Sometimes life physically delivers you a gut punch and knocks you down so hard that you wonder if you will ever again be able to get back up. I can relate to this phenomenon. Recently I had a crash while riding on my mountain bike in Buena Vista Colorado. What started out as a perfect day on a relaxing getaway weekend in my favorite mountain town complete with world class picturesque vistas, became what felt like an infirmed imprisonment that seemed to never end.
It all started while riding on my favorite trail combination. I felt the joy and ease that I always get when spending time exerting myself physically in the outdoors particularly on my Marin B-17-1 mountain bike. My route, North Loop to Country Road 304 up to Sausage Links then on to Bacon Bits where it then connects to the Midland Single-Track Trail then back to start. This has become a church like ritual on virtually every visit I make to visit my wife Trudi’s sister Terri and her beau Joe in this beautiful mountain town. The combination of high intensity cardio, technical challenges and the surrounding natural beauty is simply intoxicating. I plug in spiritually in a way that few other activities including my daily meditations can match.
When you are blessed enough to take on any task or activity that roots you so supremely in the present, you are able to dwell in a place of joy and fulfillment. Your experience of life in these moments just naturally places you mentally and emotionally in a place where your guard is down. This presence heightens your ability to draw the full enjoyment out of life. Perhaps unfortunately, this putting your guard down also puts you in a place where you cannot even imagine the looming tragedy that a single moment in time can bring. And how a single split-second event can turn your entire life upside down.
I’m sure many souls have experienced this very type of moment and went from the enjoyment of a satisfying life to the un-negotiable finality of death or a life altering injury. I am fortunate in this sense, to be here sharing my experience with you, after a full recovery, with a renewed vibrancy and appreciation for life and a sense of value for what every cherished second and every breath holds for each of us.
One moment I was riding along soaking in the splendor of natural beauty surrounding me, the next I was hurtling through the air before instantly crashing my body, rib cage first into a boulder jutting out from the right side of the trail. I immediately felt a surge of pain in my chest cavity. Playing sports my entire life I had certainly been hit hard enough to have the wind knocked out of me but on this occasion it just seemed to feel slightly different.
I lay there sprawled out across the trail noticing my bike laying on its side next to me. I was trying to determine if the forceful thud I felt against my chest caused any internal damage. I was conscious, I was breathing, I could move all extremities. So there, time to get up and finish this glorious ride. The final four-mile trek back to my car was challenging. Every uphill climb caused intense pain in my chest and forced me to walk. This was true of all of the remaining ten or so uphill portions. Luckily, I only had four miles left of this thirteen-mile ride and the majority of the miles that remained were downhill.
I made the one-mile trek back to the dirt road which was a blessing since that meant two miles of gradual downhill. Which only left The South Loop Trail, which was a steep, winding and fairly technical stretch with an assortment of rocks, boulders and hairpin turns. Every tight turn and every sharp bump against my front shocks sent a wave of pain through my lungs that felt like being jabbed with a skewer in the side of my chest. I reached the bottom of the trail and was close enough to feel confident I could make it back to my car. When I crossed the bridge across the Arkansas River which signaled the end of my ride I arrived in the parking lot and much to my surprise, I saw an ambulance, which I now realize was a sign of my upcoming fate.
By now I had a mix of fatigue, throbbing pain in my chest and relief that I had at least made it back to my car. I still didn’t realize the damage I had done internally. I hoped that this was simply a bad bruise that would dissipate over the next few hours like so some many injuries suffered by outdoors enthusiast do.
I made the five-minute drive back to my sister-in-law Terri’s. After a bowl of her delicious gazpacho while recounting the details of my crash, I noticed that my condition was in fact getting worse not better. It was decided that I go to urgent care.
My trip to urgent care was straight forward. Stethoscope to the chest and back, oximeter reading of 85. “You need to get to the ER in Salida, NOW! If you can’t get there quick, I’ll call an ambulance!” My sister-in law Terri drove the 26 miles to the hospital emergency room in Salida and there my odyssey continued for ten-days in the hospital connected to something called a ThoraSeal device in an attempt to correct my collapsed right lung caused in part from the two fractured ribs I endured during my crash.
I’m going to end the blow-by-blow description of my seeming ordeal right here. The only thing I’ll add is that upon release my attending surgeon told me that I could not lift more than fifteen pounds or do any strenuous activity for at least six-weeks. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…
For those that don’t know, I live a pretty active lifestyle. I’m a personal trainer, I work out regularly and in at least a couple workouts per week I bench press between 165 and 185 pounds along with leg pressing 225 – 305 pounds. This “don’t lift more than fifteen pounds for six-weeks” stuff was not sitting well with my psyche. Especially after laying around in a hospital bed for ten-days eating three-square meals then laying around some more.
I have a chapter in my upcoming book, 29 Degrees – How to Live a Life Filled With Inner Peace, Joy and Purpose Regardless Of Circumstances that I was forced to re-read and apply to myself.
In Chapter 6 – Our Physical Bodies, I reflect on other times in my life when I have been forced by an injury or illness to slow down, limit or stop my normal activities to rest and recuperate. It is an opportunity to slow down and focus on my health which is generally excellent. Also, these times allow me to focus on what I really find most important in my life. My family, my interest and my mission to help people live more peaceful, healthy and fulfilling lives.
And speaking of family, this occurrence blessed me with a laser clear focus of all of the love I have from every one of my children, my brother, my cousins, my nieces, my dear friends, my clients and most of all reaffirmed perhaps the smartest and most important decision I have ever made in my life and that is to marry my beautiful wife Trudi.
What also came into an acutely sharp focus was how incredibly full and blessed my life is. Whether I was out on a beautiful ride on a bright, shinny summer day or laid up in a hospital bed, with tubes of all sorts protruding from my body the most important aspect of my life came into full bore and that is, all of the wonderful people my life contains and how much they cared for and were there for me when I most needed them. That would not have been possible if not for my fateful crash.
I could have taken on a victim mentality and began to blame others or God for my accident. But my view is that blame is not needed only credit and gratitude for the opportunity that I was given to reflect and refocus the lens I had for my life. Also, my ability to adjust my priorities and go deeper into my core values and again refocus the rest of my life to reflect these core values of freedom, adventure, inner peace, growth, purpose, love, creativity and self – actualization.
If the activities of my day to day existence aren’t a reflection of these attributes in action what is the point of living? For me there isn’t any. This realization was one of the blessings of my crash and ensuing protracted hospital visit. How could I view this malady as anything other than yet another blessing from The Divine?
The point of all of this is to remember like my upcoming book title suggest, that all circumstances have the ability to point us to The Divine. To help us deepen or resolve to better ourselves and thus better our surroundings, our communities and our world. Inner peace always begins with mindset and a change of mind leads us to the most impactful change affecting all of these, a change of heart and the focus on the positive in any situation that can inspire us to find the treasure of the positive if not the peace within us all.
Eric
