The Abyss

Marq. Jordan PT, DPT

Imagine you step out of your comfort zone and open a business. You’ve been working for someone else your entire life.  Sure you’ve been in charge before but technically only middle management with no more than 7-8 people under you. Money’s good and you have  great benefits but you can’t sleep well because there is always a gnawing in the pit of your stomach that you could do more. You wake up frequently realizing that there’s more you could be doing but the model that you are working in  does not give you the time you need for your clients. So finally after talking about it since Day 1 of college you take that leap of faith into the unknown and go out on your own. Sure, it’s rough at first, at times if you’re honest you just want to cut bait and run. However, everyday you step out there you have a sense of accomplishment even when every door you try to go through gets closed in your face. 

Your whole life has prepared you for hardship and taught you how to adapt. You hate the word no but strangely it motivates you.  Failure hits you hard but bouncing back is just what you do. Just when it looks like your year is coming around…everything is shut down due to the coronavirus. Now you feel like you are staring at the edge of the abyss while every facet of life is stomping a mudhole on you trying to knock you off into the void.

My story is just like most of you out there. If we all think about it, life is a history of ups and downs with probably more valleys than peaks. If you are like me you may tend to look back and wonder if you made the right decision. Sometimes looking back in regret. Then I realize that just like the healing process in the body without stress, without irritation, without being placed under a load we don’t get stronger. We don’t improve. 

One of the first things we learned in P.T. school was Wolff’s law: Bones will grow and adapt in response to the load placed on it. Basically the bone will grow and get stronger based on the specific stress placed on it. It’s the same thing with collagen, disc and cartilage. Our bodies require stress to grow.  The human body feeds upon stress. That’s part of the reason why astronauts come home from an extended amount of time in space weakened. Without the stress of gravity on them their bodies softened. Scientists and therapists have come up with ways to deal with this problem. In practice, frequently a client comes in that has not participated in physical activity for prolonged periods of time and the simple task of even standing up without using their  hands is a herculean effort. Same thing in our lives. Without stressors or hardships we cannot grow or get stronger.

Right now life is hard. Life is hard for everyone and stressful does not feel adequate enough to describe what’s going on.  Yes, it is an inconvenience to be stuck in the house for the majority of the day. I miss the gym and hanging out with the guys. Not being able to work a part time job right now is proving costly. I will adapt, must adapt because the alternative is not palatable. We will adapt, we will get stronger and come out of this for the better. Just like how bones and muscles adapt to stress. Right now 2020 has been a series of valleys (trials) for many of us but these trials, the stress of these trials will make us stronger. So maybe it is not an abyss, pause for a moment  and enjoy the view. Once I adjusted my perception to see that due to what’s going on in the world right now I’m allowed to spend more time with my kids, and have more time to pause, evaluate and plan. Just like weightlifters see the pain that they may experience after working out a good thing we too need to see this as a chance to grow and get stronger.

Marq “Q” Jordan has been an Outpatient Physical Therapist for 14 years. Currently the owner operator of Fearless Physical Therapy a concierge mobile P.T.  clinic serving Hampton, Newport News, Williamsburg and the surrounding area. If you are in need of Physical Therapy services contact us at www.fearlessphysicaltherapist.com . We offer telehealth and onsite treatments.