What my injury means, nine years later

Recently I have been thinking a lot about my shoulder.

The practical reason is that I have finally decided to properly rehabilitate it. Not just manage it, not just keep it functioning well enough, but really give it the attention it deserves and explore what might still be possible.

What I wasn't expecting was how emotional that decision would be.

I have spoken about my shoulder injury many times over the years and I have always told the story through the lens of resilience. Six dislocations. Two surgeries. A bone infection after the first surgery. More rehabilitation than I care to remember. The story has always been that I got through it, learned a lot along the way and came out stronger on the other side.

All of that is true.

But as I have been sitting with it recently, I have found myself looking back at that period of my life very differently.

At the time I was living in Australia. I was working full-time as a personal trainer, studying around twenty hours a week and trying to navigate the whole process largely on my own. I remember getting close to the end of the rehabilitation after the first surgery and feeling so excited to finally be cleared.

Then I found out there was a bone infection and that I would need another surgery.

Even writing those words now, I can feel the weight of it.

I remember thinking, "Not again."

Not because I was scared of the surgery itself. More because I simply couldn't understand how I was supposed to do it all over again. I had done everything right. I had shown up to every appointment, followed every instruction and poured so much energy into recovering, and suddenly the finish line disappeared and moved months further away.

The thing that has surprised me most over the last few weeks is realising how lightly I have taken that experience ever since.

I don't mean lightly at the time. I mean afterwards.

Life moved on. I travelled for nine months after leaving Australia. I settled in Barcelona. I started my own business. We lived through Covid. I built ATTIKA. There was always something meaningful to focus on, something that needed my attention, and if I'm honest, my shoulder became one of those things that was simply good enough.

It worked.

It wasn't perfect.

There were physio appointments, massages and occasional attempts at strengthening it, but I genuinely believed that this was probably as good as it was going to get. I wasn't consciously avoiding rehabilitation. I wasn't ignoring it. I simply believed my shoulder was different now and that keeping it tight, protected and reasonably functional was the smartest thing I could do.

One practice that has become increasingly important to me over the years is regularly asking myself a simple question:

What is it that I need right now?

Not what should I do. Not what is the next goal.

Not what would make me more productive.

But genuinely, what is it that I need in this season of life?

Recently, the answer surprised me.

Of course I still want ATTIKA to continue growing and I still want to develop as a coach, a leader and a business owner. Those things matter deeply to me and always will.

What has been showing up recently, though, is a desire for a little more fun, a little more adventure and a little more lightness.

I think many of us are guilty of becoming so focused on optimising our work, our health, our routines and our lives that we forget one of the reasons we are doing all of it in the first place.

To enjoy life.

I want to say yes to a game of beach volleyball without overthinking it.

I want to play padel.

I want to trust my body a little more than I have been.

And somewhere in that exploration I realised that perhaps my shoulder deserves more belief from me than I have been giving it.

Not because I have been doing anything wrong and not because I wish I had done this years ago. I genuinely don't. Looking back, I can see that I was building a life, building a business and putting my energy where it needed to be at the time.

But I also think I am ready now in a way that I wasn't before.

What really brought me to tears recently was not the shoulder itself, but the realisation that for nine years I have mostly looked at this experience through the lens of resilience.

I got through it.

I learned from it.

I survived it.

And while all of that is true, looking at it through the lens of compassion tells a slightly different story.

It allows me to see just how much I was carrying at the time. It allows me to appreciate how hard I was working to keep everything moving forward. It allows me to acknowledge that doing everything right and still finding out you need another surgery is a lot for anyone to process, especially when you are thousands of kilometres away from home and trying to build a life at the same time.

What has been most interesting is that looking through the lens of compassion has helped me see something I hadn't fully appreciated before.

Back then, when I found out I would need another surgery and another round of rehabilitation, I remember asking myself why this was happening and why I had to do it all over again.

The answer that eventually emerged was that I didn't have to do it alone.

I needed help.

At the time, that lesson changed everything.

And what makes me smile now is realising that nine years later, as I begin exploring what is possible for my shoulder again, that same lesson seems to be finding its way back to me.

I'll share more about that in my next reflection.

For now, perhaps there is something in your own life that you have become incredibly good at managing. Perhaps there is a story you tell yourself about your body, your health or what is possible for you that once made perfect sense and helped you navigate a difficult chapter.

Perhaps that story is still true.

Or perhaps it is simply waiting to be explored again.

And maybe the place to start is not with fixing, changing or pushing harder, but by creating enough space to ask yourself what it is that you need right now and being willing to listen to the answer with a little more compassion than judgement.

Sometimes that question reveals far more than we expect.