How Limitations Can Free You (After Breaking Your Heart First)

How energy mismanagement & recurrent rhabdomyolysis brought me to accord

Me on my first century ride. (Photo courtesy of a friend.)

When I first started seeing my primary integrative doctor, he promised the moon. Or rather, tried to.

Some doctors have this habit of making promises. Some do it from a place of ego (“You’ve been sick for how many years?? ABSURD. Well, you just hadn’t met me yet. I will heal you.”) and others do it from a misguided place of attempting to build hope. They think if you genuinely believe you can be cured, you’re more likely to do what you need to do for that curing. As belief usually determines actions.

Hope can be dangerous, though. Build your expectations too high and you fly too close to the sun/that promised moon. When your wings inevitably melt and you plummet back down to reality, sometimes the fall leaves you off far more hopeless than where you started. A smidgen of hope inspires you to inform your actions in a supportive direction; too much is more often than not a dangerous, false idol.

I know the importance of hope, but also these threats of it. Thus I’m in the habit of holding it with kid gloves.

So when my doctor promised the moon, i.e., “Don’t worry, I’ll have you back to doing triathlons by next year,” I…