I spent eleven hours yesterday sitting at the keyboard writing. I had a deadline and had to compose a proposal to be sent out this morning. It happened. But it was hard.
My forearms ached, my eyes were blurring, I could hardly sit still but I kept on it. The deadline loomed. I had to be done on time.
Someone complained to me about pain the other day and I reminded her that pain is important. If we didn’t experience pain, we wouldn’t understand that something is wrong. Pain is our body’s way of saying, “hey, pay attention!”
I don’t buy that concept, “no pain, no gain.” I don’t like to feel pain.
I do understand and practice the idea, “no stretching, no gain.” And discipline means stretching yourself to go forward even when you don’t want to.
That’s what happened to me yesterday. I couldn’t settle myself down to work. I probably could have been finished hours earlier, but the discipline of sitting down and finishing a task just wasn’t in me.
So, I got up. I sat down. I ate a cookie. I sat down again. I put laundry in and typed a bit. I had another cookie. I looked up pertinent information on the Internet. Then I wondered about lunch. I read another piece of the proposal and became inspired. Then I ate another cookie and put the container in the dishwasher.
Back in the seat, which was now starting to feel uncomfortable, I wrote for a little while, but then I needed to figure out the dates so I had to get a calendar. The cookies were gone, so I hung clothes on the line. And returned to work.
It went on like that for 11 hours. But at the end of it all, aching body, eyes and mind–I was done.
And it felt very good.
I’ve been working out at the gym for the last five months. The only time that works for me is six o’clock in the morning. I hate it when the alarm goes off at 5:15. But it’s the discipline that gets me up and moving. I have a goal and the only way to make it is to keep pushing on. No matter how much it hurts. No matter how much I have to stretch.
Actually, the gym class doesn’t hurt so much as ache from stretching the muscles. When it’s not painful because I’m fighting against it, physically as well as emotionally, it actually feels stretchy-good.
This has nothing to do with chronic pain, of course. The debilitating pain I feel in my arthritis-ridden thumbs is miserable–physically as well as emotionally. But the stretching I’ve been doing in the gym class has in ways that are unknown to me actually made my hands feel better. Perhaps it’s the blood flow counterbalancing the sharp pain of rubbing joints?
I don’t know. But I like it.
So, my solution to pain? I do what I need to do. Stretch. I examine my body and soul. I try to be grateful I can feel.
And sometimes I can discipline myself to work all the way through to the end. Stretch!
Thoughts? Reactions? Lurker?