Kintsugi Company
Here’s the kicker: a good posture will only get you so far. You need actual skill to back up your signals. They need to tell the truth. Otherwise, you might be the one crumbled in a heap. You don’t want that. You want to walk away alive and in one piece. Your loved ones want you back home safely. Yes, listen to your mom but do more than that.
I’ve recently decided to considered myself built like a female sumo wrestler and to use that to my advantage in my martial arts training and teaching women’s self-defense. Why not? My training helps me to control my body weight and use it to my advantage. I can do things now that I couldn’t do a year ago. I’ve accomplished so much in a year’s time. I’m on my way to healing for terrifying traumas, ready to test for black belt, and getting stronger every week. My heart rate is great, my moods are generally better, my abilities are better and lifting 155 lbs. off the floor seems like a miracle –but it isn’t; it’s payoff.
Ah, yes, that moment of crisis that leads to decision making. The one where you have to just lay down and let that rock roll right over you, or get back up and keep pushing. If a 5-ton rock rolls over you, that can’t be good, right? Or maybe it’s good to get life over with and move on? Perhaps less dramatic, like throwing my hands in the air and saying “I give up, God — You do it” will stop this crazy cycle of pushing and pushing and pushing. After all, He’s big enough and strong enough to pick that rock right up and take it where it belongs. But why would He do that when making me do the work is much better and good? At least according to Him.
Suddenly I was gripped around the neck, choking in a rear-naked hold. I was instantly a little girl again, helpless and scared. I wanted to cry. Rushing in then was a NO you WON’T and it was like I tucked the little girl behind me as warrior me emerged. I tucked my chin, dropped down, stepped on her foot and dug my thumb into the back of her hand, peeling it off. The next thing I knew she was on the floor. I stopped her. I actually defended myself.
None of us wants to think about these questions — oh how I wish I had an invisible bubble I could shield myself in so I didn’t have to think about any of this! Even typing the questions I felt fear well and swell in my belly. But if we’re wise, we choose to go there, to actually strategize.
It’s just as important to love ourselves as it is to love others. Loving your neighbor as yourself indicates that. When the emphasis is placed on the neighbor and not ourselves, the idea can become distorted. Are we to hate ourselves? Or be indifferent? No. We are to love ourselves as God loves us. We are “neighbors” as much as anyone else. And we are loved.