An article by Adam Warburton ‘Sport, Competition and Fiery Debate’, with the comments and the associated discussion, have got me reflecting on other life experiences with sport, competition and any team events, and what else may be really going on beyond the surface level cheering crowds and uniforms.
What is it we crave and seek in the apparent unity of a sporting team, and is it really being delivered?
Whilst I was never really into sport, as participant or spectator, I had an interesting brush with premier league soccer in the UK. I lived for a time in a northern English city, once built around the cotton industry but now pretty deprived; a hardened and miserable place with the unenviable title of least recommended city to visit in the Lonely Planet, and across a variety of studies, also rated as having one of the lowest life satisfaction rates of the British Isles, as well as lowest average ratings for self-worth and higher misery ratings and associated suicide rates.
Even the residents, (many of whom are dear friends I remain in contact with today) were just as scathing about the city, prospects and quality of life, the saying “It’s Grim up north” was a lived daily reality for the majority – there were hearts of gold under it all, but life was hard, and people lived hard, with whole suburbs of ‘no go zones’ for the police.
My once wealthy ancestors had in the past been huge sponsors of the local premier league soccer in this city – and I’d often wondered why, what was the point? There was the obvious (although empty) gesture of being seen as ‘successful’ and showing off one’s status, but I had been told there was a belief in an old school benevolence – to ‘give back’ to the city that contributed to the wealth. I still didn’t get it as I wondered what a soccer team did for a city.
Then while I lived there, the team found a new uber-wealthy sponsor who poured money and resources into buying the best coach, best players etc., and again the team rose to the top of the league.
To give you a taste of the usual mood in this town, I remember my time there in my late teens. Wide eyed and 16 years old, fresh out of small town rural Australia, I walked past a woman in the street and smiled at her; she looked at me in bemusement with hardened disgust. “What the bloody ‘ell are you smilin’ at,” was her embittered response. This wasn’t an isolated incident, I soon learnt that spontaneous displays of joy were frowned upon in this place… but not so when sport was involved.
After the injection of cash from the club’s new patrons and the club’s subsequent win, this miserable town, where worth-less-ness was ingrained and multi-generational, transformed into a hub of celebration and partying on the streets.
People were more open and actually spoke to each other. There was a rare and tangible ‘pride’ and a sense of belonging in the populace; there was an appearance of ‘unity’ between different cultures, different classes, even peoples’ postures were more upright and gait more lively.
You might hold this up and say “that’s what sport offers, that’s the justification for my ancestors pouring resources into the club,” or even “there’s the value, self-esteem and (confected) joy for a downtrodden community.”
…. BUT (and it’s a huge but!), as it was gained through external circumstances or events (not internally reconnected to) and but a mere isolated display of unity, it was short-lived. Very short-lived indeed.
As soon as the elation of the premiership win was over, it was back to business as usual – shut down abject misery, possibly worse than before in reaction to the loss of the ‘high’.
It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.
So my revelation from reading Adam’s article, the comments and reflecting further, has been that not only does the competitiveness in sport and elsewhere in our society set us up from young to make us think our worth is external, not only does it divide us – country against country, city against city, suburb against suburb, ‘us’ against ‘them’, me versus you and ultimately me against myself – whilst tricking us into a false unity, it also provides an effective distraction from that which we are missing to begin with (the true unity we deeply crave) through entering into the whole ‘proving ourselves externally’ farce – what a doozy!!
I really appreciate the opportunity to reflect on this subject and to ‘real-eyes’ that it is the true connection that we are missing – between each other and within ourselves – and that this connection can never be made or maintained through ‘limited unity’ such that we find in competitive sport or any kind of triumph over another.
By Kate Burns, BA (Hons), Bellingen, Australia
Further Reading:
Exercise – it doesn’t need to be hard work
My Turnaround from Competitive Running to Connection with Me
Competitive sports: the pursuit of emptiness
True change comes from within and not from what someone else is doing.
Underneath the hard exterior is a heart of Gold, we all have this within us a heart of gold but it gets covered up because we live in a society that does not want to admit just how sensitive we are. We have turned or made sensitivity into a negative attribute when actually we cannot stop feeling on a very deep level we just block our awareness and so life is very dull.
What a great observation Kate, as so many of us are caught up in the internal web of life and the mundane-ness it will deliver, and when we re-connect to our essences, inner-hearts / Soul our life does open to a new way of being again as we return to being Joy-full in every aspect of life.
It really is a case of following the crowd, not wanting to stand out, not wanting to feel whats true that we end up following a sporting team.
This reminds me of the old saying ‘winners are grinners’ and I shudder to think why on earth does it make any difference as we all used to be in elation over some contrived visualisation we would have of the ‘grass being greener!’ and forget about living life to the full in the present or in-conscious-presence and the non-emotional joyous feeling that you were sharing Kate that was shunned.
It is true connection we crave, with ourselves, and then with others, ‘it is the true connection that we are missing – between each other and within ourselves’.
There is no joy in sport even when we win! We feel elated but it is exactly that – a false and pretend temporary elation at the expense of our true selves and that of another from the emptiness we are feeling. Understand this and sport no longer becomes a part of our lives.
Sales is also very much tarred with the same brush in that you are only seen as good as your last sale. You are celebrated for an instant … great sale, what’s next? If you don’t make the sales then your letting the team down. In my experience there is no value to what you bring or contribute to the company money is the only interest. If we were to stop and feel into that it hurts to know that actually you are not valued as a person you are only valued for the money you make the company. This is the shallowness of the life we say we want.
This happens at times like Christmas as well. If we haven’t got a connection with ourselves on the inside we crave/demand/need it to come from the outside in. That is why when we have an outsourced connecter people come together but as soon as it’s gone there’s no inner connection to keep that unity amongst people going.
Sport can be a safe-seeming form of brotherhood. It is only partial brotherhood but it can be a springboard for true brotherhood.
The difference between the so-called fiery debate of parliament, and the truly Pythagorean use of expression in groups to lift the collective bar of awareness and energetic expression are diametrically opposite.
It’s interesting that after the win was over then people returned to their usual grumpy selves, possibly saddened inside because the offer of connection wasn’t really lived. Reading this reminded me of Christmas and how people are more open to being friendly but this doesn’t last year round. January is usually a mark of the winter blues, at least in the UK I’ve noticed.
Competition sets one against another and there are always more losers than winners and the ‘winner’ is only at the top of the pile until someone knocks them off.
Competition never works, its very basis is to divide us, ‘ country against country, city against city, suburb against suburb, ‘us’ against ‘them’, me versus you and ultimately me against myself’, whereas in reality we are all connected, we are all one.
Spot on Lorraine.
This can be found in any hobby or interest that we share with another. I remember it was huge in video gaming as that want for connection was strong, seemingly satisfied but gone like the wind the moment one of us stopped gaming.
I agree with you Kate that the external high only leaves people more despondent when it is over, it gives them a deeper feeling of missing something, which of course is themselves. What a set up we live in.
Yes, very true and often we use the emptiness to try again until we have had enough of the emptiness and stop.
People in self-imposed downtrodden places would lighten up if a few more smiling faces moved among them and met them with a smile for who they are.
When we feel truly connected with ourselves and with one another there would be no need for sport. Lets get real competition does not unite people it only distracts us from our discontent with not being connected.
We band together with common themes and huddle around them like camp fires – thinking this is a good life. Yet all the time we feel the emptiness from knowing these shared interests are not right. Dig a little deeper into these teams, sports and clubs and you will find they are all separated – from their heart. And so no true togetherness is there as we can see from the horrible way ‘fans’ argue and fight.
I definitely found this in video game ‘fandoms’ the way we treated each other was anything but unity and harmony. Even if playing on the same team against another we were divided.
“What is it we crave and seek in the apparent unity of a sporting team, and is it really being delivered?” Ah the old adage of connection which is key, we all want it but how often do we settle for what is not that.
A great reflection Kate – How everyone needs to hear / read it to stop the struggle, competition, misery and abuse.
” That not only does the competitiveness in sport and elsewhere in our society set us up from young to make us think our worth is external, not only does it divide us ”
This is so very true for people are called upon at an early age to prove themselves and this therefore gives them the impression that they are not enough. But humorously, everyone of us was enough as a baby we were never called upon to prove ourselves.
It is a very great point you share as it so often that we engage in sport seeking camaraderie, yet the opposite is being delivered as you have shown through what you have shared. The fact is that we already are innately connected on a much deeper and truer level, one that we cannot escape, through the light of our Souls, that is our love. No games or competition needed only the willingness to go there and embrace and express what is truly already there in our hearts.
Yes we miss true connection with ourselves and with others, and fail miserably by trying to get it with these sporting events, ‘this connection can never be made or maintained through ‘limited unity’ such that we find in competitive sport or any kind of triumph over another.’
” triumph over another. ”
No matter what ” sport ” it is ,the outcome will always be as above. But if there is triumph then there must be a looser. Anything build on the making of a looser will always be to the detriment of society and the human ” race “.
Do we rely on the outside world to give us our ‘peaks’ and troughs, or do we live in a way that builds a consistent love of life and ALL it has to offer/teach us?
What really is extraordinary is when a whole country becomes identified with a certain team, and with that certain team winning consistently… It all becomes interwoven,National identity, individual identification, sporting achievement, in a bizarre tapestry that takes on the appearance of connection but is anything but.
Yes, these sporting events are a distraction, there is no true connection, ‘It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.’
It is so often a source of conversation between people too, when they struggle to connect the focus becomes on something external. Growing up in Australia most of the conversations with my Dad and Uncles or between the men at family gatherings centred around sport and there was little more connection than this. It is sad because these were gorgeous men in my life yet we missed out of this because who they are wasn’t expressed, the focus was more on the male roles they needed to play.
Misery is such a brilliant word for describing a state of mind or a way of living, as to have a miserable existence is to truly live without joy.
I did a lot of sports and I always wanted to be the best. It gave me this supremacy and protection because I was actually scared of other people, because I was hurt inside by many occasions with people. But what I did, I was building myself a self created fortress, as all my movements communicated, “Don´t come close to me”. When it came to team games and you were the last that were chosen to be in a team it just got confirmed, that you cannot trust people. So it became this self fulfilling circle that proved – it is better to stay on your own and get at least a high moment through winning and to not feel the gap between you and the others. In fact your own gap of self love inside you.
The moment mankind will realise that the medications of excitement and relief from separation does not work and leaves us even more emptier than at the beginning, the path will be walked to true unity. The truth we all come from which is un-replaceable.
Yesterday I had a conversation with a mum whose young boy had recently got concussion from a rugby tackle, unfortunately injuries in this sport are quite a common occurrence and seems crazy to me that we play such a game for ‘fun’. If we look into the effects of many competitive sports we will often find there is a deep level of harm, yet as a society we are not prepared to go there and fully take responsibility for the games we play and the consequences this has on both on mental and physical health.
This is a great observation Kate one that should be studied to understand just what it is that we crave most of all . . . which is undoubtedly true connection. A connection that cannot be . . “gained through external circumstances or events (not internally reconnected to)” . . .as you observed . . .
“It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.” This is a subject well worth studying.
It is like taking a pill for a headache, but not actually looking at the root cause of the headache. And boy oh boy are there many pills out there in this created world to keep you away and make it more easy to not look at the root cause.
“it is the true connection that we are missing – between each other and within ourselves – and that this connection can never be made or maintained through ‘limited unity’ such that we find in competitive sport or any kind of triumph over another.” A great point Kate. Winning over another can never be considered a triumph. Winners are always looking over their shoulders to see who is coming up behind them ready to overtake them. The feel of a brief period of exhilaration, then its on to the next competition.
Well said Kate. No matter what another says about sport and how great it is in building confidence, working together as a team and socialising meeting new people etc, it doesn’t come anywhere near to feeling the unity with everyone and everything in the universe. When we are truly connected to the love that we are it is impossible to compete and play sport of any kind regardless of what the outer imposes on us.
What you share is so true Kate, when there is an us vs them mentality in anything we do be that sport, workplaces, social groups there will always be a false unity on both sides. Great blog.
Brilliant question Kate in asking what is actually being delivered to us through sport. Our longing to belong to a group, to feel a sense of Brotherhood is something we all crave. Yet what we settle for is a false sense banding together through activities such as sport, that are championing separation, combating another and relishing the defeat and overpowering of our fellow brothers. The thrill is always short lived because it is an emotion that is fed from a source outside of us, as such we are left with the empty feeling that drives us to seek relief in the first place. I was very into sport and can honestly say that this was my experience, having the quality of my day dictated by the results of certain sporting games. The irony is that we seek unity, a sense of belonging and connection through an activity that glorifies the separation we feel, offering only short-lived moments of distraction. We have a far great opportunity to discover true connection, unity and Brotherhood through allowing real and honest relationships to develop between ourselves and each other.
What we really are craving is the intensity and belongingness of being part of the winning and superior team, a very poor substitute to living the love that we are.
I remember being in the London tube once, and I heard this very intense primal noise coming towards me… I saw a sight that I had never seen before, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of blue and white painted young people shouting and chanting like a bizarre science-fiction movie. I had never seen anything like this… And yes they were going to a football match
Group sport offers to people the illusion of being part of something ‘greater’, feeling happy, being in touch with others, finding some kind of intimacy, etc. This is a false copy of the brotherhood everyone is craving for… and will continue craving because this is not the place where it can be found. In fact, it takes people to the very opposite side!
I saw a local game of football this week as I made my way around the local park for my daily walk. What was interesting to observe was how the team members spoke differently when they were on field and off field. Their personalities changed and it was as if they were taken on a new way of walking, running and talking on the field to belong and fit the ideals that were the complete opposite once they were heading back to their cars at the end of the match.
When my boys were young we were introduced to co- operative games. These were interactive and great fun, enjoyed by everyone of all ages and not a winner or a loser in sight.
There is much talk of team spirit in the defense of competitive sport and that children have to learn how to lose in life. However when I went to a few football matches with a boyfriend who supported a particular club the change in him depending on whether his team won or lost was extremely apparent. Thus grown up people haven’t learnt how to lose either. This makes a mockery of learning how to lose gracefully – As we know from football riots that occur between two opposing clubs that can break out onto the streets.
‘It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.’ This sentence is gold. How easily we can be fooled by these momentary highs. And then what?
It’s interesting how people take on sports teams like they are their own family or religion, I’ve observed the massive ups and downs people go through when their team wins or loses – essentially their life and how they feel is governed by the success or failure of this team. It seems a very unstable way to live, and almost a dangerous way to live to allow how you feel to be governed by something completely out of your control. It makes more sense to claim that this is me and this is how I feel, no matter what happens around me.
I know that I very much craved that connection that Kate is writing about… And really it is still an ongoing journey of allowing myself to feel the interconnectedness of all things within which one can never feel any separation
Sport is a massive distraction away from who we really are. In the future it will be known and clear for everyone that competition causes separation and harms our very body.
I have witnessed again and again various governments who are in trouble with the state of the country they are running cook up or flare up some conflict or another, at times outright war and killings, and more frequently simply vilifying a group or another so people ‘unite in opposition’ to some manufactured ‘foe’.
It is a sad state of our world that humanity is so lacking and craving of a feeling of brotherhood that such outright games can be played with people. The description of the short term feeling of elation brought on by sports and competition is a perfect mirror of this.
Thank you Kate for a great article about sports, the so called coming together that we see in sport is so short lived because it is not a true connection after all. Competition divides and separates us from ourselves and one another. “It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.”
It’s good to talk about this… I know it’s obvious but I know that men everywhere are seeking this sense of unity and brotherhood, and we look in so many places. I looked for it in the Army… I was sure it would be there, so I went back three times!… I tried it in a monastery… Enough said… And in my youth absolute abundance of sporting teams. Unity, connection, brotherhood, it all starts from within, but to do this one must actually look oneself, feel where one is, and be accountable for energetic responsibility on all levels.
Kate, great article, ‘it is the true connection that we are missing – between each other and within ourselves – and that this connection can never be made or maintained through ‘limited unity’ such that we find in competitive sport or any kind of triumph over another.’ I have observed this with children playing sport, there is no true unity, I have witnessed competition, teams against each other, even team mates against each other, often there are injuries and the game carries on, the injuries and if someone is upset does not stop the game, there seems to be little care for each other during the game and then there is a sense of false camaraderie for the winning team and a sense of loss from the loosing team.
Seeking security and safety in numbers is a very different thing to true unity. Security and safety will always have winners and losers and ‘us’ and a ‘them’, unity always includes everyone and everything. There is only ‘us’ together as equals.
Any situation whereby we think we might have it over on someone, in fact where there is any comparison whatsoever and we feel ‘good’ because of it, just cannot last. It is akin to the feeling of winning. The moment we feel less again, because let’s face it, we can always find someone ‘better or better off’ than us if we want to, comes the downer. Living like this is exhausting and we need endless things to prop us up whether they be food and drink , entertainment, sport, shopping, gaming, in fact anything that we think relieves this ache inside that sometimes we don’t even acknowledge is there. This is pure existence and not really living at all.
Sport has the image of bringing people together. But we do need to question more deeply if this is true. I have seen people being abused because of the team they follow, there have been riots based on the results of games, but even more subtly the fact that one team or person is seen as a winner and everyone else a loser in effect is not about bringing people together. Being together is our natural way. Sports as I see it is a way that stops us from seeing this truth within our communities .
I remember a crossroad in my past when I chose to play a sport solely for the purpose of meeting some new people, but I didn’t find what I was seeking as it was just more of the same.
I recently experienced how I can be away from unity in a relationship only to move back to it when circumstances allowed the space for this – perhaps so many of us are not allowing this space for unity that we are seeking it instead from places where in truth it cannot be.
Reading this I had the familiar recognition of the age old trick of “divide and conquer”, in that when people perceive themselves as separate and are encouraged to take care of their own in disregard and at the expense of those they are separated from, we are lost to ourselves. In truth this can not be blamed on anyone and we are never puppets, we actually choose to buy into this and get caught in the excitement of winning over another.
But since such an expression is not true to the love that we are, what is the hook? Are we settling for a booby prize of belonging to a small part instead of the true brotherhood we are from? And are we getting a fake sense of worth and purpose instead of the absolute knowing of the true amazingness that is our true and natural nature?
You have hit the nail on the head here when you say about football, “It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.” In that distraction, we think we have found what we are looking for as we can feel a palpable shift to something that feels better, but it doesn’t bring a connection that is long lasting. We then go about a pattern of flitting relief from one distraction to another to make ourselves feel better without true inner change.
…’connection can never be made or maintained through ‘limited unity’ such that we find in competitive sport or any kind of triumph over another’ – Well said Kate. Love cannot be conditional or a case of if-your-team-loses-then-we-can-be-friends, and sport actually sets us up to have lots of measures within our relationships.. Although it’s advertised as something to ‘unite’ people, a lot of the time it actually creates a false unity that doesn’t unite people at all but promotes every man for himself and his team.
I can remember being in my netball team and volleyball team and there was a complete dislike and cutting off from the team we were playing. Having that mental syc build me up to win that game. Over time I got to feel how horrible it really was. The separation and divide was very strong.
Ah, this was my upbringing!! The ups and downs of the football season, the dreaded Sunday 5pm when most of the games would be finished because that is when you would know what kind of Sunday night it would be. There is still a familiarity of that connection now when I see and hear those around me talk about the football. To have been able to see it for what it is and detach from it was such a blessing.
There is no unity to be found in sport-only competition. Where there is competition there is always going to be someone who is crushed by having lost a game etc and this does not bring unity.
I also wonder if sport like this is still a true game of who is the best soccer player or would it be more correct to say who has the most money will have the most success?
Bringing something that relieves the tension or pain does not ask people to look at what is truly going on and truly heal. So that does give away that the soccer team was not truly supportive but actually hiding the issues that are there further away. Now people feel down when the team looses and up when it wins… the whole underlying discontent is ignored.
So much of life is about competition obviously as we have the opposite of divinity everywhere. What is fascinating is how often we turn to the opposite way of being.
Belonging to a’ group’ at the expense of another ‘group’ is not unity.
I grew up in the UK too Kate, and always found that sport and soccer, in particular, was a common thread that seemed to bind everyone together. If you met someone in the street, a granny or a young child they would have a view and something to say about Liverpool, Arsenal or their favourite team. Yet as you so beautifully say, whilst this shared interest might have made us seem closer, it actually had a vicious, competitive, combative side, ‘I’m better than you’ – still tribe vs tribe. Your words make me realise how, although I have stopped following sport I still settle in my life for ‘similarity’ and shared things we do, instead of connecting and knowing beyond race, colour and skin, we all share an innate interlinking deep within.
I wonder if we were to bring deep honesty to our relationships with sport we might realise that the part we love about sport is not the competition, but the togetherness of sharing time with others, being amongst other people, having fun. And so sport then becomes a sharing of time, not the sharp edged competition that is far removed from the innate gentleness we were all born with.
Yes Kate, so true, that any joy ‘gained through external circumstances or events (not internally reconnected to) . . . is short-lived’. On the other hand, we can at any moment connect to the love that is within us and in sharing that with another we feel great joy. It is like an inner well that is our wellbeing and it is constantly there but so often we keep a lid on it. Sport ‘provides an effective distraction from that’ and experiencing this false joy gives us a temporary substitute which satisfies us but sets up a craving for more so we live from one high to the next with a dip in between. Connecting with our inner wellbeing is a steady, unexcitable state where we feel full-filled with no need to lust for more.
The achievement of goals including sporting prowess is often held highly by society, but at what cost? Once the deed is done, the goal achieved, what is left? Potentially a few days or weeks of basking in the glory, but then another goal and success is needed to feed the beast that says “your worth is dependent on what you accomplish, and not who you are”. Time for that beast to be eliminated.
This says it all, ‘BUT (and it’s a huge but!), as it was gained through external circumstances or events (not internally reconnected to) and but a mere isolated display of unity, it was short-lived. Very short-lived indeed.’ This will always be the case with these circumstances as you say Kate.
Kate, from my experience I agree with what you have written here, ‘this connection can never be made or maintained through ‘limited unity’ such that we find in competitive sport or any kind of triumph over another.’ At my local school I observe the children playing sports, they want to team up and play together but what happens is that the sport often becomes aggressive and the sides battle against the other team and often against each other, the winning team celebrate their win over the other team, this feels like a false high and does not last long and the victory over the other team feels disconnecting, It feels like there is a harness and no true feeling of unity and brotherhood.
It feels very cool and important to be exposing the divisiveness of sport. We are probably a long way from really realising and acting on this but every conversation is part of the turn around. Thank you, Kate.
Competition, jealousy, comparison and judgement all work hand in hand to barricade our connection with each other, and make the focus of live individualism rather than universality.
It is almost impossible to fathom the extraordinarily insidious nature of competition and its effect upon our society… That something so lauded should be so destructive gives us a very real readout of what is happening to humanity
How crazy that a cheap substitute to what we really crave is the total opposite to what we really need. Sport, competition is just like a drug that gives you a quick fix but then leaves you craving for more once it wears off.
Is it possible that this false sense of unity you’ve highlighted here Kate is one of the reasons why so many people in our society are into sports and keep coming back to it because we think the unity we feel is the real thing?
I have never been an avid sport follower although I did participate in some sports when I was younger, but for me it was the fun of playing the sport as I wasn’t into needing to win at all which is probably why I did not very often. From my experience though, it definitely brings out the worst from others, getting angry, throwing verbal abuse to another and even dragging young children into the need to win and pushing them to do better for the trophy or whatever. People change when it comes to needing to win, and it may look like there is camaraderie amongst teams, but how can you feel good about defeating another and making them feel less?
It’s such a shame that we have to look outside of ourselves for distraction, when what we are truly looking for lies within and when that connection is made it is so much simpler to make the connection with others, without the need of sport or something else that can lift us momentarily out of the drudgery of many of our lives.
And that meeting of another from our within rather than an external distraction has a quality that is tangible and properly exquisite.
This is true Bryony, what sprang to mind immediately was the reality TV shows where we feel better about ourselves by watching others either succeed or most often fail. Any desire on our part to want another to fail or to laugh at someone doing something badly actually requires a lot of introspection, for it shows we are not healthy if we enjoy the misfortune of others and that there is much we need to address about how we live and the pockets of dissatisfaction we have in our own lives.
Kate, your concluding paragraph is a good summary of the blog and makes the important point that ‘true connection can never be made or maintained through ‘limited unity’ such that we find in competitive sport or any kind of triumph over another.’ This false high gives the illusion of connection but it is at the expense of the other side. It is indeed a very partial semblance of unity and, worse than that, it gives us a substitute for connection which relieves the pressure for a moment and therefore distracts us from feeling the pain of separation which would eventually bring us back to ourselves and God. Thus, when we hop from one such event to another thinking that this is ‘brotherhood’ we further delay our return back to who we truly are.
Great point here, when there are winners and losers any sense of unity can only ever be short term, I would even suggest that it is false unity in truth because of what it is based on. It doesn’t matter if it is a school sports day race or a huge and very costly olympic sprint, same, same…unity long term comes from seeing others as equal and knowing that we all equally have something to bring to the whole.
Love that phrase ‘limited unity’ in relation to competitive sport. It captures not only the bounded scope and exclusivity of the so-called triumph – that only a few get to feel the high whilst the many get to feel the low – but it also identifies the short-lived, unprolongable nature of the elation from a win, that merely returns all the pomp, ceremony and sense of achievement back into the original emptiness that stood behind it all along.
‘…any kind of triumph over another’ actually makes us feel sick inside and it is only the superficial conditioning that has us believe competition is healthy and a natural state of our being that tries to convince us otherwise. Being honest about the underlying malaise we feel is the start to undoing the conditioning we are incarcerated and divided by.
It’s a great piece of understanding to bring about sport and the desire for oneness and brotherhood. The fact we distort this is really an indictment on our way of living disconnected to our souls.
Thank you. It is well to remember that anyone acting in any way against another person is in truth seeking connection however ironic it may seem.
“What is it we crave and seek in the apparent unity of a sporting team, and is it really being delivered?” Such a great question and one that I would imagine is rarely asked. But what is it that people are craving? My sense is connection, people will go to great lengths, even if misguided, and it isn’t true connection, but see sport as a way to connect to family, their children…’go out to the football together’, they see the choices to support a team, a sport star also as a way of connecting to role models, when in fact they couldn’t be further from the truth. There is a lot we as a humanity still need to wake up and feel more honestly what is really going on.
It seems like we enjoy being together but the way we are together we are not really getting it right. Being with other people is a huge potential to have unity and to experience brotherhood but we usually destroy that potential with alcohol or activities that don’t really give room for any true quality.
It is true connection that we are missing, and yes, many use distraction methods to not feel this for short or long periods of time…’it is the true connection that we are missing – between each other and within ourselves’. Absolutely.
‘It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.’ This is a brilliant quote that dismantles the illusion that sport unites us in any way. Competition pits us against one another individually, in teams from different parts of our countries, as nations… it is the ultimate in divisiveness and it serves us well to see it as such.
It can on the surface, in an example like this be quite difficult to argue with the good a successful sports team does for a city, but scratch below the surface and look a little deeper at what occurs and we can actually easily see that sporting teams do little for the people in the towns they supposedly serve. There is an ugly attachment to the fortunes of the team and often a real hatred for teams and people from other cities and towns, particularly those nearby. It is a really false happiness that is created and one that is always short lived.
My perspective on this is that Sport is just like how I used to live my life, the ups and downs, the wins and the losses – it was a big rollercoaster that meant I was always unsettled and anxious about what was ahead. What has changed is my acceptance that life does not need to be this way, instead it can be consistant and whilst not perfect by any means and with lots of learnings happening each day the very foundation of the way I now live is what provides the unity within that I used to seek outside.
Competition in itself is not the root cause of our woes, but rather symptom that extends from our lack of connection. From our lack of connection, we lose our sense of self, which in turn leads to self worth issues, which in turn leads to a search outside of ourselves for an identity, which in turn leads to competition, as we seek to verify our own self worth by crushing that in another.
When we really love another we could not compete against them, competition is so far of the radar when real love of another is there.
Well said, Samantha. Actually does it even need to be as complete as love? If we respect, care for and appreciate another we cannot be in competition with them and then we have a chance to build loving relationships so far from comparison, vying for attention and lack of care. The ability to liberate ourselves from competition comes from our own sense of self worth and respect… as this builds we do not need to beat others for our own validation.
Interesting that you should bring up soccer Kate; I felt the energy of soccer that I had to go into to play soccer when I was young. I felt it as I drove past a soccer field with lots of young players and the feeling was undeniable as the energy I would have to go into to go to my soccer matches. When I was 7 years old I started to play soccer and I was very competitive. It is interesting that these feeling never leave us until we make a choice to feel the truth. I choose not to feel that energy in the first place and then to deny it even existed. Thank you Kate and Serge Benhayon for bring my feelings about soccer to my attention. The way soccer had a control over me needed to be looked at and healed. The little things like soccer as a team building activity did the exact opposite for me. True brotherhood has nothing to do with the must win at all cost of any sport.
How revealing these games are Kate and what a metaphor for how we see life and choose to be. We are all pursuing victory and some kind of elevation, all seeking a pick-me-up from our every day but never stopping and choosing to act a different way. If we are honest we subscribe to the drama and the struggle of sport instead of seeing we truly are all on the same side and team with God.
I have found this article really supportive in unravelling mine and society’s confusion about competition and sport; both of which divide people and yet we pretend it is ‘teamwork’. This is a conversation that needs to be had more and more widely. Thank you, Kate.
The ‘competition game’ is stimulation to not feel the lack and pain of disconnection and separation, not different to any other drug we may use but insidiously leading someone to believe being in connection with those of common interest into the ‘game’ or group activity. Without the common interest there is no community or connection as it is not the relationship with people but with the topic that appears binding together, hence without the topic no affinity.
Celebrating and feeling happy when your favourite sporting team wins a game is all well and good, but are we not missing out every other day in the year (or our lives) when this doesn’t happen?
It is a very good topic to explore does a sporting team spirit promote unity? I would say if it takes a common enemy or rival for people to rally against there is an ‘us and them’ attitude that separates us from our opponent. It is impossible to build unity in a team when there is contempt for your adversary. The competitive attitude cannot be confined to a sporting adversary and spills out into family, work, and social life we see as bullying, being argumentative, or manipulative. This creates barriers to those we say we love and care for – all under the name of building unity in a community. In this case I would say that the money invested in the sporting club was an investment in separating people rather than uniting them.
The more I learn about life the more I see it comes back to energy. If a community is in the energy of being downtrodden, miserable, and low self esteem, nothing will change unless this is addressed by each individual. You can change how it looks but if the energy is the same, it will feel the same.
I used to play competitive basketball and was very competitive indeed. The other team may as well have been my enemies. Another interesting part was that because I was so consumed with competition, I was so self-centred which meant I didn’t feel much of a connection to my team mates. Competition separates us.
It is very interesting to observe what unifies people in community. On one hand people come together to support each other in natural disasters but divide into two different sides to support teams in competitive sports. Why are we not unified in everyday life and is competition the factor that motivates unequalness and division.
So strong is our sense of and need for unity that we are even willing to do or join things that are in truth the absolute opposite of unity as long as it gives us enough ‘peace’ from the unrest as a substitute to the only true unity there is – at-one-ment with the all.
The natural feeling to connect with others can’t be denied, but how we go about that connection definitely needs to be looked at, especially within sport, because when you invest in being a winner at all costs in your sport, all true connection is lost.
What would men have to talk about if there were no sports?
Ahhh… is that the key question? Would men then talk about the fact that they feel? That they want to work together with their sensitivity worn on their sleeves? That they are gentle and yearn to love and be loved? Is this what we are are avoiding and missing out on with the vast smokescreen, distraction and facade of sport?
Sport is such an integral part of our lives and we live so closely entwined with it that taking a few steps back and observing our interaction with it can be a tricky thing. What you share here is enormous…” It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.” This is a whammy to realise we use sport as a distraction from feeling the lack of connection/worth within ourselves.
“It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.” – sport is one of many activities that distract us from our disconnection with ourselves and each other. But the fact we recognise that we can connect through something tells me that we all know what true connection is, but through sport it is sought externally rather than within first.
There are so many ways we are distracting from feeling the devastation of our emptiness and loneliness and disconnection from ourselves. As illustrated here sport can provide a feeling of belonging and excitement for a short period of time but always will need replenishing over and over again.
Many kids like to simply kick a ball around with friends. Somewhere along the way, many many years ago we lost this and introduced competition. Competition is not necessary and pollute what could otherwise be a coming together.
I see this separation so clearly in school, watching my children and their peers negotiate what community and competition are for them and how this is expressed. Unity cannot come from competition, making someone a winner, means there are losers. This isn’t about worrying if someone looses they will be hurt, which can happen. It is more about equality and true unity, we are all born equal, with our own strengths, there is no need to push our bodies to the edge of their capability to prove that we are better than another. Teams against teams, classes against classes, schools against schools, you get the picture, where is the community and unity, what is being taught is the way of the world…This continues into adult life, as the example you give above shows. Highs and lows, winners and losers, separation….this will not build, true collaboration, unity and harmony in our world.
It would be amazing if we engaged in activities that allowed people to experience how invaluable they are and how we each bless one another’s lives when expressing all that deep down we are. I have observed that competition blocks any possibility of connecting to such awareness.
I love that you have called the ‘unity’ that may be misconstrued in sport as good, ‘limited unity’, because that is exactly what it is, limited. Unity in sport happens between teams, between team mates, between team supporters, between team countries, state etc. but… against the other teams, team mates, team supporters, countries, states etc. In truth, there really is no unity at all. Just one lot of people ganging up on another. Nothing unified about that, only pack mentality, dressed up as so-called unity.
I love this article for exposing the volatility of the highs and lows of competition and sport. There is no sustained unity or coming together and we continue to be broken and divided.
Great blog Kate, thank you. Competitive sport really does numb and distract us from connection with our true selves; sadly as a society we revel in this disconnection.
“What is it we crave and seek in the apparent unity of a sporting team” Kate this is a really interesting point as it shows that something about us knows that the only way forward is working together – yet at the same time when we choose sport we actually choose a something that is not the unity we truly seek.
It feels lovely when we join another person and even better many others in a common activity or purpose. We crave unity and brotherhood and even such a small semblance of the qualities is hugely appreciated. It is ironic that we have learned to use this comradery in activities that hold humanity in neither unity nor brotherhood, such as war or competition when we celebrate our personal victory at direct expense of another’s misery.
There is not a scrap of unity in sport. If some come together to go against others, it is a game of ganging up and persecution until one side is decimated. Exactly the same as war.
I notice how fleeting the post win elation appears to be- it shows how flimsy it is when we don’t have the feeling of content from what we have spent all day yelling/ screaming/ shouting / cheering about. I feel true connection with others has to come from a lack of competition first and foremost.
The thing with sport that I learned through a lot of trial and error is that it doesn’t change anything, if you feel miserable then a win for your football team doesn’t remove the sadness in your body, it just buries it for a little while, so we could say that football is a drug. I remember when the match had finished I already started to think of the next one, the distraction to not deal with the things I found were not satisfactory in my life. This was as a teenage boy but I imagine some people could go through their whole lives feeling this way, avoiding understanding what it is they actually feel, and who they actually are, free from the identification of being a football fan of a certain team.
When we look at becoming part of a team, I find it very important to notice how much love there is in the team and how much the team members choose to connect to each other as a top priority.
When you listen to the roar of a football crowd it makes you wonder what is truly going on – what emotions are being magnified in that environment? Especially when alcohol is present. I’ve only ever been to one football match and that was enough.
“It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.” Sums up our entire approach to life really. What seems more insane is that we think nothing of someone pouring oodles of money into sport, when it could be so much better spent investing in the community to bring and restore true self worth and build a proper sense of community whereby a genuine smile is welcomed and returned rather than being scorned at.
As the season of whatever, begins, the light switch is turned on to come together on a united front that bonds and divides. What is the bond between armchair athletes when the season is over and what fills their void? Is there a true connection or is it just an extra long halftime?
Often when I listen to men communicate I here them talk about football or other sport, to me this really seems to sell them short of the wonderful sensitive beings they are. There is so much more to express then the latest match scores.
So many things people do in life are just distractions from what is really going on or being avoided, sport being no exception. I remember as a child being totally sucked up in the hype of rugby as a total religion as it was the national sport and where I was from you were considered a bit strange if you weren’t into it. It took me leaving my home country to realise it was only a game and in the big scheme of things not that important at all.
And it is almost blasphemous for some to bring rugby (football, tennis…) back to the fact that it is simply a game. Is this because so many people have hooked into it so deeply as part of their purpose and point of life?
‘… it is the true connection that we are missing – between each other and within ourselves – and that this connection can never be made or maintained through ‘limited unity’ such that we find in competitive sport or any kind of triumph over another.’ True unity always lives within us and our expression of this as a way of living on earth is brotherhood. There is no brotherhood in sport nor can there ever be as the very premise on which it stands is one of creating inequality.
Sport is such a powerful distraction from the issues that seem insurmountable and a drug to numb and suppress the pain and frustration of not living in the joy of living from our true nature with which we lost connection.
Pouring energy and emotion into anything that we can identify with that is an external object, desire or person always leads to the same outcome. There is the high, then there is the drop, when the moment of high has passed. Living in this see-saw has been exhausting, focusing on any activity being grander than me. The choice to back and support 100% myself- being a cheer leader for who I am and then supporting others with the same quality of responsibility, love and commitment unfolds sustainable community connection rather than a high from the team win and then the inevitable low.
We are so starved of union that we seek even a glimpse of it however we can. Sport offers a limited version of teamwork but it never satisfies what we truly thirst for. The fact victories are short lived is proof of this.
Yes, I agree Kate, the competitive and entertainment nature of sport is one of many external vices that look like they unite and connect a mass crowd under one common denominator, but… “it is the true connection that we are missing – between each other and within ourselves…”
I did not understand as clearly before reading Kate’s blog that alcohol and spectator sport go together not only to drown sorrows when your team loses, but also to fill that emptiness from the short lived elation when they win.
Looking for connection and affiliation to something is a big part of being human, even in those who seek solitude is an identification of sorts in being a loner. What sport offers is that identity, yet what I found when I religiously followed a football team is that it offered no genuine connection with others, but more a distraction that removed me from understanding myself better for who I am and what I like.
If what we crave from a group of people is connection, then how on earth did competitive sport come along and pitch one against another?
Sport has been championed as “bringing people together”. Yet – the cliques at matches, the animosity, the derogatory chants, the amount of alcohol consumed and the frequent fights and mayhem caused at large sport events is proof that “unity” or deepening our connections is not the foundation of this coming together.
Part of the whole culture of sport is being gracious in winning, but it is not a true indication of all the investment of energy and often a great degree of pain that a winner goes through. More than anything else a fierce competitor wants to beat their opponent and will do anything within the rules (or outside them as drug cheating indicated) to do so. There is no true graciousness or humility and certainly no love in this.
We seem to keep looking to belong and be part of something bigger in all the wrong ways, when all the time we are naturally connected to a truth where there is no competition only equality and unity.
It is amazing how we can get caught up in the frenzy of team sports and let that win determine how we are going to be that day or that week, until we find something else to distract us. So is it a pure escape from our lives that are not living up to our expectations or pictures, and to hide the disappointment we indulge in all kinds of activities which has us believe and the world that we are doing ok – this could be said for any activity which ultimately distracts us from feeling where we are at and that there is more to life than what we are currently experiencing, because deep down we know this to be true.
Hi Kate, great blog about an important topic. It reminds me of the Olympic games as well and how it is held up as some pinnacle of human spirit endeavour and achievement and hailed as something that brings the world together but really it is a festival of competition and rivalry. How can something that promotes winners and losers ever achieve true unity and equalise and harmonise on the planet?
A sporting team gives us a sense of connection but because there are highs and lows involved, it is not a consistent connection, as you say,depending very much on external things to dictate how we feel. I am realising more and more how much consistency matters in us, that we can be in joy in every moment no matter what our team does. This can be seen in young kids playing team sports before competition sets in. They have no concern about the outcome, who wins or loses but the fun and great enjoyment they had with each other is obvious. We could learn a lot from kids.
When we look to an event to make us feel good and once that is over look for the next event we have planned and focus on that, what is lived in between? I remember doing this and thinking it was great to have something to look forward to, never being able to admit to myself that I had little appreciation for my life or myself in the time in-between. For me at times, the filling in the sandwich was ignored preferring instead to focus on the bread.
As a competitive runner in days gone by I can very much relate to the feeling of highs and lows around sport and feeling the very short lived elation followed by the drop followed by more effort to ‘do well’ in the next competition. There was never any lasting joy just a merry go round of highs and lows, often shared with my running team. Now, my running days are behind me and I do not miss any of it. Neither would I choose to watch sport for I can feel it falls short of the true connection we can have with ourselves and with each other.
Yes I have noted many times the look in the face of the player and spectator after a goal is scored or game won and how it has none of the qualities of true connection but more those of relief and extreme elation which can never be sustained and as well expressed by Kate must have a let down affect afterwards.
True unity can have no competition, but a sense of sustaining connection and community where great things can happen, whole community could be changed….
We can easily be stimulated from something from the outside. Such as sport, but also TV, parties, hobby’s, discussions etc. As the article is sharing with us: is this true stimulants? And does it fulfill us truly? I’ve been a king in looking outside of me to find a form of stimulant so I was not aware and kept avoiding, to be unaware of everything that was actually going on on the inside. What I’m learning (and accepting) is that everything in the outer is a mere reflection of what is within me. True appreciation of who I am is key here. Something that I’ve lost connection to, chose to connect to a long time ago. Where as it is actually the most simple, natural and loving thing I can do to myself, appreciating ME. The foundation of everything that’s going on. The only true anti-dote to sport, competition, in fact separation.
“I soon learnt that spontaneous displays of joy were frowned upon in this place… but not so when sport was involved.” how incredible that the one thing we as a humanity actually are calling out for is also the one thing that is denied more than anything else.
It is apparent from the unity that we seek within sporting teams, likewise religions that as a whole, we are seeking connection. A world that comes to know connection to our inner-most truth, first and foremost, will enable true connection with others and meaningful relationships to develop that are not transient or short-lived but ever-lasting and true.
Very insightful read, thank you Kate. We are in truth all a part of the one team. It is when we compete with each other we all lose.
How people turn on each other when it comes to the ‘game’ of sport, is certainly not ‘sporting’. The fury and hate it unleashes is extraordinary and personifies war.
What a great exposure of the fallacy that sport unites us. A win or a period of success producing a temporary high at best (which is often associated with extreme bouts of violence) and then the collapse back into an emptiness… unfillable by external means, but so within our reach if we start to build a relationship with ourselves.
I feel it’s important to note that many people feel they gain a lot from being involved in following sporting teams, friendships, camaraderie, a sense of hope, but ultimately my experience is that say watching my favourite team win would be a pretty empty feeling, actually no different to losing. If sport really fulfilled us then there would be no need to celebrate with alcohol, it is one empty space being filled up by another.
I get the understanding of how you must have felt Kate for when I was young I remember being yelled at in a similar way to “What the bloody ‘ell are you smilin’ at?”. This had a huge impact on how I felt about myself and others and also stopped me from deeply connecting to myself so therefore from connecting to others. Thank you Kate for sharing your story it has allowed me to open up to a deeper level of healing.
If we are competitive with sport, then this is naturally going to filtrate into other areas of our lives. Competition breeds separation, there is a winner and a loser, therefore it is an illusion to think that sport truly brings people together.
This is a great point. If we use competition in one part of our life all other parts are affected.
I used to be a very loyal, committed and vocal football fan. I was into it fully. Painted faces. Heavy drinking. Abusive chanting. Massive pack mentality. The whole enchilada. And can absolutely testify that I found no true brotherhood or connection through one single part of it.
How false is the unity in sport if a player can be cheered and clapped one week and then if he transfers to another club, he can be booed and hated the next.
By seeking unity in competition, sport and teams we are contributing to the very divide that we are seeking to leave.
Yes, it is a call in a way for a deeper connection with one another yet this can never come from being part of a team, group or anything outside of us. When we are first in connection with ourselves we can then truly meet another in union, as in essence we are one and the same.
In children who do not feel up to the trial from the get go, competition can cement a lack of self-worth in them which often leads them to a ‘given up’ attitude towards life and relationships later on.
The extreme passion displayed by sport supporters is a direct reflection of their extreme need for a connection with humanity. The hugest irony being that it then creates these gigantic and often violent divides.
Awesome Kate! This is a case study – a science. I attended a very popular and one of the most prestige boarding schools in Australia. It was a massive sporting school especially rugby union. Other sports while I was there grew as part of our new strength and prestige too. The students who participated in these sports were treated as a higher class then the rest. I soon sought and chased this prestige class and I became a ‘footy head’ or the ‘sad talk’ that was termed was ‘TGs – Too Good’ to fit in and become popular. I remember graduating from this school and having a mind-check to think what was I doing to work so hard to belong to this class on individuals at our school? I saw the light supposedly.. but then became a surfer the most looked at type of sports on the Gold Coast. I was now cool again. Whatever environment you’re in there seems to be a sport to accompany it, and unfortunately what accompanies the sport is a culture you cannot escape from either. Football was aggression, strength and looking big while surfing was lifestyle, drugs and partying.
I agree, when the local sports team does really well, it gives everybody a lift but this lift is dependent on the team and not on us. However, nothing stops us to live in a way that we have this lift permanently.
I love how you put that Elizabeth – “…we get a false perception of what unity is when we lack true connection with ourselves.” Key words spoken here and once we address this lack within ourselves, we will see and receive that reflection around us.
Your closing realisation Kate is very powerful and totally true – ‘…it is the true connection that we are missing – between each other and within ourselves – and that this connection can never be made or maintained through ‘limited unity’ such that we find in competitive sport or any kind of triumph over another.” I have found this too – especially when not participating in a particular sport any more and all of a sudden those connections just dropped away …
“It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.” – and this is no different to any other activity that takes us away from our misery in the short term. If sport was played by people connected to their essence, they would not be able to push their bodies so hard or go against another team.
Kate thank-you for sharing this experience, I had to laugh when you mentioned the woman in the street asking you “What the bloody ‘ell are you smilin’ at,” there is part of me that really appreciates this honesty – for where I come from, down south people do not wear their discontent with such openness, it’s more layered; presenting a false face to hide the disconnection.
I love how you have pieced this sporting mystery together Kate, your writing is brilliant. The way that you have taken the reader through it all is very supportive. In the past I have been tricked into the false sense of unity that is paraded by sports events and team sports. Unlike you, I was quite into sport growing up but I must have known on some level that it was not all it seemed, as I never stuck with anything very long. I would swap from base ball to netball not basketball, I would become really good at one of them and then get sick of it. I never really followed a sports team, as I found it all a bit weird, I tried, getting into the AFL because my Dad and brother followed it, I went to a couple of games and shouted out things I heard others saying to fit in. The main thing I remember was how the men all perved on you, we were only teenagers but we were getting loads of male attention, that was my favorite part of the game, the wolf whistles, as a teenager I always thought I was unattractive, so any attention made me feel beautiful and inflated, I lapped up. I was bored and cold most of the time and so I drunk loads of beer in an attempt to have a good time. This is the reality of the culture of a sports event, pretty depressing really. On one level it is great so many people come together for an event but when you go to a football oval the quality is lacking big time in any kind of true love and unity.
Wow fascinating story – it’s true sport sets up false highs and lows and a false sense of community, I say false because the community is not based on true, deep and lasting connection, but shared enthusiasm and shared interests. It’s so important that we don’t confuse the two, I’d rather have friends that I love for who they are, rather than we simply shared the same interests.
When I hear stories of the vast expense parents go to in buying their offspring this or that piece of clothing that represents their favourite team, it makes me wonder exactly what the sport is offering. Is it a sense of belonging? Does that provide a sense of identity? If so, it is a false and a very expensive one.
“It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.”
I agree, Kate, as sports is often done in groups and people are seeking for a feeling of togetherness and strength in it. However we are often not aware how it hardens our bodies, reduce the feeling of togetherness to a small group and often within the same group we are in a way of competition with each other.
All those components separate us from a truth which is far grander, the truth that we as a race, as humanity are from our nature in union, but we do not live it.
Sporting teams create a very powerful following, and have a very appealing image with their big stadiums, television broadcasts, theme songs, logos, mascots, and the famed sporting stars that we love but as mentioned above like a lot of other industries the insides of the organisation have unfair play, and there are levels of corruption unseen to the average sports fan, who pour their adoration to the outside image.
There is a great hook in the sports and competitions we are bombarded with everyday – to be part of a group, and in that desire to belong we ignore the falseness and illusion and the pretense of belonging that it brings – a sense of camaraderie, a fleeting moment of triumph (at the expense of another team), none of that feels ok, and we only have to feel what it is like to be on the losing side, or the target of a team’s/gang’s abuse to know we would never wish it on another – so as unpopular as it may be to say – there is in fact a deep harm in this kind of activity. But what if it is because we are missing the truth of our innate belonging to the all, and all we have to do is reconnect and realise that understanding, and then there will never be any need to sell ourselves out for the false fleeting version of ‘belonging’ that is being sold to us.
Competition is what arises when one seeks to define oneself by creating a point of difference with another.
I’ve observed this year after year since my sons started school that they enjoy playing together when it comes to training but once it comes to actually competitively playing against another team then they’re not interested any more they don’t enjoy it and eventually they pull out. I see how sports groups continually try and talk children into signing up and playing their sport. They offer great prizes and gifts to entice children into wanting to join. Why is that? Could it be because we know that children are still very much in touch with themselves and their innate knowing that being competitive hurts us all?
Breaking down competition in this way makes sense.
Competitive sport is all about defeating another, it drives an individual to be better than others which is the total opposite of what sports claims to offer and that is true connection which can only be achieved by connecting to the true nature within and honouring each other’s qualities.
Pinning our hopes on a sporting win for our team and the very short lived elation we feel when successful is a mere shadow compared with the lasting joy we feel when we connect to who we naturally are and the immense love we are all equally a part of.
Such a tangible, real example of sport and competition and the truth behind it. Thank you Kate.
“Healthy competition” is a term that we hear so often, justifying so much….one day we will accept what a gigantic contradiction the combination of these two words is.
The expression ‘team spirit’ rather gives the game away. When one team is competing against another the spirit of all the players and spectators who take sides are taken over by their spirit to triumph over the others. This creates separation, disunity and disharmony as is so often evident with post match clashes between supporters of either team.
It seems we are desperately holding onto this false unity, the team camaraderie because it seems the closest thing we have to connection with others but it cannot be true if it means we our pitting ourselves against another or others to win over them – we are made equal with all and there is no equalness in competition – in fact what we are truly missing is that connection with ourselves and from this the absolute knowing of our connection with all.
“I soon learnt that spontaneous displays of joy were frowned upon in this place… but not so when sport was involved.” Interesting how we can compartmentalise things, that you learned from an early age Kate that displaying your joy was frowned upon, but when it came to sport, all bets were off, you could behave and be any way you wanted, and usually not in a good way. That people don’t allow for joy, but when it is all about competition, it is freely accepted.
Well stated Kate… “the true connection that we are missing – between each other and within ourselves…” and with this, it becomes clear to see just how many ways can be conjured up to band-aid this connection to give one the false or convenient sense of connection.
I have never followed any football clubs, but I did play squash and there was a whole social life built around the sport. I played in local leagues, was never brilliant at it, but enjoyed it. There was always a sense of achievement from winning and a loss from losing and my body suffered from the intense physicality of the game. How strange that we set up competition for enjoyment when it is all about losers and winners and not about equality. We can enjoy exercising our bodies without destroying them and without psychologically destroying other people.
This is a very thought provoking article on sport and ‘team spirit’ Kate. “It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.”
Sport offers people a common ‘something’ to belong to – I see it all the time. The friendly teasing between workmates about the football team they support, and the ‘bonding’ that goes on between people who support the same team. When asked and I say that I don’t follow a team or sport, the conversation can often end. It’s as if there is nowhere to go for them. But take away the sport or the team and what is really there, as it is all based on an outside ‘thing’. What people are really craving is a true connection but sport is an easy and comfortable prop that doesn’t ask anyone to go deeper in how they connect with one another.
When we become a ‘follower’ whether that be a particular sporting team, a TV series or a guru, we give our power over to something that is outside of ourselves. We seek unity, recognition, a belonging that is reliant on an external source. Take that ‘thing’ away and we are left with the same emptiness that was already there.
Hear hear – so it is.
Once you are a fan of a particular sporting club it is a surprisingly deep relationship. Not a satisfactory or loving relationship but the interest is usually lifelong and can remain for a long time, making us dependent on a club whose fate we can’t control or influence.
Are we satisfied with experiencing moments of glee and joy when our favourite team wins a sporting event or something goes as we’d hoped or invested in it to go, or could there be more to ‘joy’, where it is a consistent feeling and appreciation of how we choose to live rather than short bursts of excitement intermittent with unhappiness.
How easy it is to get lost in activities and distractions from being completely numbed out to the fact that it is the adrenalin fix we seek (competition, crowds, excitement, extreme sports etc) to compensate for the reality and harmonious connection through unity and oneness that we are unable to feel within.
Sport or anything competitive can only ever leave others less, that will always cause separation!
If we were to live the truth of who we are, then there would be no way in the world that we could play competitive sport. Our true purpose is to support others to evolve, beating another at anything is the opposite to evolution, not only for the other person but for ourselves as well.
Kate, thank you for this blog, which has allowed me to reflect on my past in sports. I very much enjoyed tennis when I was young and took to it quite well, and so it seemed a natural part of it all that I then joined a team, got coached and began participating in local competitions. There was a lot of rah rah to keep the competitiveness up in a game, and it was like we had to see the opponent (even that word itself implies someone who is against you, who is there to fight you) as someone bad/mean/not worthy of winning/our enemy etc. And so I would try to rally myself up to ‘beat them’. But somehow this never really worked for me as it only made me feel terrible to be thinking badly about someone who was really good at the game. I would often be criticised as being too soft or not having a backbone because I would stop to applaud my ‘opponent’ if they made a good shot. I so struggled with competition in sport and was really unhappy, so in the end I just stopped the games and eventually I gave up the sport completely. What I have come to realise is as Kate has shared….competition is all about setting people up against each other, builds them up to not have a harmonious relationship with themselves and with others around them. It does not lead to a greater connection and a harmony amongst people. It just fosters more of the emptiness that it comes from. We all deserve so much more, it is time we felt this and re-assessed how we spend our ‘free time’ amongst our friends.
Its quite interesting to see that the money poured into the sporting team and the turn-around this brought to the town was in effect, a band-aid, that gave the impression that things had changed, things were ‘better’, but under the band-aid the issues were still festering. When we see this happen once, its not that hard to see this pattern of throwing money at something being repeated over and over again in many different scenarios, instead of addressing the core issues. And the core issue always comes back to an individual’s responsibility to their own wellbeing instead of blaming others for the what is not.
‘It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.’ So long as we are disconnected from the fullness of ourselves, we will seek distraction and satisfaction from things that will provide momentary relief, but not the connection we crave.
“It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time” this pretty well sums up a lot of the activity that we go into as humanity. We feel that there is something missing, but don’t stop to look at ourselves and what the cause might really be. Instead we invest in spending time doing something that temporarily relieves the feeling of being lost, and mistake that feeling for finding our purpose. But the feeling fades and we go through the same pattern again and again, until one day, someday, we find it no longer works. And at that point we have the chance to change our focus from out there to in here.
It’s been said in scientific studies and presented that humans like to gather in groups, and feel comfortable being in them – well from observation this is definitely true, but also considering that we still have war, which is one group fighting another then it doesn’t make sense that we are naturally drawn to being in groups when the all is not being represented.
‘It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.’ – How true, as a humanity the things we do to distract ourselves from missing the true connection with ourselves are countless and is forever increasing.
Kate its amazing that we seek Unity in something that by its very nature is about division. What I feel is telling for myself is that I can often settle for a false unity when its about a smaller group of people and feel like we are all together but ignore the fact that we are separate to the bigger picture. For example there may be a common group of people who support one football team but they are then separate to the another group that support another team. When we look at the bigger picture any form of competition or competitive sport can’t be truly unifying as there will always be the other side.
A soccer team alternately gives relief and despondency to a city. The roller coast keeps many people involved and busy.
It feels like our favourite team as humanity, is Misery FC. We support and cheer and beat the drum so their continual struggle may go on. Like an everlasting soap opera we have our favourite players who always get our vote. We boo and hiss at the opposing team but secretly revel in it all, even when our team get beaten 16-0. If only we could stop and see through this addiction to this battle, we would start to understand there is a way for us to be united. Imagine if we got together in huge stadiums in the future to celebrate each other, instead of tearing each other down. This blog is a small victory Kate for this way of Love to come.
A brilliant read Kate, and well described – how the external influences of winning in sport are very short lived …”As soon as the elation of the premiership win was over, it was back to business as usual – shut down abject misery, possibly worse than before in reaction to the loss of the ‘high’…”
We are all seeking brotherhood yet it is important to be discerning of what energy we are seeking it from as this will determine if the movements we are making are towards true brotherhood or an illusion that may look like brotherhood but in truth is creating separation.
Looking to a sports ‘win’ by one’s favouritr team to make you happy is a sure way to ride a roller coaster of emotions that leaves one stranded with the same issues and emptiness that began the ‘ride’. A more foundational and long lasting approach is to start with the self-loving acts and practices like the Gentle Breath Meditation as taught by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
So many ways to achieve success, acclaim and happiness. Most come with a price tag, which is giving the responsibility for your mood to someone or something else, be it sports, drink, food or other people. There is a deeper way to live and it starts with ourselves.
After reading this revealing blog I’m wondering if the missing of ourselves is the true reason why so many men are involved in sports? It certainly has distracted me in the past and at times it still does. Owning up that whenever I don’t feel my connection with the love I am, isn’t a natural or an easy thing to do. But I can relate and be honest that this is indeed true. Thank you Kate.
What a rich blog. It’s quite incredible to me that institutionalised religions have so much influence on our modern society. It’s understandable as this is passed on generation after generation. We’re so much more than any book from institutionalised religion is telling us. When we start taking care of us and build a body that we would love to live in, how different would we experience life? Could it be that we would relate to life very differently? There’s more than meets the eye.
Oh the irony!. We use something that divides us to feel more camaraderie in our lives.
Yes, when we feel that love is not available, camaraderie because of a shared opponent feels like one of the next best things.
People often refer to sport as being a great way of bringing people together. This is true, but it does not allow them to connect deeply with one another due to the elation and the excitement and the fact that there are always two sides – one that they are supporting and one that they are not. How can there be true brotherhood and true connection if there is competition in any way? It is actually the opposite of oneness.
Sport is much like mainstream religion in that people back a team and they worship the players and hold their team as being the best. It breeds separation because if one team is best then the others are seen as lesser.
Real unity cannot come from one group or team defeating another. If there is any of the competition or aggression involved in sport that ‘unites’ players or spectators it cannot last as it is not the true unity we know we come from.
This blog shows me that true change needs to come from within each of us and collectively. You can pour resources into a community and things can appear to change momentarily. But if the change doesn’t come from within, it seems it is not long before the rot starts to appear again.
The competition between sports and nations is curious as it is such a false activity, so far from the truth of the brotherhood we seek that it in a way shows us we do know how to live as one as we wouldn’t know how to live so in the opposite we wouldn’t know what we were resisting!
If we felt harmony, or even the potential of it inside and within us, and also everyone too – there would be no inclination towards playing sport, the same as not going to war simply because to separate from another makes no sense to that which is unified-joy.
Interestingly speaking to my class the other day about competition, certificates and rewards in general they were really on it when they asked… Miss Murtagh what is it all for? I can see how we use competitions and rewards as a way of enticing certain behaviours that we as adults want from our children. The children expressed that they would rather not have certificates and if we did have “team” points all the teams should share in the reward and are equal in the “winning of the prize”. I was struck by the beauty of the children wanting to share as they could feel how seperative competition is.
It is true we have been fooled that belonging to a team or supporting a team can give us a false sense of unity, when really what we are craving is a much deeper sense of connection, brotherhood and community.
Growing up my father was a keen armchair athlete almost every weekend when the TV was his and sport was the only thing on allowed. At times he would watch something and have the radio with an earplug listening to some other sport and flipping channels. I never felt the pull to any sport and being skinny always left me in the team selection process in school gym classes as one of the last picked. I remember a clip of two boxers that went all 15 rounds and kept trading clean head-shots! The force of one would put the lights out for all most anyone, but for 15 rounds the switch that said fall was not working in either of these fighters. What have sports become today, the new gladiators? Could it be, just another way to lose ourselves in the battles of others?
I appreciate the wonderful reality check that this blog offers – what does sport really deliver outside the brief moments of elation (when victorious) and inevitable devastation (when vanquished), the brief reprieves from the conundrum of everyday life?
Sport is simply another means to delay the inevitable return to who we truly are. We are fooled by the temporary elation of ‘our’ team winning but as I have found out there is so much more when we choose to connect to our essence that is within.
I have observed that anything that a person has in common with another can be a bridge to connect and build brotherhood or it has the potential for it to develop competitiveness, comparison or jealousy. This highlights the fact that for every one of us it is about the choices we make in being in that activity and the awareness we have developed of the gaps that allow the damaging energy to come through. Sport particularly lends itself to harming self & others whether it is leading them to false recognition and adulation or the opposite extremes where one sees themselves as completely failing – all of which are illusions and not being connected to who we truly are.
I wanted to consider this article from the point of view of someone who loves sport and sees it as being good for us, “healthy competition”, the argument being that it builds character and that losing is part of life. And in many sports they play it tough and then hang out for a beer and bonding with their rivals afterwards, no hard feelings. And while an argument can be made for this all happening, the whole idea that we need competition to succeed in society doesn’t sit with me, most job interviews we go for don’t have us go face to face with our prospective employees, we prepare ourselves and present ourselves. Perhaps the most harmful aspect is when there is a need to identify with the sport, it being a part of who we are and if there is success we are success by association or through action. This is the lie, for it is not real confidence of self assurance but something that is asking us to create an image, not accept our innate qualities. More and more I see sports is a distraction from what is really going on, how we actually feel and might like to be.
It’s crazy to consider how unfamiliar we are with true unity when we only get it uniting against a foe – that could be anything from another team, another country, fighting the destruction of some weather pattern, united in a cause fighting a disease or something; and that to come together for the beauty that is togetherness isn’t usual practice. Yes people come together for projects and interests but group work is often fraught with disagreement. We have a lot to learn about being in relationship.
Sport had me wrapped around its little finger for years. As a competitor I was all about the team at any one’s expense. I was also really good at being a couch potato when it came to top line sports T.V. I can feel now how this was a loveless pursuit and “that it is the true connection that we are missing – between each other and within ourselves”.
It’s fascinating that we can associate the word ‘unity’ with fighting / competing against others. No matter how many ‘unite’ on the team or in the audience, we will never experience a one unified truth or sense of brotherhood in sport or competition.
So often on TV we see sport being reported on or a game being played and the build up of emotion in the crowd, to then see at the end of the game the winner is elated and the losers are flat ! There is a feeling of short lived elation for the winners and often an autopsy of the game reveals that they (both sides ) are told they could improve next time. While ever we look outside ourselves for satisfaction and approval, whether through sport or any other competitive situation we will not have the unity you speak of Kate.
What a doozy alright, another set up exposed in neon lights. Much of humanity searching for the quick fix that only brings the continual search for another quick fix.
Any sporting success is transitory. The only lasting feeling of unity is gained through the re-connection to our essence, so undoubtedly it is this connection to their essence that they were missing, and the only way they knew how to find it was through bringing themselves together to compete with each other, and then celebrate or commiserate afterwards. Thanks to the presentations of Universal Medicine I know now that the only true way to live in Brotherhood is to re-connect to this essence and not through competing with each other, which just delays our evolution further and keeps us in separation.
I enjoyed reading your blog about this town and I could liken it to many towns I have visited where there is an investment in the sporting team, because there is a despair in their lives and this was an escape from that. I myself was someone who used team sport as a way of getting a sense of camaraderie but as you describe, it didn’t last as we didn’t take it to a deeper connection with each other- there were many wild weekends, sporting trips and the like which at the time I thought was great but also know there was more to life than this.
Wow, I was talking about this very subject yesterday with someone. There is a perception that sport brings people together, and it’s true it does, however that group that has come together then goes into competition with another group which has done the same. And so it exposes that for true unity and harmony, you cannot have one sub-group up against another. It exposes that sport is exclusive, elitist and what looks like unity within a team, town or country, isn’t unity but a collusion and is based on being superior to another team.
I used to hate sports and competition at school, it always gave the feeling that this created a superiority/inferiority. This feeling towards sports has stayed with me for all my life.
“What is it we crave and seek in the apparent unity of a sporting team, and is it really being delivered?” I like this question, as we are obviously getting something out of sport that seemingly satisfies us, but we never ask ourselves if that is really what we want and if it is possible that the unity we are craving is far from the unity we contend ourselves with through sport and competition.
A lot of sporting teams appear as a team to the outside but can be rift with internal rivalry, a situation far from brotherhood. In such case even victory may not even feel good, not even temporarily.
I love the play on words here, Kate with the word ‘real-eyes’, as it encourages us to look at the reality of every aspect of life both personally and collectively without filters or bias.
“life was hard, and people lived hard” There is definitely a correlation between the way we live and the way we feel about life. I know that when I let go of the hard attitude towards myself or drop a hardness held within my body, that I feel the gentle tenderness that is there to be shared and enjoyed.
‘ ….and what else may be really going on beyond the surface level cheering crowds and uniforms’ – What came to me straight away was ’emptiness’, lack of connection to self or lack of deep valuing of self. As I have come to deeply love myself, my need to sell-out to others, labels, group acceptance and recognition have faded and I can now hold myself if ever the old pull to be included comes up.
It is sobering to see that we as a society did not really evolve from the ‘bread and circuses’ game. We choose to numb ourselves on a daily basic and than have our entertainment to not feel our sadness and pain. This sport events are just like civil accepted wars and so we even ‘celebrate’ our separation…. thereby we are longing for a true connection and true love.
Such irony that all that sports and competition champions – fulfillment, beneficial character building, etc. – in truth takes one further away from those aspirations.
Unfortunately competition is not only restricted to sport but in many working environments also – anywhere there are targets to be reached creates this thirst to achieve not only our personal target but the company target, and this is heralded as being a great thing by all, but ultimately it leaves others as less.
Sport likes to advertise the fact that it brings people together, this is pure propaganda, as it has, at its very core, the division and defeat of others.
Kate I absolutely love the real and solid way that you deliver the truth.
Sport and competition divides people just like religions do… you only need to hear football followers from Queensland and New South Wales in Australia fight over the State of Origin (Football game) to know how separative and aggressive the energy of sport can be. And how much this affects everyone around, like coming to work the next day after a game where most of the supporters favourite team lost, you could cut the air with a knife.
I have often found sport to cause separation at school it divided those and made those who where not so good feel less then. I am convinced the world would be a much better place if we did not have competitive sport.
I feel one of the major contributing factors to the reality of what ‘sport’ has become, is money. Professional sport can be a huge money making opportunity and where ever money is involved, there will always be people motivated by greed who are purely there for themselves and their own gain. This has tainted anything under the ‘sport’ umbrella with the energy of self, dis-connection from the fact that we are all connected in brotherhood first. Players dis-connect to become competitive and to be able to play with the force they need to be victorious.
The way that society aligns to sporting teams and competitions shows us that at the core we all know brotherhood and want to experience it. However, although on the surface it can appear that sports unite us and for a moment we feel this, it is so far from true brotherhood which leaves no one less and no one more.
Sporting teams often become the focal point in cities that have low socio economic status. The teams are often a welcome distraction from life, which of course is how we often deal with our problems, not by facing them but by looking for things to take our attention away from the struggles. Of course this is not exclusive to poor towns but is seen all over, I find sport entertaining for the level of executed skills but I now recognise that even in this entertainment is a lot of emptiness and that meaning to life and health and wellbeing is not found through sport.
One of Brisbane’s most depressed areas (in terms of lowest socio-economic indicators) also has its biggest spend on gambling – to the tune of many, many millions of dollars a month, dollars all poured, presumably, into the mouths of poker machines. That’s a lot of false highs being sought, and at a real cost to those seeking them and the broader community.
It is true that such moments of elation, excitement and relief are very short-lived, leaving us empty of our true loving fulfilment. For when we seek the outer to complete us, we will always be short changed of the Love and Harmony that we naturally are, for these qualities are nurtured within and not without.
Whenever we pin ourselves on something external we set ourselves up to fall. Hope that our team will win, that a new job will solve all our problems, a new car…When we achieve the external goals it is part of the set up for failure. Even if the team wins or we get the job it is a shallow fix and only highlights what is missing from our internal foundation. Great article Kate.
The other thing about winning is that for this to occur, someone else has to lose and be left deflated and crushed – therefore the elation of the winners is at the expense of others, which in truth is not joy or elation at all.
It must have been quite a shock to move from Australia to Northern England. Not only the weather is colder but the people are colder too. I love your observations about why sport is needed in such a cold climate.
When we get connection from something outside of ourselves and haven’t connected to what’s within it’s only ever going to be short lived because it can’t be sustained – the elation needs constant feeding from outside sources. In the past I’d often imagine what if the elation was permanent and felt exhausted at the thought of this, relieved it was only short term. I knew the connections made were limited, confined to the activity – e.g Christmas and saying merry Christmas. Any elation and group activity like a rock concert was great to break the dullness but as a way of life? Exhausting and also felt scary as I knew it was taking me further away from me. At the time it was great to put all my energy into knowing it didn’t last forever and that I would be slumping back into life’s drudgery and reminisce about the time when….
Writing this I realise I’ve tarnished this modus operandi to the unfolding of who I naturally am which needs no external stimuli and continually expands. But I’ve put on it the drive of how do I keep on sustaining it, it won’t last and I’ll be disappointed. But it’s way bigger than any human creation so the connection with God and all the natural loveliness that flows happens when I don’t get in the way and simply allow it.
“life was hard, and people lived hard” There is definitely a correlation between the way we live and the way we feel about life. I know that when I let go of the hard attitude towards myself or drop a hardness held within my body, than I feel the gentle tenderness that is there to be shared and enjoyed.
’our society set us up from young to make us think our worth is external’ – Tell me about it… I was nearly 50 years old before I understood that I can’t find my worth on the outside or by what I am able to deliver, yet everywhere we look in our society, it is set up to make us believe exactly that.
A friend of mine has recently moved out of London. She says the folks there are very friendly and describe us Londoners as cold and uncaring. Its interesting how people in different parts of a country get a particular reputation. I have also frequently heard comments about people from ‘up north’ and how northerners refer to those who live in the ‘south.’ We find lots of ways to comment on our differences, but forget the humanity we have in common.
Why is it that we can be so quick to ‘leave ourselves’ and align with a sporting team? In so doing, are we then taking on the energy of this team and does this, in some way, explain how people’s behaviour can change so instantly and dramatically? Is it because in any competition we have been taught that there are winners and losers and we want to be ‘with’ the winning team. What if there are simply just no competitors, wouldn’t we then be true spectators, appreciating all those taking part, equally so. If we chose to stay ‘with’ ourselves, remaining true to who we are, it wouldn’t matter so much who won, it would be more an observation and appreciation of how the game was being played.
It’s very interesting how our identification with a certain sporting team can become very personal, to the point that we can actually ‘dislike’ people who support the opposition without knowing anything about them, simply because their team would be the reason for our team not winning, so they are ‘the enemy’. Completely mad behaviour and the cause of very ugly displays of behaviour at many events, particularly involving soccer and rugby.
I love it very much what you have reflected Kate – it shows very clearly that most of us are missing a true connection. With your honest blog you offer us a possibility to be truly met and that is really wonderful and I appreciate that very much.
Well summed up Kate, competitive sport is only a short term distraction from the pain of missing connection to our real worth
Sport so often offers the falsity of unity and brotherhood yet this is so far from the truth. Whenever there is a winner, there is also a loser, therefore in truth sport and competition will always separate, never unite.
When I reflect back on my tennis days, the days that I just played to just have fun and be a part of it were the most enjoyable and easy, if I started to go into competition at all, everything changed and my whole body felt like it was constantly working against this resistance, and I became much more serious.
Truly insightful, thank you Kate. Many of the so called benefits of sport are in fact trivial. For example, sport talks about uniting people, by creating brotherhood, but it is in truth a bastardised form of brotherhood – or to put it more succinctly, “brotherhood at the exclusion of everyone else”. In other words, you cannot claim brotherhood if it was created by fostering division of any kind. Such is sport, a plethora of twisted ideals that on the surface seem grand until you dig a little deeper.
Kate you provide great insights here. Yes there is a perception of camaderie in sporting teams and their fans but there is so much more that comes with it. Right now in the news is the disappointment and recriminations that occur when a national team does not perform to expectations – who is to blame, who will be replaced? … followed by the opportunity, pressure and competition among those in the running to replace a non-performer … and the endless mind-numbing commentary and speculation over the minutiae of the players’ lives. If sport were removed our newspapers and TV programming would shrink in size and there would be a huge space in our lives to just get out in the park together and have fun or talk about things that really get to the core of what is going on within ourselves and as a humanity.
True connection with ourselves and with others is absolutely the key to living a life of purpose and true love. As you have pointed out Kate competition is definitely not the way to discover and develop true connection.
I used to play lots of team sport which brought me together with others, however it was only ever for the time we spent on the pitch, and either celebrating or commiserating after, which by reflection is exactly the same thing that happens for those that support teams, and is particularly emphasised within the national matches where it effects the whole of the nation, and you can feel how divisive this is.
Its more difficult to see, when a result like this can lift a whole town… but to then see the devastation and how short lived this buoyant mood was. It does not inspire or encourage people to change – it just provides a moments relief to distract us from how we are actaully living.
It is pretty amazing to stand in a football stadium with so many other people, all focussing on the manoeuvrings of one little ball as it passes between the feet of such skilled athletes. I remember seeing complete adulation in the crowd when a goal is scored and abject misery when one is not. This emotional roller coaster was exhausting, but this exhaustion was always drowned later on by a trip to the favourite pub and lots of beer. It was a ritual and a ceremony of life that seemed to hold community together, so everyone could share in the roller coaster ride together, whether this journey was true or with love did not seem to matter, it was the emotional experience that seemed to count – as if it made everyone feel real just for that short time.
Kate, you show the small benefits from winning. Then there is the pain of all the other teams and their supporters that lost
We have a deep longing for unity and equality, so the way we compete and compare to each other and create cultures and religions that foster separation is totally unnatural and causes a lot of devastation.
Kate, what you are sharing here feels so true, ‘as it was gained through external circumstances or events (not internally reconnected to) and but a mere isolated display of unity, it was short-lived’, I have observed with sport and other ways of winning over another that it is indeed short lived, there is a short high and then there needs to be another win to feel good about oneself again, this is a very up and down way of living and is not truly joy-full or satisfying, re-connecting to the joy and love that we naturally have inside of us is a way to have consistent and long lasting contentment.
Something that really highlights how sport and competition can not be ‘it’ and the answer to unity, is the fact that the celebration and ‘joy’ felt when a team or player is winning, someone scores etc. is only temporary. True joy is something that can last forever and doesn’t depend on an outcome or event happening, or someone else/group of people losing as a result.
Such a clear and simple example of how the very thing we will strive for can actually not be what is needed – that the elation and seeming togetherness of winning a sports event is simply a momentary elation away from the everyday misery of life.
Awesome article Kate. A great expose on the temporary nature of sport bringing us together. I used to be crazy about competition sport, more as a spectator than a participator although I loved to play competition netball. I was never too bothered about winning and losing but I very much loved being part of a team, a solid unit. I can understand why people are drawn to this, because it’s so lacking within themselves. It’s like you’re safe to love your team, because it appears to have a purpose – to win over others in a united front, but we don’t feel so safe loving our family and friends because we feel that leaves us vulnerable to hurt and so we keep our guard up and hence then long for relationships that have a stronger bond.
‘It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.’ What happens after an event is always very telling of it’s quality.
Sport gives us a ‘better’ version of the disconnection we experience day to day, whilst setting us up for not being connected in the first place. Why don’t we move on to something that truly connects?
This is so true, Kate. It is the pitting of one team against another -it can be so vicious and harmful and all that is being sought is recognition and a sense of belonging. How long will it be before we realise that what we are missing is our connection to ourselves and while we do not not know and feel this we will always be searching for something from elsewhere.
Great example Kate, of a community in such hardship, so disconnected to the natural joy of being that it is taken as an assault to smile there, being falsely and temporarily lifted up by sport just to drop back down with nothing gained or learned.
It is important we begin to see with honesty how sport is a ‘false’ lift because it is always a distraction (a game; an escape from reality, a diversion from earth school) from the unfulfilled feeling we have of not being in true unity with ourselves and/or each other.
I have found that using distractions, (no matter how fun, politically correct or seemingly harmless they may be) will never bring truth or healing to that pain or feeling of not-enoughness which the activity is being used to medicate.
In other words sport is a delay to us discovering that true sense of togetherness, joy and deep loving purpose that we all want.
…But not only is it a delay; it is also a major set back since it puts huge amounts of energy into a separative way of thinking and acting which is, ironically, the very cause of the pain we all feel and often seek to escape from.
So, I ask the world, isn’t it time we reconsider what sport is and how it effects humanity?
Isn’t it time we get honest and see that humanity is hurting and needs something different?
Yes, I have played on a team and enjoyed the connection to other people on my team. I understand it now that that connection was something I needed because I did not feel connected to my self. But going deeper, it is possible that the team was the next best thing to the connection to all humanity, (that is always there) that I did not alow myself to feel, because of my lack of trust.
I agree Adam, its true connection people are actually seeking and sport is such a poor cousin to what true connection with another offers. Its very telling of our society that we have so many people invested in sport from a very early age, to not feel what is truly needed and to mask the fact that we don’t connect, we have lost our sense of it and yet we crave it deeply….
We all crave a sense of working together in complete trust with one another. Sport makes us think this is our experience, but a win is always at the expense of another. In true brotherhood when one arises we all rise.
Thank you Kate, and Adam. My new fitness is how long can I hold my harmony within then there is no need for anything to be the focus outside of you like competition. Harmony never disappears or dissipates it is always there .. a breath away, a choice, and the challenge is the next opportunity to go deeper. The real competition is are you going to repeat the same ill-behaviour and deeply ingrain more of the same or will you step outside of what you have already chosen in the past …
Thank you Kate for outlining the situation of this town you came into.It shows how sport is a catch at a straw, as you called it a distraction from what we are missing, connection with ourselves and the people around us. So not only competition which in itself divides us but also giving the false idea of unity and a championing of the physicality of the body.
I love this Kate, there is no true celebration or good in competition even if it brings happiness for a period if it does not address the misery people are living in day after day on the streets, in the shops, at work etc.
Well said Kate, sport and competition provide a very convenient distraction away from life. We all deep down seek unity and so it plays on this camaraderie; but would love every seeking to better itself whilst putting another down – no. So we can have short lived excitement and distraction thinking it is togetherness but it does not last because it is the exact opposite. We just fell for the trick of seeing a small part of the whole and negating the fact that true brotherhood means all of humanity not just a selected few or group of people.
The false highs and elation of a sports match are no different to those that are drug-induced – in the haze and the fog we get a semblance of what we deeply miss while in simple reality we have removed and separated ourselves even more from the unity we truly seek.
Kate I have to take a moment to appreciate the fact that whilst I never “liked” sport it was only after coming to Universal Medicine and learning to listen to my body did I truly appreciate the damage competition has on us. This deeper awareness plays out in all areas of life and what can seem unifying can be very separative under the picture that is portrayed. The silly thing is that if kids were supported to grow up for who they are then we would wipe out competition in a single generation.
The example you give here, Kate is very revealing of how quickly we as individuals or groups allow ourselves to be taken over by the drama or excitement of external circumstances, only to drop back to reality and feel miserable and empty afterwards. There is no gain or evolution in living this way, as we abandon ourselves and the connection to what is true for us.
This is such a good point about temporary elation instead of a true sense of wellbeing and joy felt from within. Of course people need stimulation in this way if they are living lives of misery, but as you say it is simply distracting them from the reality of their misery.
Your account of the woman asking what you were smiling at made me realise why we so often hold back from expressing to those we don’t know, and actually even those we do know well. That fear of rejection stifles lots of expression.
I remember our local football team winning a trophy one year. We had celebrations in the street, and the whole community came out to cheer the team as they paraded down the high street. I can relate to that lovely feeling of togetherness and brotherhood. We had a reason to feel good about ourselves and each other, but it was as you say Kate short lived. The snap back to reality was almost instant. It does leave me thinking why we need an excuse to feel that sense of community, and highlights the way we all live such separate lives.
I was track athlete at school in five events and enjoyed it at the time until that is, recognised for my abilities I was put forward for national trials and competitive meetings. Competition was never my thing and my heart never in it. I never did well at these meetings – simply because I didn’t care enough to want to win. I didn’t get it.
There is an irony in the fact that the competitive sports are supposed to bring people and nations together. Yet there are fights between supporters, people openly gloat the downfall of another, it is accepted that there are some who are elated and some who are devastated. When looking at it from an unattached angle, competitive sport does anything but bring true unity.
Your example shows so clearly how much we rely on the outer to bring us the joy that we crave. But as you reveal, no money can buy us the connection with and the contentedness within ourselves.
As long there is competition involved there cannot be any unity. So there is the question if the sport teams ever can be in true oneness or in some form also competing with each other within the team itself.
What an amazing observation to make of a whole town and how if we break this down we can see it on an individual level and what we are choosing.
How many have tried to hold onto that moment that has passed, the energy and effort spent on the past. England won the 1966 world cup and people still hold onto that passing moment of glory!
We can have fun together and enjoy ourselves but when we put in competition, we automatically harden and suddenly there are winners and losers.
We are and know unity, it is part and parcel of who we are as human beings. The more we honour this fact the more we will look for a true expression of it and seek to bring it into our lives more.
Yes, interesting about sport and the uniting factor or alignment it brings in regards ‘teams’ or ‘sides’ – it shows that at our deepest level we do want that unison and togetherness, but that at the seat of all sports and for centuries, lies the flaw of competing one against another [i’m better than you i.e. worth more than you and therefore more important] as opposed to unified collectiveness, or equal brotherhood.
Doozy of a blog alright! We have a new word too, love it. “I really appreciate the opportunity to reflect on this subject and to ‘real-eyes’ that it is the true connection that we are missing”. ‘Real-eyes’… so exactly right for when we truly see what is actually in front of us rather than remaining sleepy eyed in that comfortable place, the blindness, we were in before.
I love your reflections and realisations Kate. So tangible, honest and real.
It is a hard thing to realise or real eyes, that this external grab at unity only distracts us from connecting deep within. Sport is so ingrained in our culture and quite seductive, yet it is essential we feel the disconnection we are in and change it.
This shows clearly that what we all want is brotherhood we innately know our birth right we just get confused and side tracked and fall for the glamour and lights of the shows in which ever crowd you run with be it sport, theatre, music etc, we all know the truth and we are all in truth seeking it.
It is interesting that you write that sport, “did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.” it could be said of all the other things in our life like film, TV, computer games, overeating over drinking are all way we distract ourselves from missing a deeper connection within ourselves for ourselves.
Thank you Kate, it is great to read another take on sport and its effect more deeply as it has such a strong holding in probably every country in the world. I particularly like how you expose that anything where a sense of worth or value is gained from the outside is short-lived rather than from a reconnection to a quality that is always present within ourselves, as this can be applied to many other areas in our lives, like our work, parenting, relationships etc.
This is so well written. I loved reading it. Thank you. It’s a great description of ‘up North’ and how ‘northerners’ refer to themselves.
Reflecting on the years that I participated and stood on the sidelines whilst my children played sport, I can see more clearly how being successful at sport provided a ‘Label’ which gave the ‘false’ worth. Sport provided something in common with others to talk about and brought a form of connection which was not true connection – it was all setup on a foundation of shifting sands. I now realise how this encouraged all involved to leave who they truly were and to hand their power over to be used and abused by the outside world. Sadly it is a double devastation for those not interested in sport because they are then loaded with the double sense of failure placed on them by those that form the ‘false’ brotherhood of sporting communities. Your comment Kate – ‘It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time’, exposes the truth of what is really going on and just the beginning of the illusion that is lived in.
The phrase ‘real-eyes’ is a corker. I feel very ‘joy-full’ when words can be segmented to emphasise their true meaning! It allows me to look at them with real eyes and realise something more about them.
A great illustration Kate, thank you, of the false highs and tangible lows that arise when we seek joy outside of ourselves. What you describe is no different to a junkie’s high and subsequent crash and burn – and indeed is no different to whatever the source of our elation.
This is an important read as sport is perhaps nearing the height of its allure on our planet, as a devotional, passionate and all consuming distraction. The advent of sports bet and how it can now drain the money out of your wallet while the body gets drained is the most recent addition to the whole consciousness.
True, Simon. Sport is at the ‘height of its allure” as you say, and we need to seriously consider all the implications for us as individuals and as a society.
True Unity has to be for all and never can it be achieved at the expense of another so will never be found in sport.
Being part of a team, working together with others is an amazing thing to do when you can do it without any issues, jealousy or comparison. I have experienced both and know which one I prefer.
Being in a team that has to compete and put another team down is horrible though. We are all winners if we work together.
Our society thrives on competitive sport – but by ‘thrives’ I do not mean that they are actually more health or happy! As Kate has so beautifully said, people seek this almost like a drug to distract them momentarily from the misery that they are living. This is a sure sign that we need to re-look at how we all are in a society, for if we all had more of a connection with each other and were able to talk and share about the things that we are weighed down by, then perhaps we would not seek competitive sports to make ourselves feel ‘better’ (a false better as it does not last). So to me this is a sure sign of the disconnect that we are living, and this is the real clue to what needs to be looked at first and foremost before true change actually takes place.
I agree, society may be ‘thriving’ but it seems more like a very involving distraction rather than an actual growing in love, harmony and truth.
Wow – awesome blog Kate, and it leaves much to ponder on! I can see why people would see the sporting situation (winning an event) as a positive, as you have shared there is a ‘lift’ to the town that happens, but as you have so astutely shared too, this does not last and then the town and the people fall deeper into their pre-existing lack of self worth and misery and hence reveals that nothing really has changed. We need to be wary of such false lifts and not ride on these thinking that all is ok. Connection is key and the quality that we hold with each other.
Another insightful reflection that reveals our knowing that we are part of a ‘team’ and we long to live in unity or brotherhood, that this is our natural way. Competition can only ever divide us, as there will always be a winner and a looser.
It would be interesting to see the relationship between followers of sporting teams and trends of illness and disease rates. My experience of football crowds is that they are often quite overweight and not eating healthy food. It seems strange that something that is considered healthy has a connection with fast food and alcohol.
It seems from a distance that the idea of sport is it inspires and lifts everyone up. Yet interestingly my experience growing up in the U.K. like you Kate it actually does the opposite. So many moaned and groaned as their team lost again, so many ranted and raved at the idiot referee, so many bitched and got angry when the star player defected to their arch enemy. So even if we look at it as a pick me up we say it is – the reality is that isn’t true. It just perpetuates misery, division and separation between me and you. Thank you for saying this and speaking up for team Love.
Well said Kate, that is exactly what plays out in and around sport and competition. There is this false sense of camaraderie, I can remember it well from playing sport heavily in high school and after. But the camaraderie is very short lived, if we won there would be a temporary high and excitement, a relief of not letting the team or coach down, but after that there was always a substantial drop, no different to coming off a sugar high. If parents were honest and all shared their experiences of being with their children after playing sport, we would find a trend of children displaying irritation, sadness, aggression and annoyance after playing sports. Often we put it down to being tired, they’ve had a big day etc but wouldn’t it be interesting if we took a deeper look into the effects of competing against others. This is not just in the sporting arena, this is competition in general at school, within families, at work, religion etc.
We often describe the most ardent supporters as ‘die-hards’ and it feels to me that this sums up fittingly how when we are addicted to seeing life as them vs me, with victors and loosers, we are also deeply invested in life being this endless struggle too. Wow, when we live with this philosophy we miss out on the natural God given beauty life is all about. What a strange game to play Kate that we defeat ourselves all in the name of winning and scoring goals. This way of being cannot help but make our life and bodies hard.
We take competition for motivation but it actually crushes us even when we are ‘successful’ in competing as nothing of who we are can be known or lived when we compete.
I love this blog. It revealed to me personally how I still choose competitiveness over unity within myself. It feels as a constant battle with the ‘outside’ world. Which means a constant distraction from myself. The commitment to the battle seems to be quite strong, even though I can feel now that I’m not the battle. Letting it go is not yet the choice, but the clarity is a great step forward. Sport is in fact a competition with ourselves together with (thousands, sometimes millions) others, competing others who do the same. On which a lot of dear men, women and children are actually proud – even though it’s completely empty, void of Love.
I have always had a competitive streak, I was the one that wanted to score, rather than just muck around when playing a game. My competitive nature was always so championed by those around me that I never really questioned if the way I was being was impacting others in a negative or harmful fashion. These types of blogs are so important, as they make you consider the truth of what is behind sport, beyond the short lived highs and lows….what are we left with?
The energy of a football mach is massive, and when you are there it is a something to behold, but when I sat in stillness and was very content with myself – the energy of the stadium was not cheering me up, it was disturbing.
Such a simple and easy way to show how something we would often look at and see as good, beneficial and to be aimed or aspired to is in fact only a short-term solution to something – to in truth fully heal an issue, even something seemingly as big and ingrained as the attitudes of a whole city, has to start with individual people making change to the way they live
This is exactly what sport does at best (if we win) it elates us but this feeling never lasts and cannot be sustained.
Indeed Abby; and on the cycle goes, with the highs and lows that we have created life to be.
Sport has never been my forte ! I have seen what happens when we let winning take over us. Also when as parents we get involved in the sporting teams of our children. It can be quite scary to see many Parents (including myself) when their child is playing sport start to lose it and another energy comes in! Almost a win at all cost. What are we teaching our children when this happens!
The truth is we have moved so far away from how we know life to be, that anything that brings relief is a welcomed distraction. Sport is one such device we use to seek momentarily relief from life, but that is all it does, it does not offer anything more than this, yet we pin all our hopes on this and make it the pinnacle of life.
When I played team sports as a child I never noticed any connection or brotherhood – everybody was very much alone except in a few short moments when the game was close and my team won but that time could be counted in seconds. True brotherhood lasts and is much more harmonious.
This is a profound sharing Kate. Competition and sport is a convenient distraction for many people to not have to feel what is really going on in their lives. Take away the distraction and we soon realise that nothing has changed and things are exactly the same. True change can only happen through connection.
Having been brought up in a sporting culture and championing character building through competition, I have seen a side to sport that even goes deeper than Kate reveals. The scores, the highlights, the talk at work, at home, at the pub about the game and about the next game, the melodrama of what players have done what and who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ of the team week by week. and on and on and on building up to the finals, then the world events – it is a whole way of life of distraction for those who want to indulge in it, so that the down side need never be felt at all.
Kate what a wise article on sport and competition. I’d not really looked at it in this way, especially as you say “an effective distraction from that which we are missing to begin with”. It make me realise we can look at something in one way but then there are many other angles that we are missing, many other hidden effects and more often than not the competition associated with sport further divides and in my experience does not unite.
‘I soon learnt that spontaneous displays of joy were frowned upon in this place… but not so when sport was involved’ – Isn’t it interesting that in certain situations that give people something to talk about, laugh about and ‘bond’ over they can have totally different attitudes to when you talk to them otherwise. In my experience I’ve found that people become very chatty and comfortable talking expressively in groups about sport, TV/movies and a big one – FOOD. But why are we comfortable talking about these things and not the rest of life, or celebrating displays of joy in other moments?
I have played a lot of competitive sport to a very high level in my life but if I am honest whilst I always enjoyed the fun and physical aspect of moving and playing, I never enjoyed the whole crowd dynamics or competition thing. Many times I would be at a sports event and you could feel the tension, the aggression, the heightened excitement and the rivalry in the crowd which would frequently explode into verbal or physical abuse. The pressure that this energy would exert on my body as a player on the field was immense and very uncomfortable. There is way more going on here than we care to realise. Rather than fighting or competing against each other, perhaps we should unite in really looking at what energy is it that is driving a wedge of separation between us as a one humanity?
I wonder how many highs people experience through different mediums that don’t connect them to their real worth and the joy that comes from it, and yet sadly are nothing more than just distractions from the true connection they are missing. We too often settle for less than the real thing … and yet the substitutes don’t ever fill the emptiness we feel from the connection we crave for more than a moment.
Let us not forget that the massive growth in sport globally is orchestrated and driven by large corporations and billionaires, intent on maximising profits, sporting events, mass merchandising, food and drinks. Meanwhile supporters get sucked into the hype without discerning the energy behind sport and its potential to cause harm.
Kate, I really enjoyed reading your blog – and having not ever been a very ‘sporty’ type of a person even in childhood, in later years I could not understand why one could not just have a game of tennis for the fun of it, rather than trying to kill the fun of the interaction with the need to be the winner. I never understood it, and that brings me to a reference point in your blog of differences, comparison or interpretations. You mention early in your presentation that your smile caused an ill reaction from someone who did not understand that you were simply sharing who you were. My smile got me close to serious trouble once while travelling in rural Morocco. I had been warned not to smile at anyone, and do not make eye contact. Well, for a then country girl who smiled and talked to everyone, I forgot, and found myself being pursued and harassed as a ‘smile’ here meant basically that I was a ‘loose’ woman and I was propositioning. My husband was offered so many camels for me, and I sought refuge amongst our tour group for more than 30 minutes. Ultimately he spat a curse at me for not honouring my supposed proposition. Not sure whether this was ‘sport’, or ‘competition’ , but this was a lesson in the interpretation of ones’ own personal understanding being challenged, or even the bastardisation of such a thing as shining ones’ own light.
You’re right, Gill, sport is a poor substitute for real connection and inspiration, needlessly pitting us against one another.
I must admit that I have always found spectator sport a ‘pointless’ activity, leading to either brief moments of euphoria by crushing another, or the misery of feeling like a loser. Where is the love and inspiration in that?
Great article Kate, I agree with this, ‘the competitiveness in sport and elsewhere in our society set us up from young to make us think our worth is external, not only does it divide us – country against country, city against city, suburb against suburb, ‘us’ against ‘them’, me versus you and ultimately me against myself’, I see this happening in schools, there is no true unity in sport only separation and competition and it does not feel healthy, physically or mentally.
What a cracker of a line “It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.” And, how true this line is for many things, not just the tension and elation of watching sport, but all kinds of roles and ideals, activities and achievements we aspire to to fill the emptiness of missing our real and true selves.
We are totally sold competition from day one so we grow up thinking it is a natural way to be. You see very young children absolutely mad about a certain football team when all they are doing is taking on what their parents are doing. It is total distraction from the daily drudgery of a lot of people’s lives and it gives a lot of men something to talk about so they don’t have to really talk about things that actually matter.
The word ‘unity’ or ‘united’ is often used in the sport team’s name, but it really looses its true meaning if bastardized thus. Unity does not exclude anyone, this word cannot be used in its true meaning until all of us are embraced.
Your first-hand and very real experience are very valuable – it confirms that sporting events only provide short-lived highs (and lows, of course) that do not truly change our lives for the better but provide a brief distraction from one’s lived misery and desolation. As well, playing bingo or the lottery definitely fall in the same category for me. They alleviate the pain for a while via distraction – and the lottery adds hope to the equation – but none of these measures support people to truly address what is not working. They actually ensure that things stay as they are are and have apparently always been.
People are constantly seeking to have a feeling of belonging to something they feel is worth it. The problem is that they want to get this worthiness from outside to compensate for what is not inside. This is no different of what happens with love. The ‘upwards’ cycles do not last long and soon people find themselves back where they truly are. It is a bit like renting a horse for a ride. You get the feeling and it is over. It is a way of experimenting with ourselves.
Living hard is definitely not the way neither is competitiveness. Love is the way, has been and will always be.
Sport is one of those activities in life that is heralded as good in many ways. It seemingly unites people (or does it as the other team are not included in that unity), it seemingly gets people engaged and active (but what quality are they active in particularly in body contact sport), it seemingly gives people a sense of pride or satisfaction (but does it when it is at the cost of beating another), it seemingly makes us fit and healthy (but clearly it doesn’t by the number of people who suffer from sporting injuries). So there you have it – much more than meets the eye when it comes to sport.
“Competitive sport or any kind of triumph over another” – the propensity to compare is so huge and the ‘thought monsters’ so big as to not let us feel how truly awesome we are just as we are, always feeling pressured to measure up and be ‘as good as’ or ‘better than’ – maybe the alcohol involved in the celebrations of this perceived win is just to deaden the awful feeling of not feeling good enough just as we are as well as the deep knowing that we did it to be better than the others knowing that we have contributed to pain and misery.
You are so right Kate – it is the true connection we are missing, and look for in whatever way we can, unfortunately only too often in the wrong places and then just to fall back into the misery of this perceived aloneness. Connecting within to our selves first and holding this connection will open the possibility for truer connections to be recognised and nurtured.
Kate, I would say that you’ve smashed here, one of the highest illusions of ‘good’ that sport and competition is said to bring to us. What true ‘good’ can there be in feeling elation over the bettering of another? To feel such elation is a false joy, and is by its very nature, insecure and transient – for it is held In the tension of knowing that a time fast approaches where the ‘win’ will be challenged and/or need to be re-determined all over again…
I wonder what would happen if we actually dropped our guard and our need to ‘better’ another (or even be associated with a person or team that betters another) – and realise that we are all in this together. That there is actually only one team…
Many, I imagine, would champion even the ‘short lived’ seeming upliftment and connection within a community that you’ve described Kate. Yet you have taken this one step further – a step I wonder how many would be willing to admit… Your words here say it all: “It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.”
For all the ‘investment’, true unity or worth was not brought to the people – but rather, we may say, a ‘feel good moment’. Then, back to the misery… This is not to judge the hardships or anything of that kind being faced by the community you refer to, but rather, look at the bigger picture. Have we not based so many of our interests, activities and events in life around seeking a ‘high’ or an ‘escape’ from an experience of daily drudgery? There is most definitely a deeper place to go to, if true change – and actual joy – be sought.
I too appreciate this opportunity to reflect how much we actually miss true connection. It is certainly possible to rebuild true connection with ourselves and others, a connection that is forever expanding and deepening. It is when we are choosing to not connect to ourselves, to others and to God, that I feel this is one of our deepest hurts.
There used to be a much healthier culture associated with sport where the sense of fun and play were core ingredients and winning was not the ‘be all and end all’ that it is prized to be today. Over the years sport has become ‘Big Business’ and now ‘winning at all costs’ is the aim of the game fuelled by the hungry flames of desire for fame, recognition and reward which, in turn, keeps the wheels of greed and corruption turning.
There is something very special about ‘teams’, ‘team work’ and people coming together and working as one. We are capable of amazing feats when everyone contributes with all that they are and makes the whole more magnificent. It is disappointing that we have translated the notion of successful team work as one team winning at the expense of another. This is a huge diminishing of the actual glory of our unified collaboration, which can support the evolution and expansion of the whole of humanity.
‘it is the true connection that we are missing – between each other and within ourselves’- Very well said Kate, without true connection we are all walking around like an empty vessel, and even though we may not be consciously aware of this fact, we are continuously looking for something to fill the void.
What appears to be true temporarily, such as unity in sport is still a lie. Truth is always true in all circumstances. The question then is why do we choose to lie to ourselves and to be lied to? Why do we go so far but stop just at the brink of what is truly true?
The high of sporting achievement is held up as the example that sport is good for us, and all the benefits are listed, that increased engagement of people, a happy feeling, a common bond. Yet the point that Kate makes is most vital, this is short-lived, it isn’t a long term change to people’s health and better outcomes of quality of life, its a short term fix that is followed with what? The town Kate speaks of may still remember that league victory, but really it is an external occurrence that doesn’t improve own own life in any meaningful way. Therein lies the illusion of sport, and football in particular, the idea that it changes lives, so false, and never more so in this age of excess where the rewards for playing sport at the highest level make everything about it out of touch with the struggle many people live in.
When you break it down like this Kate it really is no surprise why sport is so popular it alleviates for a moment the pain of the emptiness that would otherwise be felt.
True connection is now being identified as missing when we go into many of our addictions, whether it be sport, drugs, alcohol which we use to fill the emptiness within, which as you have shared Kate is only a temporary fix.
Connection is a hunger that is in all of us, and that we will try to assuage with all sorts of window dressing, as Kate writes about…. Nothing , however, can replace the deep inner connection within that then opens up for us all the possibility of true connection, and true brotherhood
What you offer Kate is very eye opening and asks us to consider more deeply into the ‘false sense’ of unity. It is like any fix or distraction that is sought, we can be pumped up and filled with the excitement, bravado, dutch courage –all sorts of things and ways, but when it is all over there is the reality and we are left with the same base line before the props arrived. It’s the quality of our base line that we are responsible for. This is what supports us, this is where we can choose to be our own coach, cheer squad and team supporters. This one doesn’t go home at the end of the game this one wakes up with us and goes to sleep with us everyday of our lives. How much and what are we willing to invest in our own success?
True unity can only ever be found through our connection to who we are within, as in essence we are all of the same source of Love and it is from here that we are all equal. When we live in separation from our Love and as such our brothers, we are forever yearning to return to be in union with this greater Love. Yet this real sense of separation is something we often seek to distract ourselves from. Coming together or banding together with a selected group to overcome another or another group, such as in sport, is not truly unifying and is in fact harming in many ways as not everyone is included, and the intent is to defeat another and taking pleasure in the domination of one over another. True unity comes from being in union with ourselves and as such with ALL others equally.
In reading your article it struck me that even the name of the league, the premier league, is presumptive that it is better than other leagues. So separation is in its name. As an avid football fan growing up, it’s really cool to read blog posts like this and reflect on what I was missing within growing up that drew me to the sport and competition. I was seeking connection and being part of something. Today I can connect to myself and be part of everything.
As you describe the transition in behaviours and moods that the football wins had, I could see it as the injected high it is, not unlike using any other substance that changes our mood and outlook on life. The win/loose result give a constant up/down, connection/disconnection, happiness/depression extremes to life, that are placed outside of our control, when we choose to hand over our power to something other than our own steady connection with our innermost selves.
What a brilliant and deeply insight-full blog Kate and I agree there is no real unity in sport only a short term distraction from the emptiness and and true unity that we so desperately long for. Competition and/or comparison can never really unite us. When we are willing to let down the walls of protection built out of fear that we have used to hide our hurts behind and be open and transparent, revealing our natural beautiful tender and vulnerable qualities then will be the time when we can begin to accept and truly re-connect with each.
Thank you Kate for a great sharing, we often think that sport is good because it at least brings people together for a short while but as you reveal it is so short lived and just a distraction from the emptiness that people live in. Wow what an energy where even a smile is frowned upon.
Yes – truly short lived and once not anymore doing that sport, then often there is none. And of course this just shows our own disconnection within.
From playing games , sport has turned into a game of war with opposing players, teams and their supporters baying for the demise of the other. Crazy ! And this energy of abuse and separation is allowed and accepted in the name of a ‘game’.
We create substitutes that fool us believing we are on the right track only to find us in even deeper separation to what we long for most like unity in a group, team or similar giving us a sense of belonging but at the same time rejecting, fighting another group, team etc. Like the word unity exemplifies, there can be only ‘uni’ = one to be in unity, the moment someone is excluded from unity there is no oneness or unity any longer.
We all know true brotherhood deep within our hearts because it is where we are from and what our bodies pull towards. Selling out to a falseness or illusionary togetherness deeply hurts because we know it is not true.
We seek ‘connection’ and unity in many ways; however, if we do not begin with shifting and developing these things within ourselves, the outer will never satisfy, nor be the real deal.
Sports matches are times when people gang up against each other and it is socially totally acceptable.
I have never been into sports of any kind. I did get into horse riding but not as a team. I was the lone rider but your blog really highlights to me why so many do get into team sports, to belong, to be a part of something and to not be alone.
I read this line – “It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.” and my head spun. Then I read the next paragraph and completely concur that it is an absolute doozy! You give me much to ponder upon this one, thank you Kate.
Hello Kate and I totally get what you are saying. I used to play and follow sport at all levels, soccer in particular was a favourite. It is great what you say and how the fact of winning and the high it brings is always short lived before it needs to be created again. Not unlike winning a premiership as you also mention there is a high but also the weight of the low after. I remember this playing sport and the pressure that would come, I would feel like I want to win but I had the knowledge that I would go through the same thing next week or next year. It was like trying to put off the low feeling into the future somewhere or trying to cheat it even though you knew this wasn’t possible you tried it anyway. I remember walking away from playing sport and it wasn’t because of injury or age, I’d just had enough of the feeling before and after as well as the pain of physically what you needed to do. All of it just no longer suited who I was, it didn’t feel great, any of it. This confirms what you are saying and how it was in the ‘northern English city’. From what I see it’s the same everywhere, it’s just that some of us haven’t experienced the awareness of it.
I agree whole-heartedly with all you have presented Kate. Elation and misery are opposites on the same pole in the sense that they are both borne from a deep disconnection to our true self and thus each other and God/The Universe. In misery our suffering blinds us as we walk with eyes cast downward oblivious to the beauty that surrounds us and lives deep within us. Elation is then offered as the golden nugget that will relieve us of our chosen despair and it comes at us thick and fast in the form of music, entertainment, sport, food, beliefs etc. that are all set to entice us out of our miserable state and into the ‘high’ we so desperately seek to provide relief for the ‘low’ we have been so willing to live.
Many of us live many lives lost in the endless oscillation between these two seemingly opposing poles until there comes a time that, perhaps due to an extreme situation that acts as a wake up call, we are left to ‘dig deep’ and find that the true answer to all our woes is found within. At this point, as we begin to feel the warmth of the connection to our true self, the body of love that is our Soul that has never and will never desert us, we are able to renounce all outer forms of glamour that have kept us bound in the futile search outward for a love that has always and will always burn deep in our inner hearts.
It is true that competition divides and distracts us from living our inner-most truth and prevents the true brotherhood that we all know could otherwise be lived.
A great reveal of what is going on in the supposed benefits of sport. It does always strike me as odd to revel in the defeat of another, and is it so surprising that it is so short lived? I have seen people crying because their team lost, and yet it is “only a game”. Maybe, what is at play is that for someone who has a hard time letting themselves express what they are feeling, sport gives them the rollercoaster of emotions that passes for feeling.
Thank you Kate for your illuminating blog. I have always felt very uncomfortable around any kind of sport or competitiveness and at times wondered why, as it seemed to go against the general trend. I am now understanding why I questioned the true intent of sport, as it feels like a deliberate distraction to separate us from our innate need to connect and share our lives with others, as it sets us to compete and hence lose our natural sense of equality and unity.
Shows how we substitute connection and Brotherhood for a moment of short lived unity and overall discontent within ourselves. I am sure if the people of the town really showed their natural joy and zest for life the views of the place would soon change globally too.
Joshua thats so true – when we lack something such as connection and brotherhood, rather than reconnect to the truth its often more convenient to substitute it, which then starts a cycle of discontentment, instead of building and reconnecting to what it is in truth we want most of all. That said from my experience this is a slow process as the pain of facing the hurts of disconnection can seem overwhelming yet in truth are nothing compared to the love inside that remains untouched just covered over.
‘What is it we crave and seek in the apparent unity of a sporting team, and is it really being delivered?’ – That is a brilliant question Kate – do we ever stop and ask ourselves what it is we are seeking and are we in truth getting ’it’ or is it possibly leaving us feeling more empty on the inside?
There is so much pressure put on sporting teams to be build comradeship yet when one gains over another could we possibly not be playing in unity?
Kate, you have exposed beautifully what is happening in competitive sport and in any form of competition. It is such a great distraction from feeling our connection to ourselves and the truth of how equal we all are.
What a great blog Kate, beautifully exposing how all distractions outside of ourselves are to cover the separation, isolation and the ‘missing piece’ that we continually search for externally, rather than returning to the true harmony and unity of our essence.
“BUT (and it’s a huge but!), as it was gained through external circumstances or events (not internally reconnected to) and but a mere isolated display of unity, it was short-lived. Very short-lived indeed”.
Thank you Kate, I like your example it does reflect upon a truer side of sport and competition than we normally get presented with. It begs the question how much of our life do we actually live in distraction and how much do we truly enjoy and live in full.
This is exposing beautifully the false unity that sport is portraying and creating in a community. It is showing us the depth where we are in that the external elates us, but that we lost the inner connection..
We have a long way to go in understanding the powerful reflections you have shared in this blog Kate Burns of the hidden beliefs that sport is in building self worth and camaraderie. We just need to stand back and observe the millions of dollars poured into capital cities all over the world to hold world sport games and venues of international sport celebrity matches.
It would be all good and well if sport did provide that unity however in saying that it is the same unity in which warring nations battle. The citizens within the nations come closer together and fight for a common cause, however, really there should be a different word used as opposed to unity. As this isn’t unity it’s more like a common interest or common business venture. As the nation comes closer together because the end goal is to maintain its security and stability thereby working together may be a means to a self-fish end???
If the root justification is for self-preservation this is unity, it’s individuals working together. And I think as human beings we are capable of so much more than just that??..
When I think about my local community I see lots of activity like libraries, supermarkets, services, football clubs and restaurants, but to me that is not the essence of the community, to me it is the people and how they live, what is the quality of life and what it is it like to walk down the street?
Dear Kate,
I love your observation of the short life outside pleasures have, how we enjoy for a moment, but then ache for the next pleasure, which may well be months away. Yet all the while walk each day in misery, with the odd moment of pleasure dotted here and there. And we call this a good life! I know what it is to live this way, I now also know what it is to live connected to my essence, to live more from the truth, beauty and grace I am. A way of being in life that doesn’t bring the ups and downs as much as it holds a space of tenderness, of great honesty, that I am learning brings a joy every day.
This can be asked of everything and anything – does it connect people to their own true self worth. And anything that does not is then not of the place where our depth and love exist.
Great blog Kate, you really have exposed the reason that this kind of unity is so short lived as. . .”it was gained through external circumstances or events (not internally reconnected to” . . . It must be the same in wartime when everyone unites to fight a common enemy and then when the war is over so it seems is the so called ‘unity’.
Thank you Kate. This is a great blog and point of reflection. It has come at a timely point for me. I have never been into team sports or watching it – to be honest I have never really understood it yet always seemed to date team sport people in the past, so I know the feeling around it and the belief systems, defences, consciousness and so on. However a few days ago I watched a non contact game of footy for the first time. It was made up of older men and younger ones and a team someone close to me has just started up with. After the game I understood that for some this level of connection was more than they interacted in their lives, the team etc etc and for them it felt like a unity. I was able to also see that there was a common walk on the field while playing which blew me away. There is so much around sport much like the education system as there is a lot of defence that but is a good thing – perhaps it is a better thing than what most experience however this, as you clearly have reflected, does not make it true and harmonious and part of our natural way.
This false sense of happiness when a team wins is really a lack of responsibility – we are relying on the team/something or someone external to us, to provide us with a moment of happiness rather than taking responsibility for living in a way where joy is our life… it comes from within, is lived and shared with everyone.
We waste so much time and energy seeking outside of ourselves what we so desperately crave… and yet it is right here within us all of the time – waiting for us to re-connect to.
Unity will never come through sport because it epitomises competition which is only ever divisive.
Kate this is great in sharing what is behind sports. There is business deals, investment both financially and emotionally – and a sense of status – all of which separate us. It is pretty crazy to think how cherished the industry is, when really there is nothing serving or supportive about it. And the funny part is, at the end of the day we all want connection – equally so.
What were people celebrating here – that they had beaten someone else – maybe now someone else would feel worse than them or they might feel they are better. What we are all looking for deep down is love and connection and this is the complete opposite and as you say it also a big giving away of power – what a setup to sustain misery and exhaustion!
I too can relate to seeking acceptance and unity through the watching and playing of competitive sport however it is always short lived and at the expense of one side or the other. We have such a strong need of wanting to belong and feeling unified and yet we are seeking it outside of ourselves and by beating another.
I wonder if this is why so many people are hugely drawn to sports, because it gives us the illusions of unity, an elated feeling of being together but it is short lived. It seems to me that it doesn’t truly unite us at all but actually creates and fosters separation. Any form of competitiveness feeds the energy of separation and sport is all about competition, one person against another or a whole team against another.
A great article Kate that brings into sharp relief the void of false elation and connection with the sporting example. It is the same for me when I choose to be distracted from how I am really feeling and eat or listen to music or hop onto social media as a distraction. I know the moment I choose distraction; there is always the opportunity to feel the emptiness of distraction and to make a different choice.
Well said Kate, sport can destroy families and relationships. But what we have to realise is to not blame the sport, but stand back and say what a minute, for lifetimes, we have been part of this.
I have found the same pattern occur in hobby groups. If the video game, cartoon, interested in subject is not the focus then the unity between people is simply not there. This can be seen if we stop a hobby, stop drinking or stop listening to a certain type of music and those close bonds drop away. We are seeking that person to person connection and believing that the activities are bringing us that connection. But does it last if we remove the activity?
I agree Leigh and have found this happened when Steve and I stopped drinking as some friends dropped away, as it seemed that the only thing we had in common was the drinking and sharing of old stories from the past. Take that away and what have you got.
When there’s an event or something to celebrate ‘over’, it’s easy to use this as relief when in fact we express little celebration for who we are, our relationships and our own lives. For many people due to a lack of lived joy and vitality it can be difficult to appreciate themselves, however by using sport as an easy way to feel elevated they don’t have to address WHY they don’t feel the joy.
Exactly Susie, and the same can be done for any event, like a University graduation or coffee date. Recently my University classmates held a celebration day and what stuck out to me was peoples elation when they heard their name called out and walked to the stage to receive a badge, it was as if this was the moment they had been waiting for the whole degree. But as you have so brilliantly shared these ‘fun’ moments don’t last and result in a low period after, so where is the true lived Joy?
The short-lived high of your team winning a match/title is one of the many distractions that people indulge in because they are missing a true connection within themselves. Once it has worn off the sense of loss is even greater so more distraction is required to try and assuage the ache of the lack of connection and so the cycle is continuously repeated. It is only when we re-connect to ourselves that the cycle is broken and we can let go of outside substitutes.
This is a great blog Kate and you expose much about sport and what we think it gives us, compared with what the true potential is by connecting from within.
Sport is super competitive these days with big bucks to make in the world arena, but in this set-up an image is provided that competitive sport is cool and that you are ‘some-one’, images that our children take on. But underneath it all competitive sport only creates highs and lows and much separation.
This is a great example that competition and the elation of beating another is short lived, and like you have written Kate a distraction from the day to day misery of life.
It so easy to expose the false beliefs around sport (and life) when we reflect on them from a true perspective as is so clearly seen here. It is often the case that the opposite is actually true to our current widely accepted beliefs.
Great thought proving blog thanks Kate- how can something be unity or harmonious if it is built on a foundation of separation with others?
Thank you Kate. This article helps me to understand exactly why sport is not a true way to encourage or support unity or relationships. You have me pondering what other pursuits fall into this category…
Thank you Kate, this is a powerful blog in that is shows from your direct experiences the impact of competitive sport on a whole city. I moved to a town in East UK just at the time they won the FA cup and the atmosphere in the Town was electric. It is amazing to see how people’s mood can depend on 90 minutes of play, and how loyalty is based on what team you support, even what colour clothes people wear as a sense of identity and pride.
So true, what those elations offer us is not a true connection, but a momentary distraction from missing it. And when we look around, it takes no time to realise that our world is filled with, and built on, various kinds of entertainment to distract us from what we are truly feeling.
This is a great blog Kate bringing reality to the effects of sporting events glamour and money and the emptiness inside that cannot be fixed. The misery lived you bring attention to from our emptiness cannot be fixed except through true connection and meeting each other and ourselves deeply allowing the love and joy to be lived from within . A beautiful reflection thank you.
Kate I love the way you write. It is great what you discuss here in just how superficial sport is ‘it was gained through external circumstances or events (not internally reconnected to) and but a mere isolated display of unity, it was short-lived. Very short-lived indeed’. The truth is nothing outside of us will ever be able to give us the connection we truly crave, this can only come from us within through making loving choices daily as I have so beautifully learnt from Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. We have used sport as a bandaid to make us feel ‘good’ or bad if a team doesn’t win. I still cannot fathom how much football players are payed, it is extreme and ridiculous amounts when doctors, nurses and teachers are paid not very much at all. This says a lot with regards to society and currently what we ‘value’ the most.
Kate, great article, I agree with this, ‘the competitiveness in sport and elsewhere in our society set us up from young to make us think our worth is external, not only does it divide us – country against country, city against city, suburb against suburb, ‘us’ against ‘them’, me versus you and ultimately me against myself’, in schools I have observed how sport creates competition and separation between children and even with players in the team, there are often tears or arguments during and after matches and no true unity.
Such a great point Kate, we can champion sport because it brings people together but forget that 1. People are getting together to oppose others so there is no true coming together with everyone, and 2. It is temporary and something that is outside of ourselves. Through this does not address that we are feeling devastated most of our time in life, it would be far more honest and healing to address that last bit of why we are not feeling joy in our everyday life with ourselves and others, than hiding it with the temporal excitement of a match.
Well said, Kate. The temporary highs of competitive sport can be all-consuming and give a false sense of unity, but as you so rightly point out it is a loveless and empty mirage with no true substance because there is no real connection to the others on your ‘side’ never mind the other team.
“It [sporting success] did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.” And furthermore that short-term high was gained through others having to loose, and therefore experience the opposite, for that high to be achieved. Not a way to engender love.
This is a very enlightening blog. I so get why people think that sport is a good thing and I also get why others say it is not and that it sets us up in many ways. What you have described here is very revealing because that sense of worth that people get from winning something, be it a football game or something else would easily be gone when they next lost a football game or anything else for that matter. We cannot base our sense of worth on anything outside ourselves as I have learned over the years. Our sense of worth comes from connecting deeply with ourselves and our true essence and has nothing to do with what is going outside of us.
Kate I love the way you have brought a deeper understanding to what is truly missing in most peoples lives that draws them to the momentary highs (and lows) of sport. Sport can be like a religion for many, it offers hope and a welcome relief from the misery and mundaness of life that many people live under especially in inner cities, where there seem very little hope of ‘bettering’ let alone changing their lives. Deep down what we are all craving is a unity and a connection with each other and a coming together as one which football falsely offers and why it is momentary, it lacks a true foundation built from connection and the peoples own self worth “It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time”
Kate, reading this sentence ‘with whole suburbs of ‘no go zones’ for the police,’ made me stop and reflect. I realised that I have been living unaware of the true disparity that still exists in the UK, a developed and much sought after country to live in. We can walk through life with our eyes not seeing the truth and hope that it goes away or we can start to be honest, engage in conversation and make changes that start to unite us together.
The short lived high of a football game or sports event feels no different to the short lived high of taking drugs or drinking and very often the two go hand in hand. To live with a contentment where the desire for these quick fixes or highs are no longer searched for only comes when we connect and live from within.
“It did not reconnect people to their own real worth, it distracted them from missing it for a short time.” So true Kate. Could it be that if we have given up on true connection with ourselves we then seek it through others by means of distraction, eg sport, because it can trick us into believing this is unity?
The sad thing is when parents pass on their sporting obsessions to young children. Imagine a baby coming into the world full of joy, presence, connected to self and all else and shown that the way to be in the world is to connect to something outside themselves (a football or other sporting team) and make that your focus. In effect the child steadily loses connection to the precious vessel that is full and complete and left with one that feels empty, needy and seeks fulfilment and joy from outside themselves. This puts in place a set of ideals and beliefs that dominates lives for decades, if not whole life. Parents, without awareness simply, repeat behaviours they were subjected to as children without discerning for themselves the true nature of what they are doing and the harm it causes.
Much like religion, culture etc – sports is also championed and passed on with no true choice in their life whether it is something they want to take on or not. Do we ask – do you want to take on all the beliefs and ideals around this sport ? Or are we blind at times as parents because we think it is a good thing without really questioning the connection and harmony and true support.
Kehinde, what you share here happens so much and it is sad. It is like it has a knock on effect. The parents weren’t truly met or connected with when growing up, so turn to sport etc for recognition or to fill an empty space in their life and then this gets passed on to the next generation and so forth. I remember when I was younger I went to a football match with my dad. I really don’t like football and it was cold and noisy. We had to stand all the time and I didn’t want to be there at all, the only reason I was there was because I loved my dad and wanted time with him. Our relationship has changed now though, this is because over the years the relationship with myself has changed, I love and take care of myself so much more and do not look for love, recognition or acceptance outside of myself. What we need to do is stop. Learn how to truly meet and connect with ourselves from within and to the innate love that we all are and then we will no longer look outside of ourselves, particularly in sport, for approval, recognition and acceptance.
A beautiful blog. I wonder if sporting teams and even fandom is perceived by those who do it as a form of brotherhood.
I am sure it is, as they all share a common denominator – either the sport itself and being part of a team is a form of brotherhood, and the fans share their enthusiasm for the team that they are fans of, so in that there is a brotherhood too, the sense of ‘belonging’ … Where people share an interest and form a club, team or such thing, they are wanting that connection with like-minded people that they can share with.
That’s a great point Christoph, I suspect that would be quite common, not only by those who do it, but by all the fans as well.
Great reflections Kate. When a state of perceived ‘happiness’ is dependent on defeating another then the emotional buzz only lasts until the next time you do not win. When a whole community feels themselves to be losers this spreads the contagion of giving up. When everyone walks along the street with a smile and a sense of self-worth then everyone is on the winning path.
You have really hit the nail on the head here Kate, sport is a thing that momentarily distracts us from what we are truly missing or how we are truly feeling. And after it is over, the high or the low that comes from it, its back to the same old, same old. Sport also gives a sense of brotherhood although it is not a true sense, as if it was there would be no competing and there would only be one team.
True Kevin ‘What is it we crave and seek in the apparent unity of a sporting team, and is it really being delivered?’ From your sharing it completely is not truly being delivered and I agree- only one form would exist if it was true brotherhood.
Really this false unity exists in many aspects of our lives and with it we accept a level of abuse with in each. Eg. Work units, family units, friend units and so on
This false unity is more to feel a protection and of being part of something but it does not deliver freeness or truth. Just other people thinking and acting in the same way that feels quite far from a harmonious way.
To live in a country which is rugby mad it has been very obvious over the years that the mood of a huge proportion of society rose and fell on the national team’s performance. If they lost a ‘big game’ on Saturday night, on Sunday morning the feeling of gloom and despair was almost palpable. The temporary distraction offered by the game was only that; temporary, and after the full time whistle was blown life returned to ‘normal’, or possibly that was delayed a little longer with the consumption of much alcohol to further numb the pain. We can distract ourselves from the challenges, and often the misery of our lives, in many ways but the issues will always be there when the distraction ends.
Very interesting Ingrid, this is so true. It seems when one distraction ends we easily find another form of distraction to replace it so we can avoid feeling what is really going on. To me this way of living is actually very exhausting and miserable. I am so glad I no longer hold onto or seek distractions but letting them go and feeling a whole lot more energised, vital and more myself than ever before.
As there can be felt unity and being worth in being member or supporter of a sporting team but what is clearly shown in this article is that success is never long lasting and has to be repeated over and over again to give you that same feeling. How different would it be if we became supporter of our own inner most and develop relationships and communities from there.
Would be very awesome indeed. And it is the same with when people break a record in sports, it is never enough but the drive is there to do more and more – all for acceptance and recognition…
What a great read and depth of understanding of the underlying tensions that sport disconnects us from looking at and dealing with. Thank you Kate.
I agree. Sport gives us great adrenaline rushes but they don’t last and you then come back for more.
The rush is the same as drug users. Over time more and more is required for the same high and when your team doesn’t win…?
It will be a time yet before the idea of sport not being the great beacon of light is accepted. Sport is still seen as being character building and offering hope and a sense of purpose and value to many. Yet sport and confidence are a funny mix, it is a false confidence from my experience, not a real sense of self but an identification with something you or the team you follow are good at. It doesn’t allow us to really value what our own qualities are, and that is where I feel we need to go with health and wellbeing, seeing our worth is not in sport but inside us ready to be awakened.
Very well expressed Stephen, and so true in its entirety. This is what we all could begin to embrace and live and show our kids too that – “… seeing our worth is not in sport but inside us ready to be awakened.” When this is embraced, sport can just be a fun activity to do with others in joyfulness.