Community is key!

What playing for Easts taught me about community

The Running for Resilience (R4R) community is not something I take for granted. The regular exercise and social interaction are not only fun things to do, but they provide a baseline level of positive habits.

For this reason, I think the community around sports is an integral part of a mentally healthy society, and I lived an example of this in 2018 as part of the Eastern Suburbs Rugby Union Football Club.

I’m an avid sports fan who has experienced many a sports narrative in my life, but the feeling I got from being a part of Easts momentary rise in 2018 was uniquely and immensely enjoyable.

Coming into the 2018 season, Easts hadn’t won a first-grade game for 1106 days and despite this, there was a sense of belief that was building in the preseason under new coach Tim Cornforth.

When we broke that streak in round 1 against Owls (Sorry Benny) and followed it up by beating a Royals team that hadn’t lost a game in almost two years, that sense of belief was at an all-time high, and the club was buzzing!

I’ll never forget the excitement I had as a spectator in those final stages of the Royals match (fast forward to 1:16:00), as well as the general excitement I had rocking up to training each week, being involved in this community.

We had people from all over Canberra, people from different clubs in previous years, and a unique blend of cultures with Cameroonians, Indigenous Australians, Samoans, Tongans, Fijians, Maoris, Papua New Guineans, Anglos, and even some Frenchie’s! But we all had this shared belief and commitment to the club and each other.

Unfortunately (I know - bugger), our season fell away in the second half of the year and despite the disappointment, there was still a sense of achievement. But it was a moment at the end-of-year presentation that epitomised the importance of community to me.

A fella (who I won’t name) asked to speak in front of the entire club. He stood alone in front of a room of more than 100 people and told everyone that he suffered from severe anxiety, which as he said “had him freaking out!”.

He also told the room that even though his anxiety was telling him not to leave the house, he would turn up to training and games every week. He told us how important it was because he would leave footy in a far better mood than what he was in beforehand.

And he wasn’t alone. A handful of other fellas approached him after he spoke and said they knew exactly how he felt.

This bloke’s bravery is certainly part of the reason that R4R exists today. He helped me connect the dots on why community was important and how it had helped me through my own struggles, but also how community’s consistency and social element can help others.

R4R is almost three years old, so when it rolls around each week, I’m on auto-pilot. My exercise gear is sorted, my calendar is free, and I’ve got a group of friends who are expecting me to be there. The value of this ‘habit’ is immeasurable when things get tough.

When life kicks us in the teeth and when our energy levels are low, being on autopilot and rolling through the motions is often all we can muster. So when our autopilot involves activities that add value to our lives, we are comparatively better off.

Whatever the struggle is, if our habits allow us to simply just turn up, the rest will take care of itself. Before you know it, you’ll be 2km into a run, having a chinwag, and entering the evening with a different perspective.

These behaviours don’t fix our problems, but what they do is give us a foundation to navigate them better. It’s painfully simple and it can be hard to comprehend at the time, but it’s absolute.

So if times are good, throw yourself into a community and if you can’t think of one, head down to the Dock on a Monday or Friday morning at 6:15 am or a Wednesday night at 6:00 pm. Don’t overthink it, just turn up.

And if times are bad, the same goes. I know it might feel like the last thing you want to do, but I promise, you won’t regret it.

Just. Keep. Moving.