Helping sportspeople retire and build a thriving, life-after-sports career, through mind coaching and skills transfer | Sport psychology | Performance coach | 1:1 |
This just breaks my heart! (TRIGGER WARNING) Having read about Rachel Furness and also hearing about the incredibly sad news of Grayson Murray’s death, it just highlights again the fact that athletes & players are human beings and are as susceptible to mental health challenges as anyone else. We sometimes view elite sportspeople as superhuman. They train their bodies & minds to the ‘nth’ degree, often taking them to highly pressurised levels for long periods of time. We watch in awe as they achieve world records, win tournaments, travel the world competing at the highest level. But underneath all of the skill and competitiveness is a human being who needs to be nurtured & listened to. I’m so glad that Rachel was able to tune in to herself and choose to change her situation to take away some of the pressure. She decided to step away from international football & to change clubs. This gave her the space to be able to focus on her, to work through some of the challenges she was going through at the time. I’m devastated for Grayson and his family and friends as they go through this heartbreaking time, I want to pass on my condolences to them. We never know why someone decides to die by suicide, but the majority of people who feel suicidal just want the situation they’re in to stop, or the way they’re feeling to go away. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, it helps us raise the issues around mental health & I’ve read many amazing posts from people sharing their stories. But this is an ongoing challenge. There are more & more great initiatives in sport and sports clubs that are creating opportunities for athletes to share how they’re feeling, learn more about mental health & develop tools & strategies that help them look after their own mental health. There are also fantastic organisations and charities aimed at helping sportspeople with their mental health once they retire. Plus, we have charities such as the Samaritans and Mind who focus on this too. Seeing sportspeople struggle after retiring was one of the main reasons I’ve chosen to focus on helping athletes learn & develop mental and practical strategies to help them move on after retiring and thrive in their life after sport. But we can all help. We can all keep an eye out for that friend who is just ‘not themselves’. Or pick up the phone if we’ve not heard from someone for a while. Or speak out if we’re feeling a bit ‘off’ ourselves. The more we can normalise the idea that seeking help for our mental health is just the same as going to get help with a sprain or an illness, the better things will hopefully get. And the more that we can put in daily practices to build up our resilience & look after our mental health, as we do for our physical health, then we start to feel stronger & more able to handle situations that may crop up. Please reach out if you feel you are needing to speak with someone, and I’m here to talk too. https://lnkd.in/eQxfVaYX
Helping You and Your Teams Become Unstoppable. Rapid Results, Real Change. MSc Clinical Psych. Published Researcher. Creator of The Executive Code™
5moWe so need to normalise the conversation around mental health so those who are suffering feel they can reach out and share how they are feeling rather than suffering in silence until they can see no other way out.