Mary Fowler recently published a memoir, Bloom: Creating a life I love, that covers the period from her teens to early adulthood. Mary is considered one of the brightest female talents in soccer in Australia. In 2018, when under 16 years of age, she was the fifth youngest soccer player to represent Australia. Since then she has gone on to represent Australia in soccer on 64 occasions, scoring 16 goals.
The highs
Mary had been selected to represent Australia at the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup but owing to a hamstring injury was unable to play. She had always dreamed of being an Olympian and, although a gifted long-distance runner, chose soccer as her sport to excel in. The highpoint of her soccer career, in her own words, was being chosen in the Australian team for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. She scored a goal in extra time in Australia’s quarter final win over Great Britain.
Mary was elated to be chosen in the Matilda’s team for the home-based 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. With the loss of team captain, Sam Kerr, through injury, Mary’s role in the team increased significantly. She scored her first World Cup goal against Canada and was instrumental in the win over Denmark in the Round of 16 game.
In her memoir, Mary recounts the lead-up and successful execution of a penalty goal in the penalty shoot-out against France in the quarter final. She expressed appreciation for her coach’s extensive pre-game practice of taking penalties in a shoot-out, including the line-up at halfway, the slow progression to the penalty spot and the elation on scoring against the goalie. After her World Cup performance, Mary was chosen to represent Australia at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
The Lows
Throughout her soccer career and much of her early life, Mary was plagued by negative self-thoughts – questioning whether she was good enough, looked good enough or was a good person. Her low self-esteem was frequently aggravated by social media messaging that reinforced her negative self-image. With the sudden advent of fame, Mary’s social media following expanded dramatically and so did the “haters” and belittlers (which only fed her negative view of herself). Wisely, a close friend advised her to stop responding to the online “haters” and spend her efforts commenting on messages from supporters who sought to acknowledge her skills and achievements and wanted her to do well.
In her memoir, Mary describes her period at Montpellier Football Club as her lowest point. She joined the club on her 17th birthday and spent three years with the club (2020-2022). In her early period there she spent a lot of time on the bench. She was very conscious that being the youngest player in the team, she lacked the experience of the other players. However, she felt acutely the status differential between the “starters” and the “benched” players – the latter sometimes being totally ignored by the coach.
Mary found that as the team suffered a series of losses, conflict within the team grew. She was challenged for the amount of time she spent in the gym, as if she was contributing to their losses by trying to improve her fitness and overall stamina. She also felt keenly the divide within the team between the French players and the “internationals”, the later considered of a lower value.
Mary’s mixed race (Irish and Papua New Guinean) had always been a source of low self-esteem and differentiation by others. These feelings of inferiority were compounded when she finished up at Montpellier. Players leaving the team were given flowers at the end of the of their tenure whereas Mary and her close friend (two of only six black players in the team) were given bananas. She didn’t know whether this was an intentional slight or just a consequence of an accidental series of events.
Mary, who valued her creativity in playing soccer, had offered suggestions on ways to improve the team’s play but had been told by the Montpellier coach to “do what you are told”. This frustration of her creativity was another source of dissatisfaction for her. However, her experience was the opposite when she played with the Australian team as coach Tony Gustavsson encouraged her to be adventurous. Mary found, too, that the move from “striker” to “wing” reduced the pressure on her to score but enabled her to provide plenty of “goal-assists” and become a real team player.
Mary reached an absolute low point during her time with the Montpellier soccer team. She describes cutting herself and engaging in other forms of self-harm, ultimately leading to thoughts of suicide. She also lost her love of the game and thought seriously about giving up the sport (to the point of planning her “retirement”). What helped Mary recover was the very strong support of close friends and family, together with therapy. In her memoir, Mary strongly encourages people who are not coping to reach out for help and therapy if needed. She argues that, like her, people who are stressed have to get past feelings of vulnerability and be willing to share their feelings and concerns with others. Mary learnt that being vulnerable with friends actually deepened her relationships.
As Mary’s fame grew, so too did the pressures on her. She could not go out to do shopping without people recognising her and seeking “selfies” and autographs. She had to deal with increased performance expectations from her friends, fans, team mates and coaches. Negative social media commentary intensified. An additional pressure was the invasion of privacy, particularly in relation to her emerging relationship with Nathan Cleary (who was famous in his own right).
Managing adversity with mindfulness
Mary turned to a series of mindfulness practices to help her restore calm and balance to her life and provide her with the mental clarity and stamina to manage the stresses in her life.
Mary found the strength to go on and pursue what proved to be a stunning international career, as well as eventual success with the Manchester City English Premier League team (2022 till now). She drew on a range of mindfulness practices to help her manage the downside of her career as an elite athlete and to achieve her potential:
- Journalling – Mary had been journalling since she was a child but found new commitment and energy for journalling as she progressed in her career and had to deal with the pressures of international fame. Journalling enabled her to deal with the unpredictable and daily challenges. She also found that journalling helped her to get in touch with her feelings, which she tended to hide from others and herself. It provided her with a different perspective on issues and served to challenge her negative thinking about herself.
- Positive Affirmations – Mary had to deal with constant negative self-talk that told her she was “not good enough” in many ways. She turned to daily recitation of affirmations to reinforce what was good in her life and was good and positive about herself. Danette May argues that affirmations can replace unconscious negative thoughts with reinforcement of what is good in ourselves. This change in focus (from negative to positive thinking) can alter our mindset and reality.
- Drawing nurture from nature – spending time in nature played a major role in Mary’s life and, in her memoir, she acknowledges the role of nature in providing her with calm, new insights, energy and a source of awe and wonder. While in Montpellier she undertook daily mountain walks with her brother to absorb the peace and tranquility of nature. In her memoir chapter on “Stop & smell the flowers” (Chapter 8), Mary explains how she began an intentional practice of stopping to admire a flower, closely observing its colours and textures, and smelling its aroma. This became a habituated practice and extended to stopping to observe any animals along her path (such as birds and possums). She experienced excitement and a warm glow from these animal encounters. Mary often spoke of the Moon as a personal source of stability, energy and positive self-affirmation. Mary’s discussion of her encounters with nature and her slow, observant walking resonates with a mindful walking approach to developing mindfulness.
- Reframing goals – Mary was an obsessive goal-setter. She had goals for when she would get pregnant, get married, own her own home and many other things in her life and career. Her goals had set times for achievement. While this aided her outcome focus, it eventually created undue stress through self-created time-pressures and left no room for the vicissitudes of life (such as sporting injuries) that can prevent or delay goal achievement. In a discussion with her “bestie” at the time, Mary decided that she would set “targets” instead of “goals”, removing the constraining effect of detailed timelines.
- Expressing gratitude – Mary discovered the power of gratitude to offset negative feelings. Like Kim Armstrong, she found that daily gratitude practice builds resilience, overcomes resentment and envy, and develops a positive mindset. In the final analysis, expressing gratitude helps us “to get in touch with ourselves”. Mary found that routinely expressing gratitude helped her manage the downside of her soccer injuries – times on the sidelines from concussion, an ACL injury and hamstring injury.
- Present moment awareness – Mary consciously sought to be in the “present moment” whether playing competitive soccer or being with friends and family. She was strongly influenced by a book, The Power of Now, written by meditation teacher, Eckhart Tolle. She routinely practised meditation to develop this present moment awareness. Mary found that through this mindfulness practice, she began to savour the small things in her life.
- Mindset change – Mary had publicly stated that she wanted to be the “best in the world” as an international soccer player. After a period of reflection on how self-limiting this goal can be (she pursued it at the expense of her relationships with friends and the opportunities for fun and new adventures), she changed her target to “be the best that I can be”. This change in mindset freed her from obsessive practice, a sole focus on soccer and a tendency to envy the success of others. Instead, she developed better as a team player, savouring the success of others.
Reflection
Mary Fowler experienced some great highs and some serious lows. Her negative self-talk contributed to many of her lows. However, by turning to mindfulness practices she discovered that as she grew in mindfulness she developed resilience, changed her mindset, increased her happiness, savoured the small things in life, developed a positive self-image and increased her capacity to deal with the stressors in her life.
In her memoir; Mary states that she has now achieved a high level of happiness; increased her tools for managing challenges; and developed sound, close friendships that support her daily. By using a range of mindfulness practices, she has developed a toolkit to address mental health issues as they arise and to draw on the positive energy that surrounds her.
Throughout her memoir, Mary provides several reflection questions that are relevant to the discussion in each chapter. She offers reflection questions such as:
- What does success mean to you?
- What positive things have occurred for you during the day/week?
- What are you genuinely grateful for?
These questions can provide a rich source of reflection and insights and can serve as journalling prompts. The discussion that precedes these reflective questions provides a basis for challenging our own mindset and identifying ways to enhance our own life and happiness.
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Image by Lori Dunn from Pixabay
By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)
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