# Training My Way Out of Grief

- Link: https://brianejohns.com/2016/04/18/blog-training-my-way-out-of-grief/
- Published: 2016-04-18T16:37:00-04:00
- Author: Brian Johns

## I’m pleased to present to you a guest post from Kai Morgan. In this post, she talks about how she used martial arts training to deal with grief.

## Kai Morgan is a blogger who focuses on how we can become better people through martial arts training. Read her blog and download her free e-book on how to attract and retain more female students at: 󠀁[www.budo-inochi.com](http://www.budo-inochi.com/)󠁿 

Martial arts are my lifeline, and my training literally pulled me up out of the 
abyss at one point.

At one point in my life, I was thrown into deep trauma and grief, of an intensity
seemingly beyond all endurance. During that time I passed through the world like
a numb little ghost, barely surviving to the end of every working day without falling
apart or literally falling asleep. After which there was no energy left over for
family, friends, or pretty much anything else.

I saw nothing around me but a thick, bleak, exhausting fog, with no sign of any 
light beyond.

My tiredness was so extreme that I sometimes worried that I was seriously ill. I
didn’t understand at that time the immense, unstoppable power of grief to hijack
your brain and render you a living zombie.

Looking back, I realise now that my experience was just normal.

Avigail Abarbanel explains it beautifully:

_The process of grief is physical. Building new brain connections and neural networks
is tiring. It uses up a lot of energy and while the brain does that, we don’t have
much mental energy left for anything else. It is similar to when a computer is being
used for a massive computational task but we still try to use it for some word processing
on the side. It’s going to be clunky and slow, and things are not going to work 
as well as when we have the entire computer power available to us […]_

_Because our brain considers adjustment to change crucial to survival, it will make
it a top priority task and will allocate as much energy and resources as possible
to the adjustment process. This is because from our brain’s point of view we are
in danger as long as our mental image of reality doesn’t match our actual reality.
Everything else that we have to do just has to take a back seat. Our brain doesn’t
care that we have to go to work, raise children, pay bills, drive cars, run businesses,
care for others, cook and do the shopping._

And now I’m able to understand more about what’s going on, when other people sink
helplessly down into that place after great suffering. This is just one of the many
blessings to have emerged and remained, after the fog cleared.

## **So how did I find the way out?**

I believe that above all, it’s because I never stopped my martial arts training,
however ill or desperate I felt. Looking back, it was the strangest life ever; a
kind of double existence. But I desperately wanted to be well; and instinctively
trusted at the time that consistent training would be my guaranteed shortcut to 
healing.

How is it possible for someone to barely function, and yet spend hours every week
running around the dojo, fully engaged in vigorous physical and mental exercise?

Here are some notes I wrote at the time . . .

_It’s not lost on me that I’m completely listless and useless most of the time, 
but every time I get on the mat, all my exhaustion vanishes, and I become a focused,
energetic little powerhouse. I often wonder if this means I’m “faking” my tiredness
the rest of the time, but I know that’s not true—I’m generally a positive, energetic
person who hates to be ill, and I know that this chronic tiredness is something 
way beyond my control._

_So why am I always ok to train?_

_I can’t really understand or explain it, but I start to think about a strange, 
beautiful story I heard from one of my primary school teachers, very many years 
ago. The school was Roman Catholic, and our teacher told us one day about a little
girl of our own age who was very sick—so sick that she couldn’t even eat and had
to be fed by tubes._

_But this girl was extremely devout, and wanted above all else to make her First
Holy Communion. Her faith was so strong, that she believed she would be able to 
receive the sacrament, even though she couldn’t normally eat or drink. So they arranged
for her to take Communion from her sick bed. Sure enough the miracle took place,
and she was able to receive it just like anyone else, to the absolute amazement 
of her doctors and family._

_Now I have no idea if this story is even true, or whether it was perhaps partly
true and exaggerated for effect. But I had absolutely loved hearing it at the time(
a small Catholic girl can be a very romantic and impressionable creature indeed).
And it strikes me that I am now somehow like this girl. I can’t do my job very well
at the moment; I can’t be bothered to return phone calls or texts from friends or
family most of the time; indeed I can’t even get out of bed for long on some days._

_But wrap me in a white uniform and put me on a training mat, and I’m somehow transformed.
It really is a kind of personal miracle as far as I’m concerned._

_One explanation for this may be that training gives me a guaranteed respite from
all my fear, bad memories, grief and anxiety about the future. Learning Aikido and
Aikijujutsu is so fascinating—and also so difficult, to put it frankly—that it literally
leaves no space in your head for thinking about anything else at the same time._

_This reflects the state that Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi labels as “flow”—a state of
total concentration and absorption in an activity, which is so complete that nothing
else seems to matter. I’ve come to believe over the months that I’m really fortunate
to have such easy, direct access to this state of pure “flow” several times a week.
I compare it in a way to taking painkillers or antidepressants, or receiving some
other kind of therapy—but this course of “treatment” feels more akin to some kind
of sublime blessing or miracle, and heals me at an infinitely deeper and more effective
level._

The suffering I went through will always remain a part of me.

But so too, every hour of training I experienced was also absorbed into my soul 
like a magical balm; and healed me from the inside out, faster than the people around
me ever would have believed possible.

When we eat food, our body seeks to extract all the good elements, and convert them
to become a part of _ourselves. _Meanwhile, it strives to expel that which is harmful,
or of no use.

Likewise, I believe that all being well, our soul sucks out every last drop of goodness
from our experiences, whether they are positive and negative, and strives to assimilate
all that good to create new versions of our ever-emerging self.

I would not change a single moment of that tough period in my life; and I am quietly
thankful now for the rich personal growth it brought me. My greatest hope as I write
this tonight is that someone else will read this story, and allow the healing power
of good martial arts training to work its sure magic upon their own shattered heart.

## Additional Reading

 * [High or Low Energy Private Lessons](https://brianejohns.com/2024/05/02/high-or-low-energy-private-lessons/)
 * [Which Technique Is Best?](https://brianejohns.com/2020/01/20/blog-which-technique-is-best/)
 * [The Most Important Person?](https://brianejohns.com/2016/08/01/blog-the-most-important-person/)
 * [Bikinis and Filipino Martial Arts](https://brianejohns.com/2015/09/09/blog-bikinis-and-filipino-martial-arts/)
 * [Am I Crazy for Writing A Book?](https://brianejohns.com/2021/02/20/blog-am-i-crazy-for-writing-a-book/)

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