Pay attention
To what you pay attention to.
Amy Krause Rosenthal
Have you ever witnessed a wrestling semi-slide?
Or perhaps experienced one yourself?
It is one of the most helpless experiences to witness.
Walt Whitman wrote,
“Battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.”
There has never been a truer statement written regarding the wrestling semi-slide.
A wrestling semi-slide is when a wrestler experiences a traumatic loss in the semi-finals and instead of reconciling the loss, they fixate on it.
Their mental focus shifts from their goal to their loss.
They are no longer present in the present, they are fixated on the past.
Instead of resetting a new goal, because their original goal is now unobtainable, they refuse to, and they persistently attempt to get back something that they can’t.
And their mind gets stuck in an endless infinite loop, trying to solve an unsolvable problem.
This fixation on the loss makes them unable to recover quick enough for their next match which they lose to an inferior opponent.
Their self-sabotage repeats itself their next match too, against an even more inferior opponent.
Thus, completing the slide from the semi-finals,
all the way down to 8th place.
Allowing one loss to beat them twice.
The wrestling semi-slide is a torturous experience for all involved.
Like every coach, parent or any other person who has ever attempted to shake some sense into the wrestler during a semi-slide knows, witnessing a semi-slide is one of the most helpless feelings one could ever experience in the sport.
No matter what you say, no matter what you do, no matter if you use fear or praise to motivate,
your words, actions, and concern fall on deaf ears when someone is in a semi-slide.
As the wrestlers in the semi-slides is determined to self-destruct.
Your words, actions, and inspiration will prove no match to their self-sabotage.
The brain of the wrestler in the semi-slide isn’t functioning the way it should because it can’t reconcile the magnitude of their recent loss.
The only way out of a wrestling semi-slide is for the wrestler to be present in the present, to find gratitude and to reset a new goal.
If the wrestler who experienced a traumatic loss in the semi-finals was able to remain present in the present, he would have beaten his next two opponents and capped his loss at one.
If the wrestler found gratitude, however hard that may have been at the time, their brain would have refocused itself to find the good and allow the wrestler to rebuild again.
If after the initial loss the wrestler reset a new goal to take 3rd place, he would have capped the loss at one.
Inside the torturous experience of the wrestling
semi-slide is one of the most important life lessons the sport of wrestling will ever teach.
Have you ever witnessed a life-slide?
Or perhaps experience one yourself?
Have you ever known a person who just experienced a traumatic event in life?
Who suffered a severe loss?
A person whose brain just can’t reconcile the event that just took place?
Or a person who is addicted?
As any person who has ever attempted to reason with anyone who has, or is, knows, it is one of the most helpless feelings one could ever experience in life.
No matter what you say, no matter what you do,
no matter if you use fear or praise to motivate,
your words, actions, and concern fall on deaf ears when someone is in a life-slide.
As the person in the life-slides brain isn’t functioning the way it should in the present situation because it can’t reconcile the magnitude of their recent loss.
It is determined to self-destruct.
Your words, actions, and inspiration will prove no match to their self-sabotage.
Until,
They reconcile the event in their minds, by staying present in the present,
They find gratitude,
And they reset a new goal.
After a traumatic loss in life it is often difficult to reconcile the event in your mind, but being present in the present gives you the best opportunity to.
As it is never the first wave that drowns you,
it is the inability to recover from its force
that allows the smaller second, third and fourth waves to do the deed.
If the second, third or fourth waves were taken by themselves they would have been easily handled and proven to have been of no danger.
Their real danger is in their immediacy after the first wave redirected one’s attention and forced one to lose focus.
Finding gratitude is the key to life.
Appreciation is the bridge from suffering to gratitude.
Gratitude is the fertile land where love flourishes.
And love is the greatest achievement in life.
After a traumatic loss whether in wrestling or in life, the way you stop one loss from beating you twice is that you remain present in the present, you find gratitude and you reset a new goal.
Unfortunately, no amount of the care given to a person in a life-slide by the people who love them will have a permanent impact on them until they do.
Everyone will get back to the present, find gratitude and reset a new goal in their own time, at their own pace.
And when they do, they will rebuild.
Don’t Let One Loss Beat You Twice
Is a chapter from
Which can be purchased at
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John Passaro 