Stress.  Kids, kids friends, errands with deadlines, Other people’s shit I take way too much to heart…paperwork…

It opens up a whole big old can of worms for me.  What seems like the smallest of things can sometimes just blow a big hole through my coping skills.

Old patterns like to try to re-assert themselves.

When I am stressed, I feel the need for two things most of all:  Endorphins and a sense of control.

I went through a period of time where I got the endorphins through some pretty self-destructive means.  Then I found out I could get them through exercise.

As a child, I had little or no control over anything in my environment.  I was in an authoritarian household.   I could be made to do almost anything.  But they couldn’t make me eat.  Even when they succeeded in making me eat, they couldn’t make me keep it down.

Luckily for me I found the Martial Arts and Sensei Dwight Stewart.  I got my endorphins, and I got me a constructive outlet for my aggression.  I learned to turn rage from a corked bottle always under pressure and on the verge of explosion…into a long, slow burn that could fuel achievement. That evolved into true confidence and freed me to develop in more constructive ways.

Then, Sensei dropped the bomb:  You’re too skinny.  You’re not healthy.  You don’t get to train until you gain ten pounds, and it better be muscle.  He taught me how to weight train.  More endorphins.  He taught me how to eat to fuel a training body.

So here I sit, with a plate of cheesy ham-and-eggs and a banana squirreling around in my stomach.  Those fuckers are staying down.  So are all the old self-destructive habits.  I’m going to go train today.

Monday, I hope to mail off a letter that puts me back in the driver's seat.  A big old flip of the bird to whoever thinks they can push me around.

Toady, I’m gonna get me a circulatory system full to the top of endorphins.  And then I am going to come home and watch Ultimate Fighting Championship with some friends who would and could make people disappear on my whim...not that I'd ask...'cause that's not me.  But it's nice to know.

And all you old ghosts can just suck on that.