This Too Is The Path: Chapter 9
The period of ex-communication from my family was the toughest in my life. I was in physical, emotional and spiritual pain. I was in shock. I was angry that my parents took my sibling’s side. I was beyond angry at the way I was being treated. I was convinced at the time that I was a victim of circumstance and injustice. How had the peacekeeper of the family been made the outcast?
For the first week after my parents ex-communicated me, I couldn’t sleep. All day and night, my mind went around in an endless loop of repeating over and over what had happened and trying to assert (inside of myself) my blamelessness in all of this. While I managed to keep working and spending time with my children and wife, this period of my life is a blur. My anxiety was at an all-time high.
At the time, I was lucky enough to be a part of a men’s team. We were a group of men who gathered weekly, and shared about what was really going on in our lives. At times, we would challenge men with hard truths and task them with undertaking commitments to improve their circumstances when that seemed like the proper course. One night I told my story about what was happening in my family, presumably very much from the stance of the victim. I got two wonderful things from that evening. One man said to me: “Levy, you’ve got to learn to be the source of your own rightness.” What this meant to me is that I couldn’t look outside of myself to find the permission that what I had done was ‘okay’ or ‘good’; I needed to be able to look at my life, make a decision, and be the one to give myself the okay or approval for what I was doing. The other thing I got from that night was a challenge: “Levy, you’ve got to learn to fight.” As we were all setting goals for the year, I decided (with a little push from my team) that I would enroll in a boxing gym and the challenge was to have to complete an actual fight in the ring (3 rounds), as opposed to just training.
The only thing that upset my psyche more that year than the night my parents ex-communicated me from their lives, was the day I went to the boxing gym. Just the thought of going to this gym terrified me, but the reality was much worse. I didn’t sleep that night but the following day I went anyway with dread in my body that felt heavier than a 100-pound dumbbell. The gym was located in an old army barracks building next to a YMCA. The inside of the gym smelled like old leather and sweat. This was no fancy ‘kick-boxing’ class with mirrors and carpet; it was a 1930’s era boxing gym with a fight ring in the middle, and weights, heavy bags, and lightning bags spread around the circumference. I met the man who ran the gym, told him I wanted to learn to box, and was assigned a coach who was a young man who was an amateur fighter. I don’t remember his name, but Franky will do. Franky was a lean fighter at about 5 foot 10, with lightning fast hands and every fiber on his body was muscle. He ate, slept and lived for boxing and was on the path to fighting his 12th amateur bout. When we met he was 12-0 and his fights were starting to get tougher.
Since this is not an essay about boxing, but rather more about self-growth, let me cut to the chase with what I learned. The first thing I learned was that boxing wasn’t about just letting raw aggression out and channeling anger, it was about learning the discipline of training, smoothness, how to throw a punch and how to defend oneself from a variety of blows. In terms of this last point, defense, one lesson I learned the hard way was to ‘keep your hands up.’ Throughout the first month of training, every time I’d get into a stance or practice some combinations with Franky, he would always say to me – “you’re dropping your arms – keep your hands up.” This was sage advice of course, because to protect your face and head you’ve got to learn to keep your hands up, forearms pressed to the side of your head, to ward off side blows, or even parry blows coming toward your face. The point of this lesson was driven home when during one of our practice sessions (where Franky was supposed to be going easy on me) he kept shouting – “keep your hands up.” I remember thinking – what a jerk, my hands ARE UP- when suddenly I took a blow to the side of my face. He stopped went back over the proper hand position and we tried again. About 60 seconds later, I got whacked again with a glancing hook to my face, as he shouted “keep your hands up.” This time a small abrasion lined the side of my eye, and all week I was left with a reminder of Franky’s advice.
My coach made me train for about four months before he would even let me fight someone, even in a practice round. One afternoon, while about half-way through my practice routine, Franky called me over – “Levy, why don’t you go one round with Bob who is training for a fight this week-end” Bob was about my size but he was about 15 years younger than me and lightning quick. I went over to the ring, which was surrounded by about 4 guys, each of whom was going to fight one round against Bob in succession. I was the 3rd guy in line. I don’t remember much about the round I fought with Bob, other than that I got hit a ton and managed to maybe land only one or two blows of my own. But the 2 minute round seemed like it was an hour, and my whole mentality was simply to make it through the round. I felt victorious when the bell rang. Winded, exhausted and sore I left the ring with a smile on my face. I had just been in my first fight, and I was alive. More than learning to box I realized that my training was more about learning to take blows and keep moving. I was still standing.
Commentary
If we are lucky, the challenges we have in our life will ultimately make us stronger. At times we simply need to stop running, turn around and face what is causing us so much fear. My inability, no unwillingness, to confront and fight, had not only fueled an unhealthy family dynamic, but also had shown up in my work in the form of fear of larger men. While I could stand there and think of myself as a victim, I, too, had a role in all of this. And the only thing I had the power to change was me.
Like many life lessons, what I thought I needed to learn and what I actually learned were a little different. My psyche didn’t care if I had won or lost the fight or was a good boxer or not. What mattered was that I had stopped running and faced that fear directly. Even now, writing this, I realize the hardest part of that whole boxing journey was the first day I walked into that gym. Every fiber in my being was shaking, afraid and wanting to leave. But I stepped through the door of that gym – fear and all – and moved forward.
One of the biggest learnings for me was how “off” my self-perception could be. I was standing there in that ring thinking my hands were up and they were not. And this self-concept , though wrong, was so stubborn that it took literally getting hit in the face multiple times for it to register – “ah, I guess my hands aren’t up.” This learning transformed the way I teach and work with my corporate clients. I now had first-hand experience that one of the biggest impediments to self-growth and development is to address our self-perceptions that are ‘off.’ I also learned from that boxing gym how hard this is to do. In addition, I learned that more than learning to throw a punch, my bigger life lesson was how to take a blow and move forward. As I was never going to be a good fighter, my badge of honor became that my toughness was about absorbing shocks or blows and that this IS a form of toughness. While I was well aware that a few months of boxing hadn’t transformed me, I felt like I could walk a little taller in the world. More than boxing, I had just done something that few people EVER do. I had confronted one of my worst fears, and persevered. I had earned the self-respect that comes from facing a challenge and rising to the occasion. And with my family or origin, I was slowly becoming ‘the source of my own rightness.’
Questions (Your Commentary)
What is a challenge or fear that you’ve faced squarely? What did you do? How did you go about facing it? What did you learn?
What is a challenge or fear that you’ve run away from? What is the benefit of avoiding this challenge or fear? What is the cost? If you were to face toward it, and not run, what would that look like?
What is the role of challenge in your life? What do you say to yourself when things are really challenging? What are some of your positive responses to challenge? What are some of your negative responses to challenge?
How do you see yourself in terms of taking on challenge? What words would you use to describe yourself vis a vis challenge? [e.g. embrace, tentative, love it!, ambivalent, etc.]
Where in your life do you have what is most likely a false concept of who you are? Where do you tell yourself that you’re ‘hands are up” but they really aren’t?
What is the difference between how you see/handle physical challenge, versus emotional challenge, versus spiritual challenge? Describe. Which are easy for you? Hard?
What is the most powerful question you could ask yourself that arises from reading this story about boxing, challenge, and facing your fears?