Extreme sports and their effect on my Self Esteem

Well…this has got to be brief, so I’m sharing this (story I guess?) with the hope someone may find it beneficial, not to say that what I do is the right way or the wrong way - it's just helped me. For the “why” - and this to all truly makes sense, you would need to know every aspect about me and my environment growing up. But nevertheless, I’m sure someone may find parts useful.

So as a kid around 4-8 I was much smaller and skinnier than most people, to cut a long story short I felt weak and scared of a lot of things, now this is due to a number of factors out of my control, but the one thing I was in control of was my own mind and body. So I had this obsession with martial arts, and parkour, gymnastics, extreme sports and generally anything that seemed super human or super natural. I considered their (the athletes) bravery and strength to be extremely desirable attributes, and I had this idea of trying to make myself “higher up the food chain” or to be an “apex predator” - ironically - I don’t like the concept of eating meat, but its beneficial to have the attributes of an apex predator in a defensive stance. I knew that if I felt stronger and braver, I’d be happier, more decisive, less anxious and live a more fulfilling life.

I first started training myself psychologically like most children do, by climbing trees from the age of around 3-4, this led onto mountain biking, skateboarding, parkour, acrobatics, the aim of the game was to essentially scare myself, then repeat the action until it was no longer scary - eventually it became second nature, and I found myself seeking out the adrenaline for fun. Alongside these hobbies I was also physically strength training as well. An unknown to me at the point, all the time put into these sports and tasks, distracted me from a crippling low mood. You don’t have time to be sad when you’re participating in an extreme sport or something like a martial art, all you can think about is the task in front of you, and how to overcome/survive it - and the feeling of achievement can bring so much joy that you quit literally forgot your worries, until (in my case) you come home, ha. I should also say, that when I was younger, I wanted to be a spy/in the military, hence the training, so my approach to self esteem may have been tailored towards this and it may not be suitable for everyone, but conquering fears through exposure is a legitimate way to overcome problems and raise self-esteem. I changed my mind about the military in the end, I realised if you ask the question “why?” in the military too many times, you get told “that’s not your concern” or something along those lines, when actually, it probably is my concern.

Every time I conquered something new, my self-esteem would improve, if you do it everyday you can be constantly riding a high. I guess I started to realise I was more confident- when faced with the occasional confrontation, I learnt I was firmer and happier to stand my ground (not with the intention of escalating things, but usually to stop myself from being robbed), so far the opposition have always backed away, maybe its luck, maybe the self esteem and calmness throws them off. To be honest I wouldn’t recommend my actions in that situation, the person had a weapon and it was more of a personal experiment to see if I could withstand the confrontation, but that’s an easy way to get injured/die and at that point in my life I was undergoing extreme stress and low mood, so I was being reckless regarding my health. But that day I certainly realised my self esteem had improved dramatically from when I was a child and I’ve felt confident since. Mostly it has helped with being more assertive with my opinions, as I’ve been often told I’m often too passive. My passivity came down to home issues, where “respect your elders” meant not saying the “right” thing or (my opinion), because it embarrasses the people who are doing/saying the “wrong” thing.

I should say that I expect people to hint at the fact this attitude towards life could be considered “toxic masculinity”. However, these skills aren’t learnt for the intent of manipulating people through violence or dominance, these skills are learnt for the intent of defending yourself and others against violence, dominance, manipulation. Like I said, for this to all truly make sense regarding the “why”, you need to know a lot about me. To give you a brief idea, I often wondered what life would be like if society were to crumble, what skills would I need? sounds like paranoia, but as I  write this Russia is invading Ukraine so yeah…

So to round up, in short - pushing myself out of my comfort zone on a consistent basis, through fear exposure has dramatically improved my self esteem, and I’m sure it could help yours too.