The Dink Shrink

Pickleball and Psychology through the lens of a 4.5ish pb player and mental health therapist 🧠

06/16/2025

🏓💔 Are you sabotaging your relationship… on the pickleball court?

The Gottman Institute discovered 4 toxic habits that predict divorce — called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. 🐎 Today, we’re diving into the first TWO, featuring our favorite battleground: the pickleball court. 😂🔥

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👀 Slide 1:
Dr. John Gottman says he can predict divorce with over 90% accuracy. These behaviors are a big reason why…

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😤 Slide 2 – Criticism:
“You always miss your serve.”
“You’re so careless.”
Criticism attacks the person, not the behavior. It’s personal — and it stings.

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💬 Slide 3 – Better: Complain, don’t blame.
“I feel frustrated when we don’t communicate during rallies. Can we talk strategy?”
Gentle start-ups create connection, not conflict. 💡

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🛡️ Slide 4 – Defensiveness:
“Not my fault!”
“You didn’t tell me where to stand!”
This response blocks growth. It’s self-protection in disguise.

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🤝 Slide 5 – Better: Take responsibility.
“You’re right, I jumped in too fast. I’ll slow down next time.”
Owning your part = instant relationship repair. 🧰

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♻️ Slide 6 – Watch the cycle:
Criticism triggers defensiveness… defensiveness fuels more criticism. It becomes a rally of resentment. 💥
But YOU can break it.

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❤️ Slide 7 – Want a better doubles partner & partner in life?
Use gentler language. Listen. Repair.
Follow for part 2: Contempt and Stonewalling — the real love killers. ☠️

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📌 Save this post. Tag your partner.
📲 Follow for more Gottman tools + pickleball psychology.

04/30/2025

Want to level up your pickleball game and boost your DUPR fast? Smash past plateaus with AI-powered training prompts designed to sharpen strategy, consistency, and court IQ. Whether you’re grinding 3.5 or chasing 5.0, it’s time to train smarter—not just harder.

Ready to dominate the kitchen and the leaderboard?

Drop a “PICKLE” below and I’ll DM you the AI prompts!

03/23/2025

👆Follow for more tips on mental toughness👆

The most successful people have developed mental toughness. They enjoy suffering and failure as opportunities for growth. They embrace the suck, the grind, and the discomfort because they know it leads to a better version of themselves.

When I think of mental toughness, comes to mind. When I read Can’t Hurt Me, I truly understood the concept of mental toughness. This guy puts himself through the greatest pain, highest discipline, and has found a tribe of people that embrace mental toughness.

I also think of .ferrone , who has done an ice bath every day for over a year. He inspired me to start taking cold showers every day. Forcing myself to breathe through the pain of cold had taught me so much about myself, my strength, what I’m capable of.

Negative narratives and self doubt develop with language around ages 2-3. Before that, we just survive through pain and keep trying. Once we develop words for doubt and frustration and discomfort, we believe our narratives and often don’t try things that cause pain or discomfort. This makes us weak… soft… comfortable.

But, too much comfort leads to anxiety and depression. 😳 We are wired for growth.

What stops you from the grind? What narratives hold you back?
How do you develop your mental toughness?

**kshrink

02/13/2025

😩Is it too much to ask for a never-ending play day??😩 FOMO is seriously real, especially in the pickleball world. Our minds are always up for a match, but our bodies need a rest. So, how do we deal with the fear of missing out when we're taking a break?

Gratitude and excitement are two key factors in getting out of FOMO.

How do you deal with it?

**kshrink **k

02/06/2025

😡People triggering you is more about you than them 🤯

Understanding your core emotional wounds can help you emotionally regulate and respond better.

Pickleball tends to have so many social micro moments that can increase or decrease your self esteem.

Using the Vertical Arrow Technique is a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy tool. It helps you get to the root of your core wounds.

Once you get to an irrational belief (one that seems so black or white or ludicrous), challenge it.

I like to ask myself “what would I say to a friend who said the same thing about themselves?” And then I practice saying that answer to myself.

Give it a whirl! I do a vertical arrow at least 3-4 times a day! So helpful!

**kshrink **k

01/27/2025

🧎‍♀️‍➡️🏃‍♀️‍➡️🚶‍♂️‍➡️Body language matters!🚶‍➡️🕺🏻🤦🏻‍♀️

Notice the body language queues you give off. Are you sending the message that you are a partner that’s safe or are you sending the message that you are dangerous?

Your small queues might be sending your partner into a fight, flight, freeze state. And in that state, they won’t play well. You might blame them, have even more poor body language. Sending them into a deeper dysregulated state.

You might be the problem.

Control your body language. Be a safe place for your partner to make mistakes and shake it off. Berating them or eye rolling doesn’t help.

**kshrink **k

01/21/2025

🤩Pickleball glimmers vs. triggers🤬

The best way to improve your mental game is to strengthen your glimmer finder. Glimmers are those positive micromoments you might overlook in favor of negative moments.

Staying in a trigger can cause you to be hypervigilant and overreactive. Not the best place to be in a fast paced sport.

Glimmer finding is a practice like gratitude. It’s a muscle and a skill you have to build. Our brains don’t like to practice it. It wants to find the triggers to anticipate future things that could happen to us negatively.

What are your glimmers?

**kshrink **k

12/31/2024

🤢Pickleball icks🤢

These are just a few, there are a lot more. Care to share yours?

**kshrink **k

12/21/2024

🥰Are you a trustworthy pickleball partner?🥰

Trust is the number one factor of successful relationships. But most people have no clue what trust is made of.

Thank goodness for and her work on the seven parts of trust: the acronym BRAVING.

When you memorize the seven parts of trust using BRAVING: boundaries, reliability, accountability, vault, integrity, non-judgment, and generosity… you can quickly identify what needs work in the relationship.

First, take an inventory for yourself. How are you in these areas with others? Are you trustworthy in all these areas?

Next, take an inventory of the pickleball partner in question. Do you get YES from these areas or NEEDS WORK? Then you can either know it or communicate it to your partners.

In my experience, the areas that need most work are non-judgement and generosity. Too many times have I seen and experienced partners who judge themselves and others and also assume the worst about each other. Build up, don’t tear down.

What are your experiences?

**kshrink **k

12/10/2024

Know your feelings! Many people don’t know what they’re feeling. We aren’t taught to pay attention to them or much less have the perfect vocabulary word to describe it. So we stick to the basics:

Mad
Glad
Sad
Fear

Using a feelings wheel (Google one) can help you find the perfect word for how you’re feeling. It’s an important practice! I love the free app: Wheel of Feels

You can log your feelings day to day and see patterns or anticipate triggers. It’s helpful in understanding yourself on the court, too. When you’re feeling scared, you’ll play scared. When you’re feeling angry, you’ll play angry. And so on…

How do you check your feelings?

**kshrink **k

12/05/2024

😩Don’t be a Negative Nancy!😩

Negative beliefs are the brains way of protecting us from disappointment. It anticipates negative things so we aren’t caught off guard.

But, left unchecked, these negative beliefs can actually do the reverse and sabotage our game and us being our best pickleball selves.

Anticipating negative parts of our game allows us to make excuses. “See? I told you I suck at ___”. Not only does that excuse the behavior, but it keeps you stuck in a narrative that doesn’t allow for growth or improvement.

What if you neutralized those thoughts? I’m not saying you should be a positive Patty and lie to yourself. But create a more neutral belief that doesn’t excuse the negative behaviors, and also allows you to believe in yourself to be better.

What are your negative beliefs that hold you back?

**kshrink **klady **k

11/25/2024

🙏 Pickleball quote of the day 🙏

**kshrink **k

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