The Art of Allowing: A Mental Strategy Guide for You!

So, who out there has felt the coldness of losing? Maybe that sinking feeling or emptiness that you get when you’ve been given a bad beat? Feels pretty bad doesn’t it?

What if I told you, it doesn’t have to feel bad at all? What if I told you that you make up those feelings? What if I told you that you have the power to change those feelings instantly? What if I told you that anything you experience, that is anything, but what feels good is all created from inside your mind and not inherited from the events that occur in your life… Listen closely and I’ll explain.

When you have feelings of un-fulfillment or if you feel like you’re not good enough or dissatisfied, that means you’re not letting yourself be what you want to be, therefore not allowing yourself to be you. When you do not let yourself be what you want to be then life generally beats up on you pretty good.

Say you start a tournament 9-0, but have 9 more rounds to go and you start to lose a little focus because you’re thinking of the top 8 already. What normally tends to happen to people? They start making mistakes most of the time right? Sure one mistake is all fine and dandy but when you start attaching negative thoughts towards those mistakes and start getting down on yourself, you start losing more and more due to your lack of positive emotions towards what you are trying to accomplish. As soon as you lose focus on your goal, you start removing yourself from the present moment and eventually start playing poorly to the point you drop out from lack of enjoyment of your own performance.

I now challenge you all to think a different way when you lose. I challenge you to feel happy about losing and accepting that it was just meant to be. If you do not draw that 3rd land or if you do not draw that spell you need and can just accept that it has happened, you can easily just move on without any swing in emotion. If you can wrap your mind around this concept you will always stay positively charged and ready mentally for any situation. In this state of mind even the biggest error can’t break you because all you need to do is learn from the experience and move on instead of dwelling on the mistake. Once you allow yourself to feel even a single negative thought, you open yourself up to more negativity that creeps in and distracts you from the present moment which only leads to more mistakes down the road. This will help bring less fatigue as well as help with more consistent high levels of focus during longer events.

There are different perspectives on what the Art of Allowing actually is but I’ll just explain my point of view and how I apply it to how I play Magic.

The art is in allowing yourself the satisfaction of knowing you’ve already achieved your goal before you’ve actually started it. If you can believe that you’ve already won and imagined how you would feel when you’ve won, you put yourself in such a high positive mental state that all you have to do now is allow yourself to be fully present to everything in each individual moment given to you between now and when the goal is achieved. If you can meditate on the feeling for long periods of time, all you’re doing is manifesting that feeling to the point where you feel unstoppable. Give it a try… Feels good when you get there doesn’t it? That feeling of when you were 4-0 before you won your first event, knowing you’re going to win solely based on your feelings. It’s all based on your emotions, and guess what? You’re in control of it all!

You can also go about practicing it like this:

Visualize yourself knowing you’ve already won. Go ahead, try it out. Now, feel how amazing winning the event makes you feel and believe that feeling. Feel it? If you do, now visualize yourself showing up to the event with those charged feelings. Now try to wrap your head around this concept: All you have to do is be present to what’s going on and the cards will just play themselves out to the point you start calling cards off the top of your deck because you already know they’re there.

What you think about will always become a reality if you can visualize it as a possibility. If you can go there in the mind you can go there in real life. All you have to do is show up.

Basically, if you believe you’ve already won and maintain that feeling, you will win most of the time. If you do not get there and you’ve done your part, just accept the fact that it wasn’t your turn. Just keep the feelings up and believing in yourself, you will eventually get there, sooner than later.

Now what happens if you are 100% present and stay at the level of positivity I’m talking about but never get there? One thing you have to keep in mind is that once you think about not getting there you automatically jump back into a negative state of mind. Not getting there implies you’ve allowed a sense of doubt into your head which only leads to greater negative thoughts if you cannot catch yourself. You should always be in a state of gratitude for being able to play a game you love and travel around the world to play said game. The more love you can attach to what you do the more you will enjoy it, regardless of what happens during the process of participation.

You will get there, trust me. If you stay true to yourself through your feelings while staying patient, loving and full of positivity towards what you enjoy in life, you will be unstoppable to say the least. If you think about it you can make the choice to love anything. Everything bad in this world is just an opinion of someone who has lost track of what’s really important:

Enjoying the fact that life is an experience. You’re born and destined to have an amazing time!

Remember you have the power of thought, be grateful for it and don’t lose sight of what an amazing gift we all have and how powerfully it influences how we all live our lives.

Magic is just a game after all right? Why not make the most of it?

Until next time,

Noah Long

baba_baba_33@hotmail.com

PS: Feel free to send me an email if you have any questions about this article. Take care!