“It ended up so fairytale-like for me compared to what I could have possibly imagined. You become attached to it. And then it stops”

Despite being the biggest name in English rugby, Jonny Wilkinson suffered mental health struggles throughout his career. Here he explains the Buddhist ideas that have helped him fi nd a greater sense of contentment since hanging up his boots

He’s the player who transcends rugby. His iconic drop goal in the dying minutes of the World Cup final in 2003 ensuring he would forever be remembered as the man who won England the trophy they’d been after for decades.

But for Jonny Wilkinson, this moment, along with countless others – in a career marked by the outward success of four Six Nations championships and two Heineken Cups to go alongside that World Cup winner’s medal – was just part of a wider story. One in which he was battling anxiety and depression despite, from the outside, appearing to have it all.

“It ended up so fairytale-like for me compared to what I could have possibly imagined,” says Wilkinson, who works as a mental health ambassador for health insurer Vitality and has long been a practising Buddhist – something which he has previously said helped him make sense of his own mental health. “You become attached to it [the fairytale],” he adds. “And then it stops. You come out the flow state into the material, physical experience of the world.”

Success doesn’t buy happiness

These attachments to success, says Wilkinson, did little to improve his mental health. Winning could never ease his low mood or sense of constant worry. He was, he says, only able to start improving his wellbeing by opening up about his feelings and being vulnerable.

“When it becomes a practised habit,” says Wilkinson, “it’s no longer really being vulnerable and opening up. It’s recognising that it’s about facing challenges and understanding why things are there – going deeper and, I think, getting better.”