Averting aversion
It's Sunday, and I'm facing my demons.
Lately, I've been trying to change my way of thinking when it comes to confronting mental barriers. I've been very stuck in the idea of needing to "fix" those barriers separately before approaching the environments where they're actually a problem and affecting my life; I'm working on being more direct, and trying to embrace the discomfort of dealing with them "in real time" and gathering confidence as I do it.
As I read more about mindfulness, the word that comes up a lot is aversion; not necessarily feeling defeatist or "why even try", but more being fearful of the experience and where it's going to take me, mentally, as I go through it.
An example is what I had to do for myself to sit down and write this piece right now: I needed to acknowledge that there's nothing very interesting about this ongoing personal work to an outside reader, and that I'm not particularly doing anything that's worth reporting on. That's kind of a bummer. That being a bummer doesn't exactly lead me to speak kindly to myself in my inner monologue.
If I try to fix that kind of thing before I feel I'm ready to write, I'm never going to be ready. I need to face that, rather than avoid it. At some point I actually need to "do the thing" in spite of the fear of what the experience tells me about myself. So here we are.
I'm also doing this in an effort to stop writing about writing; falling into this habit of discussing something highly personal allows me to sidestep that I'm actually not pursuing an environment that lets me write about things that I'm interested in. Endless navel gazing makes for cathartic work, but at this point I'm getting more frustrated that it's the only thing that seems to come out of my brain when I sit in front of a text editor.
Maybe it's useful to people going through the same thing, but I don't like that being the only narrative that feels right to type about. I can't adequately capture the entire fight in my writing, and I almost don't want to try.
On a less-severe note, some of this similar feeling comes up every time I queue for Street Fighter. This is partially why I picked it up at the same time I decided to go the gym more; the evidence of my efforts was going to be something that hit my brain more badly than good, and I wanted to build a better habit of emphasizing, noticing, and giving myself the credit towards the good things, instead of the persistent habit of self-criticism.
So let's give me some flowers:
I'm still Platinum, and I'm laughing because I came across something I wrote last winter about being in that skill bracket. Despite that, I can see myself making some real skill changes and almost rebuilding the way that I'm playing Ken in the process.
I'm starting to actually learn setups after knockdowns. This means I'm able to keep my "turn" or initiative for longer, and work towards more consistent and earned wins.
I'm working towards lessening my bad habits, which is being predictable on knockdown (usually eating OD Reversals and losing my turn) or using Drive Impact in neutral without a greater gameplan beyond "hope they hit into it."
I'm realizing what feels bad about not having easy plus-on-hit buttons, and the importance of spacing.
All of these things have been with the help of some patient and helpful teachers from the FGC For Boomers group, which I'm increasingly thankful for. A lot of them have been very sympathetic to that feeling of aversion in playing, and it's been nice to feel some progress.
My current goals are mostly to keep doing what I've been doing above, but eventually get a handle on "feeling like I'm executing my gameplan" instead of just flubbing my way to success. Downplaying victories that don't "feel right" probably isn't the way to go, but at the same time it's more about gaining confidence in myself: if I can pick up a plan and execute it, I know that I'm building the self-esteem to steel myself against further losses or difficulty.
I'm shrugging behind the keyboard right now. The only thing I can do is keep on going.
I'm streaming here and there on Twitch, including some small Street Fighter sessions. Come join me if that sounds like something you'd like.
Until next time.