Every year at this time when my focus turns to my students end of year gradings this topic comes up. How to achieve our goals, how to stay focused, how to conquer our fears and be the best that we can be. All of these things are well within our control but are lost by feeling overwhelmed. We become overwhelmed when we allow ourselves to step outside the moment we are currently living and experiencing. I experienced it myself on Monday morning when the earthquake hit.
When the quake first rumbled and rolled under our house I coped well, identifying that it was a quake (remember this hit while we were all sleeping) assessing my surroundings and making snap decisions based a plethora of experience with quakes. This quake was long and rolling, the sort we in Canterbury all know will be devastating somewhere. The longer the quake rolled on the more my mind went to the city and all of the folk there.
The last big quake had devastated Christchurch, lives were lost and the city fell. I allowed myself to start to fear for what might have happened there again. The more my mind dwelled on this the less control I had on what was happening around me. In my wish to save the world I was forgetting to care for myself first. It was in this moment I fell into a state of overwhelm. Trying to take on all possibilities whether they had happened or even whether they would happen.
To regain control I had to step back into the moment and look at what I could control there and then. What I could be doing in that moment to care for myself and those around me. This was again a reminder to embrace the lessons I pass on to others.
Stay in the moment in every moment that you are living, the past is gone and cannot be changed. The future has not happened yet so it cannot be influenced unless you work in the moment you are in. I always take this into my karate training. I have learned the hard way over the years as I endeavoured to attain my Black Belt. A grading can seem completely overwhelming if you focus on it as a whole, but if you focus only on the technique or exercise you are asked to perform in any moment it is actually very easy. You can give your best to everything and the things you feared most are easily achieved.
I have not though taken this into my battle with the Beast. I have been looking at this with overwhelm. Focusing on how huge the battle is to change my diet, how restrictive it will be, how depressing family holidays will be. I was not in the moment. I have worried about how my training today will affect my energy and pain levels tomorrow. It is time to live in the moment, it is time to allow how I feel in any given moment dictate how I train, to listen to my body in the moment it will tell me.
Beating the cravings for sugar will be easier if I don't allow myself to be overwhelmed by all the things in the future that I believe I will not enjoy because I cannot have a treat. See when I put it like that it seems very silly. But it is amazing how the brain, when it is allowed to go into overwhelm, will give us cheats no matter how little credibility they have.
It is time to apply what I have learned in my arts to all of my life. Not just portions of it. It is time to take back control from the Beast by not allowing anxiety over what has happened or what might happen affect the moment I am in. I will deal with what ever comes with focus and calm knowing I am doing my very best in the moment I am in.
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