Mental health tools, implemented by Las Leonas and Los Leones
Nelly Giscafré and Dario Palazzo They illustrated, from their experience, the work that is carried out through psychology to mitigate the challenges that arise in high performance and collaborate with athletes in the search for self-knowledge in order to build professional objectives, but always starting from prioritizing health.
“We must not forget that they are people first. In high performance it is difficult to think about health, because it requires 110% in everything, over time strategies in physical preparation and in the nutritional part have changed. We are all aware of these modifications so that the athlete can sustain himself, but very little is said about the mental issue, how to tolerate this.what happens to him internally to be able to submit to so many demands, to leave one championship and enter another. And at a selected level even more so, because all these tournaments generate a lot of tension, pressure, very high levels of self-demand and states of adrenaline, and there is no time to rest the mind, to give it a place to be heard.”, Palazzo began by elucidating.
Many times it is deliberate that he who exercises what he loves “does not work anymore in his life.” and daro He took it upon himself to reject that theory, claiming that it is not true… at least to maintain balance: “There is the idea that if you do what you like, you are not working and it is false. Welcome if you like what you do, but that has a cost too, And if you don’t recognize it, the moment will come when your body will knock on your door and tell you: ‘Hey, listen to me, stop for a little while, because everything that happens in our head has an impact on the body.’ ‘and everything that happens to us in the body has an impact on the head. The work we do lies in these differences. Our job is to make the unconscious conscious, and then also be agents of learning. That people learn to express themselves in a healthier way, that they can set limits for themselves, to differentiate what is and to what extent it is healthy and begins to be unhealthy. That’s our job. Let there be a record”.
The trigger for the note was what happened to María Verschoor, the multiple champion with the Netherlands took a step away from professional activity, alleging the need to protect her mental health and we opened the range towards discussing the situation that is being experienced at the highest level. level:
“I don’t know what this particular person’s (Verschoor) reason was. but Maybe he is at another point in his life, where he doesn’t want to leave so much behind and has interests in other things. Happens. AND high performance is for a time in life because it doesn’t leave you much time for other things,” said Nelly.
And he added, “then when you start to realize that you want other things and have other motivationssport is an obligation. And when training is an obligation, the workload, everything becomes more and more. It’s like going to compete with a heavy load on you.”.
When explaining the responsibilities that a person has to exercise maximum competence, they talk about discipline, effort and training, but those that lead you to give up are usually minimized: “The greatest frustration of an athlete is the difference between the athlete he thinks he is and the one he really is.. Tolerance is essential, as are two other conditions: recovering quickly and not stopping trying. It is impossible to anticipate what I am going to encounter, but I can always choose how to act in the situation that I may encounter.”.
Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, written more than 150 years ago, deals with the duality that coexists within people, but… why is it that even today those who lose are repressed and the enjoyment of offering themselves – in body and soul- for each task?
“Enjoyment is a consequence, there is no such thing as proposing to enjoy. It is doing something in which you could empty yourself, putting all the tools and your preparation into play. There is a belief that ‘I can’t enjoy if I lost’. It is socially frowned upon. It’s like when you make a mistake and you have to punish yourself. And the reality is that, if you are on a court, you are competing and you punish yourself, you are not on the path to achieving your goals. Frustration and pain are everyday and that’s what we are here for, to transform pain into something that makes sense. Reconfigure what you feel“Palazzo stated.
There is a word that inhabits the great work that must underlie the athlete and consists of the self-knowledgeno matter how appropriately he performs on the field, if from the outside he cannot control his emotions, because he did not have the opportunity to know them, there is resistance to achieving the best of his versions:
“We have the ability to see something as a threat or to see it as a challenge. There are people who, when faced with different problems, can give up and others begin to generate solutions. It has a lot to do with knowing how I think. From how I perceive the situation, I learn to think How I’m going to deal with what happens later… then, How am I going to be more genuine? When I dominate my thoughts. Now how am I going to master my thoughts? Once I know how I think, and how I think, it involves work and a thorough examination of many things, from absolute, personal beliefs, past experiences, from how I was raised, a lot of situations that build a structure of seeing the world and the situations that surround us“Dario alleged.
Continuing along the line of knowing ourselves, we find the way of looking at ourselves, what we seek to reflect and what we really are: “In the comparison between what you are and what you want to be, self-esteem is defined, which is another fundamental condition for having mental health and a life of enjoyment.. Because how you see yourself is a certain way and how you want to see yourself is another. That’s where the ego comes in, so the psychologist’s task is to bring these two worlds closer together. We don’t have to remove the ego, but rather put it in its place. It’s important because that lowers expectations a lot, it puts you on the right track, and you can do the things you do well. Because you don’t force yourself to believe that it has to turn out spectacular, or that it has to be perfect, because you understand the place from which you are starting.”Giscafré mentioned.
AND daro He added to the idea: “Many times we put our self-esteem at the disposal of others.. The trick is not to deny the gaze of others, to take it into account, but to work a lot on your own. Know what my desire is, by continuing to try. The more I know myself, the greater my ability to adapt to the different circumstances I will encounter. Start working from my knowledge, how to react, how to choose to function in the different contexts that I am having. From that point on, I may do well, I may not do so well, but it seems to me that this is the path not only of sport, but of life in general. Constant learning, going despite any circumstance”.
There is a particularity that is generated by inhabiting the present in a detached way and honoring the journey to get to where you are now, which many want to resurrect but it implies various conditions: “Flow is a state of full consciousness, where you are absolutely immersed in what you do, in what you are doing. There is no awareness of time, you are not evaluating yourself. People who have experienced it want to return to that, they ask us, ‘I want to be as I was in that game, where it flowed and there was nothing else.’ It is not something we can propose to be in, it is a state.”
“When you are happy with who you are and what you do and you don’t have enormous expectations, nor do you care so much about recognitionbecause if you are eager to be recognized, you pay attention to how others look at you and you are not in flow because being in flow is being completely immersed in something. In the here and now, be part of a whole”Nelly concluded.
