CHANGING your way of thinking can transform your life, unlocking your potential to achieve personal and professional success. That’s the message sports psychologist and performance coach Gerry Hussey hopes to spread at an event at the Clayton Hotel Silver Springs in Cork on June 23.
It’s a message the Galway native applies to his own life. “As a child, he had constant pain, sweating and a racing heart,” he says. “They took me to the doctors to find out what was wrong with me physically, but no one stopped to think that it could be anxiety.”
Hussey’s anxiety was fueled by an inner voice that undermined his confidence by pointing out everything that was wrong with him. “That voice made me shy away from so many things that I essentially shunned from life,” he says. “Even at home, during happy times with my family, I felt empty and numb. “I thought that was how it would be for the rest of my life.”
That changed when, in his late teens, he came across new age books by people like Deepak Chopra in his teens. “Books introduced me to the idea of the mind-body connection,” Hussey says. “I began to understand that the mind, brain, body and spirit all functioned as one.”
That understanding and the work he has done to apply what he has learned about the mind-body connection changed Hussey’s life.
“I am and always will be an anxious person,” he says. “I still have days where I question whether I am good enough, but I no longer allow those thoughts to take over me. I can’t control what happens to me in life, but I can control how my mind responds. So, I don’t let my anxiety define me or hold me back. I work to let it go.”
The focus involves the mind and body. “Like all emotions, anxiety stays in the body, so I move it to release it,” says Hussey.
Start your day with physical movement, like dancing. Then she chants a little, breathes, meditates and visualizes, before swimming in cold water or taking a cold shower.
It’s time-consuming, but Hussey believes it’s vital to your well-being. “My routine lasts an hour every morning and I have to get up at 5:30 to finish everything before the kids wake up, but it’s worth it,” he says. “I’ve always said: if you win the morning, you win the day.”
Hussey lives in Dublin with his wife, Miriam, a pharmacist turned wellness coach, and their two children. The arrival of four-year-old Eli and one-year-old Bethany initially disrupted Gerry’s daily routines.
“Becoming a father is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he says. “At first I kept hoping to get my old life back.” He found the relentlessness of fatherhood challenging. “Constantly changing diapers and tidying up, children scream and rarely go to bed on time; It’s stressful and exhausting,” she says. “You can feel like you’re getting nowhere and you don’t even know if you’re good at any of it.”
Once again, Hussey discovered that the answer lay in changing the way he responded to the situation. “I had to stop wanting the life I used to have,” she says. “I had to give up my feelings of control and be more present in the moment, spending time with the children, playing with them and making sure they felt loved.”
Gerry Hussey: “We can only control how we respond to what happens to us in life and I try to show people how to make conscious decisions in their own lives.”
Although raising young children is very rewarding, she is not afraid to talk about the hard work it entails. “There’s nothing more magnificent than those moments of connection when they hug you and call you dad,” she says. “But that’s only 20% of the time, if that. The other 80% is hard work. There are days when I tear my hair out, but I try to be more patient and do the best I can.”
Hussey has built his career sharing his understanding that each of us can choose how to react to life’s challenges. It’s a concept that he has resonated with athletes, entrepreneurs and the thousands of people who have attended his talks and read his best-selling books. and
Hussey is modest when asked why he thinks his ideas affect people so deeply. “I think it’s because I speak from the heart, ask big questions and try to answer them simply,” he says. “I’m honest and vulnerable and I really try to give people the best of me at any given moment. “That’s what people respond to.”
That honesty and vulnerability is central to her Cork show, Unleash and Elevate Your Potential. The day’s ambitious program will include talks, meditation and physical activities designed to give attendees the tools “to overcome obstacles, overcome limitations and navigate emotions to create a fulfilling and purposeful life.”
“This will not be about false positivity, as we all know there are challenges and pain in this world,” Hussey says. “My job is not to make that go away, but to empower you so you can take it on.
“We can only control how we respond to what happens to us in life and I try to show people how to make conscious decisions in their own lives.”
Hussey has more events scheduled for the end of the year, including a retreat in Portugal and a show at the National Concert Hall in November. She also just signed her third book contract.
“Its provisional title is , and it will be about how powerful or debilitating our inner voice can be,” he says. “I want to convey how I have learned to change my inner commentary and how this has changed my perception and experience of the world.
“Life is short. We shouldn’t let our inner voice convince us to spend it waiting in the wings. We should all be center stage in life, living life to the fullest.”
- Unleash and Elevate Your Potential, Sunday 23 June, Clayton Hotel Silver Springs Hotel, Cork, €145 per person, view
