Chapter 1 – Feral Hair
My mom never knew what to do with my curly hair.
Her own hair is poker straight and she tamed it with a fine-tooth comb. So, she attempted the same with mine, and she did her best to make it behave.
I think my grade one photo sums up the success of that approach. I’m sure I looked presentable when I left for school, but I was never one to sit quietly on the playground, even if it was Picture Day.
As I grew up, I continued to fight my natural hair. Even when BIG frizzy hair was the crowning jewel of the 80s, I tried a perm (or three or four) to try and make my hair curl the “right way”.
I tried blow-drying it straight and then using a curling iron when the “feathered” look was popular.
As a young mom, I chemically straightened it so I could have the high-gloss, shiny “Rachel” look.
It wasn’t until a few years ago that I decided to stop fighting it and embrace my feral hair.
I’ll admit that some days I embrace it more lovingly than others.
Why am I telling you this?
Sometimes in life, the thing we think we have to fight
Or change
Or the thing we think is holding us back, is actually the thing that we need to embrace in order to move forward.
Chapter 2 – Cranky Knees
My knees have been an issue for a long time.
Multiple injuries from playing volleyball in my youth and from being slightly accident prone meant I was used to dealing with some ongoing discomfort.
Two surgeries to clean up small tears in the meniscus were added to the mix.
And then, a couple of years ago, my knees went from being occasionally cranky to causing constant, chronic pain. Even my so-called good knee became miserable.
I lost a lot of lower-body mobility and even walking became very painful. Going down the stairs was brutal, and even just the action of sitting down or standing up required a lot of upper-body assistance.
My lower back was also a problem, and the ongoing sciatic pain meant that I didn’t get the restful, restorative sleep that I knew was critical to recovery.
It was extremely frustrating and, as a fairly new coach, I wondered why anyone would want to be coached by someone who could barely do any lower-body training herself.
It challenged not only my physical health, but my mental health as well and I struggled to find ways to coach exercises I could not demonstrate.
I struggled to find ways to continue my own training, and I relied heavily on my own Coach and friend, Matt Mantai.
Sometimes I struggled just to get through the day. Why am I telling you this?
Because, like my feral hair, I had to find a way to work with it and to use it.
And I became a far better Coach BECAUSE of my cranky knees.
I learned better verbal cues to help improve someone’s form without just relying on “showing” them. This has proved to be critical for coaching clients online.
I hired a Coach from ActiveLife (shoutout to Coach Mark) to help me learn how to work with my cranky knees instead of just completely avoiding lower-body training. I learned how to do things just a little differently to continue to get stronger.
This training and knowledge helped get me out of the misery of chronic pain.
I’ve been able to use what I’ve learned to help our Armoury members make significant progress with their own cranky bodies, and help relieve their own pain.
It’s given me the confidence to expand my skills into the world of online coaching.
And perhaps most importantly, I’ve learned the true value of patience and persistence.
I’ve never been a patient person, and I still joke that the “P” in “Joanne” stands for Patience.
However, without patience I would’ve given up months ago.
Progress has been slow. In fact, the expression “moving at the speed of constipation” is hilariously accurate.
But the only way progress will cease completely is if I quit, and that is not going to happen.
I’m in this for life.
Although it’s been far easier to embrace my feral hair than my cranky knees, I have realized that it’s better to work with what I have rather than to fight it.
Feral hair and cranky knees – both can be a struggle or a strength.
It all depends on how I choose to move forward.
I choose strength. What are your challenges, and what will you choose?
