Distracting Injuries

On our way to St. Petersburg to visit family last weekend, I plugged in David Goggins’ new book, Never Finished, on audiobook for the ride down. In case you don’t know Goggins’ story, he is the epitome of endurance, both mental and physical, the only member of the US Armed Forces to complete SEAL training, Army Ranger School and Air Force Tactical Air Controller training, and completer of more than 70 ultra-distance races. Like most of us, his story is more than these outward accomplishments.

Goggins and his mother and brother were brutally physically and mentally abused by his father during his childhood, but he doesn’t let this stop him from achieving what he wants in life. He actually uses these traumatic experiences and memories as fuel toward his goals.

Goggins holds that everyone has past traumas and experiences that can hold you back from achieving what you want in life and becoming the person you want to be. He calls these “distracting injuries.” When triaging patients at an accident scene or victims coming into an emergency room, trauma specialists are trained not be distracted by the gruesome disfigurement of a limb or the amount of blood smeared all over otherwise intact skin. Doctors, nurses and medics are trained to first focus on life-threatening injuries, head trauma and heartbeat and breathing irregularities.

A friend of mine recently tripped and fell at home suffering a compound fracture of her right wrist. Not a good scene. Not pretty. Gruesome, I imagine. (I wouldn’t truly know because I wouldn’t allow her to show me the before surgery photos or x-rays, but I can imagine…) When she arrived at the emergency room, the doctors saw blood on the back of her head and immediately ordered a CT scan of her head. When talking about this, my friend could only fixate on her wrapped-in-towels arm and tried to tell everyone, “But my arm, my arm!” She hardly noticed that she had hit her head when she fell, the unsightly state of her dominant hand taking all her—and her family’s--attention.

The broken arm most likely would not have killed my friend. An undiagnosed concussion, skull fracture or punctured lung might well have. Doctors led with their training and did not let the distracting image of my friend’s grisly, deformed wrist cause them to overlook something more serious that could irreparably change or end her life.

Goggins makes the case that a lot of us allow our past traumas, both large and small, become distracting injuries that divert us from living complete, satisfying lives. Neglect, abuse, loneliness are not themselves fatal conditions, but when we allow them to take up our mental energy, when we refuse to live today because of them, they can kill any drive to accomplish anything in our life.

Like the distracting physical injury of my friend’s wrist, our minds tell us the things that happened to us long ago take precedence NOW. “Look at me! Look at me!” it says. It doesn’t let us go. Even when we really don’t know or can’t identify the memory or event that hurt us, it’s there tossing up the RED ALERT signal when life comes too close and threatens to hurt it. Our mind is trying to keep us safe. We get stuck in the past and let the thick fog of regret, victimization and depression linger and keep us trapped.

But these are mental distractions that need to be dealt with, but certainly don’t need to come first and completely disrupt our life, life that is happening right now in front of us. Yes, we need to grieve and process pain, but we can’t let it take over our lives.  This is where knowing your purpose and having goals to focus on comes in play. A lot there, but if you don’t know where you are going, don’t have values or pillars to focus on, come back to, guide you, these distracting injuries of our past hurts take over and take precedence, get in our way.

I’ve identified learning, growing, sharing, empathy, kindness and authenticity as my personal values and work to bring them into my life as often as possible, especially when making important decisions. When the negative thoughts come along saying, ”Who are you to write a book?” or “Who are you to speak up at that meeting?” I recognize them as “distracting injuries,” acknowledge they exist and move toward what I want in life.

What are your “distracting injuries” holding you back from moving forward in your life?

What’s most important to you, that if not completed or fulfilled, will permanently stunt where you want to go and who you want to (were meant to) be?