The Science of Soft
 

Greetings,

I can’t believe it’s the final week!

My hope is that in the past two weeks you’ve incorporated some of the Science of Soft (S.O.S.) strategies to overcome struggles and skyrocket your success.

Maybe for you it’s been a simple, supportive touch to buffer stress, bond with others or boost performance?

Maybe it’s been taking in the good? Fully experiencing the positive in the here-and-now or self-activating positive experiences at will, in order to grow the good in your mind and hardwire happiness, health, healing and high performance in your head and heart.

For the final series, I saved the best for last.

Today you’ll learn how shame, sport letdowns and sabotaging self-talk shuttles your resources to survival pathways robbing your brain the energy it needs to grow, learn, adapt, love, change and perform optimally.  And what to do about it.

Let's do this...

Performance psychologist Dr. Jim Loehr has gained some fascinating insights into the minds of champions.

After working with world-famous athletes for more than 30 years and writing 17 books on performance psychology, Dr. Loehr found that one of the single most important factors that determines high achievements, personal fulfillment and life satisfaction is the strength of one’s character (self-kindness, integrity, ethics, etc.)

On The Tim Ferriss Podcast (a must listen), Dr. Loehr speaks about how perplexed he was while working with elite athletes. Dr. Loehr began noticing that athletes who were the best of the best –athletes that were #1 in their sport, were uncomfortable in their own skin.

Hard to believe, right?!

Well, if you live and breathe the world of performance psychology like I do, you quickly find Dr. Loehr’s findings to be true.

For example, when I spoke to my friend and colleague, Dr. Abby Larson –an Olympian skate skier and exercise physiology professor and researcher, about my idea of the Science of Soft series her reply was “What? You mean you can’t hate yourself every day?”

Yet no one talks about the dark side of high performance!

So, Dr. Loehr started asking questions.

He pondered, “If you are #1 in your sport, yet not feel comfortable in your own skin, what’s lacking?”

Dr. Loehr found that a deep connection within oneself –or liking who you are, was lacking. 

WHAT?!

Not liking who you are? Seems ABSURD, right?!

Unfortunately, this is all too common.

I believe people not liking –not loving, who they are is a scary epidemic sweeping humankind right now.  

YES, I am making this claim after one year into a global pandemic, which is definitely scary. 

AND I also find people NOT believing in themselves to be frightening.

I find it frightening because not deeply connecting with yourself and not loving yourself is a silent and deadly killer to humanity.

That may sound harsh. 

But if you are not doing your best to be your best and sharing your sacred gifts with the world -even with life is hard, then you are wasting your potential.

And this rampant rhetoric of people believing “I’m not good enough” …or some form of not being good enough (not skinny enough, not strong enough, not enough money, don’t climb hard enough, don't perform well enough …you know the drill) is TOXIC.

Why?

Besides what I've just explained, believing you're "not good enough" evokes shame.

And shame DOES NOT work. 

According to internationally recognized clinical psychologist, Dr. Shauna Shapiro, shame does not work because physiologically it can’t work.

When we feel shame, the centers of the brain for growth and learning shut down.

This fMRI shows the brain on shame (i.e., saying to yourself things like: “I suck”, “I’m not supposed to be here”, “Other people are better than me,” "Why am I being so stupid," "Don't f*#$ this up").

What happens when your brain is on shame is the amygdala, an almond-shaped part of the brain that plays an important role in learning and emotions like fear, triggers a cascade of norepinephrine and cortisol to flood our system (LeDoux, 2003; Shapiro, 2020). 

Consequently, shame shuts down our learning centers and shuttles our resources to survival pathways.

Shame literally robs the brain of the energy it needs to grow, learn, adapt, love and change. 

And worse, if we feel shame we want to avoid it. 

Shame loves silence.

So, we hide those parts of ourselves we’re ashamed of.

Sadly, we hide the parts of ourselves that most need our attention.

Hiding the parts of our Self that we are ashamed of -the parts we make invisible, explains why you can be #1 in your sport or field and still feel uncomfortable in your own skin. 

You may be performing very well yet be uncomfortable in your skin, feel insecure or experience impostor syndrome because you are ashamed or ignoring the parts of yourself that need the most attention. The parts that you need to most deeply connect with and, thus, like who you are –as performance psychologist Dr. Loehr concluded.

So, what now?

In Dr. Loehr’s research (2012, 2020), he found that the strength of one’s character –things like self-kindness, integrity, honesty, was the single most important factor in determining both performance and personal excellence. 

Dr. Shauna Shapiro and other clinicians have also found character traits –like loving kindness and compassion, to improve performance and well-being (Andersen & Ivarsson, 2016; Carranca, Serpa, Rosado & Guerrero, 2019; Kabat-Zinn, Siegel, Hanh & Kornfield, 2011; Shapiro, 2020).  

What research and experience has shown us is that the character strength of self-love and kindness helps us to look at the parts we DON'T like about ourselves.

Loving-kindness bathes us in dopamine, thus, turning on the learning centers –giving us the resources we need to show up and be our best self (Shapiro, 2020).

Loving-kindness ISN'T to be confused with romantic love or blurring of boundaries.

Loving-kindness is an unconditional positive outlook toward yourself and others.

Loving-kindness is also an awareness that is curious and non-judgmental while you explore the parts you don’t like about yourself. 

Sounds simple. But simple DOES NOT mean easy.

Developing character strengths –like self-love and kindness, takes practice.

Lasting changes require us to PAY ATTENTION (Hanson, 2016; Shapiro, 2020).

We pay attention to both the "good" (i.e., hardwiring happiness) AS WELL AS the "bad" (i.e., shame) because we don't want to ignore, isolate or make invisible the parts of our Self we don't like. 

Rather, when we pay attention to the "bad" -what is key is that we PAY ATTENTION with loving-kindness (Kabat-Zinn, 2021; Shapiro, 2020)

Because wherever your attention goes, the energy flows.

And what you practice grows stronger (…as we learned last week in Hardwiring Happiness). 

How?

Repeated practice!

Repeated practice, whether that be loving-kindness (“I love you”) or shame (“I’m not good enough”), a cortical thickening happens in your brain. 

Cortical thickening is a brain measurement used to describe the layers of the cortex (folded gray matter in the front part of your brain) and has been related to intelligence, consciousness, and the brains ability to change itself (neuroplasticity) (Hugo, et al., 2015).

As a result, what you PAY ATTENTION to –whether that be positive or negative, and how you PAY ATTENTION to it –with loving-kindness or self-sabotage, means that the company you keep matters (pun intended). 

The company you keep is your repetitive inner dialogue.
 
The company you keep is your shame and successes.

The company you keep is what grows stronger. 

The company you keep grows matter –via cortical thickening and neural wiring (Hugo, et al., 2015; Hanson, 2016, respectively). 

Transformation is possible. 

You can live and perform at your best, have a healthy relationship with the parts you don't like about yourself AND feel comfortable in your own skin. It just takes practice. 

Practicing as little as two-minutes/day has shown to rewire the brain (Achor, 2018).

A simple practice I’d like to share with you that not only weaves together all the science I presented to you for skyrocketing success, shattering shame, sport letdowns or sabotaging self-talk AND helping me get through some tough times is…

An added bonus to this practice is to: 

1. Put your hand on your heart while 
2. Audibly saying “I Love You”

If the Science of Soft Series positively impacted you in some way, I achieved my goal! 

That's a Win-Win-Win.

I'm changing. You're changing. The world is changing for the better. 
 

If you’re interested in continuing on the path of performance and personal excellence, I'd love for you to a check out my NEW online courses and resources. 

For example, the FREE Four Leg Approach to Peak Performance will shift the way you approach performance and health by merging science with sacred wisdom by giving you practical skills to remain rooted in rhythm AND reach your potential in a way that is sustainable and skyrockets success. 

Or, download the FREE Mental Training Notebook to use as a guide for daily reflection so that you can uncover limitations, discover strengths you didn’t know you had, and can go to the next level. 

Pssst...You are the first to hear about this online offering, so I'd be honored if you checked it out! 

Since you'll be the first visitor, if there's a hiccup in the program could you kindly let me know (progress not perfection).