Embracing Your Inner Professional Wrestler: Tips for Improving Your Mental Health

You have to start living the spandex way of life, so you can stop wearing the masks of in-authenticity.

I have a dark secret. One that is known only to people who are near and dear to my heart. That sacred secret is that I am a huge lifelong fan of professional wrestling. Not just the WWE (WWF when I was younger) that we all know about, but also the Independent Companies such as AEW, New Japan Pro Wrestling, Lucha Underground (RIP), and a handful of others.

While I can one hundred percent recognize that professional wrestling is essentially just soap operas that cater to a primarily male audience, I can also see and appreciate it for an amazing blend of story telling/character arc development/live-action comic book/live theater/stunt show mish-mosh that it truly represents. If you are having a hard time believing me, please take a short break and go check out this thoroughly convincing video. I'll wait here for you patiently.

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Fighting for your Values takes grit and drive.

All right, welcome back. Now one thing that you might have missed from that video was one of the greatest scientific techniques that you can choose to implement into your life. It does not come from the pristine hallowed halls of academia, but instead hails from the dirty bingo halls and sports arenas where professional wrestling holds their bouts with predetermined outcomes. That scientific technique is known throughout the lands as kayfabe.

I know what you may be thinking currently. What even is kayfabe? Kayfabe is the agreed upon notion that the bouts, strife, and drama presented in professional wrestling is presented as authentic and real, despite most parties involved knowing full well that they are not. The parties involved with maintaining the illusion include the wrestlers in the match, the company, the referee, the announcers/commentators, and in all honesty most of the audience viewing.

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Fight hard to overcome your uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that try to block your progress.

So how does this help you? Well, other than showing you an amazing new form of entertainment

for you to begin to enjoy, love, and appreciate, it also gives you a new cognitive framework for helping you approach your day-to-day experiences. Kayfabe in the real world allows for you to attempt to suspend your own disbeliefs about what you are capable of accomplishing in your life.

When your brain tells you:

• "Don't be foolish. You aren't capable of doing that" - Attempt to imagine yourself as someone who would be capable of doing that thing. Then engage in the behaviors that you think that person would do.

• "You are unloveable" - Attempt to imagine yourself as someone who is worthy of love (side note - Absolutely everyone is worthy of love. Even you!). Then behave in a manner befitting someone worthy of being loved.

• "You are a shy person" - Attempt to envision what a version of yourself that was not shy would do in situations that you encounter. Then make efforts to try and engage in those types of behaviors.

The potential list goes on and on for how you could use this in your own life.

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Pictured Below: My Childhood Hero, Mick Foley

(AKA Mankind, Cactus Jack, & Dude Love)

Now you may not be completely sold on this idea, and may even think that I am off my rocker and entirely full of crap. It is definitely possible, I will not deny it. What I can say is that when I have utilized the Kayfabe mindset it has helped me immensely. When I started to challenge the notion of who I thought I was, who I had to be, or what I should be, it allowed me to have considerably more space to be able to be my authentic self. For myself, that meant being a Jared that is more authentic with people, has more meaningful connections in his life, as well as has more sources of vitality and richness in his life.

Now, I would love to be able to tell you that this means I no longer experience, worry, anxiety, depression, and/or fear. Unfortunately, that could not be farther from the truth. If you do not believe me, feel free to reach out and ask my tag team partner, my beautiful wife. She unfortunately has gotten to bear witness to most (if not all) of my struggles since 2006.

If you try out the Kayfabe mindset and have a good experience with it helping to improve your mental health, please feel free to let me know! I love hearing about when the tips and lessons I share with people provides them with benefit.

Finally, if you live in the state of Texas, and want to pursue individual therapy with me as an option for yourself, please feel free to reach out via my website!