There is More than One Way to Grow
Season change is upon us again and, as we welcome spring, it is a reminder of the constantly shifting tides of nature. When we think of growth in our own lives we often think of the big bang moments—getting our driver’s license, graduating, getting married, bringing a new baby home—but a lot of these moments are the culmination of smaller work over time.
During the pandemic so many changes felt huge—spending holidays at home, forgoing travel, trading the office for your kitchen table, adjusting school schedules—but subtle changes in our thinking and behavior also took place. As the world opens back up, your own personal shifts may become even more evident. How you spend time and who you see may look drastically different than they did a few years ago.
The same is true for the work that we do in healthcare. Often it is subtle change over time that results in lasting improvement. The work we do in our in-person treatments may have immediate effect, but the most life-changing shifts happen when a patient embraces what we discover together and uses that information to change daily habits and foster better health overall.
A beautiful article in this month’s Esquire called “A Little Help” by Andrew Ti referenced his own experience with physical therapy and it really rang true for me about the work we do at Root to Rise. Of rehabbing after a knee injury, he wrote, “Months of tiny, unnoticeable steps, where you feel as though nothing could be happening, work.”
Putting in the time to do the exercises, press the acupressure point, and change your breathing really do add up. At first it may seem you had improvement for a second, or a minute, but then over time real improvement happens. The pain isn’t so present, or your movement feels more fluid.
As the budding flowers grab our attention in the next few months, I will remember that the most beautiful work happens under the surface. It was daily nourishment over a long period that allowed those flowers to finally break through. As every gardener knows, you can’t rush it, but the results are breathtaking.
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1. Ti, Andrew, "A Little Help" Esquire, April/May2021, page 54.
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