This post is dedicated to the city of Charlottesville, all who feel misunderstood, and the people courageous enough to be steady and honest in the face of uncertainty.

6 Attributes OF THE STEADFAST LEADER:

Strength / Stability

Focus

Stress Response

Support

Values

Recovery

“In Charlottesville, I sensed a certain mystery, an opportunity for the convergence of deep exploration, purposeful expression and positive impact. A place to bring together what had felt like the disparate pieces of myself.”

A month ago, on what felt like a whim, I decided to take a coaching position at the University of Virginia. I knew very little about the town of Charlottesville before moving here. I’d heard about Thomas Jefferson, and the downtown mall, and the Shenandoah Mountains, yet beyond that, I knew, and appreciated very little of the profound intricacies of this town.

The relocation happened fast. Coaching field hockey wasn’t in my immediate career plan. I wanted to explore the personal development of athletes beyond the playing field. But in late July, I was desperate for a change of scenery. A fresh place to be inspired and build new opportunities and relationships - a space to renew my curiosity about who I was, and how I related to my gifts, interests, and responsibility to the world. When the University of Virginia called about a coaching opportunity, it was the allure and possibility of Charlottesville that attracted me.

Language of Leadership

Steadfast

ACTION STYLE - STEADY

Resolute, firm, and unwavering sense of purpose and principle

The place felt right. In Charlottesville, I sensed a certain mystery, an opportunity for the convergence of deep exploration, purposeful expression and positive impact. A place to bring together what had felt like the disparate pieces of myself - Praxis, yoga, sport, academic learning, and spiritual development.

Charlottesville had it all. A complex history deeply intertwined with that of America, a world-class educational institution, a vast spiritual and yoga culture, great restaurants, a vibrant arts scene, and unparalleled natural beauty. It had the dynamic appeal of a city, and the charm of a small town.

When I arrived I was immediately struck by what seemed like a bundle of contradictions. I couldn’t quite put my finger on how to describe Charlottesville. It felt like a southern town with a Boston feel. An elite college in a humble mountain setting. A place where the extremely wealthy, the blue collar, and the homeless collided everyday. Its roads were lined with modern strip malls, the best grocery stores, splendid farms, and breathtaking historic architecture. It felt suburban, metropolitan, and rural at the same time. It felt deeply spiritual and devoutly secular.

“It was impossible to give Charlottesville a clear cut, easy to understand label. It was all of the contradictions, and none of them. Charlottesville was a real place - fully alive with all the trappings and mysteries of humanity. ”

The mystery magnetized me. It was impossible to give Charlottesville a clear cut, easy to understand label. It was all of the contradictions, and none of them. Charlottesville was a real place - fully alive with all the trappings and mysteries of humanity. It wasn’t some idyllic, and isolated college town. It was a vibrant and dynamic community facing the uncertainty of our times. Caught between the desire to cling to its storied history, and the responsibility to face the reality of who it is, where it came from, and how that history informs and impacts its current reality.

“When we hide, we refuse our place in the world. We limit ourselves from truly understanding who we are, and what’s possible for our existence. ”

When I looked at Charlottesville, I saw myself. The convergence of seeming contradictions - different emotions, passions, attitudes, and perspectives. The convergence of past, present, and future. The uncertainty of a changing culture and identity.

And very much, like Charlottesville, I was in a period of profound transition. I had more questions than I had answers. I knew that moments of transition were moments of great opportunity or extreme threat depending on the steadiness of the response to change.

Change is uncomfortable. It asks us to live in the space of not knowing, and to be in the steady work that makes understanding possible. Often though, we fail to accept not knowing. Rather, we pretend that we already know. We hide behind certainty, we deny the existence of opportunities and threats. We deny part of the truth, and cling to the other. We judge everything. Its right or wrong, left or right, black or white. The labels give us the perception of control, yet humanity, and life, is so much more complex than the labels we give it. The hiding - behind labels, justifications, excuses, blame, complaints and sorries - only causes suffering. It creates a false, and narrow reality, one in which we cannot make progress or learn because we can't fully understand ourselves, our motivations, and our role in, and responsibility to the big picture. When we hide, we refuse our place in the world. We limit ourselves from truly understanding who we are, and what’s possible for our existence.

In Charlottesville, I've learned that for truth to be possible, we must confront all changing parts of ourselves with steady work and honest endeavor. The mystery that attracted me to this place, is the very magic that I now love about it. I love Charlottesville's nuance and complexity. Its beauty and its mess. I love how real and raw it is. I love the passion in the hearts of its people. I love the aliveness this community. I love that Charlottesville, in this time of transition, has a profound opportunity to impact and shift the way that America engages in the honest and tough conversation about our who we are, and what we are responsible for. I love that Charlottesville doesn’t have the answers. I love that this place, rather than pretending to have it, instead, is courageous enough to say ‘I don’t,’ and engage in the conversation anyways.

Change is the only certainty we face. If living in Charlottesville has taught me anything, its that we must be bold, honest and steady in the pursuit of truth. We must not hide, or pretend. We must seek to understand the complete truth of who we are, and how we impact the world. As imperfect and uncomfortable as the uncertainty may feel, we must - each and everyone of us - face it full on.

Discover within, Expand Beyond,

Rachel

This post is dedicated to every coach, teacher, teammate and opponent that pushed me outside my comfort zone and helped me realize that my only limit was inside my head.

“The key to maintaining mental composure is to stay simple, present, and to task in each moment, confidently calling every bluff you face whether from the opponent, the situation, or yourself. ”

The Mental Element

Enhance Decision-Making

the 6 mental Attributes

Awareness

Adaptability

Creativity

Focus

Situational Analysis

Strategic Alignment

“We are all living and responding from our own virtual reality. Two individuals put in the exact same situation can and most likely will experience it totally differently. That’s what makes team sports so interesting, and sometimes frustrating, every player approaches the game, and each situation in it, from a different perspective.”

A sports psychologist once asked me how much of the game I thought was mental? Without blinking I said 100%. The mind impacts everything I see, say, do - and more so, how I experience the things I see, say and do.

It's all a mind game - sports, life, chess, super mario brothers, candy crush. We are all living and responding from our own virtual reality. Two individuals put in the exact same situation can and most likely will experience it totally differently. That's what makes team sports so interesting, and sometimes frustrating - every player, coach, and parent approaches the game from a different perspective. Merging the divergent mindsets, and translating them into unified action is what creates that magic we often call chemistry.

That magic begins with knowing your own mind, learning its mastery, and from there, letting the realm of possibility expand. It is easy to ignore the impact your mental patterns have on your sport experience because those patterns hide in plain sight, so normal and pervasive, we often don't even notice they exist.

“Give ‘em enough rope to hang themselves,” that’s what Lee Bodimeade, my first coach on the national team used to say. In sports lingo that meant create such a strong perception of pressure that the opponent overthinks, hesitates, break flows, and coughs up the ball. Winning meant figuring out how to turn the opponent against themselves - mind against body, teammate against teammate, coach against player. When the opponent started to talk back to the refs or complain, that’s when we knew we had them right where we wanted them - not focused on the work of the game, in their heads, in the thick of their own personal virtual competitive hell. I know the torture of such a hell because I've been there more times than I care to recount.

“The role of my mind is to efficiently process information in a way that enhances decision-making, and promotes the mission.”

While we worked to break the opponent, the opponent worked to break us. We attacked each others blindspots - that thing everyone else can see in you that you ignore. The constant battle of wills required disciplined training, fortitude and clarity of purpose - the choice not get caught in the windfalls, ebbs, and flows of the competitive storm. Be un-messable, the eye at the center of the storm is a phrase Lisa Taylor my yoga teacher often says. Craig Parnham, former national team coach, would say ‘heart in the fire, head in the fridge,’ and ‘bend but don’t break’ were the wise words of Lee Bodimeade. However you term it, the key to maintaining mental composure is to stay simple, present, and to task in each moment, confidently calling every bluff you face whether from the opponent, the game, or yourself.

Calling your own bluff means getting to know yourself in a pretty deep way - knowing your triggers, your thought patterns, perceptions, blind spots, and default reactions. It means knowing what my teammate, Melissa Gonzales called 'the dark side,' the side most of us pretend doesn't exist.

Knowing yourself means understanding how you take in information, how you process it, and how you use it to make decisions. Awareness, the ability to take on information in the moment without judgement, expectation, or reaction, is the key to self-understanding.

Sport, like life, is a infinite number of bundled decisions aimed toward the fulfillment of some purpose or intention - score a goal, win a game, buy a home, run a thriving business, be of service, be happy, make something possible for the next generation, etc. Each decision impacts the bigger picture, and your mind is the filter that frames every aspect of the decision-making process. It is the tool that interprets all the sensory information your body receives and processes it as efficiently as possible to make a decision that promotes the mission.

Step 1: What are you aware of?

What sensory information do you take in? What do you hear, feel, smell, taste, and see? Your environment, skills, experience, and expectations prime you to take in certain types of information while ignoring others. When I was playing, depending on my frame of mind, I would scan the field and sense the opponents pressure, or I'd sense the space and opportunity behind the pressure.

Step 2: What options are available?

How you process information determines what options are available to you. In my case, if I was focused on the defenders pressure, my options were limited. If I was focused on the space behind the pressure, more options became available.

Step 3: Decide on a course of action.

Once you know your options, decide a course of action

Step 4: Execute.

Use your physical skill set to execute the decision

the 6 Mental Attributes

Awareness - ability take on information in the moment without judgement, expectation, or reaction; relies on the use of the senses, mindfulness

Adaptability - openmindness and acceptance, ability to adjust effectively and fluidly to changing circumstances

Creativity - the ability to go beyond normal patterns and rules in order to create new forms, solutions, relationships, and models

Situational Analysis - the ability to identify, process, and comprehend critical information happening in a specific moment in order to provide effective and immediate solutions

Strategic Alignment - the ability to link structure, role specialization, and in moment decision-making for mission fulfillment

So how do you develop a better understanding of your mental patterning?

It takes time, and training. But to start, go way outside your comfort zone and see what comes up.

Pressure train your mind. Work your body beyond its perceived limits. Enter a totally new environment. Challenge yourself. Do something you don't want to do. Maybe that means turning off the T.V., de-screening, and sitting still for a bit. Get to know what reality you actually live in. Encourage the onslaught of uncomfortable and new sensation, and see how your mind reacts. Does it want to quit, run, fight, blame, complain? What virtual reality does it create? Heaven? Hell?

Let your default mental pattern emerge. Accept it, then harness the decision-making capacity of your mind by committing to develop your mental capacity. Start with awareness. Then identify a specific area you'd like to explore in greater depth - maybe its your adaptability, creativity, focus, situational response, or strategic alignment. Explore one area, that's all, and see how it shows up in your life? Get really, really curious about your mind. Go to the dark side, see what's there.

Because the degree to which you know yourself is the degree to which you can go beyond yourself. Only when your mind is open, clear, and responsive are you free to serve and be part of something bigger.

And the secret to knowing yourself is. . .

all in your head.

Discover Within, Expand Beyond,

Rachel