You’ve spoken in the past about your own journey with performance, pressure, and mental health – when did you first start to connect the dots between mindset and physical health?
Playing for a team in France in 2012 which was full of incredible and very experienced players I remember noticing how fragile and uprooted we all seemed, me especially. For some reason I took a look at the changing room and just happened to notice what kind of food and drink we were all being supplied with. If was all so scientific and lab based when I felt we all needed grounding and stability and coming back to our roots. I felt like we were super fit but just not healthy or well which for me seemed like an important revelation at the time. Not long after I began exploring creating my own performance products that had a far more organic, natural and recognisable ingredient base in them. I couldn’t quite find a satisfying solution though. It was only a year or so after I finished in 2015 when I was deeply exploring my own mental health crises and my wife was studying to become a nutritionist that the penny started to drop on just how the mind and body are completely connected and in fact how our mental sufferings manifest or often stem from misalignments in our physical side. This is when I started looking more deeply at what I was putting into my body and how I was treating myself in general. We started looking into sleep, rest, breathing, training as well as lots of deeper spiritual opportunities. We also began making our own fermented food and drink at home, like kombucha, kefir yogurt, kimchi, sauerkraut and sourdough bread. It made such a difference to my life experience that I wanted to share it. This is actually how my health and well-being drinks brand, One Living, was born.
Was there a moment in your career or life when you realised that gut health had a bigger impact on how you felt mentally than you’d ever expected?
I never really considered gut health until a little more recently so it was always going to be difficult to put the two together during my career. When I look back I do realise though just how much of my life I had spent feeling in survival mode, uneasy in my stomach, experiencing panic attacks and great anxiety in general. I also spent 5 years out the game constantly getting injured and seemingly unable to heal fully during the middle of my career, struggling with sleep and having to work hard just to make it through the day. I initially put it all down to bad luck, then to pressure and expectation and finally to just what life had to be like for someone like me. The power of mindset unfolded as an opportunity as I was forced to confront my challenge and eventually I realised that the big mental work needs to be supported and undertaken at the physical level too otherwise it is just not sustainable. When I learned more about the incredible intelligence of the gut and the enormous and wide ranging impact it has upon our mood and energy, our sensitivity and intuitive responses as well as so much more, I had a new focal point for my obsession and I haven’t looked back!
How would you describe your relationship with your body and mind today, compared to when you were playing professional rugby?
During my career I treated my body like a machine. I trained it, programmed it actually, to do what I wanted it to do and when I didn’t I had harsh words waiting for it as punishment. I remember during more than a few kicking sessions, that weren’t going well, stamping on my own feet with my studded boots through frustration and anger and drawing blood and bruises. My mind was a harsh critic and demanded lots from me, often cleverly using fear, anger and urgent catastrophising as a way to get me to obey its orders. Whatever it had to say to me I listened intently and normally acted upon its words as if they were absolute truths. After a beautiful journey confronting and exploring my challenge, my relationship with them both has changed immensely and is still shifting every day. I recognise that I have a choice to follow thoughts or leave them alone depending on what feels good to me and see this as my way of voting for what I want more of. My body and mind both work so much more for me now instead of against me but I am filled with respect and reverie for them both.
The gut is often called the “second brain.” What does that phrase mean to you personally?
For me, the gut is the third intelligence centre of the body alongside the brain and the heart. It is physiologically linked to so many areas of the body, so many systems, processes and functions and has a huge hand to play in so much activity that it is impossible to get a true grip of its importance. It is definitely an incredibly under explored possibility and still remains so unknown in terms of what it actually does. I see it as like a star sports player that connects all the other players on the pitch together and brings out the best in them. When the gut is not well or being looked after we get the stressed, uninspired and logical version of health which we call coping and surviving! I also love to relate to it as an incredibly powerful guidance system. The gut is where we get a sense of knowing what we don’t know we know. For me, it is a voice of great intuition and insight that has a goal of leading us to where we are meant to be in life so that we can serve and be the most authentic versions of ourselves.
How do you support your gut health day-to-day? Are there any non-negotiables in your routine?
I make sure that I feed my gut daily with as wide a range of varied, natural, fibrous and other types of vegetables and fruits as well as stay hydrated. My non negotiable is that I am not here to ‘survive’ any moment and instead I make sure that I fully live it, love it and let it go. This creates the ideal environment for my gut to function and gives me the best shot at performing, growing, learning and connecting to the magic of life! This just means being self aware and making it my life’s ambition to take more and more responsibility for what happens on the inside. If I want to let my gut do it’s thing then I need to cultivate the right conditions for it. I also drink my One Living kombucha and Gut health shot!
What mindset practices – whether spiritual, meditative or practical – help you stay grounded and well?
There are so many immensely powerful practices I can mention here from different meditations to breathing techniques, visualisations, physical movements in the body and more but in essence none of them will take hold or create an impact unless we are willing to take the first leap which means rediscovering curiosity. For me this has meant huge acceptance and humility. My spiritual journey is not a path I can plan but one to which I must surrender. The willingness to admit that “I don’t know” gives new experience a chance to enter into my life. To experience deeper levels what is possible I have had to face my deepest challenges. I always thought that the answer was to conquer and beat whatever was in front of me. This makes for an awesome story and can help us build big identities but to uncover who I really am and connect to the source at my core I have had to step into my vulnerability not beat it or avoid it. This has changed my entire life in ways I cannot explain.
Do you think the way we view mental health (especially as men) is changing for the better? If so, how?
I think the perspective of mental health is shifting and it is great that it is losing its stigma and the absurd connotations of weakness but for me there are so many different people still talking about it in so many different ways purporting to have the answers that it can become confusing and even more challenging. For me mental health is something we all need with which we form our own unique relationship with. My path has been about reconnecting with true self and has involved becoming aware and willing to trust. The fact that it has manifested strongly enough in this lifetime and the fact that I have the inclination and support to turn towards it and do so is an absolute blessing and an incredible privilege – one I refuse to waste.
Tell us about One Living – what inspired you to create the brand, and what does it stand for?
I have always wanted to see what I am truly capable of. I feel like I gave it everything but I came to understand by the end of my rugby career that I hadn’t even scratched the surface of this journey. My mind and body were deeply out of balance and my energy and focus just didn’t belong to me. I was struggling mentally and physically and facing crisis and I knew it was finally time to get serious. One Living was born out of this desire and obsession to truly touch the magic of life, to live in “the zone” rather than just dream about it and to find out what it means to really live. It’s mission is to offer this to everyone we possibly can. What we put into our bodies and how we connect to ourselves decides pretty much everything from our performance to our relationships to our thoughts and experience of life. Our One Living message works to help us connect in a deeper more inspiring way whilst our One Living Kombuchas, water kefirs, cbd drinks and brand new health shots are there to support the body and unleash its potential.
Can you share what goes into the formulation of your kombucha products – and why you chose kombucha and kefir as a vehicle for gut health?
Our kombuchas are crafted the same way that I made them at home at the very beginning. They are an authentic, unpasteurised and fully fledged mixture of a scoby (symbiotic culture of bacterial yeast) and green tea. This is then fed with sugar, allowed to ferment and to this mixture we add amazing fruit juices which creates a secondary fermentation and the awesome taste and add to the carbonation at which point they are ready to be consumed and fully enjoyed and felt. The majority of kombucha and water kefirs products are pasteurised nowadays but ours are not. I chose kombucha and kefir because I was making them at home, so I got to know them very well, and because of the impact they had upon my health. Also because they were not accessible or available both in stores or in a pleasant taste profile so we went out to change that. Above all this though I chose them because the natural probiotics they produced were like the star player in a sports team that for some reason had been ignored and forgotten over many years. When this player is out there in the body doing it’s thing then we suddenly get the best from all the other players in the body too. Everything starts communicating with each other and we get the team spirit version of health which takes it to a new level.
What does “wellness” mean to you today?
It means our potential health and wellness is a constantly expanding opportunity that we keep trying to measure with the idea that there is an actual destination we will reach one day. By doing this we are holding it back and taking away it’s truly inspirational and mind blowing possibilities.. Health and wellness is impossible to achieve but it is an adventure of opening, of surprise, magic, challenge and beautifully powerful connection.
Do you have a morning or evening ritual that keeps you centred?
Before I go to bed every night I will always lie still and spend a minimum of 10 minutes tuning my awareness into my body. I then like to actively introduce my intention for my sleep. When I wake in the morning I never get up before I have reconnected to my curiosity and opened my mind about what is possible for the day. Then I exhale deeply and stretch big and wide to remind myself of what opening up feels like physically. I get outside in the early morning light and when I can I go for a slow walk on the grass somewhere. All of this shifts my energy to a frequency that is set to live!
What’s one lesson you’ve learned about health that you wish you knew 10 or 20 years ago?
There is no limit to it. It is a magical possibility and holds the key to connecting to our being and to everything we could ever want so remove all expectations and just embrace every moment and trust in how the universe will respond.
Finally – how on earth have you aged so well? Do you have any daily wellness non-negotiables?
There are lots of occasions when I find myself struggling. Every day I let my challenge unearth those rigid conclusions that I have made about myself, life or others and then I release them via curiosity and compassion and some deep exhaling and relaxation. I don’t know if it changes the way I look but it liberates and connects me and makes me feel a hell of a lot younger.
