Keep your elbows tucked in and the right hand against your chin. When you snap your left jab, twist your fist at the end, like a corkscrew. Then bring the left hand right back into position — don’t drop it. Practice head movement. Close your mouth and breathe through the nose. Don’t load up the uppercut — it’s supposed to be short and sharp, right from your defense position. And relax. Relax!

Current weight: 151lbs. Goal: 142lbs.

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Seeing myself as a fighter has helped me look at my mental setbacks in a different light. It keeps me going on, persevering, pushing past my comfort zone in order to help me become a better, healthier person. Here are just a few of the lessons boxing has taught me:

Participating is better than
being perfect.

I certainly don’t have the answers, and sometime, my therapist doesn’t have the answer. But we work at it. Even my trainer and I — we work on it too, fixing, fine tuning, rediscovering what works and what doesn’t. We try, test, fail and try again. Once you realize that you can always improve, it lessens the fear of failure. And even when you fail, you can acknowledge failure as a part of the learning process instead of a human flaw. As Pam Slim, my mentor, wrote something that I’ve amended and has helped me keep this journey with mental illness and boxing in perspective:

Finally being a fighter was so much more important than being perfect.

Your journey requires a team of people in your corner.

If you want to change a behavior, habit or develop yourself in ways you’ve never thought possible, you’ll need other people to help you get there. It’s more than determination and sheer will (though you’ll need a lot of that too). Experts are there to show you things that you do not see; to correct your form, to push you a little further than before, to encourage you when you’ve fallen and give you a hand in order to get back up. They help you face your fears.

Practice, practice, practice.

Getting better and building mastery over something often hurts in practice, but when executed, all the hours you’ve put into practice pays off. Sometimes it comes so naturally — an intrinsic part of who you are — that you might not even notice it. But when you do notice it, acknowledge it. Acknowledge all the work you did to get to that point and pat yourself on the back. You did it.

Being aware is half the battle.

Working on something you care about is really hard, but it is also rewarding for the very reason that you’ve worked hard on it. Sure you slip back to your old habits. They’re hard to shake. But as my trainer told me, you’re one step ahead of the game because now you’re actually aware of it. Being aware is half the battle. The change in behavior will come with practice. With inspiration. With commitment.

There is no shortcut.

And all these endeavors going on? All these goals and wanting to be a better fighter or a better person — that’s a process. I didn’t find my trainer overnight — in fact it took me 9 months to find him. It also took me 13 years to uncover my diagnosis. I’m in the gym six days a week for three hours a day. I go to therapy every week and work hard to stay on top of my urges and making sure my vulnerabilities to urges are kept to a minimum. It’s hard — and at times exhausting — work and there will be moments when you question if all this effort is even worthwhile. But you show up anyway, and before you know it, you’ll be able to look back and see how you’ve grown into a person you’re proud of, a person you’re not ashamed of anymore. How far you’ve come in three years. How far you’ve come in a few months.

Fighters are not in the business of finding the easy way out. We stand up to our fears and face them with a little (or a lot of) help from our friends.

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The more I spar, the more it comes up in my therapist’s office. I know I have been using boxing as a metaphor for the battle with mental illness, but to my surprise, sparring is actually forcing me to deal with issues I would have otherwise kept at bay.

I sit on my therapist’s couch and recount the rounds — of getting beat up and getting angry, of holding back and panicking, of feeling the agony of defeat and crying in the privacy of the locker room. I fear being out of control and overcome with anger in one second and cowering in the corner and covering up against blows in the next. Two exhausting extremes playing out in three rounds of battle.

In therapy I used to keep problems abstract, compartmentalized and easily avoided. Now, I can’t help but talk about those same emotions — all on display in the ring. I ask my therapist whether or not I’m supposed get like this. I question all of this muck that is spilling over, inconveniently preventing me from being a better fighter. Is it okay to get angry? To use anger to my advantage? Is it okay for me to punch this person because she hit me and I got mad? Will I lose control? And where is this panic coming from? How come I always end up having it get the best of me? What is that, is it fear? Is it me avoiding confrontation? Why do I freeze? Why can’t I let my hands go? Will I ever get good at this? Is all of this muck good for me?

My therapist responds with a resounding yes. Somehow, sparring has let the demons loose. And maybe that is a good thing. The thing is I want to become a better fighter and if these emotional issues are preventing it from happening, then I’ll be ready to talk. Eventually she’ll convince me that these aren’t demons at all, but all a part of human condition.

“It’s okay,” my therapist says. “Just acknowledge it and get back to the sweet science of fighting.”

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