Two Sides of the Same Coin, Redux

Photo courtesy of Microsoft

It is easy to go off course during a project. You don’t know what to say when someone asks you a question during a presentation at work. You forget how to play a piece of music at a recital for which you have spent months rehearsing. Time seems to stop as that crucial event and the split second in which “it” occurred are burned into your mind and memory, forever. But time continues to march on and, you still have your life to lead and that project/performance/game, etc. to complete. When your focus is disturbed, are you able to maintain your composure and carry on as if nothing is changed? Will you use the disruption to your advantage, or will you freeze and miss out on later opportunities to recover because you are still focused on what has already happened?

I saw both scenarios play out yesterday afternoon while I watched the Super Bowl 50. Unlike their disappointing Super Bowl outing against the Seattle Seahawks in 2014, the Denver Broncos gained control of the football early on and never really allowed their opposing team, the Carolina Panthers, to get it back. This year the Broncos kept a respectable point advantage and kept powering through the game. It was as if each interception, each sack, each block of the opposing side added another layer of confidence to the Broncos’ players. I knew that Denver was not a heavy favorite to win the game. However, the sentimental poignancy of Broncos Quarterback Peyton Manning possibly retiring from the NFL with a second Super Bowl championship was very alluring. (I admit it: I wanted that for him, too.) Coming from a “football” family—dad Archie Manning played in the NFL and younger brother Eli Manning is a quarterback for the New York Giants)—achieving this goal would be a very satisfying (possible) finish to his storied career.

A few days ago I had heard that Cam Newton, the Quarterback for the Carolina Panthers, was finishing high school senior when Peyton Manning won his first Super Bowl Championship in 2007. While I watched the game yesterday, I wondered what it was like for this young quarterback to be competing against the man who could very well have been a onetime role model and career inspiration. Did Newton have or model pass/play strategies that he once saw the former Indianapolis Colts Quarterback use to score one of many touchdowns? At nearly 40 years old, Manning is like an energizer bunny that just doesn’t seem to run out of energy. While his fans cheer, how intimidating must it be for a much younger athlete like Newton to wonder: how much advantage his strength and skill will I have and need to out-play equally talented and much more experienced player? Was the scenario like the famous scenes in Seabiscuit, where the horse only needed to look into his competitors’ eyes to sufficiently intimidate any opponent to make a virtually unchallenged run for the finish line? This kind of pressure can definitely feel soul-destroying.

At the end of the game, the Denver Broncos had more spring in their step on the field and on the sidelines while the Carolina Panthers were stuck in an endless loop of that first scrimmage—just as their opponents had been two years ago. Once again, I could see the frustration and disappointment on the team’s faces and, more importantly, in their demeanor. Each time a pass was intercepted or one of the Panthers was sacked or the football was intercepted, everyone on the team seemed to deflate a little bit more while their opponents got that much bigger.

The Denver Broncos had learned hard lessons from the experience of their disappointing play in the 2014 Super Bowl, while the Carolina Panthers had only played in one Super Bowl (2004). It would be completely understandable and expected that the novelty of the Big Game experience and the competitive presence of a record-breaking quarterback to send the Panthers into a kind of subconscious experiential overload. Despite their obvious talent and seeming lightning-quick speed, this time the Panthers weren’t able to effectively defend against the opposing team’s “defense” against them.

Two sides of the same coin.

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

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