When I was a teenager, I learned the game of chess. An uncle who used to stay in a place near us taught me the fundamentals.
Since then, I’d try to practice playing with him almost every day. Mostly I lost.
So I developed an unwelcome mental disadvantage: fear of losing each time.
Yet I found a way to continue and not stop practicing.
Despite the stumbles, I kept playing till I reached a level enough to compete outside and eventually become a champion in our city tournaments and my university varsity national events.
Issues around winning and losing can also cause huge problems for those in psychotherapy pursuing self healing and mastery.
It involves ups and downs, trials and errors, and may take a long process to develop enough stability and peace.
So the experience of “losing” is also a built-in to the process of psychotherapy and life change. Over and over. You can’t win without the falling!
Robert started out saying, “I can’t do this. I’m an alcoholic and no therapy can change that.” But because of life-damaging consequences to himself and family, he agreed to enter therapy.
He complained and walked out of the sessions many times. He went back to his drinking many times. “I’m a loser,” he’d say.
Yet with the support of his family, he managed to keep coming back to his rehabilitation. He kept “practicing” till he reached a “graduation” hosted by his big family about almost three years later.
Robert made it! And he’s now living a completely sober, 100% alcohol-free life.
This post is a reminder for us of an important principle in the game of life: abandon “attachment to outcome.” Let go of it and practice wellness in your here and now!
When you let go of your attachment to outcome, and just get focused on your present and what you can do, it stops you from being continually conflicted.
It stops you from always getting caught between fear of losing and worrying about things you can’t control.
Identify your ultimate dream. What you want. And keep practicing in the present, which is the only time you can act, till you accomplish your dream.
Secrets of Your Self:
www.kobo.com/ph/en/ebook/secrets-of-your-self
Dr. Angelo Subida is a clinical psychotherapist, author, and speaker. He is author of books "Inner Healing," "Secrets Of Your Self," "Chess and Life," among others, blogs, and articles. He has appeared frequently as an expert on psychotherapy/life recovery issues on national television, radio broadcasts, print media, and webcasts, including GMA 7, TV 5, ABS CBN 2, Q-11, 700 Club, Radyo Veritas, Inquirer Radio, Smart Parenting Magazine, Business Mirror, among others, and has served as resident therapist/counselor for parents and kid-artists in the highly popular ABS-CBN 2 Voice Kids TV singing reality show. Dr. Subida is an eclectic, multidisciplinary therapist and originator of his own revolutionary high-tech, high-touch counseling plus model. His areas of specialization include parent-child therapy, clinical infidelity treatment, relationship/marital counseling, separation/divorce therapy, anger management, depression, addictions, psychotherapy-spirituality integration, and innovative chess therapy. For more of Dr. Subida, you can find him at www.drsubida.com.