everything happens for a reason?(part 2)

So. I have started off by talking about the things I HAD to learn if I was to get anywhere in life. How I started to pull my head from the sand and try to do the right things to make life better for myself, and how somehow the injuries helped me. All that was very personal to me things that only I really have to learn but now im going to widen the scope really. What I say wont apply to everyone but some of it im sure will apply to some people so here goes.

Lesson 4: patience
Ahh. Something some are much better at than others and something I like to think im reasonably good at being but when it comes to injuries this is HARD! Any dedicated climber (something I count myself as being despite my lack of climbing in the past year) can tell you that taking time off isnt really what they want to be doing. So when you're injured and you're told to take time off it is very easy to try to cut as many corners as possible. I mean do I really NEED to take this time off? Do I HAVE to only do gentle climbs for the next month? And when a climb is staring at you in the face with CLIMB ME!!! written all over it somtimes you just cant help yourself.

I know this all too well. To be tempted by a climb that is just so perfect for you it seems silly to wait any longer than you have to. Who cares that you have 7 just recovering fingers, or had tendonitus in your elbows, I mean its not like you can damge them on these super small crimps and over hanging walls.( its always good to know your heart is in control isnt it?).

It can be so easy to lose your way when on the road to recovery. When your body is getting better and you're allowed back on the wall, or when the pains have almost gone away. You can jump on one climb and wreck months of work. I know this. Ive made these mistakes. My friends have made these mistakes. But sometimes you just have to be patient. Your body will recover in its own time. It can be hard if things seem to take forever but taking that time is well worth it in the end. Be patient and WAIT  for when YOUR body is ready to climb and well you might not end up in the situation I have found myself in which can only be a good thing!

im the patient sort, was hanging around here in the cold for ages!

lesson 5: im not invincible
now as a child (like most children) i was under the  impression that nothing could really hurt me. much like in cartoons if i got run over by a car i would obviously just peel myself from the road and carry on walking. nothing could really hurt me for long. and well i kinda carried this though to my climbing as well. for the first few years it didnt matter but when your fingers are so badly injured in both your hands that even holding onto a jug causes massive amounts of pain or you have shooting pains up and down your arms. well this mind set might not be too useful after all.



get my point?

after my first bout of finger injuries i returned to climbing with the mind set that it would never happen again. people kept warning me i had to be extra careful now but well, i was 14 and not really very inclined to listen to the advice of others. i didnt think it would be possible for me to hurt my fingers again. i mean they were better werent they? so i refused to change much about my climbing and just carried on as before. it was only after i injured them again and had to spend another 2 months off the following year did it even start to dawn on me that perhaps those people had been right. maybe, just maybe my body wasnt as invincible as i wanted to believe it was. i might not be a super human after all.

now this mind set i would imagine would be more common to children but i know for a fact a friend of mine has come back from one injury then gone and hurt her fingers as she just didnt think it would be a problem. i know myself that when you think you fix well you think you fix but its important to remember that your body is more fragile than you might think. its better to learn this from reading it on the web than by reinjuring your body. so take this one from me. no matter what you think or who you are YOU ARE NOT INVINCIBLE!!! alright? better not to test out any theory you have. i learned it the hard way you dont have to!

lesson 6: things are not as bad as they seem (well most of the time)
so it was time for me to start putting things in perspective a little bit more and well being injured is a good method of practicing. what ever my injuries were i still knew it would get better i would climb again and although its easy to feel like the world is falling apart it really isnt.

for me this was needed in more than just climbing. i was (much less so these days) the type of person who got hung up on EVERYTHING. (ok so people who know me well will say i still am but in the last few years i have got a lot better at putting things in perspective). not climbing was a big deal (still is) but i have learned that its not quite as big as it can seem and its incredibly important to be able to rationalise things when they go wrong.

 in a previous blog i have said how i can calm/comfort myself when feeling down mainly by putting things back in perspective a little. (i have since been told that talking to yourself works!) by learning to rationalise things to myself it has allowed me to look for the things that have a more positive twist to them. its easy when at the beginning of a journey to think it looks very long and very hard but often it is easier than you think it will be. injuries are like that. they are hard, they hurt but ultimately most of the time you recover after not too long. (says the girl who hasnt climbed for the best part of a year) at times it will be hard but there are millions of things that could be worse then having a strained pulley or tendonitis. so be strong and get through it!

on top of the world, well north africa and it only took us 3 and a bit hours!

lesson 7: determination
this is incredibly important for anyone who wants to achieve anything in their life. so most people really. i for one have a long list of things i want to achieve, some in climbing some not. to give a few examples i want to climb 8a before im 20 (injury permitting), climb 8b before 25 and well climb as hard as i can and see where i get after that 9a would be good ;). i also have another thing i desperately want to achieve. it has nothing to do with grade or physical achievement but in some ways would mean more to me. i want to not be injured. it sounds simple really. im only going to achieve any of these things if i recover fully from my current problems and for that im going to need almost all the determination i was born with.

being injured does make you a determined person but i have found it has helped me channel into more productive things. and sometimes when hope has been drifting away you need to grasp any last reserves of the stuff to get through it. i remember talking to a friend about my injuries. i was explaining to him about what i had done and i mentioned that i could wait however many months i needed to to get back to climbing. to this he said "if you stay motivated long enough" to me this was odd of course i would. nothing was going to stop me getting back on a climbing wall this i knew. i also know that its my stubbornness and determination that will in time get me back.

put it simply if i wasnt a determined person, i would have given up on climbing after the second set of finger injuries. i didnt. i couldnt.

lesson 8: self belief
as a child i never really believed in myself. i supose i was so used to being put down by others it was only natural to do the same to myself. i could pretty much persuade myself out of anything. i would look at a climb decide where i would fall off and sure enough i would have fallen by that point. its not really a very productive way to be improving your grade really. so its something i needed to work on. badly.

while tradding i actually had to believe i could do it right!

seeing as i have had so much time on my hand its somthing ive tryed to address. instead of climbing and trying to fix the way i think along the way i am now trying to fix my head. and something about the immense lack of climbing in my life has helped. a bit. when you've been injured (a lot) there can come a point where you start to doubt pretty much everything. from the will i be able to go climbing again. to the even more horrific (and often brought on by other people not believing you and thinking you are making excuses for lack of form) what if this is all in my head. now that thought can be a killer. you hear so much about people whose pain or problems are not physical and i found that when people start to doubt you you can often doubt yourself. there have been times over this past year where i have stopped and thought about that but now my self confidence has grown enough to tell me to put those peoples ideas out my head.

it can be really hard but some things just need learning and for me that was one of them and im sure there will be others who need to learn to believe in themselves a little more. over the past year my self confidence has grown massively. that might have something to do with the fact i have been trying to address that particular issue (something i probably wouldnt be doing if i wasnt injured) but i have also had to push myself to believe in myself and not let the doubt take over. so one thing i have really learnt is how to be confident in my own abilities and ideas.

so thats part 2. only part 3 left now! in my next blog i shall be concluding my long list of all that can be learned by being injured and i will also try to explain my views on everything happening for a reason as so far being injured seems to have helped me along the general life road.