Watching Ted Lasso makes me wish I had better resilience.
I'm a few episodes into Ted Lasso, and I'm enjoying it. I heard about this series by word-of-mouth, and the constant yammerings of "you should watch this show" were not lost on me. Having only scratched the surface of what's there, I'm already predicting that this is a story of how one swell guy just kinda wins over all of the nasty people who eventually begin to stop being so nasty. I suppose then that it's a testament to the power of being kind and respectful to those who have trauma (or complex PTSD from trauma) and a bit about the road to healing from all of that. All in all, I'd boil it down to this: Ted Lasso appears to be a show about people learning to be better people. I think that's a strong premise for a story too. My friend Meg put it best when she stated that "emotional growth in people is an incredibly compelling thing to watch."
In some ways, it feels like a situational comedy. Maybe this is because the episodes are short. Even though it's scripted, there are things that I wish I could take from Ted Lasso (the title character). I've had the fortune to know people like him, and I've always thought the same thing of them as well. And this is simply that I wish I could react better to real-time social situations (that turn threatening). In other words, I need more resilience. Let me take a moment to define that term for you as it pertains to mental health.
Resilience is the ability to adapt to difficult situations. When stress, adversity, or trauma strikes, you still experience anger, grief and pain. However, you're able to keep functioning both physically and psychologically. Examples of resilience might be viewing a setback as impermanent. Another example is the ability to reframe setbacks as opportunities for growth and to manage strong emotions and impulses. This (unfortunately) is not me, but it is Ted Lasso.
I tend to always look at the negative aspects of something I'm experiencing (due to a lifetime of microaggressions and trauma), and I can react with a nastiness that doesn't help any situation but actually seems to make it worse. I wish that I wasn't this way, and that I could look at someone the same way Ted does when I feel I've been slighted or insulted, and then just turn it into a joke.
When I'm under attack, I can actually feel my blood pressure rising, and then I attack back. Ted doesn't do this in his situations. When he's under attack (has had a boundary exploded in his face), Ted is calm, cool, and collected and then he (for the most part) responds with something that just makes you want to like him. It's a credit to Sudeikis (the actor), because he lends a kind of charisma to Ted that almost seems supernatural. He's a person that could look at something that could seem "high stakes" to me, and then show me why "this is just life" and "don't let it bother you." In other words, this character has remarkably good mental health. Maybe I should be asking why this is so, when it's clear that he gets abused and underappreciated by so many people. That's probably where the fiction of the show lies, right? Mental abuse leaves a mark on a person's mind, and it's unrealistic to think that someone could have as much resilience as Ted Lasso does. But it's not impossible at the same time. If there's anything I've learned it is this: everyone's resilience is different, and I don't think that there are definitive reasons as to why this is so.
Anyway, that's all I have to share about this show as of right now. I think I'm on episode 3. I'll try to add more insights as I progress through the series and point out things that I like. But even three episodes in, it has already taught me one thing about myself that I hadn't consciously recognized and put into words. That right there makes it a little remarkable.
