What if you stopped fighting against anxiety and instead fought WITH it?
One of the most common reasons young people request support from GRIT is to help them manage their anxiety.
For anyone who has experienced anxiety they will know how consuming it can be, how paralysing and sometimes life sucking its presence can be. Not to be mistaken with fear, anxiety is a futuristic emotional experience, in which we associative a negative outcome to a possible situation. In contrast, fear is a contemporaneous experience, when we are truly threatened at that moment in time. Physically, both can feel pretty much the same with both being particularly unpleasant to feel. For those with anxiety, its persistent nature can truly feel like you are a warrior against something that is trying to take over your life.
Saturday 21st September was a day of the warrior. Firstly, we had our wonderful fundraiser with Alex Robertson who climbed the equivalent of Mount Everest on the stairmaster or as some may know them, the stairs to nowhere.
I had the privilege of joining him on his summit approach and after 35 minutes I can tell you that spending over 12 hours doing this is no easy feat.
Alex talked about his new path of being inspired to inspire others and channelling his incredible energy into new challenges.
Secondly, on Saturday night boxing fans were treated to an unbelievable showdown between boxing heavy weights Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois.
One of GRIT’s ambassadors; local professional boxer Jordan Reynolds, who had previously been part of England Boxing’s GB squad and had trained alongside Daniel Dubois, had said Dubois was one to watch.
And one to watch he was.
In front of a 96,000 strong crowd at Wembley he dropped Joshua four times before knocking him out in the fifth round, causing a considerable upset in the boxing world who had mostly backed Joshua to win. If you’re interested in the technical breakdown this is not the article for you as I am no boxing expert but what interests me here is the background of Daniel Dubois.
A self- proclaimed man of little words, and clearly not as comfortable in front of the camera as Joshua, he released a training recruitment advert for the royal Navy in 2018, which I wrote about at the time. Following a slightly tumultuous career (until the last twelve months) when his mental strength was questioned, it seems now is a good time to bring it up again, as his words in that short video were very powerful:
“My ultimate goal is to be the best fighter I possibly can be. To be a good fighter you need the basic foundation, strong and fit. But 90% of boxing is mental.
The mental aspect for me plays a huge part. I get very anxious. I’ve always been very anxious. Some people might see it and think that I’m a bit of a coward. Everyone’s got a bit of cowardice in them. That will never stop me from getting into the ring. I sort of channel that into focus. It’s like fire, you’ve just got to learn how to control it. Never give up, once you control it - it won’t destroy you.”
Daniel Dubois Royal Marine Recruitment video 2018
One suspects that behind closed doors Dubois has indeed been on a journey, but last night no one could question his mental strength. He was the epitome of focus and determination, channelling what he felt into the performance of his life. Anxiety is a strong emotion, but if emotions are simply energy in motion then anxiety is a powerful source of energy. If that energy is fire, and you can control it, you can be inspired by Dubois and go and set the world alight.
You can watch the original recruitment video if you are interested here.
You can also still donate to Alex’s incredible fundraiser and read more about his reasons for doing the challenge on his justgiving page - https://www.justgiving.com/page/alex-robertson-cox-1722175848741
Featured photograph courtesy of https://www.telegraph.co.uk/boxing/2024/09/21/anthony-joshua-vs-daniel-dubois-live-fight-updates-result/?utmsource=email