Where I’ve Been: Grappling with Changing Realities

So, I disappeared for a week. A few of you probably wondered what happened, LOL. I’ll try to recap as concisely as possible. My spinal decompression treatments have had one unexpected “side effect”, for want of a better word. It’s working, and for the first time in 27 years, I’m faced with the almost unreal possibility of being pain free and healthy.

How’s that a problem? 🤷‍♂️ Because I’m so used to starting to succeed and then getting knocked on my butt yet again, that I’ve been struggling to wrap my head around not having that pain there as a roadblock. It’s gone so far as even wondering how much of it was the pain and how much was just ME being a failure. The joys of having completely unsupportive, hyper-demanding parents. It’s a shame parents like that don’t realize the long term damage they do.

I didn’t understand “fear of success” for a long time, until I read that the fear is the success will lead to a bigger failure. It made sense after that. It makes even more sense now. When I failed before, it was the pain. It’s been insidious also because it was up and down. It would drop to about a 3 on a 1 to 10 scale at times, and stay there just long enough for me to think “I can do this”, whatever “this” was at the time. Real Estate to writing, it always boomeranged back severely and derailed my efforts.

The answer slowly formed over the last week. It started with feeling better, and focusing on how tired I was of living as a hermit, not being able to provide for myself or contribute meaningfully to the household, etc…

It further crystallized when I got even further proof that my chiropractor was just going through the motions, running a patient mill and depending upon the traction machine to do all… well 95% of the work. I got pissy about it since we dished out $4000 for treatment. After I refocused, I realized I have two choices: I could stay angry, give up and resolve that I was getting sub-par treatment that had a fair chance of not having lasting benefit, OR I can put everything I’ve learned over the years to use, go the extra mile, and take responsibility for my own recovery. With the progress I’ve made, I feel like I’m in a position to make that difference too.

The final breakthrough came when I went to Dave Ramsey’s recent livestream: “What Now: Your Money and COVID-19” on Thursday. Yep, I was in the audience. Separate post coming on that. Spoiler Alert on that livestream though: The takeaway was “treat it as a NEVER AGAIN moment”. The message was so on point I could easily see it applying to my back and neck therapy and life in general.

So, yes! I’m fired up now. I’m going to fight my way through this. You know the occasional movie where a character gets hit by a car or something and is never supposed to be able to do anything again, but spends hours a day beyond what the therapists work with them, and makes a full recovery. THAT is going to be me!

And I’m going to work my ass off just as hard at writing and whatever real work job I may have to take to pay the bills too. Chances are, you’re going to see more Cristian Mihai type posts here too. Maybe I can inspire a few of you along with myself.