Strength Through The Struggle

Today’s episode is about the two different but powerful meanings for Strength Through the Struggle that you can use in your life. Let’s get right to it.

Hello everybody! Thanks for taking the time to tune in and listen to this episode. I really appreciate your time and energy. While this episode isn’t specifically about martial arts I’m going to use them as an example.

When I came up with the name for this podcast it was the result of wanting to be truthful about life. At least my experience with life. And what I’ve learned about it from my childhood, into the military and as a career martial artist and student of life.

I wanted people who were looking for solutions to life’s challenges to be able to find honest answers, inspiration, and motivation.

The first thing that STTS means to me is that we all actually do have the Strength to get through any Struggle that crosses our path in life. Those can be struggles that were thrust upon us through no doing of our own as well as the challenges we create with our choices. You know what I mean, problems of our own creation.

There have been a few times in my life that I didn’t know if I had the strength to do what needed to be done when confronted with a problem in my life. One of those times was when I found out I was going to be a father.

My own internal dialogue was very negative concerning how I saw myself. I couldn’t imagine anything good could come from me. More specifically, my seed. I grew up with so many experiences in childhood that I wasn’t worthy of anything good or that anything good could come from me that I spent my adult life trying not to become a father.

That wasn’t the truth but it was what I believed. And we tend to behave in alignment with what we believe regardless of whether the belief is true or not.

I ended up trying to be the best father I could and overall, I’ve done a fair job of it. Not perfect by any means but pretty good most days. And that is with the added challenges of raising a child with multiple disabilities.

Even though I didn’t believe it the start, I had the strength to do it. The truth was, I had the Strength to get Through the Struggle the whole time.

I bet you can think of times in your own life where this has been true for you. It could be anything. The ending of a relationship. Getting through school or going on and getting a degree in college. What about sickness or injury? The death of a loved one in your life? A financial crisis. The loss of a job. What about that choice that you made that brought on the difficulty in your life that you didn’t think you could overcome or get through.

You see. You had it in you the whole time. You made it through. You did have the strength to get through that struggle.

The second meaning and one that lines up with the martial arts is, we get Stronger because we go through Struggles. As a matter of fact, we CAN’T get stronger without resistance, without something to struggle against.

If I want to make my body stronger, I must find something to push against. For instance, a floor to do a push up against. If I’m standing in the middle of a room pushing against the air, my body is not getting stronger. There isn’t anything in opposition to my arms. There isn’t anything for me to struggle against.

I have to get down on the floor and push against it. The floor and my bodyweight work together to give me something to struggle against which in turn creates more strength in my body.

The same is true for events in our life that are a struggle to get through. Those events are what give us an opportunity to get stronger on the inside.

When my son Josh was hurt in the hit-and-run with two semi-trucks, it created all kinds of opportunities for me to get stronger.

The struggle of dealing with both a life-threatening and ultimately life-altering event made it possible for me to have to dig deeper than I ever had to in my life. I had to develop a stronger Faith in order to keep going with everything that was required of me and Joshua. I developed more patience and new perspectives of understanding that have made me a stronger person.

I had to come to terms with the idea that I can’t control everything in my life which made me stronger. A new level of compassion was required for my son but also for myself and others in this world has ultimately made stronger as well.

I have a deeper level of perseverance now and can endure (which is another type of strength) difficult things if I must. All of this is as a result of the struggle, that ended up in my life.

It wasn’t easy and I’m not going to pretend that it was. I didn’t enjoy going through it. It was hard. But I do enjoy the strength that I gained from it. Without the struggle, I couldn’t have gotten stronger.

What about your own life? What have you gone through that has made you a stronger person? A be...

What’s the opposite of “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas? I’m here to tell you in this episode of the STTS. Let’s get to it.

If you live in the United States, or possibly other countries as well, you may have seen the commercials advertising a visit to the city of Las Vegas. There are dozens of commercials, all about 30 seconds long with different storylines.

Each commercial, regardless of the storyline, promote the idea that as long as nobody back where you live knows about what happens, then do whatever you like in Las Vegas. Because What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas.

It’s a bit of a wink-wink, nod-nod approach to life. If nobody knows, there’s no crime. No knowledge = no harm = no foul, is not the actual outcome. Now, I totally disagree with that mentality but that is an episode for another day.

I grew up with a similar philosophy in my home. It went like this, “What happens in this house, stays in this house.”

I distinctly remember hearing this from my mother one summer day. The neighbors severe alcoholics and parents were raising hell with each other. But the message was clear. Do not repeat what goes on inside this house, outside of this house. To anybody! Ever.

Now my mother did the best she could trying to raise us kids. Given, her own upbringing, which was ugly to say the least, the deck wasn’t stacked in her favor. She, and her three sisters suffered many types of abuse at the hands of my grandmother who was mentally ill for most of her adult life.

We will never know exactly how my grandma came to be mentally ill and abusive. Rumors have it that she was raped and miscarried a child in Italy while my grandfather came to the United States to find work and a house for them.

The abuse my mother experienced growing up along with being married to my father, who wasn’t the best of role models in town, gave her more work than she could handle with five children all under the age of five at once.

When my mother told me, “What happens in this house, stays in this house,” I couldn’t understand why she said it. What was so bad about what happened in our house? I mean it wasn’t perfect but it wasn’t the worst place on earth as far as I could tell.

As I got older, I started to see there were some houses where things weren’t much different. There were other homes where things were very different.

What I couldn’t tell though was just how far off of center our home actually was. My mother knew something wasn’t right. I felt something wasn’t right but I couldn’t define it in my childlike mind. My mother also felt helpless to do anything about it. We are talking about the 1960’s and life was very different back then when most mothers didn't work outside of the home.

So what does all this mean? In my life, I’ve found that things done in the dark and/ or kept in the dark are there because nobody wants them to see the light of day. I get it that our bathrooms and our bedrooms are private places. I’m not talking about bathroom habits or somebody’s sex life.

Certainly there are conversations, and things that happen in a home where there is no need for them to travel outside the family circle.

I’m talking about things like abuse in all its forms. Physical abuse, mental, abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, financial abuse, spiritual abuse. When these things happen, the perpetrator does not want you tell anybody about it. The reason is they are all harmful things at the very least, but many are also criminal as well as unethical or immoral.

When I need to keep something in the dark, so the deed remains unknown to the public including authorities, that is for the person doing the abuse to stay in the clear and out of trouble. Things that went on when I was a child, frequently were swept under the rug or given a shrug of the shoulder and a comment like, “It’s none of our business.

There are numerous things I and many others lived through that if they happened today, in 2019, people would be arrested for them and likely do serious jail time.

The only way to deal with the darkness in this world is to shine some light on it. Light doesn’t allow things to hide. Light allows us to see things for what they really are. Light heals. Light provides one thing that is absolutely necessary for almost everything on earth to grow.

It’s safer to be out during the day in the light than it is at the night in the darkness. It’s safer to drive during the day than it is at night. I have more reaction time because my vision isn’t impaired by the darkness. Many crimes are committed in the dark for the very reason of keeping people from seeing something illegal is going. Darkness hides the truth.

Truth needs to be stated and shared where people are being harmed. I encourage everyone listening to this to bring the darkness out into the light and let the light do its job of providing an environment of...

My wife and I are on vacation in the Dominican Republic. This episode is not about how I live some amazing life, although it is amazing in many ways. It’s not about who we live a life of luxury, traveling to exotic places and living where we want and how we want. It’s about how change for the positive can happen when the environment for it exists.

Six years-ago Teresa and I were at the very same resort in the DR. We arrived the second day it was open. We opted to take the trip then because the price was outstanding by virtue of being new.

At the time the staff was not that fluent in English and we weren’t fluent in Spanish so sometimes we had a little language barrier. Also, there were many things all over the resort that weren’t completed or ready.

Some of the restaurants weren’t open that first week and many of the listed resort activities weren’t ready. The beach was in good shape and the pool was in good shape and while we aren’t much for drinking, it seemed the bars were all fully staffed and fully stocked.

We were told by the staff not to drink the tap water as it had the possibility of making us sick. We appreciated that bit of info about the water and took it seriously using only bottled water to drink and went so far as to use bottled water to brush our teeth as well.

That was all OK. We are pretty easy going and understand the world isn’t perfect. complete. We had a great time relaxing on the beach, jumping waves in the ocean and enjoying the delicious, fresh fruits, vegetables and wonderful meals that were prepared for us.

Being a new resort, the surrounding decorative vegetation was just being planted. There was more dirt to be seen than plants and flowers. The property, because the vegetation that was planted, was only planted recently did not have the time to grow to its normal beauty.

As my wife and I walked the property she mentioned how she wondered what it would look like had it all been filled in and the plants had time to grow and mature. Needless to say, it didn’t happen by the end of the week that we were there.

Here we are six years later. The difference is profound. Every square inch of the property is absolutely beautiful and filled with perfectly manicured flowers, bushes, ornamentals, and trees.

The four to six-foot palm trees newly planted in 2013 are now twelve to sixteen feet tall in all of the atrium gardens of each building. The fifteen to twenty-foot palm trees around the exteriors of the buildings are now thirty to forty feet tall.

The decorative gardens surrounding the buildings are perfectly manicured and completely filled in throughout the property. Purple flowers abound and you can hardly see dirt in any of the landscaping because they are so full of assorted greenery and flowers.

All of this happened in six short years because the environment was right for growth. Sun, warmth, rain, somebody caring for and tending to the needs of the plants.

In Chinese culture and martial arts, we would say that is Yang Sheng. Nourishing or Nurturing Life. As a matter of fact, I believe it is so important that we say it at the beginning and end of all our classes.

We say yang sheng in the spirit of not only nourishing our life but also the lives of those around us. Most of my students only spend a few hours a week with me or my staff. We say Yang Sheng when we train with each other multiple times throughout class at the beginning and end of each exercise, while looking each other in the eye, as a way of promoting what we want for ourselves and others.

The idea of nourishing or nurturing life is meant to be taken with us out into the world. Home, school, work, activities, hobbies. Everywhere.

This is also something you can do in your own corner of the world whether at work or at home.

What if you could start the day with the idea that I will nourish life at work or home or school or while out shopping for that matter?

How about starting with the idea that when I am speaking with my children, coworkers, husband, wife, in-laws, extended family, boss, coworkers, employees I started with the heart-centered idea of all conversations and actions start with Nourishing life.

This has made a profound change in my life. I’ve struggled with staying positive at times in my life. I always want to be positive but sometimes, when my load has been especially heavy it was harder. I would lose my place because of the challenges.

When I decided to be purposeful about reminding myself about Nourishing Life, mine and others, I became more positive, forward-focused and energetic. Framing my day, my work and my relationships with Yang Sheng helped immensely in making more positive choices and actions in my body, mind, and Spirit. It makes me feel better because I’m actually doing better by asking myself, how can I nourish life here.

I challenge you to do the same....

Have you ever had a moment of absolute anger? What about Outrage over something? A little indignation maybe?

Maybe things didn’t go your way in a situation. Somebody hurt you. A person close to you won’t hear what you are saying. A person wronged you. Someone took advantage of you. You felt disrespected

I’ve been there. I’ve lost my cool over plenty of things that were small. True misunderstanding when the other person didn’t mean it the way I took it.

What about something that is righteously wrong. There is no arguing about it. It was unfair, unjust and unwanted.

Something sexual abuse.

People who abuse the elderly.

Wanton violence that has no purpose but to hurt another.

I have. I’m probably the only one though... wink, wink. Of course, we’ve all been there. We’ve felt the anger at something unjust. We have felt indignation when we see another has had to suffer some indignity such as sexual abuse.

What if when we see things that could lead us to anger or bitterness, we could, in turn, use it to go somewhere better?

One day I'm watching Josh struggle to get into the truck. Nothing really new. He's had to relearn to do things we all take for granted. Walking, talking, eating. Getting run over by a couple of semi-trucks when you are three years old creates challenges in your life.

Today however his challenges were compounded by a neon green cast that encased his left arm. The result of falling over while simply walking. No tripping. Nobody pushing him or falling into him. He simply lost his balance.

As I'm watching him trying to get into the truck and struggling to figure this new scenario out of living with a cast on his arm.

I'm trying to figure it out myself. And as I’m trying to figure it out, I also notice that I'm feeling frustrated over the whole deal. I realize I'm lamenting our situation. I’m angry because we have to go through this as the result of nothing Josh did to himself. But as the result of someone else. The driver of a semi-truck that kept on rolling.

All the emotions of the past challenges and injuries and mishaps and disappointments come rushing into the present moment again.

My feelings of frustration for my son having to go through this are amplified from these events that exist in the past yet are haunting my present.

As I catch myself starting to feel bad about this, I realize I have a choice. I can see this as an ongoing tragedy with all the negative emotions and thoughts that go with it or an opportunity for me to reframe my own thoughts and meanings of the situation to something positive.

And I HAVE to choose. Consciously, I have to make a choice. Am I going to live in the past or the Present? See this as a Tragedy or a Triumph. Become Bitter or Better.

I decide to choose Better. To look for a Triumph. To see this as an opportunity to overcome a monumentally difficult situation that nobody would want in their life and turn it into something good.

The steeper the hill, the stronger the runner becomes.

I choose to be present. To stay relevant. I can't change what landed us here. I can, however, choose how I respond to it.

It took me a while to get to this point. I’m sharing it with you because I understand the emotions that go with life. They are all useful. Even the ones you or I would term negative.

Ones like bitterness, anger, rage. Those emotions point to something that is screaming for attention. Something that if we choose, can exist to make us better and stronger. Not angry and emotionally weaker.

I will never be able to serve my son while I'm limping around feeling sorry for myself or angry at the world. I can only be of value to him if I choose to live in the Present and help him to see his own situation in the best possible light.

I am not suggesting to anyone to sugar coat something. I mean if you take a pile of cow manure, put it in a box, put beautiful wrapping paper on the box and tie it up with a pretty bow, it’s still poop.

I can, however, take that horse manure, and with a little work and a little time, I can turn it into fertilizer and grow something beautiful or nourishing with it.

Bitter doesn’t move life forward. Bitter doesn’t leave us feeling good. Bitter doesn’t create positive energy in my life or yours.

This is our Path here on earth. This is our Journey. This is the road we travel on.

To hell with Bitter. I want Better.

The Face of Incarceration

The movie Trading Places is a comedy that stars Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd as a homeless man and a wealthy cultured man respectively. Being a comedy there are multiple instances for laughing, however, it was thought-provoking for me the first time I saw it.

The two men are unwittingly transposed into each other’s lives. They in turn start to make different types of decisions that reinforce their new circumstances.

The poor man who is now in a wealthy lifestyle grew in self-respect and higher expectations of himself.

The wealthy man who found all his resources taken away turned to anger and feeling sorry for himself and indulging in petty crime.

Was it Nature, their personality or Nurture, their surroundings.

I interviewed a man last week, Quan Huynh (pronounced-Hhhhwen). Quan experienced a pivotal event in his life at the age of 13. A painful event. The hurt and the resulting anger from it stayed with him. And over time it grew into rage and violence. It climaxed in a violent night for him as an adult when he took the life of another person.

The events prior to him taking that man’s life shaped him into the person who was capable of taking life.

In the span of one minute, both families would be changed forever.

One minute. One choice.

If the story ended there, it would just be a sad story. A painful story. And a story that you might argue for both Nature and Nurture.

The story didn’t stop there though. Quan went to prison. And though he went in angry and violent, there was a day when he started to ask himself questions about himself. Important questions. Hard questions.

One of them was, “Can I be somebody very different than the person I have been?”

Quan’s story is about many things. Pain, Anger, Violence... Guilt, Possibility, Hope... Transformation, Redemption, 2nd chances and how does a person carry on after taking another person’s life.

I’m grateful Quan shared his story with me. It’s a difficult story for obvious reasons. There were a couple of things that I struggled with that I share at the end of the episode.

Yes, there is residual pain in his story. A life is gone. Nothing will change that.

But Quan has become somebody else. He is no longer a man who is a slave to the anger and rage and bitterness that shaped him into a person who took another’s life.

Quan chose a different path as his time in prison progressed. He chose to make conscious choices. Hard choices. Painful choices.

Choices that have changed his heart.

And by changing his heart, he has changed the future of his life and all those he comes in contact with.

While he was convicted of murder, he is choosing not to be defined by that moment or his old life. He is choosing not to be trapped in a cycle of pain and violence. His choices are no longer about the past and a hardened heart. They are about the future and the choices of a new heart.

As our heart goes, so goes our life.

Quan made choices to not be forever framed in by his previous choices. He has made new choices that create a new future distinctly different from the other life he created. Choices to help and not to hurt.

Choices that can create a life that can brightly outshine the dark moments of his past.