Big Girl Panties Diaries - Entry #125: I Didn’t Pull a Muscle. I Ignored a Signal.

Emotional ResilienceLeadership & The Human...Calmfidence
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A few weeks ago, I threw out my back in yoga. Not in a dramatic, heroic way. In a very normal, very humbling way.

We were working on middle splits, and I was feeling good. I had been making steady progress, getting a little deeper each time, and that day I pushed just a bit further. I remember feeling proud of it. Strong. Capable. Nothing hurt in the moment, so I assumed everything was fine.

The next day proved otherwise.

I woke up and could barely walk. Not sore or stiff. I mean I could not move without excruciating pain. The only two positions that worked were sitting completely upright or lying flat. Anything in between was not happening.

I spent most of that day getting from point A to point B by crawling. There is nothing that will humble you faster than crawling across your own house in the middle of the day.

There was no powering through it. No pushing past it. Everything stopped.

I had to ask for help.

My husband drove me to the chiropractor, and after two sessions and some sound wave therapy (if you haven't tried it yet, you should!) and a lot of rest with a heating pad, I started to feel relief. My daughters helped me walk when I needed to get out of the house. At one point, we were in a store getting ready for vacation, and I was using the cart just to stay upright (like an elderly person) while they stayed right beside me.

It would have been easy to feel frustrated or embarrassed, like I should be able to handle it on my own. Instead, I kept coming back to something I say all the time but do not always live as easily.

Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It is one thing to say that in a leadership conversation. It is another thing entirely to live it when you are the one who actually needs the help and cannot just push through.

There was another truth sitting right alongside it.

I know I am at that point in my life where I need to be more careful. I have heard friends talk about throwing out their backs and how it turns into an ordeal. One friend hurt her back sneezing. Sneezing. It sounds ridiculous until it happens to you.

We are not invincible anymore. Pretending we are just delays the lesson. We have to be more aware, more honest, and a little more kind to ourselves.

When I really thought about what happened, I realized I did not get hurt because something went wrong in the moment. I got hurt because I pushed just a little further than I should have. Not because I needed to, but because I wanted to. Because it felt good to make progress. Because I told myself I could handle it. Because my ego was a little louder than my awareness.

Just a little further. Just a little more.

Until my body decided for me.

The more I sat with it, the more it felt familiar, not just physically but professionally.

I see this happen in organizations all the time. The signals are there. Resistance, confusion, misalignment. Small things that are easy to push past in the moment.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized this is exactly how signals work.

Not the kind you track on a dashboard. The kind you feel before anything officially breaks.

I wrote about this more directly in another piece, The Signals You’re Missing Are Costing You Adoption, because this is where most organizations get it wrong.

They wait for the data.

But data tells you what already happened. Signal tells you what is happening right now and what is about to happen next.

In my case, the signal was there. I just did not listen to it.

Organizations do the same thing. They push past hesitation, misalignment, and quiet workarounds because nothing looks broken yet.

Until it is.

We push harder when things feel off. We move faster when alignment is not there. We expect more from people without paying attention to what is underneath. And then we are surprised when something breaks.

In our bodies. In our teams. In our organizations.

This is exactly what I mean when I talk about the People Stack.

The People Stack is the system underneath the work that tells you whether people are aligned, supported, and ready. It tells you whether they understand the why, whether leaders are reinforcing what matters, and whether people feel capable of what is being asked of them.

When we ignore those signals, organizations do exactly what my body did. They compensate. They push. They keep going.

Until something forces them to stop.

And by then, the recovery is always harder than it needed to be. It shows up as rework, retraining, frustration, and loss of trust. It takes more time and more energy to fix what could have been addressed much earlier.

I have been healing since then. I have been taking it slower and paying more attention. I am more aware of where the line actually is, not where I want it to be.

It is not a complicated lesson, but it is an easy one to ignore.

Sometimes strength looks like pushing through. Sometimes strength looks like stopping, asking for help, and actually listening to what your body or your team is trying to tell you.

The hard part is knowing the difference.

BGPD Rule: The signal shows up before the break. In your body, your team, and your life. Listen sooner.

Further Reading (if this resonated):

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