Become Your Own Mentor and Greatest Opponent
Do you ever get caught in trying to best another person to show them what you’re made of? Do you ever wonder if your fight is with that person? Do you ever consider the silent battles that are raging within you and why? What if your battles had nothing to do with your external opponent?
One of my greatest lessons in Life has been in realizing that most of my conflicts are rooted in myself and that I can be my greatest mentor if I choose to focus on growth. As I was reading How to Influence Your Opponent’s Mind with Your Strikes by Pen and Sword Journal, some of the information and strategies reminded me of how I used them to reshape my epilepsy experience. In the section about Instinctual Reactions caused by repeated attacks, I remember how recognizing a pattern would drive me to shake things up. If I sensed I was too habitual in preparing for my seizure situations, I’d be driven to commit to an alternate method for some upcoming attacks (add a new breath, concentrate or react differently, surrender). This led to finding alternate defenses and learning what not to do. In choosing to alter my habits, I allowed myself to flow with the situation to pick up what was there but was previously blocked by a cognitive load.
Acting as mentor for my character and stepping up as my number one opponent, I had to get to know myself on multiple levels and be willing to use the various levels interactively. I had to choose the uncomfortable and want to be hard on myself. This was achieved by my knowing that my ultimate achievement was growth. I couldn’t control what happened to my body, but I could control my openness to discover. The desire to grow gave me the courage to place myself in uncomfortable situations purposely to find out more about myself.
At the time, there weren’t a lot of people I could turn to for epilepsy support and it was clearly not something I could ignore. Life guided me to work with my person from multiple roles to become what I am meant to be.
It's easy to assume that good mentorship or our opponents are external, but the best person fitted for that role is the person that knows you the best, yourself. You control what you know, what you want to become, what lessons to search for and you will always carry the fruits of your labor. No matter how small it may appear now, you’ll look back years down the road and marvel at how small successes made you into who you are.
Photo By: Mor Shani https://unsplash.com/@morsha
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