I always used to tell myself that I wanted to, and would, “grab life by the balls”. What I meant by that was multi-faceted. In my head, that was my way of saying,
Ambitious and well intentioned, yes… But what a delusion that was.
The funny thing is I’ve quit, fallen out of, given up on or run away from a shedload of things over the years. Haven’t we all? It’s so easy to find an excuse. And yet here I am. I’ve had some more (what feel like, at least) breakthrough revelations that happened during this last 12 hours. I know, right? This guy. Always with the spiritual revelations. Shut up already…
But I honestly think and feel that I misunderstood what that phrase really meant though, literally today.
So this is the day that I humble myself some more, continue this practice of owning my shit and come clean that I was Today Years Old when I understood that grabbing life by the balls isn’t the best of approaches.
“Humble Thy Self!”
What BJJ and Ocean Swims Have in Common
I've been training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for 8 years now - I stumbled my way into it after a long martial arts journey that started at 11 and took me through the Navy and eventually to Tiger Muay Thai in Thailand. But it wasn't until BJJ, taught by an instructor from a sports massage course I took in 2017, that I really understood what all that training was trying to teach me.
It has well and truly humbled me, again and again. I came in with a 10+ year martial arts background and post-military service, young, fit, flexible and competitive. “I’m gonna crush it!” I said to myself. Only for the tall, skinny instructor to twist me up like a pretzel and bend me over backwards saying “Daddy?”
Punch the Waves
Even to this day it continues to do the same, and I’m beyond grateful for every moment that it does. I’m a purple belt now, and today I tapped my black belt professor for the first time ever about 30 seconds into a roll. He then proceeded to MAUL me for the remaining 4:30. I was dead to the world after that, but smiling. I knew I had no chance of winning. But it was fun to try.
After that class today, I had the luxury of driving out to Bronte Beach in Sydney and jumping in the ocean, washing the sweat off amongst the high tide waves and soaking in the salt water.
And it threw me around like a rag doll in the process.
Standing in the bogey hole, getting tossed around by the ocean, I felt in my body something I had long known in my intellectual mind - my absolute powerlessness and (relative) insignificance in the broader context of nature and the world, the Universe. If I stood there, punching the waves, is that a fight you’d bet anything on me to win, even at a million to one odds? Hell no.
I came out of the water, stared up at the sky and had this moment of pure realisation that I felt in my bones:
What Pop Psychology Got Wrong
The human neurological system is an incredible thing. To have so much capability contained within a 10W bulb equivalent is astounding - I endeavour to be grateful each and every day for the gift that is the brain and body I have been bestowed with. What an honour it is to be homo sapiens. You go Glen Coco!
But it has its drawbacks, and the glacial pace of evolution is telling as the world continues to speedsup as if powered by Moore’s Law and human belief alone. The autonomic nervous system’s stress responses have their uses as survival mechanisms, but they hamstring us in the third millennium more than we realise.
We are a part of nature, not its masters. We don’t have the level of control that we think we do, or hope we could have. Ultimately the thin veil of society is a great illusion, albeit a beautiful one. If a bear jumped out of the bushes next to you, how would you respond? I hope (unless you live in the USA and own a gun) that you’d know better than to try and fight it…
In our day to day existence however, we fight against, flee from, freeze up or fawn down more often than we care to imagine. And it doesn’t serve our higher purposes, for that I am goddamn certain.
Stress Responses in Action
I have a real sense of justice, or injustice, as a key part of my value system. I think it stems from being the childhood outcast, fly on the wall - social commentator and observer whilst simultaneously living the experiences. Surprise surprise.
It has often led me to default-fight mode. Post-my Navy discharge I even ended up talking to a well-known psychologist, Dr Meg Jay, and after a few interviews I featured in a chapter of one of her books. I’ll let you try and find it and guess which one that may be - a secret prize awaits anyone who emails me the right answer!
I talked to her about how my military service and martial arts had, on some subconscious level at least, stemmed from the driver to not take shit from anyone, ever again. I remember to this day all too clearly how it felt to freeze up in front of bullies. I wanted to build a me that was able to stand up for myself, and for others. And it worked.
Emotionally and spiritually, however, I didn’t develop in the same way as I did in the physical domain. So when relationship situations with Liv or Kristy got hard, got complicated, got messy, I told myself I was “fighting for” the relationships when in actual fact I was fleeing as hard as I could. And I couldn’t see the wood for the trees.
How to REALLY Grab Life by the Balls
For the majority of my life to date, I have been - very effectively I may add - deluding myself that I was seizing the day, getting after life etc etc. The reality is I’ve lived the majority of my years in some variety of the 4 F’s - survival mode, in one of its shadowy forms.
Most of us are stuck in these modes more than we realise. Caffeinating to get through the day, unable to speak our minds at work, laying in bed at night staring at the ceiling, avoiding the hard conversation hoping it’ll just disappear under the carpet where it rightfully belongs. Any of these resonating?
We exhaust ourselves punching the waves, fighting currents of nature and of society that we have no control over, and in doing so disempower ourselves from actually exercising agency over the things we do control.
But here's what I've learned today, floating in those waves at Bronte:
Real power - actually grabbing life by the balls - isn't about forcing your will onto the world. It's about developing the sensitivity to read the currents, the flexibility to move with them, and the strength to navigate skilfully through whatever comes your way.
On the mats, I’ve long since learned you can't muscle your way out of a good submission hold. You have to feel where the pressure isn't, find the space and flow through it. In the ocean today, getting tossed around like a rag doll, I finally felt this truth in my bones - the waves aren't my enemy to defeat. They're my dance partner.
So what are you fighting that you could flow with instead? What currents are you punching when you could be learning to read them, navigate them, even ride them?
I spent most of my 32 years trying to be stronger than life. Today I learned something better - how to dance in time with it.
What's been trying to teach you the same lesson? Maybe it's time to stop punching the waves and start learning the dance.