2/15/26 – Imposter Syndrome – Pushing thru my heels!
Waking up, feeling and breathing into my lower left abdominal region is really interesting! Last night I noticed how tight that area was, yet I was still able to breathe into it, and kinda get that area to relax! I need to work more on this! I put my own hand down there, and tried to do the breath of light exercises, breathing deeply into my lower left region!
It’s also interesting how much I’m able to get done when I’m not drinking! It sure does have its time and place!
Thinking about tonic activation, and realizing I’m going to need to get my legs to be “ON” for a large portion of the day?…. As in, during my waking hours, I need my legs to be on, either inhibitory or excitatory, for 16hrs.. let’s mess around with that today!
So I’m doing some Breath of Light breathing, with my right hand covering my left abdomen, and also assisting on the exhale. I can feel how the spasm in my hip flexor is trying to pull during my exhale, but I need it to relax, and my glute engage and extend my hip?! I can feel how this area needs this work, I’m slowly working it, with each breath. Seems to be helping!
I had a conversation last night with a friend, about imposter syndrome, and never feeling like we are doing enough. I feel like I too, fall victim to this trap as well. It sucks. We all can fall in this trap. I guess that’s why I try doing a little bit every day, to help keep forward progress. It’s not always easy but I’ve found for me, the consistency in my work really helps! So that’s really all the advice I could give him, because it’s a real feeling! It stinks. But I know that with working each day, it compounds, and seems to be adding up over time!
AM I PUSHING THRU THE BALLS OF MY FEET!?! I am feeling thru the balls of my feet all of a sudden while I was trying to get into the shower!! This feels so cool! This is incredible!
Made it to the heavy bag! Each hit I’m feeling more and more!
Made it in the standing frame + spinal stim! This was great because I was really focusing on shoulder and scapular movement! I was doing my Pilates series with 1 pound weights, trying to do some hug trying to do a little routine that recess me do and honestly, I was pairing it with my breath, and it was feeling tremendous!
Made it in the Exo too! Lots of good course correction! Callie said less than 5% help!! Deep low grunts/sounds/ exhales to keep my gut at bay??
2/16/26 – Helms Deep & Appetite for Learning
Okay so I think I’m getting this lower left abdomen in check! Doing some deep diaphragmatic breathing into my low abdomen, holding, and pulsing in. The breath of light exercises is really helping me relieve some tension in the lower left abdomen, and get my hip in extension better!
The breath pattern I was doing while walking in the Exo was wild! Deep, low, exhales with each step! I sounded like an Orc going into battle at Helm’s Deep! Low slow and steady! It was crazy because these low sounds really helped me engage something in my abdomen, and get my body in extension better and better! Also Callie had a good course correction! I wasn’t pushing and falling forward enough to keep myself up and moving! And so as soon as I did that in the Exo, she said she reduced her help to less than 5%?!
Lately I’m charging up my lower legs, and have had a ton of activation! And so much of my feet, I’ve really been thinking about my heel and in the ball in my feet and sensation has really skyrocketed! Shoulders and back are feeling engaged and my back and my lower abdomen is really feeling a ton of engagement! That deep breathing in to my lower left side really is making a huge difference! Also as of yesterday too, I feel like I was able to notice some of the sweating in my low back! Which is wild!
I’ve really been focusing and working my left glute. During this breath of light breathing exercises, I am really focusing on inhaling deeply into my lower left, abdomen, and focusing on squeezing my left glute. I pretty much focus on that the whole time while it was up in the heavy bag yesterday too.
I find it interesting that I seem to have this insatiable desire to start new things, such as books. I made it a goal this year to try and finish some of them. (Makes me laugh). I find it interesting, I guess there’s just so much to learn, so many patterns to make and connect, it just seems like there’s more out there I can use and find out about, to help me make better connections here in my life? It seems?
2/17/26 – The Doldrums
Yeah . Another day I’ve been dehydrated all night. I feel like junk. What a way to live. I’m not exactly thrilled to be waking up like this. Not exactly thrilled to have to slog my way thru the doldrums.
I’ll have to read that book again, The Phantom Tollbooth. I’ve always liked that one.
I can’t help but think about the braces yesterday, and water. I got EXTREMELY dehydrated after using them, and I didn’t even know it? Why does this happen? What’s the mechanism behind this? Because to me, it almost sounds like I’m rehydrating EVERYTHING. My fascia, soft tissue, muscles, everything when I put them on. Almost like I need to be drinking a TON more water while using them?
I even had the thought yesterday, “why do they always keep the ankles braced, when there aren’t any muscles connected to the ankle?” Because if it’s just tendons, and they act passively, why would we need something for that? Almost like there is more going on with hydration, tendons, and these injuries than people let on? Or know? Or maybe I just need to learn more about? Not sure?
6/18/26 – Exo Work & Upright
So as I’m trying to do my breath of light breathing training, I notice something as soon as I awake. I realize that my muscles in my abdomen are going the reverse of what I’m actually trying to do? I’m trying to relax on the exhale, and contract on the inhale. So when I put my hand down there, I feel my abdomen being tight when I’m exhaling, and it softened during the exhale??? What is up with that?
I continued to breath in and out, and I notice I was able to slowly try to switch it!? My muscles were easing on the exhale, and slowly trying to contract on the inhale!
It’s wild how much sleep I needed, Tuesday definitely needed to be a rest day. I was cooked. I got home from work, ate a quick dinner, and started to get ready for bed. I fell asleep before Cal was even able to turn something on the TV to watch!?
Crazy.
My legs this morning are feeling a lot better than yesterday morning, thankfully! It’s so interesting too, later in the day yesterday I was feeling a coolness about my legs, and right now my lower legs are feeling a certain fullness, like bark of wood on an oak or maple, below my knees.
So interesting too, is how when I take the fullest breath possible thru my abdomen, my left hip flexor spasms. But as I’ve been working that area more and more with a breath, it’s getting more and more tame? So odd, I’ll have to continue to work my diaphragm more and more throughout the day!
Did the Heavy Bag + Walking combo! Went really well! It’s interesting when I got up in the standing frame, on the inhale in tight, and exhale my muscles are slack? What’s up with that?
I did some fun / new / different work in the Exo! I was trying to hug and hold Cal without using the braces, and BOY was it hard! My back felt like it was activating in ways I have to felt to date! And boy did I sure feel tight in those areas as well!
Absolutely cooked, need some rest.
2/19/26 – All Mixed Up
So I think it’s interesting how my legs respond after getting up in the Exo? Almost like I need to do it more? Also weird too, how during the inhale, in my abdomen, I’m tight, but on the exhale, my muscles don’t feel like they are contracting much? Almost like they’re doing the opposite for which they should? Also I noticed how doing cardio at different times of the day, my heart rate can be a lot higher, like at 4pm, and then in the morning, it’s hard to get it up at all? Like my body is doing the opposite for what I’m feeling?
To build off this too, I felt like what I had to do was go number two, but when I checked, I didn’t? And then when up in the Exo, tight during the inhale, slack during the exhale? My body is all mixed up??? Why is this?! Is this all part of me reconfiguring my autonomic nervous system? Because it’s confusing as heck.
I’m noticing how interesting the deep diaphragmatic inhale down low, and then contract during the exhale is going! I can feel how it’s helping, but boy is it a weird feeling as well?!
I can feel more sensation in my feet, more activation in my hips down into my legs! It’s so wild how a week goes by, and I’m like, “oh shoot I forgot to do _____!” So crazy. Hard to fit it all in!
It’s been hard getting caught back up on sleep, but I think we are getting somewhere! We worked on the braces on Tuesday, I think we are getting them pretty dang close! It was crazy how much better my body responded to them when I was up in them after the knee centerline adjustment, I was too anterior for the braces, and we adjusted them to bring me back posteriorly, more close in line with the actual pivot and it made my left leg that much more stable!
I’ll keep working on this lower left abdominal breathing, I can feel how it’s helping me connect with my left leg better, so I’ll have to continue these breathing exercises!
Braces have been updated! Heck yeah thank you Elliot!! Dang, what a job, I’m honestly glad to have friends like that. Seriously.
My body has been getting completely wiped out each day. I’m trying really hard to drink enough water at the ends of the days. It’s interesting how different and full my legs feel right now, and I’m almost wondering if the water content makes any difference with this feeling? Because it’s almost like my entire body is spasming and reacting a lot less because of that?
So here I lay, on my back. Trying to let my body relax. I can feel parts of my body letting go, other parts wanting to resist, and another part of my legs that are so ever full with sensation, it’s honestly so wild I can’t believe how much activation my legs have gotten at almost 8pm.
Why does this have to be so hard? This existence? I know I’m doing a lot, but it’s so hard how much my body is unable to bounce back or recover / recoup. It’s not fun.
I’m gonna have to let my body get some rest. Hopefully my mind too. Hopefully that it’s more than a 🤷♂️20% of the nights
2/20/26
So what’s interesting is how significant the sensations are today and this morning!
My legs have such an increase in fullness, this is pretty incredible! My right leg is really feeling so much more present and there! I’m really excited to try the new brace modifications this weekend!
Hopefully I’m getting enough rest, it seems as though I can never quite get enough. Which is hard. This past night was a hard time.
I noticed how difficult it is to engage my right obliques? At the same time though, I’m noticing so much more glute engagement! Also it feels like my lower left abdomen is getting less reactive too? (Maybe just a bit?)
My outside of both of my legs are feeling huge? That’s the first word that comes to my mind because there’s so much engagement going on the outside?! My obliques and my sides connecting from my lats down to my pelvis are feeling more and more connected! I was really focusing on that area last night/yesterday while on the reformer! I was really focusing on squeezing and shrugging my shoulders down and using that to start the initiation of leg extension!
Really interesting. Everything is feeling more and more connected?! Especially my glue down to my leg! I can really feel my whole back down my spine engaging, and then into my glutes?! And I’m also feeling my lower left abdomen kinda settling in? This is pretty pretty interesting! I think that’s what it is my Lats going all the way from my upper back down into my lower back!
2/21 – Alone on The Wall
Interoception. That word, came up in some of my research yesterday and I was thinking about that this morning when I woke up! It’s interesting because I haven’t used that word before, trying to describe my body. It’s fascinating all the worlds we can use to try to better describe what’s going on inside this crazy body of ours.
What’s interesting as I was reading “Alone On The Wall”, I am reading about how Alex Honnold has a huge list of climbers throughout history that he could name, reference, and look up to. I thought to myself, “who do I look up to who got back walking after an SCI?” And I guess my list wasn’t that long after all. It wasn’t a large list read like Alex’s, that’s forsure. I read a few books early after my accident, Marcus Aurelius Anderson’s The Gift of Diversity, and then another, Jim Linnell’s Take it Lying Down, where I was able to pull some inspiration from. I guess they were good reads kinda at the time, but it was tough comparing.
But the first wasn’t exactly much of an injury, and the 2nd he had a larger amount of resources early on too, so I wasn’t able to relate very much. I guess that’s where I always struggled. My situation was worse than what I was reading about. Which sucked.
But then as I was taking a break from reading, I asked the AI to find me some examples of folks who got back walking or who were successful after SCI, and this new name showed up. Her name, is Janine Shepherd. I was (and am) honestly in awe with the fact I never found her story before today. It’s honestly kinda amazing because this gal persevered on years after her accident! Which is what I’m trying to do?!
It’s hard when we will in a world of constant comparison. It’s all from an early age too. What grades we get. What’s your SAT/ ACT score? What car do you have? What house do you live in? The list of comparisons in our capitalistic world seems to be endless. It’s always hard because there’s comparisons in so many ways in the world around us. But an accident, something that happens TO you, is very different. We don’t get to “pick” what happens to us. We only get to decide where we go with the situations for which we’re in.
I really struggle with that, a lot of times. There’s only so much all of us can do in any given day. It’s not humanly possible to fit more work than you can physically do in your 16-20yrs awake. There’s only so much.
This fact too, doesn’t always comfort me though. But it’s real. It’s reality. So we can’t get hung up on what we can’t change, only what we can.
I have hard days and good days, good nights of rest, and terrible nights. There’s such a dichotomy of it all, it doesn’t even all seem real sometimes. But we keep going. Whether I know it our not, I’m doing something. I don’t know what it is. Just working hard everyday. It seems to help. Instead of lying down and taking what I was given, I’m trying. And that’s sometimes all we can do.
The Astronaut on Earth 
Leave a comment