Recently, I have been having a fair amount of discomfort with my right foot and ankle.
This is not a new issue but the pain in my foot and ankle has dramatically increased over the last few months.
Finally, I decided to stop putting off the inevitable and decided to go see a podiatrist.
There is another whole blog I could do on fear of going to the doctor but I’ll save that for another time. We often put off the things we need to do out of fear of what we might find out. If we put it off long enough it will just go away.
The first thing the doctor did was ask me to remove both my socks and shoes so she could do a visual comparison.
Next, she took my troubled right foot in her hand and began to move it around asking me a variety of questions as she did.
After doing this for a few minutes she said, “Let’s get an x-ray and see what we can see with that.”
Off I went to radiology.
After about twenty minutes I met with the doctor again. She began to tell me what she saw with my foot and ankle and some speculations of what might be going on based on what she was seeing.
Then she said that in order to get a really clear picture and be sure and not just speculate I should get a CAT scan done of my foot and ankle.
That was scheduled for the following week and then another appointment with the doctor a few days after that.
She started out our consultation that day with these words, “Let’s just say that this is not the normal foot of a 61 year old man. Yours is a foot that has been beaten up for a long time and the pain you are experiencing is for a variety of reasons.”
Yikes! This wasn’t what I wanted to hear but it was good to hear it wasn’t all in my head and that I wasn’t just being a wimp.
The reality is that these issues have been going on for years. Maybe if I had gotten them looked at years ago they never would have gotten to the point they are now.
The doctor began with a visual analysis of my foot. Then she moved to a hands-on examination. Next she did an x-ray and finally proceeded to a CAT scan.
Each step she went a little deeper so she could get at the real issues of the problems with my foot and ankle. The deeper she went the more she was able to uncover so we could begin to deal with the issues.
If you have read my blog for any period of time you know my father passed away suddenly when I was 14. That was a pain that I didn’t deal with for many, many years.
Only in the last ten years or so have I begun to explore how that has affected me and, as a result, those around me. Those around me have paid a price for my not dealing with this.
To use the podiatrist analogy, I feel like I have only progressed to the hands on examination of that issue in my life.
It’s scary to go deeper, and I know I need to, but I need to work up a little more courage yet.
Recently, I’ve had a couple of conversations with people that continue to drive home the importance of leading courageous lives.
After a recent speaking engagement a woman came up to me and shared how she wished her husband could hear what I had to say.
She shared that he is a Vietnam veteran. As the years have gone on he has become more and more of a recluse and he is unwilling to do anything about it even though he has a variety of services available to him to help him.
She said she feels bad for him because he is missing out on so much of life and his kids and grandkids are missing out on really knowing him.
It takes courage to face our demons.
This is not just an issue that faces people. It happens in organizations and companies as well.
At another event where I spoke I was approached by a man who had recently been laid off by a fairly well known technology company.
He said he wished I had been able to share my story with his former company ten years ago.
He shared that he and others in the organization had tried to talk with the powers that be about the changes in technology and that they needed to begin to adapt in order to stay relevant.
In his words, “They chose to keep their heads in the sand and now the organization is mere shell of what it once was.”
It takes courage to be willing to look below the surface to see what is really going on.
If we stay at the surface level, often we only deal with the symptoms. This might alleviate the discomfort for a little while but the problem continues to persist and grow below the surface.
Are there some things in your personal life that need to be examined courageously at a deeper level?
Are there some things in your company or organization that need to be examined courageously at a deeper level?
Going deep may reveal some things we don’t want to hear but going deep reveals the issues so we can begin to courageously face and resolve them!
Going deep takes courage but it will make a difference in your life and in the lives of those around you!
What will you do today to get below the surface?
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
Have a STRONG and COURAGEOUS day!
