I am fortunate to have worked with many fascintating athletes through my collaboration with CU (University of Colorado) Sports Medicine and Performance Center and by living and practicing in Boulder, which is such a healthy and active community.
As I’ve met and gotten to know the inner worlds of these althetes, including teens and adults, I find it is fascinating to understand the personality traits that characterize these elite athletes. These individuals are elite for a reason. They have the intense motivation, competetive drive, and commitment to success like no one else has.
They work constantly and know that with consistency their dreams can come true. They often give up more “traditional” lives, you know like school and parties, in pursuit of perfection and greatness.
Imagine spending all that time, effort, and energy and then you get injured and as life sometimes sucks it is not just any old injury, but rather it is a concussion. also known as traumatic brain injury. And what happens when they get injured again? Did you know that the more concussions you’ve gotten the greater the risk continues to grow for continued concussions. Imagine wishing it was just a broken bone, but you know injuries to the brain can have all sorts of complications.
Now imagine you are that athlete and you are told:”You’re done”, “You’re out”, “No more contact sports.” Imagine this was your whole life? Now what? How do you pick up the pieces and how do you even start?”
What if by the time you actually make a “full recovery” you already missed competitions and victories?
Think of that person whose entire identity is based around that sport?
What if their entire day, week, month was based around trainings, games, travel to games/ meets/ competitions and then you could not do any of that anymore?
What if you are told to forget going for that college scholarship and that your life completely changed. And the icing on the cake is that it wasn’t your choice? You would have never given up, that is just not you.
Obviously, if you have the ability to empathize or have dealt with this kind of loss yourself you know that it’s a sad, rough, and difficult road. These athletes find themselves in a position to find a new meaning, purpose, and passion and redefine themselves and sometimes they have no idea where to start. And what if they give it their all and have to risk losing it again.
The best way I’ve found to describe this process is as grief.
It is the loss of your dreams and life you thought you were going to have.
It is the loss of your health and realistically looking at how your physical, mental, emotional, and cognitive functioning has been impacted by the injury or injuries.
It is figuring what else to do with all the extra time in your day and not feel guilty and tell yourself you lazy because you are not as productive as you once were. You are healing and that takes times and space. Oh and don’t forget to find a new channel for that competitive drive that you have.
Your job now is to redefining yourself and finding new purpose and meaning. And you probably can’t rush that and will have to face some uncertainty along the way, but that is good for you.
What can we do as friends, family, teachers, teammates, co-workers, partners, and classmates?
We have to support them and allow our athletes to have the time and space they need to heal and grieve. We must truly validate feelings and know there will be highs and lows and you can’t rush it. As they walk through the process of grief and loss, to new self discovery and hope, and redifining who they are, watch out world, they will wow us in a new way. Don’t fret, these amazing souls will not be forgotten.
They will find incredible and amazing ways to add value to our lives and our world and I’m just thankful I get a to have a sneak peek into their lives.
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