May 4th, 2023
As most of you know, I was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy at a young age, and with that comes physical limitations. That is part of my life and I can only do one thing about that, accept it and work within those limitations, At that age I understood that, however, what I was not warned about is the mental fortitude that is required of me as I was given this blessing and curse. That is what this one is about, our minds.
There is a part of life that is one of the more complicated parts and that is what is in our heads. Mental health is a prominent issue that has only increased over the last, I would say sixty years, and it does not seem like it is getting better. I am beginning to realize that our thoughts are important but often are not the truth. We as humans build a complex tunnel system in our heads and in those tunnels are negativity, expectations, false hope, and fear. We all have had moments where we have said, “I can’t do it” or “It is too much”, those are the thoughts that our minds compose by themselves to keep us in a comfortable position but being too comfortable for too long can also damage our minds as well. Having CP has given me too much time to be trapped in my thoughts and that is not a bad thing but it can be at times, due to my mind coming up with a false reality and as a result, disappointment, hopelessness, and fear are emotions that are all very familiar to me. I am constantly having to remind myself to not go to that jungle for too long and that the thoughts are not reality. But they can be, I believe that you attract the things you think about to you, ever think about something and then the thought occurs in reality, that is what we are doing, good or bad, it happens. That is why it is important to keep track of the thoughts in our heads because if you think on it too much it will leave you with more questions than answers. I have learned this the hard way and it has taught me to think not just with my mind but with my gut and more importantly my heart.
Just yesterday at the gym during my workout I was getting tired, beginning to feel puny, and my mind was screaming at me to stop. Come to find out that the hardest part of the workout was overriding those negative thoughts but I did it by bitting down on my mouthpiece and kept moving forward. I made it though and I was pleased that I was able to. People need to push themselves to a breaking point because life requires you to have the ability to rely on your strength and shut the mind down in order to complete the task in front of them. However, some people do not because they let doubt and fear take over and comfort keeps them stagnant which leads them to fall into a deep and dark abyss and sadly some never escape it.
“Cogito, ergo sum”, (“I think, therefore I am”) by the French mathematician and philosopher René Descartes in his Discourse on Method (1637) as a first step in demonstrating the attainability of certain knowledge.
Patience is the key to obtaining full control of your mind, being patient with the people in your life, being patient with your surroundings, and most importantly being patient with yourself. Aspects of our lives are not meant to come quickly nor with little effort, but nothing is achievable if you are being fed doubt, fear, and comfort. Be mindful, sometimes you need to fight technically and swiftly but there will be times when biting down on your mouthpiece and throwing haymakers is the only way through. Remember Rome was not built in a day and with expectations often comes disappointment but most of all, the tyranny of fear is the dream's executioner.
Peyton.
