Ted Lasso Might Have Saved My Life
My recent life-threatening illness took me to some dark places. For days leading up to my hospitalization, I walked between dream and reality, between death and life, like rooms in a house. I felt myself walking through them, fascinated.
I was weak by the time I was admitted to the hospital. Apparently weaker than I even knew, according to the doctor who luckily caught my appendicitis, on a hunch he had to run a CT scan.
So, there I was, in a hospital room, with nothing to do but wait for my body to overcome the severe infection within me. I still didn’t know if it was my time or not to leave the planet, and although I didn’t feel sorry for myself, I felt tentative. Tentative about whether or not I still belonged here.
I wasn’t really interested in Ted Lasso because it is a sports show. But with not much else to do and a limited capacity to do anything but watch shows, I watched the first episode.
That is all it took.
I ended up watching the entire 3-season series during my stay, and I am pretty sure the heart within this show brought my own back to life. Like a defibrillator of openness, each episode reminded me of the beauty and power that one person can have to inspire others. When the nurses would enter my room and find me crying, they inevitably asked me what I was watching.
“Ted Lasso,” I sniffled.
“OH!” one nurse replied. “I can’t even begin season 3 because I can’t admit that it’s over!”
I understood her wanting to save it, like a great book that you read more slowly the closer you get to the end.
How is this show having this effect on SO many people? I wondered. It has won Emmy’s and Golden Globes and has now become a cultural phenomenon.
I think it’s because we are weary. Weary of the divisiveness, the meanness, the corruption we are regularly bombarded with. We need something good to believe in, to remind us that kindness IS possible. That courage IS rewarded. And based on the show’s resounding success, we are ready for something different.
But that different isn’t sappy or simple. It’s profoundly real.
Ted Lasso is a stone that ripples out into the lives of everyone he touches. What he stands for — integrity, forgiveness, kindness — are not values typically associated with men’s sports — especially premier English football. He is undermined, ridiculed, and bullied for bringing these values to the club he is hired to coach, until they finally begin to pay off. He is accused of being naive, until his utter earnestness wins everyone over, including the audience.
In a world that feels broken, Ted Lasso feels like a hero.
The best part is that he is not perfect. He struggles with his own demons, which he learns how to heal over the arc of the series. The series is not in a hurry and nothing feels rushed. It feels like what healing actually feels like — something that unfolds in its own time, with love and support from others.
And every character is allowed that time. And it was SO gratifying and comforting to be able to watch each character heal wounds of the past in such tender and respectful ways. And to watch them step into more of their unique potential as a result.
My need for comfort during my 8 days in the hospital was deep. But some of that need began way before my appendicitis — in my experience of the past 7 years of the growing divisiveness, fearmongering, and mean-spiritedness I’ve experienced in our society and even in some of my personal relationships. I’ve struggled with anxiety about where the world is headed, like many others.
It wasn’t until Ted Lasso that I realized that I have been protecting my heart, for many valid reasons, but which had also become a habit. And it wasn’t until Ted Lasso that I felt safe enough to grieve that realization, and to safely explore opening my heart again.
How about you? How is your heart today?
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