CoachBri’s Blog

The players arrived early at 6:30 a.m. for practice for the big game tomorrow. The atmosphere was one of great hesitation. At the previous practice, a player had lost it on another player. Yelling, screaming, criticizing, and demanding he tell him something. The players who were yelled at stayed unaffected by the yelling. Many of the teams and coaches witnessed the whole thing and nothing was done about it.

It is sad, in a sport like hockey, that losing it on a player or fighting within a team is part of the culture. The player that was doing all the yelling seemed to be the type that intimidated other players. Perhaps it was his role in the sport and he was the emotional barometer of the team. Beneath the surface of this team laid a series of ineffective relationships. There were players that have lost touch with the fact that it is only a game. If choice, love and excellence are not driving them in their sport, then what is? Selfishness can be seen throughout the relationship on the team and I predict that they will not get far into the playoffs. Key individuals on the team who are supposed to functions as leaders are looking only to pad their stats. On losing teams that seems to be what happens. Players think as individuals and the collective effort is lost.

What is essential on a championship team is people playing the roles they need to, not what they want to. Teams go farther in the playoffs when they think and do collectively. But very few selfish players have any idea of such a concept. They don’t see that helping each other look good makes the team good. Most selfish players never reach the top of their sport. The ones that do are freaks – they have the right amount of talent and effort and someone that manages them well. We all know too well these talented freaks in any profession who make it and then succumb to relationship issues that get them into deep trouble with the team, drugs, or broken marriages. Excellence is something they have no idea about because money or fame is driving their ego and reason for doing what they do. Making it to the big league is the point of arrival.

Excellence teaches that character is found in how you do what you do, and motivation is an internal process driven to be the best they can be. Character is the thing that acts when one is put in a situation that allows you to take advantage of someone or something but you don’t. This is simply rooted in the fact that if you do, your conscience would bother you. You wouldn’t be able to sleep at night without drinking, drugs, or whatever poison you choose.

Why do I say poison? Because that is what we do – we choose our poison. A healthy character doesn’t choose poison; they are free and can sleep fine at night. Selfishness on a team always leads to sabotage. Often the most skilled players on a losing team are the saboteurs. The problem is they think it is everyone else because their lack of character doesn’t allow them to self evaluate. The selfish or miserable are forever evaluating others because they can let themselves off the hook for their own lack of production. There is only one way to deal with selfishness on a team: Cut it out! Provide opportunity for them to get some help. Integrate them slowly inch by inch into relationships and show them how what they do is detrimental to the team. Let them come up with new behaviors they can practice. If all else fails, do the only thing that is best for team and make sure the team is behind it. Face selfishness and flush it out. Demand character, through self evaluation. If they can’t self evaluate, they will never get it.

Coach bri

Within human beings is the need to survive. After a divorce the common thinking of a person that has been cheated on is to feel that they hate the opposite sex and they will never get involved again. “I hate men” or “I hate women” is the common thread I hear in most situations. The healing process of any relationship begins when self-evaluation takes place. That self-evaluation is painful. The person who has being rejected is in pain enough, and to self-evaluate in it is often more difficult. People who are able to self-evaluate seem to recover quicker than people who don’t. Often people repeat the same external psychology habits in their next marriage and end up divorced again. Self-evaluation is the process of learning about your mistakes which connects to another need, which is the need for fun. Now the question is this: How is learning fun when it comes to being dumped?

It is natural for a person who loses a relationship to depress and this prevents that person from acting out of anger and doing something that would be harmful to themselves or the person that left them. Self-evaluation here is often very difficult when the need for loving and belonging begins over time to speak to the person because they miss having someone in their life. If you are happy that a person left you that usually means that this person didn’t meet your loving and belonging need anymore so them leaving wasn’t a big deal and can be a relief, allowing the person to now look for someone else to fill that need.

When looking for someone else it is wise to not meet them with any chemicals in your system or in theirs. Being under the influence of chemicals, medication, alcohol, or grass impairs one’s ability to sense how need fulfilling a person truly is. Even though you may have fun with this person, a good relationship has to be more than fun to have longevity. Self-evaluation is looking at how you satisfy your needs by checking out how the behaviours you are presently using are working towards your level of happiness. Levels of happiness are as real as your needs but they are sewn together, genuinely in all situations in different moments. When one is under the influence, it is harder to genuinely access how and why you feel good. The happier one is, the more needs or depth of a need is being satisfied. Now after experiencing a rejection, a person’s scales are going to be more sensitive to tipping and drugs or alcohol become a means of numbing out. The purpose numbing is to prevent the self-evaluation process from happening, which is driven by the emotional content of thinking, which is fear, linked to rejection or possible rejection.

Sometimes people in a marriage where sex was good and the only place where there is any connection have a harder time loving and belonging because sex was the only place where their marriage was good or they experienced any closeness. These people can miss sex, not really seeing it as the belonging they are looking for. They become very desiring and will go with someone just for sex. Men tend to do this more. Women do this as well but for a woman, if she comes out of a relationship where she was a victim in the last relationship and sex was the only place she where there was connection, she could be setting up the same pattern of abuse again. Therefore it is very important that if she wants and needs sex she do it with her full faculties so that self-evaluation is possible.

Men and women have needs for sex. It is part of our being. Having good and present sex helps connection, which allows sex to meet loving and belonging needs. If people choose to get together for sex to satisfy the need for fun, power, freedom, and survival but void of love and belonging, it can be very complicated and degrading. Under the influence this can lead to a lot of problems that tears away at the dignity of one or both people and eventually leads to great unhappiness that goes under the radar because the sort connection is always a painful one. You can’t fake love like you can an orgasm. But if you think you can fake love until you make it, all self-evaluation is lost. Love and compassion are the key ingredients to relationship. Without them and without awareness, all external psychology dominates our behaviour.

Coach bri