Stop and listen to your body

Photo courtesy of Afif Ramdhasuma on Unsplash

Exactly a week before classes began this semester, I fell down the stairs and fractured my tailbone. Immediately after taking the 20-step tumble, I was so focused on acting normal and not outwardly showing any pain that I didn’t concern myself with any of the pain I was feeling. 

The thought of dealing with the pain I was enduring at that moment was daunting because of all the commitments and fun connected with my last semester of college that I didn’t want to miss if I was severely injured. 

During my senior year of high school, I sprained both my ankles around the same time while performing in the musical “42nd Street” where most of the musical numbers were tap dance. 

My fear of missing out on performing with my peers, with whom I had worked so hard to perfect the show, prevented me from adequately taking care of my injury and led to more harm than good in the long run. Now, my ankles are still messed up from my dedication to tap dancing my senior year, causing more issues for me today. 

I suffer from chronic migraine headaches and, in 2022 alone, had 28 total migraine attacks, lasting on average around two hours per attack. The pain doesn’t end once the two hours of forehead tension dissipates; after getting over a migraine, all muscles and joints severely ache for hours due to the stress created in the body. 

Throughout many of the migraines I have had, I’ve “pushed through the pain” and continued on about my daily life for fear of making a scene or missing out. I often act like I am feeling migraine-free for fear of negatively impacting or “ruining” a moment for me or someone else. 

Injuring my tailbone, however, emphasized the importance of listening to your body when it is under pain. 

After getting an X-ray due to the acute pain around my tailbone area, I learned it was fractured and there’s not much that can be done for it to heal. The response from a doctor about the healing process for a fractured tailbone was that it heals on its own time.

While that sucks to hear, it is freeing, in a way, because of the unknown aspect. It gives me a greater opportunity to rest, reassess and take each day at a time. Societally, we are focused on whatever comes next and we never fully live in the present moment, but for me, with a fractured tailbone, my ability to be in the moment is necessary because of the responsibility for my overall health and safety. 

So even if you haven’t fractured your tailbone or gotten migraine headaches and have grown somewhat used to being in pain, stop and take a minute to feel where you are and recognize how your body physically and emotionally feels.

Breathe and notice the sky, even if it looks gray and boring out, and remember that this is the only time the weather will be exactly this way. 

Notice the world around you, and listen to what your body is trying to tell you when it is in pain – or even when it’s not.