed up for me after all my unwanted thoughts.
[00:18:58] After.
[00:18:59] After I had processed this weird egg white resistance, I was able to think and truly believe that I'm a human. And I don't get to decide everything that happens to or inside my body. But I do get to decide what I think about it.
[00:19:18] I will be 100% exactly when I need to be.
[00:19:23] Exactly 100.
[00:19:25] And I can handle what's in front of me with this mind and this body. Exactly as this body is injured right now. I can handle this.
[00:19:35] Those are the thoughts that became available to me once I had truly given airtime to the thought. I can't be injured right now. I don't want this right now. This doesn't fit into my life right now.
[00:19:45] And I sat with feeling friction and resistance.
[00:19:49] I sat with that paper thin layer. I watched it change and soften into something else. Call it acceptance, call it okayness, Call it whatever you want. But that's where I was able to get after really visualizing and honoring and being with resistance as it showed up in my body. And that's me. That's how I feel resistance.
[00:20:13] That's how I manage my mind around my injury instead of ignoring or resisting or reacting to feeling that way and simply trying to change my injured body, Y', all. Changing your injured body can take probably will take weeks or months or years, but changing your mind about your injury can happen in minutes, like now.
[00:20:36] All right? So do that. Feel your feelings. And that brings me to my final lesson and biggest teachable moment.
[00:20:45] The next key, y', all, is to find your team and trust them.
[00:20:50] Like, you can manage your mind around an injury. But I personally don't believe that thinking different thoughts or positive thinking is gonna heal you. That's just me. Mindset is critical to healing, don't get me wrong, but it won't do all of the work.
[00:21:06] Like, thinking my knee is fine, my knee is fine, my knee is fine is not gonna rebuild the cartilage in your knee.
[00:21:13] So I really strongly believe in finding a medical and wellness team to supplement mind management and processing your unwanted feelings in the healing process.
[00:21:23] Now, you may feel like you don't have one. You may feel like you are on your own, like pain island, far away from anyone who can help you. But if you're a person living in the world today, listening to this podcast, you are connected either via personal connections or to the world wide web. And you've got to reach out. You've got to do your research. You can do it. I know you can. You can even reach out to me. I have a fabulous network of wellness healing type people both here in LA and in other places.
[00:21:53] So for me, this step looked like personally reaching out to a handful of friends who I know have had back issues.
[00:22:00] I pooled my resources, I took some phone calls, and y', all, I just found my favorite new addition to my medical and wellness team.
[00:22:10] I'm not going to say too much more because my new and an old friend, I just learned that there's a cool crossover in my life. Anyways, my new and old friends over at offsetmed are going to join me on the podcast in the very near future and talk to me about all that they do and all that they did for me.
[00:22:32] That is what I have for you, my friend. You are way closer to having a team than you think you are.
[00:22:38] You just may need to reach out. You may need to do some research, take some calls, do some work, explain your situation until you find the team that is right for you.
[00:22:49] All right, that's it. Those are my biggest lessons learned from a couple weeks of having a back injury.
[00:22:57] Number one, assess. Don't deny your situation. Number two don't compound already very real pain with unnecessary emotional pain.
[00:23:10] But do key number three process those unwanted feelings. Don't indulge in them. Don't live there forever, but certainly don't ignore them. Process them, name them, honor them. Give them airtime. One of the ways is what I demonstrated for you to articulate them in great detail.
[00:23:30] Give them a name, a face, a place in your body, a strange visual identity.
[00:23:36] The next key is to find your team and trust them.
[00:23:40] Talk to people. Show up honestly. Communicate your situation and what you are and are not comfortable with in your healing journey. I got cupping for the first time. You guys have giant hickeys all over my back. Anyways, so excited about my new friends at Offset Med. Thank you Samo for that recommendation and thank you all for being here. Drink a lot of water. Go find your insurance card or get some good insurance.
[00:24:07] Of course, subscribe. Leave a review or rating that's important for your health. Drink a lot of water. But almost more important than that is drink, drink, drink. Kind is be kind. And of course keep it super funky. I will talk to you soon.
[00:24:26] This podcast was produced by me with the help of many Big, big love to our Executive Assistant and Editor, Riley Higgins. Our our Communications Manager is Fiona Small with additional support from Ori Vagiris. Our music is by Max Winney, logo and brand design by Bri Reitz and if you're digging the podcast, leave a review and rating and please share. Also, if you want to connect with me and the many marvelous members of the Words that Move me community, visit wordsthatmoveme.com if you're simply curious to know more about me and the work that I do outside of this podcast, visit thedanawilson.com.
