How to Survive an Active Mind

-Tend your id carefully and respectfully

-Whether you believe in God or not, remember you're not God.

-Never let your feet fall

-When your feet fall, pick them up

-When you can do nothing else, breathe

I admit it. I'm falling into old habits. I'm falling in a downward trend.

Failure is embarrassing, especially if you've ever succeeded before. To survive failure, one tends to instinctively do one of two things: employ apathy or hide.
-Apathy, to boldly declare a failure "Yes. I did this," the apathy is a shield of steel, to become unfeeling, to render an emotional attack useless. The magician does this--he smiles and says "Fire at will."
-To hide, to fully feel the pain of the failure and conceal it within oneself. The flimsy shield of shame--if no one else knows, it didn't happen. Yet to harbor this secret within means that its occurrence is undeniable--it lives inside you like an illegitimate infant tended carefully under baggy clothes.

I don't believe either of those things create healthy outcomes. The apathy creates a false sense of invulnerability. Shields eventually submit to entropy, especially when the material is the fickle trappings of the human mind, and eventually a strike will land on a weak point. The shield will crack. Hiding the pain or failure allows it to grow within and become larger than the reality of its happening. It becomes a parasite, draining... until the effects are crippling or the monster breaks free.

I apologize for leaning on the darker side of language. The point is, I'm searching for another way.

I admit it. I feel it, and I do not hide it. It is outside of me, visible as only the caliber that it is, and I feel it only as such.

Now. To defend.

I missed my first two classes today. Jacob called me before each of them (thank you). I felt the terrible weight of my body as I shifted, looked at the name flashing on the phone, and thought... Id moaned from every pore, Ego took sleepy, stumbling steps, and Superego muttered timidly, settling to glare in the corner of my mind. I closed the phone, then closed my eyes.

When he called again at one, Superego's voice was stronger. Id took his place, glaring, as I crawled out of bed and stumbled into the hall.

Superego nodded with a smug smile listening to Jacob tell me why I should go to class. Id cried. Ego just sighed and took a step toward Id, feeling the weight of tired logic. Superego won.

Finally, I slowly dressed and gathered my uniform. I called Brittany, who was extremely kind and understanding of my lateness. I went to Tae Kwon Do.

And what do you know, I feel better.

Black belt Brittany is so incredibly kind. She's a strong spirit, skilled, and ready to fight or help anyone at any moment.

I shy away from Tae Kwon Do--it's fierce, it's fast, it's strength, it's force. It's the part of my mind I've repressed since I was five. I prefer Aikido--loose and open, defend, use your opponent's strength. But Tae Kwon Do is equally empowering and equally useful. Listening to Brittany talk about her training, her instructor, and her black belt test, I felt the same love for it that I feel for Aikido.

There's a separate space in my mind I slip into in a martial arts class. I stumbled into it today. I rushed into my uniform, made a clumsy mess of my belt, and staggered into the first stretch. Yes, everyone, here I am, ignorant white belt. I feel emotions in martial arts classes that I rarely feel anywhere else--I feel embarrassed for my mistakes and I feel a need to impress my instructor. Strange.

Once I reach that martial arts mindset, I stop feeling those things. Mistake, watch, learn. The embarrassment is gone. The need to impress is gone. My mind is my body and my body is my mind.

I sparred for the first time today--light contact kicks because we don't have equipment yet. Last time we did that with wrestling, but this... was more frightening. Here I am, dancing with a black belt... It was amazing. It makes so much more sense in practice. Kicks that seemed overly complicated were obviously useful.

He switched us around, and I wrestled with a girl who knows Jui Jitsu. Once, I actually pinned her, and a second later, she flipped me. She taught me a really awesome move to use when pinned on your back.

We did leg raises... so many... and our partners pushed us in any direction. Keep your feet up. Surprisingly, as out of shape as I am, I never let my feet touch the floor. Beautiful Jitsu (I forgot to ask her name) smiled down at me and occasionally told me to keep going. When I stood for her, I did the same.

On the ride back, I talked to Brittany about Tae Kwon Do and Aikido. The other girl with us, whose name I've forgotten, said she would be terrified to spar in the center in front of everyone (he had some of the more experienced people do that). We talked about fear... how it's all a mental block. It's all about crossing those mental blocks.

I've written about Aikido before... how terrifying it was the first time I fell. It's counter-intuitive. Falling is supposed to be bad. To willingly dive forward... difficult. But when you do it, it's easy. The fear comes back when you roll over a bag--but the motion is the same. Then, again, when you roll over a person--until you realize it's the same.

In real life, it isn't so much about one's actual skill. It's about the mental state. The person who attacks me on the street is unlikely to be a black belt, someone who is already well aware of his skill. The person who attacks me on the street is most likely to be someone looking for a victim, someone who wants an easy opponent.

All I have to do is show him he picked the wrong one. All I have to do is believe I am worth defending. Everything else follows.

When Brittany was sparring with someone in the center, the other girl apologized--something I often do. She said "No. Don't say sorry--you're not sorry."

Tae Kwon Do doesn't raise under confident martyrs. Martyrdom is choice, not submission. A gift, not a sacrifice. Martial arts teach no apologies--you are attacked, you are right to defend.

This is difficult for me. There is something to be considered, understood, and decided.

Normally, my mind is heavy. My body is a vehicle, and my mind is a vast foreign world to be constantly navigated, facing hostility and kindness in turns. It is the constant fight and discussion of Id, Ego, and Superego.

Kamsamida, Tae Kwon Do. Thank you.

I've struggled for years to define sanity, and I think in some ways, sanity is balance. For now, I am enjoying the glorious sensation of balance.

And so I am learning how to survive my active mind... tend my id... respect my body... sleep, eat. Release the idea that I am responsible for the world, as I am not. The cliché of not giving up... with the added realization that it's okay when I do. If nothing else, breathe. Because it's simply going to be okay.

Again, kamsamida.