© 2022 Alicia Dara
In the fall of 2008 I went on a brief East Coast trip to promote a record I had just released (I’m a life-long singer and musician, and my most recent band is Diamondwolf, which you can find in the About section above). I made travel arrangements with contacts in various cities, or I took the train. I carried only my guitar and a single small suitcase, which could still feel heavy if I was tired (which I often was). On the last day of the tour, as I was lifting my bag down from the train platform, I felt a horrible wrenching pain in my shoulder that took my breath away.
For days I rested and iced the shoulder, and although the pain lessened, the swelling and bruising was intense. I could barely lift a fork to my mouth, let alone play guitar or piano. Six weeks later I could feed myself, but my shoulder was still stiff and swollen. I had heard that Swedish Hospital in Seattle had a state-of-the art physical therapy department, so I booked my first session.
My physical therapist was a tall, slender woman who I’ll call Dove*. She moved with a soft grace that camouflaged how incredibly strong she actually was. I often saw her bench press heavy weights, and she could deadlift even more.
I worked with Dove twice a week for two months. My sessions were rough, especially at first. I swore a lot, and often yelped in pain. To distract me, Dove told me stories about past clients who had triumphed over their injuries through diligent physical therapy. Most of them had “spot issues” like I did, meaning one particular part of their body was injured and needed treatment. Among her clients were a professional basketball player who had fractured his elbow when he fell off a roof, and a military sniper who had broken his trigger finger while wrestling with his nephew. Their stories were compelling, but nothing compared to Dove’s own story.
Dove had been born with a rare spinal condition that created extra bone along her lower back. The issue went largely undetected until she was 25, when a car accident sent her to the hospital. She lost consciousness, but when she woke up in the hospital, her legs felt completely numb. She was told by her doctors that the impact from the accident had warped her malformed spine in such a way that she would never walk again.
Somehow Dove knew this wasn’t going to be her fate. When she closed her eyes at night in bed and concentrated intensely, she could feel a tiny tingling in the arch of her right foot, so small that she wasn’t sure it was real. But she kept tuning into it, and after 6 months it turned into an itch, then a burn, then she could move her right toe a quarter of an inch. She called this a “micromove”, and she wanted more of them.
For a year Dove did intense, grueling physical therapy to strengthen the muscles in her upper body that were supposed to be her saving grace. During this time she used her powers of concentration to find more micromoves in her feet, and blend them together into larger ones. It took what felt like forever, but in three years Dove could walk with a cane. Eventually she could walk on her own, and that’s when she decided to go back to school and become a PT. During our sessions she encouraged me to explore micromoves in my shoulder, and it healed back stronger than ever.
This story is about injuries to flesh and bone, which can take time to heal. But it also makes me think about how psychic and emotional injuries can play out in our lives. If we’ve been emotionally abused, neglected or otherwise psychically harmed, we can give ourselves permission to heal at our own pace. Therapy, mediation, positive social contact and creative expression can all be helpful. To fully recover also takes tremendous self-compassion, and it needs to be administered constantly, even if we can only do it in small amounts. True healing can take a long time. Eventually, all our tiny efforts will add up. In the meantime, we can cherish the micromoves that bring us there.
So what are three micromoves that you can do for yourself right now? How about starting with three slow, deep breaths and see what you feel like after that?
*Name and some details changed for privacy