I used to be a really poor sport when it came to losing at anything. It didn’t matter what it was. Basketball, bowling, tennis, board games, cards, you name it, if I lost, you probably wouldn’t have wanted to be around me. The bottom line was that I totally used to be a sore loser, but thank God that’s no longer the case.
Just recently in fact I played cards on New Year’s Eve with a few friends, as well as with my partner, and lost the majority of the games. Yet, I was completely cool with that and still felt pretty good when we called it a night. That’s such a far cry from the days when I would say nasty things, be spiteful, carry a negative attitude towards those that beat me, and even throw objects such as the cards themselves when I lost.
How I ever became that way can be traced to my childhood. Back then, I always felt like I didn’t matter, yet somehow if I won whatever game I was playing, it made me feel so much better about myself. But if I lost, I felt even worse. Truth be told, my Dad was the same way and would go so far as even ripping the cards in half or throwing a game board across the room if he ended up being the loser.
A number of people used to tell me I was extremely competitive and exactly like my father and some even went so far as saying it wasn’t much fun to play any type of game with me anymore. At some point I began to agree with them because I wasn’t enjoying playing games either, given how stressful I felt during them and afterwards.
So how did this change?
Honestly I attribute it to all the pain I’ve gone through these past few years of my life. Somehow having a body riddled with pain made me see how ridiculous it was to cause myself even more of it when I engaged in poor sportsmanship. Thankfully, the last time I really saw how much I didn’t like this character of mine was two summer ago when I was on a camping trip with a few friends.
During it I was playing a dice game and kept losing over and over and over again. But instead of just laughing it off, I angrily left the picnic table we were playing on and walked away in total disgust. It truly set a low vibrational tone for the rest of the evening, and even more so for the remainder of that weekend getaway for everyone there. I also felt very ugly and unattractive inside and my body hurt even more physically because of it, which is what finally propelled me to do something about a behavior that had been a part of my life for way too long.
I’m grateful to say that since that trip, I’ve come to much greater acceptance around losing and can safely admit I’m ok now when I don’t come out of top after finishing a game. I realize my life and my sense of peace within is far more valuable than whether I win a game or not. But I know I will lose much of that if I ever allow myself again to get worked up and become a sore loser after playing a game.
So whether I win or not now doesn’t ultimately matter to me. I just want to enjoy playing whatever game it is I do. And so far I’ve been able to do just that for quite some time now and I have to give thanks to my Higher Power and my spiritual program for that. As both have helped me to truly shift away from a behavior that was definitely not the sign of person trying to follow the will of God…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
