I recently spent some time watching my 18 year old son compete in a football tournament and have since been reflecting on, and appreciating, the changes in my attachment to sport, and to competition in general.
I grew up in a family in which most of my siblings were involved in sport in some way and the competitive nature of the games that we had between ourselves was considered quite normal and healthy. We were all very passionate about sport, and in particular the national rugby team, which was often the source of intense debate / arguments about team selections or the result of a recent game.
I had grown up with this attitude to sport and competition and I carried it on with my own children. I can remember encouraging many playful, fun times together with my sons to turn into competitive battles. Kicking a ball in the back yard, shooting some baskets with the basketball, playing handball and even going for a walk together and finding a stone to kick along the path would all inevitably end up becoming competitive.
As I have said, this behaviour felt ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’ and was seen by those around me, and society in general, as a healthy, fun way to connect and build relationships with others. I was strongly influenced by the images I saw in the media and the way sports stars were held up as role models.
I was introduced to Universal Medicine and the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom, as presented by Serge Benhayon, about 9 years ago. Since then I have learnt to reconnect to the tender loving man that I naturally am and feel more able to claim these qualities in my everyday livingness, and by doing so reflect something different to those around me.
These changes have been gradual and are ongoing, but the increased awareness has allowed me to feel the enormous impact sport has on me and on those playing it.
I have become more deeply aware of:
- Being pulled into the emotion of the game and the increased anxiety I feel in my body as a result.
- The energy of the supporters when attending games and how this often changes during the course of the game depending on how their team is performing.
- How physical sport can be (even ‘non-contact’ sport), and just how abusive players are being to their bodies and to each other.
- The emptiness I can feel in many of the players and how sport is used to fill this void. Even after winning a big game players can still feel empty and lonely with no sense of joy to be felt.
- How beneath the tough persona created by many of the men who play contact sports just how gentle they truly are, and how this persona is created in order to fit the image of how a ‘real’ sportsman should be.
- The extent to which I allowed discussing sport to become a means of connecting to other men. I settled for the safe, superficial conversations about sport and work as a way of ‘fitting in’ and as a way of avoiding expressing to others how I was truly feeling.
I found that how I expressed with other men influenced how I expressed with family and friends. I realise now that expressing in this way prevented me from experiencing the joy that can come from allowing others to feel the tender loving man I am in my expression and feeling the connection with them evolve as a result.
There were over 300 gorgeous young men attending this football tournament with a huge amount of time and effort involved in organising and running it, and while it may have been seen by some as successful, the failure in my opinion was the lost opportunity for these young men to truly connect to one another. I felt this connection was distorted or destroyed by competition.
By Peter Campbell (55), Support Worker, Tauranga, New Zealand
Further Reading:
Sports Competition – the Pursuit of (Feelings of) Emptiness
My Turnaround from Competitive Running to Connection with Me
Competitive sports: the pursuit of emptiness
Beautiful to read a man claiming his tender loving way of being.
Thank you Peter, reflecting on what you have shared about sport there is an underlying tone that has always existed in my life around sport with an understanding that I would retire to golf and when walking became a problem lawn bowls would be next, and it hits me that it was all about the competition and the ill energy that abounds when we play sports, and when we introduce purpose playing and competition stops in it’s tracks and life become a Joy to be with children and the play-full-ness that can be shared by kicking a ball around.
When we endeavour to do well in our living ways it feels completely different to the competitive-ness that sets us apart from our equal brothers.
Absolutely Peter sports, competition, religious organisations, clubs, politics, being better than and the ubiquitous way we align to these and other contrived emotional ceremonies all have a disconnecting feel to them. Returning to our essences bring such a warming glow that will naturally connect with everyone no need to be a part of any group, club, ideology or organisation that has no consideration for the simple decency and respect we can live and share together as a foundation for being Truly Loving in all we do.
I have recently been reflecting on my school sport days and have realised that the pressure to be competitive was a real strain on me and a constant tension because it went against my natural ways which was to be gentle and collaborative with others.
I agree with you connection is almost impossible to build and maintain in the presence of competition, ‘I felt this connection was distorted or destroyed by competition.’
The revealing part about any sport is that it is focused on the win or on the getting better and better, so the focus is always on the future, which creates a restlessness, incompleteness and a feeling of never being enough and thus there is in truth no and cannot be real connection with another lest with oneself because life becomes about the moment to moment recognition and leaves us empty already the next moment if the recognition is not to be had.
As I have become more aware of myself and my body, I can feel more and more the hideous effects competition has on me and in turn those around me. It does not truly achieve anything and certainly does not feel very nice in the body when we express from it.
For me when I get competitive I become someone I don’t like to be, I stop caring about others and how they feel and it all becomes about a self individuated desire – so I prefer to leave competitiveness out of my life and enjoy life to the max without needing to be the best or better than anyone else.
The more I see and sense the impact sport has on myself in terms of watching it today, the more I see and sense its impact on humanity. Saying yes to opportunities that place me in sporting situations no matter how uncomfortable they are is actually supporting me no end to heal my attachment and what is going on within me in my relationship with sport which I have held since I was very young. This is something I am only now beginning to welcome and appreciate as every step I make towards letting this unhealthy attachment go counts towards loving myself and others more deeply.
Having a shared topic to talk about can make us feel connected but it always leaves an emptiness behind when the person has no interest in you anymore when the topic changes or we are not interested in the topic anymore. Connection on the ‘being’ level is therefor so much more sustaining and everlasting as when we connect at the being level with each other we will be able to talk about anything or nothing and still feel the connection we so love in life with other people.
I can relate to going to a sporting event for a sense of connection and belonging from what you describe and what I’ve observed on tubes when games are on. But this sense of belonging because you are against another is empty and fickle. It seems to me that we are having lost our innate connection to who we are within which we miss because through it we also know we are all inextricably connected to each other. But we’re disconnected and also insecure because we can’t feel and appreciate our innate qualities just for being in a room.
If we’re not appreciating our beingness then we usually feel we have to earn our worthiness by something we do; so to belong for just saying you support a team more than others is an attractive option. The trouble is this contract, if you like, – I can belong if I put others at odds with me – keeps us disconnected from the truth that we are all connected and are all equal so belonging then becomes a mute point. If I look at my life (I’m not into sports) aren’t there areas where I have similar contracts that keep me away from the inner connection that I truly desire? Any form of competition does this.
Competition breeds a culture of constant judgement and measuring to see if we ‘stack up’ and are good enough. Not only does it make us harsh on ourselves but also on other people too who we devalue. All this only occurs when we don’t love ourselves first.
Competition has a hard edge and doesn’t sit well with tenderness at all.
This world is entirely based on individuality and bettering oneself whilst you seek in some way to define yourself and who you are. Competition comes as a result of this. Whilst we are only geared towards making life about self then you will not care the state another lives or is and this alone is the root of competition.
Competitive sport is deemed to be ‘good’ and healthy, Yet, when we break it down perhaps it’s not what we have all believed it to be. I used to champion that a bit of competition was good for you until I realised I was holding onto that fact that I didn’t want to be at the bottom of the pile, that to win you had to fight (which causes a lot of tension in the body), that competition made me anxious and that it separated me from my opponents. It would even separate me from my team mates if mistakes were made and then blame would ensue all round. I’m all for exercise and enjoying being with my friends when I do, but competition I can definitely do without.
Competition pits one against another, man against man, woman against woman and destroys societal life. It engenders a ‘dog eat dog’ way of life that is sold as ‘normal’ and even ‘character-building’ – but what kind of character are we here building? The bully? I wonder what would happen if we started supporting and encouraging each other and what feats we might achieve as a one humanity. It will come to pass but until then, many a futile skirmish will still be fought and many an elbow be bruised.
A long time ago I got involved in competitive Bridge, a card game where you have a partner and compete against another pair. I then described it as metaphorically “a knife fight at the table” as the level of tension and bitterness was very high.
I always remember the morning of tournament days – that feeling of the energy entering and taking over like a form of very gripping excitement. In the evening I was either disappointed if I didn’t win or more relieved than anything when I did. One of the main attractions was that it was a break from the tedium.
Cutting and other forms of self harm seem so harsh and crazy. But seeing ourselves as seperate islands is a super poisonous lie that leads us harm others, and in essence the harm we cause is exactly the same.
Competition sets one against another, or one side against another, which leads to separation and divisiveness rather than connection and brotherhood.
Recently it was the world cup and I could tell when it was on because the neighbourhood when quiet when England were playing- except for loud roars and shouts when they scored, no-one was out. It felt weird, I didn’t know there was a match on prior to feeling something was out of sorts in the neighbourhood – it felt like a collective vacuum where everyone was drawn in.
I have no interest in sport but I did ask when they played to go into the semi-finals and find myself at the time they were playing hoping they’d win and feeling a tension, hope and anxiety of hoping they’d win but maybe they wouldn’t…! I paused and could feel my wanting to belong and not be left out was where I let myself be drawn in.
I agree Peter, competition certainly destroys any opportunity for connection. It keeps us separate and in tension with each other. I am sure we can feel how awful competitiveness feels when we stop and check in with our body, because any form of competitiveness is not natural for us whatsoever.
There is no true connection, no true sense of oneness within any competition, it is all about them and us, and how can we beat them and be the best, the glory of winning is so momentarily, leaving the emptiness needing again to be filled with more competing for the prize, a prize that is just as empty as the players themselves.
True – the elation does not last and the futile chase for more recognition leads to more, in-truth antisocial and loveless behaviours. Whoever said that competition is character building got it very wrong.
In society we do this crazy thing where we hold sports stars high up there – putting them on peddle stools, the media can worship them like Gods – what exactly are we teaching our children with this type of behaviour? No wonder we have less children wanting to work in the public sector in worthwhile rewarding careers we instead have whole cohorts of youngsters wanting to be pop stars or film stars – overall super harmful for our society.
As a child I hated competition and yet later in life I found that energy having it’s way with me at times. It is deadly even when it looks friendly for it is about having one over on someone else, superiority, recognition, fame, everything that takes us away from the harmony of equality and true family.
Yes, and men are trained to engage in ‘friendly’ competition and then to make up and be good mates but the separation created by the competition does not allow a true connection making everyone feel safe in their isolation.
It is the abuse of what competition in sport is, which is hidden behind the facade of celebrity and achievement, that is the most harming. Because I feel that this says to everyone, it is alright to accept being hurt as long as there is recognition attached to it, as long as it shows you to be tough and durable. It shows that hurt is normal, when really it is not, because sensitivity is so natural.
We have a world wide illness and disease problem, we have a sex slavery problem, we have a massive issue with drugs, guns and violence.
If we talked about and put our energy into the things that are in need of sorting out immediately we would find we have no time whats so ever to indulge in any kind of sport.
The world cup is starting soon – millions of people will tune in and give their energy to watching it – imagine if all that energy was focused on something really purposeful like eradicating behaviours that can lead to prostate cancer – now that feels worth while.
Sport is never truly good for anyone’s body be it those who play or watch. It is not in our nature to be competitive so it is an assault on our body to be so.
Great comment Joshua, I feel the same way about sport. I have never been into any form of sports as my body tells me it hurts every time I had to participate at school. So, when I had the choice, I stopped playing sports all together. When we listen to our body, it will tell us that playing sport is not natural for us, as we pound, push and strain our body.
If we get pleasure from being good at something, it can be enough to temporarily fill our emptiness. No matter what injuries we may sustain we push through to get our hit. But if only we stopped and realised that the relief we seek is just a drop in the ocean of the joy we would know if we stopped playing these crazy games.
Very well said Joseph. You’ve highlighted a great point here and we play these crazy games because we are not feeling 100% ourselves. The emptiness we can feel can be so unbearable, we tend to grab at anything to avoid feeling the consequences of our choices that lead to us feeling empty in the first place.
Yes, that has been exactly my experience!
Competition destroys brotherhood. Hence, sport is introduced to be better than another – no equality, no matter for ‘fun’ or not fun, it is the same.
When we connect to who we truly are there is no need to be better than another , only the instant ability to connect in that love with another. This is the only connection we can be in brotherhood.
Competitive sport offers zero true connection, and yet to say that, at least in Australia, is almost blasphemy. Nevertheless the facts are clear. From school sports up to professional sports it is about one winning at the cost of another, and so the opportunity for equality is removed.
When we look clearly at the effect of competitive sport on players, spectators, supporters, reporters etc we realise that there is no such thing as ‘healthy competition.’
Yes we have created this phrase as a cover up and to excuse ourselves from an activity that we know is, in truth, harmful for all concerned. An interesting form of manipulation.
I agree Mary, there is no such thing as ‘healthy competition.’ But we as a race seem to celebrate competiveness in every aspect of our lives. It is great to expose how unnatural, unhealthy and harming any form of competitiveness is.
Our current standards of what connection and relationships mean do not really represent the true sense of the word or offer us the depth of the potential that is on offer. If we see connection to merely be coming together with the purpose to defeat another through competition, then we are really missing a whole other level of relationship that truly honors who we are and the depth of magnificence we can live together.
I would say every opportunity where we don’t truly connect to each other, is an opportunity lost for growth and more love.
Yesterday a couple of men shared, in the workshop I facilitated, with full enthusiasm about the sports they play. This made me realize how this ‘normal’ competitiveness that we experience in sport is being brought into work and celebrated there. Whereas when you ask men, most of them don’t like this part of their work where they have to be better than another. They prefer working together in equality and give space to their delicate nature.
Society often justifies why competition is good for us, but we all know the truth of how it really feels in our bodies.
In a competition I experienced most times that it wasn’t enjoyable as most participants won’t be the winner and, even when I was the winner it wasn’t that great. Competition definitely provided a relief from other parts of my life as a youth as it is very involving but once the need for distraction goes, competition becomes quite unappealing.
It is a tension and somehow we think that tension is good. Perhaps it’s the feeling of relief we get afterwards that justifies why we like the tension but tension is tension.
This feels very beautiful to experience and reflect to others, ‘I have learnt to reconnect to the tender loving man that I naturally am and feel more able to claim these qualities in my everyday livingness, and by doing so reflect something different to those around me.’
Brilliant point Elizabeth, competitive sport is even stressful for it’s viewers, and as viewers we side with people or teams and celebrate their wins and mourn their losses but to what end? To pit one person against another and still miss the point of life – and that we are designed to work together.
What’s also interesting is the level of competition that occurs on a much smaller scale in life – the desire to be better than another person at something, or to make the best product etc – these not so obvious forms of competition still promote one person against another and destroy the fabric of the society we live in and take us away from the fact that we are all here to do this together.
Yes, trying to get ahead or worrying about falling behind takes a lot of effort that may not support the task(s) at hand.
Being competitive against ourselves, against the expectations we have set up, adopted and placed on ourselves.. Does the root of all competition start with us, and that incessant internal drive of the spirit to be ‘the best’ at whatever cost to our bodies and anyone/anything else?
“Being pulled into the emotion of the game and the increased anxiety I feel in my body as a result.”- Recently I found myself getting sucked back into an attachment to a football team’s playoff game outcome while seeing them on the TV at the gym, even though I had not watched football or followed it in any way for 14 years. This surprised me, and showed just how insidious competitive sports are in drawing people into the drama of the games in a way that can ‘take the edge off’ life by living vicariously through your favourite team for a few hours in order to perhaps escape one’s issues temporarily, but only have to come back to deal with them later.
When we are in anything to win there is a tension and hardness, a protection and usually fighting spirit. What a difference when we can play a game for the contact we have with others and the fun, lightheartedness and silliness we can share in together.
I really dont think competition has served anyone at all. It keeps us separate and unequal and the world does not need more of that.
I absolutely agree, Sarah. In truth competition is a perfect distraction from true brotherhood and how amazing working together in equality is.
This is so true, ‘The emptiness I can feel in many of the players and how sport is used to fill this void. Even after winning a big game players can still feel empty and lonely with no sense of joy to be felt.’
Sport is the ‘safe’ way for men to connect and be more affectionate with each other. Even though it’s not the real affection that is naturally there between them, but as this is not so easily expressed, sport can be a way for people to have a false sense of camaraderie, but it misses the depth they actually crave.
It takes a very humble man to be able to see that the competition he taught to his children was not the love or the care that he thought it was.
This takes me back to when I played sports and I totally remember being involved in the game and that anxiety that my body would go through from start to finish and leading up to and afterwards as well. It never really subsided because I knew what I was going into each time and I didn’t truly like it.
So many people say that they love sport and yet there is not an ounce of love in sport.
Sport can be so divisive – and not only amongst men. The drive to compete – to win at all costs is set in stone at school, if not earlier in the family, when one is always encouraged to ‘try harder.’ So one competes against oneself even if not against another. So much tension is then induced – which plays out in all of our systems – emotional mental and physical – all to our detriment.
It’s easy to pick out competition in sport to see the battle, the division and the outraged crowd. But looking again at our own lives we can see in a more subtle light, the fierce drive to ‘be the best’ even at loving or healing – so how crazy is that? We fight friends and those close to us to denote some kind of pecking order instead of feeling the truth, that we are all one, and equally divine, designed to work together in the most profound way. We think we know what is ‘real life’ and what is a game but it turns out in our individual arrogance to be great and defeat imagined foes we are being played by an energy that is not really true. Thank you Peter for sharing how you feel about the crazy games that we play.
This is a beautiful observation Peter of sport in general and the fact that it robs so many people of any true connection. Also even the terminology around sport is quite a worry and when you think of it quite aggressive. ‘Beating’ someone for instance has a double meaning and can be looked at as abusive . And people getting excited about this can seem sadist if you go with the true meaning of the word ‘beating’ or ‘thrashing’ . . . terms that are commonly used when it comes to sport.
When in competition there is always a winner and always a loser, so one team will always be considered superior and better than the other. Where is the equality in that?
Well said Suse. Where indeed is the equality is something which by nature separates and individuates us. It is ironic we have this concept so ingrained in our societies yet we complain about war and conflict on more impactful levels. Levels that disturb the comfort such separation provides.
It is such a great point you raise here Peter, that men and all of us really, do crave to connect. That we have settled for thinking that we are connecting through sport, through abusing each other is a pretty sad and clear message that we are way off track. It also highlights that men really are sensitive, that there is a tenderness that is greatly missed being expressed and a natural way of being craved for. However, this quality is being sought after through activities that exist outside of ourselves, such a sport, where there is a false sense of belonging and connection that is attained, but it is one that only is short lived and fuelled by emotions. When men truly allow themselves to be who they are and express what they feel, there is nothing more heart-warming to be met by, and the depth of real connection offered is one that is enriching, inspiring and unifying beyond measure.
Emotions and sport are very linked. It seems that we need sport to relief those emotions… or do we create them with sport? In any case, that joining never supports the connection with our body, but exactly the contrary.
Its a fascinating process in itself to watch a crowd watching sport, there can be a real sway of emotions, up and down, anger, stress, relief, upset, happiness. All taking the person on a journey, but what does that journey do to us, and when it causes battles with other fans how can we ever consider this a good thing.
The reality is that sport is a huge part of life for many many people, which is understandable because it is fun, it involves lots of people so you are left feeling like being a part of something bigger, it can introduce new skills like leadership, and it can take you to interesting places for matches and tournaments etc. So sport does have a lot to contribute. What is missing however from it is the pull to brotherhood because most sport is taken with competition, which can for some remove the fun and the sense of being a part of a group and instead encourage a mass of individuals all wanting their own agenda to be fulfilled. This to me is where sport falls short of what it could actually be – sport has the potential to be a great support for us all but ‘us all’ would require the lack of competition in order to make way for something bigger, more meaningful and inclusive.
Thanks for sharing this Peter, I grew up in NZ and know what it is like to get swept up in the whole sport/rugby thing. I think I actually believed that I loved playing the game but looking back I know somehow now that I didn’t and was probably doing it just to fit in.
I used to be very competitive as a child and thought I enjoyed all kinds of sport. I was good at it, it came natural to me but in my teens I started to withdraw from it. Recently my family and I were invited to a party where there was ‘family rounders’ and I decided to give it a go. I wanted to feel for myself the impact if any it would have on me. I found as the game went on the more serious I was getting. The need for recognition was apparent. It felt like I was going back in time to when I was a kid seeking the recognition especially from my parents. It felt horrible and this was no tournament! I felt I needed to experience in my body the separation and emptiness and what that felt like when we participate in sport and not come from a place of knowledge because another had told me so. The whole experience was quite shocking reflecting to me where I am today and the choices I have made in my relationship with sport.
Sport is often seen as a way to encourage teamwork and the benefits of being part of a team are promoted. This can be referred to as a sense of comradery and character building. However, if we really want to look at what is going on, we would see that to be involved in sport of any kind there is a disconnection within, as we are naturally not built to compete against each other. This goes against every fibre of our being. So not only is there a disconnection within, this then means that there is no connection with the team one is playing on. The same team uniform and colors may be worn, but that is as far as it goes when we bring in the energetic factor to the equation.
The benefits of sport are so deeply entrenched as beliefs in society, that it appears to be sacrilege to suggest otherwise. This set up leaves us a great distance from simply listening to our bodies and responding respectfully to what they tell us. As one example, there is not a body in the world that would choose to play rugby.
The way people are with sports and the whole competitive nature to it is desperately intense. I so remember when I was fully into my team or watching New Zealand in rugby and how in that time of the game I was completely engrossed in the game and the outcome. The highs and the lows of the scores and then giving attitude to the other side. It didn’t last long after I realised I really didn’t like it and how if felt to partake in it like this. Today I am totally cool without any sports in my life and not engaging in such full on energy.
I love what this article asks us to consider. How quickly do we turn something fun with kids into a competition? If you watch really little kids there is no competition at all. They are engrossed in the joy of what they are experiencing with the people around them and feeling their body moving. When we introduce competition this takes our focus outside our bodies and there is no longer the innocent joyful exploration of play.
This is an inspiring blog to read, not only for exposing the harmful side of competition, also for the deep changes you have made in your own life Peter and the tenderness that is so apparent in your writing and description of yourself returning to simplicity and sharing of a roast lamb dinner! Thank you.
“Bringing more simplicity to my life is a work in progress, but a great starting point is sharing a meal of slow cooked roast lamb with friends and family”.
Gill I have seen the truth of your statement about what we can witness in people’s behaviour and response in competition: “It makes a mockery of people saying competition builds and develops character and strength in people, I feel it hardens and toughens them and crushes them in defeat.”
It makes me question just what are we in this instance choosing to call character and strength building in people? The ability to close down our heart and be ruthless in the world? The ability to divide ourselves into an ‘us’ and ‘them’ and conveniently look after the ‘us’ we have selected? and reject or perhaps even pick up a gun and destroy the ‘them’ we have closed our heart to? To focus on ‘winning’ in whatever we have chosen and hope that will be enough to quench the thirst within us for love, care and integrity that is missing in our lives?
Our obsession with competition has a lot to answer about our ills in our society.
Peter, it is great to have men like you who are willing to speak out about what you are seeing with sport and how it affects boys and men. The more awareness we have about this the better because with the current rates of male suicides the way we are raising boys is seriously flawed.
Thank you Peter for expressing so openly and honestly allowing yourself the quality of tenderness and sharing that here.
Beautifully expressed Peter. Your blog has allowed me to appreciate how much my own relationship with sport has changed, from very competitive running and tennis to simply enjoying walking and swimming,
I read a report of a player in Serbia who had been attacked by his own supporters who invaded the dressing room because of a poor performance. It made a good story but no-one was questioning the nature of people when they turn into fanatical fans. Shouldn’t we consider this unhealthy in the extreme, and rather sad that as supposedly intelligent beings we have such events occurring that are normal enough not to make us stop. It’s the normal unquestioning that is most disturbing when I stop and think about it – imagine the idea of suspending sport when such abuse takes place, and starting a conversation about values and decency and a perspective that it would never happen.
The need to be better than someone else comes from a state of feeling less, which can never ever be satisfied through sport.
When we are competitive, this allows other things to enter like comparison and jealousy, as there will always be a winner and a loser in any game that is played….. Competition sets us up against one another well before the actually game starts.
Sport feels like a distraction for what life truly offers it is version of a way of communicating, understanding life that brings competition into the main focus rather than connection and collaboration. We all suffer from this, it is like propaganda a false reality that imprisons people and does not offer the opportunities to really feel connected to everyone on the planet.
I recently saw the last 5 minutes of a very high profile rugby match, as the final whistle blew one of the captains was unhappy with a decision and was complaining to the referee. It reminded me of watching a small child having a tantrum, and yet this is celebrated as a winning mentality in a tough sport. What I saw was sport fostering a mans inability to grow up, stuck forever in a rut of needing to achieve to validate.
I loved reading your blog Peter and very much appreciated your analysis and expose on sport in our society. What stuck me this morning was how, on a physical level and in fact all levels, we harm and damage our bodies so readily;
“How physical sport can be (even ‘non-contact’ sport), and just how abusive players are being to their bodies and to each other”.
Every time a gentle tender man joins with others in sport and competition, he must have already disconnected from himself.
Competition avoids the potential of us being close and working together, there is a natural harmony in any preschooler and we go to school and learn to complete….it is not healthy and it does not serve us as a humanity.
If sport is used to feel better about oneself, it is inevitable that there will be no real confidence. Feeling good at the expense of another or others always comes at a cost, and creates the see-saw effect of feeling less.
Less or more – both leave us in a deeper case of inequality and while we continue to champion sport we will not break this pattern.
sport is simulated war, this is the way it has always been known in Ireland as passed down by stories and writings, it was a method of training a child to be a warrior, to prepare the child for war. Today in Ireland when “Gaelic Games” are reported on the words of war are used by reporters: “a titanic battle” “wounded warriors” “scares of battle” “you can see he has been through the wars” “they are killing each other out there” “there was no surrender” “what a battle that was”
If we put all the time and energy that we put into sport into something worthwhile – like finding out what is the root cause of cancer then our energy would be wisely spent.
Sport when I really feel into what it did to my body is purely anti evolution, it is hardness, it is competition, it is separation.
I’ve been pondering on sport lately as the British Lions are touring New Zealand and when I talk to family and old friends they kind of don’t believe I haven’t been following it but sport now features very little in my life and sometimes I wonder what the world would be like if we didn’t have the need to compete or be better than each other at something and instead we used all that energy and money on helping each other.
This is huge to consider Kev… slightly terrifying in fact to even try and imagine the money, time and emotion that is invested in sport. I certainly consider that the world will be transformed evolutionarily so, when we relinquish our attachment to the distraction and competition of sport.
Likewise I’ve come from a very sporty background to now not really following it although still able to appreciate a particular skill or move. The big thing I noticed as I’ve detached from it is how emotional I used to get… being passionate about the team winning, getting disappointed or elated with the result, getting tribal against the opposing team. It was a rollercoaster, and one I’m pleased to have got off!
Thanks Peter.. I remember watching my son in junior soccer where they just went from having fun to the awful feeling of competition coming in … and that was just the parents!
The more I realise our innate tenderness and yearning to connect with one another, the more I realise how devastating sport and competition are, pitting us against one another from a very young age and leading us to judge our own worth on the basis of our performance alongside others. This is a fundamental human insanity.
When we stop to feel it, it can be quite surprising to feel the level of anxiety we go to when watching a match or sporting competition.
Both men and women are naturally sensitive, tender and gentle beings. So, to see people throw themselves at each other and go into full tackle during a sporting game is so unnatural to me. It makes me wonder how much hardening of our body we would have to go through to call this entertainment.
I have spent many hours on the sidelines cheering on teams at sports carnivals and sporting events and watched the blatant call outs and pressures for the competitors to out run, out goal and out do another all in the name of a trophy that sat on a wooden frame. How far from true brotherhood are we living?
Recently I agreed to meet up and practice tennis with my father having not done so for years. Initially I thought there was an absence of the same type of competitiveness which used to be there when we did this however feeling a little deeper I realised this was not true. Even in the repetitive actions of practicing the competition was underlying this in how I hit the ball and comparing this to how my father did. Competition really is insidious and reaches beneath the obvious.
Peter you nailed it, men are supper sensitive, tender gentle men who when allowed to express from these truly sacred places become a power-house in our society.
The competition that is championed in sport is the same competition that crushes us at work, in schools, within friendships, anywhere one person can be in competition with another.
Yup, I totally agree. Once we are pitted against one another, our relationship with ourselves based on performance judged alongside others, we are lost to ourselves and therefore bereft of any true foundation in life.
Thank you Peter for sharing your realisations around sport and competition, as soon as competition enters it separates us from ourself,it then divides and separates us one from another, which is the opposite to the oneness and connected-ness we innately come from.
What is extraordinarily and bizarrely surreal is that competition is not our true nature… And yet throughout the history of humanity there are endless records of the quest for betterment riding on the shoulders of others… How can something so obviously dysfunctional and anti-evolutionary not just be laughed off the face of our world?
its a beautiful thing to witness men come together and support each other. I used to follow a football team and the tribal nature of it was something I got swept up in, but when I went back a few years ago to a game I was surprised by how strong the hatred was between the supporters. It is a contrast to the love and care that I have witnessed in other settings and did make me question what sport was bringing out in people and how it could be seen as a good thing.
“I found that how I expressed with other men influenced how I expressed with family and friends” most men feel very uncomfortable interacting intimately with other men, for if they truly understood the level of healing that can be present which would benefit all their relationships it would be a different story.
The effect of sport upon one’s character is not always positive as it is made out to be. They call it white line fever for a reason.
So true Adam, our body gets so racy it reaches fever pitch and then we get the inevitable crash or let down.
I live near Wembley stadium in London and earlier today was travelling on a train to go home. It was clear when the train stopped and the doors opened there was a football match on that day it was filled with men singing really loud football songs and drinking alcohol. It felt very dominant and aggressive and made me feel gosh if this is what it feels like with a few men on the train what would it feel like in the stadium!!! I completely get from this and what you have shared how sport is actually a lost opportunity for us just to connect with each other and instead through competition this gets distorted or destroyed.
The competition that is encouraged through competitive sports also feeds competition everywhere. We don’t like to think that the competition we get behind on the sports field fuels the competition we might feel at work or between friends that causes much tension and stress. It is actually all the same and all part of the same problem.
Yes, it is saddening to feel a lack of connection amongst people when you know it’s sitting there desperate to be uncovered under all the hardness. It’s a slow process that as a society we will need to go through to eventually celebrate the very people we are and not our achievements, but with more conversation starters like this, we will be well on our way.
After playing sports for most of my life it has been exposing to feel how any level of competition has numbed and disconnected me from my body, and when you add on all the alcohol and abuse is it any wonder that humanity is lost.
Thank you Peter… if everyone was able to feel the energy that is ALWAYS there to be felt at sporting events, from the Olympics to primary school football ( and sometimes the latter is the worst) then the awfulness of it would be exposed and they would immediately stop
Sport forms such a massive part of the daily news. In fact one third of it is just about sport! Feels massive to consider the impact of this particularly when all we see are the end results of the games but never the quality of the lives the sportsmen are living, not to mention their fans and the true impact losing and winning is having on them personally.
It is true that we champion sport and the trophies that come with it, whilst turning a blind eye to the quality of the lives of those in the limelight. I get a sense that it is also a bottomless pit in terms of ever reaching a point of acceptance and satisfaction with achievements… for each one won, there is the next to strive for.
The belief that sports is good for us is so ingrained within our society, maybe because it has been with us for many generations. History shows how brutal and cruel competition has been in the past and we may have a lesser version of the gladiators in Rome, and we may not fight to the death, but isn’t it still the same thing. Anytime man fights against each other, be it a football team, Olympics or kindergarten school sporting events, it only serves to feed the separation, and the them and us.
Peter, great article, at my local school I have observed this to be true, ‘How physical sport can be (even ‘non-contact’ sport), and just how abusive players are being to their bodies and to each other.’ During and after sport I do not see fun or connections or playfulness, I see seriousness, competition, arguments, players hurting themselves and each other and after the game there is a feeling of separation between players and teams rather than any joy or connection. I have observed that when children are young before the idea of competition is there that children can be joyful and connected kicking a ball around and to each other and that it is playing ‘a proper match’ and when competition comes in that this changes and stops being fun.
I grew up living, playing, breathing, rugby and it wasn’t really till I left the country of my birth that I realised very quickly that the rest of the world were not so obsessed with this sport. The strange thing is when I look back I used to play so I would fit in and have connection with others but the connection was never true. Man’s need to compete with each other runs deep as if it is not a contact sport, it’s who’s got the biggest house, most money, fastest car or the best lifestyle. It’s not until we acknowledge this and get beneath it that we are truly able to find the true gentleness and tenderness that lies there, so we can make real connections with each other. I know we shouldn’t have regrets but I do regret the time I spent playing and training because I did actually have better things I could have been doing.
Sport is championed so highly as ‘healthy competition’. How can ANY competition be healthy when it pits human being against human being. It makes no sense at all, and totally goes against true team work and brotherhood.
This is a great realisation – ” … how I expressed with other men influenced how I expressed with family and friends. ” I have noticed that too and how I am with my friends is no different as to how I am with my now grown children or other family members – in the past it was very much from a point of view that I had to be something other than what I was and now it is just the way I am in connection and reflection with myself. Dynamics have changed a lot and it feels much more real than ever before.
” I can remember encouraging many playful, fun times together with my sons to turn into competitive battles.” The divideness and separation of competition is far more harming than we think and gets magnified out in the world by coming together with this intent. Where is the joy of connection with ourselves and each other purely from this that is the foundation of a true way of living for us all to be claimed.
instead of uniting us, in the way that we think, in truth, sport only serves to separate us as groups and as individuals…it even separates us from ourselves as we lose connection to our innate sensitivity and tenderness when in thee drive to win.
The destruction of our true tenderness and oneness can be deeply seen in sport and the competition of it all both in our own homes out to the world at large and as a whole humanity and the way we are currently living so far from the love we really are. True joy and a healthy life style in our loving connection to each other is a real way of living and can change sport and our relationships and life in a very amazing way as a society and the knowing of this is a great start as is shared here so beautifully.
It is almost overwhelming to consider the number of missed opportunities there are, for men to connect ,because of the distortion of being together in competition and sporting conflict… thank you for your insight, sensitivity and willingness to explore this, Peter.
There is a lot of anxiety and tension around sport – but we create it to be so when we make it about competition. Kicking a ball around with a friend can be a lovely thing to do as a child. As an adult I enjoy swimming laps of the pool. But when competition enters the mix, all the joy is instantly taken away. Society has a focus on competition and there is the belief that it is healthy. I disagree – I think joy is far more healthy than pitting yourself against others.
I can remember also the anxiety and tension I felt as a child and young adult in my body when I played competitive sport – the aggression and cheating/’dirty play’ on the sporting field between the competitors and the aggression, pressure and polarisation from the shouting and cheering of the crowds. It never felt quite right to me even though I used to ignore it or over-ride these feelings and was actually very good at many sports and always played them very fairly. So it is so great to have started this conversation on questioning the real effects on something that is held up generally as a healthy thing to do.
” I was strongly influenced by the images I saw in the media and the way sports stars were held up as role models.” – And then we see these role models behaving in ways that police gets involved, court cases happen, misconduct in public and even on the sports field too – just showing how the media does not show what is true.
I agree Peter – so much time is spent on organising tournaments, creating competitions, awards ceremonies, training camps all to propagate the illusion of the sporting culture – and yet the reality of this is it leaves so many boys and men further out of touch with themselves and therefore prey to the emptiness and all that accompanies it
For centuries men and women have been in competition with each other and it is heralded as a great thing, but like you have rightly stated Peter it has the downside of feeling empty, win or loose, and the reality is there are no winners when we compete against another.
Sport is so championed in our society, especially for kids to get involved at a young age, in order to become a ‘team player’ also to connect with each other. But what you are so correctly sharing here Peter is that there is actually very little connection when people get together to play sport. It looks all good on the outside, but it actually still leaves people very empty, hence the need for so much alcohol at such events.
The seeming camaraderie that takes place in sporting teams, that attracts so many men and boys is in fact robbing them of the true connection they could otherwise realise with all – tribal mentality and pitting one against another is so far from our true nature yet is offered with those seductive allures of a kinship and belonging – ensuring another generation lost in the devastation of separation from themselves and all they truly belong to. A no-win situation all around.
Competition is not just reserved for sport. We can find it everywhere. In the work place, between friends, in all our relationships, even with strangers on the street. It is something that has been so inbuilt and we are so conditioned by it. It is evil in the way that it holds us apart from each other. Competition is the opposite of unity. If we want union we can’t be in competition. We have a long way to go.
It is very strong to hear a man write about sport in this way. I feel we are so nearly lost to the distraction and allure of sport that every voice of reason is gold.
Being a soccer kid growing up I am well aware of the energy that is involved around that sport and when going past a footy field the energy is quite distinctive and so easily recognised by me. From the loving connection I have today this was a feeling that had everything to do with disconnection and nothing to do with connecting to the tender loving man I have become.
For more about connection go to;
http://www.unimedliving.com/search?keyword=CONNECTION
I personally haven’t played a sport, and I have played a few in my time where the need to be tough and hard is not present. Even to go into the competition side of things you have to bring a wall of defence and separation to the other team. I remember in Volleyball being at the net and syncing out the other girls the amount of disrespect in the way I looked at them also it had an enormous effect on how how I felt about myself. Once I grew up I started to pull away from sport as I really didn’t like how it made me feel and the separation that I caused with another.
Just imagine…. If everyone felt their true nature , there would simply be …. No sport… how simple, and yet how profound.
I was asked by a friend yesterday why I don’t play netball anymore. I responded by saying that somewhere along the line I became more gentle in myself and could no longer tolerate the unnecessary pushing and shoving and aggression that I once very much ‘enjoyed’ and encouraged. As I started to take better care of myself, slowly old ways of being, and what I accepted started to change. It’s very interested how hard we are brought up to be. It doesn’t actually work, if anything it makes life even more challenging.
I have witnessed the joy of young boys when outside kicking a ball around to each other. It’s about nothing more than kicking a ball. I’ve also watched how this leads to wanting to play soccer only to have the joy taken away and replaced with pushing the body and the desire to win. We take something so simple and playful and convert it into something that lacks the lightness and joy it originated from.
‘As I have said, this behaviour felt ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’ and was seen by those around me, and society in general, as a healthy, fun way to connect and build relationships with others.’ Amazing isn’t it , as sport causes so many injuries and even deaths – not to mention the violence between supporters.
Each year there are bigger and bigger sporting events, they happen all over the world from our playgrounds to our national playing fields, each time, each “game” we end up with upset, loss and seperation. Sport is championed as getting together and being part of something. But are we not missing the simple fact we are all part of everything and being part of the one is far more than trying to be part of a part of the one without appreciating in the one there can be no parts.
Competition is not too far from conflict and from the same source.
Yes as it is a ‘fighting for’ event – so no true connection possible in competition to win.
A brilliant article and your last paragraph totally lands it. It will be an amazing time when we wake up to the division, disharmony and conflict that sport creates.
The problem with competition is that it is promoted as healthy and normal… but there is no harmony, equality or true brotherhood in life when there is always a winner and a loser.
Competition is such an insidious emotion that infiltrates many areas of our lives… once you start looking at an obvious area like sport, you start to see how many other areas it plays out in your life too.
Yes competition is rife in society and sport is just one aspect of it.
From where I live on match days you can sometimes hear the football cries and cheers which I have to say often reminds me of the barbaric days of the gladiators.
Fabulous observation Peter, and it is not only the connection with each other that competition takes out it is also the connection with self.
When we are in comparison – like we have to be in competitive sport – we have already fully disconnected from who we are and of course from others too. So who is truly taking part then in competitive sport?
Case in point – when a football/soccer player in South America gets murdered because he missed a goal opportunity, then we know something is deeply amiss in the game of sport – and that there is something far greater going on that we are being willing puppets to unless we open up to see clearly the truth of what is at play.
I too have found the aggression at sporting matches I have attended to be quite alarming – not just the men but the women too – or see the whole crowd get swept up in a mass of emotion either euphoria or devastation or jungle survival competitiveness/crush the opposition mentality. What if this was far more harming to us than we currently know, and that there is far more going on than an afternoons entertainment at the football.
This is a ‘what if’ that we would do well to consider – I am sure that if we were honest we would have to admit that we know that team sports and competition are not just about banter and light-hearted rivalry, but are the seeds of so much disparity and conflict.
This blog is great as it makes me aware of how normal I have found sport and competition around me, I would not like to partake but would not question it really. Yet now observing around me when there is a big soccer game on in the stadium nearby I see a lot of aggression, alcohol use, loud music, loud people, smoke fireworks are being lit with big bangs that make the dogs and children scared and after the game is over they leave a lot of garbage. This all together does not look like it is bringing harmony to all around and true connection. So this can’t be true love.
Growing up in the U.K. The centre piece of every weekend was sport, whether it was soccer, cricket, rugby didn’t seem to matter, watching it was what captured me. I eventually moved away from watching sport, as like you say Peter I felt the harshness of the competition. But today as I read your words, I can see I absolutely have been living still with the same tough competitiveness, that tries to be better than everyone else. All this is, is just a barrier to not feel hurt and keep the love that’s there for us with everyone else, out. This way of being is certainly a game where we all loose out.
Recently I saw the inscription inside a nineteenth century book, it said the book was a prize for “callisthenics”. It is not a word often used these days, but I remembered it from my childhood as we had one subject at school called callisthenics that for us meant gymnastics. But looking it up in the dictionary its meaning is far more subtle and gentle, — grace of movement. How much more beneficial learning to simply enjoy all the movements of our bodies and make them as daily exercise instead of pushing our bodies into damaging competitive sports.
It is this competition that breeds comparison and jealousy, poisoning those on both ends of the spectrum.
And not just in sport but in so many other areas in life showing itself in comparison and the striving to be better, prettier, more intelligent, smarter than others and the list goes on – all for acknowledgement….
I have had the privilege of being around the men who have connected with there tenderness and it is absolutely beautiful to see them being who they naturally are. Any sport does not allow this connection, it is based on the complete opposite.
Peter, I have observed this, ‘How physical sport can be (even ‘non-contact’ sport), and just how abusive players are being to their bodies and to each other.’ I notice in my local school how even the young children can be pushy and rude and not caring with each other when they are playing sport, it all seems to be about winning and loosing and individually doing well. I notice how disconnected the children feel after a game of say football and that if there is a different, more team building creative activity instead that day, I notice how they work together and have fun and that the hardness and pushing is not there in the way it is with sport, the children feel connected after the creative activity and there are no winners and losers.
So often we hear that competition is a healthy or good thing and if you subscribe to a ‘dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest’ kind of world then this would be true, but is that really how we are as human beings? Are we really just animals competing with each other for food, mates and space on this planet or are we more than this? I would say I have had many moments in my life when I have felt a depth of love and connection and even divinity that feels way grander and fuller than mere security and survival.
Competition in sport, and all that is encouraged in the name of sport is also feeding the competitiveness in the office, in schools or even within relationships. Competition divides, harms and destroys any potential harmony between people, so how can it be championed on the sporting field?
Upon reflection, competing in sport activities has dropped away as an important part of my life the more I have dropped the need to belong to a part of a group and experience the stimulation of competition. So much so when I went to join a friend playing golf I lost interest in scoring after hitting a couple of balls, as I could not just see the point. I find much more value these days in connecting with others and enjoying the natural playfulness of life.
To stand on the side and be able see how sport and competition are actually not coming close to real joy means you have sensed and allowed true joy and love in your life which is very beautiful.
Life is constantly changing – it is important for us to reflect on our relationships with things and notice these changes as this develops compassion and understanding for ourselves and hence others – such as you have shared here.
When your in a team you feel like you are uniting and that the team is like and extension of your family. You have a strong common interest at heart, but this is the illusion because even thou this group you are in is connected and have a one common interest to win it is at the expense of the opposition. That you will do wha ever it takes to win and this usually involves a massive separation to the opposition.
Really enjoyed reading this article and reflecting on the role competition plays out in my life. I feel it is a protection from the percieved hurts that come our way when choosing to hold ourselves fragile. With this we dissallow true connection to take place.
Very interesting what you share here. Take a snapshot of a sports game: lots of people participating and watching. But it is also a group of Amazing people coming together. Where it could be about relationships and connection, we make it about competition, emotion, thrills and games. Funny how we’ve turned a coming together of people into to something that is very far from harmonious. Perhaps there is a message in here that there could be a more loving way to be with each other.
It takes a lot of reflection to see through what sport supposedly offers, and even then it can often still hold an allure of sorts. For the truth is it offers such a relief from the mundaneness of an otherwise ordinary life, that we are willing to put up with the evils of competition, the abuse, the physical injuries, the violence, the belittling of another etc etc. All that is tolerated for the supposed “good” it brings into ones’ life. And so, the truth is, sport is here to stay for a very long time, and as an institution, it will never lose its grip on society simply by being exposed for its destructive tendencies, otherwise it would have fallen by the wayside a long time ago – if corruption was any marker by which to judge its longevity. The truth is sport will only lose its grip when people start to reconnect to the glory and simplicity of their own being – when a chance meeting with a butterfly offers not just a momentary point of re-connection, but a deep confirmation of just how wonderful life is. Then, and only then, will sport, like many distractions that seek to keep us occupied, disappear, by virtue of the fact that there that there will no longer be any demand for its services. But that time is a long, long way away.
During the summer months I would swim at the pool a couple of mornings a week. I loved it. I loved the grace with which I would move through the water and how my body felt. It was pure joy swimming up and down the pool. One morning I happened to be there when some teenagers had squad training. They were told how to swim, how fast to swim and what to swim. The movement in the pool of the water was quite different. I clocked one of the teenagers watching how I swam – for pure enjoyment. There was quite a contrast to how we were swimming.
It got me pondering on what happens when we show talent in an area. We are then encouraged to be good at it, to be competitive and be better than others. To show this might and muscle of our talent. But why? Can we not be good at something and simply enjoy it? What if these teenagers were good at swimming and chose to go to the pool and swim because they liked to – not because they were good at swimming and there was a desire to compete, either their own desire or the desire of others.
Competitiveness does many things and one of them is take the fun out things!
Well said, Nikki. I have observed this in school too… when a child shows talent for something we push them to excel – ‘to be the best’ – rather than simply letting them enjoy their skills alongside others and theirs.
Great point Matilda – why on earth do we push then? Makes no sense right? The film ‘Shine’ comes to mind … showing very clearly what happens when pushed …
I have noticed how my movements completely change if I ever allow that competitive streak drop back in – my whole body tenses and my posture changes even if it is a simple game of cards. It is great to catch these now rare moments and bring it back to connecting to my body once again.
Violence and cheating in sport is now commonplace if not deemed acceptable. Surely this indicates where we end up when we choose to embrace competition over connection. Could we also see competitiveness in our workplaces and parliaments and even war as phenomenon further along the same spectrum of competition?
“Could we also see competitiveness in our workplaces and parliaments and even war as phenomenon further along the same spectrum of competition?” – Absolutely, I am sure – the need to be ‘better, bigger, wealthier, more influential ‘ etc etc – just continues this insidious game…
Your point Peter about a missed opportunity for the young men to connect is very poignant Peter – as is all you have expressed. Every day, all around the world, this same opportunity is being missed by millions. How it would turn things around if it wasn’t.
What a beautiful sharing Peter, that you have chosen to connect to what feels right for you, what is innately in all men, and all of us. That you still choose to go along and have the ability to stay with yourself and then reflect to all those other men who are still caught up in that comparison and competition.
Competition actually hurts us and we all feel it to the bone. There are no winners in the game we have made sport to be, it is only ever played in the energy of ‘out for the kill’ – no matter how you dress it up.
I really appreciate this opportunity to get behind the scenes of sport and competition, and the way you talk about it, Peter, makes so much sense of what I feel when I have taken part in any competitive sports – the world says this is great team building and I feel pitted against fellow humans – desperate and sad actually.
Sport has a good image. It is healthy on many levels, we are told. Yet, sports is always based on a desire to win, to demonstrate we are better than others. As such is a human activity that confirms that there are those who are more and those that are less and that others deserve to be where they are. And this is the main problem. It is all false.
I can so relate to what you’ve shared Peter, I used to play tennis and loved it socially, but once it was competitive I would feel anxious. I avoided it whenever possible and just played for the love of it. Competition is not healthy and nor is it natural for us… the body shows that very clearly.
Doing sport for the love of it, in connection with self and others is so very different to doing competitive sport with the whole intent to win …
Union is a natural expression of us as humanity, why then doing sports in a way where we try to compete each other?
Interesting perspective peter. looking at the comradarie of sport as a way to avoid having a deeper connection. indeed it has been my experience.
I absolutely love that now I am not involved in sport and competition, as when I was, I never really had the killer instinct to be a winner but I also didn’t like losing. I far prefer connecting with people in a non competitive way.
When you watch the little ones as they start to play sports you can see how it changes who they are. You’re told to harden up and commit to the game and in this we shutdown our sensitivity and confirm the separateness that we have created within ourselves which naturally is there in the sport and with everyone around us.
I find it interesting to observe how sports is mostly about competing another. It seems to be fun and the roughness seem to confirm strength when in truth there can be felt a serious battle between those who compete each other forcing their bodies into movements, which are not enjoyable at all.
It made a big difference in my life when I decided not to compete but to be co-operative and supportive, not in a stupid way but my first choice would not be to compete. Life is so much easier this way and it is a lot more fun – the few highlights of ‘winning’ don’t make up for the tension and for everything else associated with competing.
What strikes me most about this blog is how we have come to accept a huge array of sports in our lives without really stepping back to see what it is that we are encouraging our kids and one another to do. When one regards the injuries incurred from many of these sports, rugby being a classic, why are we so happily condoning activities that can leave people deeply injured and or scarred for life? Have we lost sight of what truly matters, such as ensuring that we look after our bodies so that they can provide us with a long, healthy, vital life, and engaging in activities that bring communities together in an exponential manner rather than pitching them against each other for the transient excitement of winning a match.
This is such an interesting article because it asks us to look at the lack of connection we have to each other at an event where we think we are very connected because we have a common goal or interest. The choice to connect goes far deeper than that and is one of the most healing opportunities that is fully within our grasp.
Yes it is an interesting point and right on the mark too: “to look at the lack of connection we have to each other at an event where we think we are very connected because we have a common goal or interest.”
Sport like all other forms of entertainment and television are selling a way of life, they are showing a way of being and appealing to our desires, which is to have life a certain way, but that might not necessarily mean that way is true.
Things are so heavily marketed and promoted particularly in sport that what people perceive and the benefits seem to dismiss some of the not so pleasant consequences. We need to question some of these practices more deeply.
I have recently noticed if a young person stops sport because he no longer feels like doing it (like football) it can be seen that something is wrong with him!!! We need to make it about who the person is and accept them as they are 150% regardless of what they do. With this they will then have a sense of worth and value to build from. It seems currently our main focus is on what people do and how this fits into our ‘picture’ beliefs and ideals of what we ‘like’. All very insidious because it comes down to what we ‘want’ and from this no or very little true love, appreciation or acceptance of either ourselves or others can flourish.
Yes, it takes courage to stop doing something everybody else is doing. It is worth it to be able to do that.
Yes and not only in sport either. To let go of something that others are doing, be it in the types of food or beverages we choose to eat or drink, or social events or sports we choose to play, it is truly something to really ponder upon and find what is driving it and how are we doing without it. Sharing with others from our heart why we choose to not do something anymore without making it ‘wrong’, offers them also an opportunity to reflect for themselves.
If there are images for what a ‘real sportsman’ should look and act like, then are we not all deeply responsible for the way that sport affects our bodies and thus society and the adults who live in it, unaware of their beauty and their divine light?
I too have found that the emotional wellbeing of a sports fan is directly tied to the fortunes of their favoured team- this is concerning as they are giving all their energy and sense of wellbeing to the variances of an aggressive, tension packed sport. This is not ideal to say the least that they give so much energy to this, and allow it to control their state of being.
We used to go on family holidays growing up with a few other families. Sometimes there were over 20 kids. I have fond memories of these times. When we were at the beach we would have running races where most people (even parents) participated. My father would let everyone run the first race, then would tailor the start positions of everyone to make it a ‘fair’ match. This was a beautiful gesture that did bring us more together and made the racing much more fun, however there was always somebody who lost, and you could feel that no one enjoyed being the loser so to speak. As much as we can say sport brings people together we can not deny that the purpose of competition is to separate us from one another.
Looking back at sport and competition I can see that for some there is an addictive element in winning, whether as a participant or a spectator.
An uncomfortable point to raise, Michael: our addiction to the endorphin ‘fix’ in winning, whether we are aware of crushing another or not.
Yes it plays both ways doesn’t it? Often the spectators are so involved in just that aspect of winning – and if there was no win, the energy becomes quite disturbing ( as if it wasn’t that already) …
When we win we get a very short lived fizzing sensation in the body, a bit like a firework, spectacular one minute and gone the next.
If we promote aggression and competition on the sporting field what does that do to the spectators. I have seen rational people sledging and abusing from the sidelines turn into aggressors with a pack mentality. If you think this is acceptable behaviour look at this study on domestic violence by spectators.
Sport-related domestic violence – St Andrews Research Repository
And if you think this only applies to elite sports go to an under 11 football match and see that the verbal abuse starts early, and is ingrained in the culture, and it cannot be contained to the sporting field, it always spills out to everyday life.
I am so glad you are aware of how sport affects you- I too know the energy that we can be subjected to, it is often unquestioned and in fact embraced as being ‘manly’ or ‘aussie’. Lets not keep promoting this as healthy. Peter you were prepared to be aware of how you were impacted, this is awesome, and so it shows us the potential so many other men have to not be drawn in or blind to the impact of sport on their bodies forever.
The time has come around for football season, it’s as if there is an endless supply of the next round of entertainment and it’s the same old same old but just different year. I would question whether we would truly enjoy such games if we weren’t brought up and told they are normal and good, or see everyone else playing it.
Beautiful tender and a joy to read the truth about competitive sport and the gentleness and tenderness we all are underneath which this does not allow to be seen or lived. Hence we are going about living the opposite of who we are in this so called normal way of living and communicating that is not true. A real revelation and claiming.
It is amazing how pretty much everywhere you go sport, especially football is talked about. I can recount countless examples of travelling and always being asked which football team do I support, it was like an ice breaker a seeming way to connect with another yet if an opposing team was mentioned it would create divisiveness. Which sums it up there is the feeling of being in a group or a team but not together united with everyone amd so feels like we are settling for a feeling a togetherness which is far from the truth of what we can when we simply open up to everyone.
Totally agree Peter. Football and other sports are being sold, held, seen, championed as an activity where people come together and spend time, bond. It’s also seen as a way to bring people together as in other nationalities but the illusion is that it doesn’t bring us what we truly want, and that is true togetherness,. It brings us being together but because it’s focused on competition it will forever work as a divider even if we think otherwise.
Thank you Peter for this loving and eyeopening blog.
I have come to feel that sport and war are on the same continuum. I recently watched an MMA fight with my son and the ferocity with which the men fought with their fists and feet was no less intense than a fight in a battle.
Just as we now see how barbaric the ‘games’ of old were we will one day look back on competitive sport to see that it came from the same ill.
The new awareness that you have gained is absolute gold, what makes it truly powerful is that you don’t hold back reflecting it to the world.
Whilst we champion sport as team building it is powerful, inspiring and beautiful to expose the fact that it actually tears us further apart and, in this case particularly, how it buries in men their natural tenderness and yearning to connect.
Yes, and it is the same with boys – it is quite something to see six year olds playing rugby league and to then see how much they hardened by age 10 from playing.
I was recently shown a picture of a world class sports team a few seconds before they ran on the field – there were quite a few different body types but there was something about them that made them all look very similar – an almost identical facial expression that went well beyond concentration.
It’s interesting that in our society, both competition and drinking alcohol are seen as core aspects of ‘being social’ or ‘building relationships’ with others… neither of which have anything to do with building relationships in truth.
I have noticed this as well Peter, people proclaim that competitive team sport builds character and promotes camaraderie but when competing and winning at all costs is the main focus it is inevitable that there is competition within the team and the put downs and sledging changes focus from the other team to within the team. The aggression that has been magnified does not stop as players leave the field. Bitterness, resentment, hurt and hate are ever present, but excepted as normal and never spoken of.
Boys are tender and co-operative by nature but the culture of competition destroys all that. No boy wants to be called a girl so he feels like he has to compete to prove he is tough, it is like everyone is propping up a big lie. That is why there is always that empty feeling you mentioned, we are going against our true nature.
This blows the term “Healthy Competition” right out of the water.
There was a cruelty and hardness about sport and the competition it spawned and so proudly championed as ‘great work,’ that as a kid, I felt was horribly wrong. So I never played any sport at all. But competition was to raise its head in other ways for me to deal with. Comparing ourselves with others comes in different forms and dresses in many styles.
When a person is fully there, then there is no impulse to do sport. The impulse to do sport comes from the feeling of being less than who we truly are.
Competition by its very nature says ‘you and I are separate’ and yet life by its original nature says ‘you and I are One’.
Competition is so endemic in our society, coming from people needing to compare themselves against their fellow humans, always feeling the need to be recognised or to feel themselves superior instead of appreciating that we are all equal. When we truly feel equal there is no need for competition.
It is such a tragedy that any man thinks he has to put on a tough persona to be in the world, so blogs like this are an important contribution to what needs to be a new approach across the board, in honouring men and their true nature.
Just walking into a sporting store we are hit with the energy of sport and competition. It is so important to remain aware of all that we are feeling and not switch off to the most important part of life – everything is energy.
Yep everything is energy and everything is set in motion by one of only two types of energy. One energetic source is always looking to re-unite us and the other that is always seeking to divide us. Everything that exists has been born by one or the other, there can be no in between. And knowing that ALL sport comes from one of those sources then eenie meenie miney mo, it’s not hard to know which it comes from.
What a worthwhile read about sport, men and connection, that breaks the beliefs and ideals around it and the falseness it engenders in us if we take them on as being good.
The joy we have and can share by truly connecting with each other in quality and our being ness is exquisite and this is so spoilt and missed especially in the world of competition and sport when we are disconnected from our true selves and in a toughened ,protective and separate way of being. So called Normal behaviour really is far from the truth of who we are as is the energy of sport.
Some sports are simply abusive, both of ourselves and our competitors. I never found it enjoyable to watch contact sports on TV it felt barbaric. Our bodies are delicate.
When we see life as energy and that the quality of energy we live through our movements is contributing to the pool we all swim in, why is it we would want to add more of what does not unite us as a whole. Our world is in a mess and it calls us to question much of what we consider ‘normal’ behaviour in our society.
Thank you for sharing your reflection on sport Peter. Any area where there is competition and the desire to ‘win’ at the expense of another separates us. Some one is always left feeling less.
Maybe everyone is ‘left feeling less’? Winning is certainly a very transient and empty experience.
It is interesting the way that society adopts behaviours that are clearly harming the body, call it normal and even champion it to be of great benefit for our health. This, in fact, takes us further from the truth and unless we don’t expose the lie of its very nature competitive sport will keep contributing to the same source that feeds everything else we do not like in society such as addictions, corruption and murder.
Sport is extremely popular and starts at an early age. I remember when my son started playing junior hockey and I went to take him to practise lessons and watched him play. I had no investment in sport whatsoever. So I would just observe and could easily be detached from what happened in the class between players. As parents we would all chat amongst ourselves about our child. What was interesting was the reaction of other parents when their son or daughter didn’t play their best and the mixed emotions of approval and disapproval all over hitting a ball – which was meant to be fun.
Competition was being instilled in them- to win at all costs against the other team. It felt awful- very separative.
It is such a common belief that competition is healthy, when in fact it simply separates us from each other. It exposes our investment in separation.
I went to a professional soccer game when I was 11 or 12 and the entire game somebody behind me was screaming, literally screaming at the players, the referee, anything. It was the last game I went to, it was just too unpleasant. Perhaps I was lucky.
This is such a big topic to be discussing as competition is every where and nations thrive on it. This is what weekends are for gather in stadiums to watch their team loose or win. The outcome depends how the rest of the weekend is going to be and how they are going to relate to the other people in the stadium. I remember when I went to a ‘big’ game once in Australia and I just simply couldn’t understand the whole process from start to finish. I agree each time it is a missed opportunity for true connection.
It is amazing how much hold a favourite sports team can have on us!
I have heard many people express the noticeable change they feel in their bodies when they engage in competition. I have heard parents defend passionately this choice to push their children to compete because that is how society tends to define success! Yet an interesting exercise would be to compare someone who competes and wins by beating others , and someone who enlists cooperation instead of competition and inspire and empower people equally. I know which one I consider truly wise and powerful.
When I used to spend my days hanging out on crowded summer holiday beaches I saw many father’s playing cricket, football, or in the sea with their children. It was common to see the dads go all competitive and lose the fact they were playing with often young children. The children tried to keep up and compete in an effort to get approval but couldn’t and that was upsetting for them, or they got upset sooner because dad had lost sight of who they are and winning and proving his worth became more important. I myself have felt how playing these games brings out an insecurity in me ( don’t want ‘run like a girl’). We do need to take a moment to deeply appreciate who we are not how good we are at something.
In my experience I would say that competition or even comparison stops any true connection with each other.
Peter what I love about life today is how much true purpose there can be, at the same time what I see in sport and in your sharing is how much energy and time is wasted when we choose distraction over purpose. Sport and myself have always had an interesting relationship, but what has remained is the fact that there seems no purpose in sport. What i’ve not really appreciated is just how damaging sport is to those that partake or even those that watch it, as sport is built around competition and separation with self and others.
What amazes is how the championing [devastation] of sport and competition is applied to the work area in the hiring of athletes to coach and mentor managers/leaders, to make them better, gain greater results for their team or company. From what you’ve shared here Peter, this highlights the complete travesty, and the only result seriously needing to be looked at – is the extensive damage this competitiveness places on a body that is naturally meant to be harmonious, naturally meant to be at ease with itself and another human being – by the divine design of the human body.
We champion competition as a healthy normal part of life, yet the amount of strain, anxiety and false disconnect in the guise of connection is huge. Perhaps because we have such an attachment to sport as a way to fill our void we don’t want to see or feel how competition really affects us?
We use competition in many cases as a remedy for apathy, i.e. we use excess to deal with stagnation. It works but extracts a heavy toll as quality in all areas that do not decide the outcome is systematically reduced.
It was interesting to ponder on how emotional sport can be, even if we are competing against ourselves to better a time or our own performance what are we really trying to achieve? Maybe we can use sport to drive ourselves harder to not really feel and deal with what is going on or use the excite and elation of doing better to hide the emptiness of how we feel underneath.
It is so important that we make the space to connect to one another. There are too many (young men especially) suiciding which shows us there are not enough avenues for men to express how they feel and to understand how to truly deal with issues.
I have work in England and noticed at work when I meet new vendors that at some point the ‘do you follow sport’ and I reply ‘No’, it kind of kills a whole part of the usual meet and greet of when we reach what else can we talk about. But, as the relationship continues they start to express more, than they may have in a long time.
The word ‘gentleman’ has come to mean a man who presents a certain type of behaviour that we respect, but often this type of man was restricted by the moral values of the times and not necessarily living with true ‘gentleness. A true gentle man is not afraid to be himself, and by connecting with himself he is in touch with his natural tenderness and vulnerability which needs no recognition and therefore he does not go into competition with another.
Competition is actually an incessant cycle. One win or loss instantly steps into preparation for the next – there is no rest point, no stop, no pause, and any satisfaction is nothing more than momentary.
What a powerfull statement, observation of life you had: I felt this connection was distorted or destroyed by competition.
And simply this is not only in sports, but the way we go about our day in many aspects (if not all) of our life. Hence, we have become almost superior to feel the protection we are holding, protected away from each other, only with individual orders in mind. Being it competition of winning a game, wanting to be the most best looking girl/woman, these are all aspects outside of ourselves which will never truly heal us from the emptiness we have created, that is simply nothing more than the absence of love.
Some say that competition is healthy. Try saying that to a group of children who witness a class mate get the trophy and everyone else gets nothing. The feeling of not being good enough is fostered very young and has devastating effects.
There are many things in society that are considered to be ‘fun’ and ‘healthy’. Yet it is when we observe if they encourage and inspire a deepening level of love between all people, harmony, equality, care of one another and oneness, that it becomes clear whether we are actually talking about health or an insidious ill that we have learned to champion as good.
When I was involved in competitive sport my father always used to say to me that at that time I did not seem bothered about wining, and this is true. Whilst I know that I was not devoid of competition I can remember feeling that to me it was far more about the quality of the way I played and that if that meant I lost then that was fine despite all that I could feel in the process of ‘losing’ regarding the expectation of others etc.
“while it may have been seen by some as successful, the failure in my opinion was the lost opportunity for these young men to truly connect to one another. I felt this connection was distorted or destroyed by competition.” It might sound as a strong statement to many but it is true, connection is so much more beautiful than competition. And the meaning of success will be redefined when we look at it from the point of has it brought true joy and connection or not?
I have also seen people going through a personality change the moment they cross the border of a playing arena – there is even an expression for it “white line fever” and it can be confronting to see how profound that change is.
I would say in the past that I am not competitive because I have never been into sport but thats not the only place it hangs out. I’ve tried to be better in art, in my family, at work etc. At work this week they’ve set up a new competition and entertaining it feels horrible! Theres an excitement in beating another that makes my calves cramp and my throat feel tight. Competition feels like the complete opposite of how we naturally can be together.
Sport can cause us to become quite obsessive about it and in this way is like a drug in which we are not always aware of how much it changes us and alters our state of being. You only have to watch the behaviour at a football match to see how divisive it is competing one team against another.
Perhaps one of the most striking times that I felt the harmful effects of sport was when I walked past a group of boys that had just lost their football game. One of the Mum’s was trying to take a photo of them but their faces were crest fallen and they were devastated and yet metres away their jubilant victors were jumping up and down with their arms around each other celebrating. People often talk about the positive benefits of sport on kids but I don’t see any benefit in making another feel dreadful. And I know the retort to this will be that it’s ‘character building’ to lose but when left intact our characters are already full and complete, sport is one of many things that erodes our character not strengthens it.
I used to enjoy the emotional turmoil of watching my son play football. I enjoyed the adrenaline and the nervousness that coursed through my body. I used to love the feeling of hanging out for the momentary high that comes with winning but now all of those feelings feel utterly awful in my body, even the high that comes with winning feels like a nasty imposition on the natural exquisiteness of my harmonious body.
“I realise now that expressing in this way prevented me from experiencing the joy that can come from allowing others to feel the tender loving man I am in my expression and feeling the connection with them evolve as a result.” This realisation itself about the competitive banter between men around sports shows how it limits the gorgeous expression men could be having between them.
Sport is one of the things in the future they will look back on with much more awareness and it will be clear that underneath the surface things are not as they seem. Sport can often create an energy of separation it fosters comparison and can be linked with violence – take for example the domestic abuse cases that rise after a match. Sport needs to be seen for what it truly is.
It is easy to feel how much you appreciate your new found attitude towards sports and how you honour the changes you have made in your own life.
I often wonder how the commentators of sport feel once the match or race is over. The effort involved to convey all that is happening feels enormous, to such an extent that sometimes it sounds like they are going to explode with all the emotion. What I can feel is how exhausting this must be and after hitting such highs, that there must be some big lows to go through too. Looking at the bigger picture in life I find myself asking the question “at the end of the day is it really worth it?”
The media can give us a pretty crude picture of excercise and what it can mean to people. Some people really do take sports to the extreme. I had a man say to me that he was on the same team as his wife until football when he supported wales and she was English. The mentality is vey deeply rooted. To be able to express from seeing the other side of sport is very healing for humanity to read.
‘…the failure in my opinion was the lost opportunity for these young men to truly connect to one another. I felt this connection was distorted or destroyed by competition.’ This is a very strong statement, as we can see how men are set up by society to be a certain way and this breaks down the very fabric of our society where men cannot live their tenderness, their exquisiteness of being a man, but having to be something else so to be accepted as a man – sport sets this up in a competitive nature. But sadly, it is actually each one of us who make up society, and all of us who champion sport in a competitive way are contributing to us not being in real connection with each other.
Sport is often used as a metaphor in business – there is an opposition to crush and demoralise and there will be winners and losers. I found that in giving advice this meme may not work very well as there are no winners and losers.
You sensitive observations make alot of sense.
It is very beautiful to see men connect from a tender and loving place, they can be so gorgeous with each other, but mostly they don’t allow themselves to fully express that and cover it up with some rough play, acting to be tough not to bee seen as soft or weak. And many women expect that, as they too have a picture of men needing to be like that. However me miss out on men’s true qualities because of that.
Watching players come off the pitch bashed, bruised and battle weary speaks volumes about how lost we are if we are championing sport as unifying or entertaining.
However, the exhaustion also provides relief, they are simply too tired to have the energy for strong emotions.
Just the word sports brings anxiety and drive into people, so much is attached to that word. Whether it is a man or woman everyone hardens in some way to take part in sports.
On the surface sport seems to be about health, excellence and breeding ‘strength of character’. Many of the top sports people are held up as amazing role models for young people. But as you show Peter, there is a different side to sport which we prefer to ignore – the bit that tears another apart and seeks to grind them down to the ground, to push and beat and harden our bodies to be the ‘best’. In truth, we can clearly see the parallels that exist with war, soldiers and armies. Today we are horrified by outbreaks of violence in society – but on a pitch with rules and kits, is not the way we behave much the same? Surely it’s the definition of craziness to keep supporting this energy and behaviour and then being surprised when violence and abuse arise again?
A soccer player can be an absolute hero one season and then if he transfers to another club, he can be booed by the same people when he walks onto the pitch. What we’re saying here is that you are only the colour of your football shirt.
I remember as a teenager playing netball the aggression and flood of emotions that would happen as a part of every game. It was as if my life were on the line and that through playing well my worth was somehow confirmed. What a dastardly way to base my worth.
Competition is meant to drive us to greater heights. But as someone once said to me, when you get to the top of the ladder, you then have to climb down, and it is this roller coaster of emotions that epitomises sport and drive to succeed. There is, of course, a middle road, but that is perhaps another story.
‘I found that how I expressed with other men influenced how I expressed with family and friends’ – An interesting point Peter, when you think about how ‘rowdy’ and aggressive men can be with each other in pubs and at sports games, because this is a ‘healthy’ way to let off steam… What if these moments affected the quality of our relationship to family, other friends and ourselves?
Competition is the opposite of what we are here for on earth – to act together as ONE, in one purpose and for all our benefit. So sport is more evil than it looks like…
Peter, what truth there is in the missed opportunity of connection. And don’t I know that easy option of falling back on sport as a topic, a way of maintaining distance with other men. More than ever we need to accept sport is not anything more than a fix to cover up the anxiety and hurt so many men live with. For anyone who doesn’t believe this is true you only need to look at the suicide stats and the way men interact to see the falsity and bravado that dominates men’s lives.
I was feeling how confusing and upsetting it is for children who are innocently have fun with something, for it then to be turned into a competition where one has to be the winner and therefore the rest losers. It’s so against our true nature that for us to override this and accept competition in our lives is a direct assault on ourselves.
I grew up in the culture in which sport ‘will make a man of you’ and because I got my marksman badge and was in the first teams at school my Grandfather, who was from a military background, made the assessment of me that I ‘would be alright’ in life. Consequently I constructed for myself a very well defended fortress around the true tender man I am. Thankfully, through the reflection of Serge Benhayon, his sons and other men in the Universal Medicine Student Body, that fortress is consistently being deconstructed to let that tender man loose.
“The emptiness I can feel in many of the players and how sport is used to fill this void. Even after winning a big game players can still feel empty and lonely with no sense of joy to be felt.” – this is highlighted by the fact that big booze ups often follow a game. If winning a game was joyful, celebrating with alcohol wouldn’t be necesary.
Peter, it’s great to get your reflections on sport & competition, a friend recently described to me the behaviour of some parents that were watching their children play a football match – he told me that they were actively encouraging their children to intimidate his son from the sidelines, heckling them to “trip him up”, what surprised me was that he was saying this was a pretty standard response at many of the football matches he attended. This was confirmed in the news recently, that “The number of assaults during junior football matches is reaching record levels in many areas, and the attacks are becoming more violent, according to officials.” Without doubt the energy of competition today has intensified.
It seems even more evident watching the rise in women’s professional sport – it just feels wrong. Case in point the recent world title boxing championship- watching a woman’s face get pummeled to a pulp in 30 seconds and the crowds cheering on… but many were so affected that they are now calling into question the whole nature of the sport. But we need to go all the way and see how competitiveness, domination and violence have no place in our true nature – they are just a result of separating from it – and it will never be healed until we return to our own place of truth.
It does seem really twisted that one thing that may attract some men to joining a sports team – the togetherness, camaraderie and connection has inbuilt into it the seed of separation – of belonging to the security of one group but at the expense of another … so it can never be a true connection as it does not include the all. this makes sense on every level, so what are we being swayed to not see and feel this in every cell in our body.
Reading this blog certainly does bring it home how hard we have to become in order to compete against each other, how it hurts us inside to harm others, and how it changes us as we champion our participating, as a spectator and a competitor.
The sad part is that as children we are encouraged to find our worth through sporting activities, and then go on to seek that recognition with other competitive activities.
Sports and competition and the disconnection with self that is required to engage in these activities’ are, like magnets that attract or repel.
“I found that how I expressed with other men influenced how I expressed with family and friends. I realise now that expressing in this way prevented me from experiencing the joy that can come from allowing others to feel the tender loving man I am in my expression and feeling the connection with them evolve as a result.” These words feel so refreshing , coming from a man.
What you have shared is true Peter, and what you have so clearly brought up is the truth that everything is energy. The anxiety, ‘energy of supporters’ empty, lonely, competition, abuse are all one type of energy and joy, harmony, stillness and truth are all part of divine energy
In growing up my sister would always say that sports were rigged and that people were paid of or it was fixed little did she know how energy always chooses a winner. My choice of energy to the best of my ability is to be divine and I am no longer caught up in the emotional roller-coaster that sports provide.
Thank you Peter for sharing your experience of competition in sport. It is great that you see it for what it is, a disconnection from the male tenderness to separation from each other which enables then to pit themselves against each other. For many men sport is their main topic of connection not realising that there is an innate tenderness within man longing to seen and connected to.
Just today I was at a sporting event and couldn’t help but notice how hard we train to push through overcome the signs of our bodies. I wonder what would happen if we directed this much focus and commitment to listening to and actioning what our bodies truly call for in.
Good question Abby. We clearly don’t have a problem with commitment or even dedication, for so many of us are committed to so many things and ways of being. So it’s really just a matter of redirecting our commitment to truly loving and supportive choices.
I used to be very passionate about sports, playing everything I could and watching sports on television whenever possible, now I am aware of how sports take us away from ourselves, as any competition does. I now don’t play or watch sport as I find staying connected to myself far more important.
When we place such importance on winning or beating another or being better than someone else we are outrightly encouraging separation from each other as the accepted and desired way to be. Sport therefore and the promotion of competition are highly destructive forces that keeps us form our most natural and complete relationship with self and others.
There is a huge difference between competition and co-operation, winning over another and everyone accomplishing together. One day we will reflect on this and recognise the great harm inflicted on humanity through the pursuit of competition under the guise of friendly sport. There is nothing friendly about competition.
Young men in competitive sport is a tragedy for men as it asks them to be tough, harden their bodies, not listen and to override their bodies which is leading them to self-abuse through no end of external substances and devices. So how is it that women play competitive sport when this is the absolute antithesis of who they are in their essence?
I frequent Bath University Sports Campus quite often to use their pool facility. On the way in there is a gym which can be viewed from above. What I have observed is that it is quite difficult to tell the difference between the young women and men here, for in their pursuit of a career in competitive sports the women have abandoned their naturally light & graceful qualities for what would be seen as the ultimate fit body.
Competition in sport is such a normal, accepted part of our lives that to consider it is something that does not truly support us in terms of connection may be a bit of a leap. But through your observations Peter, clearly there is something for us to consider and look at.
“The extent to which I allowed discussing sport to become a means of connecting to other men” – I’ve seen this happen among many men too… and also the other one (and which I’ve found myself doing plenty of times before) is discussing ‘the weather’, or other neutral topics that are meant to be light and non imposing for our retrospective palettes (!). Such topics are no contest for quality conversation that brings you closer together, in true connection, instead of arms length apart.
I spent an enormous amount of time reading as a child and a youth which meant being physically very still and therefore lots of sore parts in the body and lots of emotions experienced when reading but not acted out. Moving physically helped a lot but being emotionally involved through competition made moving physically more involving and more interesting. It was a way of managing life.
Competition goes hand in hand with comparison. As soon as we compare, make or believe ourselves to be in any way less than or greater than another and hence no longer equal, we lay the seed for competition to want to beat or be better than another to come to fruition. I am amazed how ingrained comparison actually is in our society, in our thought, movements and words!
I have been observing of late how much competitiveness there is in the work-place and what it does to people. It is highly destructive and certainly does not build a harmonious team. Cooperative and not competitiveness is what is needed.
Until recently I played a lot of sport and considered myself competitive. I carried this title like a badge of honour, as if being competitive was a good thing, something to be proud of. The truth was being competitive was the perfect way to disconnect from myself and others, numb myself, escape from my troubles and it sometimes provided me with a moment of elation. It is a bumpy journey with no true rewards and from the moment I gave up sport I never looked back for I realised the true reward is found in connection not disconnection.
What a beautiful article Peter. It is for the first time in my life that I let these words in. And allowing myself to feel the sadness it triggers. Being competitive has been my second nature as a man. I can still feel how fast it creeps in. Especially around men. There’s a lot of shame around it in me I can feel. As if I want to abandon that I’ve chosen this, that this is part of my history. I’ve walked away from playing sport around 10 years ago, but never chose (dared) to feel into it. This denial hasn’t brought the connection that I’m actually craving for, but what I do appreciate is the choice to feel the harshness versus the tenderness and care. Thank you Peter for the incredible loving and honest way you’re writing about this sensitive topic (for many of us).
Selling men’s skin products is now a multi-billion pound worldwide industry. There is a current ad campaign that ‘self-care is the new definition of strength’ for their men’s products. One of their billboards shows a large, fit rugby player with the tag that care makes you stronger… so does steroids! They are still selling you have to be hard to be a man!
I have always deep down really appreciated people expressing their fullness and did not like witnessing situations in life that resulted in people giving up and disempowered. Yet I was shocked at my own behaviour when I would take part in any activity that for me triggered ‘competition’. I would get this drive that I have to win, in that moment event the closest friends would be seen just as competitors that I had to be better than to prove myself.
If I lost I would be distraught, but even if I won I would feel the loss of closeness with the others just because of the way I had been throughout the activity! I find competition is destructive to my relationship with myself and with people.
I’m always aghast when I watch rugby players play their game. Men who have toughened themselves up so much that they don’t think twice about what they are doing. The effect this has on their bodies is devastating, and all in the name of a game. It’s astounding what has become normal and accepted in our society.
Sport will always be divisive and separative while there are winners and losers.
Thank you for pointing out that talking about sports often becomes the male way of ‘connecting’, using it as a means to not having to scratch under the surface and truly meet each other on a more personal level.
Thank you, Peter, for explaining how men use sport as a means to connect, but in a way that does not leave them feeling vulnerable. It is wonderful that men like yourself are taking the risk to show your tenderness to the world.
Yes, we feel less vulnerable but the process also involves a lot of rejection – being blamed, losing, being excluded etc, with the rare moment of celebration. Not a great deal I found unless you are one of the few at the very top.
Being able to see through the energy of sport and how it affects us is huge and not something that a lot of people can do. It is easy to get caught up in the ideal of being in a team for example but we have to ask ourselves how it feels in our bodies when we play sports and whether it is supportive for the body or not.
“My Reflection on Competition and Sport” – yes, it’s interesting Peter when you do look back and reflect on things which were ‘so normal’, to them now being so far removed from being this. Adding (true) love to the mix, i found my entire life and its quality has changed course for the truly better. As a teeny example, no longer can i do, or enjoy going to bed later than say 9/9:30pm, for how i feel the next day in my body [i.e. less than vital]…contrasting this to before/ten years ago when fri or sat nights were spent up partying, dinner parties until the early hours of the mornings thinking it was ‘a good night’, though feeling battered the next day, eating things to suppress and comfort how bad i felt (!) When there is (continuing) love, abuse becomes less part of life, to open up to true joy and contentment.
Competition always asks us to be ‘more’, thus immediately at unease with who we are and where we are at in that moment.
Competition is so forgeign to young children, they are just about having fun and being playful!
It is great that there is a desire to bring people together and encourage working as a team. But I am always left with the question of why don’t we focus on co-operative activities instead of competitive ones when competition puts goals ahead of people, fosters winners and losers and glorifies personal gain at the expense of an other?
It is strange to consider that when we experience true joy we would never ever want to settle for anything less. Yet we do, nearly always and have built up ways of being in society such as competition that actually stops us from experiencing the joy we otherwise want to experience!
What a paradox. Sport brings people together and competition tears people apart.
Thanks, Peter. Sport is a great example of how we make things about the end result ie winning, rather than enjoying the opportunity to spend time and work together as a team and in connection.
A perfect example of the flawed place we put sport in society was delivered at the Brazilian world cup in 2014. The unrest that gathered as people protested against the vast corruption and sums of money wasted on the political football, pun intended that was exposed in every city visited. An event that when we view life in its greater dimensions, is actually meaningless. Hopefully one day we get to the point where we see that sport should never be overhyped or over-valued, at best it is entertainment, but even within that, what are we entertaining ourselves away from.
Over the years I have often heard the term ‘healthy competition’ in relation to children and adults being involved in sport and many other competitive situations. Reflecting on this now it is very clear just how false and misleading this is to so many when competition is so harming as in total discord to our true nature.
I’ve never really understood why men love sport so much, especially football and rugby and the lengths men go to congregate and support teams – but what you are saying makes a huge amount of sense, it’s a safe version of the congregation and connection that we would all love, instead giving a false sense of connection that remains at surface level and never ventures into the depths of relationship that is actually possible between two people.
One thing that concerns me with sport is the disregard people have for their bodies – in seeking to be fastest and best, many athletes risk injury by pushing their bodies beyond limits they are designed to operate. Gentle exercise is great, but overexercise can be harmful.
We all have a deep longing to connect and a sense of what true brotherhood is and sport is a distraction used to fill the emptiness we feel because we know we don’t have that in our lives. Sport deflects us from this emptiness because it provides a temporary substitute for real connection
Competition distorts and destroys connection because people are functioning from their individual goals rather than working together for the benefit of all. Even when people are in a team they may be working together for a common goal but it is this that holds them together not a true sense of brotherhood.
Peter, I love how you expose how separative sport is. Many would argue that sport is great for bringing people together – yes people to gather to watch or play sport, but what is the true quality of that connection?
Not many parents are willing to admit that even though it was done with the best of intentions, they have actually been imposing on their children. Thank you for your honesty.
Many of the males in my family growing up talked about nothing but sport it seemed – it really put me off men to be honest as I found it so boring and meaningless. Our Saturday evenings were spent watching sport on tv as well. Now I can see that these men, players and spectators, are just as sensitive and looking for connection as much as I was and still am so there is no longer any judgement, but rather an openness to seeing beyond the often rough and competitive exterior to the tenderness inside.
It’s not until I explored and questioned my own true qualities that I began to realise my behaviours that felt ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’ no longer matched the ‘me’ I now know.
A point of interest here which has been raised is that we actually use sport to seek connection and a sense of working together.. if we felt this more in our day to day lives perhaps there may not be a need for sport?
‘I realise now that expressing in this way prevented me from experiencing the joy that can come from allowing others to feel the tender loving man I am in my expression and feeling the connection with them evolve as a result.’
Feeling this innate loving connection of tenderness we all equally share and how children can seem to honour these feelings to play together, to support one another and to enjoy being unified rather than separate, exposes how unnatural it is for us to be otherwise.
However, we have chosen to accept that competition helps us learn to succeed in life. Competitive sport is promoted as developing mate ship and as learning to be part of a team. Yet being a spectator or participant separates us as people, by default of either winning or losing.
Playing games, physical or mental with my grandchildren, I appreciate how much more joy and fun is felt by all if we just play together rather than compete. It feels a different experience when we are all in one unified team.
How do we reconcile the advertised reasons for playing competitive sport at any age, with the lingering injuries, depression, alcohol abuse, violence, aggression, self-harm and low self-esteem felt when not winning or given recognition?
Competition in sport , work or life keeps us from living in brotherhood and connecting to the love we all equally are within.
“There were over 300 gorgeous young men attending this football tournament … and while it may have been seen by some as successful, the failure in my opinion was the lost opportunity for these young men to truly connect to one another.” Imagine if the 30,000+ attendees at some football/soccer tournaments, and attendees at every other sporting event worldwide, connected to each other first – sport would come to a standstill because people would feel how much they have to disconnect from one another to compete!
What an incredible testament to the tenderness of every man – your every word confirms this, thank you, Peter.
Thank you for reminding us the behind the sports stars, the college team players, the seemingly healthy sport that makes us tough and rugged there are beautifully tender, deeply loving men and women. Individuals that by their very nature are not competitive, are not tough and when we allow each person to life like this I have no doubt that sport as we know it will end and it will be replaced by loving/nurturing exercise that supports our body not abuses it.
I have observed this too when watching sport, ‘Being pulled into the emotion of the game and the increased anxiety I feel in my body as a result.’ The heightened anxiety when the team you want to win is losing, (or winning) and the stress this places on the body is very uncomfortable. At this point I lose all sense of myself and am completely absorbed by what is in front of me.
Unfortunately the tender loving qualities I now embrace are not seen by society generally as qualities of a ‘real’ man and so from a young age I shut down my tenderness and hardened and became competitive in order to ‘fit in’ with other men. Meeting Serge and listening to his presentations enabled me to feel that such hardness did not feel true and I became aware of how such contraction was affecting my body and the changes that occured when I began living in connection with my essence.
Years ago I watched a boxing fight on the box only from disbelief from what I was seeing! 15 rounds of two guys trading solid head blows! When the fight was over my only thought was, Why! It was like that arcade game where the rodent pops up, and you have to hit it with the mallet as fast as you can. The game was an apt analogy of sport and competition
Competitive sport is the mechanical separation of that which can’t be separated.
Sport seems to offer men a support they need, with brotherhood, identity and a bonding not always available in current society. A sense of comradeship. What bothers me is the way their state of mind is so affected by the success or failure of their team in each match.
“The emptiness I can feel in many of the players and how sport is used to fill this void. Even after winning a big game players can still feel empty and lonely with no sense of joy to be felt” – how true Peter, excitement and or elation post a big match (or anything) is no substitute for joy where there is no up or down to create agitation or pangs of emotion in a body (something many of us thrive on to keep us feeling ‘alive’), but instead is constant level ease that feels full and assured.
Sometimes we just need a different reflection of how we can be in relation to things. I was one who bought into sport fully and would see the merit in it. Through being presented a different view of sport and competition I can see the anxiousness and false confidence that it creates. Being good at sport is no preparation for being comfortable at handling life. If anything the opposite is true.
I wonder if we prefer to beat each other up (compete with each other) because the pain of being beaten or the pain of hurting others feels less intense than us noticing how we truly feel which happens when we connect to each other.
Playing and even watching sport guarantees that men step away from their natural tenderness.
It’s a great point you’ve shared about the way you related with men in sport impacting on your other relationships and the ability for others to see and experience your tenderness. We can forget the impact of one choice on everything else; and in particular the way we move and engage our bodies, and the impact of this on our relationships.
As I let go of hurts and re-awaken to who I truly am, the more I get to feel that which is not true. Embracing and appreciating the awareness leads to more awareness but more often than not I can easily dismiss it and doubt sets in until it catches up with me with numerous reminders and I am left with nothing but appreciation for myself. Appreciation is key to increased awareness and evolution.
Competition exists in so many different areas of our life, from the parents comparing buggies with other parents at the pre-school/kindergarten gate to within classrooms where children are encouraged to be the first to do something. In our school we had house points and four teams (houses) competing to see which team had gained the most house points at the end of each term. We also had sports which was encouraged, with tennis, netball and lacrosse. Personally I preferred to roller skate, but even then we boarders used to compete to see what ‘tricks we could do.
It is quite shocking to realise how abusive sport is, you are right there. But it is also scary for most to go there, at least at present. That might change over time as we all gain more appreciation of our amazing bodies and don’t just focus on function and the ability to perform. And the slogans “no gain without pain” and “mind over matter” will have to be debunked for the lovelessness they are. Quite a bit to do in that arena, me feels.
Yes, once we naturally feel well the attraction of beating others or being beaten by them may reduce.
If we stripped sport from conversation it would leave massive great craters, especially in conversations between men. Talking about sport is a way of avoiding making real conversation, it is a ‘safe’ topic that means nothing, it’s not dissimilar to talking about the weather, although people who are into sport would strongly disagree. The question really is why do we want to avoid talking about ourselves at all costs?
What is it about us that is forever trying to hide and protect itself? Deep down we all want to be seen and felt for who we truly are and so a necessary part of that is making ourselves available. In order to make ourselves available we have to deal with the things that have hurt us, so that we stop walking around in constant protection and holding ourselves back from others. Universal Medicine is a fabulous support for this whole process.
From harsh complicated manliness geared by sports in all its excitement, now to the simplicity of true-man tenderness, what an inspiration you are Peter : )
I was chatting on the weekend with some other male friends of mine about just how ingrained comparison and competition is in the image of what we are all told a man should be. Not just in sport but in everything in life, most men are under constant pressure to perform and prove themselves in some way and constantly comparing themselves to something or someone and trying to at least keep up if not better it. The effect of this is a great deal of isolation in men, because part of the competitive edge includes not expressing how you feel lest it put you in a weaker position. Hence the horrific rates of mental health problems in suicide we are now facing in men. I used to be super competitive but now am realising that I was not born this way and in fact I am super tender and super sensitive and very naturally want to be with , talk with and be open to other men (and women) and what a relief it feels to let go of this drive to be constantly competitive in my life and accepting that I am enough as I am.
There is such pressure put on kids to perform that they even have to resort to cheating at times so they are not seen to be losing. As parents we are often not aware of the burden of the expectations we place on our children to do well at schoolwork, sport or even in activities such as playing a musical instrument. The joy of doing such activities can often be covered over by the need to live up to these expectations which may have been imposed on us by parents, teachers or peers and we often end up expecting certain standards of performance from ourselves and so the internalized driver is established which gives us no rest.
We can potentially turn any moment into a competition. The push for boys to compete as a healthy way of relating to each other in sport can then spill over into competing to see who wins the point, a discussion, who has the best job, car etc. This effectively keeps everyone on their guard and constantly looking for ways to ‘win’ rather than ways to connect.
Sport can give us a false sense of brotherhood when we are playing on the same team for example, but it’s true that conversations about sport are superficial and ‘a way of ‘fitting in’ and … a way of avoiding expressing to others how [we are] truly feeling. As you say Peter, ‘I felt this connection was distorted or destroyed by competition’.
Peter, it was just yesterday I was talking to friends about how much my attitude and feeling toward competitive sport has changed in the last 8 years. I used to be very comfortable waking up in the middle of the night to watch the olympics, often the swimming, and would sit there in complete awe of these athletes and basically contribute to the pressure that the rest of the country had already put on them to win win win. Nowadays I can feel how awful that is and not only that, I can now feel just how ridiculous it is that so much energy, money, and disconnection gets poured into these events for the sake of someone killing themselves to swim a lap or two in a pool really fast. Imagine if kids got paid that much money to go to their swimming lesson? It actually doesn’t make any sense. Yet, I believed this to be completely normal one day.
Sport is a great way of keeping us from truly connecting with ourselves and others. The intense need to be better than someone else at something and the energy that goes into doing it is something that has been around for eons but does it really need to be that way?
Indeed Kevin, the sports industry endorses separation, yet because it is packaged as a game, as entertainment, as health and fitness, people are blindly hooked into the energy of competition.
The ability to observe and not absorb is a great life skill. I feel it applies here, that you have stepped away from being absorbed by sport (through re-connecting to your natural qualities) and then can observe what you have been in.
And I could feel the tenderness and the lack of judgement both of yourself and others in the way you did that.
Competition, striving and comparing to others is inherent in our education and for many upbringing. Sport is a highlighted example of the angst that we accept to confirm, perform and to be socially acceptable from young. It is true that this is never a fulfilling way to live that forever keeps us in the deep anxiety of never being enough, measuring up and being defined by our ‘successes’ and ‘failures’ which too are a measure against a false ideal or measure rather than remaining true to our own inner- knowing and simply living our true impulses and quality. To do so, enables a deep settlement in our body, unity with others and in the place of anxiety and striving is harmony and true connection.
In competition there can be no winners with losers.
Where does this competition spring from!? It is not natural for human beings as shown by an experiment a researcher discovered when he asked a group of young African boys in the bush to run to tree to see who could get there first. They all arrived at the same time, keeping space with each other. When asked why they did that they answered “Why would we want to beat each other? We are all brothers together.” Our lives lived out of connection with this acting for the All and none less or more, creates a lust for survival at all costs at the expense of everyone else, and this is reflected in sport. We are now trained in it so it is hard to break that consciousness.
Having been heavily involved in sport for all of my teens and early twenties I have experienced much of this also – I cannot say that I was not competitive during this time however there was always a limitation on how far I would go and what I would do to be ‘better’ than another or even than I was naturally.
This is such a great realisation and what a difference this will make for all that you connect with: “I found that how I expressed with other men influenced how I expressed with family and friends. I realise now that expressing in this way prevented me from experiencing the joy that can come from allowing others to feel the tender loving man I am in my expression and feeling the connection with them evolve as a result.” Just awesome.
Very honest and clear sharing Peter, I so agree – the parents on the sidelines are often so much more competitive than the children to start with and it is handed down to them that that is the way to be. Thank you for your sharing which I trust will go out into the world so that others can start truly observing and making a difference too.
This statement itself deeply touches me: “How beneath the tough persona created by many of the men who play contact sports just how gentle they truly are, and how this persona is created in order to fit the image of how a ‘real’ sportsman should be” and brings the absolute awareness that something is not right in our approach to sports.
Thank you Peter, what I feel in reading this blog is how it is not just the behaviour in sport and competition that is seen as ” ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’ ” but many other areas of our lives where there is a majority who are doing it and very few question the quality. It seems that if ‘no harm’ is being done in the behaviour, and because it keeps us healthy, like exercise, yoga, eating healthy foods etc then it must be ok.
A great insight in to competition found in sport and how it impacts on relationships. The false team connection, builds one group but always makes another group less, be it wide spread groups, or person to person. There is nothing sustainable concerning this approach, less or more, winning and losing, results in no one being successful in truth.
Kids at young ages will by in large tell you that they do not want to compete, there is nothing in it for them to see another crushed. Through rewards and recognition we stifle this knowing, and choose to partake in destructive activities.
It is an attractive carrot to seek the recognition of others – it goes to show how little true connection there is within society on a moment to moment basis that results in such striving and competition.
“….going for a walk together and finding a stone to kick along the path would all inevitably end up becoming competitive” – what a reality Peter, i can recall this too…. and when i think back to my own childhood, games of marbles, riding my bike to school, racing to get to the dinner table, and scoffing down my food to be finished first, to go on to something else…..to professional life and racing to get into the office before anyone else to ‘look good’… it is such competitiveness at the smallest or slightest grade, and its buzz which leads to a run of anxiousness and nervous tension circulating in the body, to make competitiveness no different to any drug… anything and everything becomes a game – against not just another, but also against yourself. Remove the competitiveness, ingested buzz, and the space feels so great and truly inviting.
I was playing a board game with my daughter recently and I observed how easily we can get caught up in competition even when we are seemingly not interested in winning or loosing. I realised, that even just playing a board game there was a part of me that wanted to win and just to play without any investment in winning was far harder than I expected as this pattern has been long ingrained.
Growing up there was strong squash culture and I was always encouraged by those close to me to be good and to play for our country, I obviously had other ideas and I found it much more fun hanging out with fellow peers talking boys and make up. I came back to the game when at University when they had squash courts on campus though it took a few games to remind myself I hate competition, I really remember thinking what’s the point and that was the last time I ever played. We can often be blind to the harm that sport causes.
Sport is seen as healthy and like all things we don’t want to give up, or can’t even imagine to be damaging, we turn a blind eye to the parts of it that are harming. We ignore the cheating that is rife in all sports, we ignore the upset it causes to societies, the violence and the greed, the poor role modelling, the false masculinity it endorses, the “no pain no gain” nonsense. Because we want it in our lives, yet a life without sport is perhaps exposing and uncomfortable at first if it is all you know, but underneath the discomfort there is much more meaning to be had in life when you are not attached to the outcome of a game, that ultimately doesn’t mean anything and definitely does more harm than the good it portrays itself to offer.
I’ve never had an interest in sport, I’ve always felt turned off by it because of the individual or one team vying for top position. The combat involved whether subtle or overtly physical always went against the harmony I feel is a natural part of who we are and how to be together. I’ve always felt we are here to work together and not fight one another, even under the guise of sport.
It’s interesting that we relate sport as being ‘good’ for the body given the high rate of both long and short term injuries that can result.
I remember when hand ball took off amongst a bunch of kids that I spend time with. I would often join in and initially I found that there was a focus on getting another person out. I refused to play if that was how the game was to be played. I told them that to me it was no fun and that I preferred to simply enjoy having a rally and actually playing together. What followed was quite interesting as the kids were relieved. They didn’t want the competition. Playing is far more fun when we’re all in. You can enjoy the game just for the games sake. Competition brings in anxiety, pressure and is like a wet blanket for joy.
In many ways it would be better if we did not have sport, but as a society we are not yet anywhere near ready for that leap in understanding. Sport fulfils us, entertains us, and offers us relief from an otherwise dull existence for many. I know, because for many years I was one of its greatest devotees. The point is, there is no point condemning sport per say. For if you took it away, what would we be left with in order to fill the void left by its absence? All human beings in good time come to an awareness of things that are not right, be it porn or in this case sport. But they arose to such an understanding of things not because they saw through the evil first, but because they first connected to something else that enabled them to see through that which had previously fooled them. And by that I refer to love – true love. And it does not necessarily take connection to the full understanding of that word to have such revelations. It may just be a thought of decency, or integrity. And whilst such thoughts are a long way from what true love actually entails in all its splendorous magnificence, that mere droplet of awareness is enough to enable us to see that which we often did not want to see before.
So the point is, institutions not based on love, such as gambling or porn, or in this case sport (although the latter is invariably less obvious candidate), will in their own time disappear, not so much because humanity recognises the inherent evil of such forays, but because they simply fade away as humanity learns to connect to their true essence.
This understanding serves to bring relief of a kind to that student of life who is starting to see how evil plays out in this world in its many forms, but is still unable to get over their reaction to what they see, or is caught in the zealous righteousness that leads to the call for such things to be banned, or fixed, and that we need to impose such good intentions on the world. For such actions, whilst may be well meaning, do not respect free will, and the truth is that free will is the right of all that must ultimately be respected in full. Where the right to free will has it limitations, however – and this is a point very relevant to the current debate around free speech – is where the exercise of one’s free will interferes with the free will of another, but that is a story for another time.
I found that it mattered a lot how I felt after competition days but what was very clear was that I was completely involved during the competition and in the hours beforehand, giving me respite from how I normally felt at all times. Very similar to alcohol, except when I was winning the hangover was typically much milder.
What a beautiful and touching blog you have written here Peter, it shows your deep caring nature. It is in sharing in this honesty that we break down the competitive consciousness and let harmony grow.
I love your expression Benkt, beautiful and very tender indeed!
On the surface team sports appear to encourage ‘being part of something’ and ‘togetherness’, yet the very nature of competition leaves us feeling very isolated and disconnected.
I urged my children to do sports because it was part of my life, but I now wish I had just allowed them to make up their own mind. Our bodies were made to move, I just needed to allow them to find their own way.
Like many things in my children life I did not have to teach them, just let them experience life for themselves and make their own choices.
I am with you on this one too Ken, I wish I had done that too …
The extremity of hatred between some opposing football team supporters is insane and is utterly relatable to the way religion divides people – indeed the history and foundation of the division is often rooted in both of these pillars of separation – a double whammy of evil that makes two equal sons of God want to kill each other. Sport is not a harmless hobby.
This is such a beautiful and tender and transparent blog. The man who wrote this is clearly super gorgeous and would never naturally wish a bad thing on any of his brothers….yet that same man, wanted his son’s team to beat the other, wanted his son to push his body that little bit further and would allow and probably encourage his son to feel better about himself after winning a match. That is the separative evil of sport.
Oh Otto – so true, I guess it was the same for me many years ago too watching my son at soccer and futsal. He was good and he danced with the ball, yet instead of feeling the joy, he too got pushed to do more and harder. Luckily he gave it up in the end as he felt how it was hurting his body, and as he realised there was no true team connection at all…
And also – I remember that I didn’t want my kids to play competitive sports and theyenroled in the local circus troupe where everything could only work in connection with each other. The push for my son to start playing soccer was so strong and at that time I was not able to stand against that pressure from family and friends…
Most Premier League football matches in the UK have about 50,000 attending. Mostly men. And that is just one league in one sport in one country on one day. They are all there to feel a connection to something, to feel part of something…and yet all they need to do is connect to themselves and to each other….but sport encourages the exact opposite. I used to be a fervent football fan and have said, heard, done awful things to other people (and myself – under the banner of my team). Sport is a real poison and we are a long, long way from seeing this truth.
No one is naturally competitive, yet it seems we choose to forget this as we impose our ideas of what it means to ‘get on in the world’ and what that looks like in terms of behaviour, language and success. We are all naturally successful without all of these imposed aspects.
When sport is considered such a great pillar of society its amazing the expose you present on what you feel is behind sport, it shows that what may be championed on the surface is very different to the truth that lies beneath.
It’s crazy that sensitive and non-protective/aggressive/’tough’ men are teased for being ‘weak’ or not enough in society. The ‘ideal man’ is so distorted, and it’s so important to address this picture and not just the ideals surrounding women because as you’ve shared Peter it’s influencing men from school-age to build protective armour and not actually engage with each other, or appreciate themselves regardless of any job title or sporting achievement.
I’ve noticed that the more tender and gentle I can be with myself the more I’m able to hold myself in situations where in the past I would have wanted to protect, react or reciprocate.
Oh yes I so relate Rosanna – me too. Isn’t it just awesome when we have connected to ourselves in such a way that most of the times we can observe and not absorb or react or anything that takes us out of ourselves.
We tend to toughen up around sport, don’t we? It’s not something that can be expressed from our gentler side with aggression and competition being prized, so as a result we have to shut down our true nature. It’s not like we can turn it on and off, shutting down in one area of our lives means we shut down in all of them.
It is so beautiful that letting go of competition has enabled men to rediscover their tender selves
“I was strongly influenced by the images I saw in the media and the way sports stars were held up as role models.” I feel many people are influenced by the images portrayed by the media, as you were Peter. Sport when I was young was just that sport, it was done for enjoyment and not for money, but it is now big business and anyone at the top of their sporting profession can command huge pay packets and celebrity status and it is this that has fuelled the growth in sport, and not the sport itself.
I wonder how many sportsmen genuinely en-joy what they do?
That’s a great question Otto – probably worth a research too 🙂
It is lovely to watch young children playing, but as they become older it appears they’re encouraged at school and often from parents to become ‘good’ at something which leads to competing against each other and then they can feel constantly under pressure to keep being the best in their field. Is it possible they seek the recognition they may not otherwise get, when what they are really missing is being recognised and accepted for simply being themselves? Sports that had been considered to be for men have now become sports women are choosing to play and therefore instead of women reflecting a way of being which is caring and honouring of themselves, they too have chosen to disregard their bodies and enjoined in this competitive way of being. I wonder if this is really that much different to any other form of abusive behaviour chosen.
Peter since I was young competition was something I did not like very much because there were always the ones who are not winning and that felt awful to me. That does not stopp me to be abusive with treating my body while I was dancing. Is it not strange that there is always something we can do to abuse our bodies???? I am wondering why we are not able to see this abuse against our body in general instead most of us are being blind on this eye so to speak.
‘I realise now that expressing in this way prevented me from experiencing the joy that can come from allowing others to feel the tender loving man I am in my expression and feeling the connection with them evolve as a result.’ … it is so very beautiful to read and feel the tenderness in your words, Peter. What a gift you offer other men and to all who meet you.
I loved playing team sports at school, what I loved was the team work. People getting together to work together (I tried to ignore the fact that we were fighting another team). Growing up we learn we’re not ok in one way or another (e.g. the typical got to be tough if you’re a guy and please others if you’re female) so we lose who we are but we still have an affinity to connect with one another. Solution? getting together with clear rules like sport – we know what’s going to be accepted behavior and no-one’s going to be rejected if they follow the rules. Deep down we know this gathering is a lie and we’re missing out on true connections. It’s no wonder people go for a drink after sports events or watch them drinking to dull their awareness of the sadness of being with others but not truly connecting.
With regards the organising of the football match – “….and while it may have been seen by some as successful, the failure in my opinion was the lost opportunity for these young men to truly connect to one another” – and in the event of the match outcome, you end up with one team loosing, and one team winning — ‘connection’ with a fellow person over a result/outcome, …. and so no wonder self-interest, competitiveness rules the business worlds, and that’s celebrated with the hiring of ‘sports coaches’ to improve leaders’ or companies performance. All that happens is that the office become another sports ground, where players [staff] ‘continue to play their game’ [dynamics] to score top position. Total failure if you ask me just for the sheer number of injuries and fallouts that this working culture produces.
Competition has never felt natural to me and I could feel pain in my body when I asked it to step into this way of moving and thinking. Even as a supporter I would leave a competition that my children were involved in exhausted from the cheering, encouraging, pushing etc. I observed people I knew well become someone else the moment they stepped onto the field or court to play – something else literally takes over. The greatest sadness is as you have identified Peter is that we are not truly connecting with others or remaining connected to ourselves in these moments, not holding and valuing ourselves or others and separating further from our innate tenderness and fragility within us This is a powerful reflection for us all Peter – thank you for sharing it.
So much energy goes into sport: individual, team, club, community, countries etc. But in the final stages of life, what true joy has any of this provided, is there a depth of connection and purpose that have truly offered meaning t our lives? At best the only info I have heard so far from elders is their bodies are much compromised and in pain, with reduced mobility because of the sport they played. This is the type of reflection people offer about their time in sport.
The association of men and sport is a big one in society. We have so many sports that are set up for men to compete, be muscular and be tough. But in this they step away from the tender and gorgeous people they naturally are. It is crazy how as a woman I once liked the idea of a tough strong muscly and competitive man, but when I was actually sitting opposite a man, my whole body wanted to connect to the gentle man underneath who was willing to open up about who he was. So I can see how women also feed this ideal of what a man should be and how competitive they are.
Competitiveness certainly supresses our tenderness, our connection and our true expression. To be competitive, we essentially see ourselves as separate to others and we have to harden our body in order to allow the competitive energy to flow through us, this goes against our natural way of being.
We are so used to competitive sports and see it as something healthy and normal and that it is impossible to play sport in a team without the competition, as your example shows with your son when he was little and any game would turn into competing instead of playing with each other.
A great blog Peter, I love your honesty. – ‘I can remember encouraging many playful, fun times together with my sons to turn into competitive battles.’ – I have observed that this is the norm in our society, it seems like no matter where we turn there is often competitive behaviour at play, whether it is at home, schools, workplaces – there’s an incessant need to better ourselves.
As long as sport is used as a drug, self-medication, distraction, relief, numbing people will not like to question it and expose the actual harm it is producing.
Imagine if we could all put all that time and energy that we put into sport and competition into getting in touch with ourselves first and then truly connecting to others. I have to say I do regret the time I wasted on partaking in and watching sport even though I know we should never have regrets but I just hope I have learnt enough this time round to not choose it next time. If I am honest I don’t think I was ever that competitive but once again just did it to fit in.
‘Being pulled into the emotion of the game and the increased anxiety I feel in my body as a result.’ Competition really is a roller coaster for the body – regardless of whether you are competing or spectating, which can become one and the same thing.
Yes the energy is in the room and easily absorbed the moment one connects to the competition for the win…
We are constantly measured against things and taught to measure ourselves.. can we do a try like the guy on television, or the best footy player in school? can we say all of the answers to a maths quiz in record time? can we play a musical instrument with fluidity and good sounding, like a cd? And then we are taught that we need to find something like this that we are good at – then some choose to opt out and rebel by taking drugs, becoming alternative, withdrawing, while others constantly feed their ‘good’ image.
“I realise now that expressing in this way prevented me from experiencing the joy that can come from allowing others to feel the tender loving man I am in my expression and feeling the connection with them evolve as a result.” This is simple gorgeous I agree. I have a much greater response from both men and women when I am being tender in my expression. This is not soft and it does not feel like this. It feels true and honouring and such a grace to feel by choice. As Peter has expressed the feeling of evolving and remaining true with all is a joyful experience.
Oh me thinking I never enjoyed competition in sport! I forgot about my obsession for a while with board games growing up and how I was so bad at loosing. We called it fun but actually it was only fun if you won and even then there was always that feeling of another not enjoying it so much because they lost which dulled the fun of winning. I also thought “it was a lesson to learn that the world is competitive and sometimes it doesn’t go the way we want.” but as you say if we do not choose to compete in life this is actually a behaviour that is not needed at all.
There is much power in using observation and then put everything together to see if something is truly benefitting us and for competition it turns out it does not bring us much other than heightened emotions, anxiety, separation, aggression at time, use of alcohol, abuse and fake highs that never last very long.
You have raised some great points here Peter. What is it really that we are achieving when we are choosing to invest our efforts to conquer or defeat another in a game or as a pastime, when we instead have the opportunity to learn more of ourselves, deepen our connection with each other, inspiring a greater sense and understanding of who we are, and exploring the true strength and power that is already available to live when we allow ourselves to truly be together, in Brotherhood.
Sport hardens us and fuels division. Sport sets person against person, county against county and country against country. Sport brings in divide when in truth there is none. Sport encourages identity when in truth we are all the same. There are no benefits to sport that outweigh the benefit of simply being ourselves.
Peter I love and agree with everything that you have shared. Sport is held up as providing so many beneficial things to kids. As a mother of a sporting boy, people often say things like ‘oh it teaches him to be part of a team, he’s less likely to get into drugs if he’s sporty, it’s character building etc but none of these things feel of true value to me. Being part of a team segregates us from being part of humanity,sport and alcohol go hand in hand and many sportsmen also take recreational drugs. We don’t need to ‘build our character’, we are everything already.
It’s interesting that you mentioned sport and work both as conversation topics you used to hide behind in order to ‘fit in’… Could it be that in the same way going into the comparison and competition of sport in conversation stops men and others from talking about what’s really going on for them, that we’re constantly comparing careers, financial stability, job enjoyment and titles to do the same thing… When someone expresses how badly work is going, a lot of people feel better about their own jobs and this is a form of comparison, the same as comparing office politics, flaunting a promotion because of the financial gain etc.
I agree, Susie, any form of comparison is harmful as it means we are immediately dis-connecting and either considering ourselves to be better or worse off than other people. It’s very sad how we can see our ‘success’ at work as a measure of our own self worth.
“I felt this connection was distorted or destroyed by competition.” Beautifully said. Competition puts up a wall between people where an openness for true connection could otherwise be.
Sport is so often promoted as something that fosters connection but what you expose here is the true cost of the missed opportunities for connection that are lost not just when we get caught up in the competitive nature of participating in or spectating any sport but also in the many superficial conversations that men and women engage in around this whole subject which avoid us being open and transparent with each other.
The more I re-connect to my true tender nature as a man through the loving support of the Ageless Wisdom Teachings as presented by Serge Benhayon, the more I have come to understand that so much of what is presented in society as being beneficial and healthy for us, like sport, is actually detrimental to our wellbeing. Through that support I have learnt to discern for myself what is or is not beneficial for myself and the practical means by which to bring about the necessary changes to enhance my life.
Wow, this is a really beautiful and honest blog. You set the standards here for what life could really be like in the relationships between men, something that is caring and respectful at all levels of communication.
This is so true, Peter. I used to play competitive sport and remember there was always hype and drama before the game and, as you say, the feeling of emptiness on the way home in the minibus regardless of whether we won or lost, because I was left with myself and my unloving choices once again…or until the next distraction came along.
Companies over the years spawned team building things to increase productivity and the ‘There is no I in team’ is rallied. But, where is the ‘I’ in this process? We just become part of the gang fighting to win and be the best. Companion is used to make us stronger by unity… but at the cost of ourselves?
We have forgotten the art of true connection in favour of a more superficial form of communication whether it is on, or around the sports field, or on the internet. It’s possible that in these forms of communication we think we have connection with each other without realising that there could be a whole lot more.
So true Rachel. We have forgotten what true connection feels like, therefore we settle for more superficial forms, and literally don’t know what we’re missing.
Maybe the aggression that is often present in sport, particularly contact sport, is a result of suppressing the hurt the players are feeling as a result of; leaving their true selves behind, dis-honouring themselves and the other players, for wanting to put themselves above the other team/players, needing to feel that they are ‘better’, in order to win. This feeling of superiority is totally contrary to our natural essence where everyone is equal.
Yes, and until we all return to our equality in essence, then there will always be that ‘one up manship’ with each other which actually takes us further away from our true connection with ourselves, never mind each other.
In any competition, one person’s ‘win’ is another person’s loss. It is not possible to be competitive without disconnecting from your inner essence, which knows only love, a place where everyone is equal. A truly soul-full game is where everyone is working together towards a common goal.
It is going to take the human race a very long time to let go of their competitive nature as it appears that many loathe to give up something that they identify with, superiority over another, when you rightly say Alison, superiority of another is impossible because we are all equal in our inner essence. Apart from that, sport is a massive distraction that fills the emptiness we feel, albeit temporarily, because we have lost our inner connection to ourselves.
I agree, competition is really a mug’s game. One winner, many losers.
“I found that how I expressed with other men influenced how I expressed with family and friends.” – It is not about us playing different roles with different people, though I have done much of this in the past, however, it is about being the same with everyone and in this it is about expression and how we are with friends or family. We can learn so much from observing others and how they are in certain environments and then also build awareness of how we are in similar situations. So much to learn and to grow into!
There is nothing more gorgeous than feeling the tenderness and gentle finesse of a man, way over any projected image of a ‘hard man’, or his toughened beaten body from competitive sport. Guess you could call this ‘essence-building’ over character-building (!)
I have never been a big fan of sport and therefore thought myself a failure in this area of my life! I do know it easy to be drawn into a game if watching a child play sport and then the feeling becomes very competitive between spectators,( often parents) more so than on the field of play sometimes!
It’s wonderful how our reflection upon and appreciation of the changes we make allows us to have a philosophical approach to many of the things we used to adhere to or believe in.
Thank you for sharing Peter it is great what you shared “competition” builds hardness and disconnect in everyone who is involved.
Awesome blog Peter. It’s so true that engaging in sports and ‘rough play’ with our kids or mates is encouraged as a ‘healthy’ way to build relationships, but as you’ve shared in so many cases sports, competition and comparison puts an aggressive road block in the way of us (particularly men) connecting with each other without any protection and worry about their image.
The tough persona these celebrity players have to exhibit, with strong muscled bodies, sometimes with tattoos, belies the gentle tender men they truly are. Competition does not support these men in any way.
I agree, Richard and the often baleful influence of the coach is there as well.
I did competitive sport as a youth and the one thing I loved most was the strong adrenaline rush on the morning of competitions – it was a very strong experience. What I didn’t realise was how much it numbed me.
“the failure in my opinion was the lost opportunity for these young men to truly connect to one another. I felt this connection was distorted or destroyed by competition.” So well said Peter as a humanity we have wasted to much time on fake communication, fostering competition is one of the reason we are not living harmoniously as we all know we can be.
Yes, Samantha, the fact that sport is so popular across the globe highlights how far removed we are from living harmoniously with one another.
It’s like in most things we come together because we love being together, but have forgotten how to be together so we do it through activities like sports. Then we use these activities to keep us separate through as you say shallow conversations about sports, or even the competitive nature of sport. This of course is not to criticise sport, as it is a choice that we make to be involved or participate in some way. But it’s always interesting to consider what it is that draws our interest and what is it keeping us away from.
“I settled for the safe, superficial conversations about sport and work as a way of ‘fitting in’ and as a way of avoiding expressing to others how I was truly feeling.” I hear this so often. From knowing such beautiful men in my life and finding myself having more male friends than female friends for many years, I found men crave these conversations and connections but they have them with girls and women, not each other.
Sport stars are heros and everything around sport is declared holy. So thank you for telling the truth around sport and what it does to young boys and men. The competition is definitely there to not come in touch with the deeply tender essence that’s inside every men.
I remember from my childhood making things into competitions and can see now how that was to avoid connection because I was ‘scared’ of that but what is really so scary about connection? Maybe it is something we see everyone do (being scared to connect) so we do not really question it ourselves and just enjoin. I know now that there is nothing more beautiful than connecting with each other.
Peter, so many very poignant points here to reflect on but the one I see so often is how men use sport as a means of connection in their conversations and this seems to block their ability to connect at deeper level. This is so sad as to feel the tenderness in a man is such a beautiful experience and society as a whole loses out when this is suppressed.
So true Anne. I too have seen this on numerous occasions and this is the perfect excuse for us to connect on a superficial level and that is to revolve our conversation around sports or the weather.
Considering the amount of energy that has gone into making sport what it is and the attachment most have with it being what it is, it will be a big pill for many to swallow to accept the ill impact sport has brought. This is so especially considering the amount of good our society has touted sport to be.
“Being pulled into the emotion of the game and the increased anxiety I feel in my body as a result.” from an ex-footy head, oh the anxiety. I could hardly sit still on those tight matches. No wonder I smoked, drank and ate a lot during those times – had to do something!
I find it intriguing how (mostly) men can be so dependent on their team’s success for their own emotional wellbeing. When I questioned this with a friend, his replies gave me a clear indication that supporting a particular team generated a feeling of brotherhood for him.
If no one needed anyone, but simply brought their beauty and grace to every interaction, with the absolute knowing that everyone else was doing the same, each contributing our particular flavor in life just how fulfilling, joyful and harmonious life would be. Sport would not be able to be, as it is today, in such a world.
I have never been one to see sport as anything but rather silly, because so much of it involves chasing a ball around.. but I did still find myself caught in competition, protection and needing approval/acceptance from those around me. It seems this way of living life can infiltrate any one, if there is no honour in the true value of who we are. Imagine if our true value was fostered in our early lives how different our way of being with others would be.
It really is sad to observe a group of people together, but completely void of ‘being together’. Wether this be on a sporting field or in a shopping centre.
It’s amazing what we discover when we start to observe life from how it makes us feel, situations and behaviours we deemed once as being normal we find are actually abnormal to the part of us, our bodies, that wants nothing more than to live naturally.
The verbal abuse hurled by parents towards opposing players as they watch their sons play ruby is often completely abhorrent. It’s as though they forget who they are and instead, become possessed by the pack energy flowing through the players. Winning and domination becomes paramount.
The enthusiasm we can experience when ‘our’ team has won is never enough as it does and can never match what we have given up to feel: true connection and equalness. I just can be ‘better’ than the other if I separate first …and the separation we will suffer under till we reconnect again. No ‘winning’ can hide this substantial.
I have watched three sons grow up playing rugby. I’ve never truly enjoyed watching the game and all the emotion that goes with it, my body would contract and feel very tense as I always found the associated aggression very hard to watch. Like you, Peter, since learning to re-connect with myself and with those around me, I am appreciating more and more the exquisite tender, gentleness that is innate in men and can feel how competitive sport, rugby in particular, is so very dis-honouring of them and their bodies. For the past few yrs I have finally chosen to share how I truly feel about the game, honouring them, fellow rugby players and myself.
It is interesting how something that is completely in direct contrast to our innate ability to be in connection with each other in complete equalises can be be learnt and then become our norm such as competition. We do not start off like this we start off just wanting to express love and connection, seeking it out in any moment, the way babies will stare at you intently right into your soul, we lose this as we conform to society and adults who have learnt also to disconnect and seek recognition through outside activities.
Sport and competition are two things in society today that are both highly valued. Some may see sport as a great way to socialise and connect as a group, but when we introduce competition into the sporting arena it not only separates and individualises us on having to prove ourselves physically but also takes us away from the natural, tenderness and honesty true connection to our bodies can bring. Competition and sport is not only loved by men but also women today and to see how both sexes can push their bodies to such great lengths to reach the highs of sporting achievement, it makes me ponder why we push our bodies in this way?
It is only when we really stop and make loving choices that support the body that we can really see how abusive sport can be. You only have to look at the amount of injuries especially the extremes that are asked of our bodies through competitive sport, that can be long lasting and occasionally fatal to wonder if sport is a true way of being.
Sport is promoted as ‘character building’, which is so true. However, it builds a character/persona in the ‘play of life’, which denies us our connection to ourselves and masks the truth of life.
Peter, thank you for sharing your experiences of sport, ‘How physical sport can be (even ‘non-contact’ sport), and just how abusive players are being to their bodies and to each other.’ I have also observed this, I see this in schools, that there is no true, loving connection between the players, that the players often harden their bodies to play and afterwards it feels very unnatural and hard the way they are with each other, it doesn’t feel like true unity and connection.
I’ve observed that even when a parent has sustained a serious disabling injury from playing rugby they still go on to send their son to play the same violent sport.
The consciousness of competition is deeply ingrained in every area of life and for the majority almost impossible to break free from, and yet you’ve shown that you can. We have become so blind to the ills of sport and competition we willingly pass on the same to our children with some families sending young children to try different sports, tennis, rugby, golf, squash, football and so on. I find it hard to understand how tender seven year old boys can be made to play rugby to toughen up. Competition is at odds with the more natural way of being and living which is brotherhood.
I agree Peter, any form of competitiveness destroys true connect for sure. Our natural way for both men and women is tenderness, love and connection yet sports and many other things in life we tend to accept as normal takes us away from who we naturally are and how we express and share together.
I love what you share in this blog Peter, ‘competition kills intimacy and true connection’.
Insightful read here Peter, about ‘men and sports’, and what many of us equate ‘manliness’ being – in which competitiveness or harshness is the very destroyer of true manliness or his gentle-man-liness.
There are no true winners in competition.
I can very much relate to turning everything into a competition, and I never liked losing. Instead of stopping competing all together, I pushed not to lose, and if that didn’t work, I would walk away saying it was not for me. It doesn’t have to be sport. The very notion of being better than is seen as success in the world we live in, but as you rightly say, it isn’t really a true success – it is a distraction away from realising who we are as an individual as well as our innate inter-connectedness.
The other day, I was standing at a park watching an Aussie Rules football team ‘warm up’. A man stood in the centre of the oval with a solid padded lump of foam, and one by one the guys in front of me ran at full speed straight into it, causing a big ‘whack’. This whack seemed to shudder all around, through the leaves of nearby trees and the ground under my feet. For a moment I had to compute that in the ‘real game’ that padded foam would be another man like me. It brought up the feeling in me of what you share here so well Peter, of just how incredibly hard have we become? Just how tough do we think we need to be? And just how much do we hurt ourselves and others too when we live in this brutal way? There really is no lightness to these games we play.
The crunch of bone on bone is unbelievable in a rugby game, and what is even stronger though is the defence of this type of behaviour as being normal. We are literally expected to accept this is how our bodies are meant to be and that limits are there to be pushed, and that if you stand up and say any of this is madness and not how men are innately built you are considered soft and weak. Compute this with the struggles men have to cope with life, that we conveniently don’t link to such behaviour and you can see that we have problems that will never be solved through sport.
As I came to the end of this I posed myself a question “wow, can you imagine if the huge amount of time and effort involved in organising and running this tournament was instead put towards bringing together all the 300 gorgeous young men attending, to explore their natural tenderness and connection with one another, rather than through competition?”
Peter, you really have exposed the way in which sport has become ingrained in the psyche of most of humanity. You have illustrated just how tragic it truly is that we are detoured away from our natural way of being and the choice we make on a daily basis to keep going in this direction.
I remember being a referee for netball for the younger kids and once stopping a game because of the out of control behaviour from the parents. I too grew up with lots of sport and loved it. But I agree with your observations and the golden opportunity that is missed due to competition.
These are great reflections worth pondering over in a seemingly sport-crazed world. It is amazing how often I have witnessed men, and sometime women, use talking about sports as a way to hide from deep or true expression… remaining safe in their superficial conversation that avoids true connection at the cost of any evolution between them.
I’m sure that men who play sport would scratch their heads if they read your article Peter. The awareness you have come to has unfolded over a long period of time. It is beautiful to feel the change in you. Perhaps men who are ready will feel it and value it too.
With competition there is an investment into certain results we are stimulated and identified by, giving us a sense of individuality at the price of compromising who we naturally are. The moment we cherish who we naturally are competition is recognised for the harm it is doing and sports are exposed for their unloving attitude.
I could feel the sadness of that lost connection for so many young men. For eons we have used sports for false connection, a false form of brotherhood as people group together cheering for the same team. Ignoring that they are creating separation from the other teams side and holding others as less.
In the past I have experienced all that is offered here Peter, that of the absorbed supportor who needed the team win to have a good night or the loss to excuse bad behaviour. Today the bruising that takes place to all aspects of our existence in the world can not be quantified – the hardness and brutality when two face each other in opposition with the intent to ‘win’ at all costs is felt. Exploring which is our natural way – to stand up in opposition or to stand alongside to support and build is exposed here. The naturally unfolding sensitivity, tenderness and brotherhood has opened the way for many of Humanity’s miracles. How is it that we have strayed from this? Everything shared here comes from the heart and speaks of the experiences and questions of many – thanks Peter for sharing.
There is a whole energy around sport that I remember as a child. I feel that same energy when I was playing soccer as a child and notice the same energy exists today when ever I drive past a soccer field. I feel it is the competitive drive that exists in any sport that I am feeling. I always felt that energy along with a huge dose of anxiety and overrode the energy to be part of a team. A team that had no brotherhood or ability to express what was truly going on. Now that I have learnt to understand what energy truly feels like in my body these energies are not very pleasant and I now as Peter has also shared choose to reconnect to my tenderness, which feel true in my body. Great article Peter.
Perhaps that is why as men we so often struggle to express things in words, because we are so used to having the release valve of sport. It is lauded as a good thing that we can release pent up emotions through sport, but does it actually do anything for the hurt that causes us to reach for such a de-stressor or just bury it deeper?
There are very few role models around who are deeply connected to themselves, and who can offer that true reflection for all others to feel and be inspired by. And so without this reflection we work hard to ‘try’ and ‘fit in’… rather than staying with that gorgeous connection we are all born with, and which needs no trying or need to fit in because it is naturally and innately within us and who we truly are.
When I was growing up I played a lot of competitive team sport. I thought that I was very connected with my team mates and we did a lot together on and off the field- I would have said we were very close and supportive of each other. However, we never asked each other to be more- we encouraged each other to go hard, toughen up, that Aussie larikan type of thing but we never really let each other in and know the more sensitive side to each other.
“The extent to which I allowed discussing sport to become a means of connecting to other men. I settled for the safe, superficial conversations about sport and work as a way of ‘fitting in’ and as a way of avoiding expressing to others how I was truly feeling.” You can see and feel the tension that is created in peoples bodies when this ‘fitting in’ way of trying to connect starts. Its like our bodies have to rise to something – the energy is all in the head, all the superficial mental chatter… rather than the deep settlement of being fully in our bodies connected to ourselves, and therefore able to truly connect with others.
This is so true Peter…”I found that how I expressed with other men influenced how I expressed with family and friends.” Nothing is nothing – how we are in one area of our lives is how we are in all areas of our lives… it may look different but the underlying energy remains the same. Competition is competition in all its many flavours. If we disconnect from our true and gentle nature to play sport and be competitive, then there will be disconnection present in the rest of our lives.
What is to like about watching people hurl themselves at each other and be so aggressive over a ball?
And this is can be considered as healthy fun, being fit, role modeling, and being part of the community . . .?
The interest in watching competitive sports for me has been about nil, and as for participating in them has been less than nil (if that’s possible). I tried playing soccer when in school and all I could feel is how much it hurt, so that was that. Watching people put their bodies through all the moves that occur – particularly when seeing any of the ‘football’ sports has me wanting to ask “doesn’t that hurt”? Yes I can see they have built up bodies and minds to resist much of the pain and discomfort but when they start out as little tots running around the fields, this process hasn’t yet developed – so how much do we encourage, impose and even insist they have to toughen up to keep up. I bet there are many boys and men that would truthfully say “not for me – it hurts”!
Competition is an interesting thing – considered healthy, normal and needed to get places in society and learn to function in society and yet is it really healthy to breed this us and them attitude? In the end only one person or team can come out of a competition feeling elated, leaving all others crushed and in the end even the rush of victory is fleeting. I know in my super competitive moments, I totally loose all consideration for anyone else, consumed by the need to win and prove myself which feels pretty rubbish in my body and leaves those around me feeling second to my desire to win.
The tender and beautiful way in which you express this Peter shows that is a side to men most of us have toned down, ignored, not appreciated or even sought to develop and grow. Sport is evil in that way as it actually fosters the shutting down of a boys natural innocent tenderness and instead promotes the development of their hard competitive, guarded nature which is not their true nature at all and not something we all benefit from experiencing.
There can be quite a fierce defence when you question competitiveness. It is so ingrained in the fabric of society, many people don’t want to look at what it does or how if feels to be competitive. We’ve been sold the lie that is is good for us, encourages us to strive for more etc etc but it’s not true and our bodies all know it.
Great post! Whether we’re meeting at the pub or to watch a football match, we’re all really there for the same reason – to connect. Remove the booze and the competition and we can start to go deeper.
So clever that you mentioned how the energy of competition inevitably sneaks into other things that we do other than just the sport games themselves, it proves that when we are taking on a certain way of being i.e in sport one that is hardened, tough, competitive and able to show off skills, than it can stay with us through other things we do, the competition doesn’t stop on the field, it can prevent us from living harmoniously in all other aspects of our lives too.
I agree Peter, any opportunity that we miss to connect young men to their tender loving nature, is a failed opportunity indeed.
What I love about this blog is you know what you are talking about, you were, by the sounds of it right into your sport, as I was. What I love is that you are not anti-sport in anyway but when you are able to take a few steps back and then return without the rose colored glasses on, you are able to see how strange the whole thing really is. Sport is said to bring people together and if we are talking about body count, then yes, people are brought together physically but if we are talking about connection, it drives us further from ourselves and others.
Interesting and insightful comment Sarah, I agree that Peter is very much not against sport but just able to view it differently. A big part of me really enjoys sport still and will watch it. But equally I can feel when I do that it is not fulfilling, and is creating a separation amongst so many people, in contrast to the argument that it brings people together.
Where do we go from here? I mean I am watching more and more sportsmen and women have some serious social and behaviour problems as a result of how they are perceived or how their lives are perceived to be. Yet we still encourage younger people to choose these careers or play these games to be someone. Why don’t we just allow and see people for who they already are. I mean we see someone famous and we think their lives are great and yet we are seeing more and more of them come forward and say their lives are a mess. What are we missing or what are we walking into that clearly doesn’t support us. When I look at sport I watch the younger children just run around and at times not even being aware that there are 2 teams and yet as they grow older the ‘game’ changes and more is at stake. What are we encouraging in our young people that is clearly not there at the start and why aren’t we just seeing them and people for who they truly are, before they even step foot out the door.
‘The extent to which I allowed discussing sport to become a means of connecting to others’ I have observed this sooo many times where men do not know what to say to each other so after an awkward silence they start talking about sport. When I was younger I also complied with this … even though I didn’t like sport and had no interest in it all I would talk about it to make men feel more comfortable.
Its ironic that I have spent all of this lifetime the same as you in the sense that I had no interest in sports and when an awkward silence appeared and they would go to the standby of sports, the silence deepened.
I would say this can go for any topic, if there is no interest or understanding of the subject from one side it’s as if we cannot connect or relate to one another. But what I am finding is that I can talk about any subject if I open up to talking how I feel about it. The awkward silences are getting less.
Its so true we have complicated connection with others with introducing games, competition and the need to prove ourselves at the expense of another.
Your beautiful blog says it all Peter, from the disregard our bodies have to accept to do what most sports ask of the body and to choose this, you cannot feel that natural tenderness within every man. All of this, just to be a part of something that has it all wrong when it comes to true connection and play together.
Sport is seen as something that bonds men. I saw a comment today on a blog about how relationships ‘forged’ during intense sports training are more enduring and open. I disagree with this as it is not a connection of the heart, but a common interest in the sport – something to talk about and do together. If it were such a great connector, why do so many sports people abuse their bodies outside of the sport with alcohol and food?
Thank you for sharing. For a man – I see it put on a pedestal for him to ‘shoot hoops with the kids’ or play sport with them to connect. It is seen as the glorified male bonding time. But I just love what you share here about being able to see what is actually going on with sport and how the competition just fosters us to be hard and individual.
Yes, white line fever – the transformation many people experience when they cross into the white border lines of a sports field – could be quite harmful with us expressing the worst parts of our nature.
It is a strange phenomenon when a persons whole mood can change from elation if the team they support win, to utter devastation if they lose. There is much to discuss on this topic.
It’s very typical to hear men talk about sport when they are together. There are a couple of men in my life that don’t like football and when they have expressed this it always turns heads and brings smiles, because it is refreshingly different. I don’t think there is anything wrong with sport, but it often feels like a safe topic that gets in the way of truly connecting conversations.
Great topic, Peter. I am touched by your genuine care for the 300 young men at the game, in the recognition that they are not and cannot be met with love in the competitive environment of the sports field.
Thank you for sharing the many insidious effects of sport and how this fosters a lack of connection not just in those competing but also spectators. I love how you take it wider and reflect on how it affects how we express in other areas of our life and prevents us all from revealing our true tenderness. Thus we all lose out for the temporary relief of whatever sport/distraction is on offer.
Such a huge topic in a world where sport has become all about competition and how far this has come from who we truly are and the simple enjoyment of gentle exercise for our bodies and the true movements our body responds to naturally. The aspect of competition is one which divides us all and separates and the emptiness hidden by this is very insidious and does not allow for the tenderness and sensitivity we all are inside. A very sincere and reflective sharing Peter and a great inspiration for the world to ponder on.
Thank you Peter for this very honest look at what sport and competition brings into the lives of our boys, wiping out the natural tenderness they are born with and replacing it with a hardness that is in no way natural to their bodies. Unfortunately this is accepted as the norm in most societies, but for me, there is nothing normal about ‘programming’ our young boys into someone who they are not and in the process burying a most tender and loving being.
I’ve read a few blogs in my time, looking at the true nature of sport and competition in our lives, but few have felt as heartfelt as this Peter. Free from judgement you look at scene and simply say how it feels – that we are all worth so much more than any prize.
What a beautiful blog to read Peter, and what a joy it must be to be feeling and living the tender loving man that you are, sharing your true self with family, friends and the people you meet, as a true reflection of how a gentle-loving man can be.
Peter I love your observations and awareness on sport and how much it is used to distract us away from ourselves, and our connection with each other. Men have always loved to talk about sport but it is now becoming a conversation that women enjoy get involved with too, but it comes at the expense of deepening our connection with each and expressing our true feelings.
Peter its beautiful what you share here as competition is everywhere and no matter where it comes in be it Sport, Academia, among friends etc.. it is the whole the misses out on that beautiful opportunity to connect. We are not designed to compete but designed to work together as fellow brothers and sons of God. To encourage competition as so much of society is setup to do means we all miss out.
Thank you Peter and what a huge turn around, from being so entrenched to seeing such a different and in truth debilitating side to sport. I too used to enjoy sport and had a very competitive nature but all this does for us is separate us even further, because we end up always attempting to ‘out do’ each other even in the most minor way – who cooks the best, or who drives better, faster, who’s the more successful business man and so on. What an immense relief to drop this very insidious drive and come home to our true, innate tenderness and begin to develop relationships built on connection, appreciation and sensitivity, rather than the hard-nosed push to constantly be in a different place to the other person.
Your sharing, Peter offers great insight into sport and sporting behaviour which we consider to be so normal and yet when broken down does not support true connection with others.
I can relate to what you are sharing here Peter as I too grew up in a community, society, country where competitive behaviour was seen as a good thing, a desirable thing, a great asset because it supposedly would help you succeed in life. It was pushed a lot at school. And it worked to some extent in that I became successful at doing many things and I was usually the one who was winning. However I came to realise that this was at great cost to myself, my own body and to others, because to be competitive actually goes against our very nature (you don’t see babies and young children usually being competitive with each other unless they have been influenced from outside) and to be competitive we have to shut down our innate tenderness and sensitivity and awareness as you suggest in your beautiful blog. Thanks for starting this conversation Peter.
Many years ago I used to enjoy watching the big rugby tournaments on tv, getting totally caught up in the emotion of it all and not seeing the brutality involved. There is a big tournament on at the moment and I switched the tv on to have a look but only lasted a couple of minutes as I could no longer watch how the men could have such a level of disregard for their own body and others. I felt by watching it I was condoning the abuse myself.
It is amazing how we can measure something as successful when there is no true connection and reading your blog Peter I can feel that as competitive sport is divisive – right from the get-go there is no possibility of it ever building true connection whilst these mini wars are being fought on the pitches or courts around the world.
Sport competition is sold to us as part of a healthy way of living. This image, though, has nothing of truth in it. This brings us to an important point: there are things that at first sight are radically different from others (let’s say growing up playing sports compared to growing up and smoking pot). As activities, they are radically different and at many levels the body consequences are different. Yet, the mere idea of competing, outdoing, showing that you are better than another one, and becoming hard in order to compete has a not at all healthy effect on us as beings. It does not help us to address our hurts either. What it does is it offers a window to buy relief from them and show us a possible way… to go nowhere. Pure illusion.
I was brought up in a rugby playing/watching/living family who were all very competitive, it was all I knew but no matter how hard I tried it never felt right but I just went along with it because its all I knew. From what I know now I would never put my body through that ever again if the choice is mine. Going out on the field week after week to literally beat up the opposition seems so crazy now that I am able to feel more what is true to my body. I was also stuck in the middle of two very competitive brothers who could turn a leisurely swim in the sea into a competition so coming to the realisation that competition is not necessary healthy is a beautiful step forward.
The contradiction of competition to men’s true nature simply and eloquently expressed. Thank you Peter.
There are so many opportunities we have during our day to connect with people and likewise just as many to avoid it.
It would be prudent to observe where we choose to connect and where we actively avoid the opportunities. This will shed quite some light on behaviour I feel.
Peter, thank you sharing about sport – what I find interesting is how we can effectively let our bodies be taken on a roller coaster of emotions when we are simply watching sport let alone playing. When you take a step back it is as if we are giving our bodies over to something which is completely out of our control and then the way we go about afterwards is a direct result of the outcome of the game. It makes no sense yet something many of us get caught up into.
I also felt the emotional journey I would go on when watching sport, there was no way I could ever relate to what was happening in my body while watching sports as I would feel the falls or big hits like it was happening to me. I could actually feel the big dramatic events within my body, which in my understanding I was absorbing and not observing the situation. I always thought that this was a good thing until I got a true understanding that we are meant to observe and not absorb or be like a fish in water and not get wet. I have found emotions including the anxiety that Peter talks about were at times overwhelming in my sporting endeavours. Thank you Peter, James and Serge Benhayon for I have had huge issues around sport and this has opened my body to a deeper level of understanding and thus a new level of healing.
I am the only son with an older and younger sister. My father always felt to me that I was a disappointment to him because I never did like sporting anything. The only sporting competition I ever participated in my life was in a bar darts team. We were at the bottom of the league and group, but were there just for the fun, the beer, and it was something to do on a Tuesday night in the winter. It has taken many years but it is now easier to be openly who I am and other men also, to come out and show the world the tenderness we all are.
Wow! The emptiness of my darts team and the ensuing drunkard-ness, I thought I had left all that behind so thank you for the reminder Steve, I can now set about healing those issues. I feel that just like darts there are many things I have done in my life that I would have a forgotten memory of because I was so out of touch with my body at that time. So reading these comments and blogs has been a revelation for my healing!
Beautiful Greg, thank you and very inspiring to check in with self as well to see what has been pushed far away yet is still lurking to be looked at.
Beautiful to read Peter. It is interesting how many ways we can find in which we can relate to each other and confuse this with connection. For relating to each other we need a common thing we both like but for connection this is not needed we can connect with anyone even if we do not have anything we do in common as in our hearts we are all the same. The beauty of connection comes from that place of equality.
Lovely sharing Lieke, and so true. Connection needs nothing – just the willingness to embrace the other as is.
Peter, it is really interesting to read your article, I had an experience the other day where I was with my young son and our friends and their children, all the children were enjoying playing, talking and walking along, it felt playful and harmonious and then I said ‘how about we have a race’ and everything changed, the kids stopped talking and just ran, shouting ‘you are the loser’, there was a competition between them that did not feel loving and harmonious, my son got upset because he was last and there was no longer the joy and connection that had previously been there, I felt in that moment how unloving competition and sport is and how unnecessary, a big learning for me.
An enjoyable and provoking read Peter. You offer a great opportunity to truly pause and feel the real imposition upon the body and connection with others underlying the ‘ra-ra’ in sports. I am constantly amazed how effortlessly the bridge to competition is opened as men begin to speak together about their football teams etc and who they support – within seconds of speaking to a stranger in a shop, on the phone, (everywhere in fact!), the surface joking around and putting down each others teams, under the guise of humour, is in full swing
“The extent to which I allowed discussing sport to become a means of connecting to other men. I settled for the safe, superficial conversations about sport and work as a way of ‘fitting in’ and as a way of avoiding expressing to others how I was truly feeling”.
Sport has become to be the socially acceptable face of conflict where one team or one person fights to defeat the opponent and when there are several or many teams in a tournament each is fighting for supremacy and control – it all sounds rather similar to the battle raging in Syria and other worn torn areas of the world.
“I realise now that expressing in this way prevented me from experiencing the joy that can come from allowing others to feel the tender loving man I am in my expression and feeling the connection with them evolve as a result.” This is a profound realisation – as many men connect through competition and banter (and more women these days too) and so not allowing themselves to connect to that beautiful tenderness that is within everyone, regardless of gender.
There are so many missed opportunities during the day to be really with each other. We are so used to being focused to what is at hand that we do not see the beauty in each other and cannot feel the joy that togetherness brings. Then making it about competition brings us even further away from each other.
What you present is a reality for most in one way or another.
Sport is championed and normalised from a young age and certainly is equated with accolades, recognition and notoriety if not sporting – heroism. We seldom stop and consider the crushing of another and indeed to pick ourselves up from a sporting ‘defeat’ console ourselves that next time we will win and we strive for more.
Many young girls and boys have already given themselves over to pursuing lives in sport from very early – it has become deeply competitive to forge a career in sport and playing ourselves into the role begins earlier and earlier- the competition to be noticed, to be picked up, selected and catapulted – an entire family’s lives can revolve around sporting activity for decades if not indefinitely – preparation, training and games, travel and tournaments let alone stardom or success and all that this entails and equally injury and recovery, anxiety and depression.
It is little wonder that our innate tenderness is forgotten amongst the sporting drive, for the activity of sport hardens and desensitises us and seemingly provides camaraderie and mate-ship and belonging but all the while falls well short of true brotherhood, equality and the true flow of movement and expression – the true connection and fulfilment we seek.
Great blog Peter. I have never really been into sport and I didn’t understand why so many people found it so important. Over time I have come to see that sport offers people a way to come together without truly connecting to each other and that many people in one way or another actually want this. I can understand this as so many people carry past hurts and the interaction they get through sport must seem safe in some way but your story shows that there is a whole world of love and connection available to us if we choose it.
Peter, as I read this blog I felt you- the tender loving man you have become and this is testimony to your commitment to stay true to who you are in essence. Tenderness, love, stillness, the very qualities that get squashed and battered when we make life about winning rather than connecting with others.
Sport is more often than not just a cheap man’s war, and even those who did not intend it to be so often end up getting caught in the crossfire none-the-less. Physical activity is one thing – the shared experience of knocking a ball into a net or hole. Competition is another, and invariably all sport is defined by such. Without it, it is simply not sport. So what of competition? Does it truly serve to make us better human beings? Sure, one could argue that in a dog-eat-dog world it is necessary for our survival. But what is the point of living just to survive? We are defeated before we start, for death inevitably comes to us all.
Many eons ago, a civilisation worked together to build the greatest ancient wonder of our times – the Great Pyramid. What is most revealing is that it is only until very recently that sociologists questioned the widely accepted theory that such a monument could have only been built by slave labour. It was as though it was too much to accept that any society could work together so fluently so as to produce such a defining mark of their existence. And yet they did, and if you consider the feat in detail, it is obvious that the whole of that society would have had to have worked together in harmony in order to achieve what they did.
Brilliant comment Adam, this shows how far away we have strayed from living our natural way, in harmony and working together as a society/race. It really makes me wonder why sports is so celebrated and popular currently. We are living extremely disconnected lives, hence why competitiveness is rife, not just in sport but in our homes, schools, workplace and social gatherings.
hi Adam,
just wondering on your take about surfing?
i enjoy watching the WSL not about who wins but how they surf the wave.
also enjoy the art of surfing ,the how being in touch with nature ,fun of riding the wave
seeing dolphins up close etc
thanks
Hi Paul, there is no doubt surfing can be done without competition, and I still occasionally go out for a wave myself, although it has been a while I must say. And certainly, where surfing is used to connect with nature, and for the simple pleasure of riding the wave etc, it is quite therapeutic. That being said, from my experience, surfing still tends to bring out the competitive side in people, unfortunately, and personally I usually avoid the crowded breaks these days because of the intensity in the water.
Peter I can appreciate what you have shared here in the sense of allowing ourselves to see the hard and brutal reality of what we have turned ourselves into with competitive sports. With all competition we must see our selves as separate from another, and better than another. There is a clear division: me vs you or my team vs your team. Our natural and innate calling as children is to be there with each other, to support each other and to love each other and be tender with each other – the absolute opposite of what competitive sports teaches us. But then again, the choice to go down this path is also a reflection of the deeper ills of our society – the lack of true collaboration and connection. And this will continue as a trend whilst it is masked as being ‘successful’ as you have so well discerned and shared in your writing. There is much for us to observe and hence to remind ourselves of where we are headed unless we begin to make the much needed changes in our microcosm so that there are ripples felt in the macrocosm. Thank you Peter for opening up a well needed conversation!
If sport was the answer, fulfilling and you walk away feeling great, than why do many sportsmen (top athletes) then choose or need to drink alcohol after a big win or lose? Why do many spectators need to indulge in drinking and over eating while watching it? The feeling in a workplace, home or town when there has been a big ‘famous’ game played i.e. super bowl etc. is palpable either in the fact the losing supporters are down and depressed or the winners are elated and ribbing the losers. Competition is everywhere, this is just a more obvious one but sit in an office for an hour and you will see the games and competition play out.
This brought to mind an episode of the Simpsons where Homer has gone to a sports game but is for the first time not drinking and says, “i never realised how boring this game was” (free of the drink). That is something I have found, when the investment in sport being fun or important goes, we get to see what it actually is we are watching. And as a reflection it isn’t so pretty.
This has been my experience also, from being very competitive and playing lots of sport to now not, all I see with competitive games is just how abusive they are… not only between players but also the crowd towards the ref or the parents against the other team. I remember getting so worked up watching or playing that I would morph into something unrecognizable to myself…. and even praying (when I never did any other time) that the team my family and I wanted to win would win…. but whether there was a win or loose the feeling of emptiness or tension would be just the same after, even if for a short time there was some sort of elation.
And like what Peter shared I also thought it was completely normal to act in that way.
great comment Stephen, i realise how i always have to reach for a beer when watching a lot of sports .
I am wondering what your take is on surfing? I do it for the love,being in nature riding mother nature,seeing dolphins sunset,s sunrises etc
you can be very creative on each wave and it is great exercise…
Hi Paul, surfing is something I have only tried once or twice, I found I got battered about a bit in the waves and I never got the hang of it but I do love being in the water, just swimming for me though, you can’t beat the fresh air and being in nature. What makes you ask, it sounds like you enjoy it?
Thank you Peter for bringing this drive for competition between men to the fore. I do know this too, that form young I have been taught, by trial and error, that this is the way to ‘connect’ between boys, and later in my adult years, between men. But also later with my children, both my daughter and sons, for instance when we where biking we ended up in a speed game, how we could outdo one another. When I look at it now I have to admit that it did not brought us any closer, the only thing I have done with this is to introduce them into this not so nice way of connecting through competition.
There are so many behaviors and habits which are seen normal in the world, but are they truly? When we feel deeper into many of the things we have accepted in daily life, it is a treasure box for us to begin living what is truly true.
Yes, it is essential that we start to question all the things we accept as normal in the world, that do not have love and brotherhood as their beginning and end.
Yeah – to redefine ‘normal’ would be a great step towards that 🙂
What has become ‘normal’ for us bears no resemblance to our natural way. I could go into hundreds of examples but they all stem from the fact that our natural way is unity and our normal way is separation. Each of these starting points then impulses everything else and hence results in two radically opposing ways of life
Lately I have become very aware of the pressure on young boys to ‘toughen up’ and ‘not be a wuss’ and when I have heard this spoken i can sense the hurt and confusion in the young boy’s face. I have also often heard boys or men (and indeed, women) speak about playing sport at school and the pain they felt when they were not ‘picked’ for someone’s team, or were the last to be picked. They were somehow made to feel less if they weren’t naturally ‘sporty’, that there was something wrong with them. Whereas, as you have so beautiful expressed, Peter, they are naturally tender and gentle beings. I wonder what would change in the world if we recognised this and allowed boys and men to simply be who they truly are? A lot would change I reckon.
I remember when I was young and being told to toughen up that I gave these people metaphorically the middle finger by crying even louder and more vehemently. I didn’t realise that I was still buying into exactly the same demand which is really to stop feeling what is happening, I was just obnoxious about it.
A very profound reckoning of what competitiveness and competition do to us and how true connection gets thwarted right from the start. And that is not only true for men but for all of us. Women have their own way of comparing and competing with each other, it might just be a bit more hidden – but not really.
No not really, as women also get into sports and competition as well as trying to compete in business and against each other as women too…
Great to expand this discussion regarding competition in that it is not just in sport but in everything … in workplaces, in sales, in retails, in schools and even in friendships and families. Nothing about either competition or comparing with another is healthy.
The minute I read the word anxiety I could so relate! Sport really does make me feel anxious. I remember competing with horses and how my whole body would be in a tremor and how it would make me feel sick to my stomach at times… and yet I did it again and again and wanted recognition and wanted to be a winner and be good at it.
Rosie I remember this too, being anxious when competing on a horse. Looking back I think I was driven more by fear than the enjoyment of riding the horse and I always felt a relief when it was over. I also think it was because deep down I knew that it was not natural for horses to compete any more than it is for human beings.
Yes, thanks for sharing Alison, I now remember the feeling of relief when it was over. And I can also remember how my heart used to race and it would take quite some time afterwards, to calm down and settle again.
How very gorgeous that you have claimed what not just what every man deeply needs to feel in another man but what every woman is so very blessed to feel in a man – tenderness is a true man
Amber I love here how you introduce and claim the true blessing of tenderness, as a man the moment I hear that word I melt and realise that I’m often walking around not in tenderness when I am naturally tender.
Thank you for that MA – I also have to remember that at times, although my body lets me know pretty quick these days when I am other than the lovely tender being that I truly am .
Tenderness is our natural way but we have strayed so far from our path that we no longer remember who we are.
It is a strong man indeed who does not need to foster competition in his sons, from his own reclamation within that this is an energy that is not needed in order to survive in this world – for in fact, it diminishes us greatly.
It’s been interesting to witness more events of late in Australia, where former high-achieving sportsmen are struggling in life – the drive and ‘heights’ of their careers no longer being present, there are many who seem at a great loss within, with no clear bearing for how now, post-sporting achievement, to live a full and enriching life.
This speaks of a deeper responsibility we all hold in the way we look at sport and just what we are fuelling in our praise of its apparent ‘glories’…
A fabulous sharing Victoria. Thank you. Very true – it is a very strong man who does not need to foster competition.
These are very true observations and reflections Peter. Competition inhibits our ability and willingness to connect with others by virtue of the fact that in order to compete, we first have to disconnect from those around us in order to pitch ourselves against them. It is not the activity of sport that is in question, but more so the opposition we engage with in order to not feel how innately connected to each other we otherwise are.
Absolutely Lianne. I feel this is the stark truth that no one wants to admit to.
I agree Liane, this disconnection to enable competition is not considered, and neither are the consiquences
This disconnection in order to compete is similar to the training young soldiers receive in order to be able to fight others and kill them. It seems that the whole purpose of sport has come to be the winning side at all costs. The defence of team sports is that they encourage working together, but the purpose of working together is to defeat another team who are also working together. How crazy is that to be cut off from half of humanity, and even in these teams there is a demand to override deeper feelings and bodies and respect. That this kind of training is part of the education system ensures we continue to retain this attitude to anyone not on “our side”.
What seems apparent is that the winning in sport has become the only thing that matters. You hear coaches and teams talk of this all the time. A “results based business” which actually reflects the emptiness of sport, when all that matters is winning and making sure others lose.
Well perceived Liane – “… n order to compete, we first have to disconnect from those around us in order to pitch ourselves against them.” How has it come that we will go so far for that to occur …
I agree Liane, the very nature of competition isolates us because we choose to engage in a behaviour that drives us to be in a different place to each other, a behaviour that is in direction opposition to our innate knowing of community, equality and our inherent impulse to unite in work and play.
So true Liane. The deeper awareness Peter shares I have felt when attending sporting events as a spectator. What I also begun to understand is that the level of connection that many live with themselves and others is actually quite dimmed down from our innate way, therefore the being part of a team, the supposed comradary etc feels like connection because it is more than what is being lived in daily life – but in-truth they are far from what we were born with and once engaged with as children.
There is so much to be said and truly examined by us societally on the nature of competition. Competition is a consciousness, a way of thinking that asks us – should we buy into it – to ditch our natural inclination to brotherhood (an inclination that rests in the hearts of us all), and allow the desire of a want to better another become our modus operandi.
Until we are ready to truly feel how devastating this is upon our own sensitive being, let alone the harm it brings to others, it will yet seek to play out through our behaviours – whether this be via sport, or simply taking off faster than another from being stationery at the traffic lights… Much attention and kudos can be ours for the taking when we choose to play on such a battlefield, and I would say along with you here Peter, that although there may be the semblance of connection in many events in life, there is always a deeper opportunity lost when competition is at play, by virtue of the denial of what lays within our hearts – the knowing of the equalness of all men. In competition, this is completely denied.
The levels of competition are at play constantly. Having worked in daycare centres for many years this belief becomes ingrained into our young boys from a very young age. The subtle comments and undertones that are shared, often mask an inability to recognise or a willingness to feel that there is another way as many times this behaviour is modelled generation after generation
Natallija, this is such an important point, the messages we give young boys are often very subtle, and they always ask boys to be a certain type of boy, that inevitably grows into a man that is not at ease with himself, as it is not a true version of who they want to be. Might this relate to the suicidal tendencies we see in young adults, does sport contribute to this? All questions we should deeply consider.
Well said Victoria – competition is a huge battlefield designed for championing the individual – it is impossible to experience true brotherhood and competition in the same moment.
This is a huge topic to tackle Peter, especially in a country obsessed with sport. Well done though, you have given plenty to be looking at here. One of the things you mention is the change in the energy of supporters, I have noticed this too. Depending on whether the chosen team is winning or losing, supporters will blow hot and cold, loving the team with a win, adulation and elation abounding or downright hating and putting down the players, criticizing and demeaning when they lose. Pretty much calling for their blood. There is rarely any grace given these days and it is more like a battlefield of war than a place people can connect and enjoy kicking or tossing a ball around and those on the sidelines enjoying with the same vigour. I feel we have to look at why the spectators need sport to be this way, are we living vicariously through the players? Bleed and hurt for me so I dont have to? Sacrificing our young men to feel good about ourselves? Definitely worth thinking about.
Jeanette, I lived in New Zealand for a while and attended a club rugby match my friend was playing in, even at this low level of competition, it was incredible to witness the ferocity with which it was played, and it was hard to relate this to how any human being should treat another. And yet this is sport, many would laugh off this comment and say toughen up. Yet I just can’t marry up the nature of how we compete and the natural tenderness that we could actually live, a tenderness that would allow us to feel joy and not the angst of competing and trying to beat others to feel good.
I agree Stephen. There is an immense amount of ferocity involved in sport to the extent that, if one were to adjust the surroundings a bit and replace some of the hardware involved, it could to all intent and purpose turn into a battle. This begs the question for me, what are we feeding through sport, our ability to play, interact and grow from the experience, or a need to hurt, punish and harm one another?
This is true, and what we are seeing is more and more violence, not just in sports such as rugby where the collisions are huge, but the rise of so called sports such as UFC, where you can batter someone unconscious, and this has become mainstream. So what does this say about our ills in society, for it is not a healthy situation to have so many of us, wishing to partake or view such organised violence.
I had to do a Google search on UFC! Are we becoming so dehumanised that we don’t even recognise the extent of the violence quite literally playing out before us? When we take a step back and a long hard look at the whole picture, we haven’t really progressed much further than Neanderthal man.
I actually played this sport for many, many years and I cannot believe that I did that to my poor old body, but I grew up in that consciousness and it was actually frowned upon if you didn’t play, and the better you were at it the more popular you seemed to be. If I could turn back time I would never do that to myself again and if it was absolutely necessary to play a sport, maybe I would try badminton or lawn bowls or something.
Rugby I meant not UFC.
A ‘country obsessed with sport’ is a country obsessed with avoidance.
What you write is so very true, beautiful and deeply touching Peter, that I have nothing left to say other than to express my appreciation.