The Power of the Mind/Body

We know the average person thinks some 60,000 thoughts every day (there are only 86,400 seconds). The mind cycles almost endlessly with an incessant chatter, most of it of which we are totally unaware. Thoughts fuel emotions, emotions fuel more thoughts, and before we are aware of it, we have spent years and decades of our lives in a constant looping of unconscious mind repetition.

Our brains, meanwhile, are more complicated and sophisticated than the greatest super-computer in the world, processing more than 30 billion bits of information each second. There are more than a trillion chemical reactions going on in our bodies each and every moment – each of them in direct response to the thoughts and emotions being communicated throughout the cells continually on a mostly subconscious level.

As far as golf is concerned, each shot is a reflection of what we are experiencing internally before we ever hit the ball. Say, for example, the mind is organized before a particular golf shot with a sort of kitchen-pantry formula – three parts visualization, one part tension, two parts anxiety, zero parts self-critical and four parts humor. This “recipe” will fire up in the cells and direct in the body a consistent and predictable type of movement.

Now change the mental/emotional formula to something quite different – one part visualization, three parts tension, four parts self-critical, five parts anxiety and zero parts humor. Again, this recipe will produce a very different swing, and a very different result.

The bottom line is that a quiet, peaceful, focused mind will allow our bodies and our golf swings to be in “flow.” Tense and anxious thoughts and emotions cause our bodies to become locked in fear. The cells and muscles chemically respond to the signals sent to them by the brain because of our thoughts, emotions and beliefs.