What to Do When Things Go South

An injury, surgery, or body ache & pain can sometimes make you feel like life is trampling over you like a dog romping through your flower bed.

And it isn’t always pain or swelling or stiffness of some other body symptom that’s the issue.

Sometimes, it’s just things you face in life.

Like other people.

Maybe you’re on crutches after a knee or hip surgery and people keep saying to you, “You’re still on crutches?” or, as the case with a client of mine who is working to rebuild his body after difficult back surgery, “Gosh, you’ve been injured forever. I can’t imagine how awful that must feel!”

Despite your best efforts at staying healthy, trying to get stronger, rebuilding your body, at almost every turn something happens that sets you back or someone says something that makes you feel that way.

These are the kinds of things that can jump-start a cycle of frustration, discouragement, disappointment.

So, how do you deal with these situations?

Recently, my colleague, Laurie Kertz Kelly, and I were interviewed for an article that was published in the Washington Post. The article was about what people can do to avoid knee surgery and the author mentioned my book “The 90 Day Knee Arthritis Remedy“ which I was most appreciative of her doing.

The book has been available from Amazon for a while and although people have purchased it, I didn’t have any reviews. And, well, reviews help readers find your book.

But, I was hesitant to ask people to review my book. I guess it’s because, in my family, you let your work speak for itself so asking for a review felt unprofessional to me.

Of course, it’s not unprofessional but, remember, we’re talking about feelings here not logic.

I thought maybe someone might review my book though since it had a bit more exposure from the Post article.  So one day this past week, I logged in to my account to find out.

And yes, I had a review!

A whole 1 star out of five.

I was stunned. Really, 1 star? My book is a 1-star book? 

It felt as if my mind was riding a horse bareback with no reins and galloped away with “This is awful…no one will buy my book now…I’m ruined as an author “.

Yeah, a tad dramatic but that’s the mind for you.

So, I clicked on the review to find out what was so horrible about my book.

Turns out, the person reviewing the book didn’t read it. He said that in his review. He was ticked off at the Kindle app for not allowing images to be enlarged and decided to use my book as a way to make his point.

Now, you might think that after discovering the farce of this review, I would be fine. I would shrug my shoulders and go on my way.

Nope.

The horse kept galloping and maybe picked up some speed.

At the moment I looked at the 1-star review, I experienced something referred to by psychologist Daniel Goldman, in his book “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ”, as an “amygdala hijack”.

The amygdala – a region of the brain responsible for storing and giving meaning to emotions – will override the rational, thinking part of your brain.

What we’re talking about here is a rush of feelings to the forefront. When your friend points out how long you’ve been on crutches, the common reaction is to feel any number of things – may be frustrated, irritated, or discouraged among others.

Usually, for an amygdala hijack to happen, the perceived threat would be high but threat is a relative term.

You likely know that your friend didn’t intend to make you feel bad and as a threat goes, this hardly rises to a stick-up at gunpoint.

But, to you, that comment hits a sensitive spot and logical thinking recedes to the background.

I know that a single review will not ruin whatever career I might have as a writer, it will likely not keep others from purchasing the book either.

But, thinking rarely solves a feeling problem.

Thinking takes place in one part of the brain while feeling is happening elsewhere. And for that matter, when you’re emotions are in high gear, your brain’s higher function centers are basically off-line.

I got to practice a few things I teach to get the horse to slow down and get it back to the stables.

The first thing to do is to notice what’s happening and identify it. “I’m feeling discouraged or frustrated” or whatever the feeling is. It’s important to separate the feeling from yourself. You are not angry. You feel angry.

Then, breathe. Slowly. While you’re doing this, remind yourself that what you’re feeling is just that – a feeling. It will pass. The sun will come up tomorrow. It’ll be okay.

This is a conscious, active process. And it’s hard to do at first.

Your feelings are like a marketing campaign for a big movie release. They want your full attention and make you feel like you just have to go see this flick.

They want to become you.

So, keep breathing, even talking to yourself until you have a different feeling – one that is more calm, centered, peaceful.

Once you’ve done this, get ready to do it again. Because like any good marketing campaign, it’ll be back.

The good news though is as you practice this kind of self-soothing, it gets easier, takes less time.

I did this for my 1-star review and it worked.

And I did it again this morning.

It’s a process 🙂

Thanks for reading.

By the way, if you’ve read my book,  The 90 Day Knee Arthritis Remedy, and would like to leave a review on Amazon, you can do that by clicking here. Now, I suppose it goes without saying that I would like good reviews but that feels even more unprofessional than asking you to review it… so I will leave it at that.

If you like this article, why not share it with a friend? If you’re interested in becoming a client of mine, click here. For my colleague, Laurie Kertz Kelly, click here. To get my Secret Weapon to fight knee, hip & back pain and stiffness, subscribe for free today.

Doug Kelsey has been a physical therapist and human movement expert since 1981. He is formerly Associate Professor and Assistant Dean for Clinical Affairs at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and the author of several books. He has conducted over 250 educational seminars for therapists, trainers, physicians, and the public and has presented lectures at national and international scientific and professional conferences. His professional CV is here.