From Injury to Function: Words of Wisdom by Mary Ann Petersen, LAc

Injury and wounds call for attention, mindfulness, focus. They demand us to care for ourselves, which is a gift. To learn this is a gift.

Below is a list of suggestions brought about by conversations with patients: things to do and not do every day toward recovering from pain, injury, illness.

Do the work. Don’t make excuses. You must put in more work than anyone, this includes procedures, medications, and therapy. You have to care the most.

Don’t obsess on the MRI, or any other imaging. Be glad if nothing shows up. That’s good!

Don’t memorize and repeat all that is wrong or broken in your body, mind, and life. You are not your pathologies.

Don’t identify as un-fixable, the worst ever, the most broken of broken. Because you’re not. Someone else is always worse off.

Ask yourself daily or hourly, am I taking care of myself? If not, choose times to take care of yourself. Do the meditation, exercises, the meal planning. Be active in making choices for your hourly well-being.

Find ways around limitation. Unless you are dead, there is always a way. It might be different and not the same as you are used to. Be innovative in adaptation.

Allow for change. You aren’t a jello mold. Don’t agree to a frozen state of being. Be willing to try a little even when tired, sad, sore, depressed, overwhelmed. Praise yourself wildly for trying. Notice that you can overcome more than you imagined possible. Build on that.

Drop negative self-talk. All it does is block progress and keeps the mind busy organizing and detailing failures. It distracts from healing in all forms. Learn to catch this at every level and cut it off the second you realize you are doing it. It’s a habit and all habits can be changed.

Align your loyalty with wellness and not loyalty to the wounds or disease. Keep the story on being strong and alive with the injury, and not as a victim to it.

Love everything you love fiercely. Look around you. Who and what do you love? It can be a person, a house plant, a place, a pet. Just go for it. Love. Pain doesn’t grow as well when love is more abundant. Passion gives birth to better health.

Know your worth. People without injuries or illness are not more valuable than those with them. Note: everyone is injured in some way, whether you can see it or not.

Embrace your age. Someone told me she was turning 60 and didn’t like it. Her favored age? “16!” If you are older than you’d like to be, shift gears and get into wisdom and less into lost youth. Appreciate all your body has done for you.

Finally, don’t accommodate your wounds. Accommodate your wellness. Plan steps toward healing rather than failing. Think bigger over smaller. Do all you can do to support your best health. Let go of anything that gets in your way.

Absolute Wellness Center in Eugene, OR offers sports medicine, chiropractic medicine, naturopathic medicine, physical rehabilitation, acupuncture, and massage. To learn more about safe and effective treatment options for your pain or injury, or just to improve your health, please give us a call at 541-484-5777.