Journal Example: Lean Back for Self-Care

I have been tending to a very sore back the past couple of weeks. My back has been a part of my body that often speaks to me. This has been true most of my life.

One New Year’s Day, when I was 11 years-old, our parents had taken me, my brother and two neighbour kids, to go tobogganing at a nearby gravel pit. It was an off-limits area and it had a wobbly fence we had to climb to get into. Despite that, our Dad thought it was the best place for sledding since it had a steep hill and there were no cars nearby.

Unfortunately, what it also had was a big rock buried under the snow that our toboggan cracked down on during one of our fun runs down the hill. I was on the back of the sled when it hit the rock and I was in immediate and searing pain. My Dad came barreling down the hill and helped me get to the top again, and we had to once again climb the fence to leave the prohibited area.

We all got back into the vehicle and my parents helped me get into bed when we got home. My back got sorer and sorer and eventually I could no longer feel or move my legs. I panicked and screamed out for my parents to come.

One thing led to another, and I ended up at the hospital, where, as it turned out, I had to stay awhile on a striker bed and remain flat and still for days. The x-ray showed that I had broken a vertebrae in my back. I eventually had to wear a body cast (that wrapped around my entire torso from top of my spine to the base of it). I wore this for a couple of months, and then had to wear a body brace for about 6 months after that.

I can still remember playing basketball in my body cast (that was not recommended but I was a very active and athletic kid!). I also remember taking my shirt off in class, my body was covered by the cast, and all the kids signing the white plaster with coloured markers.

That was the first time that my back ever slowed me down, but it would not be the last. My back is a part of my body that often lets me know when I need to slow down.

I will get bad back pain, for example, from long hours of sitting and working at my desk, until the point where I can’t ignore it and I need to get up, move around, take breaks, and listen to the call of my body. This can be very frustrating, and impactful, as a writer and as someone whose work in the world is 100% online ever since the Covid pandemic.

I have learned that my back has been one of my greatest self-care teachers!

Late last week, my back was so sore that I could not handle sitting at my desk for any length of time. I stood up at a table and was writing in my journal (nothing much ever stops me from journaling 😉) and I was doing a dialogue writing between myself and my back.

I asked my back what it needed and my back wrote:

“I need you to take a break. Not a 5 minute break or a 10 minute break, but a multi-day break. I need you to get into water and float and lean back into its support. I need you to walk away from all of your responsibilities and to do lists and current stressors and family and everything and everyone and go take some time by yourself AND for yourself to rest, replenish and heal.”

I looked at what “my back wrote”, what my back had to say to me, and I listened. I decided to book a hotel on Vancouver Island, a place I know has a pool and hot tub, and I spontaneously packed up myself and our dear dog, and the two of us went on a “girls’ trip.”

It was perfect and restorative and it helped me, not completely eliminate my back pain, but reduce it in significant ways.

In the time away, I floated in the pool, sat in the hot tub, wrote in my journal, hiked in the woods and by the ocean, took myself out for two lovely dinners, tried a new Pender Island white wine, read a book, and stayed off work on my computer for almost 48 hours. I stretched and meditated and listened to music and binge watched Love is Blind (I have no idea why I watch that ridiculous show!). I did not read any news and barely looked at my phone (I was on social media for about 6 minutes).

I listened to the wisdom of my back, that spoke to me in more ways than one, including in the pages of my journal. That listening offered me rest and healing that my body (and my emotions and my mind) needed!

My back has been the barometer of my needs in many ways in my life, ever since I was a child wearing that body cast. I have learned that my back will tell me when I need to lean in and when I need to lean out and when I need to lean back in life. I have learned that my back has my back!

“Our bodies communicate to us clearly and
specifically if we are willing to listen.” – Shakti Gawain