Truth Bomb!
You talk a lot, yet authentic questioning is your downfall.
You know more than you think, yet you think more than you know!
The word of the day is "Polarised"
(divide or cause to divide into two sharply contrasting groups or sets of opinions or beliefs)
If you become more polarised than is really required to create a successful outcome, then confusion, pain and ostracization normally follow.
Following the New Zealand elections, I'm sure you know what I mean, let alone looking at America!
I will spend this time on subjects I know more about.
Body discomfort.
I suffered from chronic back pain personally from the age of 20 to 32. My entire career is built on the fabric of understanding physical dysfunction and living within the cage of the 5 senses.
Sports performance Is always the dream for young trainers and coaches. Performing at elite level, working with higher functioning super stars.
The reality became for me, a realisation the world needs more coaches teaching holistic wellness and life balance.
Funnily enough that's what I will teach to beginners all the way up to professional athletes. I teach more big toe exercises, than bench press or squats on top of a swiss ball. (what a weird world)
How many rabbit holes did I go down on my pain journey?
How many hours of questioning, analysis, study and practice did it take to gain ownership and understanding of my own dysfunction?
Ill give you the summary list:
Heat rubs
Massage, Osteopath
X-ray
MRI
Chiropractor
Biomechanics specialist
Digestive system testing
Acupuncture
Hair analysis
Advanced nutrition plans
Gut rebuild plans
Extensive study into Holistic health
So what worked?. All of it!
Accumulating knowledge is essential along the journey to wellness. Keeping an open mind while on your path to strength is part of authentic communication. If you have very rigid ideas in your mind about what is right and wrong, then your path will meet resistance. This is the issue with being super polarised.
I had to let experts in their own field teach, inspire and allow me to take responsibility.
This is why it takes so long. In your younger years, being entitled is the way of life. Getting gifted, given, or taking the easy way out is our culture.
Along the way there were practitioners that just enabled my dysfunction. Someone just rubbing a sore spot was a great time-out for me, but did not teach me to understand the depths of my issues.
This happened for years, and was my own fault. I tended to do what most people do. Try to hire out pain to an isolated specialist who gave me exactly what I asked for. (Bash the sore spot)
This is like bashing the side of the television or computer when it is playing up. It works temporarily, but eventually that man-fixing technique becomes redundant.
The consortium of help along the way all lead to my own salvation, but also to be able to assist clients on a daily basis towards better physical function.
I have leant to ask better questions. Keep on asking why until you have an understanding not just at the surface level, but at a much deeper feeling level.
Always take a note book to every meeting you have with an experienced practitioner. If you want to come to me and pay me top dollar to rent a friend, that is all good and well, but you may miss out on the magic component. I will still carefully tell you what you want to hear, but give you what you need. It will just take longer.
I'm the 180 degree's guy!
I usually tell people stories that don't fit with their current model of thinking or understanding.
If I act like most other practitioners, then I just enable your dysfunction and become a prostitute in the industry like 90% of all trainers in the gyms (oops, I said it)
When people really know my intentions to help others and give service, all my comedy, crassness, and continual parables become worth listening to.
If I can stir you to get a step closer to body freedom, then my job is done.
Ill give you this weeks example:
I'm talking to a client (let's call him Bob). Bob has a sore heal. Bob tells me where the pain is and points out how often it is painful and educates me on his self remedy techniques.
The discussion that followed started with an observation that continually telling yourself and others that you have a pain is stating the obvious and should lead to more questions. I asked myself where is this person on the scale from needing to be treated vs wanting the big picture, long game fix.
I pose this for you to observe your personal willingness to dive deeper into knowledge and mastery instead of band aid therapy.
So what happens when we only keep stating the obvious?. Words live in the body. We wear our words that turn into emotion. This is energy in motion. This energy effects our action and behaviours.
Tell me how someone in chronic pain walks, talks, perceives life and communicates?
Perseveration of certain habits will in fact become your story.
So I appreciate Bob's self care, and try to stir a few better questions. This leads to his willingness to add another small exercise to his daily routine.
As an insight into my world as a coach, this is what I know about Bob:
A chronic desk job, with high stress levels.
Stress contributes to poor sleep habits.
A very rigid thoracic spine with forward head posture.
An ideal bodyweight, but tends towards muscle weakness in general.
Hip weakness creating inward knee position.
The feet are rigid and tend to pronate inwards under load.
A history of foot niggles and plantar fasciitis.
Bob has a good daily habit of basic mobility exercises and comes to the gym once per week.
My list of the perfect plan is in my head, but not everyone is receptive to my 180 degree stories & know it all list.
How do you tell people that every single joint in your body can contribute to a foot position and all of it requires loads more work and effort to ensure an injury free life.
Can a shoe or one stretch make up for an entire body of structural weakness?
For this case and many others, there are bigger lifestyle factors acting on behaviour and weakness.
Poor sleep can weaken the adrenal glands and put a strain on the digestive system. If organs and glands are under stress, the muscular system on the same nerve pathway are also now under stress. The brain will protect the entire channel. This can lead to a diminished function of every muscle from the abdominal wall through the hips, down to the big toe.
You can see how these could be tricky discussions to have with pain patients.
The purpose of this example is to allow an understanding of how important asking great questions to people who have truly exceptional knowledge.
There are tons of things I don't know and wish to learn.
All I look for is experts I can drill for knowledge.
My best advice to you today is to talk to more knowledgeable people, and ask them better questions.
Take notes, study the newly learnt skills and then go back for more.
Humans inherently love giving advice and helping others thrive.
Just check their credentials and make sure they walk the talk!
Be more flexible in your thinking and less rigid.
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