The pain is gone

You walk into a room and the first thing you do is scan the chairs.

Which one won't lock you up. How soft is the cushion. Can you get out of it without a production.

You don't even realize you're doing it anymore. It's automatic.

Same at the grocery store. You look at the line and start running calculations. How long until I need to shift my weight? Should I bail and come back later?

A few years back, deep in my own back stuff, I went to a wedding. I wasn't excited about it. Wasn't thinking about the ceremony, the food, or seeing people I hadn't seen in years.

I was running the math the whole time.

How long am I sitting. How long am I standing. Can I dance later or am I going to pay for it tomorrow.

I wasn't at the wedding. I was managing the wedding.

The physical part of pain is one layer. The mental tax is the heavier one. You stop trusting your body. You stop walking into rooms like a normal person. Every environment becomes a problem to solve.

This is the part of rehab that gets missed.

Most plans focus on bringing pain levels down. And that matters. But pain going down isn't the finish line.
​
The finish line is when you can load a bar without scanning your body first. When you can sit through dinner without negotiating with the chair.
​
When you stop thinking about your back at all.

That's when rehab is actually done. When the hesitation finally goes.
​
Gabe
​
PS: If you read that and thought "that's me, I manage every room I walk into". That's the exact thing I rebuild with clients. Not just pain down. The hesitation gone. If you want to know what that'd take for your back specifically, reply "REBUILD" on instagram and I'll tell you straight whether I can help.