Scare Tissue Is Worse Than Scar Tissue

Restoring range of emotion in 2025

Photo by Bryan Hanson on Unsplash

“Ouch!” I said aloud, the moment I put my weight onto my arms after getting on my bike.

The heels of my hands were still deeply bruised after the bike accident my son and I had six weeks ago when an inattentive motorist cut in front of us. It had taken me that long to get back on my bike, and only at the repeated urging of my son for us to ride again.

Nothing in me wanted any part of a bike ride on this dreary day. It was cold, dark, wet, and numerous body parts still hurt. I’d been waiting for better weather, I told myself, but in truth, I was scared and procrastinating—worried about another encounter with a careless driver or some other unavoidable obstacle.

My hands had been the first thing to hit the pavement in the accident and had taken the brunt of the injury. They hurt enough now just resting on the handlebars that I was ready to head back into the house—but my son urged me on.

We took our usual shortcut on a winding bike trail through a stand of douglas fir to reach the top of the road that leads down to the shoreline near our home. The tenderness lessened as my hands were put back to work, the discomfort dissipating in the flow of full-body motion. Both my physical pain as well as my psychic withdrawal were being purified by the larger circulatory system of the forest and the newly appearing stars above.

“Wow, I’ve missed this,” I said to my son.

A full breath of fall air spontaneously drew itself deep into my lungs. I was no longer breathing, but being breathed.

Minutes earlier I had been tying my shoes while a voice inside loudly protested.

“I don’t want to!” it whined. “This is a bad idea. You’re not ready. You might get hurt again.”

Now my entire body was starting to unfold in space and recall its purpose—to move, to participate, to digest the inky impression of the heavens at sundown, to perspire in the woods, to let my heart pound loud in the open world.

As we headed downhill the rushing air made my nose run and my ears start to numb, but I kept my hands off the brakes. I let the steady slope accelerate my wheels, mind, and spirit. The speed of the bike devoured the open road and teased my imagination to the edge of bonafide flight.

As we coasted to the base of the hill and drew level with the water I could only hear the purr of my own gears and the lapping of the incoming tide, each small wave gently pawing at the shoreline, like a dog’s repeated requests for attention.

“I’m here,” I whispered.

Participation in life is a kind of miracle, I thought. Ninety-eight percent of healing is in our refusal to avoid the things that have injured us. Just thirty minutes ago my shoulder ached, my ribs were sore, my left knee complained, and my hands were ready to retire.

Now there was strength in my legs, rhythm in my breath, the energy of discovery in my mind, and range of emotion restored.

I looked up through the canopy of maple and hemlock trees over the bike trail. The stars were brighter now, their celestial glow mixing in the water with distant city light.

“How lucky I am to have made it here,” I thought. As we all are when we successfully bring ourselves—utterly present—to even one moment in time. To be fully available, undefended to life as it is, even just once, is a miraculous occurrence.

When the body is injured and scar tissue threatens to form—movement and work, effort and engagement restore range of motion.

But perhaps even more importantly, when there is injury to the mind and fear arises, it’s moving toward the things that frighten us that preserves our range of e-motion. One brave yes can snowball into a full-feeling life.

Scare tissue is more disabling than scar tissue will ever be.

Our job is to interrupt the capture of our attention in the calamities of our past and to repeatedly liberate our being—fully exposing it to the raw and bright beginnings of every moment.

Injury is an invitation to return to the scene of the accident and learn the differences between discomfort and suffering, growth and safety, life and slow death.

It’s a New Year.

Time to get back on the bike.