Not everything has to be about competition and fighting. For me, Jiu Jitsu is about having fun and engaging in a positive activity that brings body and mind into resonance.
Indeed, practicing to collaborate and spark creativity is much more powerful and rewarding, than reinforcing damaged behavior patterns and social pathologies. The state of the art in martial arts and self defense is all about fighting and competition.
Trauma and stress occurs at every level of intensity and frequency. When we have stressful experiences in life, we learn to adapt and survive. This may pertain to an individual trauma that a person experienced, it could describe how a child learned to cope with a certain parenting style, or something completely different.
Learned patterns for survival and coping become embedded in our nervous system. In many cases, people often don’t even remember or understand when or why they developed patterns for reacting to stress.
One of the keys to a fulfilling life is to have more positive influence on the people around and your experiences, rather than your experiences having negative influences on you.
When we become reactive, we become less conscious in choosing our course of action. The effect is that our behaviors become largely or completely dictated by stressors, new and old. These survival reactions become deeply rooted in our bodies and cause our behavior to be repetitive, and predictable. These adaptations make sense because in the past, those reactions kept us relatively safe. Unfortunately, a safety oriented reality inherently gets concentrically smaller and smaller. Fear makes our lives shrink.
In time, the circumstances of our life improve, the immediate threat is gone, and yet we find ourselves living with restrictions of mind, body, and spirit. You may sense that you have more potential for joy but your thought patterns and reactions to stressors are inhibiting you from maximizing your wellness and success.
Now, we have the opportunity to heal, grow, and expand the ways in which we express ourselves. By appreciating our personal power, we raise our threshold for what causes us stress. With a repaired and attuned sense of confidence and intuition, you will soon find yourself overcoming situations that would have previously costed you a great deal of energy and stress, with ease and peace of mind. These experiences will fuel a virtuous cycle for your brilliant life.
When we learn to be less reactive, more responsive, and increasingly self-expressive, we can lead more empowered lifestyles and experience more joy.
Learn more about how Akiyama Dojo can enrich and expand your life by contacting Ken Akiyama.
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