Beyond Survival - Learning To Let Go

I am always surprised at the way many instructors only present one outcome to dealing with violence: success. I understand the need to present a positive message etc however when this occurs at the expense of acknowledging reality I find this difficult to swallow. If you are in a knife fight, you are likely to be cut, if you deal with a gun threat you may be shot and there are few occurrences of violence that don’t see you get punched, kicked etc – especially if multiple assailants are involved. These are all the immediate potential “physical” consequences that need to be considered and dealt with in the post-conflict phase of violence (appropriate first aid training is a must for the serious martial artist), whilst not forgetting the longer term emotional effects that need to be considered; if you think you will not be affected by these you are an idiot or less than human – violence effects everyone emotionally.

I relive many of the violent situations I’ve had to deal with on a regular basis. I’m not claiming to be a victim of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) but someone who often considers the significant events of my life and what they mean; I do this in order that I don’t relive them but am able to let them go e.g. I don’t want to be the guy in the bar who continually talks about the time that this or that happened to them, or about what this person did to me etc. I don’t want my person to be defined by such events.

I often meet people who acquiesced to a mugger’s demands and handed over their wallet, and have spent their life wondering if this was the right thing to do, and if having done this makes them less than a “man” or the person they like to see themselves as. The Hebrew Bible in the book of Ecclesiastes has the proverb, “better to be a living dog than a dead lion” (I learnt that one the hard way, and continue to), and everyone who has handed over a wallet etc in order to survive to should take heed of this. There are times for the “noble” gesture but these are fewer than we like to think. The reason that people when they acquiesce to such demands feel the shame and guilt afterwards is because they never prepared themselves to do this (they always saw themselves acting differently), and so were unable to control the situation. If you can consider the possibility of not fighting, you may be able to control the situation so that you don’t have to. If you can’t consider or don’t plan for an alternative you will only ever have one option and therefore always have one consequence if that doesn’t work out for you.

 Trauma is caused by having to deal with a high stress situation in which you have no effective control over i.e. you have no choices, you have to act a certain way e.g. children who have been sexually assaulted were subjected to a highly emotion experience/situation, which they were unable to take control of or exert influence over and so experience trauma. If you handed over your wallet at knife point because that was your only choice – you weren’t equipped with any self-defense skills or knowledge – then you will experience a certain level of trauma however much you rationalize that it was the right thing to do (and it was).

Too many people who have been the targets and/or victims of violence are unable to let go because they never prepared for the possibility of it or had only one outcome in their mind. Being able to move on, and let the incident go, is the mark of somebody who is in control, and was always in control – those that have to relive an event in order to re-experience it, and possibly change the outcome are those that are without control.

My belief is that everybody can learn to understand and accept the decisions they took and have closure on such events however it takes a process to do so. It is much easier to understand the potential outcomes of violence and accept all of them – then you are able to put them behind you and move on with your life.