The Tournament

 

 

     “The Tournament”

 

“Whatever you think you can do, or believe you can do, begin it, because action has magic, grace and power in it.”

Goethe

 

 

 

A few years ago Dermot asked us if he could join karate.  His buddy was taking it and he really wanted to try.  Now Dermot has always been a joiner.  Frank has a garage and basement full of discarded sports equipment to prove his enthusiasm for different things.  He gets excited about everything he lays his eyes on and REALLY wants to get involved.  Some of them stick, but not all (not most if we are honest).  We were hesitant until he created a PowerPoint presentation with said buddy and persuaded us he was serious - at least in the moment.  Karate stuck.  Boy did it stick.  Fast forward a few years and he has earned his junior black belt, is going on to work toward his first level senior black belt, has a job working at the studio instructing and just got offered another job at a new studio opening up to work as the director of admissions.  We could not be more proud of him and what karate has provided him in terms of self-confidence, discipline and structure.

During one of the promotional months, parents could train for free and Dermot really wanted Frank and I to take advantage of that so we did.  Frank trains for half-marathons and gets his exercise else-where and it wasn’t really a fit for him so he didn’t keep going but I have.  I should say I did it for a while and dropped off while my life was in the upheaval of relapse but now I am back.  There is something about karate that speaks to me.  The camaraderie, the poetry of the motion of the katas, the confidence I gain from knowing the self-defense moves and the fact that I get to beat the shit out of wave masters when I have things to work through and get really sweaty makes all the difference in my life.  Me and exercise have never been friends but for some reason this works for me.  I wouldn’t say I am the most graceful, but I am determined and I am loud. 

Recently I entered my first tournament.  I never imagined that at the age of 49 I would be working toward getting a black belt and I would be sign myself up to compete in such a fashion.  I can’t tell you how nervous I was going into it.  I’d seen Dermot do it before, but competing myself was a whole different ball game.  I had to perform a kata for one category and in another I had to demonstrate two different self-defenses.  I froze on my first self-defense and nailed the second.  I earned a third place medal for the kata.      

Me being me, I immediately started listening to that evil little voice in my head that tells me I could have done better and that I should have practiced harder and that third is not as good as first.  I have abhorrent negative self-talk.  I managed to listen to the others around me and take in the congratulations and quiet the voice that always tells me that I am not good enough.  But that has taken me years of practice.  I will tell you that I could have practiced harder but now that I know what to expect I will and I will shoot for first place not so much to compete against others, but to aim for my own personal best.  When I started this process I could barely do a sit up, but now I can keep up with the class on those and I can plank for a full minute, though I feel like throwing up afterwards!

The thing with negative self-talk is that it is an ingrained voice.  It’s learned from old, but that also means that it can be unlearned.  I can laugh now at how insistent it is and how ridiculous it sounds.  I was talking to one of the groups I lead at work about this same topic the other day and we decided we would try to name our negative self-talk voices.  I decided to name mine “Moriarty” after Sherlock Holmes’s nemesis.  I can do battle against Moriarty when he rears his ugly head and that makes it somehow easier.

When self-doubt arises and makes me want to quit before I start I try to remember how far I have come in life.  I have to tell it that I can do a spinning side kick now and that makes me an official bad ass really.  When Moriarty starts to drone on I just have to remember who the fuck I am.

The Calm

 

     “The Calm”

 

“If you act anxiously to hasten your results you delay their arrival.  Calm poise reveals the shortest route home.”

Alan Cohen

 

 

For most of my adult life I have lived on a bit of an emotional roller coaster.  I have swung from high to low and seldom had the privilege of coasting in what I call “the calm” for any length of time.  I used to tell people that I hated the swing and that I longed to stay in the middle more.  But truth be told there was always a part of me that craved the Adrenalin rush of the highs and the maudlin familiarity of the lows, because when I was in the middle, I had to face too many things.

“The Calm” is where everyday life occurs and daily routines are established and play out.  It is where the basis for happy memories are established and it is where the foundation of successes are built.  But it is also where long-buried demons lay dormant.

In the highs, nothing negative could touch me.  In the lows, I felt at home, safe in the dank embrace of miserable immobility.  But in “the calm”, anything can happen at any time.  I used to feel on edge in the mundanity of the everyday, constantly on alert waiting for the other shoe to drop.  While in the soup aisle at the grocery store a dragon from the past would roar up unexpectedly out of nowhere and have me shaking with muscle memory and PTSD.  An innocent tap on the shoulder while in line at the check-out line turned into an attack from a potential predator and I would jump out of my skin.  One of my children entering my bedroom in the middle of the night to ask me a question would become my molester and I would scream, scaring us both.  On a long and boring commute my mind would wander and a creature of memory would rise from the murky depths to pull me under when I was all but defenseless.

I was never defended enough to live in that state for long.  Now, however, I have the tools I need.  After this last stay in rehab in July of 2021, I did a lot of work… a lot.  I participated in an intensive relapse prevention program that helped me to examine my patterns.  It helped me to identify the things I do way before I pick up a drink – in essence the relapse that happens before the relapse.  I also attended a trauma group that had me explore, through psychodrama, unresolved grief and guilt I had over Liam’s untimely death.  To speak aloud how I felt my body betrayed us both was like allowing Atlas’ burden to shrug from my own shoulders.  To lay that spectral pain down at my feet was so profound and the relief I felt from it was oceanic.

I also met with a psychiatrist who changed my medication and for the first time I felt my mind shift to a place of peace. I have been diagnosed and re-diagnosed with so many disorders over the years that I feel like mental health professionals have been spinning a veritable Wheel of Fortune and landing on something new each time I did an intake.  I no longer even care what the diagnoses is as long as this medication regimen stays put now.

One of the many things I learned in relapse prevention is that before I pick up a drink and relapse, I start taking on too many things.  I start believing I can do it all and saying “yes” to everything.  So in order to handle “the calm” and all that comes with it – the memories, nightmares and demons that rear up to be dealt with – I am moving slowly and with peaceful intention.

“The Calm” is now actually my happy place.  I get to be “me” here – my authentic self, awkward and content; full of love and grateful for every mundane and beautiful moment.  I have learned to slow down… Because life is so often lived in the moments lived between the lines.