I think what you're describing is the difference between "being aware" of something and actually "knowing" it.

Because of my extreme competiveness and wanting to win so badly, whatever I was doing, I used to go on tilt when something went bad. Missing an easy bank shot in snooker, chunking a chip from off the edge of the green - I'd explode. I always knew it happened to somebody else, just not me. I was "aware" these things happened.

One day, somehow, I began to realize I wasn't doing it as much. I was beginning to "accept" that even I was capable of screwing up. My head was starting to "know" it was possible. It was just the way things were/are.

When I was able to see how tilting was making things worse, I began not tilting. Things got better. Life was/is easier.

Today, the Chris Ferguson commercial about "thinking about the next hand" makes perfect sense to me. I get sucked out on; I miss a leaner; I have one curl out on me - I immediately go to the next thing. That's something I can do something about. The past is just exactly that.

Everyone knows Doyle Brunson won the '76 WSOP with the T2. Not many know Jesse Alto finished 2nd. When a SI reporter was leaving, he passed the card room and saw Jesse in a game. He walked over and asked him how he could be sitting there playing after he'd just lost a shot at 200k+. Jesse looked up at him and said, "That game's over." And turned back to the table. That's one helluva perspective.