Erica Bennett

Sport culture narratives teach athletes that their identities should center around athletic performance and physical superiority, with pain as an accepted part of sport-related success. A strong athletic identity has been linked with greater amounts of pain related distress. It is not surprising then that athletes’ learned relationship with pain may have long-term consequences for their identities and overall well-being through the transition out of sport and beyond. While identities in active and retired athletes have been extensively studied, less is known about retired athletes who experience persistent pain post-sporting career. The purpose of this study was to explore how persistent pain shaped and constrained how retired athletes negotiated their post-athletic career identities, and to illuminate how retired athletes used storytelling to make sense of their experiences with persistent pain. Adopting a narrative constructionist lens, I conducted two life story interviews with eight retired athletes (16 interviews) who had played at an elite level and who were currently experiencing persistent pain (pain lasting for greater than three months). Using dialogical narrative analysis, three themes were developed. Firstly, Developing an Intuitive Connection with the Body: participants described how pain taught them to listen to their body in retirement, with this dialogue enabling them to attend to their body’s needs, and to manage their ongoing pain. Secondly, Pain Enabling Empathy and Social Connection: participants used stories to depict how their pain experiences facilitated empathy and connection with others during retirement, which was juxtaposed to the isolation they felt as athletes when in pain. Thirdly, Disaffiliation or Connection Through Storytelling: participants drew on different narrative identity types (performance and relational narratives) based on their social relationships to story their experiences of pain. Some sought disaffiliation from others by recounting stories of athletic dominance, while others sought connection and belonging by relaying stories of teamwork and sport comradery. The findings expand our theoretical understanding of how stories and storytelling are used to make sense of athletes' post-sporting career lives. Application of these findings can better equip coaches, mental performance consultants, and sport organizations to tailor their support for athletes through the transition to retirement.

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Self-compassion is a positive way of relating to the self, which can be used by athletes to facilitate the management of stressors and foster high sport achievement (Mosewich, 2020). Research with women athletes suggests that self-compassion is positively related to flourishing, motivation, well-being, and adaptive coping (Mosewich, 2020). However, men athletes’ experiences of self-compassion are relatively absent from the existing research (Reis et al., 2019, 2021). Self-compassion research should focus on men athletes and how masculinity shapes self-compassion to better understand if self-compassion is a viable coping strategy for this population. Two semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 men varsity athletes (20 interviews total) to i) examine competitive men athletes’ perceptions and experiences of self-compassion in relation to sport-related challenges and ii) explore how masculinity shapes experiences of self-compassion. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2019a) and five themes were identified from the men’s accounts. Firstly, being a student athlete is challenging but I wouldn’t change it: participants identified unique challenges and stressors associated with pursuing both varsity sport and university, which required them to cope in adaptive ways and led many of the men to utilize self-compassion. Secondly, balancing act: the relationship between self-compassion and self-criticism: participants expressed that while self-criticism is imperative for improvement in sport, it should be countered with self-compassion to maintain motivation, mental well-being, and self-confidence. Thirdly, self-compassion is a very helpful coping strategy: participants identified self-compassion as an effective coping strategy for sport and other life domains. Fourthly, reluctance: self-compassion is a contentious topic for men athletes: participants denoted that self-compassion may promote complacency, demonstrating the embodiment of dominant masculine narratives of emotional stoicism. Finally, the dichotomous existence of inclusive and hegemonic masculinities: athletes described experiencing contrasting masculine ideologies, which promoted or constrained their implementation of self-compassion. Findings highlight how men varsity athletes implemented self-compassion to cope with poor personal performances and maintain motivation during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet the dominant narrative of emotional stoicism engendered some hesitancy towards self-compassion. Findings contribute to empirical research by highlighting men athletes’ experiences of self-compassion in the context of sport-related challenges and masculinity.

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