One of the joys of competitive swimming is the three-day swim meet. Swimmers and their families spend anywhere from 15 -25 hours at a pool in the hopes of accomplishing the goal of faster races. This past weekend, we attended one of those meets. My son ended the three days with a race he was happy with. I, however, believe he reached an even more important goal after a race he was not so happy with.
Friday night, our family arrived at the pool at 5pm after each attending work and school. We knew there was a long weekend in front of us, but my son was excited about the race for that night. He was hoping to reach a goal by taking off just over a second in an event that he loves and hates in equal parts. For the swim enthusiasts among you, the event is the 400IM.
As it turned out, he did not get to race until 8 pm. From the first leg of the race, I could tell it was off and it continued to not look good. As it turns out, he added a lot of time. The worst part was the look on his face when he saw his time. It was an awful mixture of not being able to breathe (from exertion), disappointment and anger.
I have seen this face many times over the past five years and still don’t know the best way to handle it. It has often resulted in tears and occasionally in goggle throwing. I can’t even imagine how frustrating it is to put so many hours of practice and effort into something and then be unhappy with the result that boils down to seconds.
Friday night, the distress was real, but my son had a big accomplishment. The accomplishment wasn’t in the pool. It was his ability to regulate his own emotions.
A moment after the race, I couldn’t see him on the pool deck. I was concerned until I spotted him standing over the lane a teammate was racing in. He was cheering his head off. There were no tears, or angry words, just very loud cheering.
By the time we re-connected after the meet ended, he was completely composed. I mentioned that I had seen him cheering. He explained that after his own race, all he wanted to do was scream in frustration. When he realized a friend was swimming, he made the decision to put that urge to scream into a positive outlet. He looked at me with a bit of surprise when he said, it made him feel much better.
My son had discovered the DBT emotion regulation skill of opposite action. This skill is based on the observation that all emotions involve an urge to act in some way. Typically, anger is associated with the urge to scream or be aggressive. In reality, when we act on those urges, it may feel good momentarily, but it typically prolongs our experience of that emotion. The trick to decreasing the intensity of the emotion is to act opposite to your urge.
While my son did not act opposite to his urge to scream, he acted opposite in the content of his screaming. In the process, he supported a friend and himself.
The situation begs the question, “why did it never occur to me to teach him this skill before?” It amazes me that I teach this skill to clients all the time, but I often forget that emotion regulation is a learned skill for everyone. It is not fair to expect people to automatically know how to handle intense feelings.
I expect there will still be some upset and angry moments at the pool. No one can regulate themselves all of the time. In the meantime, I am as excited for him about his success on the pool deck as I would have been for a success in the pool.
