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Love & Basketball

Writer's picture: Rebecca McCantsRebecca McCants

Becoming Your Own VIP Mind, Body, and Soul

Episode: "Love & Basketball" Streamed 3/15/23


Defense…. Offense…. what game are you playing?


On this day.... had been part of a long week of dealing with emotions, dreams, and thoughts experiencing feelings of fear, anxiety, and heaviness…. I was stuck in my mind and body with these thoughts, feelings, and emotions.


Also in my mind…I explained we have both our internal masculine and feminine. My masculine was thinking of ways to protect me; the logical mind with thoughts on ways to help me at this moment. Logically attempting to figure this out in survival mode. Battling every thought defeating one only for the next thought to come up a little stronger.... childhood fears, hurt, all of the past experiences just coming up one after another.


My masculine mind doing its best, but it wasn’t about fighting this alone logically. This battle that for so long I thought was only external… was evident it is an inner battlefield I needed to learn how to overcome.


Imagine how active my mind was with the chaos of past thoughts, feelings, and emotions as an attack on the soul (the mind, will, and emotions), while my logical masculine combated it. A racing mind with no peace.


I breathed .....my feminine stepping in alongside my masculine to soothe, to calm down. The mind battle needed to be handled differently. My masculine wanting to be strong, forceful, superior, strong, the conqueror, protector, hero, and savior throwing everything he has at the enemy that was attacking my mind. For so long this style of battle was not successful…now as I come into harmony clearing the darkness within and where I was not in unity within myself along with miscommunication & misunderstanding between the masculine and feminine within…. now they are beginning to work in harmony. The feminine is sensitive, spiritual, creative, and nurturing. She asked the masculine to think of what has been learned since the day the walls fell down and redeemed spirituality with a deeper understanding of what it is like to be a spiritual being living a human existence to pray and ask for help.


The masculine now healed able to be humble and ask for help …I prayed and received an image of playing basketball and how I was on defense …but where is my offense??


This image was relevant because I love playing basketball and understanding the answer to my prayer within this image. I thought about how basketball would help me now...it was about upping my game.


Living a life on defense versus offense…. how much of our life is spent on defense defending ourselves at work, family, our loved ones, life, and the things we eat putting our body on defense from unhealthy foods, and the medications we take.


Constantly on defense in a war, we didn't even know we were in or why, not realizing where the origination even began. Why things are the way they are. Defense, defense! How many times have you gotten the ball back and thought ”Hey life is progressing and everything's great!” then it'll get snatched from you or you miss your shot ( an opportunity) and now defense, defense, defense?


Sitting on the bench because you got pulled out of the game for a little bit. Crying, shame, guilt, anger, feeling powerless, whatever you might be suffering and feeling while you're on the bench. Defense, defense feels like you're losing the battle what are you doing wrong? Should I even play this game ..man... I'm gonna quit this game…. defense, defense, defense…. offense is whipping your butt scoreboard has them up 100 points you only got 10 points on the scoreboard. Defense!


Now it's time for you to get the ball back .... how-do-you-do that? For one it's to understand where things even originated, where they were rooted within; how they weren't your fault. Not that it's anyone's blame because the people who taught you that stuff; they didn't know either. They had the same questions as you did, playing the game of life the best they could. Unfortunately, a lot of people were on the bench, some people kept playing defense, or people cheated in the game. A lot of people got sidetracked, procrastinated, ran, avoided, or just distracted. Defense, defense, defense..... some players that just weren't in the game sitting on the bench and playing on the sidelines…. just playing smoking and drinking, not taking the game seriously, and whenever they played it showed. Defense, defense, defense.


Others were willing to pass the ball to somebody else instead of taking the shots themselves. Our life is on defense, and we don't even know why, we're not even understanding why we're even on defense we don't even realize there is a game being played. In our mind the back-and-forth the struggles of life, the struggles within, the things we have to say about other people (condemnation)


The way we act when we know that's not who we are; or who we even wanted to show up to be, but somehow, someway we lost control.... defense, defense, defense.


Well for me I was either on the bench due to disease/chronic illness or on defense quite a lot and there were times when I took the shot and got a couple of baskets here and there but in the end; man! When that offense came back with vengeance there were times, I have benched due to conditions with medical or emotional fears, worries, doubts, and victimhood I was out of the game sitting on that bench just crying but then one day through prayer I got back up off that bench but this time to get my “A” game on!


That meant I actually had to participate in life which means I had to exercise, eat right, get my health right. I had to get my mind right, to start reading, I mean I had to get rid of things that weren't helping me and build myself back up.


Training, developing, growing, and strengthening as a way to equip me so that I'm a better offensive player.


Even though my defense obviously got really good; it was in a toxic form so it wasn't an educated or controlled defense, I was all over the place, getting ran rugged. I didn't have a strategy.


Now I got to the point where I was pretty good at defending and controlling the ball advancing on offense (good days) but that ball got taken away (bad days) and there were times I was still put on the bench because of fear because of the healing that I had to deal with spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. Lacking knowledge still in ways to overcome the internal battle; you know at times those memories will come up and those memories were the offensive ploy to keep me down, to prevent me from knowing who I am and not knowing what I was playing against.


The ways to keep possession of the ball AND played defense so tight that the offense couldn’t score on me…. Defense… offense was through repentance of sins, shedding the weight of darkness within, forgiving, accountability, responsibility, learning, developing biblical knowledge and why and how it applies to life, living by spirituality not being religious but sharing what I learned of who we are. The playbook I lived life by no longer served.... I was done being on what I thought was the losing team.


When I prayed and it was in the sincerity of my desire to repent to change, ready to listen to what has always been there the old playbook of materialistic ways and standards was thrown out and the bible the original playbook and Jesus became my coach and counsel. Renewal of the mind, heart, body, and soul.... daily healing, flexing, and building up areas within what was never utilized, forgotten, or never known was within me. To know myself and face things within I never thought I would face to strengthen me spiritually, intellectually, and emotionally, what love really is that opens you to truly forgive yourself and others.


I was never on the losing team.... but the team that needed to learn what compassion, and empathy was. To transform from selfish to self-less, from immaturity to maturity, from unforgiving to forgiving, shame to redemption, pride to humility, hate to love, fear to faith, pain to resilience, perseverance to transform character, morals, values, beliefs, habits of love and kindness. The hardest days were the days asking you to stand up and face your goliath and become strong in your defense and offense to become your own v.i.p mind, body, and soul. To honor the challenges with gratitude that sharpened your sword, and to build up your character to do better and up your game by treating people the way you want to be treated.


You rise up with love over defense and wounds you score a point, if your opponent comes back on offense in a wounded strategy of hurt, pain, and intimidation…. if your defense is weak and you foul the offense with that same negative energy they keep the ball and score on you.


On offense being humble, loving, and kind is not weak .....it is the ultimate strategy for the defense never truly knew what love looked like, you’re shaking them, breaking ankles, crossing over, spinning around, and slam dunking on them.... making them feel some sort of way because they never knew love, an authenticity, compassion, yet assertive in healthy boundaries, strong on offense and defense. You knew gaslighting, manipulation, abuse, and other forms of toxicity in your old playbook as the abuser or victim…you choose to repent and change.


The new playbook and old playbook combined now have you playing more confidently, in a disciplined and self-controlled manner like Michael Jordan


The playbook Bible talks about what you can offer to yourself and others; not to get lost in the worldly view of what is important but in the spiritual view of what you are. That you are important, that they are important, that everyone matters, everything matters, the things you say, the things you do, the way you act, and the way you think matters.


By you taking control and putting yourself on offense by learning who you are as a spiritual being, understanding God's laws, principles, and precepts, and understanding the Bible and how that impacts you and how it feels when you live more in the fruits of the spirit versus in the darkness of sadness and depression anxiety and fear.


We know we could be better.


You could be healthy if you got up and worked out, ate healthy and practiced self-care focused on your well-being…. you could strengthen your intellect if you read books or surround yourself with people that want to talk about things that uplift another person, you can develop faith by building a relationship with God and trusting in what you cannot see.


Faith, love, patience, repentance, taking responsibility, courage, and strength are just a few drills you’ll be practicing and building up.


The challenge is you are in the game, at the beginning, God may sideline you in isolation to separate you from things that were toxic so he can personally train you, heal you, and put to practice what he teaches you.


The lessons and the impact of the life lessons we faced were painful and the consequences were almost insurmountable. You’re out of breath, your muscles cramping, and you may feel like you may have nothing left in you, but your coach God -Jesus- and the Holy Spirit are within you and are the healer, teacher, counselor, protector, and comforter and will refresh you and whenever off your game.... will realign you. You do have a cross to bear to learn from past choices, while actively living and learning in the present…the past happened… can’t change it, but in the present, you can own up to it and learn the lessons you were meant to learn from it because it impacts your future.


All this time taking things for granted, holding tightly to grudges, or holding onto a story of negativity/toxicity will hold you in a pattern of feeling like you’re on the losing team.


“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” – Rumi


Our greatest lesson is found in the loss, rejection, and abandonment of love.

If we did not love and value something we would not care. Our greatest teacher is love; we bend and mold ourselves to receive it because wounded teachings on toxic love and of material needs taught love meant by your appearance, status, or things obtained. Jesus teaches you by faith you are healed so by faith you are loved, safe, and protected. To treat your neighbor as you want to be treated you will receive not necessarily by that specific person or resource, but you are by another person or resource. Remember we are on different levels one of you is not yet ready to receive that person or resource due to lessons still to learn, maturity, discipline, something that is unevenly yoked, and God gives only what you can bare. If you force something that is a choice made in the dark and again we’ve been there done that and know the consequences.


Once you solve where the barriers to love lives in every area and aspect of your life then you heal releasing the toxicity, abuse, and excess that created the darkness, and what you seek finds you because if you are love, you choose light, you treat everything with love, balance, patience and then love will automatically be present, and find you.


Choosing the new playbook, living in the present constantly being open to learning about yourself within and how you interact in the outer world will lead to more and more understanding, healing, and transformation for the better.


Whenever someone steps up for a one on one…your partner, parent, child, family, pet, client, customer, friend, finances, job, whoever…..choose love


1 Corinthians 13:4-8 NIV

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.


8 Love never fails.




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