“This is really going to suck.” This is what I thought to myself as I dragged myself out of my house and into my car to drive to UREC. It was the first Tuesday night water polo practice since my boyfriend and I had broken up. Dread set in as I was driving to the gym because Tuesday was the night that the girls and boys teams practiced together.

As I walked into UREC, I tried to mentally prepare myself to be around this guy for 2 excruciating hours. Even though I really didn’t want to see my ex, I knew that getting in the pool, exercising, and spending time with my teammates would help me feel better. “Well, here goes nothing,” I thought as I walked onto the pool deck. After figuring out our warm up for that evening, I hopped straight into the pool and started swimming. The last thing I wanted to do was stand around and torture myself wondering what my ex was thinking or just thinking about our situation in general. Swimming has always provided me with an outlet to clear my head and lose myself in something other than my problems; tonight I was especially grateful for this outlet. After doing our swim workout and during the downtime before we moved onto more drills and scrimmaging, I talked to my friends; we talked about anything and everything that had nothing to do with what was bothering me. Still, even knowing my ex was around put me on the edge; my emotions just under the surface of my (hopefully) cool and calm exterior.

Later on in practice, things got more interesting. The part of practice that I was least looking forward to on this particular occasion had arrived- scrimmage. Unluckily, I was on the team opposite of my ex. Since I can keep up with him and we play complementary positions, I eventually wound up playing side by side with someone I was trying my hardest to avoid and ignore. “Great, so much for being able to focus on anything but my problem,” I thought. I took a deep breath and played like he was any other guy on the team. Unfortunately for me, it was not that easy. When possession of the ball changed on the next play, I hissed at one of my teammates to switch players with me.

My attempt to focus on anything but my ex is an example of attention focus. McCornack (2010) describes attention focus as a strategy used to avoid undesirable emotions that involves paying attention only to certain aspects of an encounter that will not cause those undesirable emotions. This strategy is used to attempt to prevent emotions. Since I knew that I did not want my stream of emotions to come forward in front my team plus the whole boys team, I adopted this particular strategy in order to appear as cool and in control as I could, especially since I had not told many people about what had happened between my ex and I. Although reappraisal is the best strategy for dealing with unwanted emotions, I was not aware of this strategy at the time, nor did I want to deal with my emotions in front of all my friends.

In that particular situation, I think that attention focus was my best bet for getting through practice with my boyfriend since I did not really have the choice to avoid him completely. I am glad to know that reappraisal is the most effective strategy for dealing with unwanted emotions and I will use it in the future if I need to deal with some tough emotions. Luckily for me, our breakup did not last long and I do not need to deal with any extreme emotions around a large group of people. I am also appreciative that I am able to enjoy myself at Tuesday night practices once again.

Have you ever used attention focus to deal with unwanted emotions? Did it work well for you or do you think a different strategy would have been more effective for that situation?

Reference:

McCornack, S. (2010). Reflect and relate: An introduction to interpersonal communication. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.