“If You Don’t Wanna Play, Don’t Play That Way” - The Last Dance

Ian Hawkins 0:02

Are you ready, ready to release internal pain to find confidence, clarity and direction for your future, to live a life of meaning, fulfillment and contribution to trust your intuition again, but something's been holding you back, you've come to the right place. Welcome. I'm a Ian Hawkins, the host and founder of The Grief Code podcast. Together, let's heal your unresolved or unknown grief by unlocking your grief code. As you tune into each episode, you will receive insight into your own grief, how to eliminate it and what to do next. Before we start by one request, if any new insights or awareness land with you during this episode, please send me an email at info at the and Hawkins coaching.com. And let me know what you found. I know the power of this work, I love to hear the impact these conversations have. Okay, let's get into it.

For those of you who are sports fans, or even just maybe not specifically sports fans, but you just like great stories, you may have watched the last dance the show on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Really great story, great insight into the making of the team but but more specifically to the man, Michael and what made him taken. What I found most fascinating was the elements of grief that he was clearly still experiencing. Now I've kind of looked at sport this way, my whole life, I've always looked from a unique perspective of how people are interacting and how they're getting along and what's not working. So I guess I've actually been looking at grief in sport my whole life. And if you listen to yesterday's podcast or the previous episode, you would have heard me talk about my own experience with that. So I watched through this, this lens and I want to share something that I picked up. So a body tells us different signs around what what grief that we still have to process and I had a few people mention this to me, you can see in Michaels eyes, that they're really quite bloodshot and maybe even yellow, which might suggest an illness. Now, whether that's a serious illness or not, not not for me to say, but I do know that we still grief in different organs. And particularly, like what he's spotty was showing was perhaps some liver challenges. And liver as we where we store a lot of anger, unresolved anger. And I was really drawn to it was episode seven, when he was talking about you know, people saying, oh, maybe people see him as not a good person, maybe even a tyrant. And with real emotion in his voice. He he speaks the phrase, if you don't want to play if you want to play that way, don't play that way. And he said it like tearing up as he said it. In my mind immediately went back to episode two when he was talking about his games in the backyard with his brother, and how his brother was more competitive than him. And my mind immediately went to our bet that phrase is what he heard from his brother countless times. If you don't want to play this way, don't play. Imagine hearing that from your brother again and again when he beats you because he's super competitive, particularly the older brother, and that not having an impact on you. So that real desire to show his worth to show his value in the world through basketball, but mainly just to impress his will get one over on his brother, or maybe impress his dad or whatever it was still driving him all those years later. Now, in a good way in terms of winning, but I would argue that the way he looked how upset he was at different times, and the impact it had on people's lives was not so good. And I'm very much a believer that you can be super competitive and super successful without having to have that.

Aftermath there are there are plenty of athletes who have been now because of my own journey has been about my own grief and all of the unresolved and unknown grief that I've experienced. Instant and then come to realize, I just see this everywhere now like I, I get clear signs in people's body language when they speak, I get a different bodily reaction from myself of what's going on. Now I don't fully understand all of that, I just know that I'm able to help people with that. And I'd love to be able to take Michael through some sessions to, to help him relieve that pain and ultimately to help with his, whatever dis ease he has in his body from this grief that still playing out. Now, whether that's a reality or not, doesn't really matter to me. But I do know that I'm able to help people who are going through similar challenges, maybe their competitiveness, spills over at different times turns into anger, frustration, treat others and themselves in a way that's not true to their values.

Because there is another way, and you don't have to be a slave to your competitive nature, you don't have to feel like, well, that's just how it is. That's the only way I get results. That's the only way I get things done. Then you might think, well, the current industry I'm in or different environments, I mean, it's the only way you get results. That may be true in some environments. And if you want to change, then maybe you need to move to another environment. What I do know also, though, is that you need to change your own behavior in the environment you're in, if you're hoping to get any change, just simply changing environment will not remove whatever the behavior pattern is the habit, the feeling of being inadequate, the self doubt, none of that will shift just by you changing environments, you actually need to go through the process of identifying what's going on. And to be able to create a whole new way of looking at that. Now, I love to take people through really simple processes, processes that involve action of getting stuff done that help people rewire their brain to rewire their thinking to, to be able to know that they are on the right path to be fully validated in what they're doing, so that they can just get on with it. Because one of the problems I see it is it's not it's not people getting decisions wrong, but no making a decision at all. Just keep pushing forward with a competitive nature, trying to be perfect trying to prove to whoever they're trying to prove it to that they are worthy. And how does it look at different times when you're doing that? Well probably looks a little bit like Michael, you may be successful at different times. And that's all well and good if you're if you're playing at that level, and people recognize the success. But to what impact? And if you think if it's from a business perspective, or even a sport perspective as low, how are people actually looking at your behavior and how you carry on? And is that how you want to be recognized? Maybe you like the idea of being super competitive, super successful. But in your heart of hearts, do you really like the idea of how people look at you, you're successful, but he's a bit like this, or he's a bit like that, or she's a bit she carries on this way or whatever it is.

Now, that doesn't mean you have to necessarily have memories of different elements of your life where you look back and be able to definitively say, well, it was probably that but there's absolutely literally no harm. But there's great benefit in looking back at different parts of our past that have resulted in us behaving a certain way and then making a commitment to create a new pattern. The awareness of how it was and how it's still playing out now is the building block that we need to be able to change.

So what's your last dance? What's the last time you're going to tolerate certain behaviors from yourself that you're really not to your liking? And when are you going to take action to change it because at the moment, you probably feel like well, they wouldn't really understand me. If only they knew why I reacted that way. They can spend a minute inside my head and understand why we're overreacting and what's actually going on and I'm not a bad person and I'm not this and I'm not that good. How much better would that be? So make a commitment to yourself to look for the self awareness around it, acknowledge when things aren't to your liking and make a commitment to how you want things to be in the future. And I am oversimplifying it, but that's the start. awareness and commitment are going to take you a long way to making the changes you desire.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Grief Code podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Please share it with a friend or family member that you know would benefit from hearing it too. If you are truly ready to heal your unresolved or unknown grief, let's chat. Email me at info at Ian Hawkins coaching.com You can also stay connected with me by joining the Grief Code community at Ian Hawkins coaching.com forward slash The Grief Code and remember, so that I can help even more people to heal. Please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform.