How To Deal With Losing Games?

[Simon Håkansson]

I have quite a big problem in my life in that I really can´t lose games. This is quite a significant problem since I am a chess club player and I usually play against people who are quite a bit stronger than me (I lose alot). I remembered when I was playing a game of risk with some of my relatives and family, the game went on for quite a while and we continued playing the next day. After a couple of days, I made quite a serious blunder and my dad won the game. It felt like someone had took a part of my soul, carved it out and teared it to pieces. This is the same feeling I get when I lose games on chess.com, I make a tactical misstake, my opponent sees it and takes advantage of it and I feel like my opponent has insulted me, I litteraly feel offended by it. 

The thing I have learnt however is that it is never a good idea to take an action from the lower self, which have made me less reactive and actiontaking from my anger, but the problem needs a deeper fix than that.  

How can I get over this?

[Guest Annetta]

Perhaps realize that every time you lose, you are being invited to something new?
Winning is great, but you don't learn as much from it.

[Nahm]

Don't look for gains. Look for growth.

[Christian]

Lose and fail so much it becomes the new normal for you. Staying in your comfort zone is the surest way to suffering. 

[Nahm]

@Christian hell ya. Fail until you see no failure. Only expansion. Failure is only of the mind. Knowledge collapses the wave. Gain experience to lose failure.

[jjer94]

@Simon Håkansson Maybe your competitiveness is a quality you picked up early in life to deal with feelings of inadequacy or "being a nobody".

The external approval of winning a game makes you feel adequate. If you lose a game, your old feelings of inadequacy are exposed. To cover them up, you lash out and/or blame the externals.

I would avoid calling it a problem. Trying to solve it like a problem will only exacerbate it. What your competitiveness is, is just a way you've protected yourself against bad feelings. Understanding this mechanism better will diminish its power. But you also have to face the feelings you've been running from. Easier said than done.

You may want to explore your situation with these questions:

• What do I feel about myself, deep down? Do I like myself? Or do I see myself as a nobody?
• Beyond the anger, how do I really feel after losing a game? 
• What do I do directly after losing a game?
• What was life like before I was ultra-competitive? How did I feel?
• At what specific point(s) in time did I decide to become competitive? 

Cheers!

[Gorlov]

Ask yourself why you need to win. What is there to really win? 

Founding your sense of security on winning or losing is a bad idea, because this is such unstable ground.

Instead, see if you can have a complete soul regardless,of victory or defeat. Aapreciate that the ego may have been damaged, but you remain the same.

You don't have to get rid of this feeling, you just have to realise that it isn't you. You are the OBSERVER of this sensation, but you are not the sensation itself.

[pluto]

Watch the first 5 minutes, same thing applies to everything and not just games.

 

[Leo Gura]

@Simon Håkansson Are you freaking kidding?

You're going to be DEAD soon!

Wake up! Wake up! WAKE UP!

[JustinS]

@Simon Håkansson Whenever you lose again or sense this feeling of hurt/insult, close your eyes for a few minutes and feel into it. Dive into it, covering every part of you and completely surrendering to this sensation. Do this until the sensation goes away. 

[Sevi]

@Simon Håkansson

Seems that, it's about you and your father.

"I made a blunder = my father hurt me (by winning the game): if I had been careful/smarter, I wouldn't have been hurt: I'll find my ways to be smart: play chess; I'll find stronger opponents than me: creating the opportunity to get smarter and smarter: so closing that gap more and more: so I will not get hurt again / so that my wound will recover."

Versus:

"My father needed winning that game so desperately: so much that he even didn't mind hurting a child's feelings: He was/is that desperate to win (thus not to lose.)"

Where on the other hand you are someone who can comfortably start a topic about losing games.

So, that problem seems originally your father's rather than yours. You are just hurt. But someone who was that desperate already couldn't have been better than that. 

Father yourself. Buy some books about how to be a father for a child and apply it on yourself. Or imagine how would you behave to little enthusiastic kid.

[Loreena]

@Simon Håkansson  This sounds childish. A game is not a big deal. You are losing your head over a game. Quit it. Be practical. Learn to deal with your emotions. You're being too emo dude. Focus on your higher self. There's so much more to life than being upset or agitated over games. Start meditation. It's very important for you. Become more aware of real stuff in life. Wake up. Focus on things that are beneficial to you in the long run. Focus on health. Focus on personal development and productivity. Work on the aspect of emotional intelligence. Your lower self is craving for little things. When you'll get older, they'll all look so small, you'll laugh at them. 

[Morten]

@Simon Håkansson You either win or you learn. Adopt that mindset and it will help you a lot. That has done it for me. Also there are a lot of great advices in this thread about letting the feeling sink in and experiencing it completely.

[Extreme Z7]

@Simon Håkansson  Mindfulness/Meditation work is really what you need to solve this problem, dude. With enough mindfulness, you eventually become aware of the reality that winning or losing games does not matter at all. This doesn't mean you stop playing games though, I know I still do. But you start to get less emotionally attached to anything going on in these games.

Edited February 26, 2017 by Extreme Z7

[Sevi]

 

@Simon Håkansson

And there are a couple more layers to this topic:

This father figure is actually a good one -he is just lacking some abilities-: by his action he is teaching the kid when facing the challenge of choosing between your own good or the beloved ones favor, it is ok to choose your own good, especially if it's a game setting. (Yes, it doesn't sound that spiritual at first but actually it is: you cannot get into higher levels of spiritualism without consciously serving to your ego first, otherwise you'll be half hearted, part of yourself will keep pulling you down) if he had given it up to the kid, later in life the kid could have been much more confused about following his own good. Father allows the kid here: he allows the kid even winning against the father himself later. (As we see here, the kid is pursuing actively how to win and as a bonus how to loose too. Rather than waiting life to happen to him or just letting others "do")

What's lacking:

If the father takes the kid after the game and says: 'you know what, you scared the shit out of me that as a leader of this family that I am loosing my reputation/my male image. It's an awesome job that you're challenging me this early, I'll pay even closer attention to you in the next game! Good job kid!' Than the child could learn earlier to differ the self from the game and from the love they have to each other.

BUT, the common mistake here is this: when we understand the other party (the father); because all of our anger and revengeful feelings naturally fade out as a result of that understanding, we just forgive: well, we cannot? (we often don't know what real forgiveness is) why can't we? Probably unknowingly but still, this father is lacking some abilities and hurting the child. If the child won't take constructive action toward to the father and the situation; father will continue to doing so in other forms, it is for sure. While dealing with low consciousness / lack of consciousness situations, we need to pay utmost clear attention to our boundaries with those ones and most of the cases we need to apply masculine compassion (Leo explains what it is in one of his videos)

In this scenario "being used" is the cause of hurt. So dealing with the perpetrator in the the right way is important, but also to differ good intentioned ones is important too. What's that mean? Our boundaries should be semi-permeable: if there is a good thing we should be able to take it in too.

Last but not least, a little story from Ramses: When he is about the be the teenager, he has to prove through a test that he is becoming a man, so that this pony tail can be cut as the representation of it; so his father the king takes him to the forest to kill one of those big bulls. The father leaves him alone with a sword and steps aside. After a while a big bull shows up, runs fast enough to Ramses; his hands shaking he barely holds the sword; bull keeps approaching, when the bull is about to hit Ramses; thinking that, that's the last moment of his life he closes his eyes. In a split second his father jumps out and kills the bull then right away he cuts his pony tail off. And Ramses looks at his father and says "but dad, I couldn't kill the bull?!" And the father replies: "You didn't. But you have killed the fear which was expected from you, you'll gain the rest of the power on your way"