Today is my 7th anniversary. On October 31st 2012, I went rock-climbing with my girlfriends and I had no idea that day would be one of the most important days in my life.
It ended with a fractured and dislocated ankle that should have left me limping and in pain for the rest of my life, to say the least. But my reality today is completely different than the things I heard from the doctors.
Since that day, going through a recovery process that some would describe as miraculous, as well as helping others heal in the most incredible way, I learned a lot.
Today, I want to share 7 healing lessons that I learned in these past 7 years.
Here are the 7 most important healing lessons or every injury recovery: Click To TweetLesson #1: Your healing potential is enormous
If there’s something that I’ve learned big time in these 7 years is that we have an enormous healing potential.
And the saddest thing is that most people are just scratching the surface. They are just dipping their toes into the water instead of jumping in and soaking up all the beauty that they can.
Like that time when Kevin reversed the beginning of his avascular necrosis (dying of the bone) in 4 weeks with my help, and his doctor couldn’t believe what had happened. Something he hadn’t seen in 30 years of practice.
Or that time when Anu was back on her feet faster than she could have imagined. And her doctor was surprised by her speedy recovery. A few weeks of working with me changed everything for her.
Or when another of my beautiful clients not only healed her injury so beautifully, but also got pregnant with ease because of the work we did – something she had been trying for such a long time without any luck.
Or that time when I heard that walking with a limp, or struggling on uneven surfaces, or being in pain for the rest of my life was more or less inevitable. And now I not only walk, but run with ease, without any pain.
Would this have happened for us just by following the traditional approach to healing? No.
The regular approach was never enough and now, when science is finally catching up with the knowledge that’s been available to us from the beginning of mankind, we really don’t have any more excuses for ignoring it.
Don’t just scratch the surface – because you’re worth much more, and your healing potential is way bigger than you think.
Lesson #2: We’re full of excuses, mainly because we are afraid
The funny thing is that we have a lot of these excuses set on autopilot, and we say them just because we’re used to.
Just an example, ″Let me think about this.″
- Sometimes it’s justified and we really need to tune in and think things through.
- But many (too many) times, we say this to someone just to get them off of our back and out of sight.
True?
The downside of the first decision is that if you take too much time to think, your Ego – that just wants to keep you safe (and unfortunately, that usually means hindering your progress) – talks you out of something that could have been the best decision you ever made.
So if you’re taking time to think about something, don’t think about it for more than 24 hours. Make a decision as fast as possible and then act on it.
Does it scare you… at least a bit? Good!
Going out of the comfort zone is always at least a bit scary but it pays off big time.
And the second one?
Well, being honest and upfront is the best for everyone. If you don’t want to do something, speak up. Don’t lie to yourself or others that you just need time.
So what about ″mainly because we are afraid″?
We say ‘no’ to healing opportunities because we either don’t trust ourselves and are afraid that we won’t make it. You think things like: ″dreams are always better than reality″.
Or we say ‘no’ because we don’t believe that the person on the other side can really help us.
Advice: become clear on what it is fast, because a lot of this kind of thinking is just your limiting beliefs holding you back. And holding back your recovery.
Lesson #3: Putting yourself first is the only way to heal the way you want
Society teaches us that putting yourself first is selfish.
Think of others first! Take care of others first! Yes, take time for yourself but only when… you do a gazillion things on your to-do list! (Which then frankly never happens and when it does we do it with a lot of guilt.)
How do I know this?
Because I used to be a master of feeling guilty when doing nothing or doing something just for my own pleasure.
But having an injury forces you to start doing things differently. And if you don’t, the consequences can be detrimental.
Perhaps, what your body is trying to communicate to you is ‘slow down and take care of yourself’.
But you, being a stubborn human being, and ignoring the signs, is not only negatively affecting your healing (think of unresolved emotions and toxic thoughts that perhaps you’re not even aware of) but could be driving you to (yet) another injury. Not a pretty picture, huh?
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Lesson #4: Ignoring things doesn’t make them go away
To continue from the previous point – ignoring signs doesn’t make things disappear. The lessons come back and continue coming back until we learn what we need to learn.
I count myself lucky to have learned this pretty early on in my life. When it really clicked was in my teen years when I noticed that until I resolved something, it kept coming back. Not to punish me, but just as yet another opportunity to learn the lesson and move on.
And when I did – the lessons were no longer needed.
Just as with my chronic pain that I developed in 2017. I could have approached it by just the traditional healing approach. At that time a physician also told me that it’s not gonna go away unless I take anti-inflammatory pills and steroid injections.
I knew that this ran deeper. The main cause of my pain was fear. A strong emotion that keeps us stuck way longer than what’s healthy.
When I finally got it, truly started walking the talk, did some mindful exercises that I teach my clients, and commited to heal on the deepest level, the pain that I had suffered from for more than 7 months dissapeared within 24 hours.
That’s how incredibly powerful our minds are!
Lesson #5: Doing something before you feel you are ready is the best decision you can make
If you don’t know this yet, sorry to break it to you, but you’ll never be completely ready to do what’s truly important.
For example, your body is ready for moving and (partial) weight-bearing after an accident waaaay sooner than you think.
You’re also ready to start working on your recovery a lot sooner than what you think would be the best moment. You know how many times I’ve heard: ″I don’t need your help yet because I’m not walking yet,″ or ″I’ll reach out after my next appointment with the doctor in 1 month.″
Goodness! How crazy is that?!
Your healing is happening right this moment, so you do need help now – not sometime in the future.
Once one of my amazing clients said: ″I wish I could go back in time and make this decision sooner. Because I know I’d recover faster as well.″
My approach and techniques go way beyond the physical aspect and I work with clients on the things that are rarely, superficially or not at all covered by other medical professionals.
Think about preparing a completely new dish you’ve never done before.
Now imagine you either have all the ingredients, but have to figure out what to do with them, OR you have all the ingredients and a detailed, step-by-step recipe.
Which meal will be easier and faster to make (and probably taste better, too)?
You always have all the ingredients needed for your recovery, and it’s never to early to start combining them. That’s a lesson I had to learn – but I didn’t have anyone offer me the recipe and walk me through it, like I do for my clients.
Lesson #6: We suffer until we decide that it’s enough
I bet you’ve been in at least one situation in your life where you said ″Enough is enough! I’m changing this!″
And in that moment, everything changed for you.
You see, we choose suffering for so many reasons and often, our choices don’t make any sense!
In fact, our emotions sometimes don’t make any sense.
An example are people who cut themselves – how can physically hurting yourself make you feel relieved? But it does. The emotional pain is stronger than the physical suffering and you’d do anything in that moment to make it go away.
I know, because I’ve been there.
I was never cutting myself, but I did scratch myself and cause physical pain to myself because I didn’t know how else to deal with the emotional turmoil.
I was also high-functionally depressed for most of my life. Not actually aware of it, but looking back, I see how spending time in bed just staring at the ceiling was more than just boredom.
And the last really difficult experience I had was at the beginning of 2017 when I fell into a deep depression for 3 months. Our life was a nightmare.
And it lasted until I said to myself ‘enough is enough’, put myself first and reached out for support.
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
Lesson #7: We, women, don’t thrive in masculine energy, and men don’t achieve what they want because they don’t tune into feminine energy
The society we live in is very masculine oriented.
In fact, in the traditional approach to healing from injuries, it’s the masculine energy that prevails. It’s about logical decisions, rushing, doing, giving, having control over everything. The masculine energy is very busy and impatient. It’s about aggression and pushing past the limits.
On the other hand, feminine energy and power is about vulnerability, sensitivity, forgiving, allowing, being. It’s about receiving and surrendering. The feminine energy is loving and trusting, and it’s intuitive.
If you’re a woman, living your life in masculine energy and trying to heal your injury from that place makes it really easy burn out.
Perhaps you are already burned out and you’re not actually aware of it.
If you think about it, is there a part of you that feels that if you let go and stop, you’ll crash?
Or that if you don’t have a to-do list and control, things will never get done?
A couple of years ago I had to consciously start tuning into my feminine energy because up until that time, I lived mostly in masculine energy. And because of that, I had a lot of guilt when I took the time for myself. I couldn’t put myself first. And also, I was afraid that if I let go and didn’t work as hard as possible, my business would disappear.
But you know what happened?
I started working way less and more intuitively and as a result, my income increased. I also stopped fighting my pain. I surrendered and became vulnerable and the pain disappeared. Letting go of control and most other musculine driven qualities helped me to truly start thriving.
It’s not about rejecting one kind of energy for the other really – it is all about finding balance, which will be different for every single person.
But if you’re a woman, chances are your balance lies on the side of embracing your feminine energy more to help you through the process of healing.
(And if you’re a man – sorry guys – chances are you’re embracing your masculine energy a bit too much and need to let go a little so you can truly heal as best as you can.)
Of course, this is not the extent of what this 7-year journey has taught me.
You’ll notice I didn’t even touch on the physical aspects of my healing, or the ankle exercises that I created for myself. And I didn’t discuss nutrition, although it played a part in my recovery, and remains one of the tools I make available for my clients.
Because the biggest lesson I learned, and the basis of what is the Mindful Injury Recovery Method, is that the most important part of true healing is not the exercises you do or the food you eat, but the inner work you do that creates the foundation on which everything else stands.
If you’d like to work with Dr. Maya, heal your injury and become free from this trauma with ease, schedule a call with her now.
❤
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This a great post… I appreciate what you do for people…
So good to hear you enjoyed it, Dan ❤ xx