It's Never About What You Think (Ep #25 Relationship Series)

What if your body's response isn't an overreaction... What if it's remembering?

This week, I'm sharing a very personal story from my recovery after reconstructive foot surgery. Learning to use crutches again brought up an experience I hadn't thought much about in years, and it became a powerful reminder that our past doesn't just live in our memories - it can also live in our bodies.

As I found myself standing at the top of a staircase during physical therapy, I realized the crutches were never really the problem. My body was responding to a past experience that had taught it something wasn't safe.

That moment reminded me just how powerful conscious awareness can be.

When we learn to pause, notice what our body is communicating, and respond with curiosity instead of judgment, we create the opportunity for a different experience. We can't change what happened in the past, but we can teach our nervous system that this moment isn't the same as the last one.

✨Reflection Questions✨

1. Where in my life might I be reacting to a past experience instead of what's actually happening in the present?
2. What signals has my body been trying to communicate that I've been overlooking?
3. What might change if I paused long enough to acknowledge what I was feeling before reacting?

If this episode resonates with you, I'd love to hear from you. You can send me a text or leave me a voicemail using the link at the top of the show description. Your question or story may inspire a future episode.

And if you know someone who could benefit from this conversation, I'd be so grateful if you shared it with them.💜

Transcript

Welcome To Pure Possibilities

Shannon 0:00

Welcome or welcome back. You're listening to the Pure Possibilities podcast. I'm your host, Shannon, and this is a space to pause, to notice, to reconnect, and explore what's possible. I don't know if you remember several episodes ago, I was talking about relationships and your partner and things that they do to drive you crazy. And I had a story about dishwashers and how that always became a thing in my relationships and how it was never really about the dishwasher. Because we often think it's one thing and it's actually something completely different. Like the dishes became that surface level thing, and underneath it was something deeper. It was me not asking for what I needed. I wasn't expressing something. I was making up a story about something, or I had a fear or an old experience. And this week I had another one of those moments, except it wasn't about the crutches.

A Crutch Trauma Gets Reactivated

Shannon 0:56

As many of you know, I have been recovering from reconstructive foot surgery. And one thing I don't believe that I've shared is that I previously had a really bad experience with crutches. And so I've known as I'm

The Dishwasher Lesson About Deeper Needs

Shannon 1:12

obviously progressing through my healing that the day was coming. Like before my surgery, I pulled out my crutches and they've been sitting against my wall in my bedroom, kind of taunting me for the last six weeks. Let me kind of explain a little bit about this situation. So nine years ago, I had surgery on my other foot. And the day of or the day after my surgery, I was going from my bed to my bathroom on crutches. And I think I was still highly medicated. I didn't really have much protection for my foot. She had just wrapped it and put like some gauze. And so it was very unprotected. And I lost my balance when I was on my crutches and I slammed my foot into the floor and I broke the screws that were in my foot and had to go back in and have surgery again. So she could take those out and put new ones in, and it was a whole thing. And so that has stayed with me for a very long time. It's not like it's come up every single day for the last nine years, but it was reactivated again from this surgery. And so I have been anticipating that this day is coming that I need to walk again. And the only way to do that is either with crutches or a walker. And I would rather use crutches. And so I was asked to bring my crutches to my physical therapy appointment. I've finally been given the clear to start weight bearing again, which is amazing. And I'm allowed to put 25% weight on my foot, which is just like a toe touch or, you know, toe tap to the ground. So it's not much. But I've been kind of feeling a little anxious about the fact that I was gonna need to start using my crutches. And so when I got to my appointment, I was explaining to my physical therapist that I feel really nervous about this because of what had happened in the

Learning Crutches And Facing Stairs

Shannon 3:05

past. And so the first thing I did was I was like, you know, I don't know that I've ever actually had anybody show me how to use crutches. I've always just kind of like, oh, this is just what you do, right? So first I had him show me, and then we were talking and doing some things and figuring out my weight bearing. And he was like, Do you have stairs at home? And yes, I do. I have a lot of stairs at home. And he said, Well, let's try the stairs. Do you want to do the small stairs or do you want to do the big stairs? And I was like, Well, let's do the big stairs. And so as we're heading toward the stairway, I started having this thought because I know this is a fear that I need to face. I want to walk, I want to drive, I want to do all these things. And also, I'm terrified to use my crutches because of the experience that I had, because our previous experiences actually are stored in our body. We think that they're stored in our mind because of all the thoughts that we have around them, but they're actually stored in our body. So, for example, because I have learned over time how to connect with my body, and so I notice it when it's signaling to me. One thing that happens for me quite often is my chest will start to heat up and get red. So I feel the heat in my chest, I feel my heart start to beat more quickly, I feel a contraction in my stomach. And so all of this is happening as we're on our way to the stairs. Like my body is totally responding to this. And I'm also having the conversation in my head about you've got to do this. You've got to face this fear if you want to move forward and

Body Signals And Nervous System Fear

Shannon 4:44

stop allowing this past experience to define who you are today because you are not the same person that you were then. So we get to the stairs, I do some breathing, we make it up the stairs, which was really exciting, and I stopped and I looked at him and I said, something that I never would have said several years ago. I said, I need to pause and I need to stop and regulate my nervous system. And so he was like, cool. So I paused and I closed my eyes and I started to intentionally breathe to regulate myself. And as I did that, the coolest freaking thing happened. He started breathing with me. We were like co-regulating and it was amazing. I was like, this is so cool. And so then I ended up going and making it down the stairs safely. And I was safe, and it wasn't the same experience that I had had nine years ago. And so, what happens when you allow yourself the opportunity to create a new experience for yourself, you are actually re-imprinting your nervous system. So now I'm moving through and creating a new memory for myself that it's not that crutches are super scary because the crutches themselves aren't scary. It's the story that my body had attached to them. Although I've had people tell me over the last several weeks how easy crutches are for them and how they would cruise around on them or go up and down the stairs really

Pausing To Regulate And Co Regulate

Shannon 6:32

fast and do this and do that. And for them, that's that's their experience. But for me, my experience was completely different. And I think that's also something important to remember is that we all have our own experiences, and you never know what is living inside someone's body from something else that's happened in their life. And it doesn't mean that their way is the right way and mine's the wrong way or whatever. They're just, we all have our own experiences, and we can actually do the exact same thing and have a completely different experience. So by doing this, and also because I stopped and regulated and I did the thing, and then of course, afterwards, I also regulated again. It's reminding me that I am safe, that I'm okay, that nothing bad happened, that these are two very different situations. This time I'm six weeks post-op, I have a boot on my foot, I'm allowed to touch my toe down. So it doesn't feel quite as scary for me, whereas before I was medicated, unbalanced,

Creating A New Memory Of Safety

Shannon 7:46

and it felt scarier. And so they're they're two separate situations, but when you're coming at it from a place of conscious awareness, like I'm paying attention, I'm noticing how my body's responding to things, I'm noticing if I'm reacting to something. And that makes such a massive difference in how you navigate through life because it allows you the opportunity to make a different decision, to make a different choice, because you're aware of how your body is responding to something, because those memories are deeply rooted within us, and they can come up at any time. Like you have no idea when things like that are gonna come up. One of the things that we know about the brain and the body is that it is incredibly efficient, and our brain doesn't start over from scratch every single day. It stores our experiences, our patterns, our memory, and it remembers what felt safe. It remembers what didn't. And much of our day happens subconsciously. Generally, they say about 95% of your everyday is from your subconscious patterns, habits, and past experiences that you've built over just years of living. But it also means that sometimes our body is reacting and responding to something that's happening today through yesterday's experience or last year. So again, my body wasn't responding to the crutches, it was responding to the memory that I had connected to the crutches. And that is a very important distinction because it wasn't trying to sabotage me, it was trying to protect me. And the beautiful part of that awareness is that it allows us the opportunity to ask a different question. Instead of what the hell is wrong with me, we can ask, what happened that my body might be remembering? Because your body's response isn't a problem to fix, it is all information, which is why it is so incredibly important to learn to listen to the signals that are coming from the wisdom of your body.

Subconscious Patterns And Protective Responses

Shannon 10:06

It's all information and it's an invitation to get curious because that's what our nervous system does. It tries to protect us to keep us safe. And so it's also remembering that you get to decide how that is going to impact you going forward. That's why conscious awareness is so incredibly powerful because the awareness interrupts the automatic response that we're having. You know, years ago, I probably would have ignored what my body was telling me. I would have just pushed through, I would have totally judged myself. But instead, this time, I noticed, I paused and I communicated what I needed and I allowed myself to regulate. And that's the thing. I wasn't trying to stop being afraid. I wasn't pretending that I wasn't scared. I was acknowledging what my body was communicating. And then I helped it feel safe enough to keep moving forward. And that's where the healing really happens. It's not because the past disappears or we've erased our memory, it's because we're creating a new experience. The last time I used crutches, it ended in another surgery. This time it ended with me making it safely down the stairs. And even the next day, I had an appointment and I was like, I could take my scooter or I could take my crutches. I chose to take my crutches. It was difficult, but I made it through. And I'm moving through that fear so that it doesn't keep holding me back. It's a new imprint into my nervous system. And every time we allow ourselves to safely experience something that once felt unsafe, we're reminding our nervous system this isn't the same moment. It's not the same experience. I am safe now. All

Reflection Questions For Your Life

Shannon 12:07

right. We are now going to move into our reflection questions, which will be posted in the show description. If you don't have the time or space right now to take a moment for these, you can always come back to it. If it is safe and comfortable for you to do so, I invite you to close your eyes and take a deep breath in and release. And we're just going to notice what comes up. Number one, where in my life might I be reacting to a past experience instead of what's actually happening in the present. Number two, what signals has my body been trying to communicate that I've been overlooking? And number three, what might change if I paused long enough to acknowledge what I was feeling before reacting? All right. We are going to move into a magic of what if card deck poll.com under shop if you'd like to grab

What If Fear Is An Illusion

Shannon 13:20

your own. All right. The message for today. What if fear is an illusion? What if fear is an illusion? You know, most of the things that we're afraid of are things that either haven't happened or we're attaching a story to them about something that may have happened in the past, or we're worrying about something that hasn't even happened yet in the future. And so there are certainly things that we are afraid of that might be actual physical danger. But for the most part, we allow fear to stop us and hold us back from moving forward because of the discomfort that comes along with whatever that action or whatever that step is that we might be taking. So, what if fear is an illusion? I'm gonna leave you with this today. One of the greatest gifts that we can give ourselves isn't it's not pretending that the past never happened.

Final Takeaways And Closing

Shannon 14:24

It's about acknowledging and recognizing that the past is going to show up in the present. And when you notice that, your awareness creates choice. And that choice creates an opportunity for a different experience. Maybe your crutches aren't actually crutches. Maybe it's a conversation or a relationship or your big beautiful dream that you're avoiding. Whatever it is, your body isn't a problem to fix. It's information and it's an invitation to become curious. Because honestly, it's probably not about the crutches, just like it's not about the dishwasher. There's usually something underneath. So get curious about that and allow yourself the opportunity to make a different choice next time. Thank you so much for being here. I hope you have a beautiful, beautiful day and an amazing week. Much love.