Move with the pain.

Skateboarding at 45 and the emotional traps that we lay for ourselves in conflict.

Photo by ChrisGoldNY licenced under Creative Commons

Today I’m limping. Badly.

My son got into skateboarding during the olympics, inspired by what he saw on TV.

So I bought him a board and the protective gear for his birthday, along with a couple of coaching sessions from a local skate coach.

I skated a bit when I was young and watching him try to learn I decided I fancied to have another go at it.

Picking up a board for £10 off Facebook marketplace, I joined him at the skatepark, which has been great fun.

Then yesterday, I messed up.

Approaching a steep slope, I thought I’d just allow the board to roll up it, jump off halfway and save myself from a fall.

Instead, as my feet hit the concrete, both slid out from under me and I fell completely flat on the hard floor.

Weirdly, most of me was unhurt - the car keys in my pocket are what did the damage.

They were sandwiched between my femur and the concrete, smashing into my quadracep.

I got up, dusted myself off, limped back to the car and managed to drive us all home.

An hour later I was in agony.

My thigh swelled up and I could barely put any weight on the leg. When I did, at even the slightest wrong angle, I screamed in pain.

But I am on my own with the kids and two dogs at the moment.

Dinner needed making, the kitchen needed cleaning, people needed putting to bed.

So I had no real option other than to find a way to keep moving.

I didn’t rush into it.

I first spent some time denying what was happening (“I can’t believe this!”) before moving into self-recrimination and disbelief that I’d done something so stupid (“I’m such an idiot!”).

But then I had to work out how to move, because staying static just wasn’t an option.

It was obvious I couldn’t just walk on it as normal. So I felt my way into it, shifting my weight in different directions until I found an angle at which I could just about put weight on it and keep going.

And I did.

Dinner was cooked, the kitchen was cleaned, pack lunches made, dogs let out, clothes found for school.

Then I went to bed, still in agony, dreading a sleepless night.

Except it wasn’t quite as bad as I thought.

I did wake up a lot and I was in pain but I managed to get some rest and got up at 6am as usual, ready to start again.

To my surprise, expecting to be worse than yesterday, I found I had slightly more movement in the leg.

Yes, my right thigh is still very swollen up and tender, but I can now bend the knee and - so far - I’ve only squealed in pain once.

Why? Simply because my response yesterday was to keep going.

Years ago, having had such an injury - and assuming I wasn’t solo parenting - I would have just rested up.

I would have responded to the pain by trying to avoid it at all costs through inactivity, lying on the sofa with an ice pack, feeling sorry for myself and beating myself up, all at the same time.

Through various back injuries and martial arts-related incidents I’ve learned that this isn’t sensible.

Being stationary when I’m injured risks creating more problems as the body heals round the inaction, further restricting my movement.

And the more afraid of the pain my body gets, the more it creates tension and holding around the injury site over the long term.

This rather unpleasant experience, and the process that followed, was a stark reminder to me of how I need to be in conflict.

When I find myself ‘injured’ by a situation - whether I’m blaming another person for it, or even myself - the temptation is to focus on how much it hurts and hold on tightly to my story about why it hurts.

I might withdraw from the relationship or situation in an attempt to keep myself safe, thinking that what causes me pain is to be avoided.

But when I do, I’m staying stuck on all the difficult thoughts and feelings, which have an opportunity to calcify - to reinforce themselves and become evermore solid.

The more they do, the less I want to go near that person or context, and the more the stories build.

My mental and emotional ‘movement’ is getting ever-more restricted and before I know it, I’ve allowed it to get to a point where I feel everything is beyond repair.

I do have to start by acknowledging the injury - the fact that it does hurt and I’m struggling, along with unconditionally accepting all the blame, denial and wishing that things were different.

Then I need to learn how to lean into that pain in a way where I can keep movement in the situation.

Not just smashing on as I usually would, showing back up to the relationship holding on to the pain and suffering - because that’s going to lead to more of the same.

First I need to find compassion for the part of me that’s hurting.

I might already know (at some level) that we’re all doing our best and that neither they, nor I, are stupid, terrible people, but if those thoughts are there I just need to accept them.

This doesn’t mean allowing them to take control, otherwise I’ll end up on the mental sofa, nursing my wounds forever.

Instead I need to recognise these difficult thoughts and feelings are just information that create possible pathways.

Within them are opportunities for movement - whether that’s more open and honest self-reflection about what happened or dialogue that helps me understand what’s happening in that difficult relationship.

The injury itself - whether physical or emotional - comes with pain, and that’s one of life’s inevitabilities.

But the irony is that pain only becomes suffering when I allow it to go unchecked and unheeded.

The process of listening to it, accepting it is there then looking for how we can keep moving, prevents it from becoming something that creates further problems.

All it takes is carefully putting one foot in front of the other, even when it hurts.

And as soon as my leg is better, I’m getting back on that skateboard, although I’ll be thinking more carefully about the tricks I try to pull off.

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How to Fight Well starts again on the 5th November. If you want to learn how to better navigate conflict and difficult conversations, to have the conversations that matter, get in touch.