It is my belief that we come into this world with certain "themes". These themes usually present themselves as reoccurring experiences that play out in various ways until we no longer need that experience. Some of these "themes" can even be a life long passion. Everybody has their own unique themes that they either must deal with or that they choose to deal with. Themes include things like victim, warrior, rescuer, teacher, healer, artist, dependent, explorer, etc. I think most of us have several main themes interwoven into the fabric of our lives.

One of my main themes, a theme so powerful that it took me almost 60 years to resolve, is violence. I was born into a violent family. That sounds weird to say, especially when my parents were both religious, hard working, and generous, generous to the point of giving anything they had to anybody who needed it. That was their saintly side. Their human side was not so sweet. Growing up, it seemed I got my face slapped on a daily basis by my mother, and she didn't just tap me, that women could slap! My dad's beatings, although not as often as my mothers daily ritual of slapping, were much more brutal. They're kindness and generosity was tempered with rage and anger. I think they just had too many kids.

Violence was everywhere in my childhood. My neighborhood was violent, my elementary school, the catholic schools, and later high school, all filled with violence. Getting beat up came natural to me. I was good at it. By the time I was out of high school, I was pissed off and angry. I channeled that anger right into the heartbeat of the sixties. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Details, not important.

Sex, drugs, and rock and roll never resolved those anger issues, but they were a good release. Life has many ways of tempering the anger of youth. Issues can be resolved by simply paying attention to your life experiences. In time, my anger, for the most part, just kind of melted away. Life gave me too many good things to keep holding onto that anger.

By middle age I realized that there was still an issue, maybe one of my life themes, that still had it's ugly claws buried deep into my psyche. It had to do with confidence and self empowerment. In my childhood I had experienced a great deal of helplessness, degradation, and humiliation from the constant beatings. No wonder I still lacked self confidence by middle age. You'd think that twenty five years of playing on bands would have resolved this issue, but not really because deep down inside, I knew I wasn't that good of a musician or a singer. Either people did not like my music, or if they did, I felt like I was just fooling them.

At forty five years old, I was ready to do something to find my power. I knew it was there, I just didn't know how to tap into it. Maybe I should have joined a support group. Maybe I should have got into some serious counseling. I know this sounds immature, but what I wanted to do what to kick somebody's ass! Not so much because I was still angry, well maybe a little bit, but more because I felt that I lacked self confidence because of all the beatings I had received in my youth and maybe by turning that around, I could find my own self worth and dignity on some deeper level.

The first time I watched my friend Chuck Epperson put on a Kenpo Karate demonstration, I realized what I wanted to do, what I had to do. I enlisted in his classes and for two years studied the techniques of self defense. During this time I was able to actually fight with other guys. I would leave those Friday night sparring sessions refreshed and ready to take on whatever life had to throw at me. After two years, I became bored with learning kata's but still had a passion for the actual hand to hand sparring. I continued going to Friday night sparring for the next eight years getting better at fighting but not really learning any real "karate" per say.

After ten years of sparring every Friday night, I finally had enough. A torn retina reminded me that I was getting too old for this kind of physical contact. That was OK though because I had accomplished what I set out to do, empower myself. Did sparring give me complete self confidence to confront every obstacle I would ever face? Hell no! But it did empower me on a primal level. There was something about knowing that other people could no longer, for the most part, over power me physically, that seemed to wipe away many of those old childhood issues.

These days I see the human body as a miracle of evolution. The eye ball alone is an amazing thing and the idea of damaging it in anyway is completely unthinkable. I used to love watching fighting sports, especially mixed martial arts. Now it just seems stupid watching grown men trying to damage body parts on other grown men, body parts that have taken nature thousands of years of evolution to perfect. And I'm glad I feel the way I do!

I feel in a way that I have come full circle. I am back to that little child who doesn't understand why anybody would ever want to hurt somebody else. But along the way, during my journey on that circle, I learned that love and respect for our fellow man and especially tenderness and kindness to children, is the best way help each other towards gaining their own personal empowerment and self confidence.