The most important thing I’ve learned from my occupational therapist…
When its time to take a break.
It’s nothing crazy. It’s just not something that I do. Stop. Why? There are things to do and kids to feed and a messy house and a to do list and projects to complete and laundry to run and I need to eat right, cook well, look the part and do all the things. No time for breaks. I’m not a person who takes breaks.
But now I am.
I’ve been recovering from two car accidents in 2024 and hip surgery at the end of May. I’ve always tried to keep pushing and to do all the things. This time, after having the same surgery for the second time (labral repair on my hip), I convalesced in a very different way than the first time.
I sat on the couch. I binge-watched Game of Thrones. I had my food brought to me and I iced my hip often. I rested. I slept. I didn’t look at a computer screen for weeks (my migraine trigger).
Eventually I was irritated with myself but then it hurt so I rested some more. The HR lady told me, wisely, that would be a lot of appointments so to take the time to rest my brain too. They don’t want me to push so that I’m stuck on the couch on the weekend.
I’d never let myself spend the weekend on the couch but I appreciated the thought.
So I’ve been going to my appointments, and doing my exercises, and resting.
The takeaway: my tolerance is much lower than before. But if I don’t push myself to the breaking point, if I take a rest, I can keep going. We do twenty minutes of exercises and then we take a twenty minute eyes-closed-in-a-dark-room meditation break.
Then I can keep going instead of spiralling into auras and nausea and tension and pain.
Breaks are hard for me. I like to keep going and going and going until things are done. Not until I’m done, until the work is done. Check the boxes and move on to the next thing. But it’s been a great lesson. I am attempting to apply it to life. To think ahead, to plan how I’m going to use my energy, and when I’m going to rest.
I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have a forced break. But now I’m grateful for the forced break. My tolerance will hopefully increase, and for now its twenty minutes of exercises and twenty minutes of concentrated rest.
