About a week ago I read this fantastic book called the Four Agreements. It makes you look at your life as a dream, your own personal dream, and you can make your dream a hell on Earth, or you can make your dream into a heaven on Earth depending on how you live it. It was an good book. It was very intriguing and I would highly recommend it.
I want to talk about an important part of the book. Within your own mind, you have a judge that judges you for doing something wrong, on your appearance, or on the way you act. It defines you and makes you act and think in a certain way. “You look fat. You look stupid. Why can’t you act like them,” says the judge. If you believe in the judge and think he’s correct, then you will be fat, stupid and hurt. When you feel this way you are now feeding the victim within your mind. You start saying “I’m fat, I’m stupid and I will never be like them”. It becomes a constant cycle where you are slowly killing yourself from within; causing you to lose confidence and plunge into a dream of hell.
What this book showed me is that everyone is born with the capacity to live a happy life. When you listen to these parasites in your mind, you lose yourself to a tormenting cycle of pain and anguish. However, you can stop this from happening. You can choose to stop listening to the judge in your mind and learn to not feed the victim. You tell yourself that you can when you think you can’t. You say you’re beautiful when you think you’re not. You believe in yourself when you’re afraid.
This applies to martial arts because when there is a form you feel you can’t learn, a kick that seems off, or when the workout gets tough, you can choose to feed your victim and tell yourself “I can’t do it”. This then lets your judge tell you that you can’t then you will never overcome that obstacle. OR, you can believe in yourself and work hard and never give up on achieving your goal. Tell yourself, “this is hard but I will work on it and I will overcome it in time”. In the words of Winston Churchill, the famous prime minister of England, “Never, never, never give up. “
By Alex Tienda 3rd Dan at the Asian Arts Center