Pop!

‘Did you hear that? Let’s see if we can do it again.’

Pop!

My chiropractor bent over me with fierce intent, twisting my arm and thorax into awkward angles. After a time I became concerned that his objective was not to relieve my back pain at all; but rather to prompt an exclamation from my distressed vertebrae. Each crack was greeted with the satisfaction of a child crunching bubble wrap.

Pop!

‘That’s fantastic. Listen to that!’

He was wearing a white coat, but was he really a medical professional?

My backache had been tormenting me for several weeks now. I was visiting the chiropractor in tandem with an acupuncturist who experimented with incense, warm needles and whale music. Despite my rather old fashioned approach to health matters, I confess I found this all rather soothing. I kept falling asleep with the needles in.

Nonetheless, once outside the acupuncturist’s studio, the agony continued. Nagging, insistent, ever-present. During the day I found it difficult to concentrate on anything else. At night I lay awake in a fog of self-pity. On a couple of occasions I found I was speaking to myself - promising to make a new start in life, if only the pain would go away.

I spent a good deal of time trying to establish what had caused all this grief. But I could recall no stumble or fall, no gym incident or trouble moving boxes. Why had this torture descended on me all of a sudden?

A doctor prescribed some specially contoured soles to wear inside my shoes.

‘They probably won’t do you any good, but some people like them.’

I became unnaturally obsessed with chair construction. My wife had purchased a claret-coloured contemporary Italian sofa. It certainly looked good in the living room with its low back, aluminium legs and inverted L shape. But it seemed designed for lolling and lounging, for curling up like a feline; for all manner of relaxation apart from sitting up straight.

‘Sit up like a Catholic,’ my Dad used to say to me with wearying frequency. If only I could right now.

I measured my hip-to-knee distance and discovered that the horizontal seat length of the claret-coloured contemporary Italian sofa exceeded it by some margin. Perhaps this was the source of my problems. I took a tape measure to Habitat and Heals on a quest for superior hip-to-knee delivery and came back with a recommendation for an Edwardian armchair. This was swiftly rejected.

The backache stayed with me like a malicious companion. Whispering, goading, badgering.

‘Why me?’ I asked. ‘Why now?’

And then one day the pain was gone. Just like that. It had arrived unannounced and it departed without warning.

'Turn your wounds into wisdom.’
Oprah Winfrey

Once liberated from the agony, I spent a good while reflecting on its origins.

At length I realised that the true cause of my back pain was not physical at all. My malady coincided with a lengthy redundancy process at work. I’d been drawn into extensive conversations about names and numbers; long lists and short lists; factional disputes and interdepartmental negotiations.

I think I had been suffering from stress.

'And you may ask yourself, "What is that beautiful job?"
And you may ask yourself, "Where does that career go to?"
And you may ask yourself, "Am I right? Am I wrong?"
And you may say to yourself, "My God! What have I done?”'
Paraphrasing Talking Heads,’Once in a Lifetime'

I took three lessons from my prolonged period of back pain.

The first is that some trials cannot be escaped. They must be endured. We just have to let them run their course. We need patience, resilience and a philosophical nature. The best way out is always through.

'Len says one steady pull more ought to do it.
He says the best way out is always through.’
Robert Frost, ‘A Servant to Servants'

Secondly I concluded that too often in life and business we focus on relieving the pain rather than addressing the source of that pain. We treat the symptom, not the cause. Sometimes the origins of an ailment are not obvious. They are hidden, psychological, adjacent.

And thirdly I resolved that wholesale redundancy, however sound commercially and imperative financially, was not something I wanted to get involved with again.

The claret-coloured contemporary Italian sofa still resides in our living room. I’ve grown rather fond of it now. But it still won’t let me sit like a Catholic.

'Broken heart again,
Another lesson learned.
Better know your friends,
Or else you will get burnt.
Gotta count on me,
Cause I can guarantee that I'll be fine.
No more pain.
No more pain.
No drama.
No one's gonna make me hurt again.’
Mary J Blige, ‘No More Drama’ (P Botkin / B De Vorzon / J Harris III / T Lewis)

No. 343