In team sports, strife between teammates and coaches is not uncommon. For instance, a coach blurts out; "why are your layups always so damn sloppy!” A throwaway angry remark that presses buttons.
"Why are your layups always so damn sloppy!” Notice, that I didn't insert a question mark. It wasn't a question - at least not in Amy's mind. No, it was a complaint.
In an ideal world Amy would have asked herself: "Okay, why do my layups always seem so sloppy to him? " There might be lots of reasons why and the coach and Amy could sit down and discuss them. Or complain about them. Rather, Amy, a top player on her college basketball team didn't react to the heated remark objectively. Instead she subjectively evaluated herself against the remark thus:
"He thinks I'm sloppy."
“I’m not.”
"Why can't he see that?”
“Why can’t he do more to help?"
"He can't think very much of me."
"He doesn't even care enough to offer to help."
"He obviously doesn't rate me any more."
"I hate him when he's like this."
"I hate myself when he's like this."
"Our rapport is not what it should be."
"I've screwed up."
"I've screwed up my life."
(Worst-case scenario)
"I've got nothing left to live for."
However, Amy had long ceased to recognize these reactions. I asked her to tell me how a single incident such as an angry remark could bring her to the edge of despair. All I got back was a shrug of the shoulders.
I went on to explain what typically happens with what I call “chain reaction” thinking.
After a series of irate remarks produce a reaction process, over time all the intermediate thoughts disappear so that any angry remark provokes instant upset. It’s a learned process. And the less happy you are by nature and the poorer your self-esteem, the more readily you will learn such faulty connections. The chain reaction is short-circuited, just in the way that Pavlov's famous dog responded to a ringing bell as though he was being fed.
“Pressing someone’s buttons” is a concept familiar to most of us. Remarks, gestures, expressions can all become the buttons that can provoke negative emotions. All because we once failed to interpret a certain remark, or interpreted it wrongly in a destructive chain of rationalization.
It's interesting to think that we are blessed and cursed by our ability to rationalize. Cursed because it can drive us into this sort of negative spiral. But blessed because we can use it to get out of a spiral and correct the damage it has done by adapting our thinking. Unlike the laboratory dog, we are sentient human beings. We employ our cognitive faculties in between the primitive cause-and-effect of so-called "stimulus" and "response".
Importantly, we can intervene in our own cognitive process by looking at the ways in which we think, make judgments and decisions and how we see things around us, interpreting or misinterpreting behaviors actions and events.
How we use our minds to solve or exacerbate problems will greatly determine whether we will do well and enjoy our sport (and our lives more generally) or not. If we are straightforward and uncomplicated, life will be a lot easier. If however we are illogical or irrational and are without any clear game plan as to what we are doing or where we are going, then we could be destructive to ourselves, our teammates and to others around us. Such decisions are in your court.