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Sir John Kirwan is on a mission.
The former All Black winger wants to get people talking about mental health.
He was in Oamaru last week and spoke to a crowd of more than 150 people at the Network Waitaki Event Centre, including a group of Waitaki Boys’ High School students.
Sir John told the Oamaru Mail his end goal was to help make sure New Zealand has “the best mental health stats in the developed world”.
“Currently we’re one of the worst so my goal is to spread the word about how I look after myself, trying to break down the stigma around the illness, and just try and get more people talking about it and normalise it.”
The key takeaway from his talk was encouraging the audience to DOT (do one thing) and then DAT (do another thing).
Mr Kirwan spoke about looking after your mental health as you would your physical health and he recalled a conversation with a psychiatrist.
“She said ‘what would you do if you got a tight hamstring?’ I said ‘I’d stop and stretch it’.
“She said ‘OK you’ve stopped and stretched it, you get up, you keep running and it gets really, really tight, what would do then?’ I said ‘I would stop, ice it and go and see the physio’. She said ‘your head is no different’.”
He laid out the “six pillars” of his daily mental health plan — chill, do, move, connect, celebrate and gratitude.
To “chill out” and switch off his brain, he reads, cooks and plays the guitar.
Moving, or just doing something, also helps him relax.
Sir John described himself as an introvert, so to connect with the people in his life, he said he had to manage his energy.
“If I’m going to give my energy to others, I need to make sure I’m not using it all up at the cost of my family.”
He also looked forward to little things that he could celebrate.
Early on in his journey, that was something as simple as a shower.
“It was just this three minutes that was amazing.
“It didn’t matter how bad my day was, during the day I was still struggling but I’m thinking about ‘how good is that shower going to be?’”
Sir John began keeping a gratitude diary at the encouragement of his psychiatrist.
“I started it with ‘I got out of bed’. ‘I got through the day’. And now that I’m incredibly well, it’s other things — I’m grateful for a whole a lot of things.”
To end his talk, Mr Kirwan stressed the importance of talking about mental health and normalising not being OK.
“By the end of today, a New Zealand male will be dead by suicide. By tomorrow night, two males and one female. That’s higher than the road toll.
“The only way we can change it is by everyone leaving this room today and talking about it.”
He also got the crowd involved with some challenges.
He asked them to dance, hug five people in the room and tell the person next to them “you’re awesome” and “I’m awesome”.
The last exercise was to show the importance of self love.
“If I don’t tell me, who’s going to tell me?”
After speaking, Sir John answered questions from the audience about how to support the men in their lives and learning to accept the illness.
He also hung around at the end to answer further questions and take photos with people.