the wellness of believing in yourself anyway

some wins are bigger than the scoreboard

Hi friend,

Happy Sixers Sunday (if you rooted for them),

I’m sipping on an iced vanilla latte with oatmilk and wanted to share a bite-sized take on why underdog stories mean so much to me. This is my first year ever closely following the NBA playoffs and there are a lot of great series happening right now, but the one I couldn’t look away from was the series between the Sixers vs Celtics. Yesterday it closed out in the most unexpected, emotional, full circle way. A 3-1 comeback that no one anticipated.

I watched game 7 last night in my VJ Edgecombe Sixers shirt, eating cookie dough ice cream, tempted to turn the TV off as the score got close toward the end. That’s how much I wanted them to win, but I’m not here to break down the game or to talk about what went wrong or what went right. It isn’t really about analysis for me.

It’s about the fact that both teams showed up. Both teams competed. But only one of them carried something extra into each arena. A weight that’s been sitting on the sixers since 1982. No wins against the Celtics in the playoffs in over 40 years. That’s not just a stat, that’s a mindset that gets passed down. “They always beat us.” But somewhere in the middle of this series, that stopped being true.

And that’s the part that got me emotional. Not the score. The rewrite.

Because showing up is one thing, but showing up when you’re also trying to break a 40 year curse is another thing entirely.

And I want to give the Celtics their flowers too. They're a seed 2 team for a reason and there's a unique pressure that comes with being at the top and staying there. We all have bad seasons. For some teams that means not making the playoffs at all. For great teams, it means not advancing in the playoffs. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have never missed the playoffs in their careers, so losing in Round 1 is their version of a hard year. And even that is something worth acknowledging.

I think there’s something deeply wellness related about an underdog story. It’s not just physical. It’s the decision to believe before you have any evidence to support the belief. To quiet the noise of people constantly doubting you or maybe even the doubts you put on yourself and to stay present in a moment that feels impossible. That’s not just athletic. That’s a practice. And most of us have had to do a version of it at some point in our lives, whether or not anyone was watching.

The comeback mindset isn’t about pretending things are fine. It’s about deciding that the loss doesn’t have the final say, even after 40 years.

As a Sunday reflection, I’ll just ask you this. Where have you been carrying a loss so long it started to feel like who you are? And what would it mean to finally rewrite it?

It doesn’t have to be a championship moment. Sometimes the rewrite is a decision you make on a random Tuesday or the thing you go back to after walking away from it for years.

It’s the moment you stop letting an old story define what’s possible for you now.

Whether you’re a Sixers fan or not, I think most of us know the weight of a long losing streak in some area of life. And sometimes that starts to feel less like bad luck and more like just who you are. But there is something special when we decide that it doesn’t have to be.

That’s the comeback. That’s your rewrite.

I know for me, part of why I always root for the underdog is because I’ve always been one. And if the Sixers can break a 40 year curse on a random Saturday night in May, I think the rest of us can find a little hope in that too.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to mentally prepare for Round 2 against the Knicks. I’m a New Yorker. This is going to be a stressful one. My family might actually disown me if I root for the Sixers again, but for now PLAY THE SONG!!

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