Trust and confidence While I believe improving strength, balance and flexibility is important, I focus on these from a different perspective - trust and confidence. I still see patients who are very strong, balanced and/or flexible, with recurring injuries and pain.
Pain, injury, and trauma can bring about areas of protection (often with increased tension) within the body. While the pain or injury may settle down, our body adapts with changes (sometimes subconsciously) to how we move and hold ourselves. Protection is rooted in the fear response - the fear of another painful experience, re-injury, falling, missing out on an important event.
We start to develop movement habits - shorter strides, holding on for balance, being overcautious, or use language such as ‘I am worried/scared of…’. While this is fully welcomed in the early stages of recovery, the persistent issues arise when we continue this pattern beyond this, leaving us functioning short of our full potential.
I perceive trust as the opposite of fear, so I focus our attention on overcoming the worries and fears, so you can do what you love with trust, confidence and joy! 🙂
In my next newsletter, I’ll discuss some of the strategies we implement in sessions to help build trust and confidence in recovery.