Anxiety...And Other Drugs

“Anxiety and desire are two, often conflicting, orientations to the unknown. Both are tilted toward the future. Desire implies a willingness, or a need, to engage this unknown, while anxiety suggests a fear of it. Desire takes one out of oneself, into the possibility or relationship, but it also takes one deeper into oneself. Anxiety turns one back on oneself, but only onto the self that is already known.” - Marc Epstein

This is probably a topic I could go on ad nausea about but I'm not doing that tonight. I just want to introduce anxiety as one of my emotional reasons for starting both BJJ and yoga.

For me, anxiety is that friend you invite to come stay at your house for an extended period of time. In the beginning, everything is fine...you don't even realize anxiety is there because he's following all your rules and being very respectful of your property. As time goes on, you start to see small violations but they go overlooked because to you, "its not that serious". Pretty soon, if left unchecked, anxiety has rung up a 600 dollar phone bill from calling Ms. Cleo and the Party Line, stolen your girlfriend, eaten all the damn Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and despite all your good nature, refuses to leave.

That is about a close a picture I can paint without getting too specific about what happened to me but what I will say is that somewhere along the line, I lost myself and became anxiety's bitch. I can cite several reasons why I started BJJ and most of them dealt with the athletic, competitive side of me. I would tell everyone that I wanted to push myself to my limits, tap into my competitive spirit, become a world champion but not once did I admit I really wanted to let go of my crippling fear of being controlled and saw BJJ as that opportunity.

To this point in my life, I only engaged in team sports so I found ways to blend in and do what my team needed me to do to be successful (as a team). I never stood out as a superior athlete and never wanted too. Even then, I think I was fearful of what it meant to excel and succeed beyond my own imagination. I realize now that was a trap anxiety set for me and I fell in head first. When I woke up I realized I needed to do something...something drastic that would challenge me physically, emotionally and spiritually...something that would extend my boundaries beyond recognition...something that put me up close and personal with my greatest fears. Once and for all, I had to prove to myself just what I was capable of on my own.

I'm not 100% sure how BJJ became the tool to find myself. At first I endured many months of frustration followed by just enough growth to keep coming back followed by more frustration. This pattern kept going on for a while but what I slowly came to realize was my confidence grew, my perception of self improved and my guard came down. I made friends...people I chose to invite into my circle. To that point I was only good at putting up barriers and daring people to jump over them for me. This was the much needed breakthrough I was looking for.

TO BE CONTINUED…