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
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.
I agree Peter, competition certainly destroys any opportunity for connection. It keeps us separate and in tension with each other. I am sure we can feel how awful competitiveness feels when we stop and check in with our body, because any form of competitiveness is not natural for us whatsoever.
There is no true connection, no true sense of oneness within any competition, it is all about them and us, and how can we beat them and be the best, the glory of winning is so momentarily, leaving the emptiness needing again to be filled with more competing for the prize, a prize that is just as empty as the players themselves.
True – the elation does not last and the futile chase for more recognition leads to more, in-truth antisocial and loveless behaviours. Whoever said that competition is character building got it very wrong.
In society we do this crazy thing where we hold sports stars high up there – putting them on peddle stools, the media can worship them like Gods – what exactly are we teaching our children with this type of behaviour? No wonder we have less children wanting to work in the public sector in worthwhile rewarding careers we instead have whole cohorts of youngsters wanting to be pop stars or film stars – overall super harmful for our society.
As a child I hated competition and yet later in life I found that energy having it’s way with me at times. It is deadly even when it looks friendly for it is about having one over on someone else, superiority, recognition, fame, everything that takes us away from the harmony of equality and true family.
Yes, and men are trained to engage in ‘friendly’ competition and then to make up and be good mates but the separation created by the competition does not allow a true connection making everyone feel safe in their isolation.
It is the abuse of what competition in sport is, which is hidden behind the facade of celebrity and achievement, that is the most harming. Because I feel that this says to everyone, it is alright to accept being hurt as long as there is recognition attached to it, as long as it shows you to be tough and durable. It shows that hurt is normal, when really it is not, because sensitivity is so natural.
We have a world wide illness and disease problem, we have a sex slavery problem, we have a massive issue with drugs, guns and violence.
If we talked about and put our energy into the things that are in need of sorting out immediately we would find we have no time whats so ever to indulge in any kind of sport.
The world cup is starting soon – millions of people will tune in and give their energy to watching it – imagine if all that energy was focused on something really purposeful like eradicating behaviours that can lead to prostate cancer – now that feels worth while.
Sport is never truly good for anyone’s body be it those who play or watch. It is not in our nature to be competitive so it is an assault on our body to be so.
Great comment Joshua, I feel the same way about sport. I have never been into any form of sports as my body tells me it hurts every time I had to participate at school. So, when I had the choice, I stopped playing sports all together. When we listen to our body, it will tell us that playing sport is not natural for us, as we pound, push and strain our body.
If we get pleasure from being good at something, it can be enough to temporarily fill our emptiness. No matter what injuries we may sustain we push through to get our hit. But if only we stopped and realised that the relief we seek is just a drop in the ocean of the joy we would know if we stopped playing these crazy games.
Very well said Joseph. You’ve highlighted a great point here and we play these crazy games because we are not feeling 100% ourselves. The emptiness we can feel can be so unbearable, we tend to grab at anything to avoid feeling the consequences of our choices that lead to us feeling empty in the first place.
Yes, that has been exactly my experience!
Competition destroys brotherhood. Hence, sport is introduced to be better than another – no equality, no matter for ‘fun’ or not fun, it is the same.
When we connect to who we truly are there is no need to be better than another , only the instant ability to connect in that love with another. This is the only connection we can be in brotherhood.
Competitive sport offers zero true connection, and yet to say that, at least in Australia, is almost blasphemy. Nevertheless the facts are clear. From school sports up to professional sports it is about one winning at the cost of another, and so the opportunity for equality is removed.
When we look clearly at the effect of competitive sport on players, spectators, supporters, reporters etc we realise that there is no such thing as ‘healthy competition.’
Yes we have created this phrase as a cover up and to excuse ourselves from an activity that we know is, in truth, harmful for all concerned. An interesting form of manipulation.
I agree Mary, there is no such thing as ‘healthy competition.’ But we as a race seem to celebrate competiveness in every aspect of our lives. It is great to expose how unnatural, unhealthy and harming any form of competitiveness is.
Our current standards of what connection and relationships mean do not really represent the true sense of the word or offer us the depth of the potential that is on offer. If we see connection to merely be coming together with the purpose to defeat another through competition, then we are really missing a whole other level of relationship that truly honors who we are and the depth of magnificence we can live together.
I would say every opportunity where we don’t truly connect to each other, is an opportunity lost for growth and more love.
Yesterday a couple of men shared, in the workshop I facilitated, with full enthusiasm about the sports they play. This made me realize how this ‘normal’ competitiveness that we experience in sport is being brought into work and celebrated there. Whereas when you ask men, most of them don’t like this part of their work where they have to be better than another. They prefer working together in equality and give space to their delicate nature.
Society often justifies why competition is good for us, but we all know the truth of how it really feels in our bodies.
In a competition I experienced most times that it wasn’t enjoyable as most participants won’t be the winner and, even when I was the winner it wasn’t that great. Competition definitely provided a relief from other parts of my life as a youth as it is very involving but once the need for distraction goes, competition becomes quite unappealing.
It is a tension and somehow we think that tension is good. Perhaps it’s the feeling of relief we get afterwards that justifies why we like the tension but tension is tension.
This feels very beautiful to experience and reflect to others, ‘I have learnt to reconnect to the tender loving man that I naturally am and feel more able to claim these qualities in my everyday livingness, and by doing so reflect something different to those around me.’
Brilliant point Elizabeth, competitive sport is even stressful for it’s viewers, and as viewers we side with people or teams and celebrate their wins and mourn their losses but to what end? To pit one person against another and still miss the point of life – and that we are designed to work together.
What’s also interesting is the level of competition that occurs on a much smaller scale in life – the desire to be better than another person at something, or to make the best product etc – these not so obvious forms of competition still promote one person against another and destroy the fabric of the society we live in and take us away from the fact that we are all here to do this together.
Yes, trying to get ahead or worrying about falling behind takes a lot of effort that may not support the task(s) at hand.
Being competitive against ourselves, against the expectations we have set up, adopted and placed on ourselves.. Does the root of all competition start with us, and that incessant internal drive of the spirit to be ‘the best’ at whatever cost to our bodies and anyone/anything else?
“Being pulled into the emotion of the game and the increased anxiety I feel in my body as a result.”- Recently I found myself getting sucked back into an attachment to a football team’s playoff game outcome while seeing them on the TV at the gym, even though I had not watched football or followed it in any way for 14 years. This surprised me, and showed just how insidious competitive sports are in drawing people into the drama of the games in a way that can ‘take the edge off’ life by living vicariously through your favourite team for a few hours in order to perhaps escape one’s issues temporarily, but only have to come back to deal with them later.
When we are in anything to win there is a tension and hardness, a protection and usually fighting spirit. What a difference when we can play a game for the contact we have with others and the fun, lightheartedness and silliness we can share in together.
I really dont think competition has served anyone at all. It keeps us separate and unequal and the world does not need more of that.
I absolutely agree, Sarah. In truth competition is a perfect distraction from true brotherhood and how amazing working together in equality is.
This is so true, ‘The emptiness I can feel in many of the players and how sport is used to fill this void. Even after winning a big game players can still feel empty and lonely with no sense of joy to be felt.’
Sport is the ‘safe’ way for men to connect and be more affectionate with each other. Even though it’s not the real affection that is naturally there between them, but as this is not so easily expressed, sport can be a way for people to have a false sense of camaraderie, but it misses the depth they actually crave.
It takes a very humble man to be able to see that the competition he taught to his children was not the love or the care that he thought it was.
This takes me back to when I played sports and I totally remember being involved in the game and that anxiety that my body would go through from start to finish and leading up to and afterwards as well. It never really subsided because I knew what I was going into each time and I didn’t truly like it.
So many people say that they love sport and yet there is not an ounce of love in sport.
Sport can be so divisive – and not only amongst men. The drive to compete – to win at all costs is set in stone at school, if not earlier in the family, when one is always encouraged to ‘try harder.’ So one competes against oneself even if not against another. So much tension is then induced – which plays out in all of our systems – emotional mental and physical – all to our detriment.
It’s easy to pick out competition in sport to see the battle, the division and the outraged crowd. But looking again at our own lives we can see in a more subtle light, the fierce drive to ‘be the best’ even at loving or healing – so how crazy is that? We fight friends and those close to us to denote some kind of pecking order instead of feeling the truth, that we are all one, and equally divine, designed to work together in the most profound way. We think we know what is ‘real life’ and what is a game but it turns out in our individual arrogance to be great and defeat imagined foes we are being played by an energy that is not really true. Thank you Peter for sharing how you feel about the crazy games that we play.
This is a beautiful observation Peter of sport in general and the fact that it robs so many people of any true connection. Also even the terminology around sport is quite a worry and when you think of it quite aggressive. ‘Beating’ someone for instance has a double meaning and can be looked at as abusive . And people getting excited about this can seem sadist if you go with the true meaning of the word ‘beating’ or ‘thrashing’ . . . terms that are commonly used when it comes to sport.
When in competition there is always a winner and always a loser, so one team will always be considered superior and better than the other. Where is the equality in that?
Well said Suse. Where indeed is the equality is something which by nature separates and individuates us. It is ironic we have this concept so ingrained in our societies yet we complain about war and conflict on more impactful levels. Levels that disturb the comfort such separation provides.
It is such a great point you raise here Peter, that men and all of us really, do crave to connect. That we have settled for thinking that we are connecting through sport, through abusing each other is a pretty sad and clear message that we are way off track. It also highlights that men really are sensitive, that there is a tenderness that is greatly missed being expressed and a natural way of being craved for. However, this quality is being sought after through activities that exist outside of ourselves, such a sport, where there is a false sense of belonging and connection that is attained, but it is one that only is short lived and fuelled by emotions. When men truly allow themselves to be who they are and express what they feel, there is nothing more heart-warming to be met by, and the depth of real connection offered is one that is enriching, inspiring and unifying beyond measure.
Emotions and sport are very linked. It seems that we need sport to relief those emotions… or do we create them with sport? In any case, that joining never supports the connection with our body, but exactly the contrary.
Its a fascinating process in itself to watch a crowd watching sport, there can be a real sway of emotions, up and down, anger, stress, relief, upset, happiness. All taking the person on a journey, but what does that journey do to us, and when it causes battles with other fans how can we ever consider this a good thing.
The reality is that sport is a huge part of life for many many people, which is understandable because it is fun, it involves lots of people so you are left feeling like being a part of something bigger, it can introduce new skills like leadership, and it can take you to interesting places for matches and tournaments etc. So sport does have a lot to contribute. What is missing however from it is the pull to brotherhood because most sport is taken with competition, which can for some remove the fun and the sense of being a part of a group and instead encourage a mass of individuals all wanting their own agenda to be fulfilled. This to me is where sport falls short of what it could actually be – sport has the potential to be a great support for us all but ‘us all’ would require the lack of competition in order to make way for something bigger, more meaningful and inclusive.
Thanks for sharing this Peter, I grew up in NZ and know what it is like to get swept up in the whole sport/rugby thing. I think I actually believed that I loved playing the game but looking back I know somehow now that I didn’t and was probably doing it just to fit in.
I used to be very competitive as a child and thought I enjoyed all kinds of sport. I was good at it, it came natural to me but in my teens I started to withdraw from it. Recently my family and I were invited to a party where there was ‘family rounders’ and I decided to give it a go. I wanted to feel for myself the impact if any it would have on me. I found as the game went on the more serious I was getting. The need for recognition was apparent. It felt like I was going back in time to when I was a kid seeking the recognition especially from my parents. It felt horrible and this was no tournament! I felt I needed to experience in my body the separation and emptiness and what that felt like when we participate in sport and not come from a place of knowledge because another had told me so. The whole experience was quite shocking reflecting to me where I am today and the choices I have made in my relationship with sport.
Sport is often seen as a way to encourage teamwork and the benefits of being part of a team are promoted. This can be referred to as a sense of comradery and character building. However, if we really want to look at what is going on, we would see that to be involved in sport of any kind there is a disconnection within, as we are naturally not built to compete against each other. This goes against every fibre of our being. So not only is there a disconnection within, this then means that there is no connection with the team one is playing on. The same team uniform and colors may be worn, but that is as far as it goes when we bring in the energetic factor to the equation.
The benefits of sport are so deeply entrenched as beliefs in society, that it appears to be sacrilege to suggest otherwise. This set up leaves us a great distance from simply listening to our bodies and responding respectfully to what they tell us. As one example, there is not a body in the world that would choose to play rugby.
The way people are with sports and the whole competitive nature to it is desperately intense. I so remember when I was fully into my team or watching New Zealand in rugby and how in that time of the game I was completely engrossed in the game and the outcome. The highs and the lows of the scores and then giving attitude to the other side. It didn’t last long after I realised I really didn’t like it and how if felt to partake in it like this. Today I am totally cool without any sports in my life and not engaging in such full on energy.
I love what this article asks us to consider. How quickly do we turn something fun with kids into a competition? If you watch really little kids there is no competition at all. They are engrossed in the joy of what they are experiencing with the people around them and feeling their body moving. When we introduce competition this takes our focus outside our bodies and there is no longer the innocent joyful exploration of play.
This is an inspiring blog to read, not only for exposing the harmful side of competition, also for the deep changes you have made in your own life Peter and the tenderness that is so apparent in your writing and description of yourself returning to simplicity and sharing of a roast lamb dinner! Thank you.
“Bringing more simplicity to my life is a work in progress, but a great starting point is sharing a meal of slow cooked roast lamb with friends and family”.
Gill I have seen the truth of your statement about what we can witness in people’s behaviour and response in competition: “It makes a mockery of people saying competition builds and develops character and strength in people, I feel it hardens and toughens them and crushes them in defeat.”
It makes me question just what are we in this instance choosing to call character and strength building in people? The ability to close down our heart and be ruthless in the world? The ability to divide ourselves into an ‘us’ and ‘them’ and conveniently look after the ‘us’ we have selected? and reject or perhaps even pick up a gun and destroy the ‘them’ we have closed our heart to? To focus on ‘winning’ in whatever we have chosen and hope that will be enough to quench the thirst within us for love, care and integrity that is missing in our lives?
Our obsession with competition has a lot to answer about our ills in our society.
Peter, it is great to have men like you who are willing to speak out about what you are seeing with sport and how it affects boys and men. The more awareness we have about this the better because with the current rates of male suicides the way we are raising boys is seriously flawed.
Thank you Peter for expressing so openly and honestly allowing yourself the quality of tenderness and sharing that here.
Beautifully expressed Peter. Your blog has allowed me to appreciate how much my own relationship with sport has changed, from very competitive running and tennis to simply enjoying walking and swimming,
I read a report of a player in Serbia who had been attacked by his own supporters who invaded the dressing room because of a poor performance. It made a good story but no-one was questioning the nature of people when they turn into fanatical fans. Shouldn’t we consider this unhealthy in the extreme, and rather sad that as supposedly intelligent beings we have such events occurring that are normal enough not to make us stop. It’s the normal unquestioning that is most disturbing when I stop and think about it – imagine the idea of suspending sport when such abuse takes place, and starting a conversation about values and decency and a perspective that it would never happen.
The need to be better than someone else comes from a state of feeling less, which can never ever be satisfied through sport.
When we are competitive, this allows other things to enter like comparison and jealousy, as there will always be a winner and a loser in any game that is played….. Competition sets us up against one another well before the actually game starts.
Sport feels like a distraction for what life truly offers it is version of a way of communicating, understanding life that brings competition into the main focus rather than connection and collaboration. We all suffer from this, it is like propaganda a false reality that imprisons people and does not offer the opportunities to really feel connected to everyone on the planet.
I recently saw the last 5 minutes of a very high profile rugby match, as the final whistle blew one of the captains was unhappy with a decision and was complaining to the referee. It reminded me of watching a small child having a tantrum, and yet this is celebrated as a winning mentality in a tough sport. What I saw was sport fostering a mans inability to grow up, stuck forever in a rut of needing to achieve to validate.
I loved reading your blog Peter and very much appreciated your analysis and expose on sport in our society. What stuck me this morning was how, on a physical level and in fact all levels, we harm and damage our bodies so readily;
“How physical sport can be (even ‘non-contact’ sport), and just how abusive players are being to their bodies and to each other”.
Every time a gentle tender man joins with others in sport and competition, he must have already disconnected from himself.
Competition avoids the potential of us being close and working together, there is a natural harmony in any preschooler and we go to school and learn to complete….it is not healthy and it does not serve us as a humanity.
If sport is used to feel better about oneself, it is inevitable that there will be no real confidence. Feeling good at the expense of another or others always comes at a cost, and creates the see-saw effect of feeling less.
Less or more – both leave us in a deeper case of inequality and while we continue to champion sport we will not break this pattern.
sport is simulated war, this is the way it has always been known in Ireland as passed down by stories and writings, it was a method of training a child to be a warrior, to prepare the child for war. Today in Ireland when “Gaelic Games” are reported on the words of war are used by reporters: “a titanic battle” “wounded warriors” “scares of battle” “you can see he has been through the wars” “they are killing each other out there” “there was no surrender” “what a battle that was”
If we put all the time and energy that we put into sport into something worthwhile – like finding out what is the root cause of cancer then our energy would be wisely spent.
Sport when I really feel into what it did to my body is purely anti evolution, it is hardness, it is competition, it is separation.
I’ve been pondering on sport lately as the British Lions are touring New Zealand and when I talk to family and old friends they kind of don’t believe I haven’t been following it but sport now features very little in my life and sometimes I wonder what the world would be like if we didn’t have the need to compete or be better than each other at something and instead we used all that energy and money on helping each other.
This is huge to consider Kev… slightly terrifying in fact to even try and imagine the money, time and emotion that is invested in sport. I certainly consider that the world will be transformed evolutionarily so, when we relinquish our attachment to the distraction and competition of sport.
Likewise I’ve come from a very sporty background to now not really following it although still able to appreciate a particular skill or move. The big thing I noticed as I’ve detached from it is how emotional I used to get… being passionate about the team winning, getting disappointed or elated with the result, getting tribal against the opposing team. It was a rollercoaster, and one I’m pleased to have got off!
Thanks Peter.. I remember watching my son in junior soccer where they just went from having fun to the awful feeling of competition coming in … and that was just the parents!
The more I realise our innate tenderness and yearning to connect with one another, the more I realise how devastating sport and competition are, pitting us against one another from a very young age and leading us to judge our own worth on the basis of our performance alongside others. This is a fundamental human insanity.
When we stop to feel it, it can be quite surprising to feel the level of anxiety we go to when watching a match or sporting competition.
Both men and women are naturally sensitive, tender and gentle beings. So, to see people throw themselves at each other and go into full tackle during a sporting game is so unnatural to me. It makes me wonder how much hardening of our body we would have to go through to call this entertainment.
I have spent many hours on the sidelines cheering on teams at sports carnivals and sporting events and watched the blatant call outs and pressures for the competitors to out run, out goal and out do another all in the name of a trophy that sat on a wooden frame. How far from true brotherhood are we living?
Recently I agreed to meet up and practice tennis with my father having not done so for years. Initially I thought there was an absence of the same type of competitiveness which used to be there when we did this however feeling a little deeper I realised this was not true. Even in the repetitive actions of practicing the competition was underlying this in how I hit the ball and comparing this to how my father did. Competition really is insidious and reaches beneath the obvious.
Peter you nailed it, men are supper sensitive, tender gentle men who when allowed to express from these truly sacred places become a power-house in our society.
The competition that is championed in sport is the same competition that crushes us at work, in schools, within friendships, anywhere one person can be in competition with another.
Yup, I totally agree. Once we are pitted against one another, our relationship with ourselves based on performance judged alongside others, we are lost to ourselves and therefore bereft of any true foundation in life.
Thank you Peter for sharing your realisations around sport and competition, as soon as competition enters it separates us from ourself,it then divides and separates us one from another, which is the opposite to the oneness and connected-ness we innately come from.
What is extraordinarily and bizarrely surreal is that competition is not our true nature… And yet throughout the history of humanity there are endless records of the quest for betterment riding on the shoulders of others… How can something so obviously dysfunctional and anti-evolutionary not just be laughed off the face of our world?
its a beautiful thing to witness men come together and support each other. I used to follow a football team and the tribal nature of it was something I got swept up in, but when I went back a few years ago to a game I was surprised by how strong the hatred was between the supporters. It is a contrast to the love and care that I have witnessed in other settings and did make me question what sport was bringing out in people and how it could be seen as a good thing.
“I found that how I expressed with other men influenced how I expressed with family and friends” most men feel very uncomfortable interacting intimately with other men, for if they truly understood the level of healing that can be present which would benefit all their relationships it would be a different story.
The effect of sport upon one’s character is not always positive as it is made out to be. They call it white line fever for a reason.
So true Adam, our body gets so racy it reaches fever pitch and then we get the inevitable crash or let down.
The last weeks in Holland people are talking about a football final that will be soon. I can see how talking about their team, their team winning, going to see the match, getting tickets (or not), lifts them emotionally to a new high. It seems that they come alive talking about. And then after the game will be played they come down again: immediately , after their team has lost or it takes a couple of days, or even weeks when their team wins. It goes up and inevitably there will be a down.
Isn’t that the same way drugs work?
I live near Wembley stadium in London and earlier today was travelling on a train to go home. It was clear when the train stopped and the doors opened there was a football match on that day it was filled with men singing really loud football songs and drinking alcohol. It felt very dominant and aggressive and made me feel gosh if this is what it feels like with a few men on the train what would it feel like in the stadium!!! I completely get from this and what you have shared how sport is actually a lost opportunity for us just to connect with each other and instead through competition this gets distorted or destroyed.
Specially for men it seems that sport is one of the ways to connect, which is so normal, so ingrained in our systems for centuries. But it is not a true connection, and lost after the game is finished. Men do not know there is another way to connect, because society does not reflect them the right way.
The competition that is encouraged through competitive sports also feeds competition everywhere. We don’t like to think that the competition we get behind on the sports field fuels the competition we might feel at work or between friends that causes much tension and stress. It is actually all the same and all part of the same problem.
Yes, it is saddening to feel a lack of connection amongst people when you know it’s sitting there desperate to be uncovered under all the hardness. It’s a slow process that as a society we will need to go through to eventually celebrate the very people we are and not our achievements, but with more conversation starters like this, we will be well on our way.
After playing sports for most of my life it has been exposing to feel how any level of competition has numbed and disconnected me from my body, and when you add on all the alcohol and abuse is it any wonder that humanity is lost.
Thank you Peter… if everyone was able to feel the energy that is ALWAYS there to be felt at sporting events, from the Olympics to primary school football ( and sometimes the latter is the worst) then the awfulness of it would be exposed and they would immediately stop