I was talking to Nick Lynch the other day. He was asking a hockey coach about his game face – staying calm during a sports event. The coach said he learned the skill from his daughter – his daughter wouldn’t want to be around him when he watched the games because she could sense his tension.
She knew.
Nora knows, too. When I have work on my mind, when I’m otherwise preoccupied, she senses it and is not as cuddly, does not want me to pick her up – the whole thing is just ‘off.’
The hockey coach Nick was talking to said that he used his daughter as practice to overcome his tension – he judged her response to him while watching games and got to the point where she was smiling and playful during game watching time.
We can ‘sense’ how people are responding to us – to our internal environment – by how the world is reacting to us. Things just don’t go as well when we’re in a bad mood. Neo-Tech books state that you won’t grow beyond your current circumstances if your current circumstances are causing you to be emotional, stressed, and angry. It’s like announcing to the world that you can’t deal with your life.
Yes, being emotional, stressed, angry, unable to control yourself or your emotions is a clear-cut sign that you are ill-equiped to deal with your life – and worse, it’s totally your fault!
Back when I was in probation for my drinking and driving accident in 2003 I remember a sign in my probation officer’s office: “No one can you make feel inferior without your consent.” Eleanor Roosevelt
The keywords are “no one can make you feel.” No thing can make you feel. Shit – you can control the way you feel about anything! You don’t have to get angry – that’s a choice. This lesson sucks, because it puts a lot of the pressure right back on you – you can’t blame someone else for feeling the way you do, your reaction is all internal. It’s all you. Or, it’s all mental as Steve Maxwell frequently told me.
Discipline, thought, and control are the order of the day. Turn off the TV, stop reading trashy things, don’t let your mind dwell in the gutter, never think things like “oh, how will I ever get it all done,” and discipline yourself to eat well, think right, exercise, and stay clean.