Returning to Form

Last week I abruptly stopped taking Citalopram —
a medication that tweaks how your brain handles stress.
Well… that didn’t go too well.

The withdrawal symptoms were brutal: thoughts, emotions, tension —
my head and mood were all over the place.
At home, they were getting pretty tired of me (understandably).

Don’t worry — I’ve started the medication again,
and I’m grateful for the balance it brings — for me, and for them.

As you can imagine, that was quite an experience.
It made me think a lot about what it means to lose balance — and to find it again.

And, like anything you start paying attention to,
once you notice it, you see it everywhere.

In the dojo, one of my students struggled to hit another student.
The stress — the unbalance — appeared before the strike even began.
We used an exercise called “find the five,”
where the partner signals how much they can take.
That feedback gave her something to hold on to —
a way to regain her balance.
(And hit another person, so... yay, I guess?)

Another example was me trying to write new class material.
Too much content, too many threads in my head.
Until I pulled out a pile of old martial-arts books — my anchor.
After that, the writing came naturally again,
and, more importantly, my mind calmed instantly.

I think there are two ways to come back into balance.

The first is what we often practice in martial arts:
just fall — and make sure you land softly.

“Fall down seven times, get up eight.”
~Karate proverb

The second is the natural reflex we all share:
to reach for something familiar — an anchor —
so you don’t drift too far away
(or have to explain to your dentist why you made out with the floor).

What I learned this week
is that these anchors don’t just help when you fall physically —
they help just as much
when your mind begins to tilt.