my first physical therapy session...

i feel like i should probably wait a few hours (at least) to comment on my very first physical therapy session...but i'm just so excited that i wanted to just share now...and probably later, too.

so. the samfund is paying for my physical therapy. and instead of going to some random kaiser person. i get to have kelly starrett. so we had our first session at his house today. and actually, now that i'm writing, i'm not even sure what to say about it all.

i can't stop marveling at how similar social work and physical therapy are. kelly asked me what my goals were, what my fears were. i said, as you may guess, getting a pull-up again, feeling balanced, and getting over the fear i feel. the simple THOUGHT of doing a pull-up now just makes my pec crawl deep into my body to never come out again. the strength that would take. the flexibility. ow. ow. ow.

but here's the parallel to social work. kelly was like. okay. hold on. of course, you can't go from stiff, inflexible surgery site to pull-up in a day. so we will take it step by step. imagine yourself just walking your hands against the wall. imagine holding your body in plank position and not going down into a full push-up. imagine all the millions of steps in between complete lack of range of motion on the right side and the pull-up...and we'll take it one by one.

i felt like cracking up. it's exactly what i do with my clients. they are like, i want to pass all my classes. and i'm like, okay, first things first. you have all f's. and it's going to be really hard work getting from f's to all passing. let's imagine the steps that you're going to have to take to get to your goal. and writing out these steps can take a lot of the anxiety away. it can make it less overwhelming.

so here i was. not doing anything (not really moving, not really stretching) because i was too scared to attempt anything out of fear. and now kelly's like...okay, stretch this way. lie this way for 2 minutes. hold your hand out here for 30 seconds. and we'll stretch that muscle and elongate it. and i'll feel more confident and more secure to actually start to get to where i want to go.

*sigh*
it's really nice.
satisfying.
balancing (emotionally and physically) in just one hour.

kelly tells me that we'll start slow. and there will be times when i tell him i hate him and i'm sweating and writhing in pain because of him. but today was a nice, slow start. *sigh*