‘Take risks in your life — know that you have a choice’

RUGBY pundit Brent Pope, 56, is a wellknown media figure, but what many people mightn’t have realised until recently is that he has suffered from mental health issues since he was a teenager.

Earlier this year, he wrote WIN: Proven Strategies for Success in Sport, Life and

Mental Health (Hachette Books Ireland, €16.99) with Jason Brennan, which shares his strategies for better emotional health.

“As I’ve gotten older, I’ve possibly got more anxious about my life,” he says. “That’s certainly something that comes with age. Older people get anxious about different things: the thought of getting older, regrets in your life. Maybe things haven’t worked out the way that you thought they would, or there could be elements of uncertainty — you may have suffered the loss of a job or a partner, a bereavement. In my mid-forties I started getting more worried about my health and where I was in life — Was this job going to continue for 10 years?”

As such, it is crucial to build up what Brent refers to as a tool box — strategies that you know will help to deal with anxiety or whatever other mental health issues may arise.

“A lot of people look for rocket science,” he explains, reflecting that there is, in fact, no quick-fix solution. “We see ads for gyms every January, and people are quite okay with getting their bodies right, but when it comes to getting your mind right, people are not so open to change.”

It’s something he works on now as a speaker on the subject, often talking to men of his generation who express their fears around delving too deeply inside their own emotional psyche.

Moving outside your comfort zone is, Brent explains, hugely empowering. “Take risks in your life; know that you have a choice. I think ‘choice’ is a word that is very liberating for people of a certain age. When you look at things that you want to do, know you have a choice. That may come with consequences which may be good or bad, but you have a choice. Do you want to stay in a job?”

In an effort to outweigh the negative with the positive, he keeps a daily gratitude journal.

“Every night I write three or four things that I really enjoyed that day. I look at that journal each morning and think, ‘Yesterday was a pretty good day; today could be a better day’. It’s all about the way I talk to myself. I try to look at the good things in my life, or the positive aspects of my personality, rather than the negative.”

Having a network which can act both as a support system in times of stress, and combat loneliness, is crucial, he says. Age can be of huge benefit to our mental health. The muscle of resilience will grow over time, as will the knowledge that you can cope. “With age comes the wisdom that you can change,” explains Brent. “That’s a huge thing. Because I didn’t think that I could. Learning that I had tools and people to help me, I now know that I can get through things — that I’ve got through it before.”

There also comes a sense of self-confidence. “As you get older you care about judgment less. With age I think, ‘I am who I am. People are going to like me or they’re not going to like me’. So I’m more comfortable in my skin now at 56 than I was at 36.”