How Desires and Fears Affect Athlete Mental Wellness

Athlete mental health and wellness improves when we begin to understand the person as an individual. Our mindsets are programmed with subconscious beliefs, but also conscious thought habits. One way to improve mental wellness is to look at how to transform negative thought habits into positive thought habits by exploring a myriad of influences such as desires and fears. These patterns can disturb an individual’s inner peace and have a ripple effect into other areas of the person’s life.

In the book “Stillness Speaks,” author Eckhart Tolle writes about cultivating thoughts out of stillness, which is essentially inner peace. Here is one concept that he presents on the relationship of desires and fears in this stillness.

“Most people’s lives are run by desire and fear. Desire is the need to add something to yourself in order to be yourself more fully. All fear is the fear of losing something and thereby becoming diminished and being less. These two movements obscure the fact that Being cannot be given or taken away. Being in its fullness is already with you, now.”

How many people struggle with inner peace because they focus on a fear of not having/being enough or losing something/someone? What about struggling because they believe that if they could just do/have one more thing, they’d finally be happy? Sometimes, people lack inner peace because they are punishing themselves in the name of their desires and fears.

Athletes are under incredible pressure living under a spotlight that focuses on their ability to excel and perform. When their mental wellness is disturbed by issues like unhealthy desires and overwhelming fears, they may experience issues in all areas of their lives, including in their ability to perform at his or her best.

When do desires and fears negatively affect mental wellness?

Desires are often overzealous and misguided. One thing about being human is that we need things to keep us busy. That’s why having an overactive mind, endless goals, and never-ending to-do lists are so common in our day-to-day lives. We love a good distraction or two, or three… The problem is not wanting to be better; it’s when that causes pain or shame because you don’t accept yourself for who you are right now. It’s when those distractions disguised as desires are something we create because we don’t want to be still with ourselves. When this happens, desire coexists with fear.

Fears are biologically designed to keep us safe. However, stress from long-term fear is often due to a story we’ve created that has nothing to do with reality. These fears are habits we develop somewhere during our lifetime to keep us safe. I expect disaster so I can avoid disaster and not be surprised when it happens, for example.

As I have written about before, these fear habits can become so deep that we feel they are a part of our identity, so letting go of them means that we have to change who we feel that we are. Plus, then we question things like, what if I’m wrong and my worst fears come true? We tell ourselves that it’s better to stay comfortably uncomfortable and on-guard.

Unhealthy desires and fears come down to this: There is no peace when you’re at war with yourself.

What are some ways you can work through desires and fears to come to a place of stillness?

Mental wellness is an ongoing journey because life continues to happen each and every day bringing new experiences and emotions. We are in a continuous state of self-discovery and self-correction. Inner peace is the common ground that we all wish to stand-on. Addressing desires and fears may not change everything in your life forever, but it is a concept that should be looked at when exploring mental wellness.

Because I believe in a holistic mind, body, and soul approach to mental wellness, I find it helpful to ask challenging self-discovery questions. This process can provide comprehensive insight beyond what the person may be consciously aware of creating a breakthrough ah-ha moment. Here are some examples:

Fears:

• What is my body afraid of?
• What is my mind afraid of?
• What is my spirit afraid of?
• How does this fear protect me?
• How does this fear harm me?

Desires:

• What do I desire from my body?
• What do I desire from my mind?
• What do I desire from my spirit?
• How is the “more” that I’m chasing good for my mental wellness?
• How might it be harmful?

Things can get messy in our thoughts quickly. If you find yourself in a moment when you want to reclaim your inner stillness/peace, close your eyes for a moment, take a few deep breaths and ask yourself this question: What if for this moment, I am still and accepting rather than punishing?

Want to chat more about this? Contact me about coaching here.