The Healing Lesson Hidden in My Fifth Metatarsal
An Injury That Became a Teacher
In 2023, I broke my fifth metatarsal after taking a sharp right turn a bit too quickly down the uneven staircase in my Nouakchott home. What followed was a season of enforced stillness—simply sitting and allowing this stubborn foot bone to heal. Yet the more revealing part of the recovery was everything that formed around the injury. Overcompensating for the break caused my hip to tighten, my back to ache, and even my uninjured foot to carry strain it was never meant to bear.
When I finally began walking again, my steps were hesitant and unsteady. I had to relearn a basic movement I had taken for granted my whole life. A few years later, the bone is healed, but it still offers reminders. On days when I overwork it, the foot aches or swells slightly—showing that healing does not always erase the history of an injury. And when that happens, I have to stop, pay attention, and rest my foot again.
Understanding Leadership Trauma
As I read Nicholas and Sheila Wise Rowe’s Healing Leadership Trauma, I found myself returning to the memory of my broken foot and the slow, necessary work of allowing it to heal well. That experience has become an analogy for me in considering leadership trauma: even when the initial “break” is obvious, the deeper work often lies in attending to what forms around it, noticing our compensations, and giving ourselves the practices and time needed for genuine restoration. Just as physical healing unfolds differently for each person, so does healing from leadership trauma.
Rowe and Rowe describe this kind of trauma as the experience of “fear and panic about [one’s] work as it relates to the past, present, and future.”[1] In their view, leaders are often carrying much more than what initially caused the injury. The invitation, then, is to enter a healing process marked by self-awareness and compassion. As they write, “each of us is on our individual and unique healing journey and in need of embodied practices that are centered in Christ.”[2]
To support this journey, the authors aim to help leaders “grieve what was lost, stolen, or frittered away while introducing spiritual formation practices that help maintain forward progress.”[3] They introduce a set of embodied practices—what they refer to as SIFTing—including Scripture reading, body scanning, prayer, and examen. “As we prayerfully engage in these,” they note, “they can help create the foundations of a healthy Christian life and support and sustain spiritual and emotional healing and growth.”[4]
When I consider the authors’ emphasis on SIFTing practices, I am reminded of how essential it is for leaders to have the margin to engage in this kind of healing. Just as my foot could not recover without a period of reduced activity, leaders cannot do deeper inner work when their schedules or expectations leave no room for rest. Without sufficient margin, many of us end up forcing ourselves to function beyond capacity, relying on human effort rather than meaningful renewal. Rowe and Rowe write, “You will not see where the weakness lies or what God is doing if you are too busy trying to be strong.”[5] Christ-centered holistic disciplines help leaders slow down, notice what hurts, and recognize where they are overcompensating. Yet without margin, leaders lack the conditions that make such practices possible, often missing early signs of strain just as I initially overlooked how my body was compensating around my injury.
Margin and the Capacity to Heal
The importance of margin becomes even clearer when viewed through Richard Swenson’s work. Swenson offers a simple formula for understanding margin—Power – Load = Margin—and explains that “when our load is greater than our power, we enter into negative margin status…another name for burnout.”[6] He further observes that a “clock-dominated nanosecond culture” leaves many leaders “wheezing and worn out.”[7] In environments like this, even well-intentioned healing practices become difficult to sustain because leaders are already operating beyond capacity.
Much like my body developed compensations around a single fractured bone, leaders without margin may keep moving but at the cost of increasing strain elsewhere. This is precisely what prevents the SIFTing practices described by Rowe and Rowe from taking root. Without margin, leaders may continue forward, but not toward wholeness; instead, they risk reinforcing patterns that eventually surface as fatigue, disconnection, or burnout.
Psychological Safety With God
For some time, I have been reflecting on what it means to create spaces that foster psychological safety, a term used by professor and researcher Amy Edmondson to describe environments where people feel free to show up honestly. As leaders, we often work hard to offer this kind of space to others, yet rarely consider our own need for it. This raises an important spiritual question: when we come before God, do we allow Him to offer us that same sense of safety? Do we bring our whole selves into God’s presence, or do we hold back parts of ourselves as though we could hide them from the One who already sees us completely?
Barton’s reflections in Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership speak directly to these questions. She writes, “In the process of transformation the Spirit of God moves us from behaviors motivated by fear and self-protection to trust and abandonment to God; from selfishness and self-absorption to freely offering the gifts of authentic self.”[8] In other words, what we are hesitant to bring before God is the very material God longs to transform. Barton invites leaders “to continually seek God in the crucible of ministry no matter how hard it gets,”[9] suggesting that the psychological safety we long to create for others begins with the courage to be fully known and received by God ourselves.
When we consider Rowe and Rowe’s approach, the work of healing leadership trauma requires both the practices of SIFTing and the conditions that allow those practices to take root. Swenson’s emphasis on margin reminds us that leaders need space—physical, emotional, and spiritual—to notice what is happening within themselves rather than forcing themselves to function beyond capacity. And as Barton offers a spiritual formation perspective that supports the inner work leadership trauma often requires, she highlights the importance of bringing one’s whole self before God without fear or self-protection. Much like my own healing began by paying attention to what hurt and slowing down long enough for my foot to recover, these elements—Christ-centered embodied practices, margin that creates room for healing, and a posture of honest openness before God—allow leaders to engage the slow, purposeful work of restoration that strengthens both their leadership and their souls.
[1] Rowe and Rowe, Healing Leadership Trauma, 2, Kindle edition.
[2] Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe, Healing Leadership Trauma: Finding Emotional Health and Helping Others Flourish (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2024), 19, Kindle edition.
[3] Rowe and Rowe, Healing Leadership Trauma, 5, Kindle edition.
[4] Rowe and Rowe, Healing Leadership Trauma, 19, Kindle edition.
[5] Rowe and Rowe, Healing Leadership Trauma,6, Kindle edition.
[6] Richard A. Swenson, Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2004),70.
[7] Swenson, Margin, 78.
[8] Ruth Haley Barton, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008),16.
[9] Barton, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership,17.
About the Author
Elysse Burns
12 responses to “The Healing Lesson Hidden in My Fifth Metatarsal”
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Hi Elysse, The residual ache of your previously broken toe reminded me of Paul’s repeated request of God to remove the thorn of his flesh. God’s answer to him in 2 Corinthians. 9 was” My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” For Paul, it was conceit; for you, it was slowing down. Regardless of the purpose, I see you paying attention to connecting to God in these times, allowing His goodness to come into the hurt. What impact do you think the time slowing down for your foot to heal has had on your perspective as a leader?
Hi Diane,
I often think of the apostle Paul’s words in 1 Thessalonians 5:23: “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Through this program, I’ve come to better understand the importance of balance—spirit, soul, and body. When I broke my foot, it became clear that I hadn’t been treating my body with the care it needed. That experience forced me to re-evaluate how I was living and to recognize that something within me needed to shift.
Since then, rest, exercise, and nutrition have taken on greater importance. I’m still not perfect in this area, but that moment was a turning point. It helped me see how physical health is not separate from spiritual and emotional wellbeing—it’s all connected. Attending to the body is not just about physical maintenance; it’s an essential part of holistic formation.
Elysse, I love your connection of your broken foot to margin, SWIFTing, and holistic healing. What “Christ-centered embodied practices” do you feel He is currently inviting you to engage in during this season?
Hi Kari,
Thank you for your question. I’ve found myself especially drawn to practices like soaking prayer, body scanning, and the examen. As you know, these are quite different from the “spiritual” environments we were raised in, but I’ve come to see the value they offer—helping us slow down, listen, and engage with God more holistically.
That said, where I feel most challenged—or convicted—is not just in adopting these practices personally, but in inviting others into the process with me. It’s one thing to engage spiritual formation privately; it’s another to walk that journey in community, with openness and accountability. That’s an area where I know I still have room to grow.
Elysse,
Good job using your broken pinkie toe and connecting it to leadership trauma. Being on the field can be very challenging and hard to develop good protective rhythms to stay healthy. I know that for me we had gone an entire year never leaving our area. That was super unhealthy. I decided after that that we would never stay longer than 3 months at a time without getting out of our context for a break. It was the only way we could remain partially sane. Do you have any set rules you have put in place to keep yourself healthy?
Hi Adam,
You ask a great question. For me, weekends are protected as a time to disconnect and rest—whether that’s reading for enjoyment, going to the beach, watching a movie, or simply doing nothing. This rhythm helps me return to the week with more energy and focus.
Waking up early to spend time with the Lord has also been a grounding part of my routine, along with regular exercise. As I mentioned to Diane, I often reflect on Paul’s words in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, where he speaks of spirit, soul, and body. That kind of balance is essential—and I’m still learning what the right rhythms look like for me.
Hello Dr. Elysse,
I enjoyed reading your post. I have a general question:
What strategies for helping others flourish did the book highlight, and how might you apply them in your own leadership context?
Hi Shela,
You ask a good question. I believe there’s real value in sharing our stories. As Rowe and Rowe write, “Openly sharing those stories is essential to healing leadership trauma and helping others to heal.”
At times, I question whether my stories are significant enough to share—but I’m learning that I don’t always know how the Holy Spirit might use them. Even simple moments can become catalysts for healing, both for the one telling the story and for those listening.
Hi Elysse,
Thank you for another stellar blog. Where have you experienced psychological safety in a way that helped you truly be ‘you’.
Hi Julie,
You ask a great question about psychological safety and finding spaces where I can truly be myself. Honestly, the places I feel safest are in counseling and when I’m journaling. I’m not sure what that says about me, but those are the spaces where I can be most open and unfiltered.
Kari and I have also started meeting with some expat friends on Sunday afternoons to read through the Psalms and pray as we begin the week. Those moments have felt deeply grounding and safe as well.
That said, trust remains an area I’m still working through—it doesn’t come easily, but I’m learning.
Hi Elysse, great parallel with your foot. Creating margin is so difficult in our fast-paced, results-oriented society. How do you live with margin in your life and fight the temptation to fill it beyond your capacity?
Hi Christy,
I’ll answer in a similar vein to how I responded to Adam. I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of balance—something Paul highlights in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 when he prays that we would be sanctified spirit, soul, and body. That verse has shaped the way I think about how I structure my time and care for my whole self.
For me, weekends are protected as a time to disconnect and rest—whether that’s reading for enjoyment, going to the beach, watching a movie, or simply doing nothing. That space has become essential for helping me enter the new week with more clarity and energy.
Waking up early to spend time with the Lord has also become a grounding part of my daily rhythm, along with regular exercise. I’m still figuring out what balance really looks like in this season, but I’m learning that intentional rhythms—however simple—can have a significant impact on both my inner and outer life.