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Victoria University
Cody Weightman interview
Alex Parker
So, I'm Alex Parker, the executive director of the Institute for Health and Sport at Victoria University. And it's my pleasure to be talking with Cody Weightman today, VU student and Western Bulldog, Bulldogs footballer. We're gonna be talking about mindfulness, resilience, and mental wellbeing. And thanks for joining us, Cody.
Cody Weightman
Oh, thanks, Alex. It's so great to be here.
Alex Parker
Excellent. I was gonna say, he kept some criticism online recently following the SNN game. I'm just wondering how he deal with reactions such as that. How do you cope with that and how do you put it in your past, and then concentrate on what's ahead of you?
Cody Weightman
Yeah, certainly, got a little bit of stick against a post-SNN game, which is a final, and I think everyone gets a little bit, their emotions heightened, I guess, in a way in finals and stuff. So, it was my first experience of, I guess, heightened. I've actually found that since coming into the competition, I've been embraced quite a bit by the public and whatnot.
So, it was my first sorta experience on the other end of the stick, but it didn't really affect me at all, to be honest. I kept telling myself that I've got too many good voices around myself to listen to, and to listen to ones that are irrelevant to me and probably fans that, that sort of weren't speaking in their best, in their best moments.
I sorta just managed to block them out and listen to the people around me, which is great that as a team, we're on traveling at the moment and I had everyone around me and. Yeah. I guess that's something else that I sort of identified to and something I do a little bit in situations where I'm confronted with stuff is I sort of asked myself, how would my role model react to a situation like this?
And my role model is my future self. Not somebody that I look up to, it's actually somebody that I wanna be. So, I sort of did that and took down some dot points of how my future self, the better version of myself, would react to something like this and, and that's sort of how I tried to approach it.
Alex Parker
Excellent. So, that's a way of you guiding yourself through the present by thinking how you'd like to, you know, the behaviors, the values, and things that you hold that you're working towards developing further in the future. It's a really interesting strategy.
Cody Weightman
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That's it.
Alex Parker
Yeah. So, tell us a bit about the incident that resulted in concussion in the game against Brisbane.
Cody Weightman
Yeah. Well, interestingly, I actually don't know which hit it was. I got two, within the last minute of the second quarter, two sorta incidents that occurred. One was a taco where my head sort of just got squished and I was a little bit dazed after that. And then, about a minute later, I ran into Marcus Adams, who's a large man and that was the end of my night, unfortunately. But yeah, it was a little bit strange.
I've had a concussion before, so I sort of knew what was happening, but I just, I think I was in a little bit disbelief. I didn't really want to believe that I was concussed and I was a little bit shocked at halftime in the rooms and stuff, and. Yeah, it's a strange feeling. Unfortunately, I knew I was concussed.
Alex Parker
Yeah. It sounds like, as you're saying, like once or once you were subbed out and you were given the concussion protocol, you pretty much knew that you would, you're out of the prelim. But the scenes from the bench where you, where of you encouraging and supporting your team and pushing them. So, how do you manage to stay positive and focused in front of the team in this way?
Cody Weightman
Yeah, I don't think that was a conscious decision I made at all. I think that's sort of a part of our team this year. It really does feel like there's 44 players on the list, only 23, 22, 23 play each way.
But it, it really does feel like this year, the Bulldogs are 44 players, all trying to win the Premiership, regardless of which 22 were actually playing.
And I think I just sort of fit it into that. Once I was subbed out of the game, yeah, I didn't really even think about being upset or anything. It was, it was a strange one because when you do get a concussion, your emotions are flowing and it's a, it's a strange one 'cause you do find your emotions hard to actually hold.
And after I was, I was bawling my eyes out and couldn't stop crying. I didn't know why I was crying or anything like that. And that's sort of common symptom of a concussion, but then the joy also came out and sort of leaked out of me during the game in the second half. And that was also something I couldn't stop either 'cause I just love watching my teammates going well and that was such a good game, and I couldn't help it.
Alex Parker
It sounds like some, in some ways, you know, tapping into and expressing some of your emotions is the way that you cope with some difficult situations too.
Cody Weightman
Yeah. I think, I think you gotta listen to how you feel. And I also think that expressing your emotions is something, it's pretty powerful. And some people are unsure, they try to hide that sometimes, and that's certainly not me. I think we can say how happy it makes me and people often talk about that. And I think that's not me putting on an act, it's really just literally showing how I feel.
Alex Parker
Fantastic, Cody. I'm just wondering, you spoke a bit about some of the strategies, particularly about how you look towards your future self for, for guiding some of your current choices and behaviors, but how, what other strategies have you picked up throughout your life that helped lead to or maintaining good mental health?
Cody Weightman
Yeah, I think at the end of last year, I had a, I did a road trip back home, and I learned a lot of things about myself and the way I think. I just got really curious for about a two or three month period about the mental state of me as a person and an athlete.
And I listened to a heap of podcasts on that road trip and did a lot of reading and stuff. And I've just figured out how, how important a routine can be to my life. I think coming through my life, I was always at school in football programs, et cetera, that routines were always forced upon me.
And I was supposed to be at lunch at this time, and I was supposed to be in period four at this time, and sorta everything was just structured without me consciously doing it myself. And once I became a footballer, I moved out of home. I probably dropped the ball a little bit and was just living day to day, and I wasn't too structured at all.
And I didn't think that was affecting me, but as I dug deeper into it, I started to realize that with a bit of performance anxiety and just general anxiety in general, I think I really benefited from a routine that I put into my, into my life and the way I go about my day-to-day life. I try to have a consistent morning and a consistent night, just so that what I have, whatever happens between the start and finish of my day is pretty much set up by the morning or the night.
And I just give myself a good chance to stay happy and healthy during that I guess, 12, 12-ish hour period. And it also helps in my sleep, which then flows into that as well.
Alex Parker
Fantastic. So, you've already touched on, I guess, in describing that some of the strategies that you use and perhaps ones you would recommend. But just wondering what your message would be to VU staff and students and the community of the west who were struggling in the face of COVID-19 restrictions at the moment back home. What advice would you have to all of us?
Cody Weightman
Yeah, for sure. I think COVID, obviously, presenting its own unique situation and challenges, but in the face of that, life can be a little bit different and strange, but certainly getting back to bringing in a routine. I think that can be so influential and you don't realize sometimes that you're going through the motions until you do put a routine in place and you start to really feel yourself again.
And that sort of what happened to me this year. And whether it's getting up a little bit earlier at the same time every day, rather than changing your wake up time every day and your body system starts to understand yourself and it's awake when your alarm actually goes off.
And whether it's, you know, I like to do cold water in the morning and try to really wake myself up or do a bit of breathing work and stuff like that. Just to give yourself a bit of something to look forward to and a bit of system. I think certainly at the moment, I can be really beneficial for people back home and.
Yeah. Hopefully, if a bit of routine comes into place, then you should've really understand yourself a little bit more, I think.
Alex Parker
That's fantastic advice, Cody. And I think somehow along the way, you've done, with all the reading that you've done and the self-learning that you're doing, you've certainly found some ways that have worked for you.
And I think would be ones that we would recommend would help others as well in terms of keeping a routine, looking after yourself, the breathing, the sleep, all of those things you've mentioned.
Thank you so much for spending some time with us and for sharing a little bit about, more about your story. We really appreciate it and best of luck with the recovery from the concussion, and hope all goes well for the Bulldogs in the finals.
Cody Weightman
Thanks a lot, Alex. Very appreciate it.
Alex Parker
Thanks, Cody.
Cody Weightman
No worries. Thank you.
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