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Many people attending physical therapy have a love/resent relationship with their therapist.
We love her for helping us to recover, to regain a range of motion, or just plain reach the status quo our body was in before injury or surgery.
But oh how we resent them while they’re making us move outside our comfort range.
Our brains automatically protect our bodies. Touch a hot surface, and we don’t pause to consider whether or not to move our hand immediately.
So when I move my previously fractured shoulder in a certain way and it causes pain, I come to a screeching halt.
But when the therapist is moving my arm for me, coaxing it beyond the level where it’s comfortable, I grimace or cry out softly. (OK, maybe some of us swear.) But we endure it.
Such was my day at PT yesterday. I left in more pain than I had upon my arrival. Then I had a restless night’s sleep. But guess what? Today I can swing both arms in a 360° circle while keeping my arms straight. This brought a huge smile to my face and words of thankfulness to my lips.
Great coaches perform like successful physical therapists. They don’t scream at us to run faster. They don’t berate us for missing a high note. There’s no sarcasm or eye-rolling when we don’t quite hit the mark.
Instead, I believe the best coaches and physical therapists coax us along. They model for us the desired behavior or level of performance they want us to reach. Teachable moments create an AHA! or Hey, now I get it experience.
They pull us along with them, bringing out our best.
Their belief in us, that we are able to do something, helps us to say, Yes, I CAN do that.
Throughout much of our grown-up life, we wear an invisible “coach” name tag.
We sweet-talk a baby to take her first steps. We encourage a five-year-old to make new friends on the first day of kindergarten. We help middle-school kids deal with bullying. We teach teens safe driving methods.
We help new associates at work navigate through company policies. If we’re lucky, we are viewed as a mentor and role model by someone. We may not even realize it.
My guess is that you can easily come up with your own list of ways you have coached and been coached.
We need to embrace that name tag and forget about any resentment.
Your story brought back memories of the physical therapy I had for my frozen shoulder some years back. And you’re right – you can’t make yourself have that pain – if you have a good therapist, they will know your threshold and help you through to the next level of tolerance. And then one day – wow, you can actually reach up to retrieve that dish in the cupboard without wincing.
My latest coaching came this past week when two of my granddaughters and I made raspberry jelly. Some of you may have seen pictures on Facebook. Even though they are in their “early twenties,” I had a hard time allowing them to stir, pour, or touch the HOT jars when tightening the band/lid. But they were eager to learn the whole process involved and were all smiles when we counted the 28 jars of jelly sitting on the dining room table at the end of the morning. So, all was good!
Such good adviice from both you and your sweet sister. Love reading your blogs. Always makes memstop and take another look at myself and maybe try a little harder at whatever! Keep up the good work…having a 17 year old grandson for a week. Will need to pracitce some of your advice.
Norma:
Coaching and therapy, I liken to criticism; they/it should leave the person with the feeling that they have been helped!!! My therapy is cleaning/throwing out some old papers, and the wonderful feeling of “letting them go”!!!! Why in the world did I save them in the first place??? There’s no security, only confusion with clutter!!!
Bill T.