Whoops!

So apparently while I was all excited about using my cell phone to post to my blog, I forgot to actually publish the blog! I just got on this morning to do the same and realized I never posted Friday's blog. Whoops! Lesson learned: trying new things is great, but you have to be flexible throughout the learning curve!

If you think I'm posting my second blog from my phone purely out of excitement for the format, you'd be mistaken. Although I appreciate the flexibility, I still prefer my laptop. So why twice in a row? Well, as sometimes happens, life smacked me around a bit this weekend. My only hope is that forces in the universe were ultimately looking out for my best interests and this minor physical setback is a walk in the park compared to whatever alternative I was spared.

I've been looking forward to this Hockey for Life tournament for weeks. It's a chance to play with new people, against new people, and hang out with a different crowd. If you know me, I like to mix it up. So this tournament was the ultimate in having fun, getting better at hockey, getting a LOT of exercise, and hanging out with some new people. It did not work out that way for me. During the warmups of the first game, the ice was warm and sticky, a puck got stuck in my skates, and I fell...really awkwardly. My leg twisted as I did the splits, and not being nearly as flexible as I was as a teenager, I pulled my hamstring all the way into the glut. Two minutes left to warm up for the first game of a three day tournament, and I was done. I sat there on the ice and let the cold seep into my muscles...a definite benefit to playing on ice. My husband skated over with a chagrined look, and I knew he'd seen how awkwardly I had fallen. I scooched over to the side to let my team warm up, then got help to the bench, which, being next to the ice, was also somwhat cold. They rearranged the lines and played without me while I cheered...and winced.

I guess the lesson here is best laid plans. It should have been awesome, but ended up painful. Looking back, I think I dealt with it in the most mature way possible. I made sure my husband knew I would be fine while he played (I may have downplayed the extent a bit because he asked if I was sure I didn't want to try it.) I knew if he freaked out, he wouldn't have played and that would have left us two players down, which just isn't fair. I knew I would add emotional trauma to physical if I did that to the team. I cheered for my team and pushed aside the inevitable envy I felt at being stuck on the bench. And every time I started to feel overwhelmed with all of the things I wouldn't be able to do over the next few weeks, I took deep breaths and reminded myself to stay in the moment and let the future work itself out.

That staying in the moment was the hardest, but from experience I knew that thinking of all the things I couldn't was the surest way to hurt myself more. For anyone who hasn't been an athlete or seriously injured, let me explain. When you get scared or focused on the pain, the injury hurts more. You tense up instead of relax, you breathe fast and shallow instead of slow and deep, which makes your body move and shake and hurts you more. When you're injured, the best thing you can do is stay calm. That's one of the reasons people tell the injured to squeeze their hand; it focuses the injured person on the present and literally helps them get a grip. Panic is the worst thing you can do.

And so it goes in life. Stress can work the same way as a physical injury. You feel pain which makes you panic and makes it worse. So, here's how to extrapolate this situation into the teaching world of stress...er, the stressful world of teaching.

First, calmly assess the situation. If you need help, ask. If you can manage to stay calm until it's convenient for others to help, it will make you feel better. (That being said, sometimes the pain or the situation is not familiar and you don't know what to do. In which case you find somebody to help immediately. Don't delay help unless you know you can take it. For me, sitting on the cold bench was better than any other solution and gave me a chance to take stock before acting.)

Next, push aside your envy. At any given moment, someone is in a better position than you. Focus on yourself, not what everybody else is doing or getting to do. I may be stuck on the bench not playing, but they were playing down a person on n already small team. They had to work extra hard, so I'm sure after a long shift they were also envying me the rest.

Finally, frame it in the present and frame it in the positive. Thoughts about all of the potentially negative might-bes can only overwhelmed you and cause you more pain or stress. Take deep breaths and stay focused on the present. What do you need to do now to take care of yourself? Just do that.

Framing it in the positive is something I always do. I don't know if it even makes sense to anyone else, but here it is. I believe everything happens for a reason and that there is a force greater than me in the universe that helps me make the best of my life, including helping me learn the lessons I need to learn to be a better person-my always life goal. So I frame this injury in one of two positive ways. Either I would have hurt myself worse if I'd continued to play (which is plausible-I've had surgery after dislocating my right shoulder seven times. I'll take a pulled hamstring over that any day.) Or I was going to miss a valuable learning opportunity and needed to slow it down, which will result in me becoming a better person in the long run. I'd had so serious negativity the last game I'd played, so it could be a way to focus me on being grateful to be able to play at all. I don't know. All I know is that it makes me feel happier than thinking that the universe is out to get me or punish me. I believe the universe is out to protect me and nurture me. I just don't always "get it" until later. All that matters is that believing it to be true makes me happy.