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The former says, “I have been quite successful in achieving all the goals set for myself and I believe deep inside that it will solve all my issues, insecurities and feeling of nervousness and fear.” England Rugby player johnny wilkinsonJoe admits that he thought that once his ambitions were fulfilled all his worries would disappear.
“It’s quite harsh when you realize it doesn’t really touch that feeling,” the 46-year-old adds. “You think that creating an identity will accomplish it, but really you realize that you don’t want to live with the image of yourself that you’ve created.”
Reflecting on its relationship with its mental health and well-being, Wilkinson, who is also a Life The ambassador says that opening his mind is where he finds ‘true satisfaction’.
,Curiosity I feel fulfilled. It’s also important to be challenged or when I open my mind and really let go and come back to real openness, like walking in the woods – it really revolutionizes my day,” he says. “I think being present will be my best start to my satisfaction as everything else fades away.”
“When I was younger, I wouldn’t be talking like this. I wouldn’t be entertaining conversations like this and that was OK,” Wilkinson admits. “It was right for me then,” he says, adding that his mental health is now “deepening and revealing itself” as he moves forward on life’s journey.
Reflecting on his upbringing, Wilkinson says that there were times in his youth when he would experience ‘flare-ups every five or six years’ due to fear and insecurity. “There was a real sense of doom and anxiety that I experienced growing up and probably put away,” he says.
“However, now I am having these moments almost every day where things in my well-being are changing and changing rapidly. For example, starting a family is a big change. Finishing a career is another big change. But of course getting a little older in this world is another point that brings interesting challenges,” he adds.
New research from Vitality shows that almost half of men surveyed (46%) feel the pressure today is greater than ever, and more than a quarter (28%) are feeling more overwhelmed than ever. Wilkinson says that although he finds it difficult to speak on behalf of others, he grew up ‘in a particularly fearful and vulnerable situation’.
“During this time, I looked for answers in role models,” he says. “In my world, there were people who were there to save, to fight, to die. These were the people who took that role and made things right.”
He says that it influenced the kind of person he became and helped him become stronger in certain areas. “But it also overshadowed another important side of me, which was the side of me that is about creating, connecting, nurturing, experiencing deeply, opening up, exploring, wandering and just being,” he says.
“I think the absence of that side of me and the imbalance of going out there to fight and save became overwhelming. It felt like to me, it was too much.”
When giving advice to others feeling intense pressure, Wilkinson says it depends on ‘three things’.
,One There’s awareness,” he explains. “Before you can do anything with anything, you first need to be aware of it. This is quite a challenge and this awareness is often driven by a desire to truly change or to discover what you are truly capable of and who you truly are.
“The third is courage. The thing you always need and for me it’s always in that place where I won’t go and I refuse to look and I know it’s there. Sometimes I don’t know it’s there, but once I know it’s there, it becomes a big courageous thing to step into. Nothing changes in my life, at least, until I face that opportunity.”
Looking toward the future of how mental health and wellness is understood, Wilkinson says he doesn’t have any definitive answers. “However, I think it’s about people who own their inner world,” he explains.
“It’s about knowing that anything can happen to us and around us and heaven knows what challenges some people are facing, I can only imagine, but what happens within us, that has to be ours,” he says.
Wilkinson says his time in professional sports taught him a lot about the power of inner resilience.
“When I was in the sports world, the people I played against always inspired me and were always so tough as opponents that they were masters of their own tension. That meant when you tried to take them off their game by stressing them out, you couldn’t do that. That inner world was theirs,” he says.
“You can try and hit on them. You can try and deal with them more harshly. You can try and say anything to them. You can try and do anything, but it doesn’t matter, because they decided who and how they wanted to be and so they created the world around them that they wanted.”
Asked what he would tell his younger self, Wilkinson says he wouldn’t give any advice.
“My younger self was my younger self,” he says. “I think that’s who I was and that’s who I was meant to be. I’m enjoying the open journey of becoming who I am by following that inner guidance and following my passion and trying to meet my challenge. When I look back, all the dots line up and I don’t want to move any of those dots.”