Why the interest in emotions?
I have delayed writing anything about my personal reasons for being so interested in emotions, partly because I’m uncomfortable being the focus of attention, and also because I wasn’t sure that it matters. However, I realised that there is a story that I often share with those that I coach and thought that perhaps it would be worth sharing here.
When I was 11 my parents kindly booked me in to hospital for a week in the summer holidays to remove my rumbling appendix. Whilst I was in there, I met a girl of similar age who was a double amputee and was getting new prosthetic legs fitted in line with the expected height growth for her age. Her attitude to this was one of pure joy, she couldn’t wait to be taller. She didn’t show an ounce of self-pity and was the bravest person I had ever met.
Two years later a cerebral haemorrhage and stroke left me temporarily blind and paralysed down my left-hand side. At 13, I had little experience of how to navigate the situation I faced. What I did have was the memory of her. My sight returned but I was left with double vision for weeks, making learning to walk again tricky. I attacked my physio with determination and passion spurned on by the fact that what I was facing was still easier than what I’d witnessed her manage and if she could do it with good grace then so should I.
I was incredibly lucky to gain almost all movement back in my left hand-side and was back on a netball pitch within 6 months, which brings me to my passion for sport. My PE teachers challenged me to get back to my previous levels of playing immediately, honouring me with the school ‘colours’ for every sport at the annual prize giving, even those I didn’t play. Sport helped me to regain a sense of my identity after a life changing event. I learned at an early stage that life’s challenges can be extreme and provoke emotions that can feel overwhelming. I talk a lot about this to young athletes as I understand what it is to have to quickly adapt and navigate extreme situations and that life is never straight forward.
Over the years the fear of it happening again was repeatedly present and is something I still have to navigate. However, it has become easier the more I’ve learnt about my emotions. Joy, courage and fear have been part of my story for a very long time, just as I’m sure they are part of yours. Through my research, I’ve learned what accepting emotions means from an embodied and neuroscientific perspective, and I’ve discovered why the powerful memory of the girl I met that summer, helped to wire me in a particular way. My passion throughout my career has been to help others to learn the tools to become emotionally informed and navigate life from a braver and more joyful place, just like her.
Coaching: One size does not fit all.
How many times has a friend recommended a podcast, blog or book telling you that it is the answer to sorting your life out and fulfilling your dreams only for you to try it and find it of no use at all. Or worse you’ve invested your time and money in some coaching that seems to work for others, only to find that it just doesn’t work for you and you’re not sure why.
There is a good reason for this. We each have our own unique belief system about knowledge and learning, which reflects our values, our culture, our experiences. This then informs what we believe to be true and therefore trust. For instance, if you are looking to buy something would you trust numbers to guide you or would you trust people’s opinions?
I was once delivering a coach training course and was extolling the virtues of using play to enable behaviour change. One of the participants was growing ever more agitated so I asked why. Their belief system did not align with the idea of trying new behaviours without a defined programme. They wanted SMART targets that were highly accountable. Unpacking this they revealed that they had grown up on a military base and were the child of a soldier. They would only engage with a process of development and learning that aligned with their belief system. It was what they trusted. We all trust different types of knowledge. Therefore no one system of learning, of development, of coaching, can work for everyone. Coaching must be responsive to individual beliefs about knowledge to enable trust in the process.
On an organisational level, culture should attract people with similar beliefs. We invest time and money into creating cultures and use recruitment processes that attract similar people in order to grow a strong culture. Therefore, it is possible to create a coaching system that is responsive to the culture within your organisation and your people, through tailoring it to meet your needs. However, even then there will be sub-cultures within your organisation where different approaches are necessary. A team of creatives is likely to trust a different process of coaching than your accounts team. Trying to use the wrong system or model is not only ineffective, it can make people feel a failure and therefore be counter intuitive.
There are so many coaching models and processes out there that claim to have the right answer, but it may not be the right answer for you and your organisation. The first step before you engage in any coaching process is to think about the belief system that best fits you and your organisation and then you can find the right coaching for you.
Get in touch if you’d like to find out more about our bespoke designed in-house coaching programmes.
How to achieve an emotionally informed culture in elite sport.
‘Put your heart and soul into it’, ‘Don’t let your emotions get the better of you’.
We treat emotions in a contradictory manner in elite sport, changing our discourse around them depending on the message that we get across. So, which is closer to the truth? What is the role of emotions? Are they something to channel or something to manage? Both or neither?
The problem is that we discuss emotions using a language situated within a culture that has misplaced emotions biologically. It places them in a centuries old theoretical position of being secondary to cognition, which we now know is not how the brain and body work. We have a culturally perpetuated belief that rationale thinking operates separately from emotions and that we can out-think a feeling. Embodied neuroscientists disagree and so do I.
They place emotions at the core of consciousness, at the heart of our perception, learning and behaviours. Emotions are in the very essence of our experiences and it is they who invite imagination and higher order thinking to the party. Emotions dictate the theme of the party, whether it is a celebration or maybe Halloween! And then the brain works dynamically with various parts in attendance at once, informing our thinking and behaviour.
This differs so much from the hierarchical view that has been perpetuated in sport and the wider culture. Emotions are not something to be regulated, managed, or measured. They are a part of our very existence that inform everything about us.
Maybe we fear them too much to accept that view? We like the idea of being able to control, manage and supress. They get in the way, they can feel overwhelming. Again, maybe that’s because our culture in the West has taught us to fear them. We weren’t always like this. Once known as the ‘land of kisses’, Britain was manipulated into emotional suppression at the time of revolutions across Europe and here we have stayed.
So, if we can’t outthink a feeling then how do we become an emotionally informed culture in elite sport to enable athletes to ‘put their heart into something’ and not succumb to pressure and fear? How do we enable an athlete to navigate an injury, de-selection or retirement without being overwhelmed by the loss of their goals?
We help them to out-feel a feeling.
We encourage explicit acknowledgement and acceptance of emotions as part of consciousness and within all thinking and behaviours. We help athletes to realise emotions are part of every aspect of their performance, of their identity. We help them to transform emotions that aren’t helpful to them through a transformative process of emotionally informed learning.
Get in touch to find out more about creating an emotionally informed culture through coach education, player care, consultancy and personal coaching in EIL.
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