Limits – we all have them – what can we work through, what shuts us down.
Really, we all build this into our physiology through our beliefs and experiences: what we think is safe, what we think is dangerous, what we might need to protect ourselves from, what we feel nurtured by…
Our beautiful brains are always striving to find pleasure and avoid pain, informed by sensory feedback and processed by our emotions and memories. Science is starting to catch up with this now, suggesting that our body doesn’t just have a system of ‘proprioceptors’ throughout the body giving feedback to the movement part of the brain, but also ‘interoceptors’ which the limbic brain chews over to decide on how it will react. Not just ‘what are my structures doing,’ but also ‘what does that mean to me..?’ Pain is one of our primary defence systems if we think things are going badly. It’s there to help initially but it can start to dominate our focus. We are back to Douglas’ imploding/protecting or expanding/performing concept. Our tools: activating, breathing and mindset.
So, clever me, I know all this right? But why was I not getting better? I’d mentioned my woes to Douglas in an email, he responded that something was not fully adding up. Hmmm, thanks Douglas. Ah, but wait..! Channelling his indomitable, inquiring smile as a Cheshire cat on my wall to ask the right questions, it was time for some soul searching…
4 months ago, I’d just got back to New Zealand after a trip to the UK to catch up with family and friends I’d not seen for 2 long years. It was early ski season, something I have been getting into over the last few years, now I was just good enough to get myself into trouble! Tired at the end of the day, I spotted a cool little bowl of snow that I could sweep round and into the lower slopes. On the turn a little bump threw me off, the outside edges of the carving skis caught simultaneously, taking them in opposite directions. Time yawned into slow motion as I tried to correct, failed and then felt both my knee ligaments tearing apart.
Badly torn MCL’s but still intact, so no surgery. Two weeks later I had my long scheduled carpal tunnel/elbow surgery on my right arm which had given me a numb tingling hand for the last year. Now I had to use my arthritic left wrist a lot more and wasn’t able to keep it strong by climbing regularly. This then got really angry and swollen – now I didn’t have a limb that wasn’t painful or weak!! Then my neck started to get sore, my back was grumbling…
Breathe, rest, activate, challenge; repeat… The rehab cocktail. I got into exercising in the hydrotherapy pool at the local baths and tried to build things back. Climbing, my constant companion of 40 years, felt clumsy and painful, joyless. Keeping the physio business going took up most of my energy. The rest of the time I’d fall back on well-used crutches. I would feast a little too much in the halls of Valhalla, watch endless movies, thankfully I could still dance which preserved my smile… Maybe I’d just have to accept that climbing wouldn’t always be a thing for me, what would that even look like? What about working as a physio? Fear seeped in.
When my partner Kate suggested we go for a trip into the mountains, part of me was genuinely terrified. I had visions of striding between two blocks high on the crest of a ridge, a foot slipping, slow awkward reactions failing to stop me, tumbling and sliding down steep snow into the void…
I said we’d walk to a high mountain hut and spend the night, then just see what I felt like the next day…
I decided I’d take my father Gordon’s old walking axe for a trip out. It’s a beautiful wooden-shafted Stubai axe, bought back in the 60’s when he lived in the alps for a year. It had nestled in the corner of our living room since we moved over to New Zealand 5 years ago, waiting.
In the car on the way over, I realised I’d left my sleeping bag behind. Should we go back? Maybe stay at a friend’s and do something easier? No. There was our dog Oscar’s blanket in the boot, good enough. Adventure was beckoning – just go!
Walking in, the axe felt light in my hand, the perfect length, balanced perfectly to pendulum forward for my next step. I could picture Gordon, beaming as he took in the view of new, unfamiliar mountains, flora and fauna in this faraway land. The weather was great, no wind, despite it being late season there was one gully on the shady South face that looked complete, maybe we could do that..?
Oscar’s smelly and rather thin blanket ensured an early start, a crisp cold morning with the tops just starting to brighten in the dawn as I went round my activations. I felt fully inspired, this is what I live for. We went for the gully. Kate forged ahead onto the snow while I followed in her footsteps. Gordon’s axe plunged greedily into deep snow, a solid belay with every step on the steep slope. Bright sunshine over the summit ridge cast shadows onto the blanket of cloud which now spread right across the valley below us. Deep joy.
Thanks to Kate for leading the way, Douglas the all-seeing Cheshire Cat and to Gordon for his quiet passion for the hills, which has become mine. I didn’t notice any knee pain the whole day.
Since this trip, my focus has returned, I feel strength returning to my body, the ability to try hard and enjoy challenge. Still a work in progress but now I feel more confident, able to work round obstacles, more creative, happier.
I had forgotten to acknowledge the power of mindset in my rehab cocktail. It is plastic; it can get overwhelmed or hijacked, often without us noticing, it can always change and adapt, we just need to make sure it’s in the right direction. Direct the script of your movie. The power of connections; people, places, beliefs to allow our physiology to be strong, break through perceived barriers. But we all already know this, right? Easy to forget…