There wasn’t a spare seat in the room when John Kirwan held a wellness workshop in Alexandra on Thursday night (June 9).

John Kirwan was honest about his experiences with anxiety and depression and attendees listened intently for almost two hours.

He spoke with candour, and at times gut wrenching seriousness about the challenges he had faced during his illness.

“I was dead… I’d cry and feel like a failure.

“Getting from bed to the letterbox and back was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

“Anxiety attacks would make me shake… I thought I might drive off the harbour bridge or into a lamppost,” John said. 

John said anxiety and depression takes away self-esteem, self-confidence and all the enjoyment in life. 

He said his experience was that they were a “cloud, a weight on my shoulders and a darkness”. 

He credits rugby icon Michael Jones for a comment that prompted him to act.

“The Ice man said… ‘JK you’ve got a good heart’. Michael Jones… he saved my life.”

Eventually, John talked to the All Black doctor at the time, John Mayhew, and got help from him, as well as a psychiatrist (and various antidepressants). 

He said it was a journey of around six years until he felt well. 

John got the crowd to all get up and have a dance to ‘How Bizarre’ and then later on do a mindfulness breathing exercise, to understand how energy can influence how you feel, and how living in the present is crucial to mental health.

Close to 100 people heard from inspirational speaker John Kirwan at the Packing Shed in Earnscleugh. PHOTO: The Central App

He said we need to change how we think about mental health as almost everyone is affected by it at some point in their lives.

“There are four percent of the population who are born with a mental health issue… four percent who don’t ever suffer with mental health, and another 92 per cent of the population who are all on a scale.

John said one of the first tools he began to use was a ‘worry map’ where he listed things he could control, couldn’t control and he could do and couldn’t do.

The example of stopping worrying about the weather was appropriate for the audience of orchardists and horticulture workers.

“Who controls the weather? It is certainly not me or you,” John said.  

The audience was encouraged by John to create their own daily mental health plan consisting of a series of things to put their ‘Bob in a cage’ (Bob is John’s name for his overactive anxious brain). 

He said it was also important to find something to look forward to every day.

John said his mental health plan involved simple things such as feeling the hot water in the shower each morning, having his coffee and really tasting it without the interruptions of a smartphone, taking his dog for a walk together with his wife, cooking, reading, surfing and learning to play the guitar. 

“Do ‘DOT’: Do one thing for your mental health each day and then do it again and again.

“After DOT do DAT – do another thing.”

Two small things we can all try, straight from the lips of a legend - do DOT and then do DAT.

For more about John Kirwan’s mental health work see the groov website. There is a free public app you can download to give you the tools to change things for your daily wellbeing.