ADHESIONS

ADHESIONS

As I walked into the department of physiotherapy to check on a particular patient’s progress yesterday, I was overwhelmed. The whole place was filled mostly with my post-operative patients. Smiles and pleasantries were exchanged with many. Some thanked me for the surgery others informed me about their progress but amidst all this I was being overwhelmed by something else.

An entire hall sized room filled with people on walkers, sticks and crutches struggling to regain their lost range of motion across the operated joints. Struggling to regain their pre-operative agility, aided by various modalities of physiotherapy.

“My god I did this to them ……” I felt it in a rather apologetic fashion instead of a resplendent or conceited manner.

As an orthopedic surgeon trauma surgeries comprise a bulk of my surgical routine……smashed knees,crushed shoulders, extremities that need reconstruction etc are a part of a daily routine. Once operated the patient needs to undergo “Immobilization” of the operated part to allow it to heal adequately and appropriately.

“Immobilization” is a precarious friend. Too less of it and you would end up in a re-fracture, too much of it and one ends up in an almost intractable stiffness.
It is a necessity, but one that needs to be precisely calibrated.

Something deep within was seeing me as responsible for the struggles of these patients too, but in a very impersonal fashion.

True they required the surgeries, true that if it were not for the surgery they would have lost the function of that limb for life, true that post surgical immobilization is a must for adequate healing and very true that this process would always lead to stiffness across the immobilized joint but all this was pointing me to something deep within.

The body is a dynamic process it responds to your repeated needs and can raise or diminish its functional capacity as per your basal demands.
That is to say that it’s the same human body when subjected to repeated basal stress of gym exercises day in and day out that transforms itself into a professional body builder and it is the same human body shielded from all stresses that becomes a couch potato.
Similarly when subjected to immobilization for a prolonged period the joint accepts a particular position as itself and develops “Adhesions” to stay that way, losing its flexible range of motion. It is as if a continuously repeated or practiced position (immobilization) makes the joint forget its capacity for the range of motion.

But something deeper was occupying my concern, I wondered if so evident was the case with the gross body what would be the scenario with the fine mind.

Theoretically it should stiffen much quicker and return to normalcy rapidly too because of its subtle nature.

And upon pondering it was found to be true.

As children we all had conceived a world of all possibilities, none of us had dreamt mediocrity and a life wasted just to earn the daily bread. As children none of us had imagined boredom and jadedness. As children we had pictured a life of an endlessly fulfilling adventure. We may not have exactly known how but we knew it would be so.
But that pluripotent (an immature {cell or stem cell} state capable of giving rise to several different {cell} types of state) state requires differentiation into a particular state for its complete flowering and expression and that demands a prolonged immobilization in a particular position.

That is becoming an Architect, Fashion designer, Engineer, Lawyer, Doctor, Business professional etc demands being with this particular discipline of interest for a prolonged period. Being immobilized (psychologically) in a particular field by attending a particular college, pursuing a particular course.

Then there is immobilization in certain labeled social and emotional roles like boss and subordinate, father and son/daughter, mother and son/daughter, brother and sister, friend of so and so’s, Foe of so and so’s etc……… And before we know it ……..
“Psychological Adhesions”……

We get stiffly fastened and rigidly immobilized within the confines of our role plays.

This is what we term as our comfort zone which in reality is actually nothing but a Discomfort zone.

What can be comfortable about a car that doesn’t move, a ship that doesn’t sail, a plane that doesn’t fly and a life that doesn’t overflow with enthusiasm for this moment and a joyfully restful anticipation of the moments to come.

But let us not rush to blame the society for what it has done to us for that would be like me blaming myself for the stiffness of these patients.
All of us need to be immobilized into certain disciplines and roles for a while in order to gain proficiency in certain areas of life, to be the experts at this, that and the other. And this like fracture treatment is bound to create a certain amount of “psychological stiffness” within us. But we need not continue to bear with this contracted “psychological stiffness” of ours.
Just like a post-operative immobilization patient feels the discomfort in going about his daily routine due to his stiff joints. We too experience emotional claustrophobia as we move about in our lives on a day to day basis. But instead of challenging these “Psychological Adhesions” (stiff psychological stand points, beliefs and role plays), like the fracture rehabilitation patient does with physiotherapy, we try to accustom our lives alongside and around this disabling psychological stiffness.

A sense of anxiety about future, regret about past, listlessness about the present all these and a myriad more shades of jaded emotions remind us of our discomfort arising out of our own psychological adhesions and stiffness.

We need the rehabilitation of psychological physiotherapy to break all our psychological adhesions and restore our full range of psychological motion.

Anything would do……. listening to a soothing piece of music one loves, travelling, painting, hiking, writing, praying, running , dancing , kayaking, Meditating or just sitting silently and enjoying a sunrise or sunset …………

Anything that does not require of you to be the YOU that you have come to believe that you are.

Anything that keeps your identity away and connects you to your own wordless presence.

The you beyond all labels, the you beyond even the concept of you, the you that is effortlessly present in spite and despite your psychological attention, inattention or contemplation.

The technique of being connected with this aspect of yourself is the real religion; the practice of repeatedly reaching that place is true spirituality; the experience of that wordless place is God.