Client Story: It Happened Again...

Yep! IT happened again. What is "IT" you ask?

A past client came in for a consultation/assessment and is going to be starting her coaching very soon in our Grounding Wellbeing Blueprint package. In that intial consultation we discussed much of her health concerns, surgeries, illnesses etc she's gone through since working with her about a decade ago. We also discussed her positive shifts in mindset, changes in her lifestyle habits she's made along the way and her upcoming plans for retirement. Within our chat came up something VERY common - The "inability" to get up from the floor.

And THAT is your "IT".

An all too common conversation today with clients is their "inability" to get up from the floor. I know what you're thinking; "Hey Coach! Why is INABILITY in quotations?". Well, this is because in my experience working with people, 99% of the time this comes down to a PERCEIVED inability. It's actually NOT their reality.

👉Typically what's happened is sometimes the client may be experiencing a bit more difficulty getting up from the floor (in this client's case, from two hip surgeries and recent back issues). Makes sense.

👉When some difficulty occurs (for these reasons or otherwise), what most of us do is we begin to AVOID that movement. By avoiding the movement we become WEAKER and LESS CAPABLE of doing it efficiently.

👉In most cases, people end up avoiding getting on the floor for so long that now if they do get on the floor, they need assistance to get back up.

... THAT DOESN'T MEAN THEY "CAN'T" get up from the floor. See??

When this conversation happens, I run through my chat about how I'm not asking if they can get up "gracefully" or in a "particular way". I'm asking "If you get on the floor, CAN YOU get back up?". Step 2 from my end is to ask them if they're willing to get on the floor. It's rare for them to say no in this case. It's then I remind the client that I will help and offer anything to assist them in getting back up from the floor. Usually I'll wheel my weight bench over beside them. This way they can use it to push themselves up as they hold onto it, and they can even sit down part way up if need be.

Do you know what happened with this client? SHE BARELY USED THE BENCH. It ALWAYS surprises me, after hearing the stories clients put in their own minds and that they tell me, what they actually ARE CAPABLE OF.

The Story is Creating the Reality

We're writing our own stories in our head, which is 100% telling us DAILY that we "CAN'T". Meanwhile, we ACTUALLY CAN!!! See where this is going? We're AVOIDING a movement that we DON'T NEED TO AVOID!! Yikes!

The EGO is a massive part of this equation. If we need assistance getting up from the floor from a couch, chair, bench etc... we'd rather AVOID it entirely than "be seen using a modification". Yet THAT MODIFICATION ALLOWS your body to get up and down from the floor;

...Which means it allows your joints to move through greater ranges of motion.

...Which means your tissues are moving in different ways from the pressure of sitting, kneeling, lying on the floor.

...Which means you're moving your body into positions it's inately familiar with since we evolved living ON THE GROUND.

... Which means you're exercising muscles to build strength and ability to get up and down more efficiently each time you do it.

... Which means OVER TIME, you'll probably NO LONGER NEED the modification!!

We RARELY allow our body to move through the range of motion we need to be at the level of the ground, thanks to chairs, couches, beds etc. Our body adapts to this decreased range BECAUSE we don't USE IT often enough.

I cringe when I think of how many of us are avoiding something that we CAN DO. Sure, maybe we "can't do it like we used to". But we need to ask ourselves, how OFTEN we practice it in our days?? Chances are you're "less able" to get up and down from the floor because as adults we STOP GETTING DOWN TO THAT LEVEL each day. Whereas when we're younger, it was just something we did... ALL THE TIME!

It never gets old to me, when someone comes to see me for Coaching and we can VERY QUICKLY provide an "I CAN DO IT!" moment for a client, who for months, years or more has been telling themselves the story that they "CAN'T". It's funny when they actually get up (assisted or not) and you can clearly SEE that look on their face that says "OH! I CAN."

When we think we're STUCK, it's quite often our own MINDSET and internal stories that are holding us back rather than our actual ability. Sometimes we just need that voice and support to say "TRY" and to help us prove to ourselves, safely, that we CAN DO so much more than we think!!