I recently spent some time watching my 18 year old son compete in a football tournament and have since been reflecting on, and appreciating, the changes in my attachment to sport, and to competition in general.
I grew up in a family in which most of my siblings were involved in sport in some way and the competitive nature of the games that we had between ourselves was considered quite normal and healthy. We were all very passionate about sport, and in particular the national rugby team, which was often the source of intense debate / arguments about team selections or the result of a recent game.
I had grown up with this attitude to sport and competition and I carried it on with my own children. I can remember encouraging many playful, fun times together with my sons to turn into competitive battles. Kicking a ball in the back yard, shooting some baskets with the basketball, playing handball and even going for a walk together and finding a stone to kick along the path would all inevitably end up becoming competitive.
As I have said, this behaviour felt ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’ and was seen by those around me, and society in general, as a healthy, fun way to connect and build relationships with others. I was strongly influenced by the images I saw in the media and the way sports stars were held up as role models.
I was introduced to Universal Medicine and the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom, as presented by Serge Benhayon, about 9 years ago. Since then I have learnt to reconnect to the tender loving man that I naturally am and feel more able to claim these qualities in my everyday livingness, and by doing so reflect something different to those around me.
These changes have been gradual and are ongoing, but the increased awareness has allowed me to feel the enormous impact sport has on me and on those playing it.
I have become more deeply aware of:
- Being pulled into the emotion of the game and the increased anxiety I feel in my body as a result.
- The energy of the supporters when attending games and how this often changes during the course of the game depending on how their team is performing.
- How physical sport can be (even ‘non-contact’ sport), and just how abusive players are being to their bodies and to each other.
- The emptiness I can feel in many of the players and how sport is used to fill this void. Even after winning a big game players can still feel empty and lonely with no sense of joy to be felt.
- How beneath the tough persona created by many of the men who play contact sports just how gentle they truly are, and how this persona is created in order to fit the image of how a ‘real’ sportsman should be.
- The extent to which I allowed discussing sport to become a means of connecting to other men. I settled for the safe, superficial conversations about sport and work as a way of ‘fitting in’ and as a way of avoiding expressing to others how I was truly feeling.
I found that how I expressed with other men influenced how I expressed with family and friends. I realise now that expressing in this way prevented me from experiencing the joy that can come from allowing others to feel the tender loving man I am in my expression and feeling the connection with them evolve as a result.
There were over 300 gorgeous young men attending this football tournament with a huge amount of time and effort involved in organising and running it, and while it may have been seen by some as successful, the failure in my opinion was the lost opportunity for these young men to truly connect to one another. I felt this connection was distorted or destroyed by competition.
By Peter Campbell (55), Support Worker, Tauranga, New Zealand
Further Reading:
Sports Competition – the Pursuit of (Feelings of) Emptiness
My Turnaround from Competitive Running to Connection with Me
Competitive sports: the pursuit of emptiness
610 Comments
Beautiful to read a man claiming his tender loving way of being.
Thank you Peter, reflecting on what you have shared about sport there is an underlying tone that has always existed in my life around sport with an understanding that I would retire to golf and when walking became a problem lawn bowls would be next, and it hits me that it was all about the competition and the ill energy that abounds when we play sports, and when we introduce purpose playing and competition stops in it’s tracks and life become a Joy to be with children and the play-full-ness that can be shared by kicking a ball around.
When we endeavour to do well in our living ways it feels completely different to the competitive-ness that sets us apart from our equal brothers.
Absolutely Peter sports, competition, religious organisations, clubs, politics, being better than and the ubiquitous way we align to these and other contrived emotional ceremonies all have a disconnecting feel to them. Returning to our essences bring such a warming glow that will naturally connect with everyone no need to be a part of any group, club, ideology or organisation that has no consideration for the simple decency and respect we can live and share together as a foundation for being Truly Loving in all we do.
I love how you have busted through sport to expose what is really going on under the surface. If we were honest we could all relate to what you are sharing and how in your list of things we can see the damage we are living with when we shut down our natural expression in favour of competition and fitting in.
I have recently been reflecting on my school sport days and have realised that the pressure to be competitive was a real strain on me and a constant tension because it went against my natural ways which was to be gentle and collaborative with others.
I agree with you connection is almost impossible to build and maintain in the presence of competition, ‘I felt this connection was distorted or destroyed by competition.’
In the injustice of feeling someone trying to score points off you, it is very easy to shut down and try to defend or prove your worth. Having a sense of who you are, being self contained and not in need of recognition supports with the reading of it rather than the enjoining of it. The getting there is possible, it simply takes a commitment to heal our hurts, but when we can do this we can ‘observe rather than absorb’.
The revealing part about any sport is that it is focused on the win or on the getting better and better, so the focus is always on the future, which creates a restlessness, incompleteness and a feeling of never being enough and thus there is in truth no and cannot be real connection with another lest with oneself because life becomes about the moment to moment recognition and leaves us empty already the next moment if the recognition is not to be had.
As I have become more aware of myself and my body, I can feel more and more the hideous effects competition has on me and in turn those around me. It does not truly achieve anything and certainly does not feel very nice in the body when we express from it.
For me when I get competitive I become someone I don’t like to be, I stop caring about others and how they feel and it all becomes about a self individuated desire – so I prefer to leave competitiveness out of my life and enjoy life to the max without needing to be the best or better than anyone else.
The more I see and sense the impact sport has on myself in terms of watching it today, the more I see and sense its impact on humanity. Saying yes to opportunities that place me in sporting situations no matter how uncomfortable they are is actually supporting me no end to heal my attachment and what is going on within me in my relationship with sport which I have held since I was very young. This is something I am only now beginning to welcome and appreciate as every step I make towards letting this unhealthy attachment go counts towards loving myself and others more deeply.
Having a shared topic to talk about can make us feel connected but it always leaves an emptiness behind when the person has no interest in you anymore when the topic changes or we are not interested in the topic anymore. Connection on the ‘being’ level is therefor so much more sustaining and everlasting as when we connect at the being level with each other we will be able to talk about anything or nothing and still feel the connection we so love in life with other people.
I can relate to going to a sporting event for a sense of connection and belonging from what you describe and what I’ve observed on tubes when games are on. But this sense of belonging because you are against another is empty and fickle. It seems to me that we are having lost our innate connection to who we are within which we miss because through it we also know we are all inextricably connected to each other. But we’re disconnected and also insecure because we can’t feel and appreciate our innate qualities just for being in a room.
If we’re not appreciating our beingness then we usually feel we have to earn our worthiness by something we do; so to belong for just saying you support a team more than others is an attractive option. The trouble is this contract, if you like, – I can belong if I put others at odds with me – keeps us disconnected from the truth that we are all connected and are all equal so belonging then becomes a mute point. If I look at my life (I’m not into sports) aren’t there areas where I have similar contracts that keep me away from the inner connection that I truly desire? Any form of competition does this.
Competition breeds a culture of constant judgement and measuring to see if we ‘stack up’ and are good enough. Not only does it make us harsh on ourselves but also on other people too who we devalue. All this only occurs when we don’t love ourselves first.
Competition has a hard edge and doesn’t sit well with tenderness at all.
This world is entirely based on individuality and bettering oneself whilst you seek in some way to define yourself and who you are. Competition comes as a result of this. Whilst we are only geared towards making life about self then you will not care the state another lives or is and this alone is the root of competition.
Competitive sport is deemed to be ‘good’ and healthy, Yet, when we break it down perhaps it’s not what we have all believed it to be. I used to champion that a bit of competition was good for you until I realised I was holding onto that fact that I didn’t want to be at the bottom of the pile, that to win you had to fight (which causes a lot of tension in the body), that competition made me anxious and that it separated me from my opponents. It would even separate me from my team mates if mistakes were made and then blame would ensue all round. I’m all for exercise and enjoying being with my friends when I do, but competition I can definitely do without.
Competition pits one against another, man against man, woman against woman and destroys societal life. It engenders a ‘dog eat dog’ way of life that is sold as ‘normal’ and even ‘character-building’ – but what kind of character are we here building? The bully? I wonder what would happen if we started supporting and encouraging each other and what feats we might achieve as a one humanity. It will come to pass but until then, many a futile skirmish will still be fought and many an elbow be bruised.
A long time ago I got involved in competitive Bridge, a card game where you have a partner and compete against another pair. I then described it as metaphorically “a knife fight at the table” as the level of tension and bitterness was very high.
I always remember the morning of tournament days – that feeling of the energy entering and taking over like a form of very gripping excitement. In the evening I was either disappointed if I didn’t win or more relieved than anything when I did. One of the main attractions was that it was a break from the tedium.
Cutting and other forms of self harm seem so harsh and crazy. But seeing ourselves as seperate islands is a super poisonous lie that leads us harm others, and in essence the harm we cause is exactly the same.
Competition sets one against another, or one side against another, which leads to separation and divisiveness rather than connection and brotherhood.
Recently it was the world cup and I could tell when it was on because the neighbourhood when quiet when England were playing- except for loud roars and shouts when they scored, no-one was out. It felt weird, I didn’t know there was a match on prior to feeling something was out of sorts in the neighbourhood – it felt like a collective vacuum where everyone was drawn in.
I have no interest in sport but I did ask when they played to go into the semi-finals and find myself at the time they were playing hoping they’d win and feeling a tension, hope and anxiety of hoping they’d win but maybe they wouldn’t…! I paused and could feel my wanting to belong and not be left out was where I let myself be drawn in.