By day, I am a psychologist. Helping those in distress process their emotions and hopefully come to a logical conclusion or a calm acceptance. By night, and at weekends, I am a Geordie and a NUFC fan. My house is one where the anticipation builds on a Friday night, into Saturday morning. We take the metro to SJP. On the way, we check the team news, As we take our seats, hope and tension build like waves. Unfortunately, the waves have been crashing to shore recently. Anticipation has changed to anxiety, hope to hopelessness, determination to resignation.
In Psychology, we talk about the Emotion Mind. A person is in Emotion Mind when their thinking and behaviour are controlled mostly by their emotions. When NUFC are in danger, we are in Emotion Mind. Our fear , anger and frustration towards the Regime causes us to think the worst, lose motivation and passion, and call for action: Boycott Spurs! Boycott WBA ! Cancel our Season Tickets! When Carver came out into that press conference today and said that the players don't care, he was also is in Emotion Mind. He is out of his depth, does not have the sufficient skills and because he is a fan, cares too much. He cannot see past the emotion, and in doing so, further demotivated every player in that squad.
Imagine if your boss told everyone at the team meeting that you were useless. That you were not good at your job, a coward and lacked the skill to do it properly. If it was then repeated by your colleagues, on your social media accounts and in news papers. You would not be motivated to do your job. Your emotion mind would take over and the anger, embarrassment and hopeless would step in. F**k this, you would say. Why should I bother? No one believes I can do it. They are probably right. I give up. This is what is happening the squad every time they stand on that pitch. And until we help them, that is not going to change. We need to all be in our Wise Mind, forgetting about the emotion for three more weeks and thinking logically about how he can get out of this mess in the short term. It is a crisis intervention. Long term plans come later.
I whole heartedly agree that Newcastle is a broken club under Mike Ashley - he is a businessman whose goal is profit, not success. I also feel that NUFC are going to continue in the wrong direction under his ownership. I can understand why some fans want NUFC to be relegated- they say MA deserves it, that it is the only thing that sends him a message. But NUFC is bigger than one man. NUFC is a community and we cannot cut our noses off to spite our faces. Maybe Mike will never change, never invest, never replace. But we have no choice but to hope that he cops onto himself in the summer because this period has scared the crap out of him.And if he doesn't? We ride the waves , one at a time, until he does or until he sells.
Forget Mike. What about the fans, the backroom staff, and the players that cared before they were beaten down 'til they became as demotivated as everyone else. How will boycotting West Brom or withdrawing our support to the TEAM help achieve anything? The players need encouragement and support. They need everyone behind them , telling them they understand how difficult it must be to play for an owner who does not give a damn and a head coach who does not have a clue. I know some of the players are not up to par. Lets worry about that during the transfer windows. For now, we need to get behind the players and be in our Wise Mind, not our Emotional Mind - leave the pressure to tyres and secure the necessary points to stay up.
Lets worry about next season next season. Whether you think you can or can't, you're right. Lets get behind the lads.
In Psychology, we talk about the Emotion Mind. A person is in Emotion Mind when their thinking and behaviour are controlled mostly by their emotions. When NUFC are in danger, we are in Emotion Mind. Our fear , anger and frustration towards the Regime causes us to think the worst, lose motivation and passion, and call for action: Boycott Spurs! Boycott WBA ! Cancel our Season Tickets! When Carver came out into that press conference today and said that the players don't care, he was also is in Emotion Mind. He is out of his depth, does not have the sufficient skills and because he is a fan, cares too much. He cannot see past the emotion, and in doing so, further demotivated every player in that squad.
Imagine if your boss told everyone at the team meeting that you were useless. That you were not good at your job, a coward and lacked the skill to do it properly. If it was then repeated by your colleagues, on your social media accounts and in news papers. You would not be motivated to do your job. Your emotion mind would take over and the anger, embarrassment and hopeless would step in. F**k this, you would say. Why should I bother? No one believes I can do it. They are probably right. I give up. This is what is happening the squad every time they stand on that pitch. And until we help them, that is not going to change. We need to all be in our Wise Mind, forgetting about the emotion for three more weeks and thinking logically about how he can get out of this mess in the short term. It is a crisis intervention. Long term plans come later.
I whole heartedly agree that Newcastle is a broken club under Mike Ashley - he is a businessman whose goal is profit, not success. I also feel that NUFC are going to continue in the wrong direction under his ownership. I can understand why some fans want NUFC to be relegated- they say MA deserves it, that it is the only thing that sends him a message. But NUFC is bigger than one man. NUFC is a community and we cannot cut our noses off to spite our faces. Maybe Mike will never change, never invest, never replace. But we have no choice but to hope that he cops onto himself in the summer because this period has scared the crap out of him.And if he doesn't? We ride the waves , one at a time, until he does or until he sells.
Forget Mike. What about the fans, the backroom staff, and the players that cared before they were beaten down 'til they became as demotivated as everyone else. How will boycotting West Brom or withdrawing our support to the TEAM help achieve anything? The players need encouragement and support. They need everyone behind them , telling them they understand how difficult it must be to play for an owner who does not give a damn and a head coach who does not have a clue. I know some of the players are not up to par. Lets worry about that during the transfer windows. For now, we need to get behind the players and be in our Wise Mind, not our Emotional Mind - leave the pressure to tyres and secure the necessary points to stay up.
Lets worry about next season next season. Whether you think you can or can't, you're right. Lets get behind the lads.
