It can be tough feeling the pain when there’s no gain
PAIN is an interesting concept. As athletes we have a strange relationship with it.
For some athletes there can be an enjoyment of the pain you feel in training, a feeling of pleasure as you push your body to its maximum.
I have always liked the pain of training as it makes me feel alive.
But my relationship with pain over the last few weeks has not been one of pleasure but one of frustration.
I couldn’t even climb onto my bike last week.
After my crash the week before, my body had gone into a shock and the nervous system had flared up leaving me completely fatigued.
I spent most of the week in bed sleeping or screaming out loud due to the pain in my paralysed arm.
I guess I am still learning how to manage life with a spinal cord injury.
For those who believe in Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000-hour principle, I still have a long way to go in mastering my daily existence with it.
But I feel that getting into what I call a state of Flow can cut Gladwell’s theory in half and I need to be chasing this more.
I have felt these last few weeks that my mind has worked more against me than for me. I have been struggling for motivation and purpose and feeling pretty low.
Maybe it’s the weather, or the lack of social interactions.
Even for an introverted person like me, I still crave social interactions and the chance to see my friends.
I can imagine many of us now are feeling rather frustrated with the impact Covid-19 has had on our lives.
It comes up in every conversation and even with the news of a stable scan for me and things starting to open up again these last few weeks have been challenging mentally.
Bear with me here, but one of the key elements when I talk about accessing this thing called Flow is the deactivation of a part of the mind known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.
This part of the brain houses your inner critic, that voice that is relentlessly with you during your waking conscious hours. But once we get into Flow this voice shuts off and we feel free.
When you have a spinal cord injury it is easy for this voice to become over-powering, especially when managing a tumour that hangs over you like a rain cloud.
So this voice has been turned up again these last few weeks.