Understanding & Harnessing your Emotions
By Chris Burns

When you watch the top sportspeople at the top of their game it becomes plainly apparent how relaxed they seem to be under pressure and how they can focus on what they are doing at the current moment without the blink of an eyelid.  You wonder if they’re superhuman, they don’t seem to feel the pressure – “If only I could do that,” is one of the first thoughts that come to mind. Contrary to what you may believe, what these elite sportspeople have learnt is not to ‘not feel pressure’ but instead learn to harness the positive qualities of it and ignore the negative ones. Let’s look at how that works.

Feeling the pressure of the moment is an emotive response, thus the word ‘feel’. As such learning to harness your emotions is key to learning to handle pressure. Emotions in any given situation are extremely important. If you are indifferent to a situation that is the worst state you can ever be in; it would be much better to completely lose the plot than to do something with ambivalence. At least it shows you cared! In general, the person that wants it more gets it. Never forget that. In a recent article with Sport & Style Magazine, Roger Federer talked about how the greatest sin on court is to play with an indifferent attitude. He mentioned how he was the typical youth throwing tantrums growing up, always had lofty goals and when he wasn’t meeting them he spat the dummy. It wasn’t learning to ignore these emotions that made him become arguably the greatest tennis player of all time, but learning to use them properly that made him turn the corner.

It is quite obvious that Federer is an extremely sensitive and emotional guy off the court yet anything but when on the court. After a tournament is over he quite often breaks down. After quite a few grand slams (on both ends of the ledger) he has ended up crying.  Federer talks about the fact that this is extremely important, as he will not let his emotions take over him when in combat, when it matters. Once it’s over they are so bottled up, it is natural he needs to release them. You see the important thing is that Federer knows how to use his emotions in a match to his advantage – they keep him focussed.  The will to win stays strong because he does not let it out of his psyche. The frustration of a bad shot wills him to play the next one better because he does not let it out of his psyche. The joy of playing an awesome shot spurs him on to do it again as he does not let it out of his psyche. The point is that he understands his emotions, harnesses them and then uses them to his advantage – he does not let them dictate terms with him but quite the contrary.

Time to be controversial. I put it to you that there is only one true emotion that controls all others, that is the emotion of love. Now due to the law of polarity there are what appear to be two sides to love – the positive and negative, yin and yang – that is love and hate. This idea that love and hate are really the same thing is easy to understand, think of it in terms of degrees. When does light become dark, when does hot become cold? It is all relative to the eye of the beholder. As such there is no difference between love and hate and therefore both are equally powerful and equally destructive. For you Star Wars fans out there think of it as the light and dark side of the force. Two sides, one all encompassing force. Now all other ‘emotions’ are subsets of this one true emotion – they bring it on in its various degrees. Fear is the most obvious one. It is really just being scared of the unknown, just being scared of not knowing if you’ll feel the love side of emotion or the hate side in the future – thus just a subset. All subsets are thus illusions brought on by your mind and as such controllable. Use them to create love and the world, and thus your game, is your oyster. Experiencing this brings serenity to what you are doing and allows you to focus in a calm manner. No matter the situation, Federer never looks like he is experiencing anything but joy, no matter what has happened, that is why he is so calm and why he never seems to get ahead of himself. When he does look frustrated he loses, it just goes to show he’s human like the rest of us.

Now understanding the theory behind this and putting it into practice are two completely different things. This is where application must come in. You must actively apply everything you do, if you don’t the moment will just escape you.  Whenever you notice that pressure build up, refocus on what it is you should apply at that given moment. Do that until you feel calmness sweep over you and then perform, as you know how. Never try to speed up the moment because you’re scared of feeling the pressure. Let it sweep past you by reapplying focus. These feelings are important; they act as a guide to tell you to focus better, not less, so do so!

Understanding why you have emotions allows you to harness them properly and as such use them to live in a serene and happy way. Always remember that love and hate are the same thing – the more you experience it as love the more positive you’ll be, the more you experience it as hate the more negative you’ll be. Both thus are equally powerful but hate is easier to tap into as we generally take the love side for granted. That is why it appears that so much bad stuff happens in the world. As such if you can understand how to feel love in every situation you will live a positive and happy life and when it comes to your sport, results will start to flow, as you want them to. Do everything for the purity of love and your goals will manifest, as they should. Concentrate on applying this and the world is your oyster. The best place to concentrate on it is when under pressure – that is why sport is such a great metaphor for life. Enjoy the experience!