The Fearless Warrior Podcast

068: Mindset Myths Busted: There's No Such Thing as a "Good" or "Bad" Emotion

• Amanda Schaefer

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Today's episode is the second installment in our "Myths Busted" series. Today we tackle the myth that there are "good" and "bad" emotions. In this episode, we explore how emotions are merely responses to situations and why suppressing them might just be the quickest way to amplify them. Drawing from insights shared our recent Confidence Camp, we explore how the meanings we attach to emotions shape our mindset and performance. Whether you're an athlete striving for mental resilience, a coach nurturing a team, or a parent supporting a child's emotional journey, this episode offers vital lessons to support a healthier, more accepting approach to emotions.

Episode Highlights:

  • Why there are no "good" and "bad" emotions
  • How emotions are like the weather
  • Mistakes parents make with their athlete's emotions
  • The 5 second rule

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the fearless warrior podcast, a place for athletes, coaches and parents who know the value of a strong mindset. I'm your host, coach AB, a mental performance coach on a mission, former softball coach, wife and mom of three. Each episode, we will dive deep into all things mental performance, mindset tools and how to rewire the brain for success. So if your goal is to gain the mental edge and learn the secrets of mental performance, mindset tools and how to rewire the brain for success, so if your goal is to gain the mental edge and learn the secrets of mental performance, you're in the right place. Let's tune in to today's episode. All right, we are back with another Mindset Myths Busted, and the reason that I'm doing this is because there's a lot of fluff out there. This is a series that we're going to keep releasing.

Speaker 1:

These are short podcast episodes where I'm pulling up my camera and I'm hitting record and just talking about things that I'm teaching, and this one today is a really special one because we just got done teaching this inside confidence camp this week, and this is the myth there's no such thing as a good or bad emotion. When I first started doing this work as a mental performance coach, I used to coach athletes that you can control your emotions, which is not true emotions, which is not true. And this idea that there's a good emotion or a bad emotion means that we place meaning on all of these big emotions, like anger or frustration, and we place meaning on them that they're bad. And if we place meaning on these emotions that they're quote unquote bad, it means that we're going to try to do everything we can to avoid them. As a player, we're going to try to avoid them. We're going to feel shame, like why am I frustrated or why am I sad, why am I angry? And we try to stifle it. And so one of the things that I'll use as an example with athletes is how many times have you felt like crying? And what do we do to ourselves? We say don't cry, don't cry, don't cry. And what ends up happening is we start crying because we're trying to suppress that emotion. And again, when we place meaning on them, what does it mean when we're sad or what does it mean when we're angry?

Speaker 1:

And the question that I ask my athletes is this is a normal response to a situation? So, for example, if you strike out, is anger and frustration a normal response and they think about it. And you're probably thinking about it. And the answer is yes, it makes sense. You're a competitor, you want to succeed, you wanted to get a hit. It makes sense why you're frustrated that you struck out, especially if you swung at a crappy pitch or you watched a beautiful meatball down the middle. It makes sense why you're frustrated. I would be frustrated too. It would almost be more weird if you experienced a different emotion, like happiness or joy. That would be more weird if you struck out and you told yourself, yay, I'm so happy, I just struck out. This is amazing. That's not a normal human response.

Speaker 1:

Our emotions are there for a reason, and cognitive behavioral theory states that our thoughts create our emotions. So, even though we may have control over what thoughts we think, our emotions can manifest subconsciously. And so another example is when we experience grief or sadness. Yes, you are going to be sad If somebody in your life passes away, you're going to be sad. But what does that sadness mean? It means that you loved the person. There's meaning, there's thoughts behind that grief and those feelings. And so, just as much as we can feel sadness in sad situations, we can also feel frustration in frustrating situations. And so if you're a parent and you're listening to this, the mistake that parents make is we try to squash our athletes' emotions and then we unknowingly place more pressure and more shame on them, because we're basically telling them to not be human.

Speaker 1:

And so this is the analogy that I gave in confidence camp. I asked the question what's your favorite weather? And each of them voted in the chat and they said that these were the choices hot and sunny, cool, rainy day, vibes or bring on the snow. And a lot of them voted A, b or C and there was no right or wrong answer. And the analogy that I give is if I said who's right or wrong, nobody's right or wrong.

Speaker 1:

The analogy it goes something like this emotions are like weather. I have three different I have a sunshine, I have a rain cloud and I have somebody skiing, and so if the weather comes and goes, your emotions also come and go. It can't be sunny forever, rainstorms don't last forever, it can't snow 24-7. The weather changes just like our emotions change, and it's a scientific, it's a chemical reaction in the body. We experience our emotions as dopamine and real chemicals that flow in the body when we experience those emotions, and so we can fight them or, like many say, we can ride that wave of that emotion, that it will peak, it will come and it will go and, of course, sadness and anger and those things will keep coming back.

Speaker 1:

The goal is not to get rid of these emotions, the goal is to feel these emotions and so if I encourage my athletes to experience their emotions, like the weather, we can then prepare for the weather. So if it's going to be rainy, I'm going to have my raincoat. If you gave me a pair of ski pants and a pair of goggles, I would love snowy weather. If I'm prepared for it, I would love to go skiing. I do not mind the snow and the cold one bit if I know that it's coming and I should back up. It's not that you know the emotion is coming, it's you know how to handle it and process it and feel it when those emotions do show up.

Speaker 1:

So if you're an athlete and this is what we taught in Confidence Camp the biggest mistake that athletes and parents and coaches make is we treat confidence like a feeling and if we're saying that there's no such thing as a good or bad feeling, if you're riding this confidence roller coaster and you're feeling confident one day, but not confident another, it's because you're attaching your confidence to your feelings. So if I strike out and I'm frustrated, I can't be confident. But if I get a hit and that feels really good, then I can be confident. And so, you see, we start attaching confidence to our feelings. But if I get a hit and that feels really good, then I can be confident. And so, you see, we start attaching confidence to our feelings, we start attaching our confidence to our performance and we start labeling. What if we just took away those labels? What if we just said I'm allowed to feel my feelings and I'm allowed to be confident even if I don't feel confident?

Speaker 1:

Here's another example how many times and if your athlete is listening to this, this is what I'll say to athletes how many times have you had a really crappy warmup, like you didn't hit well, you didn't throw well, you didn't feel good. It just was a crappy warmup, but then you had an amazing game. That is proof that you don't have to feel confident to perform well. Okay, and so, again going back to this is if we start treating confidence in the previous podcast episode that confidence isn't a feeling and confidence is now an action. It's a choice, a decision, a commitment. Then we are allowed to feel our feelings freely.

Speaker 1:

You can check in with your emotions and the questions that I always ask is and I'm looking at my slides is this a normal response to the situation? Am I allowed to be frustrated? Yeah, I've even interviewed college coaches on the podcast where they've said we want our players to get amped up, we want them to be frustrated when they strike out because we're competitors. And two, I always ask this who's someone that you look up to? Who's an athlete that you follow? And they'll put famous athletes in the chat Jocelyn Allo, jordi Ball, skylar Wallace, jenny Finch, kat Osterman and the question I have is would someone similar experience the same feeling? Yeah, they get frustrated at the game too. We play a really tough sport, and so these girls that they look up to, these athletes that they look up to, they're still human. They're just better at managing those emotions. And so how do we manage those emotions?

Speaker 1:

The last thing is feel those emotions. Allow your body to go through that storm of whatever those emotions are, and it's the five second rule. So if you can feel those emotions for five seconds, what would it look like to just feel that sadness or that anger or that frustration and just feel it. Right If you feel like you're suppressing those tears and you start to notice why do I want to cry right now? It's because I'm sad. Why am I sad? There's a thought behind that sadness. It's because you know X, y, z and if you just get present to that thought, it'll make a whole lot more sense rather than trying to tell yourself not to cry. So again, I'm not saying that you can feel your anger or your sadness and you can throw your bat and throw your helmet. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that if your athlete strikes out and if you're an athlete listening to this what if you just gave yourself five seconds to say I'm really frustrated because I struck out? Oh yeah, I next time. I know that I'm not going to swing at that rice ball or I will swing at that fatty, you know, pitch down the middle, feel those feelings and watch what happens when you remove that judgment that there's good or bad emotions and that they're just all helpful emotions and you're human and you're allowed to feel them.

Speaker 1:

This was a fun one. If you're enjoying this series, I would love for you to message us on social media. If you're catching this on YouTube or if you're catching this on the podcast, send me a DM. This is new. These are shorter episodes. Send me a DM at fearless fast pitch. I would love to hear your honest thoughts. Are these resonating with you? Am I shifting your perspective? Are you learning new things and what are you taking away from these? We'll be doing more of these mindset myths mindset myths busted. We'll keep them coming. So with that, thanks for tuning in.

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Amanda Schaefer

Host