I am a person who has always loved to participate in sport, and it also became a large part of my social life. However I still have regrets that at times my fear of failure ruined my chances of success. In many cases over a lifetime of sport the fear of failure was the very thing that caused me to fail.
Yesterday I read an article in the Melbourne Herald Sun newspaper about the Australian cricket team that reminded me so much of my own life. One doesn’t need a knowledge of cricket to understand what I am writing about here, because I am sure the situation I will describe applies to any team sport anywhere in the world.
Article by Robert Craddock. Matt Renshaw will book his test debut because he managed to sidestep a batting cancer sweeping Australian cricket. It’s called paralysis by fear. Poor Joe Burns and Callum Ferguson were so determined to shore up there futures, the stress swallowed them whole in Hobart.
I have been in similar situations to poor Joe Burns and Callum Ferguson in my own sporting career. For me, the stress came from a fear of failure, of not being good enough. After undergoing the process of Primal Therapy I found out that underneath these feelings was the imprinted sensation of “If I am not good enough then no-one will love me.” To a baby not getting the love it needs means that death is imminent, and that’s where my fear came from.
It may be a big step for some people to believe that what happened to Joe and Callum in their early years had the ability to leave them paralysed with fear as grown men. Anybody who understands Primal Theory and Therapy and the three levels of consciousness know that early life experiences can haunt us to our graves. Even at a small country town level of participation I didn’t achieve some of my sporting dreams because, when the opportunity arose, I suffered paralysis by fear.
Article by Robert Craddock. Apart from his obvious technical assurity Renshaw’s selection is a punt on the greatest virtue of unscarred youth – a free and unshackled mind ……. Significantly, the challenge lifted him rather than daunted him.
This article could imply that he was unscarred because of his relative youth compared to Joe and Callum, but this view would be incorrect. By the time I reached my teenage years I was very scarred emotionally. Several young people from my home town where so scarred they committed suicide.
A relatively free and unshackled mind is something that I am getting to experience late in life because I have relived most of the fear that was imprinted during early childhood.
Article Before he spread his wings Hayden spent hundreds of hours grooving a shrewd defensive game made for seaming decks like the Gabba where his bat swung like a pendulum in a low risk arc. Once the concrete slab was laid, then came the fancy interior decorating.
The reference to the concrete slab resonated with my previous blog that says a three story house (or a three story mind) needs a good foundation, or it will crumble. In the game of cricket, or any sport, a good foundation is practising correct technique; in the game of life we receive a good foundation from loving parents and community. If not then our lives will crumble at crucial and/or stressful times – we will suffer the paralysis of fear rather than the joy of living a life with a free and unshackled mind.