Liberating Consciousness From The Body, Part III
The intelligence that made the body knows how to heal the body.
This is part 3 in a 5 part series. Click here to read Part II and here to read Part IV.
The morning after hiking out of the canyon where I'd locked eyes with that big black bear, I awoke to the severe pain of acute injury in my left knee.
Trying to roll over in bed revealed the severity of this injury. I couldn't use my leg; it had simply lost much of its normal function. Immediately, those old familiar feelings of panic and helplessness washed over me, accompanied by fear stories of being so broken physically that I would need to depend on people just to survive the rest of my life.
"Not this time," I reminded myself.
"This time I will be fully present and awake."
I managed to wriggle and roll myself to the edge of the bed, put both feet on the floor and attempted to stand up. Shock waves of pain exploded throughout my left leg and I fell back onto the bed.
The swelling was even more extensive than the night before.
Time for another round of helping my body achieve its brilliant inflammatory response.
Before falling mercifully into deep sleep the previous night, I made an effort to help my body through this acute phase of injury recovery. Legs outstretched on the bed with my back against the wall, I had Stefan bring me a large towel soaked in piping hot water. Working quickly so we didn't lose much heat, we wrapped it around half of my calf, my knee and lower thigh, followed by a dry towel to hold the heat in and keep the water from leaking onto the mattress.
We repeated this process the following morning.
The heat felt so very, very good.
The human body knows how to regenerate itself after injury.
Most modern medical recommendations - such as rest, elevation, ice, painkillers , anti-inflammatory drugs and immobilization via bracing, boots, crutches, etc - interfere with the body's natural processes.
Why does the body produce pain?
Pain is protection from injury, or worse injury if damage is inevitable or has already occurred.
The body produces pain so that we, the operator of the body, know how to avoid injury or worse damage.
To suppress pain is to suppress the body's intelligent directives, designed to help us - not harm us!
Why does the body produce such rapid inflammation around the site of injury?
Inflammation is the body's brilliant response to tissue damage, which includes a rapid increase of blood circulation to the injured body part; this is achieved by a widening of the blood vessels.
This immense increase in vasodilation of all surrounding blood vessels (including the tiny capillaries) not only allows for fresh blood to reach the site of injury so that cellular repair can occur, but it also creates vascular permeability - the ability of fluids to move through the vascular barrier.
Rapid fluid exchange across the vascular barrier helps the body quickly eliminate debris and pathogenic elements from the site of injury by moving them into the lymph system, which is responsible for detoxing the body of waste.
Therefore, whenever acute inflammation occurs in my body, I help it have a full out inflammatory response.
I never, ever suppress inflammation with painkillers, ice, anti-inflammatory supplements (like turmeric or astaxanthin) or steroids. Instead, I support vasodilation: with heat, spices like cayenne, or drinking brewed cacao (cacao is a vasodilator).
In this way, we become co-creators with the cosmic and earthly wisdom that made the human body; we possess power with (rather than over) our bodies.
The power to heal; the power to regenerate; the power to know our true potential.
After another round of hot towel therapy, Stefan left the house and returned from the Goodwill with crutches.
It was a Sunday.
First thing Monday morning I would call around to see if there was a chiropractor in town qualified to assess joint injuries and potential ligament tears.
Today, I would learn more about the nature of this injury by attempting to walk downstairs to the kitchen and around the house.
I also needed to write a newsletter and film a YouTube video (some of you may remember the newsletter I wrote; the video is still up on the YouTube channel).
Using the crutches, I was able to get upright.
Once upright, I put as much weight as I could on that left leg, and learned something very important: going from sitting to standing was excruciating, but once standing, it was bearable to put weight on my left leg.
Good data!
Just like yesterday, I would resist the temptation to make assumptions about my body, and instead ask my body to reveal the true nature of this injury, along with its healing potential.
If I reacted to the pain in any way, it would cloud this objective assessment.
My "work" was to stay objective, and keep all reactivity contained in my psyche, so it didn't reach into, and become entangled with, my physiology.
I became the objective witness to both my physiology and my psyche, without attaching myself to either.
My mind belonged to me, free to focus on data gathering and learning (one of the triggers for neuroplasticity, the focus of Part II in this series).
The crutches were not something I would rely on; they were a tool for me to assess the ability of my leg to bear weight.
By the end of the day, I was hobbling around the house without crutches.
Yes, there was a lot of pain.
There were also many moments with significantly less pain.
All of these moments were important clues about the nature of this injury, which movements were truly "dangerous" (meaning, they posed a risk of worse damage or injury) and which were safe.
What I was learning would help me heal quickly in the days and weeks following.
"Your leg shouldn't bend that far sideways."
The next morning I called around and found a chiropractor who had been trained in assessing ligament tears and joint injuries like mine. They could fit me in that afternoon!
Refusing crutches, I limped into the bustling office.
Amid the social turmoil of covid (this was June 2020), their office felt like a sanctuary of sanity. Masks were optional, pamphlets detailing the Bill of Rights were everywhere, and posters lined the walls reminding patients that the intelligence that made the body heals the body.
I immediately took a liking to Dr. Garrett. He was friendly, direct and quickly assessed my knee.
He slowly took my lower leg sideways while holding my knee in place, and then told me:
"Your leg shouldn't bend this far sideways. I can't say for sure without an MRI, but your leg wouldn't do this if your MCL were intact."
He did the same with my right leg, to show me by way of comparison how far a lower leg bends sideways with an intact MCL. The answer is: hardly at all.
Watching him take my left leg outward again, I instantly felt the same nausea that washed through me standing in that river after feeling something snap violently in my knee.
He asked me if it was painful to have my knee bent that far sideways, and I said no.
With the look of a doctor who has to tell someone bad news, he decisively declared "You would be in a lot of pain if your MCL were merely torn. You're probably looking at a full MCL rupture."
Good data.
He suggested I use crutches, ice my knee and urged me to be very, very careful. With a ruptured MCL, I could easily cause further injury or re-injure the ligament as it was mending. In his estimation it could take up to a year to recover, with diligent work.
Thanks for your opinions doc, but I'm not listening to anyone but my body!
Dr. Garrett and I would have many friendly debates and discussions over the course of half a year (I went in 3 times a week for months); he came to truly respect my rebellious commitment to doing things my way. Every time I walked into the office, he would ask with disbelief and a knowing smile what kind of crazy activities I had done lately; week by week he assessed my knee and watched it heal more rapidly than it "should" have, given the severity of his assessment during that first appointment.
The very next day I began re-training my left leg by performing certain movements with my "good" right leg while asking my left leg to pay attention, and then performed the same movement with my left.
This worked amazingly well for walking, lunging and calf raises (the latter took months to retrain - one of the longest aspects of my recovery).
Later that week, I would follow the instinct I had on the trail hiking out of the canyon to adjust (POP) my knee. Something told me that this was the primary cause of pain (I knew it wasn't the MCL rupture causing most of the pain).
Sitting against a wall on the floor, I grabbed my quad tissue just above my kneecap and then pulled strongly backwards while extending my leg forcefully.
After a few failed attempts, I heard and felt a very loud POP!
I quickly stood up and noticed I was completely pain-free. I walked around the house. Still pain free.
My recovery skyrocketed after that.
I even managed to hike about two miles on the Colorado trail, but I quickly learned that my body was not happy with me for doing so. It was a painful walk back to the car.
Within two weeks I was pain-free and walking about two flat miles per day.
I still couldn't hike, squat, run, or do a calf raise on my left leg, but I knew exactly what my body deemed truly "dangerous" because she would immediately ping me with intense pain (for example, while trying to squat); the moment I changed position (got out of the squat), the pain would disappear.
This is what is possible when we command co-creative power with our bodies: pain is something we only have to experience when we are in acute danger of bodily harm.
In this case, we WANT the pain!
We need it. It is very, very helpful.
Without it, we are a danger to ourselves; we might do something stupid and really damage our physiology.
So please understand, by sharing this story, I am not advocating that we push through pain or force our agenda onto our body.
This whole experience for me was one of honing the skill of sensory awareness, or the ability to tune in to my body and know what is objectively true in any given moment, and what each moment calls for; a skill that requires practice and devotion, with a commitment to honoring what my body is communicating to me at all times.
Sometimes I overdid it while testing the edges of possibility.
When this happened, I would apologize to my body and make up for missing the mark by applying heat, doing fascia release, performing certain strengthening exercises etc.
Tragically, this co-creative power is not being harnessed by most of humanity.
Instead, we've been taught that pain means something is "wrong," and is therefore something to fear. We're not taught how amazing our bodies are, how they function and how rapidly they can heal.
Today, physical injuries quickly become emotional and psychological in almost everybody.
Likewise, emotional wounds often become lodged in the body, turning into chronic physical pain.
These entanglements happen because we do not have command over ourselves. We do not know ourselves - body, mind, soul and spirit. We outsource our power to people in positions of "authority" to tell us what is and isn't possible.
We are not free, so long as we remain unknown to ourselves and continue to outsource our power.
My mission is to shed light on what is possible when we commit to knowing ourselves fully.
Rapid regeneration is possible.
By my birthday in August, less than two months after the injury - I managed to hike a relatively steep trail, several miles in length, with only positive ramifications.
In September, 2020, less than three months post injury, I hiked 16 miles in the Colorado mountains I love so dearly.
During this time, I was diligent in using fascia release, strength training, daily walking and regenerative nutrition (like collagen rich bone broth and a nutrient rich diet of mostly locally grown veggies and meat), while testing my body every single day to find out what was possible.
Six months later I could squat, and nine months later I was trail running again.
What allowed my body to recover so rapidly, and what allowed me to have no pain just two weeks after injury, despite the fact that I still had a fully ruptured MCL (remember: damage does not cause pain; pain is protection from injury, or protection from further damage if injury has already occurred) was the fact that this entire injury experience was a divine gift; an opportunity to liberate my body from bearing the burdens of my subconscious psyche.
The morning after I sent out the newsletter detailing my encounter with the bear, our intense hike out of the wilderness and this new injury, I received an email that triggered an unexpected emotional release, opening a floodgate of childhood memories I had suppressed until that moment.
In Part IV next week I will share - by way of my story - how psychological pain becomes physical, how this becomes a pattern that repeats itself whenever we experience physical pain or injury, and what we must do to liberate our bodies from bearing the burdens of our soul.
With love,
Elisha