I played for Metrowest Juniors Volleyball Club for a season or two when I was in high school. I had a coach who believed in her players like she believed the sun was gonna come up tomorrow morning. She was also one of those people who talked as if they had already accomplished their dreams. And not in a conceited, cocky way— in a, “it’s just a matter of time” way. She would say, “when I’m the coach of the Women’s Olympic Volleyball team...” instead of, “if one day, maybe, hopefully, just by chance, I’m the coach of the Women’s Olympic Volleyball team...” She was a badass of a woman, and I respected the hell out of her.
At practice one day, she walked up to me and told me that my serves had been weak lately. She knew that I was capable of acing my serves but had noticed I was putting in less effort than usual. It was clear that she wanted more out of me. It was clear that I wanted that, too.
So, she handed me a volleyball and said, “I want you to think about a time when you were the angriest you’ve ever been. I want you to remember how mad you were, where it took place, and who was involved. Think about that situation. Imagine you’re reliving it right now, all over again. Now, take this ball, channel all that anger, and serve.”
My coach took a step back and gave me the whole court. My entire team was watching behind me, but honestly, the whole world could have been staring at my back, waiting for me to make a move, and I still wouldn’t have felt their eyes piercing through my skin. In that moment, I was tuned into that anger and that ball, and nothing else existed.
I remember exactly what I envisioned while staring at the net, ball in hand. It was like tunnel vision. All I could focus on was reliving that situation and embodying the pent up anger I had created during that time. For a brief second, I wasn’t even on the court anymore. Her words rang in my ears, “Hit this ball as if your life depends on it.”
I dribbled the ball a few times, tossed it into the air, and swung my arm so hard that I myself wondered where the strength had come from.
I will never forget how it felt to hit that ball, watch it glide past the net, and land on the other side of the court. It was the nastiest serve that ever came from my 4’11’’ frame. I swear, in that moment, I had enough adrenaline rushing through my body that I could’ve lifted a car off a child. I always wondered how people that made the news for saving someone trapped under a car engulfed in flames could muster up enough strength to move a 3,000 pound vehicle. How do superhuman actions manifest in average human form? It was only on the court that I figured out the answer.
When I looked back at my coach, her jaw dropped, and she uttered, “Don’t ever tell me you aren’t capable of doing what I ask of you. That was all you needed in order to realize that your mind runs this game.”
She patted me on the back and looked at my teammates as if saying, “See? See what you can do when you give it all you got?”
There are times I think back to this memory, not because I want to relive my best serve in all the times I ever stepped onto the court, but to remind myself of how powerful the mind is. It is a tool that we so often let run our lives, but we simultaneously neglect to realize that our minds are wild beasts. They are untamed and ferociously ravenous. It does not take much to feed it a morsel of what it’s craving and then watch it devour everything in sight. If you have no conscious relationship with your mind, you can be consumed by its prerogatives.
I am a believer that the mind is separate from ourselves and belongs to something bigger than just our bodies. We all say “my mind”, but it’s seldom that we stop and wonder, “Why am I saying ‘my’? Who does it belong to?” You may be quick to say “Me! It belongs to me,” to which I add, “Then you, to some degree at least, have the ability to control your mind.”
Most of, if not all of, the most rewarding moments of my life have been when an intense degree of my mind was dedicated to the situation at hand. By that I mean, I had been feeding my mind a diet of deep alignment with what I was trying to achieve. I had been consistently fueling it, knowing that any amount of deprivation would allow room for redirection to something more appetizing, elsewhere.
I’ll also be the first to say that the mind deserves to be left alone and simply observed from time to time. Being the observer of your thoughts and your mind is the premise of consciousness, which, in my eyes, is the golden ticket into true peace, true joy, true fulfillment, and overall, your true Self.
It is each person’s responsibility to nourish their mind in a way that is sustaining. That fluctuates from person to person. It also does not mean that an untamed mind only needs to be fed discipline in order to be tamed. There are times when nourishment means medical intervention and professional assistance. There is no “one diet fits all”. There also shouldn’t be shame in needing help with taming the mind. After all, you cannot always control your dog or your kid. They may appear to belong to you, but they’re still their own beasts. The same is true for the mind.
The mere nature of the mind is unruly. It can be the reason one prevails time and time again, and it can be the demise of an entire person. Knowing how to nourish yours, leave it be when it needs to break from its cage, and use it when you’re trying to rise to the top is a vital skill to learn as it will be important throughout the duration of life.
Be kind to yourself as you navigate your seasons. When you realize that the mind is a tool, you can change your relationship with how you use it, but know that your relationship is bound to change statuses with each phase. There should be times you simply watch as your mind moves in its natural state, but there should also be times you hold it in the palm of your hand, aim high, and remind it that no matter how tall you stand, you can make a beast out of what once made a beast out of you. In those moments, lift your chin, block out everything in your peripherals, and swing.
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