There were a lot of things I didn't like about this show, even though the premise is pretty funny. But then again, I don't like games. Or game shows, for that matter. People are put on display with the sole purpose of determining how much or how little they might know - for the whole world to see, and then when they fail the whole world sits back and gets to have a good hard laugh at their expense.
NOT my kind of fun.
But I also don't care for practical jokes. Don't like to play them, don't like to be the butt of one and it physically hurts me inside if I have to watch one played out on someone else. I know.. sometimes they are really funny but the joke is always at the other person's expense. Why is that funny?
I guess I've always rooted for the underdog, and my heart hurts a little more than it maybe should when I can tell someone else is hurting.
Which brings me to my thought for today ~
Why can I have so much empathy for others in pain, but can't extend the same understanding towards myself? Do you do that? Do you have much more patience for others in pain than you do when it's you?
It's a game, isn't it? It's all a mind game... but why?
Why would I chose to play a game with myself that I would never ever play to someone else?
I've spent the last week on the injured reserve list. Nothing major, but enough to put me completely out of the gym for 2 weeks. Interestingly enough, when the pain and isolation from the gym began - so did the mind games.
'Am I really good at this anyway? Am I ever going to be a real athlete and not just some girl at the gym? Do I have what it takes to make it? What if this injury never heals, or worse yet becomes a real injury and not just a slow down?'
As the pain screamed louder and those old tapes of worthlessness started to play in my head, I began to realize that deep down inside, I didn't want to play this game.
So instead of letting those old tapes play, I tried something different.
I reached out to those who could encourage me, even though my head was telling me to just quit. I took their words to heart, even though my pain was telling me it would never stop. And I focused on the act of recovery, even though my condition battered me with doubt.
In a way, I began my own version of 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?' and I called in a few of my lifelines.
You know when you watch that particular game show, there are some questions those people should just know, right?! I mean, come on...we've all yelled at the tv because the answer is so clearly obvious.
Yes. Well.....
Sometimes, when you're under pressure or under stress, what you know and what you think you know are seriously put to the test. And some times, that part of you that honestly knows the right answer, really can't come up with that 'right' answer.
So when I really didn't have the answers I knew I should have - I reached out to those I trusted who could answer for me.
"When it starts getting uncomfortable, those are the reps that count the most."
I would challenge you to think about your thoughts and feelings during a trial, much like you think about the reps you do when you're in the gym. Practice doesn't make perfect my friend... perfect practice does.
So if we continue the 'rep' of being down on ourselves and immediately doubting our abilities at the first sign of failure... that's not a perfect rep we've just practiced. All we've done is just another bad rep.... And now, we have to do 2 more correctly to undue the one we just did wrong.
But, if we're willing to apply perfect practice to our daily thinking and daily trials, how much different would our life be once that practice really did produce perfect? If we're willing to see that the way we've been thinking will no longer get us to our goals, and realize that it's going to take work, and determination, and that we're going to have to fight to change those thoughts from negative to the positive - and if we remember that the moment we realize we are 'uncomfortable' in life, we are quite possibly '5 minutes from the miracle ' as my coach-lifeline so wisely reminded me... THEN, and only then will we have done our first perfect rep.
Somehow, I need to learn to trust my knowledge and my own 'lifelines' and begin to practice perfect reps of giving myself the grace to fail and the encouragement to get back up. But until I get there, I intend to keep reaching out to those other lifelines who can speak the words for me until my heart can speak them too.
Don't give up 5 minutes before the miracle. It's really just one more rep. You can do that, right? Just one more.... and before you know it, that old game you used to play where you put yourself down because that's what felt right -
well it no longer feels right because there's a new game in town.
Play it with me.
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Here is an excellent blog posts on the stresses of Keeping Your Head in the Game and if you don't mind a few bleeps, then it's well worth the read!
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