You are not your body

Janine Shepherd TEDx Talk
Janine Shepherd was an Australian Winter Olympian. Well, she was about to be one. Then one day, on a training ride, she got hit by a car. With her list of injuries, she should have been dead. She spent 6 months in a spinal ward and was told she would never walk again. Now, she flies. She has her instructors rating and also teaches aerobatics. She can walk. But it's so much more than that - she refused to be defined by her body and her injuries.
I have always found her story truly inspiring, ever since I saw Claudia Karvan playing her in a telemovie called "Never Tell Me Never", based on Janine's autobiography. This TEDx talk is, again, seriously inspiring.
And for me it comes at a useful time. I am not comparing myself to Janine, or to other people with serious and debilitating injuries. But I do have an old injury which is really starting to impact on what I can and can't do. True, I push the friendship with it. I'm sure I shouldn't run, I am getting used to the fact that I can only jump for a certain amount of time before it becomes too painful, and I am already well used to waking in pain, and limping up or down stairs, and the fact that an 8 hour work day on my feet is getting to be as much as i can handle some days, and more than i can handle two days in a row.
It's time for me to start not being my body. I still want to run. I want to go trekking in Indonesia. I want to play soccer next year. I sometimes want to jump. sometimes... I do want to be able to sit, sleep, stand, crouch, comfortably. I don't want to limp for a minute or so every time I get up. But if I keep running and jumping, the sitting comfortably will become more and more unlikely, the walking easily a near impossibility.
The big thing in all of this is that I really will have to cut back on my chocolate intake, because I won't be able to just run it off. I can still ride, and still swim, but neither of these are as efficient as running.
I don't have all my answers yet, and I don't know, really, how much i shouldn't be doing. I've always just pushed through it and come good in the end, but i don't seem to be coming good anymore...
We'll see...