The Mental Health Fight

Like a lot of the population I suffer from depression and anxiety, but thankfully, it's not as bad as it used to be, due to training in the Martial Arts.

Growing up in a country town, that was limited to what it had to offer placed a real strain on my mental health. What I later discovered was, it wasn't the town, but rather my surroundings, the environment, the people and most importantly...me.

I had low self-confidence, self-esteem and just didn't like myself, as one of my school friends described it...I was my own worst enemy, and she wasn't wrong.

When I moved to the city, I thought all that would change, but it didn't, well not until I discovered boxing or rather it discovered me. It wasn't all kittens and marshmallows, in fact the first year sucked.

I went from training in Rhee Tae Kwondo (Karate) to boxing. The skillset is completely different, something I struggled with for a very long time, but I persisted. Despite being pulverised every Wednesday for about year.

This particular training was taught by an Olympic Coach, and like my instructor he could see my potential, if only I could see it. It allowed this person to punish me weekly, because I wasn't confident in my ability.

I had the skills, but I just didn't believe in myself. I actually told my instructor that I wanted to quit, let's just say, it didn't go down well. I was in tears and he didn't help, but what I didn't realise was, he wasn't angry that I wanted to stop, he was angry, because I couldn't see my own potential.

Through many years of training I finally did, not to say that little asshole anxiety didn't visit on multiple occasions, nothing's perfect, but I got better at dealing with it. Don't get me wrong, I still have triggers, but what I found was, the more I boxed, the more my confidence grew and the more my confidence grew, the more I felt good about myself, ultimately feeling like nothing was impossible.

Do you suffer from mental health issues? Let me help you! Contact Vickie for a consultation.