Endurance

Pushing through the past

Many people believe that endurance is just continuing to put one foot in front of the other until the race is complete. But endurance is more than just continuing, it is continuing to persevere. It is continuing the push past obstacles that attempt to stop you or slow you down. To endure is usually looked at while dealing with something negative. But we endure our day-to-day life just as much as we endure trauma.

Endurance to me is not losing sight of the why. Your reason for doing something can often get confused by all the other things that surround you. But when you keep your eyes on the why and endure everything that pushes you away from it, you are truly showing your endurance. Endurance runners could be running for days in environments that are not meant for humans to run in, but they remember that the prize is on the other side of discomfort. That the pain they are feeling today will not be there when their body crosses the finish line.

Endurance in life and in trauma is the same. We feel discomfort now, maybe it’s long hours of studying while in school, or it could be training your body with weights and movement. But that discomfort will lead to the body releasing chemicals that make you feel like all the hard work was worth something. We reward endurance with all that is possible. The reason for the ribbon at the end of the race to rip through is to remind our bodies that it is okay to feel joy after discomfort. But there is not always that ribbon to show us. So, we have to find other ways to tell ourselves that it is okay to feel joy after discomfort.

I remind myself by looking at what has been accomplished. I used endurance to get out of a wheelchair and be upright once again. It wasn’t a sprint to the end but more of a drudge through an environment that humans shouldn’t be drudging through.

When we are faced with trials, we have two options: give up or figure out how to move on. I remember crawling up my stairs because my legs just wouldn’t work. There was a problem with my back, and my legs would just turn off. I wouldn’t feel them at all. Now, this is not unique to me. Many people have issues like this, but the difference for me was that I began to understand that my choice while dealing with this trial would impact how my body would heal from it. If I chose to believe the wheelchair would be there forever, then it would, but if I chose to believe that I would not need it, then I wouldn’t. Both were true, and both had as much power in my mind. But making the choice to walk under my own power was a choice. Now I am not saying that everyone who is paralyzed can just get up and walk, but how they choose to view it will have a lot to do with how they live their life.

I endured hours and hours of rehab, teaching my body to work around the problems with my back. Nothing healed; I still have pinched nerves and bulging discs. A hairline fracture and little to no spacing between the bones in my spine, but what changed is how I viewed it. The wheelchair was a tool that I would not need forever. And then a walker was a tool, as was the case, I used to always have with me. But endurance and constant movement away from the old way I was thinking got me back on my feet and in no need of a wheelchair. To this day, when I get an MRI of my back, the same issues are there. Healing doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to work for you. No doctor in the world can be 100 percent sure of anything they tell you about your body; that is why it is called practicing medicine. They don’t know everything. And if you know, and can convince your body of it, that you are going to get better, then you will.

For some words are heard but very seldom felt. They can’t connect your story with theirs. So, how do you let someone know what they are capable of by telling them what you have done in similar circumstances? You look them in the heart. You speak to their soul first and follow with their mind.

Everyone is surrounded by frequencies. A vibration that is ever present and constantly felt. That is why you get a nervous feeling around some people. The frequency they are putting off tells you to be nervous. Happy people make you happy, and sad people make you sad. So, if you surround yourself with positive in turn, you will naturally become more positive. While in that wheelchair, I chose to, at first, surround myself with negative, believing that it would be something permanent. So, the doctors and therapists I was around felt the same way. They never really tried to make anything better. But when I changed my frequency and started to look at the possibilities and not the permanence, things changed. Suddenly, the doctors thought about improvement, and the therapist worked on exercises to get me back on my feet.

We all have a choice on how we view things. That choice can take you to heights you never imagined or to depths you never wanted to see.

Think about when you hear a baby laugh, you almost always laugh with them, or at least smile. Not because you get the joke, but because they are putting out something that is influencing your very soul. Take a minute to think about what you are allowing to influence your soul right now. That horrible driver who cut you off, the barista at the coffee shop who forgot the double shot of espresso. Now you have let those actions have an impact on your frequency and how you are now perceived by others.

My memory is limited, and I choose to fill it with the things I actually want to take up space. You have the same ability.