A special edition letter shared live on an episode of the Stronger Stride podcast.

Listen here to hear the letter in Lydia’s words.

Dear Lydia

You’ve just gotten injured. And it doesn’t seem that bad, but it’s gonna be a long fucking road. It’s gonna get A LOT worse before it gets better. Like A LOT. There will be no answers and dead ends. Poor advice and off the mark condolences. But the thing is you’re good at being injured. You’ve done this so many times before. You’re a fucking pro at cross training and taking up new sports and hobbies. And I know you’re excited to do the same again this time. Please please remember that you actually have a lot of knowledge and you TRULY do know your body best. Everyone will try and give you advice that’s unhelpful. Try to make you feel bad for being too ‘type A’. But remember that you learnt those lessons YONKS ago. That was a very old version of Lydia. And where you are at now in life is a place of balance, knowledge and kindness to your body. You’ve done so much work in this space, don’t let people try to convince you otherwise with their projections. You can lean into your intuition. Which isn’t something you’ve had enough practice at, but it’s time. and don’t take vague ‘just wait it out’ answers as a test of patience. You KNOW YOUR BODY. This isn’t right or normal and don’t let people try to convince you that you’re being impatient. Patience is something you are good at and I know you want to flex this skill. As well as your ability to shift and adapt to new activities. But you need to trust yourself on this one, you’ve learnt those lessons and now you get to lean into who you’ve become. There is much more about to happen, completely separate to your injury, and once again, during this difficult life circumstance you will be without the tool of exercise for emotional regulation. Without the tool of a face to face support network. Every medical professional will tell you they aren’t sure and to just wait it out. You won’t have anyone to talk to about it. You’ll feel so disconnected from both yourself and the world. . Remember all the work you did many years ago creating a practice of gratitude? Yeah!! Well DONT FUCKING FORGET IT! Yes I understand this is a time to sit in discomfort, practice patience and not swallow your sadness away. And it’s also not the time to forgot all the work you did making gratitude a part of your daily routine. Both sadness and dreaminess can co exist. Pain and discomfort will still be there, you don’t need to chase them down the rabbit hole. you can still find the holiday in everyday. It’s within.

You have so much resilience and now you get to lean into it. The circumstances will be hard, there’s more pain to come. You can’t change this in a hurry. But you can continue to work on your inner world. You’ve had many inner world opportunities in the past but this will be all encompassing. You will be on your own, and it’s incredibly powerful. This work you’re going to do on truly solidifying your inner peace is greater than you’ve had before. You will find clarity on the meaning of life and understand more deeply what constitutes purpose and what contributes to your sense of value and identity. You’ll learn how important it is to feel a sense of progress in life, and know that it doesn’t matter what it is, just to have a sense of movement or if not movement, a sense of recalibrating and taking appropriate care of one self. You never really saw how important this was in the past.

This is exciting, and fucking hard. REMEMBER When you can’t change the circumstances focus on your inner world. You’ve fucking got this!