I woke up this morning knowing something wasn’t right.
It felt like I’d been in a car crash. Not just physically, but emotionally too.
Let me start with the physical side before we get to the psychological beating I seem to have taken overnight.
Last night, I had a bout of sleep paralysis. It’s something I thought I’d mostly outgrown, although it still sneaks back in when I’m under too much stress or worn thin.
Sleep paralysis is a terrifying experience, where your brain begins to emerge from sleep, but your body stays locked in place. The part of the brainstem that turns off your muscles during REM sleep doesn’t flip the switch fast enough, and so you wake into a kind of living nightmare. You can’t move, can’t speak, and often feel like you’re suffocating or trapped.
In my case, I usually find myself in a dream that mirrors the paralysis. Last night, I was strapped into a car, not just with a seatbelt, but with multiple ones, crisscrossing my chest and legs, binding me tightly. I was trying to escape, thrashing to free myself. It was vivid and awful.
Then, as suddenly as it started, the signal must have fired again, and my muscles switched back on. I rolled hard and dropped off the side of the high bed, crashing onto the floor with a massive thud. I lay there for a moment, trying to catch my breath, wondering if anything was broken.
Thankfully, aside from some bruises, I was okay, which is probably a benefit of staying in good shape.
But the real crash wasn’t in my body.
It was in my heart.
By now, you’ve probably heard. Last night, the Toronto Blue Jays lost the World Series in Game Seven.
If you’re not from here, you might not get how much that means. I’ve long since lost any emotional investment in the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, but this year’s Blue Jays baseball team was different.
They clawed their way back from disaster over and over. They had grit, spirit, and that rare feeling of magic that only shows up when something truly special is happening.
And I really believed this might be the year. So did millions of others.
Because in all of Major League Baseball, there are thirty teams. But only one of them belongs to Canada.
Just one.
And somehow, this team managed to make a fractured, frustrated, often disillusioned country feel united again. Even if only for a few weeks.
There was hope in the air. Real, electric, unifying hope.
And then, in the final moments of the final inning of the final game, we lost.
As Dr. Richard Bandler, the co-creator of NLP, once said, “Disappointment takes work.” You can’t feel crushed unless you first make the effort to believe. You have to let yourself hope, let yourself imagine the happy conclusion, before the ground can drop out beneath you.
So this morning I woke up sore and bruised, with that terrible feeling that something was deeply wrong. And then I remembered. We’d lost the World Series. The dream was over.
And even though it’s “just a game,” it didn’t feel that way. It felt like something had been taken away in the last possible second.
That’s what hit me the hardest, the speed of it. One moment we were so close we could taste it. And then it was gone. Life does that sometimes. It can turn on a dime and leave you reeling.
Worse still, we know this won’t be the last disappointment life throws at us.
But strangely, through the pain of it all, there’s one twenty-second moment playing in my head like a short film I can’t stop watching. And it’s helping me cope, even if just a little.
Because even though the Jays didn’t win, one man did.
Max Scherzer, “Mad Max,” a forty-one-year-old pitcher with more grit than most of us can imagine. He’s always been intense, bordering on feral. His eyes are two different colours, thanks to heterochromia. He intimidates hitters, fans, coaches, even his own teammates.
His focus is surgical, almost frightening.
He already had two championship rings, won with other teams. But this was probably his final season. A long year of injuries had sidelined him again and again. A lot of people said he shouldn’t be pitching in a game this critical. But there he was, proving them wrong.
And he had his stuff. He threw with the fire of someone half his age. Not a single run scored while he was on the mound. Not one.
I’ll never forget the moment he stepped off that mound, walking slowly, head held high, as more than 40,000 fans at Rogers Centre rose to their feet and gave him a thunderous standing ovation.
It was a farewell for a warrior. It was respect in its purest form. You could feel it in your chest.
And that moment, that shared human moment, somehow made the whole thing a little easier to take.
Because maybe none of us will ever pitch in a World Series. Maybe we won’t win rings or championships or get the movie ending. But we can still show up, deliver under pressure, and walk off our own version of the mound with dignity.
So here I am, bruised and a little broken, sitting in a city and a country that feels the same way.
But I believe that even in disappointment, there’s something worth holding onto. A flicker of something good. A lesson. A feeling. A story.
Yes, we lost. And yes, it hurts.
But I’m holding onto that moment. Max Scherzer, eyes blazing, walking off into a storm of love and applause. A man who gave it everything he had, and left it all on the field.
Think about that.
- Mike Mandel
Unlock the Full Potential of Your Mind
If staying focused, learning faster, and mastering your mind sounds appealing, the Brain Software Syndicate is the perfect next step. It’s packed with powerful tools and strategies for state management, personal transformation, and much more.
Whether the goal is to sharpen focus, eliminate mental roadblocks, or simply become more effective in daily life, Brain Software Syndicate provides the techniques to make it happen. Plus, it’s an interactive community of like-minded people who are all committed to personal growth and peak performance.
Join Brain Software Syndicate today and start using these tools to unlock your full potential.