11 Comments

Love this, mate. You nailed it. I’m anxious as shit when I turn up to R4R, still. It’s gone by the time I finish. Forcing yourself to get out and do something positive has a massive impact and get easier every time. Much better than the alternative of staying home and wallowing in it.

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Mate, I'm glad to hear R4R helps! It's amazing how simple it is, yet we still feel the resistance beforehand.

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Mate even going to the gym I’ve been going to for months, at 3:45am when there’s almost no one there, can be daunting at times. Sometime though ya just gotta...

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And what was it about exercising with mates that helped him overcome his anxiety?

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As you've mentioned before, Benny, there's the brain chemistry side of it. We get hit with all the good stuff associated with social interaction and exercise, but I think the act of engaging in a community can also let people know subconsciously that a group of people have their back, which can lighten the load or the burden of some negative thought patterns. Knowing that you can reach out to someone if you need it can be powerful... maybe like walking a tightrope with a safety net can be a far less stressful experience? lol

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"The group has their back" by helping people find solutions to their problems. I've loved my last few jogs with you, Cam and my brother where we've chatted about an issue, and tried to discover the "why" behind whats causing. Love walking away feeling that I may have helped someone who I care about.

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Why do you think Easts struggled to maintain the momentum after such a great start?

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Injuries certainly played a part that contributed to some losses and with such a backlog of losing games in recent memory, maybe that exaggerated the impact of losing.

There was a distinct moment where we were playing Queanbeyan and we were up 42-10 when a fella got a red card during a try celebration. Certainly not pinning it on that bloke (who was arguably our best that year), but in that game we saw the momentum slip away, drawing the match 42-42, and then we lost the next week, ending our run to finals.

So maybe we weren't ready to lose amongst our resurgence? Maybe our idea of success was set too high and was too fragile?

Certainly some food for thought.

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From my experience, a lack of belief and hope causes more losses than injuries do.

But a very interesting observation that the idea of success was too high, which made it very fragile.

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Up the mighty Vikings!

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Careful, Binh!

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