Strength Was My Grief

I’ve been thinking about why I brought so much strength to the mat during that time in my life.

It wasn’t to prove anything.
It wasn’t about ego or dominance.

It was because I felt so weak inside.

I’d just been ripped apart emotionally—betrayed, abandoned, left to piece my life back together while raising my son. I was walking around with an invisible wound that no one could see, and Jiu-Jitsu became the only space where I could let anything out.

But not in words.
Not in tears.
Through strength.

Every grapple, every explosive movement, every moment I refused to quit—I wasn’t just fighting an opponent. I was expressing grief.
It was all I had.

I think now, in hindsight, I wasn’t being defensive.
I was trying to stay intact.
To feel something solid beneath me when everything else had fallen apart.

And in a strange way, bringing my full physical power to the mat was my way of saying:
“This is what’s left of me. And I’m not letting go.”

That wasn’t aggression.
That was grief.
That was me holding the pieces of myself together the only way I knew how.

So yes—
Strength was my grief.
And I honour it now.
Not because I need to live that way anymore,
but because it got me here.