Summary

An injured athlete shares their journey of finding happiness and fulfillment through meditation, writing, and self-reflection while recovering from a lower back injury that impacts their running.

Abstract

The article details the personal experience of an athlete coping with a significant lower back injury that has sidelined them from their usual training and outdoor activities. The author emphasizes the importance of maintaining a positive mindset, embracing the healing process as a new challenge, and using meditation to manage stress and focus on recovery. They describe how the injury has led to increased meditation practices, the discovery of new muscles through physiotherapy exercises, and a deeper appreciation for the body's resilience. The athlete has also found joy in writing, sharing their experiences on Medium, and using the downtime to reflect on past achievements and future goals. The article suggests that injury recovery is not just physical but also mental and emotional, advocating for self-care practices such as meditation and engaging in hobbies to heal not only the injury but also the accumulated wear and tear of life.

Opinions

The author views injury as a natural part of an athlete's life and an opportunity for personal growth and reflection.
Embracing the recovery process is seen as another race or challenge to be overcome with strength and willpower.
Meditation is highly regarded for its ability to enhance mental clarity, accelerate physical healing, and prepare the mind for the next day's challenges.
The author believes that the body and mind are deeply interconnected, and that caring for both is

How an Injured Athlete Can Still Find Happiness

A complete guide to an outstanding recovery ride

Injury has been the story of my life for the last 3 months. It’s not easy, but it could be worse if I didn’t have the right mindset.

Being pulled away from the mountains and training sessions have not been easy. I have probably never meditated so much like in the last months. I need to be focused on my recovery, but also to keep my mind sane, enjoying patiently all the little winning battles against a very stubborn injury.

It’s a new journey. Another race, I guess. But this time I am absent from all the splendor of Mother Nature. So, I need all the strength and willpower to embrace this new challenge.

Injured But Not Dead

My injury is in my lower back. It’s a pressure on my vertebrae that press on the sciatic nerve and makes all my left side hamstrings contract like a rock and make all the running process very conditioned.

But it’s just another injury. I was an athlete all my life and as so I’m used to being injured from time to time. It’s part of the process. Our bodies suffer a lot of stress, so there are some parts of our body that are not always capable of dealing with that stress.

So, when an injury comes, you have to embrace it naturally. Make it part of the process. It’s kind of a warning for you to stop and rethink the direction you want to go. But it also makes you reflect on the past years, and somehow move forward to a new goal. A different goal.

And you start to heal the wound. Sometimes a difficult wound, but it’s another healing process. As with all the healing processes, you’ll have to keep your mind right. To calm your self down, to embrace the new pace, to fill in the time slot in which you ran with something you love to do rather them running.

Something like writing on Medium, for example. Somehow you find new things about the hobby that replaced your running sessions. You find that you have more to say and more to share with your followers and with people out there. You find that you love to write for several hours thinking about all the experiences you’ve had that can and must be shared with the audience.

You’re not dead. You’re just taking a pause. You’re just rethinking your life, your priorities, your new strategies to embrace the future.

Meditation Makes Your Mind and Body Stretching Unlimited

It’s funny, this relationship between your body and your mind. Sometimes you think they are different entities. But actually they are so connected with each other that you yourself are surprised.

As I was forced to make a lot of new stretching exercises, requested by my personal physiotherapist, I found out that some other muscles really exist. And they are there for strong reasons. So much pain at the beginning, while I was stretching for the first time. But now, I push more and more. I know I have to do that because my body has to be balanced again. I have to rebalance forces, or I’ll be in trouble again as I start my running sessions.

And with some time left to kill, I was able to meditate longer. My daily ritual was about 15 minutes of meditation after I wake up. But now I do another 15 minutes before going to bed. And that was powerful.

Meditating before going to bed made me prepare for the next day in an ultra-efficient way. My daily routine in the morning is to wake up at 6 AM to write. I write 2 hours a day, between 6 and 8 AM. Then, I have to prepare my daughters for school and then start my 9 to 5 job.

The thing about meditating before going to bed is that I can relax my mind and be at a level of awareness where I can make my review of the day with much clarity. I feel in my mind all the muscles that I stretched. And the healing process is done in a more conscious flow.

I really am convinced that meditating accelerates the healing process because I can be aware of the muscles I’m working hard to heal. And the level of concentration I put in each stretch is enormous.

“Mindfulness meditation can help you recover from injury by changing your perception of the circumstance/trauma/event. It enables you to see the truth of a situation rather than letting emotion skew your opinions and reactions.”

Photo by Ale Romo Photography on Unsplash

The Healing Process

It’s probably the only chance you have to spoil your body and mind.

After the shock from the notice that you’re injured, and as you calm down, you start to realize that there is no other choice but to start your road to recovery.

And that little fraction of time that you embrace meditation made you think about how precious you are. How unique you are. It made you think about the sacrifices you made to get to this point. To be faster and run further. To be a good father or mother. To be a good companion. A good son or daughter. To be a good employee. A good friend.

So, if you are in a healing process, you have a unique opportunity to heal other wounds. The tiredness. Stress. Lack of sleep. All the things that accumulate over the years. The little things that one day can transform themselves into bigger things.

Just give yourself a chance to be treated like a prince or princess. Give your self the opportunity to feel that your body and mind deserve to be spoiled.

Go to a SPA. Go on vacation. Catch this opportunity to heal not only your injury but all the tiny injuries that you suffer throughout your life.

You deserve it.