The armchair quarter back. A popular figure of speech for your hyped sports fan, who is overly critical of his favorite team, regardless of sport. The armchair quarter back, who most likely has never participated in organized sports will give you his “professional analysis” of what play the coach could have had the team run, or what moves a team player should have made on the field.
What’s interesting is that even though your average hyped sports fan is far removed from the business of professional sports, they are usually not far removed from their analysis of the games they are criticizing. This is because it is a lot easier for anyone to analyze an activity which they are not emotionally involved in. You can watch a football player make moves on the field, but you are not in the shoes of that player. You do not know what is on his mind, regarding his personal relationships, his relationship with his teammates, his health, what his perception is from his angle, and so on and so forth. The player must cope with all these thoughts and emotions while working to get his job done.
But, what if you could, even for a moment adopt the view point of the arm chair quarter back? Specifically, regarding your emotional disturbances in your life? Just how liberating would that feel? For a moment you would be liberated from negative feelings of confusion, despair and low motivation, and you would most likely find yourself seeing things from a place of neutral clarity.
This strategy allows you instant access to the cortex of your mind where you naturally see things from an objective point of view. This is not to say that your feelings don’t matter, but the problem with negative feelings is that people tend to fall into a mindset of despair that they start acting out on these negative feelings which creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.
A typical scenario would be that of a person in a depressed mood. At worst the person could buy into the nonconscious messages which triggers his depressed mood. Messages of incompetency, having low worth, being unlikable and unwanted etc. The depressed person unaware that he has bought into these messages, will likely act on these messages by becoming withdrawn and unproductive. Whereas from the mindset of someone who is emotionally detached, the desire to accomplish something is paired with memories or evidences of proof that the person’s desire goals are possible, while set backs are just that. There is no wallowing, no despair, just a willingness to take steps towards accomplishing what is possible.
Ugo is a therapist with Road 2 Resolutions PLLC