I am indebted to Robert "Bob" Miller and to
Dorothy
who inspired this conversation.
Of all the people from whom I've learned much about
dealing with
aches, pain, and physical discomfort in any form, an erstwhile football
coach
ranks close to the top of my list. He also happened to be an instructor
for the much venerated Dale Carnegie course (which doesn't signify much
in this conversation, it's just what's so). I had attended some
of his Dale Carnegie presentations. He was good, watchable. So
when an opportunity arose for me to sit in on one of his
coaching
sessions with the football team (the appliedcoaching
if you will, as distinct from the purecoaching
of the Dale Carnegie course), I took it.
Football is grueling. I've never played it. But I've watched it on TV,
and it looks grueling.
The coach
was addressing
dealing with
residual, ongoing physical discomfort. He asked the team to
share
what's going on with them in this regard. "I have an ache in my knee, a
pain in my elbow, and pain in my left hip" said one. "I have a constant
ache in my ankle, pain in the right side of my ribcage, and an ongoing
ache in my right wrist" said another. "I have stiffness in my lower
back, a sharp pain when I move my neck, and ongoing discomfort from
breaking my nose in a tackle which has never healed properly" said yet
a third. "I got it" said
the coach
whom we all knew had played more football than everyone on the team
combined, "and I have only one ache in my
body.".
"You have only one ache in your entire body? No! Only one!?",
the team was incredulous, "after all the football you played?". "Only
one" he reiterated, "... and today it started in my arm, and then it
moved to my knee, then it moved to my shoulder, then it moved to my
neck, then it moved to my right ankle, then to my thigh, then to my
back. Yes it's true I have only one ache in my entire
body" he said, then after a measured pause added "and it gets
around.".
Sooo ... it wasn't that he had incurred fewer injuries
than anyone on the team had, nor that his legacy of aches, pain, and
physical discomfort was thus easier to
deal with
than theirs. It was how he held them, it was
the way
he held them, it was the matter-of-fact self-deprecating
way
he lived with them and included them / didn't
resist
them,
the way
that for him, they were simply there,
the way
they were simply what's so,
the way
he allowed them to be.
I just
love
this perspective of his (and so did his team). He's only
dealing with
one ache in his entire body ... and it gets around. Wow! There's
only one (as the Highlander may have said). If I can stop
resisting
/ trying to change all my residual, ongoing physical discomfort and
instead just let it all be, it quickly becomes
background noise
/ what's so. I get it: rather than hold many aches, pains,
and physical discomfort, for
that coach
what's so is there's only one.
It's a tenet of transformation that if you let something be, it lets
you be.
Fear,
for example.
The way
you
deal withfear,
is by letting it be ie by being afraid.
Fear,
we could say, is a form of emotional discomfort. Letting fear be,
works (it lets you be).
Resisting
fear, doesn't work. The same goes for any form of physical discomfort:
letting aches and pain be, works (they let you be).
Resisting
aches and pain, doesn't work. That's what
that coach
knew:
the way
to
deal with
aches, pain, and physical discomfort incurred by playing football (or
from any other source, for that matter) is at least to let them be -
until they become
background noise
/ what's so. It's just easier to be with physical discomfort that's
become
background noise
/ what's so, than it is if you
resist
it.