Say YES to Your Feet!

I Just Learned To Do This The Hard Way! Feet

Yep! I’m talking about feet this month. Of course, this would hold for any part of your body and for your body’s health. I think I’ve already spoken about the way I take better care of my body when I think of it as something I own, like a car, rather than thinking of it as who I am. I’m bringing this up because I just experienced what seems to me to be one of the weirdest experiences I’ve had.

I guide people to design their own path to attain and maintain their optimum weight and fitness. For me to allow this to happen would have been unthinkable to me.  The whole injury is wild! I can’t even believe that I’m talking about an actual injury. I’m writing about this because it could happen to you too.  If I can do anything to help you avoid what happened to me, I’ll be a happy kid.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m still happy and I produced a new “open mic” afternoon and gave a color/style workshop, etc. etc.  However, I didn’t need to have this happen to my great “car”!

Okay, what happened?  I was Ms. Good Girl again and checked the rubber heels and soles on my nice looking, but healthily designed “orthotic holding” sandals”.  I saw that they could use some refurbishing so I brought them to the shoe store I go to that, actually, has a podiatrist on site to have them resoled and heeled.  I’ll add that I have my orthotics made at this store. I think you can get that I care about my body.  I like to treat it like an expensive first class car. I like to keep it in good shape and be sure everything is running smoothly.

I had another pair of the same design of sandals at home and these were in great shape, but – they were black…and… I was wearing light-colored clothing that day!  I dress according to my numerology, as much as I can.  It insures I get the vibrations from the different colors on my body over a nine-day period – plus it looks as though I’m always wearing something different when, in truth I’m wearing, pretty much, the same thing once every nine days.  I’m sure that by now I’ve told you that I’m also an image consultant.  Could I walk out in a light-colored outfit wearing black shoes? I had a pair of older sandals from this store.  I figured that one or two days in them couldn’t hurt me. Whew – was I ever wrong.  I’d forgotten that the last time I wore them, some months ago, they were causing my feet to be in a less than comfortable position.  That morning I walked to the shoe store.  It’s a little over a mile there and back. Many of us, New Yorker’s are walkers.  One of the wonderful things about being in this city is that you can walk for miles and not even realize you’ve walked far. There’s a real “street life”.  I did sense a bit of pain from the shoe pressing on the top of my left foot.  When I got home I didn’t change shoes because I was meeting a fellow for an afternoon activity.  We walked quite a bit and the pain really intensified. I finally did say we’d best take a bus.

When I got home that evening my foot was quite swollen.  I got angry with myself for allowing that to happen to my poor foot!  I figured the swelling would go down by the morning.  It didn’t. I waited another day and then called my podiatrist to check it “just in case”. He took an X-Ray. This surprised me.  I didn’t think it would call for an X-Ray!  Lo and Behold the X-Ray showed that I had (have) a stress fracture from the shoe.  I didn’t fall.  I didn’t twist my foot.  It was merely the shoe pressing down because the heels were worn on one side, which threw my foot into the wrong position.

Why am I telling you this whole story?  I’m telling you this story so that you shouldn’t do what I did and say NO to your own body.  Even if you have to miss the movie you and your hot new date were clamoring to see.  Say YES to any part of your body that’s hurting and if it’s a foot  – go home and change the shoe.  Your date will still be there for you, if he’s a good date for you.  By the way, this advice also applies to men.  You don’t have to allow any pain to last – if it’s caused by something you can remove – just to keep a date or any event running smoothly. Say YES to you!!!!

By the way, I wrote this column just before Sandy took center stage in New York City.  Sandy is why I posted late.  My lights just came back on a week after the storm visited. Water Skiing down 36th Street in a medical support boot was interesting.  I’ll write more about that in my next column.  There was lots of need for “saying yes to you” going on during Sandy.