The single most important thing I've learnt in the past 10 years is to separate myself from my thoughts, and to regard them with both healthy confidence and healthy caution.
Confidence because there are many situations where I back myself and my judgement. Parent, Coach, Brother, Son, Business partner, Husband. Caution because I've come to learn that many thoughts and feelings in the same areas can be so far off the mark. Scared, Proud,.........overconfident etc.
Over the 15+ years as a coach, therapist and performance psychologist, this teaching has not been new. We're trained to notice projections and transference, our 'blue touchpaper' situations and people. What's different is I'm now more able to separate from these thoughts, rather than see my opinions as some truth.
It matters as a tennis player because the same training that now helps me to be more self aware and have real clarity about my thoughts and feelings, also helps me to stay in 'the here and now' when training and competing.
The technique that has helped me profoundly in the last year is Mindfulness. This training involves focusing on my breathing in every moment of the exercise and simply accepting the departures into thought, noticing, and returning to the breathing. Doing this helps to reduce the power of all thoughts and helps me stay committed to how I want to behave and lead my life. As a tennis player this can mean pushing through the pain when I'm telling myself "I'm hurting, I need to back off".
I use the aptly named Jon Kabat Zinn's CDs as a great starting point. He founded the use of meditation in stress reduction clinics in the US, and clearly worked with the US rowing team back in Lake Casitas in the 84 Los Angeles games. Check out a bit of this YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwwKbM_vJc&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Or CDs on Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Full-Catastrophe-Living-Wisdom-Illness/dp/0739358588/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1315320594&sr=8-11
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Confidence because there are many situations where I back myself and my judgement. Parent, Coach, Brother, Son, Business partner, Husband. Caution because I've come to learn that many thoughts and feelings in the same areas can be so far off the mark. Scared, Proud,.........overconfident etc.
Over the 15+ years as a coach, therapist and performance psychologist, this teaching has not been new. We're trained to notice projections and transference, our 'blue touchpaper' situations and people. What's different is I'm now more able to separate from these thoughts, rather than see my opinions as some truth.
It matters as a tennis player because the same training that now helps me to be more self aware and have real clarity about my thoughts and feelings, also helps me to stay in 'the here and now' when training and competing.
The technique that has helped me profoundly in the last year is Mindfulness. This training involves focusing on my breathing in every moment of the exercise and simply accepting the departures into thought, noticing, and returning to the breathing. Doing this helps to reduce the power of all thoughts and helps me stay committed to how I want to behave and lead my life. As a tennis player this can mean pushing through the pain when I'm telling myself "I'm hurting, I need to back off".
I use the aptly named Jon Kabat Zinn's CDs as a great starting point. He founded the use of meditation in stress reduction clinics in the US, and clearly worked with the US rowing team back in Lake Casitas in the 84 Los Angeles games. Check out a bit of this YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwwKbM_vJc&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Or CDs on Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Full-Catastrophe-Living-Wisdom-Illness/dp/0739358588/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1315320594&sr=8-11
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Location:Home - lunch break
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