How did you know when to let go of something you put your heart in to in order to make room for something else?

“Every new project starts out exciting and fun. Then it gets harder and less fun, until it hits a low point—really hard, and not much fun at all. And then you find yourself asking if the goal is even worth the hassle. Maybe you’re in a Dip—a temporary setback that will get better if you keep pushing. But maybe it’s really a Cul-de-Sac, which will never get better, no matter how hard you try.”

My dear family, I am in the middle of deciding whether or not to let go of the dream to compete in the Golden Gloves this year. Trying to lose weight to get into your weight class is no easy feat — and trust me, I’ve tried to do everything I could in a healthy manner (18lbs in two months but it’s the last 6lbs that are the hardest).

There’s a fine line in healthy and unhealthy dieting and I’m afraid that in order to make weight I’d have to cross that line. I’ve come very close and don’t want to go that route, especially when it’s a vulnerability for someone who has a mental illness. I’m feeling a whole range of emotions, from guilt and shame to relief and freedom, but most of all, regret.

The good news is that I’ve completed the first draft of my book proposal (minus the sample chapters) and scheduled interviews with clinicians, researchers and those with BPD for the next two weeks. I’ve been engrossed in this project for a while now and it seems like this is the direction my life’s work is taking me.

Can I do both? Or should I heed the words of Seth Godin:

“Quit the wrong stuff. Stick with the right stuff. Have the guts to do one or the other.”

I know only I can answer this very tough question. But sharing this difficult juncture in the road provides me with some solace. Your wisdom, stories and support are truly appreciated. Thanks for letting me share.

It’s 6 o’clock in the morning and I’m wiping the sleep from my eyes. Usually I go for a ten minute jog on the treadmill to get the blood flowing but another early bird has gotten there before me. Today is a sparring day and I have to wake up. Unfortunately, this pre-dawn practice isn’t easy. I’m finding it difficult to shadowbox and let those fast-twitch muscles go. My motion is slow, belabored, forced. My mind wanders to the radio that’s being played in the background, to my day ahead, to going back to sleep, to anything but the task at hand.

There’s a noticeable lull in my game and the sobering realization is that I’m expecting it. For days on end I’ve been like this — my routine has become routine, a habit without intention. My training has reached a dangerous place as a fighter: I’ve become complacent.

It’s been bothering me for a while, trying to put a finger on why the fire isn’t there as much as it used to be. Although I have the experience now, the challenge before me is a more difficult one: I’m overweight, rusty and lacking in stamina. Clearly there is much work to do. The question is, why haven’t I been working on it? Why is it that I am choosing to settle?

When we turn pro, we give up a life with which we may have become extremely comfortable. The passage is often accompanied by an interior odyssey whose trials are survived only at great cost, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. It hurts. It’s messy and it’s scary. – Steven Pressfield, Turning Pro.

Ah yes, I might have subconsciously remembered how much it hurts to push beyond the comfort zone. Physically exhausting yourself — breathing harder, enduring mental fatigue, even raising your heart rate — is uncomfortable. You feel like you can’t do it. You can’t reach that next level, you don’t even want to try. It’s too hard. It hurts. No one will notice I’m not working as hard as I need to. No one is even looking at me.

But you do notice. You have flashes of what it’s like when you’ve reached that zone, when you push yourself a little bit more than before. It’s then that you feel a sense of mastery, a sense of exhilaration, a sense of being awakened from a long, slumbering sleep. The discomfort is fleeting and in the end, you feel breath-takenly alive.

And that’s when I remember, being alive is what it’s all about.

Whether it was a formal announcement or not, you’ve recovered from a mental illness, and out of grace or gratitude or hard work, you told the universe you were down to do the work you were called to do. When we settle, as Pressfield writes,

we no longer have to face the real fight of our lives, which is to become who we are and to realize our destiny and our calling.”

Perhaps in complacency I forgot who I was and was just going through the motions. Sometimes life is like that. Sometimes boxing is like that, especially at 6 o’clock in the morning. Then you realize there’s more to you that’s been missing.

I was and still am afraid of pushing myself, of going back to the pain of struggle that I have not been accustomed to for such a long time. It’s not a sadistic, self inflicted struggle — not the struggle of my mental disorder — but a healthy, honest struggle that come from the labor of our work. True work provides a sense of depth and meaning to your life and the lives of others. It’s a decision I have to make everyday, even at 6 o’clock in the morning.

A barrage of punches spatter at me. I keep my guard up. My sparring partner is much younger, heavier and stronger than I am. I’m overweight, out of shape and draped inside a sauna suit, trapped in drenching sweat. I try and penetrate through the punches with my own turn in combinations. I’m feeling confident even though I’m outmatched. I’m holding my own, keeping up with the pace. My partner comes back with another flurry of punches, nicking my right eye. My contact lens pops out onto the canvas.

And we’re only 30 seconds into the round.

I’m used to losing my contact lens on occasion while sparring, but this is the first time it’s affecting my game. Whether it’s the fact that I’ve been out of sparring mode for several months or if my right eye is my dominant eye — I can’t get my bearings straight. I’m disoriented. My confidence wanes. I stall and move in a round about way, waiting for my brain to make sense of what’s in front of me. I back-pedal and show no signs of aggression. I’ve become an easy target. The barrage of punches continue and I’m not able to answer back.

My mind goes back to my contact lens, lying there on the canvas floor — that helpless, clear piece of plastic just waiting to be stepped on and ripped apart. I take a glance to see if it’s still there and whack! — his left hook blindsides me.

It’s a wake up call to stay focused. My confidence is shot, but I continue to try. I’m finally getting used to this half-vision and am able to land a few more combinations. I’m pretty sure it all looks ugly, but I’m enduring the round and at this point that’s all that matters.

This is a huge part of learning… developing those instincts through struggle. Training against real resistance is essential to learning about the intensity and pace of a real fight… You need to develop a feel for what a fight is like, the intensity of the moves, how desperation fuels the struggle. – Sam Sheridan, The Fighter’s Mind.

Desperation is sometimes all we can do under the circumstances that lie before us. Sure it isn’t pretty. I remember the days of battling with emotional demons: the crying, the puffiness around the eyes, the snot dripping this way and that — all the uncontrollable convulsions that your worst fits offer. The scenes were raw and ugly but somehow I managed to get through it, as if all that ugliness, all that desperation, were part of surviving. Somehow, beyond your own doubt the will to live takes over and you endure through.

When three minutes seem like an eternity or the night does it best to never end, it does. The bell rings and the dawn breaks. We are weary and humbled but we’ve learned much from all this un-prettiness. Ugly doesn’t matter. Getting through it does. We can and will survive. Even in our most desperate moments the will to endure is there. Trust it in it. We do it over and over again. Round by round, we fight on.

Walk into any boxing gym and there are certain sounds that linger in the air: the thump and thwack of the heavy bag… the smacking of the glove against the trainer’s mitts… the pitter-patter of the speed bag hitting against a wooden board… then there’s the bell, a digitized bing-bing that tells the fighter they can let their guard down.

These are the sounds, the rhythms I follow during my two to three hours of training each day. They’ve become mundane, almost non-existent as I work out. And although the sounds never leave, I have started the process all over again, entering into the newness of being a fighter for one last time in the 2013 New York Golden Gloves.

But the fight is hard. Sometimes it’s complicated, sometimes it causes pain, sometimes we are met with an outcome we did not expect. For us with a mental illness like borderline personality disorder, sometimes our fight is spent just surviving — day to day, hour to hour.

I’ve lived that life but never understood it’s meaning until now: what seems to be the fight of our lives is actually recovery-in-progress. Recovery is in-and-of-itself life’s work. Striving and struggling is just as noble of a pursuit as any other, for within this journey lies the seeds of our life’s quest. I don’t know why boxing chose me, but I have found a big part of my life’s work here, in the middle of a ring, telling a story of struggle, of overcoming fear, of a life we did not expect for ourselves. These are my seeds. Who knows where they will fall.

We start where we are. I begin again, sounds anew, and as the bell rings for the next round, I’ll be ready to listen to the story it has to tell me.

Pain can be almost impossible to bear, but suffering is even more difficult. When you refuse to accept pain, you will suffer. When you cling to getting what you want and refuse to accept what you have, you will suffer.  Fighting reality, opposing the inevitable or struggling against what is – causes suffering. – Marsha M. Linehan

After a full weekend of back-to-back-to-back sparring and sleeping later than my usual bedtime, I woke up to the following:

• 4:30am 3 mile run.
• 5:15am Take the commuter train into the city.
• 6:30am Train at the gym.
• 10:00am Work at the office.
• 6:15pm Facilitate our support group.
• 8:30pm Take the commuter train back home.
• 9:30pm Home.

Suffice it to say, I’m exhausted.

Today started out with 4 rounds of sparring and the usual training regimen. Two hours later, as I began my ab exercises I was on the verge of tears. And it’s only Tuesday.

You think I’d be used to this by now, but no — balancing the life as an amateur boxer, paying the bills and participating in family life is incredibly tough. In fact I remember just a few weeks ago I had the same feeling, only it was days before a sanctioned fight.

Physically and emotionally exhausted from all the preparation going into the fight, I came home from work and literally crashed onto my bed. As I lay there, motionless, feeling my head and muscles throbbing, I began to cry; I still had to put in a 3-mile run in the dead of winter, all before dinner. I didn’t want to move. I thought if I pushed myself anymore, I’d make myself sick. I’d crack. I struggled to even put my running pants on. If I couldn’t even put on my pants, how was I supposed to run 3 miles? I felt entitled to a little self-pity.

Somehow I mustered enough strength to step outside and put one foot in front of the other. Gingerly at first, then a quickened pace, then I picked up my stride. 5 minutes into the run and my mind started to clear and with that, the exhaustion, too.

It was one of those winter nights where you can smell fireplaces through the cool and crisp air and see the moon peek through the clouds. I had my favorite music running in the background, the one that centers me and makes me realize why running is good for my soul.

Then, in a quick moment, a memory came flooding back. It was the movie reel of my previous life — the one that culminated with a stint at the psychiatric hospital. There I was, rocking back and forth, all curled up in the bathroom of the psychiatric floor, wailing and crying for thirty minutes straight. I was in so much pain and confusion, so much fear and suffering that I constantly looked at the ceiling to see which beam could hold my weight.

I haven’t thought about that in some time, perhaps trying to block it out. It was the most painful, confusing and lonely place I have ever been at and I was both surprised and curious to why the vivid memory had returned to me during my run. It seemed like such a long time ago. I can’t even believe that was me, thinking where I am now; back then I met 8 of the 9 criteria for BPD, now I meet none. But then I remembered that there were other people in that same moment (and some much worse) as I had five years ago, only now. People like me who don’t know this diagnosis exists. People, like me, who don’t know we could be taught a different way to live. People, like me, who don’t know treatment could help put their lives back in order so that they could do the things they didn’t even know they wanted to do in the first place. Like boxing.

2 miles into my run, I said to myself, “As bad as today was, as painful and exhausted as I felt today, it will never be as bad as that day in the bathroom five years ago. Look how far I’ve come that I can even do this — being able to transform my suffering into meaning.” Pain cannot always be avoided. And in that moment, the physical pain lingered but the suffering went away.

I’ll always be grateful for that night run where I put one foot in front of the other.

We won! That’s me in the yellow! Yes, I know the referee raised my hand in the ring, but when I say WE won, I mean it. Boxing is a team sport, no matter how you see it in the ring. From my supporters to my family to my sparring partners and my coach:  you are my team, we’re in this together, and we’re on to the semifinals! Thank you team!

I was a ball of nervous energy, but we were able to put a stop to the fight in the first round.

Although I won that bout, failure has been a word that has been on my mind lately. After a little celebration, my coach wanted to go over what I didn’t do. Case in point:

Whoops.

As I swallowed my pride, I began to wholeheartedly agree with his assessment. Each opponent brings a different energy, a different style and different level of skill. You have to adjust to it accordingly and for some reason some of my fundamentals were missing.

I felt like I failed my coach on the one hand and disappointed myself on the other. But I’ve come to the conclusion that failing is not only okay, it’s normal. In fact, now that I think about it, I fail everyday. I think acknowledging our flaws and failures in the present, during training and practice — and even during competition — prepares us much more than success.

Failure happens all the time. It happens every day in practice. What makes you better is how you react to it.  - Mia Hamm

I fail everyday but now I don’t look at it as if I lost. Each day you come back to learn from your mistakes, each day you show up and do the work, each day you train to your potential and give all your heart to the game, to life… and that’s when failure loses its sense of shame.

I don’t need to fear failure. Failure is only temporary. Failure makes you work harder. Failure isn’t the worst thing out there. Quitting, however, lasts forever. Keep going and we shall rise and rise again.

—-

PS I’ll be posting some more lessons learned on the road leading up to the Gloves in the next few days. See you soon!!!

7 Rounds of sparring this morning, last session before Saturday’s fight. Lots of challenges as I prepare, but even the Greatest had difficulty — and that didn’t stop him from trying. We’ve got to try. We’ve got to do. That’s why I love this quote from Ali. I posted it up on my desk and inside my locker. Hope you gain some inspiration from it too.

The professional understands that Resistance is fertile and ingenious. It will throw stuff at him that he’s never seen before.

The professional prepares mentally to absorb blows and to deliver them. His aim is to take what the day gives him. He is prepared to be prudent and prepared to be reckless, to take a beating when he has to, and to go for the throat when he can. He understands that the field alters every day. His goal is not victory (success will come by itself when it wants to) but to handle himself, his insides, as sturdily and steadily as he can.

- Steven Pressfield. The War Of Art.

My coach told me to be ready by the first day of Golden Gloves competition. Even though the women usually don’t start competing until mid-February, I received this letter in the mail last night, to my surprise, reporting to the first night of Golden Glove competition — perhaps the most hyped and high-profile night besides the finals at Madison Square Garden.

To be honest, I freaked out a little. Okay, I actually screamed four or five times as I told the news to my husband. I had scheduled two fights in the next two weeks, thinking it would be a good way for me to get ready for the tournament. Little did I know I would receive this, throwing the proverbial monkey wrench into our training plans. That night I went for a run and like all runs, I gazed into the winter sky to clear my head.

No one said this was going to be easy. No one was going to hand this to me. This is it. There’s no time to be afraid. There is only now. Now is the time to take what you’ve worked so hard for. All the hours of training, the rounds of sparring, the miles of roadwork, all the struggles, the setbacks, the pushing forward — all for this moment.  

And a grand moment indeed. If I succeed — and you’re damned sure I’m going to give it my all in order to succeed — I’ll do so in the bright spotlight of BB Kings in the middle of Time Square. I’ll do so with the greatest boxing writers and analysts at ringside. I’ll do so with the most media attention an amateur boxer will see until the finals at MSG.

And you can bet that when they ask me I will talk about why I’m fighting and whom I’m fighting for. You can bet all of you will be with me that night. All your stories, your struggles, your triumphs. As much as I have grown since my diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder, I am constantly reminded of how painful, debilitating and scary life can be without proper treatment. I am there for you just as many beautiful people have been there for me.

It is how I’ve made peace* with the monkey wrench. Now it’s time to bring down the hammer.

——-

If you’re in the New York City area, I would love to see you there! Here are the details:

Daily News Golden Gloves Tournament
January 19, 2012
Showtime: 7:30pm (doors open: 6:30pm)

BB King Blues Club & Grill
237 West 42 St. New York, NY 10036
Tickets are $25 at the door (though there is a line)
Tickets can also be purchased via TicketMaster.

*Prayers, cheers, slow claps and good juju are appreciated!!!

——-

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The most helpful method to stop self-doubt and negative thinking is thought replacement. Effective thought replacement occurs when you decide what you want to have happen and then think more often about what it will take to make it happen.
- Jason Selk

It was another test. I should’ve known that was what happened, but instead I began to feel those all-too-familiar emotions: anger, denial, and fear. Forget the fact that my opponent was taller. Forget that she was 6 lbs heavier. What got me was that she had four fights to my one. There were two other women there I could have been easily matched with that made more sense, but I was fighting the one with the most experience. “Maybe they mixed it up. It didn’t make any sense to be matched with her,” I began to rationalize.

It was no mix up.

And that’s when it changed. I went from anger, denial, and fear — to acceptance. This is it. I gotta make the best of it. I quickly went into preparation mode, spending the next three hours psyching myself up, trying to face the reality of my situation, trying to figure out what I needed to push me through. In a small hallway filled with 50 or so other fighters waiting for the late doctor (we all have to get cleared by the doctor before we can fight and for some reason the doctor is always late to these things), I crouched on the floor against the corner wall trying to conserve my energy, trying to block out any distractions or stress, and most of all, trying to get my mind right.



This was going to be a tough fight, there would be no room for errors, for panic, for bad habits to show up. I thought about what it would take for me to win. As I visualized my moves and combinations, I thought about who I was fighting for. I thought of those who told me about their story with BPD and those who didn’t have their loved ones any more. Their stories flashed before me. They gave me the will to push forward; I was going to give them all I had because they deserved all I had. I was given a second chance, I told myself. I can’t let this life go. I owe it to them. I owe it to myself.

I thought about eating afterwards, about how happy and satisfied I would be eating whatever I wanted knowing that I won. It would be a long ride home from the venue, and I didn’t want it to be a quiet ride. We had tickets to one of the greatest professional fights at Madison Square Garden that same night. I knew I wouldn’t be able to enjoy that if I lost, my mind filled with regret, what-ifs, and what-went-wrong. No, that wasn’t going to be how my night went out.

I had to get it done.

And that’s basically what I intended on doing. I mentally suited up my armor. I mentally turned the switch on to No Mercy. I remembered what my therapist would tell me each time I prepared for a fight:

This is a sport. Your goal is to win the fight, to throw more punches and connect. She knows what she’s getting into. She signed up for this too. No mercy, Amanda.

It was the permission I needed to get the job done, to be professional, to let go of judgment, to have one thing on my mind and one thing only: prove you belong here.

The bell rang and it all became a blur. I kept hearing my corner screaming, You first, Amanda! You first!!! There was hardly any time to think in my head, just do: punches, combinations, slips, bobs, hooks. She’d punch me and I kept on. There was no time to feel them, to let them get to me; I had to move on to the next combination. I couldn’t let her in because I knew if I let her in, she would win. So I kept on pushing. Somehow, in the second round, the ref gave my opponent a standing-eight count. I knew, however, that standing-eight counts didn’t mean much in terms of points and so i continued to press on.

In the third round, I found myself thinking for a moment, noticing I was becoming fatigue. I finally realized I was chasing her around (which was making me tired) and so I cut the ring. It was my most proud, though short-lived moment — cutting the ring. It was something we practiced time and time again, I couldn’t get it right, I didn’t get it, and yet, there during the fight, I actually made an attempt. My opponent was tricky and experienced and she soon got out of that one. In the next moment I had left my guard open; she landed a good one-two on my knocker. In that split second I said to myself, Oh, please don’t give me an eight count… the ref told us to break but sure enough, he didn’t. The final bell rang.

We won that day. We had fun on the ride back home. We watch a great fight go down at Madison Square Garden. And I ate ice cream.

Special thanks to my corner — my coach Moises and my sparring partner Karen. To my other sparring partner Ed and for Kyce coming down to cheer us on. Thank you all who are in my corner and to those whom I fight for.

Oh and the test? Well, my coach later told me that he wanted to see how I’d react realizing on the day of the fight my opponent would be much more experienced than I. Glad to say I passed.

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