- Lifestyle
- Health & Families
The ex-rugby player speaks to Sara Keenan about his mental health journey and the pressures men face in today’s society.
Sara KeenanWednesday 03 December 2025 09:58 GMT
open image in galleryWilkinson speaks to Sara Keenan about his journey with his wellbeing (PA Images/Mike Egerton) (PA Archive)
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“I managed to tick off pretty much all the goals that I set for myself and had this deep down belief that it would resolve all my issues, insecurity and sense of panic and fear,” says former England rugby player Jonny Wilkinson, who admits he thought all his worries would disappear once his ambitions had been met.
“It’s quite a harsh coming-down-to-earth when you realise it doesn’t really touch that feeling,” the 46-year-old adds. “You think by building an identity it is going to be fulfilling, but actually you end up realising you don’t want to live through that image of yourself that you created.”
Reflecting on his relationship with his mental health and wellbeing now, Wilkinson, who is also a Vitality Ambassador, says that opening his mind is what brings him ‘true fulfilment.’
“Curiosity brings me fulfilment. Facing challenge does too or when I open my mind and truly give in and come back to real openness, like walking in a forest – it literally revolutionises my day,” he says. “I think being present would be my best start to what fulfils me because everything else melts away.”
“When I was younger, I wouldn’t be speaking like this. I wouldn’t be entertaining a conversation like this and that was fine,” Wilkinson admits. “That was right for me back then,” he says, explaining that his mental health is now ‘deepening and revealing itself’ as he continues through life’s journey.
Reflecting on his upbringing, Wilkinson says there were periods in his youth when he experienced ‘flare ups every five or six years’ brought on by fear and insecurity. “There was a sense of real doom and anxiety that I experienced growing up and probably stored away,” he says.
“Now however, I’m finding these moments almost daily where things are changing for me in my wellbeing and changing fast. For example, starting a family is a big changing point. Finishing a career is another big one. But certainly getting a bit older in this world is another point that brings about interesting challenges,” he adds.
New research from Vitality reveals almost half of men surveyed (46%) feel today’s pressures are greater than ever, and over a quarter (28%) are feeling more overwhelmed than ever. Wilkinson says although he finds it hard to speak on behalf of others, he grew up in a ‘particularly fearful and vulnerable state.’
“I looked for answers in roles models during this time,” he says. “In my world it was people that were there to save and fight and to become martyrs. It was people that took on that role and made things okay.”
He says this influenced the kind of person he became and enabled him to be strong in certain areas. “But it also overshadowed another really important side of me, which was the side of me that is there to create, connect, nurture, deeply experience, open up, explore, wander and to just be,” he says.
“I think the absence of that side of me and the imbalance of just going out there to fight and save ended up becoming overwhelming. It just feels like for me, it was just too much.”
When offering advice to others who also feel intense pressure, Wilkinson says it comes down to ‘three things.’
“One is awareness,” he explains. “Before you can do anything with anything, you first need to become aware of it. That’s quite a big challenge and that awareness is often driven by a willing desire to actually change or the desire to explore what you’re truly capable of and who you truly are.
“The third is courage. The thing you’re always needing and for me it’s always been in the place I won’t go and I refuse to look and I know it’s there. Sometimes I don’t know it’s there, but once I know it is, that becomes this big courageous thing to sort of step into it. Nothing changes at least not in my life, until I face that opportunity.”
When looking ahead to the future of how mental health and wellbeing is understood, Wilkinson says he doesn’t have a definitive answer. “However, I think for me, it’s about people owning their own internal worlds,” he explains.
“It’s about knowing anything can happen to us and around us and heaven knows the challenges some people are facing, I can only imagine, but what happens within us, that should belong to us,” he says.
Wilkinson says his time in professional sport taught him a lot about the power of inner resilience.
“When I was in the sporting world, the people I played against who always inspired me and were always so difficult as opponents were the ones who owned their stress. That meant when you tried to stress them out to try and get them off their game, you couldn’t. That inner world belonged to them,” he says.
“You could try and poke them. You could try and tackle them harder. You could try and say anything to them. You could try and do whatever, but it just didn’t matter, because they decided who and how they wanted to be and therefore they created the world they wanted to around them.”
When asked what he would say to his younger self, Wilkinson says he wouldn’t offer any advice at all.
“My younger self was my younger self,” he says. “I think that’s who I was and that’s who I needed to be. I’m enjoying the unfolding journey of me becoming who I’m supposed to be by trying to follow that inner guidance and follow my passion and face my challenge. When I look back, all the dots tend to line up and I don’t want to move any of those dots.”
