adaptability is accountability

The following entry is brought to you by the letters P and S...pain and suffering.

I am not belittling pain and suffering because it just stinks.  It's tiring, it can seem endless, and it's a lot of work.  But it doesn't have to beat you.  If you dig deep, it can be a great catalyst for rethinking and adapting your lifestyle to your new normal.

On a small scale, I have a thumb joint that keeps yelling at me.  It's annoying and it hurts and because of it, my precious du's (double unders) are becoming a distant memory.  I can't seem to hang onto my jump rope handle with any certainty so the rope becomes equivalent to a wet noodle flying around my head.  Then I watched a friend of mine fashion thumb holders on his jump rope handles because he is SO good at du's that he found it helpful to lasso his thumbs to the handles so he barely has to think about holding on.  Yup, he's a DU Sensei.  Thinking about what he had done, I realized that instead of waiting for my thumb joint to figure itself out, I could adapt something similar to my own jump rope handles.  I mean, I pick things up a little differently in that hand, why not my jump rope.  By adapting for my weakness, I am being accountable for my own outcome.  I'll figure out the correct solution to that.....soon!

On a larger scale, my husband, Laurence,  recently went through excrutiating pain caused by a herniated disc.  Thankfully, that's "all" it was.  He kept mentioning the realization that he will have to rethink how he moves through life.  It will take time and patience for the disc to calm and then for him to figure out how to live life with a back that will need some extra care.  In the meantime, we got some very helpful information from another friend who is an incredibly busy mom with four young children and her own ongoing back issues that began with a herniated disc.  Hearing her story was particularly helpful to Laurence because he was able to see that she is figuring it out as she goes and adapting and readapting, maintaining an accountability for the way she lives her life with a similar problem to his.  It sort of relaxed his nervousness about how to adapt, and adapt he must do in order to be accountable to his future self.

Lots of stuff, big and small, happens to our bodies as we play around in life.  There's a certain curiosity in watching how people choose to adapt their lives to pain and suffering.  Seeing people be accountable can be very inspiring. 

Kelly Starrett, DPT, did a year long project called the Mobility WOD.  While it's CrossFit oriented, it can be utilized by anyone.  He shows some great ways to help one's body stay as healthy as possible so that hopefully pain and suffering can be avoided.  You can see his postings at:  http://www.mobilitywod.com/   If it can't be completely avoided, however, then the only course of action is to learn to be adaptable in order to be accountable to your future self.