Summary

The article discusses the author's personal journey of understanding the deeper significance of repeatedly spraining their ankle, symbolizing the need for grounding, self-awareness, and the alignment of internal beliefs with actions.

Abstract

The author reflects on the recurring injury of their ankle since childhood, initially perceived as a mere physical impediment, but later recognized as a metaphor for their life's challenges. The article delves into the psychological and emotional underpinnings of the injury, linking it to early childhood experiences, such as witnessing parental conflict, which shaped the author's beliefs about support and security. It suggests that the ankle, as a support system, mirrors the internal and external support structures in one's life. The narrative explores themes of negligence, the importance of a mind-body connection, and the societal constructs of 'perpetrators' and 'victims'. Through introspection, the author concludes that true strength lies in embracing one's inner wisdom, practicing self-responsibility, and aligning with one's core values, rather than conforming to external pressures. The article emphasizes the importance of listening to one's body and the messages it conveys, advocating for a harmonious balance between the self and the world.

Opinions

The author believes that the recurring ankle sprains are a physical manifestation of internal conflicts and a call to ground one's energy and slow down.
Negligence in life, particularly in the relationship with one's body, is seen as a root cause of many issues, with the author advocating for a more active, everyday relationship with the body.
The article posits that the ankle represents the support system within and around us, and its condition reflects our internal beliefs and external circumstances.
The author reflects on the impact of witnessing parental conflict and how it distorted their understanding of equality and support, leading to a betrayal of self-trust and internal knowledge.
Rigidity in movement and thought is attributed to the loss of innocent beliefs and the adoption of societal norms that emphasize blame and shame.
Personal responsibility and core security are deemed essential for flexibility of movement and emotional well-being.
The author asserts that healing involves realigning internal wiring to pre-trauma states and maintaining conscious control over one's beliefs and actions.
Strength is redefined as the ability to consciously engage with impulses, emotions, and social influences while maintaining inner wisdom and a sense of equality.
The article concludes that obstacles are opportunities for growth, guiding individuals towards their most thriving selves, and that true strength encompasses forgiveness, humility, and the willingness to listen to one's body and inner voice.

What Does an Ankle Have to Say?

Obstacles are detours in the right direction

So often when life is saying slow down I do the opposite and speed up. I pump the breaks to give myself the illusion that I am listening but I refuse to rest while maintaining a fixated gaze on a more perfect time after this or that.

I started spraining my ankle when I was in grade one.

Through the years of spraining that same ankle over and over again, I started to realize that these occurrences aligned as an invitation to ground my energy rather than continuing to rush.

As if literally falling flat on your face, nose in the mud, could mean anything more or less than Spirit insisting I say Hello to the Earth, but it turns out in doing so I see a lot about me that I previously missed.

Negligence in a Nutshell

I believe all other negligence in my life feeds from my neglect of active everyday relationship with my body and its mirror or partner in the Earth.

We are trained in the ways of negligence early on. I keenly remember so many voices saying,

“Don’t worry about it.”

I like the concept of not worrying, but what I learned from these instructors was to suppress and disassociate versus ground and detach from fear.

I wish I had learned as a kid that you can take deep breaths and sit on the ground and let sensation and feeling and charge simply pass through (and it’s actually quite pleasant and desirable to do). I wish I had learned as a kid that the impulses I have in my body to move in certain ways or make vocalizations to help allow sensation feeling charge energy to pass through, are never wrong and always right. My body would be in a lot better shape today.

Support System

The ankle is a pretty key piece of your physical support system and therein energetically represents the support happening within and around you.

Beliefs that stem from our psychology and emotional patterning are what give us meaning and purpose in life. This is our internal support system that tends to directly reflect our external support system.

“As within, so without.”

— Hermes Trismegistus

Grade one is probably when I saw my Dad push my Mom into the full length bathroom cabinet, seemingly the angry perpetrator.

I had likely previously considered my parents pretty equal with no reason not to in my nonjudgmental universally accepting ways of genuine innocence.

The sense of security within a support system is weakened or even devastated when the internal beliefs are questioned.

What once held us upright becomes flimsy, unstable, or broken. In my case, crushed, twisted, and swollen.

I didn’t make the correlation until recently when I was invited (in a mystical setting) to listen to a body part that wants my attention. My ankle immediately called to me. The correlation that I made is that my parents fighting in front of my eyes, one seemingly perpetrator and one seemingly victim, altered my internal understanding of the world.

My internal belief system became wrought with doubt and for all intents and purposes of this story, I will claim to have manifested that my tallest heaviest friend should fall on my ankle while sliding together on the ice patches in the schoolyard.

Betrayal Became Me

My sprained ankle enunciated the shift away from myself and into socially constructed ideas of perpetrators and victims.

I rather suddenly felt unable to stand alone. I became a thread in the tapestry of unnatural codependence.

I betrayed myself and my internal knowledge of the security of equality.

My definition of equality is that everything comes with its equal opposite and this truth is alive inside of us all and that makes us all the same.

Through the years my ankle would ache and give out and I would tumble down and then hobble around. I collapsed again and again under the weight of this treacherous set up I had succumbed to whereby we must be good and reject the bad.

My immediate family continued to tell me that my Dad was bad and though I did not exactly reject him, I did actually reject a chunk of myself in even entertaining that he could be bad without being good, or that my mother could be good without being bad.

Flexibility of Movement

We become rigid when our innocent beliefs of possibility and equality are reduced in a landscape of he said she said blaming shaming and complaining.

Flexibility of movement comes from personal responsibility anchored in the security of your own core. This is what I gave away in grade one.

At the age of seven, I was a fully fertile specimen ready to be prodded in the direction of heavy social influence away from my innate nativity.

The question now is (if I want to heal the soft tissue of my right ankle area that has been mangled and weak for over two decades now), what needs to be untwisted in terms of wires on my basic switchboard?

Can I align the wires back the way they were before my traumas tainted me? Yes.

And can I be more likely able to maintain conscious orchestration of my switchboard now that I’ve had these experiences and have learned that indeed I want to be aligned to what feels true inside of me rather than what seems true around me? YES!

What needs to be aligned is the shadow. I cannot do this for my parents or anyone else in the world, I can only do this for me.

Obstacles Are Detours in the Right Direction

My ankle has been calling my attention for decades and I just judged it as weak. It turns out my ankle has had an amazing message for me this whole time about what strength really means.

Strength does not mean holding back your impulses, but learning to work with them consciously so that charge and stress aren’t stuck in your body and lash out like my Dad did. Strength does not mean holding back your voice, but learning to work with it to take responsibility for the sensation and feeling and charge of emotional energy moving through you on a regular basis rather than blaming and shaming someone else like my Mom did.

Strength isn’t about fighting social influence or inequality, it’s about surrendering to your own inner wisdom and surrendering to ever-present equality continuously available to us when we listen.

Strength is about feeling the pleasure in this adventure.

Strength is slowing down, and kissing the Earth when you roll your ankle for the millionth time and saying thank you for being here to catch me, sorry I’ve been missing you caught up in the socially acceptable ways of operating with my head disconnected from this glorious body I’m riding in.

Strength is spending twenty years confused and cultivating enough humility to listen to your busted up ankle and reuniting with your child-like sense of serenity rooted in the infinite knowledge of everyone’s goodness and badness including your own. Strength is limitless forgiveness and chances. Strength is experiencing obstacles and harnessing trust that life is constantly thrusting you in the direction of your most thriving self.

Kelsey is an Existential Kink expert in rapid shadow integration for radical compassion and magical manifestation. You can find her musings on such subjects, along with fellow practitioners in the new Night Vision publication.