LACPA's Virtual Sport & Sport Psychology SIG

Title:

A Playbook for Feelings: Leveling Up Mindfulness with Nonviolent Communication to Enhance Well-Being In & Outside Sport

TL;DR:

Participants will learn how to use awareness of feelings in mindfulness practices to support athlete and coach awareness of met versus unmet physical, emotional, and social needs. Information will also be provided regarding a forthcoming athlete mental health campaign. 

Description:

Interest in mindfulness has proliferated in sport and sport psychology, and its potential benefits in athletes’ lives continue to be researched and reported. Basic mindfulness instructions typically include deliberately noticing one’s present-moment thoughts, feelings, and body sensations, as they come and go, with openness, acceptance, and compassion, whether in meditation or while doing everyday activities (Kabat-Zinn, 1994). In the context of sports and performance, mindfulness-based approaches often clump thoughts, feelings, and other stimuli together and examine them in terms of their relevance to or distraction from essential performance cues, skill execution, and maintaining consistent training and effort (Mannion, 2021). 

Mindfulness’ emphasis on changing how one relates to thoughts, feelings, and body sensations (rather than on changing or suppressing their content) does not preclude, however, making use of what one observes. The purpose of this presentation is to consider the value of feelings, distinct from thoughts, in mindfulness practices using complementary principles of Nonviolent Communication (Rosenberg, 2003). It will include practical rationales to a common, important question: “Why be present to and accepting of unpleasant feelings?” Cultural considerations will be addressed including the evolving zeitgeist of mental health prioritization in sport as well as gaining athlete and coach buy-in around “feelings”. Dr. J will conclude with Information regarding a forthcoming athlete mental health campaign derived from his dissertation.

Bio:

Related to the topic, Joe Mannion, PsyD, is founding a startup, Meet The Moment™ , Inc., based on his dissertation, M|BODY™, a mindfulness program for athletes. He has contributed several edited chapters on mindfulness in sport, exercise, and performance, including the new edition of Applied Sport Psychology (Williams & Krane, Eds., 2021) and a Cambridge University Press text, Mindfulness & Performance (Baltzell, Ed., 2016). Dr. J is also grateful to have presented at private “mindfulness and acceptance approaches in elite sport” summits organized by Team Denmark and Team Switzerland sport psychologists and to have been nominated to a “Who’s Who in Mindfulness in Sport Psychology” AASP conference panel. He earned his PsyD in clinical psychology at Pepperdine University, his MS in sport psychology at Georgia Southern University, and spent an elective graduate year in the sport psychology program at Victoria University (Melbourne, Australia).

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