For over 30 years I have been writing about disempowering/false beliefs that golfers have about their performance on the golf course and how to change them. If these keys have not worked, it probably is because you haven’t healed your Inner Child of false emotional programming.
What is the Inner Child?
Your Inner Child is the part of your mind that stores all your emotional experiences from your childhood. It is playful, intuitive, and creative. Without our awareness, it may also be instrumental in making decisions from outdated, unexamined beliefs that are not producing the results we desire. As a child we made decisions so we would feel safe and accepted.
What happened in your childhood that could be affecting you now? Everything you are now is created by your past experience. As a little child you developed strategies so you could survive. As an adult, you may still be acting from that survival imprint. We tend to hold on to our childhood beliefs because it gives us comfort. We don’t know what would happen if we were to do something different. We don’t like change because the results are unpredictable and fearful.
Did you ever blame someone for your missed shot? Perhaps it was someone who was talking while you were hitting? When you get angry and blame someone, or something outside of you, you give away your power. Your belief then is that everything outside of you is happening to you, and you are powerless.
Most of us suffered some sort of emotional trauma in our early childhood years. You probably don’t remember, and if you do, you probably blocked the memory of it. Emotional wounds are recorded in our unconscious minds and can affect our adult functioning years later. In our childhood we tend at all personal cost to do what we are told so we can remain safe and a member of our family unit and not be alone in the world.
As the twig is bent, so grows the tree
Throughout your entire lifetime, and especially during your earlier childhood years, you were told over and over again what you could not do, many more times than what you could do. During your first five years you were told no 30,000 times more than yes, 100,000 times by the time you were 15. You were told you were wrong more often than you were told you were right. You were criticized more often than you were praised. You heard the word don’t more often than the word do, and so on ad infinitum.
Criticism leads to guilt which is the precursor to perfectionism.
As a child, teenager, and young adult, you were warned hundreds of times of the dangers in every physical activity which included running, jumping, climbing, sliding, balancing, throwing catching, rolling, swinging, etc. You were told you will hurt yourself, break an arm, break a leg, fall, trip, bang your head, scrape a knee, etc. This kind of negative programming produces the very mindset that invites the injuries they were striving to avoid. It prevents the development of your natural neuro-muscular potential.
In this way we were all conditioned to limit ourselves. In the circuses, baby elephants were chained from birth so they cannot run away. When they are grown, the chain is taken off and they never stray because they have been programmed to believe they cannot move. Similarly, we chose to act in a certain limited way to avoid being punished or rejected. Are you being held back by outdated childhood beliefs that no longer serve you? Are you avoiding trying something new because of a limiting belief? Are you being held back by someone else’s limiting beliefs?
The child learns that there is something wrong with him/her and learns early on that when a parent or teacher or other trusted authority figure says you do something wrong, you need to be punished because you are bad. Hearing these messages over and over, they are programmed into your subconscious mind and it takes on the role of the authority figure even after those people are gone. Thus, your self-sabotage takes over. And your self-worth is constantly challenged. Remember that your unconscious mind records everything literally, just like the computer. Garbage In Garbage Out. It stores everything you think, feel, your memories, your skills, your fears, your likes and dislikes, and all experiences in your life. Just like your computer, those records will stay there until they are deleted or reprogrammed.
If you don’t have a safe place to return to inside of you, it causes anxiety. I believe Jack Nicklaus and Phil Mickelson were raised in a safe environment. They were affirmed as children and learned early that there was no limit to what they could accomplish.
If you aren’t as successful on course as you desire, now is the time to truly face your fears from your childhood and release them. Let go of all acquired limitations you might be holding on to. Get to a place where your habits are only good ones that support your desires and you have removed all the ones that sabotage your wishes for success. Do not act upon feelings of fear, or a lack in the future. Whatever is happening in your internal world is reflected in your external world. You will know what these fears are when you are triggered by emotions of fear, anger, blame, frustration.
Jack Nicklaus was quoted as saying, “You can win tournaments when you’re mechanical, but golf is a game of emotion and adjustment. If you’re not aware of what’s happening to your mind and your body when you’re playing, you’ll never be able to be the very best you can be.”
The mindset that got you to where you are today, is not the same mindset that will get you to where you want to go.
For example, if your parents programming was an addiction to perfection and required it of you, you would try to be perfect to please them so you would be accepted and loved. What is internalized is that the child’s worth is only as good as their performances. It is time to look at how this habit interferes with your golf game. Golf is not a game of perfection. It is a challenging game of managing human imperfection. There are many ways to play at your personal best without perfection. It is then up to you now to choose whether you wish to be controlled by this childhood desire to be perfect (for the wrong reason), or to delete it from your memory bank and play in the moment (without fear) as your inner child truly desired.
What is the Inner Game of Golf?
The inner game of golf is made up of the mental beliefs you have in yourself and your abilities that surface in your performances on the golf course.
The mental game includes learning the skills to decrease the mental interferences that keep you from playing at your peak performance levels. You reach your peak performance levels when you become aware only of what you are experiencing in the present moment. Then you are playing the game.
Accessing this awareness comes from relaxing your mind for the total focus needed to hit the shot/putt. To relax and focus on playing the game, you must overcome the interference of fears such as failure, embarrassment, worry, anxiety, self-doubt, negative attitudes, and outdated beliefs. Fear keeps you from moving forward toward success. Fear keeps you in the “victim energy” feeling powerless. If you use the time in-between shots to think of failing, it is time to release the inner critical voice in your head and replace it with the goodness of your inner Self.
You must get to a place where your habits are created only by you to support your desires, and you have removed all the ones that sabotage your wishes for success. Let go of other people’s rules and create your own that reinforce your own true self.
Play “in the zone” with Joan
Entrain Your Heart & Mind for Peak Performances
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“THE HEART OF GOLF, Access Your Supreme Intelligence for Peak Performances” explores and explains negative emotions such as fear and performance anxiety, the four Cs of mind blockage, the four progressive stages of learning the supreme intelligence of the heart, and the way to access the zone in competition. It is a player’s guide for developing your true inner self by returning to the joy and love of self instead of seeking praise and rewards from the outside world.
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