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You can’t shoot low if you’re afraid to shoot high.
That single idea might explain why so many golfers struggle to play their best when it matters.
In this episode of How Low Can You Go, we’re joined by Dr Raymond Prior — world renowned performance psychologist, author of Golf Beneath the Surface, and coach to elite performers across sport, business and entertainment.
In Part 1 of this conversation, Raymond breaks down the psychology behind why golfers so often get in their own way.
We discuss:
If you’ve ever:
This episode will completely change how you think about the mental side of golf.
Part 2 of this conversation will be released next week.
🎧 Listen now.
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💌 Contact → [email protected]
📊 Explore Golf Beneath The Surface → https://btsmindset.com/ https://www.instagram.com/gbtspodcast/
🏨 Big shout out to The Leddie Hotel on Scotland’s Golf Coast.
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Anxious golf swing looks very different than a freely executed golf swing or putting stroke or so on and so forth
Right, so if I'm going out protecting against an 80 I don't really have access to shooting in the 60s
It's relative to your skill level, right?
So if this podcast is how low can you go it's also well how high are you willing to risk going if you want to actually go low because you can't risk
Can't risk shooting 65 you don't have access to the freedom required for that if you're not also willing to shoot in 80
So many of the club golfers that I have worked with over time one of the primary barriers for them is
Domino wonder number one is this can't be really bad for whatever reasons they've attached to it
And then therefore you're not playing freely enough to shoot
Lower than your handicap enough to move it down and certainly not low enough to do that under pressure in your club events
You remember guests or so on and so forth
Okay, before we start this episode
You might have asked a few silly questions
Have you ever stood in the first tee feeling really really anxious?
Have you ever told yourself just don't free putt today and then immediately free putt
Or have you ever had one of those rhymes where it feels like your body is just completely forgotten how to play golf
Yeah, thoughts so we've all been there
So today we're joined by Dr. Raymond prior
Top performance psychologist author of golf beneath the surface
And someone who works with elite performers across sport business and entertainment
And in this episode we get into something that might explain a lot of what happens inside your head on the golf course
Things like why your brain prioritizes avoidance over performance
Why trying to relax or think positive is often making things worse
And why sometimes the thing holding your golf bag might actually be something that happened years ago
Honestly, this one goes pretty deep
So let's dive straight it
This is how I know can you go
Okay
Welcome back everyone
Once again to how low can you go the golf improvement podcast born in Scotland
Where we speak to some of the leading experts in their field on golf improvement
Today we make no exception to that we are delighted to be joined by Dr. Raymond prior
author of golf beneath the surface which for me I actually gonna go out in the link here
I think in the not too distant future will be regarded as one of the classics of our time in terms of
Golf improvement
He's got a fantastic podcast with chase Cooper of the same name golf beneath the surface
Also works with some of the top players on the planet and not just golfers
He also works as a performance coach for
Oscar winners Grammy winners
CEOs you name it
Dr. Raymond prior we're delighted to welcome you thank you for joining us welcome to how low can you go
Okay, let's go out
That's the plan that's the plan
To give you just a little snippet of our backstory we started this
Podcast about seven months ago Chris
Yes, both of us trying to reach our golfing targets. I am a midhand decapper
I'd really love to get to single figures and I'm I'm trying to get to scratch and I feel like the abilities there
But the mental side of it is not there. So that's why we're speaking to you and just getting your thing to
All the great wisdom that you have
Yeah, no pressure
Raymond
Stay for anyone who's maybe less familiar with golf beneath the surface and any of your work
Do you want to just give everyone a bit of your background and just kind of talk through some of your work to do it?
Sure
You know the cliff notes is that
Spend up a lot a lot of time in school a variety of different advanced degrees all in pursuit of
Trying to understand what it is that really unlocks human
Some people use the word potential for me. It's kind of more like answering the question. Why aren't humans
Getting more out of what they're trying to do like what really holds us back is kind of question
So a whole manner of advanced degrees and everything from performance psychology to neuroscience sleep science and so on and so forth
The work I do by training and trade is to help people understand how their brain is working how their mind is working and how they can perhaps train both
Two more freely pursue the things that are important to them
Whatever that might look like and whatever realm that they're in
Golf beneath the surface the book is a bit of a
Covid lockdown project for me where I finally I always wanted to write a book
To try to contribute to the field and to people and I had time during a pandemic shutdown here in America was
Long enough for me to kind of dig in
In terms of what the book is aimed at for golfers is two things to again based on my professional goals to help people understand their minds their brains and themselves to be able to try to do things more
The way they want to then necessarily what they feel they need to hold back from
And then as a little bit of a challenge to the status quo of performance psychology particularly in golf which historically has been pretty poor
It's what I call surface level psychology, which is just like the oh, you're feeling really anxious
You should just relax or you're feeling really uncertain. You should just trust which
Is if you understand how the brain works even out of fundamental level?
You can understand why that stuff just doesn't really cut the mustard once things really get into a pressure situation or we're under enough stress
So that book was a bit of dual purpose there and then the podcast is a little bit of an extension with that where we're trying to
Have discussions around
How is it that we can really help unlock a little bit of what we tend to lock in and then also talk with a lot of people who are
Trying to help people do the same from whatever their area of expertise is whether it's biomechanics
Instruction also other some other psychology professionals all the way to you know
We have some people coming on in the next couple of months that are statisticians and others who are again
We're trying to help people perform better and I would argue be happier healthier people too as well
Well, I think you find
Certainly a lot of happy people if they perform like they want to on a golf course
Yeah, that can at times if I could just push back on that a little bit
Dave that if your happiness is dependent on outcomes on the golf course
We actually see those are the least happy people
Because you're gonna have an anxious experience and it's gonna be very difficult for you to produce those outcomes through anxiety
So if my happiness is gated by the outcomes that I produce in my life the approval of other people
So on and so forth all these things then I've created gates to happiness
When it is available to me and most of the things in my life as long as I don't create the conditions that wouldn't allow me to access it
Right, so there's certainly something to be said about producing a really good outcome or performing at a high level
And how that makes us feel
But if I only have access to that from the outcomes I produce then I'm creating the conditions of my brain to go do that thing
Or pursue those outcomes
Through a state of anxiety and avoidance which makes it harder for me to get and then the experience declines
And so on and now you kind of get a bit of a vicious cycle rather than a virtuous cycle
So look outcomes are not a bad thing
They do matter in our lives and there are consequences for when we do and don't
produce them
But if they are a gateway to our emotions we are by definition holding our emotions hostage by them
And outcomes are not controllable
And so now I have given an uncontrollable thing
Access and or control over my emotional state
Yeah, that's powerful
But I think on that and I'm delighted that you pushed back on me with regard to that
Would you say that that's possibly at the heart of why so many club golfers
Maybe don't reach their
Golf targets. They don't go as low as they would like to
Because of what you just said
There can be there are many factors contributing that so if I could frame this in a way where we can kind of organize it
If you think about anything we do in this case
Let's just say it's your golf performance with the intention of shooting the lowest scores that you can as often as you can
There is a domino effect
From us that influences that and that the beginning of that domino effect is always our psychology
This is not my personal opinion. This is how our nervous system works
Okay, so again, imagine you're going and playing a round of golf in a psychological state that goes just go try to do your best
Let's go see what happens versus your first domino is uh-oh this can't go a certain way
Or I can't let people judge me with this so essentially I've created two different situations one is
Permission to go perform freely the other one is not really
Right well from there the next domino is always our neurology
So now we're talking your brain activity your brain chemistry
Which then impacts your physiology which is whether your nervous system is up-regulated as a stress response or a threat response
And then you kick that down the line to now how that impacts your biomechanics and how your body is actually moving
Then of course that impacts how you would be able to use your core strategy or whether you're using it
Your equipment in the way that it's actually designed or whether you're using it as a defense mechanism against all the things that you're not trying to do
Or what the like again, there's a there's a kick down the line here right so all of these things matter
So sometimes for golfers it's well, I'm not in physical shape to be able to score low because I either run out of gas as my rounds are going on
Or I'm not flexible enough to be able to move in the ways that you need to to deliver the club to the golf ball
All of those things are indeed contributing factors
Where I would start with anyone is are you playing freely enough often enough from your first domino to even
Give yourself a chance to reach the outcomes that you want or to give yourself a chance to perform consistently enough and learn over time
To be able to figure out what down the line or down the chain reaction here is a contributing factor that you can then ultimately try to
Improve upon that might help you
So if I tell you you're going and playing a round of golf through anxiety
And then you come back and go on my swing was terrible like well your swings terrible because you played through anxiety the whole time
Anxious golf swing looks very different than a freely executed golf swing or putting stroke or so on and so forth
So if I'm going out protecting against an 80
I don't really have access to shooting in the 60s again relative to your skill level
Right, so this podcast is how low can you go?
It's also well how high are you willing to risk going if you want to actually go though
But you can't risk can't risk shooting you can't
Shoot a 65 you don't have access to the freedom required for that if you're not also willing to shoot in 80
So many of the club golfers that I have worked with over time one of the primary barriers for them is
Domino wonder number one is this can't can't be really bad for whatever reasons they've attached to it
And then therefore you're not playing freely enough to shoot
Lower than your handicap enough to move it down and certainly not low enough to do that under pressure in your club events
You remember guests your so on and so forth
And I heard you talk about acceptance there
Would that be the first domino for a unique set that might go wrong?
Is that could you would you say that sure? Let's let's look at let's start with how our brain operates
So we're going to go to domino to before we go to domino one here
So our brain is first and foremost designed to keep us alive
Okay, so if I give it
But let's also consider this your brain can only run basically two types of tasks
So anything we do in our lives and in all the infinite numbers of things we can do to our brain
It boils down to is this an avoidance based task
Move away from what you don't want to happen or experience
Mostly pain and discomfort or is this a pursuit based task move toward what you want to happen for the reasons that are important to
Okay, every task our brain is running at any time follows under falls under these two categories
Okay, avoidance against pursuit avoidance against pursuit and because our brain is first and foremost designed to keep us alive
It will run or prioritize avoidance based tasks over pursuit based tasks
Case in point for anyone here who's been putting in gone uh-oh don't three put
While they're actually trying to make the putt that's in front of them and gone well
Why did I miss that putt in such an anxious way well because your brain is actually running the original task or that least the primary task of
Don't three putt so our brain doesn't think negatively that's a
subjective labeling we put on thoughts that don't feel good to us
That's an avoidance based task if I tell you don't three putt
That's not a negative thought or a bad thought
That's an avoidance based task that now goes to the top of my brain's priority list
Which means trying to make that putt is back burner at best
Right also what's important to understand is our brains
Primary means to help us avoid the things that we tell it must be avoided is anxiety
Which is by definition worry about the future
So if I tell my brain three putting must at all costs be avoided or being judged by other people must be avoided
My brain is going to try to fill those tasks for me act the cost of any pursuit based tasks
I have in the experience that I'm having and I'm going to get anxiety because that's how my brain is designed to work
To your point Chris. Well, what's the opposite of avoidance?
Acceptance so the more I'm willing to accept being judged by others the less my brain prioritizes it
The more I'm willing to shoot an 80 doesn't mean I would be satisfied with it or I would like it
Or that I would be settling for it forever or that I'm not motivated to shoot better scores
But if I'm not willing to shoot an 80 my brain will be protecting me from an 80 far more than it is protecting me or or giving me
Access to trying to pursue
Shooting the lowest score that I can on whatever day
So my second domino is
Influenced by my first so if I go play a round of golf going I want to shoot the lowest score
I can but also don't shoot an 80
My second domino is going you gave me two tasks one is pursuit one is avoidance avoidance goes to the top of the list
Any avoidance based task requires anxiety and now I'm getting
Golf swings that are protecting against failure or putting strokes that are protecting against three puts or an entire performance experience trying to avoid being judged by others
Not actually aligned with the thing that I really want to do which is try to go as low as I can
So acceptance is a hard thing for us because it feels like I'm taking my hands off the wheel
And I am now vulnerable to the things that I really don't want to experience
Which is technically true, but that is the risk that we have to take
If we want our brain to actually pursue the things that we want
Hmm and just on that
So what you're saying with regard to acceptance
It's not being happy with shooting that 80 or higher from my perspective certainly it's not being you know
Good with that or okay without right?
No, so acceptance doesn't mean that you like it
It doesn't mean you're satisfied with it. It doesn't mean you're resigning yourself to it forever
It doesn't mean that you're not motivated to change it do better
It doesn't mean you're certain doesn't mean you're comfortable doesn't mean you're in control
What it means is I am possibly willing to experience that and everything that comes with it
Which might be a sense of dissatisfaction or oftentimes plays will tell me like I've done all this work trying to get better
Anyone out and I shot a score and it's really it kind of feels like a letdown
Again, those are real experiences
We don't necessarily need to avoid them at all costs
But if we try to then if we wouldn't be surprised why it's really difficult for me to play really freely
Right, so any golfer is going to have some performances that fall under the this is unsatisfying kind of disheartening in times
Depending on the type of the way the things certainly play out can be downright heartbreaking
Right, so it's not uncommon. I just got off full full on Olympic duty
And if you go give the best performance of your life
And then you look up at the scoreboard and you missed out on gold by this much or missed out on the podium by this much
It's going to be kind of heartbreaking because you have invested a ton
There's a person there's a personal investment a financial investment
All that risk is for us assuming all that translates to our brain is there's a risk that you might go do this thing in a certain way
And it end up in a certain way that feels a certain way
If I'm not willing to accept those my brain will try to protect me from those while I'm doing the thing right now
Which we might say good luck being present in your performance the more I'm trying to avoid a future that doesn't exist yet
Right, so we could do all day around here about being positive
I'm sure this is going to happen
You got to just relax and trust and be certain and believe in yourself
But that's not the language your brain speaks your brain speaks the language up
Do you want me to avoid risk or do you want me to pursue something while accepting risk? That's it
And so if I don't bring enough acceptance to the things that I don't want
I will not take the risks necessary to actually pursue the things that I do and that doesn't mean that you might not fail at times
You might
But I call it the difference between this is like sometimes we're just going to try and fail in that sucks
Versus death by a thousand cuts, which is I shot an 80 today that could have been a 73
But I didn't play freely enough to make it that way
And now I feel what I feel about that as well
And if you're a pro golfer
It's literally death by a thousand cuts
You will lose your job because you're just missing cuts
Because you're you're been trying to avoid missing cuts the whole time
And so there you're therefore you're never playing freely enough to get above the cut line for very long
Or you're always kind of hovering around it
A really really difficult place for us to pursue from
So the long and the short of it is when we guard against or we are
Unaccepting of the things we want from our first domino
Our second domino does exactly what it does
Needless to say there's a physiological response from that
Which usually comes from constriction and tension
And a threat response up regulation
And then you kick that down the line and every single thing down the line becomes compromised
Your core strategy, your equipment, your decision making, so on and so forth
And what we also see is like you get a pretty deteriorated experience
Which is like golf's fun, but it's not as fun as it could be
No, yeah
And I see that again
And I think like from you talking about like pastics
Like say you've experienced things in the past with your golf
Dave and I have spoke about this on in the first episode
Where basically I played a little bit of varsity golf in Oklahoma in the States
And I was doing a lot of trials and stuff like that
And it did not go the way that I wanted
And it ended up with me crying on the 18th green to the varsity coach
And then that led to me not playing golf for six years
And Dave, you had a similar situation
I would rather not talk about it Chris, but yeah, we did share this
In episode one, Chris says, no, Raymond, this is
Other end of the spectrum like Chris is talking about varsity golf
For me, this was, I went on holiday with an ex-girlfriend's family
This was many years ago
And the father hosted this big golf day
He was a good golfer
Her brothers were good golfers, I hear his sons
He had a lot of his friends there who were decent golfers
I had openly put in a lot of work into this day
Like for maybe six to nine months
Everybody knew that I was working to try and be a reasonable golfer
And I often say we describe it as the meltdown in La Manga
It was in La Manga in the resort in Spain
My body violently rejected any notion of a golf swing that day
But this was beyond, beyond, oh, that guy's hitting it purely
This was, I could not hit the ball
And when I did, it was in somebody's pool
Like it was like, I'm picking up the ball on every single hole
And I'm not even joking, that is kind of what we were talking about here
This felt like rock bottom
Honestly, this felt like rock bottom to me
And I think, well Chris and I were talking about before
You joined us, we were thinking
Are there scars that we have?
It's so daft, you know, a game of golf
And for me, certainly from my perspective
Such a low level of amateur golf
But are we still potentially
Feeling the scars from those experiences
Chris in tears on the 18th
Feeling like he's not shaping up for the varsity team
And me feeling utterly and totally humiliated
In front of a group of people who I really didn't want to be embarrassed in front of
Yeah, so I'll get off wearing this in our domino effect here
We as humans go through experiences that are oftentimes really painful for us
For a variety of reasons
So if my first domino is you must avoid your past pain
Again, potentially playing out in your future
We would see why now I'm playing through golf anxiety now
Because the actual thing I'm doing here is trying to avoid my past
Playing out again in my future
So for going through our domino effect
When players tell me I'm not playing very freely
Or I'm playing through anxiety
My question is what's what is it that could
Pensionally play out in the future that it is worth avoiding
Okay
Now that is not a okay just don't worry about that type of a thing
Now we've got to do a little bit of real psychological work
As to why it is you are on defense
While you're trying to do something pursuit based
And one of the reasons we do that which is not trivial at all is trauma
Trauma is what we experience
So people in a lot of sportsrooms use the word scar tissue
Scar tissue is not the right word
It is the most common vernacular for it
The word is trauma
Okay, so every human being has experienced trauma in our lives
In a variety of different ways
We could do a whole podcast on trauma
But trauma is what happens when we experience something
In a high state of arousal
That means my nervous system is up regulated
There is significant pain involved emotional or real
And we feel like we cannot escape
Okay, so if for example imagine you are a little kid
And you need of
Whatever type of dental procedure
And adults strap you to a chair
So you cannot get out
You are going to be in a state of fear
Which is a state of higher arousal
And there's going to be a whole lot of pain involved
That our brain embodies designed to encode that experience
As do not let this happen again
It's a survival mechanism for us
It's a physical survival mechanism for us
It's an emotional, it's a social
It's a whatever all the way down the line
So in order to have that not come up
As a thing that my brain must avoid
We have to deal with that trauma
Which means for us and again, I'm not telling anybody
You know, you're traumatized or whatever
But if it is a trauma event
What we have to do is we have to feel
In a safe and curious place
Whether it's a physical space
An emotional space or a relationship without somebody else
Usually a trained professional
That pain in full
So that our body and our brain can process that
In a way where it then goes
That's what happened then
That's not what's happening in the next thing here
Or if it is, is that something that I actually really need to guard against
So pain, particularly traumatic pain
And thoughts and everything that goes with it
That are not felt and not thought
Are inherited by our future selves
And then ultimately inherited by our future relationships
Which usually means like the next generation
This kind of, again, seemingly pretty dramatic
But it is not
Imagine you have grew up in a family
Where it's not okay to try and fail
What you are learning in a traumatic
In an attachment with people around you that you cannot escape
Because as children you cannot survive
Without the attachment to caretakers
Right
Is that it's not okay
For me to be myself in a vulnerable state
So then I have the attachment
Or I have the authenticity
And as a child you don't really have the choice
Your brain knows you'll need to sacrifice the authenticity
Which is a way of saying being vulnerable as yourself
Trying and failing so on and so forth
But this also plays out for us as adolescents
And as adults when we are in a place
Where it is not safe to try and fail
Or just be yourself
And whatever
And what's at stake there is non acceptance
Non-approval
And basically non-emotional safety
We are going to experience trauma
Right
And that will get carried to
Everything that we do that simulates that
So trauma isn't like
Well that exact experience
The trauma response in our brain goes
This is close enough
Right
I'm doing the same thing and people are watching
Close enough
Right
So if I don't deal with that
It will get inherited by my future self
When we do the thing
And then typically what we do is we bury those thoughts
And feelings and emotions
While we try to avoid them
And then they get inherited by our future self
And then now that kind of the can gets kicked down the road
Every human being has experience
Trauma in a way that they are carrying
With them very few people actually stop
And deal with that
And the reason they don't is because it's really painful
To deal with in the short term
You have to sit with that pain
Full brunt, full force
I used to tell people that is
You let the waves wash over you
And with somebody who can help you be curious
And non-judgmental about that
If you don't
You're always to some degree
Gardening against those waves
Which in and of itself
Creates a pretty painful experience for us
And then also that pain is still held
And it just gets kicked down the line
For what happens
So if for anybody who's going
Oh I've the loop of anxiety for me
Is I cannot let a past event
And the pain that comes with that
Play out for me in the future
That is definitely something
That if you do not deal with the past event
It will continue to be the first
Domino for you
In a way that is conscious or subconscious
And you will feel that as you go forward
So again that gets a little bit heavy
But now we're asking the question
What is keeping people from freely pursuing the things that they want
Gardening against what was a traumatic event for me in the past
Consistently over time
Is one of those reasons
That of course
People wouldn't be doing something really freely
So if I just tell you again
And here's my pushback on like traditional psychology and golf
You have had that type of an event
Let's imagine your Rory McRory at the 2011 Masters
And the whole thing falls apart
You cannot escape it
Your dreams are literally crumbling in your own hands
As you cannot control the golf club anymore
And everybody is watching and judging you
Being a young rock star
Who's supposed to be on a trajectory to the sun
And now you're falling out of the sky like Apollo
Right
So all of this being said
That is a traumatic event
You don't deal with that
Every single time you come to something like that
Which Augusta National hosts the Masters every single year
You're going to get that response over and over again
It's not scar tissue
It's trauma
And trauma
Unlike scar tissue
Can indeed be resolved
If we deal with the pain
Which is a scary proposition to us
Because we have to go back
And feel the same thing we felt when we were in that
But otherwise we carry it with us
Again and again
Again I don't want to be overly dramatic
But every human being has some type of trauma
They're carrying with them
And the reason we carry it with us is because one
It's our brain designed to do that for us
To try to protect us
Because it's a survival mechanism
And the other thing is because we typically don't deal with it
Yes
And that's a fascinating example
Rory in 2011
Because in all honesty
In that moment I remember watching that
Because as you know
A Northern Irish man
I'm rooting for Rory all the time
And I remember feeling his pain
Because at that moment when he missed like a couple of two fitters in a row
You know that felt like
Like us higher handicavers
We've been in that situation
It felt as kind of as bad as that
Like as that sort of standard of golf
In all honesty
Um are you so you say in remand
That
To try and heal these experiences
That Chris and I have
Reased as a sort of keyest study
Is that we need to immerse ourselves
Back in them
We need to kind of
Kind of
Almost try and relive them in some ways
To a certain degree
But there are some conditions to
If I just tell you go back and relive it
But you're in a highly upregulated state
And you're not in a place where you can do that
Safely and non-judgmentally
In curiously you will only be kind of reinforcing the trauma
Where that typically looks like and again
We need to be careful here about like trying to get people to do their own trauma work while we're on podcasts
But what that often looks like is yes
You need to go back to that experience
What it felt like
What the details were
And you will get some type of
And you'll know you're back in it for real
Because you'll start feeling it
emotionally and physiologically
Okay
Then what often happens is we've got to
Be in that
Discomfort and that pain, whatever levels it is
And downregulate meaning bring
I don't need to bring it down to a resting rate
But I have to bring my physiologically
So the conditions for trauma are
Physiological upregulation pain and inescapability
Right
So I need to be able to downregulate a little bit
And sit with that discomfort
And all that it has for me so that my body and brain can feel that
So if I was going to go to
Kind of the larger how trauma works in the natural world
Animals experience trauma all the time
But they feel it and then they move past it
Right so if I almost get eaten by something
It's a pretty traumatic experience
If I don't actually sit and without emotion
Feel it long enough
Well then also noticing
Oh, I'm actually safe right now
My brain won't recognize that event is over
And then therefore I can move on to the next one
Without guarding against the last one
Right so there's there are several conditions
For actually dealing with trauma
And it definitely needs to be a place where you are safe
To feel what you feel without needing to escape it
Although being able to if you wanted to stop at any time
Getting curious without a non-judgmental way
Without judging it for something you should or shouldn't be feeling
And to be able to downregulate enough to listen a little bit deeper
So typically when we are in a trauma response
We feel it up higher and it's a very loud feeling to us
It's barking at us
Versus then can I oh can I hear this and feel this
But also go a couple layers lower
For example
Again just a broad example
One of the things that's very traumatic for us is human beings
Is being embarrassed in front of other people
Judged by other people because it tells us in our brain
You are not accepted, you are not approved
You are not significant, you are discardable
Right
Which again would be very valuable for our tribe
200,000 years ago
But in our modern world it doesn't really apply
When I am in that going I am not enough
These people think I am not enough
I also have to listen a little bit deeper
And what message is my body
And my nervous system might also be sending me
As these people are not worth your time and effort
Anyway not that they are bad people
But this is not your tribe
Or something like this actually isn't about you
It's about them and their insecurities
Or maybe it's about
Yo this was just a traumatic event that you had
It really sucked
And you know what you actually really need
You need a hug from yourself
That just tells you it's going to be okay
Or even if it's not going to be okay in this way
This is not something that needs to define your life
Like there's a deeper wisdom
But if we're always guarding against the top layer
Of pain playing out again
We don't ever get into that
Right so it's almost like
Getting into your guts
Soft or quiet or voice
About what is happening there
Your intuition
About what that event was really about
More than just the painful experience that is on top
And I don't want to minimize that painful experience
It's real
And it hurts
Right
And again, trauma
You know we kind of throw this word
Trauma around a lot with people
Oh I slipped and fell on the pavement
No one was watching trauma
Like we've kind of bastardized it a little bit
But it is a real experience that we have
And it can you know everything from a car accident
Unfortunately sexual assault falls under this
Are
Military personnel coming back when you are in an environment
Again, higher rousal
Cannot escape on your own terms
And there is some level of pain
Whether that's emotional
The things you see that you can't unsee etc
All of these things are events that do and get coded
And yes, some things in golf
Or the social elements of it
Are definitely traumatic for us
And if we don't deal with them
We will carry them going forward
So again, I'm not suggesting that that is the case for every golfer
Or every club golfer
But it might be
And if again, if I just tell you
Just trust, just relax, be confident
Whatever all this surface of a stuff
That is not a language your brain speaks
In the face of trauma
Like there is no amount of hey
Just let it go
That can make trauma go away
That's not how it works
Our brain is specifically designed to hold on to that experience
In an effort to save you from it in the future
Which oftentimes it does
At the cost of though
Things that are really important to us
So again, let's say you were in a car accident
And it was really traumatic for you
And you go, well, I'm never going to drive in a car ever again
Okay, you are going to be safe
From that type of experience happening again to a large degree
But then also now you can't go anywhere
Right, so similar experience with our golf
If I've been embarrassed before or I've
The thing I've wanted was right in front of me
But I screwed it up right at the end
And I couldn't escape that
Because everyone reminded me of it
Or whatever I'm in it while it's happening
And I can't get out
Like, oh okay, well that I'm just never going to play golf with other people again
Or never playing, I get people thought
I'm never going to play competitive golf again
Okay, you will be safe from trying and failing
In competitive golf experiences
At the cost of playing something that you actually do want to play
And far be it for me to tell people
What they shouldn't do and for the reasons they don't
But if I don't deal with that past pain
I will try to avoid it in my future again
Just gets inherited and kicked down the
Down the road
And the means by which I try to deal with it are all avoidance-based
Not acceptance-based
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Okay, let's get back into it
And I think that's perfect on
Because I read your book over the last couple days
And it was the being mode of mind instead of the doing modes
In a lot of the time I know
Like I know for a fact
When I've been in the doing mode
And basically pushing things to the side
But over the last couple days
I've been doing the daily body scans
And I actually went out and played golf
And I was working on my breath work
And I felt like I was getting very centered again
So I wonder could you tell us like the difference between the being mode and the doing mode
As it refers to golf kind of in accepting and stuff like that
And also on that, why that works
Like why that body scan
Because we hear this sort of thing
To your point earlier Raymond like stuff like people saying
Hey just relax everybody or hey just think positively
You know come on like we all know
But we've heard that before and it hasn't worked
For most of us anyway
But yeah what Chris is saying
You hear that sort of thing too
You all just breathe you know and just be present
Why does that work
Sure why
So I would just say this
Every human being at any given moment is having an internal experience
Okay, so there's the external world that we are experiencing
And also our internal world
That is our thoughts, our feelings, our sensations
How our nervous system and our bodies are reacting
We might say just like inside your skin
Okay
So we have that at any moment
Whether we are aware of it or not
Whether we are admitting of it or denying it or not
So on and so forth
Right
So let's just say I'm trying to go play golf and really do it well
And it's under a set of circumstances
Where the outcomes matter to me
And there are consequences to what those outcomes are
Okay
Well I'm going to have an internal experience about that
I'm going to have thoughts about it
I'm going to have feelings about it
I'm going to have sensations about it
So on and so forth
A doing mode of mind
Is me trying to do something with my internal experience
So I'm trying to smother my thoughts and feelings
I'm trying to turn them off
I might be judging them for good or bad right or wrong
I might be trying to deny them
Pretend that they're not there
I might be trying to cover them up with other thoughts and feelings
So on and so forth
You shouldn't
You shouldn't be feeling this way
Shouldn't be doing that
Or me going
Or treating my thoughts as facts
Or thoughts and feelings as facts and precursors to the future
So if I had this thought
That must mean this in the future
Or if I'm feeling this way
And this happened in the past
Therefore it's a fact that if I'm feeling this now
It's going to go like this
Right
So one of the things we know for sure is our thought
We have like
Hundreds of thousands of thoughts today
Almost none of them are facts
Almost none of them are precursors to the future
Our brain and body is designed to think and feel
In the same way that our heart and lungs are designed to move blood and oxygen respectively
Right
Why all the just relax and do whatever
Or just don't think that way doesn't work
Is because now what I have done is I have won
Shifted my priority from the thing that I'm actually doing
To my internal experience
So my thoughts and feelings have now become the priority
So by definition
I'm not actually present with the thing that I'm doing
I am trying to control my internal state
Right
The second reason that doesn't work
Is the more I tell you don't think that
Or you shouldn't feel that way
We get the bounce back from our nervous system
Which is suppression and amplification
Which is imagine all you're on the first tea feeling anxious
And I tell you just relax
Or you go
I shouldn't be feeling this anxious in this situation
What happens to your feelings
Do they increase or do they decrease
Increase
Increase like this
So one of the bounce backs in our
Nervous system is the more I suppress things
The more amplified they become
And we also might know the more I suppress them
The more my future self is going to inherit them
Even if I can kind of bury them for a little bit
So the reason doing something with our inner experience
Doesn't work particularly under pressure
And certainly over time
Is that it increases my internal experience
As a felt experience
And it now creates a different priority system
So now my priority system is you need to be comfortable
You need to be certain and you need to be in control
Of what's happening internally
Which by definition is not the thing that I'm actually doing
So what we see from really high performers is they're just really good at prioritizing
The thing that they're actually doing
And nothing else
And so if I have to do something
With my thoughts and feelings
By definition my priorities have shifted
They have shifted internally
And to a feeling based thing
Instead of externally to the thing that I'm doing
What we also notice by this is it's immensely distracting
And any experience that we do
Distracted the experience gets worse
A bunch of research shows you can do things that are kind of less enjoyable
Versus things that are more enjoyable
And whichever one we do distracted
There's an amplification effect about which gets worse and which gets better
So you could do something like take out the trash
But actually be present in it
Which would be more enjoyable than watching a show
You really like while also being distracted
By trying to manage your thoughts and feelings
Or your cell phone or whatever that might be
So anything we do distracted
The experience gets worse
So a being mode of mind is just allowing your thoughts and feelings to be
Without making them the priority
So I'm not judging them as good or bad
They are not right or wrong
They are not facts
They are not precursors to the future
They are just things that I am currently experiencing
For whatever reasons I'm experiencing
And they don't need to be fixed
My thoughts and feelings are not a vending machine
That is not working
It is just what they are
And when that happens
I'm allowed to just experience whatever I experience
For whatever temporary amount of time I experience it
Without that becoming the priority
Every golfer in the world has played really good golf being uncomfortable
Or feeling uncertain
Or having really funky thoughts
What happens is if I go
I'm not allowed to have those
Or when I have those I have to do something with them
Now I'm trying to hit a golf shot while also doing that
Which we might say is just fundamentally distracting
And if I have certain feelings that I go
If I'm having them
Then I must be in trouble
I am now creating also the conditions for anxiety
Because I'm having an internal experience
That is unacceptable
And therefore must be avoided
So not only are they the priority
They trigger anxiety for me
So we used to think a long, long time ago
That really high performers never thought and felt certain ways
We were so, so wrong
What we actually find is that they experience
All the same things that everybody else does
They're just really good at letting it be
So to speak
So my, I remember when, sorry, to jump in
But I remember when Jordan Spathe I think it was
When he was really absolutely on fire
And gonna say maybe around 2016
Around 2017, around that time
When he won quite a few majors
And I remember watching up with a few friends
And how good he was at holding pots
I think I remember saying something like
I just don't think it even crosses his mind
The idea of missing that pot
Would you say that's probably not the case?
Probably not
There are times when those thoughts don't cross our mind
And then there are times when they do
Look, if I tell you you're playing in the back nine of a major
And you've got a pretty slippery putt
You're gonna tell me the thought of you missing
That is not gonna cross your mind
Or at least from time to time
It's not
Even if you've made a ton of pots
Your brain knows no pot is a guarantee
So if I-
But then when that-
Go ahead
So when that comes into your head
Say that thought of
I think I can miss this pot
And you're obviously being a being mood
And allowing it to come in
Like if you can't see anything else
How do you like move on from that
How do you let that thought come in
And just accept it
But you feel that you can't
You're just in your head then
How does that?
Yeah, I would still say that
There's still probably some layer of doing with it
So again, if you have a thought of
Jeez, I'm 100% sure I'm gonna miss this pot
Well, if I can't get off of that
That usually means I'm treating it as a fact
Or a precursor to the future
Okay
That if I'm having
Instead of again, it's just
Well, that's one possibility for this
Because if I just treat that as
Okay, that's a thought
My brain also goes
Well, there's other options for this
Right?
And let's say even then
Your brain like
All I can think about is I'm gonna miss it
You could still go
Okay, well, I don't have to do anything with that thought
Thought and then you can ask yourself
What do you want to do with this pot?
In which case then you're returning to the focus
On what it is that you're actually doing
Not necessarily what it is you're thinking
It is a significant
Incorrect psychological instruction
To say you must control your thoughts
In order to be able to perform well
So I always push back on people
When you got to think a certain way
Believe in yourself
You got to trust
You got to think positively
You need to think bigger about yourself
And all this stuff
No, you do not
In fact, the more you're doing that
The more you're distracting yourself
From the thing that you are actually doing
When you are doing it
Which then makes you less capable of doing that
Right
So what we can learn through our mindfulness practices
Is can I just let my inner experience be
And just leave it alone
Yes, I can notice it
And on at times it's gonna be in places that I don't like
Like nobody gets to go do things that are really meaningful
For them without their nervous system firing up
Coming with certain feelings and your brain recognizing
Oh, I really want this to go this way
And I would really prefer it doesn't go this way
And then spit us thoughts and feelings about that
We do not get that option
If you do you're just living a very very safe life
In which case then there's a certain level
Paying that comes with that too
All this being said
If I can learn to just have thoughts and feelings
And sensations by the way
And do nothing with them
Then I can actually focus on what I'm doing
How I'm doing it and for the reasons that I really want
Not the ones that my brain embodied
Just spit at me spontaneously
Or repeatedly or in a pattern
Right
So essentially if I can learn
The analogy I use with a lot of the players I work with
Is imagine you're at a aquarium
Your thoughts and feelings and sensations
Are the marine life behind the glass
We don't stop them
We don't turn them off
We don't do anything with them
We learn to just have them
But then also I'm gonna play golf on the other side of this glass
Right
So then I can remain in a pursuit based present execution
Even though I might be having
Un-un-un-comfortable
Uncertain avoidance based thoughts and feelings
So essentially having a thought
And actually acting upon it is not something that we have to do
We're having a feeling and then having to act on it
It's not something we have to do
Unless we have a thought in a feeling and we go
Because I'm feeling this I must act a certain way
Focus a certain way
Do things a certain way
Which again now I have to have you control your thoughts
Which now you're not doing the thing you're doing
You're also controlling your thoughts
So there's some layers to that during a zoo
But the reason you doing some body scan mindfulness
Is you're learning to just tune into your body
Without doing anything else
In which case then when you tune into your body
Or tune into your breath while you're playing
You can then actually prioritize the shot sets in front of you
And what we might notice is
Golf feels a whole lot easier
When the only thing you have to do
Is the shot that's in front of you
However challenging that might be
While also not having to juggle your internal experience
Just because it exists
We are going to pause things there
In part two we're going to take everything Dr. Raymond Pryor's just explained
The psychology, the avoidance versus pursuit stuff
The being mode
And we start talking about how that actually shows up for us
On the golf course
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Thank you all for listening
As ever
And we'll see you next time
With Dr. Raymond Pryor for part two
On How Low Can You Go
How Low Can You Go

How Low Can You Go? Golf Podcast

How Low Can You Go? Golf Podcast

How Low Can You Go? Golf Podcast