Life in Lockdown - hope + wellbeing [2:0]
Wellbeing - [noun] is the experience of health, happiness, and prosperity. It includes having good mental health, high life satisfaction, a sense of meaning or purpose, and ability to manage stress.
The differing ways in which people have spent their time during the lockdown are all different ways of coping with the current situation and also protecting your wellbeing. The Head to Health website offers four tasks that we can do to remain mentally healthy;
1 - Maintain s healthy lifestyle
2 - Stay informed
3 - Stay positive
4 - Access support
As I spoke with more people for the Football IS: Isolation project, it was apparent that there was an awareness to keep check on our mental health and well being.
A-League and NPL Referee Adam Bavcar was in Wellington, New Zealand on A-League duties when the lockdown came into play in Australia. He found out twenty minutes prior to the Wellington Phoenix v Melbourne Victory match that upon arrival back home to Melbourne that he would need to isolate for 14 days. During his time in quarantine and as the lockdown lengthened he focused on his training schedule so he is fit for the return to sport and also his duties as a teacher at Lalor Secondary College. Adam has used this time to play to his creative side and took up some hobbies such as painting, cooking and playing some basketball. He never imagined that he would turn to something creative and credits his brother Nick (who also paints) with influencing him to take up painting. As he say’s ‘it’s all about making your own fun.’
Work/Life balance is especially hard under any circumstances let alone in the middle of a pandemic. Adam teaches full-time at Lalor SC where he runs a pastoral care program focused on wellbeing.
‘I take a year eight pastoral class which is all about wellbeing and to promote social interaction with others. For e.g. this week was about gratitude and showing gratitude to their teachers whether it was a primary teacher or a secondary school teacher at Lalor that they’ve really resonated with or that looked after them. For them to send a letter, thank them for what they have done. I suppose it gives them another outlook on life. So last week we had Hope. Looking at this (the lockdown) as not a permanent situation. That it is fluid and will go back to normality soon. It’s about getting them to think about their wellbeing as well - keeping active, not spending hours on the computer. Just about having a life balance.’
Adam has observed that over time the interest and attitudes of the students to the program he teaches. While the students were initially receptive to online learning as the assessments increased Adam found a drop off in attendances to online meetings and submitted work. Tackling wellbeing is one of the things he believes needs to be addressed especially at this moment in time.
Prior to the current situation he felt that the students didn’t necessarily take his wellbeing program too seriously. ‘As they started needing and looking for help and they started needing interaction. I think the program really took off. And they were looking for new activities to do around their wellbeing. So, I think they’ve really taken it onboard. In terms of their mental wellbeing being important. You can speak about mental health and because most of them at their age have never had anything to do with mental health or heard of it. I think that especially now they have really resonated with he program in terms of what they need to do to keep their physical wellbeing up as well as their mental health.’
As well as focusing on metal health with his students Adam feels this awareness has allowed him to keep a check on his own wellbeing and
‘to basically keep sane. To be fair I’ve enjoyed the break. Going from the winter season last year and then going into the summer season and into winter. There is not much time to have a break and not think football. As much as refereeing is physically demanding it is mentally demanding. You have to be constantly switched on. It’s important to get a balance.’
Balance and an awareness of the things that are important to you can very much determine the way a person responds to any given situation. When it comes to health and wellbeing keeping check on where you are at is imperative to successfully combat any situation whether it be mental or physical.
Josh Wilkins (Heidelberg United) was one of the first people I contacted for this story. He was smashing out a fitness program from the earliest days of lockdown. I noticed he was either doing a lot of sprints/running in a challenge with team mate Reuben Way on Strava or training one on one at the gym with Matthew Ferguson. I couldn’t help but admire his dedication. Josh is driven by a desire to stay on top of his mental health. ‘Sport and keeping fit has always kept me mentally sane. I’m trying to get my outlet by working out here at the gym and then doing running and stuff like that by myself. But staying busy has always been my thing.’
‘I think it’s hard not to feel a little down about what’s going on. Mental health is pretty important as well. There are times when I felt a little bit like, I don’t know what’s going on and that’s where exercise has helped me out. There are a lot of people out there who are worse off than me and I think that’s important to realise when you’re looking at it from an outside perspective and to be happy with what you already have.’
His team mates at Heidelberg have been using a group chat to challenge each other and stay connected with the staff and people who work behind the scenes. This has helped to keep a connection not only to the club but also to preserve some form of normal.
Originally from Western Australia Josh is accustomed to being away from his family for an extended period of time. However, as restrictions tightened and we moved towards a second lockdown the pressures started to mount. As Josh retells ‘I'm very accustomed to living away from family and friends. This has been particularly hard, even for myself, who's someone who's pretty secure in themselves, and I'm quite comfortable being an individual. I'm usually a very positive person who looks at things from a glass half full sort of outlook. I had a moment a few weeks back where I was really depressed and I felt like I had no structure in my life. Without being able to see my family it was a very difficult time for me personally. You forget, how important it can be having the people you love and care for in your vicinity to talk about your issues. As time progressed I found I was getting more and more anxious because I always see my family once or twice a year and this has been the longest time I've gone without seeing them now. Mentally it's draining and pretty difficult. It was just a day where I felt like nothing was enjoyable for me. I just found I struggled to find happiness in a lot of things.’
Josh will generally try to find the positive in most situations but he found that the thing he needed most was to speak to family. Josh explained that he would normally speak to his mother but ‘mum has her own issues so I didn't want to speak to her and I felt that mine isn't significant. I reached out to my grandma who's always been there to support me. I told her I was struggling at the moment and that I needed to speak to you about a few things. And luckily, she had a lot of time for me and just pretty much spoke about the issues I'm having with not having structure and everything's a bit unstable financially, it's difficult and a lot of other things and she basically reassured me that, you know, I've got the support network and all those things and everything will eventually get better and if I need help, it's going to be there. So I think it's just really important to obviously be able to speak to people. Whether or not you think they care about you, there are people out there who obviously, you know, have your best interests in heart and it's important to reach out sometimes.’
The importance of being connected to friends and family, at least emotionally, is vital when considering wellbeing and mental health during this pandemic. What are some of the tools people are using to stay on top of this crazy world we find ourselves in? For Josh, it was to reach out to family and friends at a time when he needed support.
I don’t think anyone chooses to enter a period of crisis somehow you just find yourself there. The skills used to cope with a crisis are many and varied.
Moreland Zebras, Nicolas Niangoran spoke eloquently about his own lockdown experience. He soon realised that he could only play so much X-box!. Over a number of years he has put time and effort into meditation and visualisation. Nicolas has found that ‘you can do as much physical training as you want but when you’re talking about the final ten percent of elevating your game. That the mental stuff is really beneficial. We had that one game in the FFA Cup and I was implementing new strategies to how I could alter my game. Adjusting those little mental cues. I find with visualisation just getting myself onto the park and imagining what scenarios could play out and how I can play the game has kept me in touch with the game if I was off. ’
His use of visualisation has happened over time through exposure to it from other players, reading and watching documentaries.
Though he does admit that ‘at times he has been awful at it,’ he has learnt to not let things that he can’t control bother him. ‘You can’t get upset by things you can’t control. So, I do everything that is in my control. So that when you get out of bad situation you know that you’ve done all the things that you can possibly do to help you further yourself. As for the things you can’t control. Well, you have to assess that when you get there. You can’t feel hard on yourself or down on your self when you know you have done everything you can and I guess thats a thing I keep in the back of my mind whenever I do something. Because it’s easy to beat yourself up but when you know you have done everything you can then you can’t really be upset with yourself.’ Nicolas continues
‘That’s the thing about meditation. You can learn to slow everything down so that when you get in a high pressure situation you are able to calm your mind so that you take everything slowly. Just having that calmness makes everything seem a lot more easier. I guess that’s the same with football. I think that’s the biggest thing I’ve learnt with this whole shutdown. I’ve been able to work on myself a lot more. And I feel that once I’ve come out of it I’ve actually gained something rather than lose something. That’s the positive out of this situation.’
Visualisation and having a clear awareness of what you need to ride through in order to achieve your ensure you are on track mentally and in this case physically is achieved in different ways. Taking a negative and turning it into a positive.
‘Absolutely Shattered’ was how Calder United’s Emma Robers felt when the lockdown was announced.
It was the end of her maiden W-League season playing for Melbourne Victory and she was due to return to Calder United to hopefully challenge for another title in the NPLW. Emma recalls the up’s and downs of this period ‘It was really challenging not only in a sports perspective, I lost my job. I had to move back home, because my lease ended in Brunswick and we just thought there's no way we're going to renew that lease. So I moved back in with my parents. I love them dearly they are my family and everything, but it's obviously different. And you've got to adjust. And sports wise it was really hard. I've never felt so fit as I had been coming out of the W-League season. So for the NPL to be pushed back.Training was solely your own responsibility and you have to drive yourself, motivate yourself. It became challenging.
‘All I want to do is play. It's a massive part of who I am. Once I got over that and started thinking about it more, I just thought I'm blessed I have more time to fix my game and work even harder to make this season even better than perhaps what it was going to be. I've come from W-League season to go straight into an NPL season you usually don't get that break. So, I've gotten a little break to refresh, restart, re-kick. And I needed to flip everything to see it as a blessing rather than a curse.’
In their own way everyone has tapped into some of the mentally healthy four pillars. Emma Robers describes herself as a social person and extrovert who feeds off the people around her. ‘So finding self motivation and reflecting on how I can motivate myself and get myself to just keep pushing every day was, was new, but I did find it at the same time. It may have taken a couple weeks, but I'm a really driven person, and I knew what I want to achieve, it was about sitting down writing down goals and really reflecting on what I want to achieve and how I'm going to do that in this new environment.’
Setting goals became an important way for Emma to adjust to the changing environment she found herself in. ‘First of all I wrote down what it was I wanted to achieve and then came up with really simple steps on how to get there. So, for example, I want to maintain my fitness and this meant going for runs doing workouts but at the same time, getting skill sessions in and not losing my football, technicality and all that type of stuff as well. So it was just implementing strategies that got me step by step to where I wanted to be.’ Emma found herself applying these techniques to her study at University. Emma reflects that ‘at the same time I think having those mental breaks, catching up with a friend, family, going for long walks along the beach, which I do almost every day. Those are equally as important to having that planned out strategy.’
I asked Emma what she felt she has learned about herself during this time. She said that;
‘this period of time where we were able to actually slow down a little bit and reflect. And that showed me not only how much I love the sport, but how much my family my friends and just having this community around me means to me, but also it showed me how driven I am and how ambitious I am to keep going and keep pushing for my dreams.’
Finding support and learning how to adapt to all this uncertainty has perhaps been one of the greatest learnings and challenges for most people. I once worked at an advertising agency and one of our core values was ‘learn to be comfortable with the uncomfortable.’ I often think about this when things get a little unpredictable. What does it tell you? Well for starters sometimes you need to go with the flow.
The search for wellness and wellbeing is different for everyone and there is no hard and fast rule as to how you manage it.
Darby Dexter’s (Brunswick City) return to Melbourne after spending time in Argentina, and has seen his lifestyle change from that of a carefree traveller to the more familiar comforts of the family home sitting out the continued impact of COVID-19 shutdowns. Forever an optimist Darby has used this as an opportunity for recalibration, a chance to spend time with the family and reassess where things are at.
I asked Darby to talk about how the two worlds contrasted to which he replied that coming home was a strange experience. ‘In the first few days it was just exciting to see my family again. It had been five months and the longest time I've been away from them in my life. But once the dust settled, I was just sitting upstairs in my room. I was thinking this is all happened pretty quick. But it was pretty hard. I had a long flight to reflect on the experience and what was happening. I normally take a little bit of time to process things. But in this case, time was probably the thing that I had in the most abundance. It’s a really different place.
The culture in Argentina is warm and intense and affectionate. It was everything I was looking for from a big life experience because it's just out of my comfort zone and challenging. And then I still had the familiarity of a family at my side and my grandpa and grand ma came over and spent a month with me. My brother came over and travelled so I had a couple of mates come over. So it was pretty much the best of both worlds. But it was is certainly different, that's for sure.’
For Darby, Life in lockdown has been spent reading, learning Spanish, exercising and belting out tunes on the new karaoke machine with the family. For Darby travelling has taught him the value of being flexible in his decision making. As he explains in this video travelling solo was a good preparation for life in lockdown.
Darby Dexter | Brunswick City talks about solo travel solo and how he is spending life in lockdown
The support from his family has been a key factor in making this time in lockdown so positive. ‘My mum's buzzing, we have dinner together every night. That's pretty special. And it just depends on what you want to make of it. I've tried to remain really positive and see it as a special experience, which it has been. Not everyone has been able to do that. I guess, it's just slower and it can be more meaningful if you choose to make it that way.
Darby Dexter mentioned to me that he felt clarity ‘is about really understanding myself and being comfortable by myself.’ Understanding more about who you are as a person is a vital part of coping with the mixed emotions of this current period we are living through.
‘I have challenging days as well. So sometimes I might wake up and just feel a bit low and being honest enough with yourself to say that's okay. And, you know, having people in your corner that you can speak to about it, and help pick you up off the canvas is really important. I guess my answer is that it is very important but everyone's on the spectrum of mental health, whether you're happy 99% of the time, or 1% of the time, everyone has their challenges with how they're feeling. And sometimes it's hard to explain and you don't even know why you're feeling down. But that's just that's just a part of a part of life. But the more you can really be open about it. And trust that you're going to be okay but you have to just admit to yourself that you're just not feeling great today.
That's really helped me be able to have far more positive days than negative ones. And then in turn to have that clarity about who I am, what I want to do with my life. But it's hard these things are really challenging to play now. A lot of people in lockdown but more importantly feel really isolated.’
Combatting isolation has been different things to different people. Upon meeting up with South Melbourne’s Brad Norton I was immediately struck by his sense of humour and his ability to dissect the current situation in an analytical but human way. As discussed in Impact [2:0] Brad spent the initial period of isolation sorting through personal issues at work. Away from work and football other things were occupying his time.
The lockdown would be further complicated by his upcoming wedding. Organising a wedding is hard enough without needing to make last minute changes, Brad recalls, ‘it was a tough time. To watch weddings go from 200 down to 100, to 50 and then your weddings are capped to five people was difficult. My partner's Italian. We've got a few people coming to our wedding. That was probably the hardest point. knowing that for her that was happening. She's not the type of person who needed the big wedding but at the same time, we've just planned all this and now we can't do it as planned. So that was hard.
And that was probably the only time where I was thinking what do we do from here. I have no answers to that. Our wedding was six weeks into the lockdown period. So it wasn't as bad. I felt really sorry for the people that were told on the Wednesday, you cant have your wedding. I feel really sorry for them. You think about your own situation, then you think there's people worse off so you can't complain too much.’
As life settled into a routine, ‘myself and my partner started going for long walks, very long walks…So you know, not having soccer there, I just turned to other things. So spending a lot more time with my partner. For us, it was about getting out of the house. Starting to walk was a big thing for us. We set up a small Gym in our garage, which was quite cool. So, I started going from that scrawny soccer player to try to get a little bit bigger. Just because exercise is really one of the main things you could do and going to see my parents or seeing someone else was still a risk, and I didn't want to put anyone at risk. So we really isolated ourselves to to be away from all that but exercise.’
The way people have coped during this period has meant that people have learned something about themselves. I asked Brad about this; ‘I’m not the greatest at dealing with just sitting at home all day every day. That's probably one thing I’ve realised. For me it was just trying to deal with the best way I could, be there for the people around me that may need support. I was happy to have a drink with anyone, through zoom and just really open up and have that honest conversation and just be easy about everything that's going on. There is so much serious stuff going on in this world at the moment. You know, sometimes you just need to sit back relax, have a scotch and just just chill. So yeah, I think from my point of view, that care factor and that sort of calmness. I think I realised that about myself, which was good to see.
Brad reflects on what the new ‘normal’ may look like.
‘I think it's just taking life as it comes, whatever is gonna come your way. I think if we get through this you can get through anything. I'm looking forward to just sitting down with people that are closest to you, in big groups and just having a drink and laughing about all this sort of stuff. I guess it's probably the one thing I'm looking forward to as well as soccer.’
So, here’s the thing. When I embarked on producing this series in May 2020 I had a vague idea that it would be great to capture this unique moment in time through taking some photographs and telling the stories of people involved in the football community. I never imagined that by August I would complete nearly 30 interviews. The generosity of those involved not only with their time but also with the candour of their opinion and thoughts has been incredible. Thank you!
On a personal level it’s been a huge project and one I am proud of. It’s helped me to focus myself on something positive at a time when we still have no idea what the remainder of 2020 will hold. I have worked very little since March and this has in a way become my job. It has helped to focus my attention towards something positive.
As we near the end of our first week of stage four restrictions (in Melbourne), I encourage everyone to step back, take a breath and try to be kind to each other. Please take a little more care with what you post on social media. You will never know how it can affect peoples wellbeing. Try to be kind and plan for the future. You’ll achieve nothing by focusing on the negative.
‘Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all.’ ~ Emily Dickinson
This chapter was originally planned as the final part of the series. With the cancellation of the football season and the imposition of stage four restrictions I have taken the opportunity to reconnect with some of my interviewees as well as some new voices to take the story full circle. These should appear soon. In the meantime stay safe, stay kind and reach out for help if you need it. There is no more important time to stay connected.
Mental Health resources specific to COVID-19:-