Turning Injury into Opportunity

By Lisa Cedrone

The universe has an incredible content delivery platform to catch our attention and deliver important messages exactly when we need them most. It’s called synchronicity—those meaningful coincidences that have no apparent causality here on the Earth plane.
This issue of Transformation provided the perfect example of how this works in my world. When I began editing the articles for this month, the universe seemed to magically deliver up the perfect messages from our authors to help me understand the bigger picture surrounding a recent injury and the long recovery that now faces me.

The Injury

Last spring I started jogging again after a yearlong hiatus. A struggle with hypothyroidism had zapped my energy and, after working through a natural supplement-based protocol, I was finally feeling enough spunk to put on my running shoes and ease back into my favorite moving meditation. Then I stepped it up a notch in July and decided to join a half marathon training group with friends. Six weeks into the program, I was on a nine-mile run and the top of my right foot started to hurt. At mile seven the pain became unbearable; I had to stop and then hobble back to the running store where the group meets.

Three days later I was at the podiatrist looking at an x-ray of my foot. The second metatarsal bone, which runs along the middle of the foot, was fractured. I had just struggled through a weekend in bed icing the injury, and I broke down in tears at the news that either a) I was going to have to wear a medical boot for four to six weeks to let the stress fracture heal or b) undergo foot surgery to correct the root problem and spend a total of almost eight weeks in the boot and three months sans exercise.

I also had just spent more than five months undergoing Rolfing therapy to help correct a lifelong problem with my right hip and improve my running form. Of all the bodywork modalities I have used, nothing has been more effective in correcting physical problems than Rolfing, or Structural Integration, which improves the structural foundation and overall balance of the body through the manipulation of the soft tissue, or fascia.

Over time, I learned, the fascia molds to misalignments and keeps them in place, and that’s what was going on with my hip. Although I would go to the chiropractor and get adjustments and work through injuries with physical therapy and massage, I continuously struggled with the alignment of my leg. It was quite apparent from the mismatched wear patterns on my running shoes and the large bunion that formed on my right foot.

I had been putting off bunion surgery for years because of the long recovery, but I knew that it was the best option to improve my long-term odds of not re-injuring my foot. So I scheduled the surgery for two weeks out and trudged back home with the boot.
It just didn’t seem fair, I lamented. I had worked so hard to get back into something I love, and now I was going to be back at “ground zero.” So I threw myself a pity party but, thankfully, it didn’t last too long. After I allowed the negative emotions to flow for a few hours, I made a firm decision to re-frame the situation. I then spent quality time getting quiet and meditating on what had happened.

The Healing Journey

I was born with a right femur that did not sit correctly in my hip cradle. I had brace-like shoes as a young child, with big square soles, but they didn’t help much. I can still hear my mother say, “Turn your foot in,” over and over in my mind. It drove me crazy as a kid. Much later, in my early 40s, past-life regression work revealed that my right hip had karma attached to it that had migrated into this life.

After the fracture was diagnosed and I was able to shift out of victim mode, I realized that the injury actually was a direct result of healing—a paradox, for sure—but I now had the opportunity to address the karmic undercurrents at deeper levels of consciousness based on my spiritual practices.

In plain, non-woo-woo English: After I started the Rolfing, I purchased new running shoes and I was thrilled that the wear pattern was almost identical on both feet after a few months. Moreover, my chronic lower back pain released and I began to work on all the counterbalance problems the hip had created, such as muscle adhesions in my hamstrings and quads. I was making excellent progress; however, I didn’t realize that my right foot bones had shifted over almost 50 years to compensate for the hip problem, so when my gait corrected the metatarsal bones were not oriented to support my leg. Hence, a fracture…Ouch!

The Confirmation

Once I realized the injury was actually an opportunity to progress (vs. regress) on my healing journey, I decided that the fracture was confirmation that I was finally addressing the root problem in my hip. Moreover, I had intense emotional releases after several Rolfing sessions, and it became apparent that my soft tissue held memories—in this case traumatic—similar to how memories are stored holographically throughout the brain. The emotional charges associated with those memories were now releasing from this life and other incarnations. No doubt, it was definitely time to have the foot bones fixed in the process of transmuting this karma.

And just to make sure I got the message loud and clear, the universe arranged it so that many of the articles in this month’s issue of Transformation gave me chills—what many call “God bumps”—when I worked my way through the editing. It was as if our authors were speaking directly to me, providing support to keep me pushing forward on my own journey of self-discovery. Let me share just a few:

Kumari writes in “Your Divine & Human Upgrade:”
“I am also noticing many of my clients having extreme physical challenges of all sorts recently…Our physicality needs a major upgrade and reboot to hold the higher frequencies of love, compassion, patience, joy and peace more fully.”

Terez Hartmann related in “From Victimhood to LIVELY-hood: A Journey of BEING Well:”
“By choosing to shift my focus from victimhood to LIVELY-hood by doing whatever it took to be in a place of receptivity, I began to open myself up to solutions and possibilities and move from utter misery and physical pain to feeling clear, energized and alive…”

In “Are You Using Your Real Superpower?” Rev. Marla Sanderson says:
“You can take charge of your thoughts and keep them positive. You can make your ‘self-talk’ supportive and uplifting. Once you get the habit, there’s only one thing left between you and happiness…You have to be willing to do it.”

Steve Preister shares in “The Mountain:”
“The quiet mind knows that peace is found in acceptance, not resistance.”

Sometimes we get the words of wisdom we need, just when we need them—and we don’t even need to type a keyword in Google!

Lisa Cedrone is the editor of Transformation Magazine and a freelance editor, writer, and graphic designer working primarily in the spiritual and alternative healing communities. Prior to establishing her Sarasota, FL-based freelance business in 2008, Lisa spent 20 years as an editor/editor-in-chief for two of the Top 10 business-to-business publishers in the United States, serving the apparel manufacturing and residential construction/building markets. Her company, DragonFly Nation, offers a wide range of creative services, with an emphasis on cost-effective, turnkey editorial and design projects for both print and web. Contact her at lisa@suncoasttransformation.com or visit DragonFlyNation.com.

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