The Most Under-Rated Ability… 

Blog by Jason Lowe, LCPC, Wellspring Center for Counseling

I love sports. Not all sports. Some sports. I love playing and watching sports. Again, not all sports, but some sports. As I get older, I do a lot more watching than playing, which probably makes sense. Maybe you can relate to the sports analogy or know somebody who can. If not, it’s almost over. 🙂

One of the sports I really loved to play and continue to love to watch is football. Growing up in Michigan, I’ve always been a huge fan of the Detroit Lions, even though I’ve lived in the Chicago-land area for over half of my life now. For most years of my life, this has been a painful and disappointing experience.  You Bears fans can now relate. Packers fans…can’t relate…yet. 🙁

Ok…quick football quiz.

What ability is MOST important for any football player?

1. Speed
2. Strength
3. Mental toughness
4. Availability

As important as speed, strength, and mental toughness are to any great football player and team, the correct answer is D) Availability. This is because if a player is often hurt, injured, suspended, or holding out, then they aren’t even on the field to use their other abilities, making them…not to be harsh…useless. Just ask the Detroit Lions, who last year had a 15-2 record in the regular season and then lost their first playoff game largely due to having over 15 defensive starters injured throughout the 2nd half of the season. Having so many key players unavailable finally caught up to them, proving that it’s hard to win when your best players are watching from the sidelines or rehabbing from home.

 Ok, the sports analogy is finally over! Whew! 

So, how does being available apply to us in our day-to-day lives and relationships? In lots of cool and important ways. Here are just a few ways:

• Being physically available by focusing on self-care.
• Being mentally available by focusing on self-compassion.

• Being emotionally available by focusing on self-regulation.
• Being relationally available by focusing on self-expression.

Each of these merit their own blog, but the focus here will be on being relationally available. The below table provides helpful context (taken from my “Finding My Assertive Sweetspot” Worksheet).

As you can see, “Available” is in what I refer to as our healthy sweet-spot, while “Assuming” is on the avoidant extreme, and “Demanding” is on the anxious extreme. Many of us, when in distress, will naturally drift to one of the extremes, functioning from a place of avoidance or a place of anxiousness (and in some cases, vacillating back and forth between both extremes. Over time, this becomes more and more automatic, and is where we operate from more and more. 

So what does it mean to be available in this context? Use the other assertive, healthy sweet-spot words as clues. Being available can mean…

• Seeking clarity and permission before blurting out advice or fixing someone’s problem…which can be motivated by our discomfort in the given situation, not theirs. This can be life-changing to all of the “fixers” reading this because this can sometimes come off as dismissive, and not helpful. 

• Seeking clarity and permission before jumping to our own conclusion…which can be motivated by our own insecure negative assumption (”of course they’re upset with me again”) or our own prideful positive assumption (”of course they want me to share my brilliant idea!”).
• Reminding the people in your life that you are simply and powerfully here for them the way they need you to be, when they need you to be. This is at the heart of meeting people where they are, in order to walk with them as long as they choose. 

“Being available is to meet people where they are, 

in order to walk with them as long as they choose.”

So…when do the Lions play next?