Putting Words and Descriptions on How We Feel

Photo : Rosanna U

For sports psychotherapist Justin Scheerer, the key to athletic success lies in nurturing the person behind the athlete, though this aspect can sometimes be overlooked.

Prioritizing the athlete’s mental and emotional well-being, alongside their physical performance, is crucial. By helping athletes manage their anxieties, insecurities, and other uncomfortable emotions, Scheerer argues, they can achieve greater overall success in sport and beyond.

Many seek therapy hoping to rid themselves of anxiety or sadness, but this is not realistic. Emotions are inevitable, and we must learn to manage them rather than suppress them. Ignoring them can lead to a rebound effect where they return more intensely, he explains.

“We don’t really get to choose what we feel,” says Scheerer. “We can ignore our emotions for a bit, but they don’t just go away. While it can be uncomfortable to confront them, it’s the best way forward. We have to feel the feelings.”

Scheerer underscores the importance of managing internal experiences, which include emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations, especially for athletes. These internal experiences can be overwhelming and distract from performance.

“If you’re in the middle of a really important tennis match, you could feel angry, you could be frustrated, you could be disappointed in yourself, and feel embarrassed or shameful for how you’re playing,” he explains.  “If we turn all of our focus and attention inwards, not only does it feel really uncomfortable, but we can’t perform because we’re so internally focused that we can’t externally focus on the sport and performance.”

Scheerer employs a three-step strategy called “Feel, Breathe, Move” to help clients manage emotions in real time.

The first step, “Feel,” involves a non-judgmental body scan to identify the physical manifestations of emotions, such as tension or increased heart rate, facilitating a connection to the emotion through somatic sensations.

The second step, “Breathe,” focuses on using breath to anchor and explore the emotion, breathing into the area where the emotion is felt to help sit with and understand it.

The final step, “Move,” incorporates gentle physical activity to regulate emotions, leveraging movement to process and alleviate emotional stress by burning off stress-related chemicals like cortisol and adrenaline.

Reacting impulsively, such as throwing a racquet in a difficult moment, can be detrimental. The goal, he says, is to teach people to make space between an event and their reaction. This space provides the opportunity to choose a path forward, empowering them to decide how they want to react.

“We’ve got to find a way to cope with and shrink that experience of anger to get it to a more manageable level at like a five or a six out of ten because then we can do something with that,” says Scheerer. “When the emotions become really big it’s hard to choose a productive or effective way to react to that emotion. That’s usually when we will say something we don’t mean or we act in a way that’s not congruent with our values.”

The saying, “if you can name it, you can tame it,” highlights the progressive value of labelling emotions. Specificity in identifying feelings, beyond just “feeling bad,” it clarifies the emotional experience and makes it more manageable. Understanding that “bad” could mean anything from disappointment to anxiety enables a more targeted response. 

No matter what one is experiencing, embracing emotions is the most effective long-term strategy for emotional health and wellness, says Scheerer.

Click here for more news about mental health.

“The best analogy I can give that we use all the time in therapy is the idea that your emotions are kind of like quicksand,” he says. “When we get stuck in quicksand, the initial reaction is to fight and to struggle. But when we do that, we get stuck further.

“The way out of quicksand is to sort of relax, spread out your limbs and just lay on top of it and inch your way out. It’s kind of the same with our emotions.”

In the event of an emergency or a crisis, please call 9-1-1 for immediate assistance or go to your nearest hospital emergency room.

If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide, call or text 9-8-8.