Sorry, I Didn't Get That

I am in pain.  In early May, I went to bed and woke up with a pain in my shoulder. I thought it would go away in a day or so; cricks in the neck and shoulders usually do.  It didn't.  Then, I started to get a little tingling down my fingers.  I thought it was stress.  The stress passed; the pain didn't.  I had a massage; no help.  Daughter felt a really tight little knot; she tried a little myofascial release.  OMG. For a bit, it felt better.  The knot loosened.  Then, the pain got worse.  The knot became a big knot.  The tingling multiplied.  I'm seeing the chiropractor on Thursday.  In the meantime, my discomfort grows as the day goes on.  I can't sit for long periods of time because of the discomfort.  I really have to work to concentrate.  I can do it - it's just hard.

Here in the Trenches, our clients are in pain.  Usually, it's not physical pain, but let's face it, pain is pain.  In some ways, emotional pain is worse.  If I move a certain way or really concentrate on what I'm doing, I can sometimes not feel the pain.  People who are suffering from emotional pain have trouble concentrating at all.   The pain almost never goes away.  Crazy thoughts intrude at the most inopportune moments.  They're so raw that they don't have the strength to push the thoughts aside.  The pain is exhausting.  Yet, we ask them to keep their pain in check, marshall their strength, think clearly and make the decisions that will determine the course of their lives into the future.  The problem with this is not that we ask them to do this.  The difficulty is that we expect that they can and should be able to think clearly enough to make rational decisions.  The worst part of it is that some of us get impatient when they can't.  You know, I expect that the work with the chiropractor is going to take time.  I'm not going to feel perfect right away and be able to run out and lift my body weight.  Why would I expect anything different from my clients?  They need time.  They need our patience.  They need us to explain the same thing 20 times because it's just not sinking in.  That's part of what we do.  It is part of our value to our clients.  So, I try to remember my shoulder and keep my patience.  The clients need that from us.  Here in the Trenches.