“MENTAL SKILLS IS something that entered my life the hard way,” Alan O’Mara explains.
“I’ve always been very open and honest about my journey, that I didn’t have these skills. I didn’t have things like self awareness, resilience, self compassion.
“The good thing about them being a skill… I grew up playing football all my life — taking kick-outs, for example, I only got better if I practiced them. I couldn’t tell you how many hours I spent kicking a football through pillars in my garden, just practice, over and over.
“But I never did that from a mental skills perspective.”
The former Cavan goalkeeper is discussing his latest project, the Real Talks with SOSAD Ireland well-being series.
Now a performance and well-being consultant living in New York, you may also know O’Mara as the founder of Real Talks and author of ‘The Best Is Yet To Come’.
A link-up with SOSAD Ireland recently came about, all parties involved teaming up to create an online well-being hub to promote positive mental health.
Then there’s the powerful conversations with inspiring Irish figures, sport a common thread through guests like Leanne Kiernan, Rory O’Connor (Rory’s Stories) and David Balfe (the musician, For Those I Love).
O’Mara is keen to highlight the invaluable work, and important services, SOSAD Ireland provide: a 24/7 helpline, crisis support, free counselling for people in need and a text message support service.
“On top of raising mental health awareness, we also wanted to go a level deeper,” he explains.
“We wanted to really promote and highlight the real, tangible and practical services that SoSad provide free of charge for people.
“Then we also wanted to share empowering, trusted information with people that can help them. We’re very lucky with the quality and the calibre of people who were willing to contribute.
“Rory’s Stories, Leanne Kiernan and David Balfe came on to talk to me about various strands of well-being. As well as getting people to talk about the struggles that they go through, there’s also a focus on sharing what helped them deal with them.
“Those are the well-known faces exploring their life stories, their personal experiences. then wrapped around those chats, I’m doing mini-mental skills masterclasses, which are really short and concise videos and podcasts that break down specific mental skills.
“Mental health awareness is so important. It’s so crucial that we keep doing that. But the next level of that is empowering individuals on a day-to-day basis, and also highlighting services and support.”
O’Mara’s own story is well-documented, his past struggles often intertwined with sport. Mental health in sport is something that’s being discussed more and more.
Most obviously with Kiernan, a Republic of Ireland international and professional footballer at Liverpool FC, and to a lesser extent with O’Connor and Balfe.
“Sport is absolutely a huge part of all their lives in different ways: Rory was the Meath minor captain when he was younger, and that’s something that held him together in his later teens because it gave them a sense of purpose and an identity.
“Leanne, she gets the opportunity to go to the UK as a young woman. She’s a brilliant athlete, superbly talented footballer but then injuries arrive on her door and start chiseling away at her confidence. She opens up and talks to us about the supports that she engages with, the struggles that she went through, and basically how she rebuilds it to come back to what she has become: a star, and a shining light in the middle of one of the biggest football clubs in the world.
“I know, as we’re talking, she’s just had a bad injury. In some ways she’s going to be lucky now because she’s experienced some of these things before. We talk about resilience — and while I’ve no doubt Leanne is being challenged right now, she’s able to dip back into what helped her before.
“I suppose David’s is a little different. David wouldn’t be known for being a sports player, but he’s very much associated and linked to Shelbourne FC. David’s best friend Paul died by suicide, he was an incredibly passionate Shelbourne fan. David has talked publicly about how sport was a place where he could go after he lost his friend, even just to reconnect and feel closer to him. Sport provided a place of positive escapism.”
Self awareness, resilience, self compassion, authenticity, growth mindset, courage.
They’re the mental skills masterclasses, and tools that can be referred back to time and time again.
Resilience is one O’Mara, like Kiernan, leans heavily on.
“It’s about looking into the past to try and find the crumbs we could put together to help you embolden your resilience and know, ‘Okay, I have some of that in my pocket that when life asks me to use it, I can use it.’
“And if ever that’s not enough, which has happened to me and it’s basically happened to everyone that’s featured on the series, it’s, ‘I’m really struggling here. A bad day has become a bad week, maybe a bad week has become a bad month.
“I always say once a bad week has become a bad month and you start drifting up that scale, it’s, ‘Okay, who can I talk to? Where can I reach out to?”
And that’s where SoSad Ireland comes into play.
That’s the lasting message O’Mara wishes to hammer home.
“If someone ever does need help, if they need support, if they need someone to talk to, SoSad Ireland are there. I’m very confident that the series promotes that message of, ‘We’re all humans, we all have thoughts and feelings, we’re all challenged in different ways. Mental health is really important, well-being is really important. Here’s some mental skills and here’s some services to reach out to.”
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For more information see www.sosadireland.ie/real-talks/
