My lower back spassed out last week while I was helping my husband assemble the large pieces that would become the new Adirondack chairs for the patio.
One mindless lift of a chair part, one split second of searing pain, and boom, it’s over: I’m out of commission. So crumpled I couldn’t even lift a spoon if I wanted to.
I know exactly how it happend too. Two industrial-size boxes had been sitting like unwelcome squatters in our back yard – taking up lots of (mind) space. I was on tear and mission to finally get them out of there and finish the job: open the gigantic boxes, remove the styrofoam, pull out the chair parts (which weighed a ton), line up the tools, make room for us work – doing what I always do when I’m in task mode: dive in, exert, push, make it happen, ignore the body’s limitations (and my options), dismiss the cautionary whisperings to slow down, and… forget to ask for help.
Ask for help.
Oh yes, that. Those three words that take no time to utter but have a way of sending my super-competent, I-can-do-it-better-and-faster ego-self into spasms of resistance – real ones – now lodged like a neon banner throbbing in my lower back.
The upside of pain: It gets our attention. It creates an opportunity. It invites us to re-member – as in to gather (and re-assemble) the scattered parts of our selves – in a more mindful, gentler way.
Photo: Bing Images/Reflections of Fall
I’m in uber-pay-attention-to-what-shows-up mode right now. Thank you for this post. I’m keeping it in mind 🙂