Self | Life Lessons
The Day I Stopped Fighting Is The Day My Life Changed Forever
This might be embarrassing, but that’s ok
Very few people know this, but I used to be a fighter.
I would fight at work. In my personal life. I even had a dream of becoming an MMA fighter.
In 2017, I was training at a gym in Thailand when my body broke down.
After displacing a rib during sparring, I fell deathly ill with a chest infection.
I had to return home to rebuild.
During months of recovery, I was forced to analyze my life.
My choices. Myself.
I journaled and asked myself hard questions:
- Why did I want to fight?
- What was I fighting for?
- Who was I really fighting?
I discovered that I was fighting myself.
My past. My baggage. My mistakes. I was fighting to avoid healing.
We’ve all been hurt.
We all feel pain.
The day that I realized that pain is unavoidable my life changed.
I stopped looking at everything as a fight.
A battle to win.
This allowed me to live authentically.
To heal.
When you look at everything in your life as an opponent, you never let your guard down. You never get hurt, but you never really live either.
So, I let my guard down.
I tried new things, spoke my mind, and put myself in potentially embarrassing situations. I left myself vulnerable to attack.
But no attack came.
The people around me changed. They became more open, and life felt like a safer place.
Simply because I wasn’t afraid of it.
Pain is unavoidable. We need to feel it before we can move past it.
True strength comes from being vulnerable knowing you can take whatever is thrown at you.
It’s ok to be hurt.
To feel let down.
To feel pain.
When you no longer fear the bad, you open yourself up to all the good life has to offer.
Kickstart your journaling practice today, by picking up a copy of The Free 30-Day Flexible Journaling Guide: 👇