A speaker recovering from bicep tear surgery finds himself isolated during COVID-19 lockdowns. He reflects on sudden physical limitations and forced adaptation, emphasizing gratitude and resilience when everything changes at once.
Welcome to Fit for your Mind Friday, where I share an insight from me to you. Before we knew that the coronavirus and social distancing was a critical thing, I tore my bicep at the distal. It's true. I was on vacation in Costa Rica having fun. And in my fun, I had an accident and I tore my bicep. And I didn't know I had done it at the time. I had a lot of pain, but it didn't register that I'd actually done something serious. It wasn't until I got home, realized that my bicep was literally moving up into my shoulder, that I had torn it. An MRI revealed that it was a complete tear and I ended up in emergency surgery. The interesting thing about a torn bicep is what I didn't know, which I know now, is when you do something like that, you want to have it repaired right away. You want to have it repaired right away because you want to make sure that you can reattach the tendon. If you wait too long, then the, the tendon retracts back into your body. Your body absorbs it and it can't be reattached. So I went into surgery about two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, from the time of this recording, I went into the surgery, had emergency surgery, didn't know if they'd be able to repair it. Woke up with a repaired bicep, but also in an arm cast with my arm locked at a 90 degree angle and was told that I'd be wearing this cast for about 10 weeks. So I instantly learned that for 10 weeks I'd be in a cast locked at a 90 degree angle with a lot of pain and nerves removed and that I would be rehabbing for six months into to up to a year. So my work, my world, my world was turned upside down. Before coronavirus was becoming a thing, before we knew the impact, before it was being labeled a pandemic, before all the social isolation was starting. So I was wrapping my mind around. No workouts, no driving, no typing, no writing all, all the events I'd have to be canceling, no speaking, no traveling, no washing my own hair for God's sake, couldn't cook for myself, no independence, nothing that I knew, nothing that I was comfortable doing in my life was comfortable anymore. I share this now because I cleared my calendar super fast. I literally had a four hour window before learning surgery was happening and having to check myself into the hospital. So I cleared my schedule super fast, got rid of everything, and what I experienced was anxiety, fear, and even depression. The days following the surgery, I had lots of time on my hand and lots of pain to think about it. So I was really getting depressed and trying to adjust to a new normal. And what I want to share with you is that I was able to turn this around. And how I turn this around is so critical with everything that's going on right now. Because everybody right now, being on this social, social isolation, being on lockdown, having to change plans, shift things. I'm watching the world go through what I literally went through two weeks ago with my arm. So I got. I got a little bit of a jump start on all of this. But I want to share what's been working for me because I think that this will really serve you well. So what turned this around for me? Gratitude. Finding the good in it all, like literally surrendering to it. I had to accept the truth of the matter. The truth of the matter was my arm is hurt, injured, it's in a cast, it's locked in this cast for 10 weeks and I'm not going to be able to do things. I had to accept that that was the fact. What was not the facts was everything I could find on Google about how my nerves might not heal, how I wouldn't be able to do anything, all the things that could go wrong. What turned this around for me was surrendering to the actual facts. Like, this is the facts. This is what it actually is. This is what's going on. And then accepting that truth and not just beliefs around it. So I started focusing on what I could do, what I could create. And there's always things we can do and things that we can create. So in the example of my arm, I started focusing on healing, on the lessons, why it maybe happened to me, the pros. I focused on how I can make lemonade out of lemons. I focused on all the things I had more time now to do. I have more time to have deep conversations and fun with my family. More time to finally meditate, to stretch my legs, to listen to and record more podcasts. More time to chat on FaceTime with friends that I'd lost touch with. More time to practice mindfulness. More time to sleep in sleep. More. More time to read more, to practice eating slower, to practice asking for support, to learn to write with my non dominant hand, my left hand. To practice self hypnosis for recovery and pain management. More time to take on one on one clients. I had wanted to do that for a while and I didn't have space in my calendar, but I now realize I had more time to do that. More time to focus on other people's business and their visions. More time to be of service to others. More time to snuggle with my dog. More time to organize things mindfully with one hand. More time to get involved with my daughter's schoolwork. Hello, Mandatory homeschooling. Catch up on documentaries. I share this now because with the coronavirus, it's very real. It's very scary. A lot of things are changing and it's so easy to get caught up in not being comfortable right now and all the things that have changed, all the plans that have canceled, all the things that could go wrong, that have gone wrong. But I promise you, if you look, and it doesn't take hard times to look, but sometimes we need those hard times. If you take the time to look and find the gratitude in it, there's always, always, always gratitude in tough times. So I'm going to encourage you. Make that list. I get it. It's change, it's discomfort. I get it that setbacks suck. But we are all blessed with the lessons and knowledge to come from this. So make that list. What are all the things that you have time for now that you get to focus on? What are the gifts in all of this? It.
