Emotional and Physical Recovery after an Injury | My funny BMX Bike Story
Let Kris J Simpson tell you about his rise and fall over the past weekend.
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I’m still smiling, but I had fallen, and I have gotten up.
I got some R.I.C.E going on here. That’s Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation. So here’s what happened, I brought my son and his friend to the skate park. My son just got a BMX bike, and he’s getting into it. My son wanted to show me the skate park, so I said, “okay, sure whatever.”
I got on my son’s bike to see why the front wheel was making a funny noise. I start making my way around the parking lot then made my way over to the skate park, and my son says, “papa, why don’t you try it, why don’t you go check it out?
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a skate park, but there’s these concrete half pipes and rails that I’ve seen in movies or on YouTube, but I’ve never really seen them in person. I decided to go ahead, and them give it a try. I decided to go down the halfpipe. It went well; I got to the other side. I said to myself, “wow that was kind of exhilarating, I’d like to try that again.” I started looking at the other things in the skate park. I decided to head to the ramp and try to jump off of it, and my front wheel dove down, and I went ass over end. I was thrown onto the ground. Fortunately, I wasn’t going too fast yet my arm was the absorber, because it was my head that hit next.
When I got up, I was seeing birds flying around my head because I was a little bit concussed afterward.
The verdict: I’ve got an AC separation, or what they call a separated shoulder. I’m hoping that it’s a level 1 sprain, instead of a level 2 or a level 3, but I definitely got some rehabilitation sessions to attend in the weeks to come.
It’s not the first time I’ve blown out my shoulder, but I certainly didn’t want this to happen. I’ve been injury-free now for probably about a year. I wanted to share this video with you because I think that the lessons that came out of it are applicable to any kind of setback or any kind of fail that we experience in life.
Was I going to suffer or was I going to surrender?
There is quite the difference between a state of suffering and a state of surrendering. In a sense, I was suffering because I was like, “wow, I’m not going be able to train, and my physical power, my physical strength has been taken away from me.” But here’s the thing, when I woke up this morning, all those fears were still there, but I started looking for ways that I could accept what had happened. So I went back to where I always find power, power over my fears, and it’s in my fears. If you’ve heard my philosophy, it’s in my book The All Inclusive Diet, it’s a bit of a paradox where we can find power in our F.E.A.R.S., which is an acronym for food, emotions, activity, relaxing, and sleeping. Therefore, I got on my elliptical this morning even though I can’t do any weight training at this point in time. I spoke to my spiritual sensei and we had a great, enlightening, and uplifting conversation. He really brought my spirits up. I also allowed my daughter and my Mandy to take care of me. They put some ice on my head and this little cut that I have on my leg.
There’s bravado, and then there’s bravery.
What happened yesterday was definitely a bravado kind of experience. My son said, “hey papa, why don’t you do it?” Which really said to me, or what I thought he was saying to me was, “papa, you can’t do it.” Well, of course, I can do it I thought to myself. That’s bravado, so sort of doing something for somebody else to prove that you can do that thing that you really don’t need to do, because that’s really not important to you, and you definitely don’t know how to do, but you’re going to do it anyway. That’s what bravado means to me in that situation. Now bravery is something different. Half pipes, BMX bikes, scootering, that whole world, it’s interesting but it’s not important to me, that’s for sure. And you know, when we’re brave, that’s where we have to think about what is important to us. These are typically things that we probably could do, probably even know how to do it, but we don’t do it because we have fears. And that’s what stops us. But being brave and having courage is key. Courage is the root word which means, “coming from the heart” and using the emotional energy of faith and hope. Doing the things that require courage, that’s what bravery means to me. But they got to be important, and they shouldn’t be happening, for me anyways, at a skate park for example.
Is it a real fear or a false fear?
I always talk about false fears. These are the fears that we have inside of us that stop us from doing the things that we need to do for ourselves and making changes that we need to make in our life. But there are real fears. Real fears are doing things that perhaps you don’t know how to do, and you need to investigate a little bit more, before you go down that slippery slope or the slippery half pipe that I went down. It’s something that I’m learning from, and really the reason why I’m getting on here. There is no studio, there are no lights, I’m just in my house and Mandy’s filming for me. I really wanted to get this out there because I’ve seen it so many times before, where people unnecessarily suffer. I’ve seen it being a gym owner, as people get it into motor vehicle accidents and these really traumatic kind of accidents, where they have injuries that traumatize them. I don’t see them anymore. They were doing so well, they were getting stronger, emotionally, physically, etc. But it’s all the same, we have to make a choice. Are we going to get up or are we going to stay down? And if we stay down, you know where we are? We’re in the emotional state of what we call depression, and it’s a really ugly, dark place to be. Nothing grows there because it’s very dark and lonely. When I see people there, I want to help them; I want to be that hand that helps them up.
How to heel?
I’m doing this video here for you today, so if you went through trauma before, emotional or physical the rules still apply. If you’re going through that right now and you haven’t gone to where I know you can find power, which is the five facets of our life. We can find power in eating well, we can find power in emotional health and self-exploration, just getting to know our selves a little bit more, our real true selves, activity, getting active, getting into the gym, walking, etc. I got nine hours of sleep last night because I know that’s going to be really important to keep my head in the right place today so that I don’t get my head up my butt, where I start thinking about all the things that I’m going lose over the next few weeks as I’m going through this recovery period.
Success is always measured by the comeback, not by all the times we’ve failed or that we have fallen.
Inspire to Aspire,
Kris J Simpson
Author & Life Coach
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Full Transcript
– Hey y’all, KJ here. I’m still smiling, but I had fallen, and I have gotten up. Got some rice going on here. That’s rest, ice, compression, elevation. So here’s what happened. So I was gonna bring my son and his friend to a local skate park. His friend’s a scooter kinda guy, and actually is quite good, he’s gonna be competing. And my son just got a BMX bike and he’s really getting into it. I decided that I would go over to the skate park. My son wanted to show me it, so I said, okay sure whatever. So we go over there, and his front wheel’s making this weird noise. And I didn’t really know what it was. So I got on the bike. And you can probably see I’m setting myself up here. So I got on this bike, I’m just, you know, going around the parking lot, seeing if I can figure out what’s wrong with this front wheel, but I can’t. So, I come over to the skate park, and my son says, hey papa, why don’t you try it, why don’t you go? And I’m sitting there, right at the edge. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a skate park, but there’s these concrete half pipes and rails and jumps and all of these things that really, I’ve seen them on movies or YouTube, but I’ve never really seen them in person, especially sitting on the edge of the half pipe, on this BMX bike, which is not my BMX bike obviously, and it’s not made for me, and I really don’t know how to ride, and I certainly do not know how to go down half pipes on a BMX bike that’s not mine, but of course, you know, with my son there looking at me, me being on the edge, so I decided to do it. And I went down the half pipe, I went right back up. And it went good, I actually got to the other side. I got to the top, and I stopped, and I said, wow that was kind of exhilarating. So I said, hm, I’d like to try that again. So that’s what I did, I went down the half pipe, came back up the other side, landed it, and wow that was cool. So I started looking at the other things in this skate park. There was one thing and I an’t even describe it to you. It was sort of like a ramp of some kind. But, as nobody was looking, I decided to take this ramp and try to jump off of it, and my front wheel dove down, and I basically went ass over end. So I basically was thrown onto the ground. Fortunately I wasn’t going too fast, but it definitely, it literally threw me on the ground. So I put up this arm, that was my shock absorber, because it was my head that hit next. And when I got up, I was seeing birds flying around my head, tweetie birds, because I was a little bit concussed afterwards. So I was a little bit concerned about that, more so than I was about my shoulder. But after I shook it off, made sure nobody was looking, my son didn’t even see it, he just saw me laid out on the concrete, and he wondered what happened. But I just literally started feeling pain in my shoulder. What I’ve got here is this bit of an AC separation, or what they call a separated shoulder. So it wasn’t really separated, but it was sprained. And I’m hoping that maybe it’s a level 1 sprain, instead of a level 2 or a level 3, but I definitely, I’ve got some rehabilitation up. Not the first time I’ve blown out my shoulder, but I certainly didn’t want to have it again. I’ve been injury free now for probably about a year. It’s been a year actually, I injured my arm, lifting up a motorcycle that was on the ground, it shouldn’t have been on the ground. So yeah, I injured my arm about a year ago. But it’s been one year of great training, injury free. And darn, you know what I mean, here I am again. So these are the things going through my head. All of these fears of what just happened. And I came home, my daughter’s here, and my girlfriend Mandy’s here, and they want to know what’s happened. And I basically, I’m feeling defeated, I’m feeling deflated. And I don’t want to tell them. I just told them I want to be alone, but they know something’s wrong because I got ice over here, and I look a little bit spaced out. And the point of this whole video and why I wanted to share with you, because by no means is this anything like, you know, some of the things, the people that I love, that some aren’t even here today, the things that they have had to go through regards to trauma and health problems, really this is nothing, I get it, I know it. I think that the lessons that came out of it are applicable for any kind of setback, of any kind of fail that you have in life, or fall, in this case. And that is this, rule number one. I had to make a decision, was I going to suffer or was I going to surrender? Because there’s quite the difference between a state of suffering and a state of surrendering. In the sense that I was suffering because I was like, wow, I’m not gonna be able to train, and my physical power, my physical strength has been taken away from me, because I’m not gonna be able to do my weight training anymore, so I was really fearing that loss. I was suffering because of it. I was thinking about okay, hey. I got a seminar the following day, which is in real time, is gonna be tomorrow night. And I’m thinking, okay, like I’ve got this damaged wing that I feel like I need to have in a sling, and I couldn’t look stupid. But here’s the thing, when I woke up this morning, all those fears were still there, but I started looking for ways that I could accept what had happened. So I went back to where I always find power, power over my fears, and really it’s in my fears. If you’ve heard my philosophy, it’s in my book “The All Inclusive Diet.” It’s a bit of a paradox where we can find power in our fears, which is an acronym for food, emotions, activity, relaxing, and sleeping. And that’s where I went to feel better about what’s happening here, which really I need to accept this because I can’t change this. I just have to rehab this and have the wisdom to really know the difference between the two. So I got on my elliptical this morning. That’s the thing I did. I can’t do any weight training, I can’t hold on to any weights. So that’s just not gonna happen at this point right now. But I can do my cardio, and that’s exactly what I did. The emotion part of what I call fears, and when I can get emotionally empowered, I spoke to my, I call him spiritual sensei, he’s my mentor. And we had a great, enlightening, and uplifting kind of conversation. And that really brought my spirits up too. The other thing I did emotionally is, and this was actually something I did last night, is I had my daughter and I let my girlfriend Mandy take care of me. And I basically showed my vulnerability. And I said yeah, this is what happened. And it was kind of stupid and why was I on that bike? And why did I feel I needed to do this? I didn’t know what I was doing, why did I do this kind of thing. And I let them know that, and just exposing that and getting that out and letting that pass really helped me too. So they put some ice on my head and this little cut that I have over here. My daughter was giving my girlfriend instructions on how to put the band-aids on. It was quite comical actually, it gave us some comic relief basically, cause that’s what I was looking for. But obviously in a state of suffering, you’re not gonna get that relief because you’re hiding. And you’re fighting, you’re fighting what? You’re fighting the thing that you need to accept that damn, I got a bum shoulder now, and you know what? There’s a lot of things I’m not gonna be able to do, and I have to accept that other than suffer, because that’s really the only alternative. So that’s the first thing, the second thing is. There’s bravado and then there’s bravery. What happened yesterday was definitely a bravado kind of experience. And there’s where somebody said, somebody who I feel looks up to me, my son said, hey papa, why don’t you do it? Which really said to me, or what I thought he was saying to me was, papa you can’t do it. Well, of course I can do it. That’s bravado, so sort of doing something for somebody else to prove that you can do that thing that you really don’t need to do, cause that’s really not important to you, and you definitely don’t know how to do but you’re gonna do it anyways, that’s what bravado means to be in that situation. Now bravery is something totally different. Half pipes, BMX bikes, scootering, that whole world, it’s interesting but it’s not important to me, that’s for sure. And you know, when we’re brave, that’s where we have to think about what is important to us. And these are typically things that we probably could do, probably even know how to do it, but we don’t do it because we have fears. And that’s what stops us. But being brave and having courage, courage the root word coming from the heart and using the emotional energy that we have of faith and hope, and doing the things that require courage, that’s what bravery really means to me. But they gotta be important, and they shouldn’t be happening, for me anyways, at some sort of skate park for example, so that’s number two. Number three is real fears versus false fears, right? I always talk about false fears. These are the fears that we have inside it that stop us from doing the things that we really need to do for ourselves, the changes that we need to make in our life. But there’s real fears. And real fears is doing things that perhaps you don’t know how to do, and you need to investigate a little bit more, before you go down that slippery slope or the slippery half pipe that I went down. So I’m laughing about it now. It’s definitely something that I’m learning from, and really the reason why I’m getting on here, and there’s no studio, there’s no lights, I’m just in my house, Mandy’s doing the video for me, I really wanted to get this out there, because I’ve seen it so many times before, where people unnecessarily suffer. I’ve seen it being a gym owner, as a personal trainer, as people get it into motor vehicle accidents and these really traumatic kind of accidents, where they have injuries that traumatize them. And I don’t see them anymore. And they were doing so well, they were getting stronger, emotionally, physically, and that’s it for them. They basically, they step back and they step out of what they were doing to better themselves. And they did that for the natural reasons of trauma. I get it, and again this is nothing compared to, I’m sure even what you’ve experienced in your life. Different types of physical and even emotional traumas. But it’s all the same, that we do have to make a choice. We have to make a choice, are we going to get up or are we going to stay down? And if we stay down, you know where we are? We’re in the emotional state of what we call depression, and it’s a really ugly, dark place to be. Nothing grows there because it’s very dark there. And when I see people there, I want to help them, I want to be that hand that helps them up. And that’s why I’m doing this video here for you today, so if you went through trauma before, emotional, physical. The rules still apply and if you’re going through that right now and you haven’t went to where I know you can find power, which is the five facets of our life. We can find power in eating well, we can find power in emotional health and self exploration, just getting to know our selves a little bit more, our real true selves, activity, getting active, getting into the gym, going walking, where we’re taking care of people, we’re being vulnerable with them, we’re sharing our feelings, and we’re not hiding anymore, we’re not fighting that inner conflict within ourselves and also sleeping and getting enough rest. I got nine hours last night because I know that’s gonna be really important to keep my head in the right place today so that I don’t get my head up my butt, where I start thinking about all the things that I’m gonna lose over the next few weeks perhaps as I’m going through this recovery period. I’m gonna leave you with a quote here, and it is this that, success is always measured by the comeback, not by all the times we’ve failed or that we have fallen. So remember that my friend, until I see you the next time, you keep on, aspiring, to aspire.
