"It's about time that they listen." "How could they not have seen these things before now?" "Why are there still so many people who refuse to listen?" "Anyone who doesn't listen at this point is just pure evil."
These, along with many more passionate things, have been said over the last few weeks. These are all thoughts that many different people are having and I'm not here to start a conversation about whether the thoughts are right or wrong. Everytime thoughts like these pop up, I can't help but think to myself, "but what if you still loved them?"
As athletic coaches we don't have the ability to only coach those that view everything the exact same as us. Right now on your team, guess what? There may be athletes that don't agree with you about what is going on in our country. Does that mean you have to stop coaching them, kick them off the team, or simply stop talking to them? Although right now in the heat of emotion that may seem like the best solution, I'm here to tell you that you don't have to part ways because you may not agree.
As humans, we each have this amazing thing called emotions. The great news about emotions is we individually are responsible for our own. Sometimes we don't realize this because most of us grow up conditioned that we can hurt someone's feelings and that we need someone else to make us feel better. This isn't true. All of our feelings actually come from a thought. When we truly understand that, it has the ability to change how we live because we no longer depend on someone else to make us feel a certain way. We are able to take our power back!
So, with the example of our player disagreeing with our views - we can still decide we want to have love, care, compassion, or any feeling we want because our feelings are our responsibility, not theirs. Along with us being responsible for our own emotions, we personally are the only ones that can feel the emotions we have. So just remember, whatever emotion you choose to have towards someone is only being felt within you. We may try to make someone else feel our emotions by doing something in line with what we think they will recieve as that emotion, but ultimately without us doing something the other person will never even know that emotion exists within us.
I know this is a lot to process and take in. So, as always if you would like additional help in this area - being responsible for your own emotions -please click here to sign up for a mini session. I will be able to give you a tool that you can start using immediately to help!
Until Next Time! -
I'm Coach Kendra,
The M.I.S.S Personal Assistant Coach
