Feel Harder

I knew something was off when losing a pickleball game made me furious.

I like competition. I want to win. But this was not the ordinary disappointment of losing a game.

The anger burned too hot for the situation.

I spent months trying to understand it. Then, during a friendly game, one thought made everything clear: they were not taking us seriously.

The feeling was happening on a pickleball court. The thinking behind it had been part of my business life for years.

When ambition became anger

I started playing pickleball for fun. Then I became ambitious about improving.

I wanted to practice, learn, and eventually play in a tournament.

My boyfriend, whom I call E here, started around the same time. He enjoyed playing, though he was not as obsessed as I was.

We began going to open play with more advanced players. At first, they beat us badly. As we improved, I wanted more and more to win.

One day we were ahead 8–0 and still lost.

I was furious, mostly at E. I knew logically it was not all his fault, but every missed point made me angrier.

In the car, I questioned whether he even wanted to win. We were both upset and did not speak for the rest of the ride.

I apologized later. I also knew I needed to understand what was happening.

Stopping the reaction did not mean the feeling was resolved

Knowing the Model helped me stop acting out the anger.

I could recognize my thoughts were creating my feelings and interrupt the action line.

But I was still seething on the court, and E could feel it.

I told him I needed to experience and process the anger, because I did not yet know where it was coming from.

I kept working on it through walks, conversations, and coaching.

The clue was the intensity. This was more than wanting to win.

If a reaction feels much larger than the situation, that is something worth exploring. I had noticed that in other moments, too, including becoming unexpectedly tearful after a friend's comment.

I did not want to give up competition

People suggested I just have fun.

But I like a competitive game. I like being a little disappointed when I lose and happy when I win.

I did not want to erase that part of myself.

What I wanted to understand was why my reaction had become so extreme.

E told me he felt anxious playing with me because he did not want me to become angry if we lost.

That made the work even more important.

I wanted us to enjoy playing and improve without carrying this much tension.

The thought I finally heard

We arranged to play with two colleagues from the online business and marketing industry.

They were tennis players rather than regular pickleball players, so I thought we would beat them easily.

I was wrong.

They won the first game and the second. By the third, they were playing with drinks in their hands.

I felt myself getting angry that we were not playing better.

Then I heard my thought: they were not even taking us seriously.

Because these men were in my industry, the connection suddenly became clear.

I relaxed. The anger drained away.

The experience had followed me from business

For years, I had wanted to be taken seriously as a businesswoman.

I wanted to be a contender, a worthy opponent, and someone invited into the room.

When I entered the industry as a woman and life coach, many of the teachers and people in those rooms were men.

I was sometimes mistaken for an assistant. I felt people did not ask my opinion or offer the kind of sophisticated advice I wanted.

I had not fully processed the inadequacy I was creating or the approval I was seeking.

When I did not succeed in business, I was disappointed not only because of what I wanted to create for clients, but because I thought succeeding was how I would become worthy of being taken seriously.

That thought was still with me when my ambition moved into a new activity.

The court made the pattern visible

Pickleball had a similar setup for me.

Many higher-level players were men. I liked wearing cute outfits, and I felt some people did not take me seriously.

Once, women on the sidelines referred to my friend and me as pickleball Barbies.

Normally, a comment like that would not have upset me. This one did.

I could see the same pattern: wanting the men to take me seriously and wanting the women to stop criticizing.

I was making their response part of whether I felt I mattered.

The new activity gave me a clear view of something I had not understood in business.

I did not need them to decide that I mattered

As I became more successful, people in the industry did take me seriously. They invited me into rooms and asked for my advice.

I had thought I earned the right to matter there.

But I did not need their approval to take myself seriously.

I could believe in myself, ask questions, and offer advice instead of wait for someone else to give me that permission.

Seeing how hard I had worked for other people's acknowledgment brought compassion and pride rather than more anger.

Whether someone underestimated me on the court did not need to determine my experience of myself.

Feeling the anger helped me understand it

I did not reach that realization by deciding anger was bad and trying to remove it immediately.

I stayed with it. I let myself feel it and kept trying to understand.

I worked on not acting it out and not attacking myself for having it.

That gave me the opportunity to discover the unconscious thought underneath.

I had been afraid I did not matter or was not worthy of being taken seriously.

Once I could see that, I could meet it with love and compassion.

I still want to win

The change was not that I stopped caring about the game.

I still wanted to improve and compete.

But I could do it from fun and love rather than from a demand that other people acknowledge my importance.

E felt less anxious, we enjoyed playing more, and we had more room to get better.

After the realization in that game, we even won the remaining games.

The bigger change was in how I felt toward myself.

Leave the door open to your feelings

If you are trying to get rid of anger because you think it should not be there, consider becoming curious about it instead.

What thought is creating it?

What are you hoping someone else's response will tell you about yourself?

Feeling harder, as I teach it here, means being willing to experience and process emotion rather than avoid it.

Stay with it long enough to understand.

I want to keep showing up as my best self with an open door to the feelings that come through. I hope you will explore doing the same.