Archived Newsletters - YOUR MAGICAL LOVE AFFAIR WITH GOLF :
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Newsletter February 2025
February is when we focus on the feeling of love in our hearts. The feeling of love comes from your heart. The feeling of hitting a perfect golf shot resonates in your heart. Discounting that feeling by judging yourself keeps you in your thinking mind.
Unlike the golf swing, love can't be taught. It is already part of our make-up. As humans, we block out the awareness of the feeling of love by allowing negative thought patterns and fear-based actions to interfere with our lives and our golf games.
Love is a state of peace inside and out where you are focused in the moment. There is no worry, fear, doubt, indecision, humiliation, self-doubt, unworthiness, inferiority, or superiority. Any impulse to aggressively control your game will move you into these feelings of self-judgment.
Love is the intuitive knowledge of our hearts. Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned about limiting our belief in ourselves. When we release the limiting and self-sabotaging thoughts, we free our minds and can return to love.
When you first experienced the feeling of hitting a perfect shot, you fell in love with the game and were hooked into a passion for golf. At that moment all your problems and worries disappeared. You were in the magical flow of the universe called love. This magical feeling of love keeps you playing the game throughout the challenges it produces.
Golf is a mirror of the journey into your inner self through exploring the mysteries of this royal and ancient game. At its highest levels of hitting perfect shots and achieving your fullest potential, your spirit quietly soars "into the zone" where you are in a state of bliss and trust. No longer is your spirit dampened by past experiences of fear, anxiety, indecision, distractions, and self-limitations. The joy you experience is in the moment.
Love playing the game of golf more than you love the outcome.
Golf is not just a game; it's a love affair that lasts a lifetime.
You will never want to let go once you fall in love with golf.
Self-esteem
Self-esteem is the positive or negative evaluation of self and how we feel. It is a long-lasting personality trait. Self-esteem/self-confidence is having trust and reliance on yourself.
As children, we had high self-esteem as part of our make-up. We were valued for being alive. When we walked into a room people talked to us, told us how cute we were, and did whatever else they thought would make us smile.
As we grew up, we realized that people do judge us and hold opinions about us. We began to give more weight to people's judgments of us than we thought of ourselves.
Players who maintain positive self-talk enhance their confidence and feelings of self-worth. Peak-performing athletes rarely put themselves down. They talk to themselves positively about what they are attempting to create. They change past negative messages that come up into positive empowering ones. This is a part of their mental training program. They repeat positive mental affirmations of self, as well as training routines until they are hard-wired into their brains, body, and spirit.
Scientists have discovered that it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain, unless it is done in play, in which case it only takes 10 to 20 repetitions.
Enhance Your Self-Esteem with Self-Love
You are your most important supporter. Nothing is more critical than the opinion you have of yourself. What you say to yourself in your inner mind is the most important conversation you will ever have. You become confident by letting go of the past programmed negativity from others and replacing it with affirmations of your True Self.
Love the game for what it is; a compelling game full of ups and downs, twists and turns, ecstasy and frustration. On the roller coaster of life, love yourself in the same way. Love is a unique life force that motivates us. Without love, it can feel like an all-consuming work effort.
Remind yourself how fortunate you are to be able to play golf, to be alive, what you are grateful for, and how you can make the best out of the day. It is an individual state of being and mind that makes your happiness happen.
One of the mental keys to successful golf is to let go of self-judgment. When you think about how you are doing, or how to do it, you are judging yourself and your performance under the guise of helping your game. When you judge yourself, you are likely to feel anxious, guilty, embarrassed, or frustrated. These feelings will ultimately sabotage your golf game, lower your self-esteem, and keep you from being successful.
Golf is like love, it fills the cup of your heart with joy
and challenges you to be the best version of yourself.
Being in what athletes call the zone means moving into total acceptance, total peace, total awareness, and total love. You are then in the peaceful flow of the universe, being one with the All, the nirvana experience of indescribable bliss. You forget about yourself and are one with the feeling of euphoria that comes from being in love with playing the game. The mystery is solved, and you want the feeling and game to go on forever!"
To be aware in the present moment means to access all your senses to experience yourself and your activity fully. When playing golf at your peak performance level, you are engaged in the love process of making the shot happen exactly as you planned it. It is all within you. The outer physical shot is just a mirror of what is going on within. What you focus your attention on is what you hold dear to you and is then what you create.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness is one of the highest forms of self-love. When you forgive others and yourself, you release a great weight that has been holding you down from achieving your goals.
Forgiveness does not make you right and the other person wrong. Not being willing to forgive usually comes from the place of ego. Let go of hard feelings and blame. It is only hard when you refuse to let go.
Conclusion
Embrace the magical experience of playing golf. Use your thoughts, words, and pictures to create the life and golf game you desire. Let go of judgments that sabotage your game and put you into an internally self-created prison.
Allow yourself to enjoy the game of golf with its ups and downs, perfect and imperfect shots, humiliating situations, and joyous moments! Remember that golf is a game where an inch can make the difference between total disaster and absolute perfection! See the round in its entirety. Don't be trapped by a few mishits into judging your whole performance by them. Reinforce and enjoy the good shots.
Focus on the good you want to create in your golf game and more will come to you. This is the Universal Law of "like attracts like." Be your own best coach. Let go of all your self-assessments in which you find yourself inadequate from never measuring up to being perfect. Accept and love yourself more than anyone ever loved you.
Your mission is to discover and embrace the real you, not the person you think you must be to be loved or accepted. Your hopes and dreams are waiting for you. Claim what your heart already knows and turn your dreams into reality. Love is the intuitive knowledge of our hearts. Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned about limiting our belief in ourselves. When we release the limiting and self-sabotaging thoughts, we free our minds and can return to love.
Play "in the zone" with Joan
Entrain Your Heart & Mind for Peak Performances
Please share this monthly mental instruction newsletter if it has been helpful to you. Forward to your friends so they can have more fun playing the game of golf while lowering their scores. Link to www.pmi4.com to download previous PMI mental golf newsletters from 1999-2025 on the Archived Newsletter page https://cutt.ly/kwMY2jXt
If you have a question or need help with your mental game, email Joan at pmi4@bellsouth.net Also, please share how this website information has helped improve your golf game.
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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.
This guidebook for transforming your life and golf game is available at https://amzn.to/3jEMVuv All royalties will be donated to junior golf.
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