Three long breaths

I'm coming up on 4 weeks with this shoulder pain, and unfortunately things aren't really that much better. There's been a bit of improvement, but I'm still stuck in my Lazy Boy most of the day and up most of the night. Really disappointed in my body's ability to heal. 

I finally saw a physiotherapist yesterday and received a personalized exercise plan. Perhaps more positively, though, is that she doesn't think this is a major injury and that it should clear up with time. But that time might be a while. I hope it's not too long. My short-term disability expires in September. 

One of the interesting outcomes of this is applying a bit of meditation practice that I was working on while camping in the week before the injury showed up. 

Whether you're looking at insomnia, anxiety or just meditation, breathing exercises seem to be an important practice to help calm your body and get yourself through hard times. I've found breathing exercises to be very valuable through this shoulder injury.

I was practicing the breathing exercises while camping, just as a meditation practice. Breathe in slowly. Hold your breath for a few seconds. Breathe out slowly. It's amazing how hard it can be just to take three good breaths like that without getting distracted. 

Moving into the early days of this injury, I was using those same breathing practices just to get through some of the pain pangs that I was getting. Just try to relax the muscles so that I could feel a little less pain. 

Now, moving into the exercise and recovery part, that same long breath and hold and out is about 10 seconds long. So I'm using that to measure some of my exercises and stretches that need to last for 30 seconds. Instead of sitting there counting 1 one thousand, 2 one thousand… I just calmly take those three deep breaths with the holds. It counts about the same amount of time, and it makes the stretch a little more relaxed and calm, and I can end on a breath. 

I know it's not as glorious as designing my own crown, but slow, careful breaths have been an important part of my life over the past few weeks, and probably for the next few as well.

I wish this thing would just leave me alone already. I'd like to get back to my life now.