Bodily injuries are teachers whose painful curriculum can remedy deficiencies of mind.
At least, that’s been this Marine’s experience.
The weeks after my accident were a waiting game. TBI. Facial wounds. Cast on the leg. Torn shoulder ligament. Healing up takes time. Thankfully, the Denver VA took care of me.
I’ve been blessed with excellent physical therapists, Dr. Craig Rudikoff at the VA Jewell Clinic and Dr. Sean Naughton at Minnesota’s Gunderson Health.
One of them, I forget which one, sat me down for a frank discussion.
“Evans, listen. In the Marines, you probably just pushed through pain. No pain, no gain, right? This recovery doesn’t work like that. If you go too hard, you’ll harm the recovery. Scale back the intensity.”
That struck at my hard charging, ego-driven perfectionist tendencies.
Discipline is not perfection. It’s putting in the shift even if conditions aren’t ideal. It’s doing the movements even if all you can do is 10%. Sometimes, it’s just showing up. That’s enough. That’s discipline.
But there’s one more part. Simply doing something for the sake of doing it is not discipline. Sometimes, discipline is not doing. Sometimes it is non-action, rest, space, time and silence. Occasionally, it even demands one relax. Discipline is not perfunctory action.
Discipline is the right action.
Love how the doc cared for you! I feel that heart connection opened yours to listen and to bless us with this!