We Are The Champions
Reflection:
This summer I experienced another “sitting on the edge of my seat” moment. In fact, I’m sure many of you were experiencing the same thing, night after night for several weeks, as we watched the Summer Olympics in Beijing. How could you not want to watch Michael Phelps attempt to win 8 gold medals? Wasn’t he amazing? Each night I was captivated by these athletes and astounded at what they were able to accomplish.
Aside from the medal winning moments, however, it was the personal stories of the athletes themselves that really captured my attention and inspired today’s service. After listening to several of their stories, it was clear to me that these athletes were not just on a physical journey, they were and are, just like all of us, on spiritual journeys. And it’s these spiritual journeys I want to speak about this morning, because although we may not be Olympic athletes, their journeys are, at their heart, no different from yours and mine. We all share in the same human experience and so by telling their stories, I hope that you can recognize a part of your own story.
Michael Phelps
Let’s start with Michael Phelps. I’m sure you all know that Michael Phelps grew up in Rodger’s Forge in Baltimore. But what you may or may not know is that Michael Phelps was severely bullied as a child. And for anyone that has been bullied, or knows someone that was bullied, you know these events can cause deep emotional scars, scars that some struggle to deal with their entire adult lives.
A friend of mine lived in Michael Phelps’ neighborhood when Michael was a boy and she told me that one of Michael Phelps’ teachers has said that she remembered Michael’s mother coming to school to talk about the bullying situation and she remembered her saying how grateful she was that Michael had swimming. Swimming was the one thing that got Michael through this difficult experience.
One of the things that stood out for me when watching the Summer Olympics was an interview done with Michael Phelps just before the Men’s Relay. The French team had been quoted in the paper as having said some really negative things about the U. S. Men’s swim team and a reporter was asking Michael what he thought of their comments, or their “talking trash” about the U. S. swim team. Michael’s response, basically, was “bring it on”. He said the more the French “trashed” his team, the harder he fought. He actually said he liked when the competition spoke badly about him and his team because it made him work that much more.
I don’t want to assume to know what motivates Michael Phelps, but I can’t help but think that the “trash talk” was rubbing up against those old childhood wounds, and instead of letting those remarks scare him off or threaten his confidence, they made him, say “No! You can’t make me feel less than. I’ll show you what I’m made of.” And certainly he did just that.
His success in swimming has had to have helped in healing those childhood wounds and in the process, he’s become the world’s greatest swimmer.
Natalie Coughlin
Another athlete I want to tell you about is a swimmer by the name of Natalie Coughlin. For those of you not familiar with her, Natalie is considered by some to be the most talented and versatile female swimmer in the world today. At age 15, Natalie was the first person ever to qualify for all 14 women’s events at the U.S. Nationals. This year, at the age of 26, Natalie has again been nominated for Woman Athlete of the Year, having won it previously in 2004. Watching her in Beijing you would never have guessed at the struggles she had to overcome.
Natalie’s first swimming coach followed the traditional coaching styles of many in the sport of swimming, one of grueling practices and tough love. In her biography, Natalie talks about how verbally abusive the coach was how she and her teammates did nothing but eat, drink and sleep swimming. It was swimming 24/7. Unfortunately, this approach resulted in not only Natalie losing her passion for the sport, but time after time when the big competitions rolled around, Natalie’s body was too weakened from fatigue to perform her best. Eventually, these extreme training methods led to a severe shoulder injury that most thought she would never come back from. Sadly, her story is not unique. But, fortunately for Natalie did not give up.
Instead, she switched coaches and joined the team at the University of California in Berkley. Her new coach is a woman by the name of Teri McKeever. Teri’s approach was considered quite unorthodox at the time. She believed she had to help Natalie regain her love for the sport, and she did this by encouraging her to develop interests and passions outside of swimming. She encouraged her to live a more balanced life.
In the interview with Natalie that aired during the Beijing Olympics, Natalie talked about her passion for cooking and how she enjoyed it most when she shared her meals with her friends and family.
Again, I don’t want to pretend I know Natalie Coughlin on an personal level, but in reading her biography and listening to her interviews, it seems clear that a piece of her spirit was ignored during those years of endless training and tough love. Balance was definitely missing, but more importantly, she lost her love of swimming.
Competitive swimming is a very isolating sport, so through her coaches encouragement to pursue passions outside of swimming, I believe she was able to nurture a part of herself that had been starving for attention. She gained the balance her soul needed. She was able to bring a wholeness and a joy to the competitive swimming part of her life that she wasn’t able to do previously.
Natalie Couglin brought home 5 medals from Beijing, including gold.
Raj Bhavsar
The last athlete I want to talk about is Raj Bhavsar, a member of the men’s gymnastics team. His story was really the seed for this reflection. It was hearing the announcer’s talk about how “present” he was for each of his events that caught my attention. They also commented on how “present” he was during interviews. I thought “present” that’s an interesting choice of words. How do they know he’s present?” So I did a little research on Mr. Bhasvar and I found an article about his journey at the Olympic trials, before he was named to the 2008 team. Here is an excerpt from that article:
Much of the way Bhavsar approached these trials can be attributed to the lessons he learned from his experiences in 2004. After traveling with the Olympic team to Athens but ultimately watching from the stands as his teammates won a silver medal without his help, Bhavsar lost the motivation he’d had for the sport he began at age 3. The former Buckeye who helped Ohio State win the 2001 national title no longer had a passion for gymnastics.
It took nearly three years, but after failing to make the 2007 national team, Bhavsar made a conscious overhaul that changed not only his approach to gymnastics, but also his life as a whole.
Using everything from “The Success Principles,” by Jack Canfield, co-author of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books, to Bikram yoga and meditation, Bhavsar stopped identifying gymnastics with who he was and instead simply equated it to something he did.
“Rather than thinking I knew everything or I knew the process and steps into being successful in life, I made myself a student of life,” Bhavsar said, “and I kind of just opened my mind to some of the masters and allowed them to teach me what success is really all about.
The fruits of his labor have been unequivocal this year. Bhavsar took second at the Winter Cup Challenge in February and fifth all-around at nationals last month.
On Saturday, Bhavsar further proved his methods for success. When he was staring at the floor before his parallel bars routine, he was using “a technique to bring present awareness back.”
Where that leaves Bhavsar, only time will tell. But if he no longer worries about how he’s going to do in this sport, then whether or not he makes the Olympic team as a true member — or even at all — doesn’t make a difference to him, right?
Well, sort of.
“Either way, I will be fine. I’m Raj,” said Bhavsar, who said there was nothing more he could’ve done in these trials to further satisfy him with his performance. “There’s no medal around my neck or no award I can be given that can change me or supersede who I am. What defines me as a person is a little bit more than, I think, an Olympic team, and winning medals and all that other kind of stuff.’
I just want to add, that the U. S. Men’s gymnastics team, although not expected to come anywhere close to medaling as a team, went on to win Bronze.
Second Question
I wanted to tell these stories to illustrate how nurturing a part of our souls that is either wounded, or out of balance, missing, can bring a wholeness to our lives that aides us in accomplishing our goals. Certainly it was true for each of these athletes. I believe when we are living our lives from a place of wholeness, we can be our highest selves. I believe when we are balanced in body, mind and spirit our potential is infinite. I believe these are the moments when we can tap into that greater power and wisdom that is both inside and outside ourselves. So the next question I want you to ask yourself as you sit here today as also as you move through your week is this:
Is there someplace in my soul that needs tending to?
Am I living my life from a place of wholeness, or do I need to nurture some part of me that has gone ignored?
The last thing I want to talk about today is passion. You’ve heard it mentioned a few times throughout my reflections and I think it is a common ingredient to living life to the fullest. In order to become our highest selves, I believe an element of passion must exist. Unfortunately, for many of us, figuring out what we’re passionate about seems to be a daunting task.
I went to Barnes and Noble this past Friday in an attempt to count how many books were on the shelf that dealt with discovering your passions. Turns out there were too many titles to count. So instead, I went home and logged onto Amazon.com and typed in “Finding your Passion”. Do you know it came back with 485 book titles! Clearly, people are struggling to figure out what their passions are.
So what I’d like to do is challenge the way we think about passions and define them in a way that makes the word less daunting and overwhelming.
The Webster definition of passion is: any object of warm affection or devotion. I think “devotion” is the key word here. If instead of asking, “what are your passions”, we asked “what are you devoted to”, would it change your response?
When I think about my own life, I’m most devoted to being the best mother, wife and friend I can be. And ultimately, in being the best human being I can be and that affects everything I do and every encounter I have.
I believe it is the internal devotions, not the external pursuits that should be our greatest passions. Why can’t we be passionate about being kind? Why can’t we be passionate about being good listeners, or being non-judgmental, or being more generous with our time? I would much rather have a world full of men who wanted to be the best fathers they could possibly be than a world full of fast swimmers. I would much rather have a handful of really good friends who listened and loved without condition, than the ability to paint a picture or play the piano. When you look at passions from this perspective, isn’t it clear that our most noble passions are and have been with us all along?
Roger Housden wrote in his book Ten Poems to Set You Free:
“If you want to know what you are here to do, look around you, at the life you already have. It will tell you what to do next if you follow the deepest thing you feel inside. You may realize that, ultimately, your own true vocation has no outer form; that your dedication is to an inner life that is not concerned with the work you do. What matters, finally, is less what it looks like - the presence or absence of a string of achievements - than the pouring of your heart and soul into the longings and loves you have been given.”
Having said this, I don’t mean to minimize the accomplishments of the athletes whose stories I shared this morning. I simply mean to draw attention to those things we typically don’t view as passions, and to give them equal billing.
I actually believe all of our passions, whether manifested inwardly or outwardly, work toward deepening our spirituality. I read somewhere, and I wish I could remember where, that the physical body hinders us from realizing our spiritual selves. I disagree. Just like each of the athletes whose stories I told, the physical acts we do whether with our hands and feet or with our minds and voices, can all be ways we connect to spirit. Our bodies and minds must work as gateways, or vehicles to propel us forward on our spiritual journeys. What else do we have? And I believe it’s the awareness of this that matters most.
Billie Jean King said: “I think self awareness is probably the most important thing towards being a champion.”
So my hope is that when you leave here today, you’ll take a closer look at what, in your soul needs tending to, that you’ll have an awakened sense of what you are passionate about, so that when you are confronted with challenges, you’ll be able to call upon that cheerleader within and root yourself on, as the champion you are.
