Cracking a tooth and tearing a muscle in kickboxing recently reminded me of how to turn pain into a chance to grow. In our latest episode, I share how the "3R's of The Reset Button"—reflect, reset, reinvent—were my go to in processing this setback. I talk about the emotional ups and downs of dealing with surprise injuries and how they deeply affected my mental state. From anger and depression to gratitude, I dive into how these setbacks made me appreciate everyday abilities we often overlook.
Come along as we explore self-discovery and resilience. I discuss how reflecting on what we can do helps us appreciate life's simple joys. Plus, I offer tips on resetting our mindsets and aligning our actions with our goals, focusing on what's possible vs. probable. This episode is all about embracing reinvention and making bold moves for progress.
Cracking a tooth and tearing a muscle in kickboxing recently reminded me of how to turn pain into a chance to grow. In our latest episode, I share how the "3R's of The Reset Button"—reflect, reset, reinvent—were my go to in processing this setback. I talk about the emotional ups and downs of dealing with surprise injuries and how they deeply affected my mental state. From anger and depression to gratitude, I dive into how these setbacks made me appreciate everyday abilities we often overlook.
Come along as we explore self-discovery and resilience. I discuss how reflecting on what we can do helps us appreciate life's simple joys. Plus, I offer tips on resetting our mindsets and aligning our actions with our goals, focusing on what's possible vs. probable. This episode is all about embracing reinvention and making bold moves for progress.
Hello and welcome to the Cameo Show. I'm your host, cameo, and today I would like to share with you a personal story about a setback that I am currently experiencing. A couple of weeks ago I sent this out to my Weekly Reset community, which is my newsletter, the Weekly Reset. You're welcome to sign up for that at my website, cameoelisebrongcom. Shameless plug, but since I've sent that out, I have some updates, and the premise of the weekly reset is to share, you know, what's kind of happening in real time and apply what I call the three R's of the reset button from my upcoming book to the scenario to try to help provide some tools and some parameters on how to get through some things, how to work through them. And so I figure, as I'm experiencing this personal setback, your details may differ from mine, but we all experience setbacks from time to time, and so the way that I am working through this may help you in some capacity as you work through your own. So here's what I'm going through and I'll keep it brief. But personally, um a few weeks ago I had quite a week I've brought in May with a bang, as they say. One day I bit into a Chomp's meat stick, shout out to Chomp's and I was like, oh my god, I think I broke my tooth and, lo and behold, half of my molar had cracked out and I think I swallowed it. But that's not the story, that's not the setback, that just happened.
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And then, a couple of days later, I was at a kickboxing workout, training session, and I didn't do anything cool or anything crazy. It wasn't some fancy kick or something that I was practicing. I literally just pivoted, stepped back with my right leg to like load and spring up into a kick, and my calf popped and I dropped. I knew something was wrong. I just didn't know the severity, because it was. I mean, I've injured myself before plenty of times, of course, but it was unlike. You know, sometimes when you feel a bruise or when you feel something that's sore, it literally popped, and so, of course, panic set in. But I'm stubborn and I didn't want to go to the doctor right away. So for the first few days I elevated, I rested, I iced, and then I kind of worked around as much as I could on crutches and went to events that we had going on and kind of just did what I could on this leg, without knowing the severity of the injury on this leg without knowing the severity of the injury. Finally, I gave in about two weeks later, so last week, sometime in real time and found out that there isn't really anything that they do for a muscle tear that mine is. It's so bruised and it was swollen pretty badly, um, extremely tight and quite painful to walk on. But they don't really do surgery on muscle tears, I mean, I guess, unless they're extremely completely ruptured, because the muscle needs to heal and regenerate itself, so to speak, and so you do rehab and therapy to help it heal properly. So I was relieved because surgery sucks and I didn't want to do that.
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But over that two week period of time before I went to the doctor and before I had any kind of clarity on the direction that I needed to go with this injury or how long I was going to be out or if I had to have surgery, all of those things this setback was unknown. I had no idea how bad or how long and during that period of time when you experience a setback, mine was a physical injury, but setbacks are financial, they're in your career, they're with your children. I mean we experienced setbacks in a multitude of ways in our daily life and the severity ranges, obviously, but during that period of time I was really struggling. Honestly, I tend to be almost obtusely optimistic go, go, go kind of person, and taking away something from me that's extremely important for my physical and especially mental health was challenging. So I went through these periods of like almost anger and resentment and worry and stress and depression, almost Like I didn't really want to do anything, I didn't really want to talk to anyone, I didn't really want to eat healthy I ate as much junk food as possible but then I felt shame and guilt about it because I knew that I couldn't be physically active and I didn't know how long I wouldn't be able to. So there was this whole tornado spiral out of control situation that was taking place during this period of time.
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Now, after I've gone to the doctor, I definitely feel so much better. I had my first therapy session today. Shout out to Taylor, who was a previous guest on one of my early episodes. He's with athlete pro local to my area, um, check out his episode. But he uh, put me through some STEM therapies today and I have kind of a treatment plan in line to get me back up and in action over the next six to eight weeks. I say two to four, anyway.
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So, as I mentioned, I in my newsletter, apply the three R's of the reset button. The three R's of the reset button are reflect, reset and reinvent. And so that's kind of my process around setbacks, around difficult emotions, around unknown scenarios, and I'd like to share that with you now as it pertains to my personal experience with my injury, and hope that you can use these as a way to walk you through something that you may be going through now or in the future. So, with the first R, reflect, during that two week period of time, like I said, it was a tornado of emotion, but I did have a lot of time to reflect and often when something is taken away from us, something that we take for granted, something that's just a normal part of our life, like walking, we then are able to really appreciate our ability to do something, even that simple and even that common, I mean for most of us. Right, there are people who obviously have injuries or disease that keeps them from even walking. So it was an opportunity for me to reflect upon something that I take for granted going for a walk with the dog, which I often complain about Getting up and walking from point A to point B in my house to even just go to the bathroom became a really difficult task.
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I had to get the crutches or I had to hobble. It was a lot to get up, and so it gave me an opportunity to really think about the things that I'm grateful for In addition to the things that I couldn't do physically. I also had the opportunity to be really grateful and reflect upon how lucky I am to have the support system that I do and my husband and my kids. My husband picked up all the slack. I mean, we do a pretty good job of like being a team when it comes to housework, chores, kids and different duties around here. We work together. So having me be on the bench, so to speak, was difficult for him and he he stepped right up to the plate and really took care of everything when I couldn't, and there was a lot of gratitude in that moment. Even when I was like mad and upset about my situation, I was able to be extremely grateful for the fact that I had that again that I often take for granted and don't put much thought behind, because he's my partner and these are just this is just how this works in our house, but when something changes, no matter how drastic, it's an opportunity to really reflect on the things that we overlook. And then I'd like to add just a little depth to that an opportunity to reflect on why we overlook those things, why we take them for granted, why we just get so used to what we do that we aren't grateful for those everyday things anyway.
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The other thing I took some time during this reflection period to really dig into and I spoke about this in the last episode about moving past mistakes is that there are definitely lessons I can learn from this experience. In my experience with this injury, it's that I go really hard and I don't always give my body the rest that it needs. Really hard and I don't always give my body the rest that it needs and I don't always do the yoga and stretching I should be doing at night, or at any time during the day, for that matter. I really push my body, and so the lesson is that sometimes I need to slow down. Just a week prior to my calf popping, I had some different pain in my calf that I kind of ignored. It wasn't that bad and I just thought well, that's different, and I have aches and pains all the time from all of the activity that I do, and so I just ignored it.
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But this reflection period made me think okay, I need to pay better attention. I need to love and honor and respect my body by giving it rest and really sticking to that, getting into a routine of treating it well, because I beat it up a lot and, in my experience with other athletes and other people that I have worked out with over all of these years, a lot of people do that, and so your setback may not be an injury. But if you're taking anything from this about my injury as it applies to you, that's one thing to definitely keep in mind. But on the reflection piece, it's an opportunity to look for the lessons, to really analyze how did this happen and how is it impacting me? And so if it's not an injury and maybe it's a financial problem, or if it's something going on with your kid, it's a pause. It's an opportunity to pause and really get into what's going on in your life and then remember in this reflection period that you've gotten through 100% of your worst moments thus far.
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So lean into your resiliency. What am I taking for granted. Where am I grateful? Why do I look past those things? What are the lessons? And how have I been resilient in the past and know that you can get through it? And that segues into the second R, which is reset, which is shifting your focus towards solutions. So we've reflected and now we're going to reset and brainstorm practical steps you can take toward recovery, whatever that means. As it pertains to your situation.
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I like to acknowledge a full range of outcomes, worst case to best case and everywhere in between, and I don't like to dwell anywhere. But in my example, worst cases, I have to have surgery. I'm going to be out for months. Best cases, I'll be back walking and kicking like normal next week. I tend to lean toward the best case scenario, mindset and perspective wise, but I don't like to dwell anywhere. I like to acknowledge that all of these outcomes are possible and prepare myself so that I have proper expectations of the possibilities. With objective thinking, you can see some paths that you may have otherwise ignored as you focus on the solutions, because now that you have a little bit of clarity about what all of your possible outcomes are, you know what steps to take to navigate in the direction that you want to work toward. Then you can develop a realistic plan of action.
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I'm not sure where I heard it, but I have a little sticky note on my computer because I have a million little sticky notes. It's my thing and it says possible versus probable. As you're looking at all of these scenarios, remember mindset is really important here. Now I can't will my way through this injury. You can't will your way through being behind on your bills or losing your job. But you can look at possible versus probable as you go through those scenarios. Just because something is possible doesn't mean that it's probable, and just because something is probable doesn't mean that that's actually how it happens. So keep that in mind as well as you're looking at your full range of outcomes.
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I have to allow myself to believe that maybe in a couple of weeks I'll be ready to go, because it keeps me going. I stay motivated that way. It helps keep me positive. Two weeks ago when this first happened, I was, like I said, not in a good space mentally. With the unknown, with some clarity, I have some kind of parameters and if I keep the possibility of things happening in my brain, it helps me stay on the positive side of things. This takes me to the third R reinvent. And this is where you align your actions with those outcomes that you envisioned. Be bold in making changes that will help you move forward, because as you embrace these challenges with courage, your confidence will grow. I'll leave you with this, the number one thing I've told myself, aside from saying the F word a lot of times. The other thing that I've said to myself a million times is this is temporary. Whether it's an injury, whether it's the loss of a job, a pet, financial trouble, whatever setback you may be experiencing, remember that this too shall pass. Everything is temporary. Thank you for joining me, thank you for listening to my setback, and I hope that introducing the three R's of the reset button reflect, reset and reinvent helps you as you navigate any setback that you may be facing.
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Don't forget to leave a review for the Cameo Show on whatever podcast platform you're listening on, or you can subscribe to the Cameo Show YouTube channel at Cameo Elise Braun. All my socials are at Cameo Elise Braun. You can find them on my website. We have a text feature on the show now in the show notes. You can send us a text If you're experiencing a setback or you have questions about the three R's, I'd love to hear from you.
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That's what this is all about. Subscribe, leave a review, say hello, leave a comment, send a text. Of course, you are welcome to sign up for the weekly reset and join our community of hundreds of people who, every Friday, receive a little note in their inbox about something that I may be processing through or something that's like on my hot favorites list of the moment. It's a fun space to feel seen, normal and maybe learn a few things along the way. I share my experience because sometimes I've needed to hear someone say some of the things that I'm sharing when I couldn't find it. I don't have all the answers, but my hope is that some of the answers I'm able to give will help you too. Until next time, thanks for listening.