Having negative feelings is an opportunity to practice acceptance. Having an OCD thought is an opportunity to resist performing compulsions. Instead of getting upset about OCD thoughts and negative feelings, try to view them instead as opportunities to get stronger and fitter mentally. Why am I having these thoughts? I hate the anxiety they bring! I wish I was “normal.” I can’t stand the uncertainty about the situation! Why does this matter when it comes to OCD recovery? Well, if you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know that I love to make comparisons between building mental health and building physical health - because they are very similar processes! When intrusive thoughts or negative feelings manifest themselves, sometimes it is easy to get down on yourself or beat yourself up. By taking a negative situation and instead spinning it to be an opportunity to do something positive - I was able to maintain a much better and more positive mindset than if I had dwelled solely on the bad stuff.
But I tried to think positively instead and see the good in a bad situation - it was a chance for me to improve my cycling fitness and improve myself in another sport. When I first injured my foot, my initial instinct was to react negatively - to dwell on the “bad” things like losing fitness or missing my race. The point I’m trying to make is that life will always throw us challenges, and what matters is how we react to them. It was a chance for me to build my physical capacity in a new discipline and get stronger and better on the bike, even if I wasn’t able to participate in my sport of choice. Rather than being upset about not being able to run, I tried to change my attitude to focus on the positives: I could still ride my bike, and using the downtime from running to instead improve my cycling skills was a welcome opportunity. More important than positive self-talk and affirmation was that I tried to view this not as a set-back, but as an opportunity and a challenge instead. I might lose a little bit of fitness, but it will come back quickly once I start running again. It’s only a temporary break from running a month away from the sport is nothing in the grand scheme of things. As difficult as it was to accept that I was going to have to take a short break from my biggest passion, I tried to keep things in perspective. What helped me during the last four weeks - and is still helping me even now that my foot injury is nearly fully recovered - is keeping a positive mindset. And after the immediate initial disappointment of my injury came the nagging, negative self-doubts: how much fitness am I going to lose while I’m out? What if the injury becomes chronic and ends up affecting me for years afterwards? Missing my goal race which I’d spent nearly 4 months training for was devastating. I love running, and not being able to run for even a mile because of my foot injury is a tough pill to swallow.
I’m not going to lie - although I’ve had many positive changes in my life recently, the past month has still been quite difficult for me. Even worse than missing the race, the injury has kept me sidelined for the better part of a month, and I’ve been missing running more and more as the weeks go by.
Running is my biggest passion, and injuring my foot right before the race and having to pull out of the marathon which I’d trained so hard for felt like an absolute gut punch. But it happened at the worst possible moment - I was about to run my first marathon since COVID started a year ago, and I had been so excited and eager to finally get back into racing. So there’s been quite a few new changes in my life recently (mostly positive) but also a major negative change which has impacted my normal way of living.Īll things considered, my foot injury isn’t too serious - thankfully there were no broken bones or long-term damage, and after about a month of healing, it’s almost back to 100%. I injured my foot and have been busy doing physical therapy and rehab. It’s been a few weeks since I last posted on my blog due to a bunch of life changes - my wife and I bought a new house and have been busy moving in, I got assigned to some new projects at work which have been challenging but rewarding, and….
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