What Djokovic’s Smashed Racket Tells Us About Ourselves
A mindful exploration of what is triggered in us and what it relates to.
I was talking to a friend about the men’s tennis finals. She was distraught at the rage with which Djokovic smashed his racket. She was disturbed by his inability to regulate the intensity of his emotions and the eruption of violence.
As we talked, she had a sense that there might be something more to this, and she paused to sense into it.
Pausing
It was not a long pause, just a moment, but it was enough for something to emerge. What came up was a scene from an earlier relationship. The man she was with had thrown her across the room in a sudden fit of anger. There was something about the anger that made her identify with the racket.
She said something like: “He treated me like a racket.” And, in that short sentence, there was more than first appeared. Like it was pregnant with meaning. Pregnant is a good analogy because babies don’t just fall out of the womb in the way ripe that fruit fall from a tree. It takes labor for babies to come into the world. And it takes pausing for meaning to emerge from these pregnant ideas gradually.
She took a pause. “Yeah, like a racket.” At that moment, what she had been to him was just something to throw or push, like the racket was to Djokovic. In other words, to him, she had lost her humanity.
Violence
Ah! she thought, yes, of course, that’s what we mean when we say that violence turns the victim into an object. But these words feel pretty abstract. The image of being just like a racket smashed in a fit of anger had a gut-wrenching immediacy to it.
In that moment of rage, the former boyfriend stopped seeing her as a human being. From one moment to the next, she had turned, for him, into a thing. From a fellow human being, she had turned into the closest object on which he could release his pent-up frustrations.
It matters that he was physically stronger and made even stronger by the intensity of his rage. My friend was powerless to resist, which was profoundly dispiriting. If you cannot do what a person does to protect yourself, are you indeed a person?
So, there was more to the situation than the physical violence, which was bad enough already. People are not tennis rackets. Being treated like one is dehumanizing.
The guy might say that he didn’t mean it. At other times, he had demonstrated an excellent capacity for warmth and empathy. So, clearly, at that moment, he wasn’t himself.
Different states of the nervous system
There is something to that idea. What we call our nervous system comprises different circuits, which means different ways of being. Under threat, we automatically shift away from the mindful engagement circuit to the fight-flight mode. We lose much of our ability to distinguish nuances in situations and attune with other people. The fight-flight circuit is focused on a very narrowly defined goal: to survive by fighting our way out or running away as fast as can be. So, yes, under threat, we become another person.
I have no trouble understanding that playing a high-stakes tennis game brings about high activation in the nervous system. It is hard to control and might erupt in random violence against tennis rackets. By the way, understanding why it happens does not necessarily mean condoning the behavior. But that’s not the point I am discussing here.
This article is not about what happened with Djokovic, but what it triggered in my friend. She felt that, from one moment to the next, the world changed dramatically.
What changed
It’s difficult to render the nature of the change into words. One way to say it is that she had lost her humanity and was just a thing. But, wait a minute! It’s not that “she” had lost anything. It was not about her; it was about him. He had lost his capacity for even minimal empathy because he was now in the fight-flight survival mode. He had become a different person, and that other person could no longer see her as a human being.
There is a vast difference between throwing a tantrum at a tennis racket and throwing a person across a room. The world would be a better place if the people who use violence against other people turned their aggression toward tennis rackets. I believe we can all agree to this, even if we don’t condone tennis tantrums.
How we make sense of things
So you would think it would be somehow reassuring for my friend to realize that the violence she witnessed on TV was not directed at a person. But we human beings are not computers. Much of the way we make sense of the world has to do with emotional logic. She saw a man in a specific state, which felt like the state of her boyfriend that day. She felt like the racket, a non-person used as an emotional punching bag.
Earlier in the article, I stated that our nervous system has different circuits. I said that, under threat, we shift from mindful engagement to single-minded, high-intensity fight-flight survival. I didn’t say what happens when the energy boost of fight-flight is not enough to deal with the situation. We shut down. All resistance is futile. The nervous system now functions with minimal energy, prolonging survival.
Trauma & triggers
If you have experienced trauma, situations that trigger you can bring you to shut down mode. Your nervous system has classified the situation as one it is helpless to flee from or fight.
Does all trauma manifest as a shutdown? No. For instance, my friend’s boyfriend had a history of trauma, both personal and social. It was unbearable for him to feel powerless. And so, being able to throw his weight around when he was triggered was a relief. Having a girlfriend who was no match for him physically meant he could be in fight-flight mode instead of shutdown mode.
Sometimes, people react to trauma by cycling between the high intensity of fight-flight and the collapsed energy of shutdown mode.
In any case, what is difficult for a person triggered by trauma is to have the sense of relative safety that characterizes the mindful engagement mode. It dramatically affects the ability to perceive nuances and modulate behaviors.
What does all of this have to do with Djokovic’s racket?
I encourage you, the reader of this article, to reflect on what Djokovic’s tantrum brings up for you. I invite you to ask yourself about other situations that it evokes for you. This includes situations that might have taken place as you were growing up, at work, or in your home life.
I invite you to explore what it feels like for you. For instance, do you feel more like the racket? Or like Djokovic? Or…?
I also suggest that you discuss this with friends. Not so much the incident itself, but the bits of personal history that it brings up for you (and your friends, of course).
I believe that, if you do so, you will find that it leads to a sense of things opening up and to a richer, more stimulating discussion. It is the opposite of what happens when we abstractly talk about the merit of this or that position.
