Jonny Wilkinson on waking up to wellness and living each day mindfully

A Way to Wellness: The former rugby player’s next chapter is a masterclass in the importance of putting your wellbeing first

Wilkinson has devoted his energy to investigating the true meaning of health and success (Marc Aspland)

When I sit down to speak with Jonny Wilkinson we’ve just finished a group mindfulness exercise, led by him. It’s a little surreal, but personally, I wish all interviews could begin this way, because now that we’re speaking one-on-one there’s a sense of calm in the room.

Wilkinson is deeply passionate about wellbeing, in every sense of the word. The shortest of exchanges with him would reveal as much – from gut health to recovery, he has a view on all of it. His favourite subject, however, is mindfulness which is how I’ve found myself, post-guided meditation, discussing the importance of staying present in the moment with a sporting legend.

In the past, Wilkinson has spoken with surprising candour about his mental health and how his mental resilience has both helped and hindered what he considers to be his personal successes. This willingness to speak with such openness about topics that many find difficult to discuss has won him more than sporting accolades – those seeking guidance on their own wellbeing now look to him for inspiration. He’s built a community online, with his podcast and via his healthy drinks business, One Living.

He explains that not everyone is willing to push the door open and discuss mental health, the trauma we experience and ways to heal from it and that sometimes it takes someone else to “open that door so that others can walk through”. This, he says, is a sort of calling for him.

“It’s all down to perspective,” he tells me. “Success can be all about competition, comparison and getting somewhere, and there’s a lot of force and conquering involved in that. Or there’s the other view, probably the one that comes to me right now, which is, ‘this is my passion, it’s my purpose in life’. And I don’t necessarily have that much of a sort of choice in it, because it just comes through me. It’s exciting to consider the possibility of a world in which people open and allow their gift to come out and fully express and connect with each other and unite. That, to me, just seems incredibly interesting and I think powerful.”

What’s striking about Wilkinson’s approach to sharing his insights on mental and physical wellbeing is the ease with which he offers practical advice. Perhaps it’s his training as a professional athlete and coach that makes him so adept at offering teachable moments. However, despite his knack for getting right to the heart of tricky subjects, Wilkinson is keen to discuss his vulnerabilities, the mistakes he feels he’s made and what the process of working through them has taught him.

“I had tons of people with enormous credibility who I trusted telling me to rest, but I did what I did,” he says. “And much as they were talking about taking pauses I pushed myself. When you’re in a game, there’s a heavy dependence on the physical battle. There hasn’t been as much recognition or understanding of the importance of the mental. But when the youth and passion starts to fall and the pressure comes over the top, you get out of balance. When people are mentally struggling or absent, they can be huge physically, but they become quite hollow.”

“The badge of courage used to be who’s getting the least sleep, who’s stressing the most, and who’s got the biggest issues. Whereas now it’s moving in a direction where people are wanting to align with life and find out what can really come through things like love and self-compassion and involvement in your experience.”

Wilkinson’s One Living brand is a new venture into wellness for the sporting star (Marc Aspland)

“I started thinking when I was injured, ‘have I made the most of it all?’ I grew up this way. I picked up these beliefs, and I just followed them. I never questioned, what do I want? I never questioned, is this working? And then you realise you’re uprooted. But there’s an incredible intelligence in the whole experience, and being able to just be fully present. And you can find subtle things that tell you, ‘slow down’, and that’s where I’ve found what my passion is.”

The practice of mindfulness is central to Wilkinson’s routine now, along with other daily habits that encourage him to make choices he feels are kinder to his mind and body. He explains that he’s a completely different person to the man he was at the height of his rugby career. In fact, “I’m a different person each day,” he says.

“One day is a lifetime. So when I wake up, I have the opportunity to decide who I want to be, what I want to be and how I want my day to be. What am I going to champion today? Am I going to try to win and achieve, or am I going to champion presence and passion and excitement and creativity?

Read more: 15 best mindfulness apps to help you keep calm during a crisis

“The morning is a great opportunity to find that. There’s no reason you have to bring yesterday with you. So the morning, for me, is a big moment to disentangle myself from the obvious habitual thoughts that kick in, the usual ones: ‘Oh, I forgot XYZ, I hope that doesn’t go wrong.’ Instead, I take five minutes, take 10, take an hour, and move in a way which allows me to say, from the beginning of the day, I’m doing the choosing today.

And when things don’t happen as I might have imagined, I’m going to be who I want to be, I’m not going to react. The rest of the day is about staying true to that with pauses and awareness of how I’m feeling. The other day I was with the England kickers and I was showing the guys what I thought might help. There’s a big crowd of people watching so I want to nail this kick because if I don’t, I’ll see their lack of respect. And I miss. I understand that missing is fine, it doesn’t define me, the most powerful thing that I have is my intention, my presence.”

“After everyone had left I kicked the ball and I crushed it. No one saw it. And I realised the engagement I had in that kick afterwards. Because with skills like that, you just remove all the baggage. You can kick a great kick, and then you want to try and replicate it. You’ll never get it because it came out of pure presence.”

“I like to live it, love it and let it go. It’s about awareness, not analysis.” (Marc Aspland)

Wilkinson’s daily routine is as you might imagine, alongside meditations to soothe the mind and stay grounded, exercise features heavily – there’s basketball, coaching rugby players and a lot of running up and down stairs over taking the lift. But there’s also a lot of consideration for food and nutrition, particularly adaptogenic and medicinal ingredients. He explains that it was research into the gut-brain axis that sparked his interest here and ultimately inspired the launch of One Living’s kombucha range.

“When I just finishing rugby, I was starting to realise just how fragile I was, and how fragile I think a lot of us were, focusing constantly on fitness and how strong we can be without tapping into our health and wellness or our stability. I could tell that there was a degree of unhealthiness from just being in changing rooms with guys. And so I went on a mission,” he tells me.

“Then, my wife was studying for her master’s in nutrition and I was going through some mental health challenges, looking for ways in which I could explore stability and calm and openness with living foods. We have 2 million genes but without bacteria, we have 20,000 and we think we’re the intelligent species. Now we’re finding out what the gut bacteria does within us to help us live, and how it can unlock life.

I was looking for things which have that magical impact on the nervous system, reduced anxiety, helping us sleep, helping us bring us back to that stability and calm whilst we’re doing our work. With One Living, we wanted to champion that space of calm and clear and connected, so now we’re offering these products that make a difference.”

Wilkinson tells me that he now treats every moment as a “beautiful ceremony, a magical unfolding” – be that waking up in the morning, eating, drinking, training or having a conversation with a stranger. But he isn’t overly sentimental about these moments. He doesn’t keep a journal and he tries not to dwell on the specifics of how things have panned out.

Read more: Tried meditating but failed? Here’s how – and why – to start again

“In the evening, when it’s wind down time, I wave goodbye to the day with a salute of gratitude, respect, acceptance and fall into sleep saying ‘that was that, and it’s enough’. Personally, I like to live it, love it and let it go. It’s about awareness, not analysis.” he says.

There’s a simplicity in this approach, but Wilkinson says it’s taken years of reflection and a number of personal crises to lean fully into the art of mindfulness, goal setting and gratitude. Whether you’re an internationally lauded sportsperson or not, life can often feel like a speeding train that you can’t get off, so how exactly does one choose calm and clarity over everything else?

He tells me the key is to: “build your idea of what it is you really want and who you want to be.”

“Anything’s possible, but you’ve got to want that over everything else. For me, I’ll take feeling calm and clear over everything. When you’re not calm and clear your mind will work for you, so find your stability in every moment. And if you can do that once a day, brilliant, then you can make it twice a day, and after a while, you can make it all day, every day. Then you’re no longer making it happen, it just becomes what you are, and now your life becomes yours. So find your ‘why’. Because not being calm and grounded will end your performance. It will end your relationships. It will end your health and wellbeing. It will take away all your potential.”

“For me, there seems to be a calling to share this. It’s not really a strategic decision. Playing rugby, it wasn’t a strategic decision to grab a ball when I was five years old and go out in the garden and kick it. I never thought, “Oh, if I keep doing this, I’ll play for England.” I just loved it. It’s about the feeling something gives you. It’s where I feel most at one – it’s also what brings up most of my challenges. But facing challenges is where I feel I’m supposed to be.”

Read more: How Stanley Tucci got into the ‘best shape of his life’ at 63