Excusing yourself even for a short time is
good for soul
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| Working on my Bell Let’s Talk piece in the home office. |
That was analogy I didn’t know was a thing until about three months ago. It actually came to me via the sports entertainment world of pro wrestling early this past November.
During a promo on an AEW Dynamite show, CM Punk talked
seriously about one-time rival Jon Moxley. Moxley, who had been that promotion’s
heavyweight champion, had entered an inpatient alcohol treatment program.
Punk, whose real name is Phillip Jack Brooks, said he was proud of Moxley for realizing he had to take himself off the hamster wheel to get the help he needed and that Moxley was brave taking that step.
Moxley, whose real name is Jonathan David Good, is married to Renee Paquette, who first made a name for herself as sports broadcaster in Canada with The Score from 2009 to 2012 before shooting to a huge rise in fame in a run with WWE from 2012 to 2020. Moxley, who has been in the pro wrestling business for over 17 years, and Paquette met in WWE.
I had never linked the analogy of the hamster wheel with the mental health world until I saw that promo with Punk, who is very articulate and well thought out.
I am starting to have what you would consider a longer run with the mental health world with my first realizations almost a decade ago.
On my own front, I have known I have battled with issues dealing with anxiety since 2012. I write about my experiences on the mental health front in hopes it will help others.
Since 2016, I’ve kept up with a tradition where I write a post regarding mental health on Bell Let’s Talk day.
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| A Jon Moxley AEW figure. |
On my own front, I am in a way better place than I was 10 years ago. I am in a way better spot than I was six years ago.
While I believe I have gotten a tonne better over the last decade, mental health is something I continue to learn about. I will have “aha moments” come to me in the most unlikely of places.
That Punk promo was an “aha moment.”
He explained he made his own choices to get off the hamster wheel in the past. Punk said Moxley had been on a hamster wheel, because he had been going and going, thinking he had to show toughness all the time, battle through injuries like they weren’t there, be sick and show up for work, help other people and be super generous for a long stretch of time.
Punk said you get to the point you have to take yourself off the hamster wheel.
For Bell Let’s Talk day in January of 2020, I wrote that it was a mental health challenge to learn to take a break, and it was important to take breaks.
Punk’s explanation of the hamster wheel took that to a whole new level of realization.
No matter what walk of life you are in, you do get placed on a hamster wheel.
In the world of competitive sports where outcomes are undecided, elite athletes are on a hamster wheel. Whether it be hockey, football, baseball, basketball, softball, track and field, speed skating, soccer or whatever your athletic pursuit, you are training year round and being evaluated constantly to see if you are performing at a high level and continuing to reach new levels of high performance.
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| A picture of myself in front of photos I've shot over the years. |
Those in sports management positions can be on a hamster wheel too. They are constantly trying to ensure athletes, coaches and staffers are healthy physically and mentally, always having to ensure proper funding is coming in to allow athletes to get to events and have the best equipment possible and ensure the business administrative mechanisms are functioning well.
If you miss time as an administrator, there are always worries those jobs won’t get done. You are on a hamster wheel there too.
Those examples can be taken to any working environment be it health career, education, retail, banking, manufacturing, shipping, policing, energy production or whatever the job may be. All those environments create places where those working in them shoulder pressures that they will let everyone down if they are not there to do their roles.
Eventually, you do hit a point where the pressure becomes too much you have to totally cut yourself away from those worlds. It doesn’t have to be forever, but you might need to be away for a span of time.
In Moxley’s case, he got professional and ultimate returned to AEW after about three months.
In some cases, you might not even the assistance of professional help to come to that realization.
I realized that for myself when I attended a wedding for one of my nieces early this past September in Jasper, Alta.
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| I'm all dressed up out in Jasper, Alta., early last September. |
That wedding marked the first time I totally cut myself off those worlds for at least a one-week period since the summer of 2014, when I relocated from Medicine Hat, Alta., to Saskatoon, Sask.
With Jasper being a resort town with no links to any part of my life, I truly made a clean break for a week. Ultimately, the wedding was awesome and the week was awesome.
On top of being cut off from the sports and media worlds, I allowed myself to be pretty much cut off from social media too.
One day after the wedding, a feeling came over me that this all felt really good. It was a good feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time.
It reminded me of a time when I took actual vacations during my 10-year run as a sportswriter with the Medicine Hat News from 2004 to 2014 and experience more periods of personal time, while still having a busy schedule. While I wasn’t jumping on a plane to go to Hawaii to lie down on a beach, I was off on social excursions with friends, or like the summer of 2007, taking a pleasure drive through the mountains in southern British Columbia.
A lot of that disappeared from 2012 to 2014 when vacations and personal time didn’t feel like those things as those were periods I where I was in my initial stages of working my way through mental health issues.
When Punk gave the promo about Moxley and the hamster wheel in early November, I realized I had gotten off my hamster wheel, when I attended my niece’s wedding. It added a sense of refreshment I hadn’t felt for some time.
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| Another game day is wrapped up for myself at the SaskTel Centre. |
During this past year with the world still stuck in the grips of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, I’ve found social media to be more toxic than ever before. Twitter is the worst social media line for this.
As for Twitter, I’ve followed an example set by Punk here in just blocking the trolls and people you need to block instead of engaging with them. For myself, it feels good every time I block a troll, especially if it is an anonymous account with less than 10 followers.
These days I try to be a bit more mindful of where I am on the hamster wheel. If anyone feels they need to get off their own hamster wheels for a bit, I hope they feel enabled to take that step, because it ultimately show a lot of courage.
Bell Let’s Talk in specter of “Bell Let’s
Cut”
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| A Bell Let’s Talk toque. |
In recent years, Bell Canada, which is the telecommunications company that run Bell Let’s Talk day, has had a habit of releasing employees in the months after the company’s mental health awareness and fundraising day.
Bell Canada received huge criticism bringing in job days after Bell Let’s Talk day was held last year on January 28.
Any time Bell Canada cuts jobs, the term “Bell Let’s Cut” is inevitably brought up.
The question is brought up that how can a company that supports mental health initiatives turn around and just cut people, who immediately are faced with the prospects of losing their livelihoods and identities.
Due to the Bell Canada operates in the media world, I’ve had friends that have been released from jobs with Bell Canada, and they were all hard working people that showed great initiative.
Bell Canada has been criticized for using the Bell Let’s Talk campaign as a tax write off while bringing in massive amounts of revenue to make you question why jobs are being cut.
After the layoffs Bell Canada made last year, I had to ask myself if I wanted to go through with a new post this year on Bell Let’s Talk Day.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the world, I often celebrated the fact so much awareness came up regarding mental health issues on Bell Let’s Talk day.
I also celebrated the progress I’ve made in my own journey often having a nice dinner with my mom in the evening of Bell Let’s Talk day at Cactus Club Cafe in Saskatoon. The last of those dinners came on Bell Let’s Talk day in January of 2020.
I decided to do a post, because of the awareness this day brings regarding mental health issues in Canada.
Searching social media on Tuesday the day before Bell Let’s Talk day, I saw a lot of posts from people saying they had supported Bell Let’s Talk Day in the past but wouldn’t this year due to the employee cuts that have happened in the past.
Today on Bell Let’s Talk day, I’ve seen numerous great shares regarding mental health issues in Canada and people coming forward to share their own stories of challenges on the mental health front.
If people feel better to make donations directly to mental health charities as opposed to participating in Bell Canada’s Bell Let’s Talk day program, I hope people feel free to act in that direction.
If people want to still retweet #BellLetsTalk on Twitter, they should feel free to do so.
It is always a good thing when you can keep the mental health conversation going.
If you have any
comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them
to stankssports@gmail.com.
My Bell Let’s Talk post from last year called “COVID-19 pandemic forces world
to face mental health” can be found by clicking right here. A piece from 2020
called “A big mental health challenge is learning to take a break” can be found
right here. A piece from 2019 called “Those facing mental health challenges can
still be great in all parts of life” can be found right here. A piece from 2018
called “Being content can become a mental health challenge” can be round right here. A piece from 2017 called “Recognizing and respecting triggers is key for
mental health” can be found right here. A piece from 2016 called “Feeling
connected calms the mental health seas” can be found right here. A piece called
“My Mental Health Story” can be found right here. Another post I like that I
wrote in February of 2015 about my mental health journey call “Huskies hockey
was good for me” can be found right here.
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