Who is Aaron Rodgers?
It’s a sophisticated query and one which Netflix and administrators Gotham Chopra and Liam Hughes dedicate three hours to answering in Enigma, the streamer’s revelatory new documentary sequence. Over the course of three episodes — “Becoming,” “Awakening” and “Reckoning” — Rodgers welcomes viewers to attract their very own conclusions by inviting cameras into his life in ways in which appear unprecedented for an energetic NFL quarterback. Have you ever seen a Hall of Famer getting excessive on ayahuasca and considering what life should be like for a butterfly because it emerges from a cocoon? No? Yeah, effectively, similar.
Produced by Religion of Sports (co-founded by NFL nice Tom Brady), Skydance Sports and NFL Films and Religion of Sports, Enigma tackles the query by tracing Rodgers’ profession from being chosen because the twenty fourth choose within the 2005 NFL Draft to changing into Super Bowl champ and four-time league MVP. The sequence additionally goes deep in revealing what life has been like off the sphere. After being anointed a famous person together with his Super Bowl XLV championship because the quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, Rodgers had a sequence of high-profile relationships with Hollywood actresses whereas additionally confronting a household rift by the use of actuality TV. In more moderen years, he’s change into one thing of a lightning rod within the press for floating conspiracy theories, questioning the NFL’s COVID-19 vaccination coverage and pondering a bid for the White House as a possible vice presidential candidate for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
All of the above is roofed in Enigma, which dedicates a big chunk of its working time to his season-ending harm when he tore his Achilles on the fourth play of his New York Jets debut, and the next (and lightning-fast) restoration course of. Then there’s his relationship to spirituality and ayahuasca. Viewers not solely hear him repeatedly credit score the plant-based drugs for his restoration and for serving to him change into the person he desires to be, however they see him swallowing the liquid throughout intimate ceremonies as a part of a three-night retreat within the Costa Rican jungle. It’s fairly a journey, and there are scenes in Enigma that discover Rodgers trying to reply the query himself.
“Who am I?” he asks at one level, mulling over his success and the inner conflicts that got here in consequence. “Am I the soccer participant? Am I the off-the-field man? Plenty of it’s the battle of id. I used to be battling who I used to be and who I needed to be.”
Draw your personal conclusions based mostly on 10 highlights from Enigma under.
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Psychedelic Awakenings: “I’m Enough”
Image Credit: Courtesy of Netflix The second episode, titled “Awakening,” focuses largely on Rodgers’ journey with plant drugs, particularly ayahuasca, which takes him to a retreat in Costa Rica the place he engages in a trippy and non secular three-night ceremony. He was joined on the journey by fellow NFL gamers Jordan Poyer of the Miami Dolphins and former Chicago Bears and San Francisco 49ers star Adrian Colbert. While the episode options appearances by guides and shamans, Rodgers emerges because the chief of the pack in a number of sequences the place he delivers speeches that element the expertise, its penalties and the seemingly increased degree of consciousness that comes with hours spent underneath the affect. “I’m simply sitting right here reminded of how nothing in life is a coincidence. Think in regards to the purpose why you’re right here. The journey why you’re right here is unnecessary, I imply, within the grand scheme of issues. All the issues that needed to occur so that you can be right here, simply on this lifetime,” Rodgers says. “It makes me bear in mind, my life issues. Your life issues. All of this issues. We’re right here for a purpose to do one thing particular. This is a top-of-the-mountain expertise. We’re pushing ourselves to the sting with numerous medicines. Why? Because my life issues. Because I’ve acquired a number of ancestors backing me up. I’ve acquired the unseen world and the whispers of the universe telling me I matter. That I’m sufficient.”
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“Plant Medicine Has Been a Big Teacher for Me”
Image Credit: Courtesy of Netflix Fame, success, perfectionism and spirituality are working themes in Enigma as a result of Rodgers has wrestled with all of it in his private life. And he repeatedly credit ayahuasca as the important thing to discovering peace with the entire above. “Plant drugs has been an enormous trainer for me for self-love, to learn to love myself higher,” he says, later including that he notably enjoys ayahuasca ceremonies the place he’s surrounded by teams of like-minded people on the identical non secular journey. “The feeling you get whenever you may be uncooked and weak with males is particular,” he says, as somebody who is aware of the divide of being an alpha male on the sphere and a delicate human being off of it. After the primary ceremony in Costa Rica, he describes the expertise as “actually, actually tough” as a result of he was confronted together with his darkest, deepest secrets and techniques and compelled to seek out methods to like himself in these moments. In one specific second, he says he heard crucial voices telling him that he’s “this” or “that” or a “horrible” individual. “It wasn’t till the tip,” he says that he realized, “Fine. You win. I’m bored with combating. Yes, I’m these issues. And I simply mentioned, ‘See, you’re unlovable.’ I sat with that for some time…[But] the drugs mentioned, ‘Why can’t you like your self? If you don’t imagine that you just deserve the love, you certain as hell can’t obtain it.’”
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Shirtless, Sweaty and “So Thankful I Stuck This Out”
Image Credit: Courtesy of Netflix One of the docuseries’ most memorable scenes comes through the second episode when Rodgers and his ayahuasca buddies duck into the Temazcal, an historical indigenous sweat lodge for a daytime ceremony that’s designed as “a symbolic journey again to the maternal womb.” They spend hours in a tented hut as a information gently locations fiery rocks inside as smoke billows out. Rodgers cops to having visions, listening to noises and teetering on the sting of consciousness. There’s loads of bodily discomfort and a few puking, too. Once he emerges, sweaty and shirtless, the Hall of Famer says, “I’m going to go within the little creek and be so grateful that I caught this out.” Rodgers then lays in a puddle of water together with his eyes closed as he seeks reduction from the bodily draining occasion. On a lighter be aware, there’s a scene in the identical episode that finds Rodgers considering what life should be like for a caterpillar because it emerges from a cocoon to change into a butterfly. “A caterpillar opens its wings and [is like], ‘I can’t fucking imagine that is my life now. I get to fly round. I get to scent flowers,’” he suggests the morning after an hours-long ayahuasca journey within the evening. “To dwell like that? Living your wildest goals each single day. Nights like tonight present me, present us, what is feasible and what life appears to be like like residing it to the fullest.”
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A Rough Ride Toward Self-Love and Acceptance
Image Credit: Courtesy of Netflix Rodgers goes deep by revealing the affect of rising up in a conservative and non secular family and the way he has spent years wrestling freed from the ideology, expectations and rigidity of these constructions. “I grew up in a really white dogmatic church and that didn’t actually serve me. It was very inflexible in construction and I’m not a really inflexible individual. Shame, guilt, judgment. It was like, ‘We have the reality. Our approach or the freeway. Our approach is heaven, your approach is hell.’ Talking to my dad and mom, it was very black and white — anyone needs to be fallacious, anyone needs to be proper.” He says he finally set out on his personal non secular journey after assembly Rob Bell, a pastor and creator who got here to talk to the Green Bay Packers. They grew to become associates, and that relationship led Rodgers to develop his information base by dipping into books on philosophy and self-help. “I discovered a braveness to talk my emotions higher. I began to face as much as establishments of my youth, organized religions, my dad and mom, dogma, ideology. I used to be questioning all of it,” he says. Ultimately, that looking out led him to ayahuasca, which he says he’s carried out over 4 journeys and 9 ceremonies. “It’s the toughest drugs potential that I’ve tried. It’s a deeply intense non secular journey,” he says. In one scene, he means that it’s all been a journey in quest of self-love and acceptance as a result of that’s one thing he missed in his youth. “I simply needed to listen to, ‘I’m happy with you.’”
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Tackling Public Perception and the “COVID War”
Image Credit: Sarah Stier/Getty Images The third episode of Enigma, “Reckoning,” tackles lots of the hot-button points which have plagued Rodgers within the press lately as he’s flirted with conspiracy theories and been pressured to defend his COVID-19 standing. (During a press convention, he claimed to be “immunized” although he was by no means vaccinated.) Rodgers absolutely seems like he’s at peace with how he’s perceived amid the criticisms which were regularly lobbed towards him from all corners of the web. “It’s the age of shock and I simply don’t resonate with that,” he says. “In the previous, I might’ve been fueled by bitterness and resentment, and now I’m undoubtedly trending extra in the direction of curiosity and humor than bitterness and resentment. I don’t must struggle the powers that be. I don’t want to seek out the COVID conflict anymore, and I do really feel indifferent from that in a wholesome approach. Not in a judgment approach, I need to make that as clear as potential. I don’t know the way it’s going to return off however I don’t resonate with that power. That doesn’t imply I decide the power. I’m really tremendous interested by the place that comes from and why, and what I’ve realized is that if you happen to can have a wholesome detachment from that, energetically. It’s only a passing thought, and a smirk or a smile, after which it’s on to the following.”
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The Netflix Doc That Changed His Perspective on Winning at All Costs
Image Credit: Courtesy of Netflix During his Netflix docuseries, Rodgers credit one other one of many streamer’s nonfiction choices for influencing his perspective on profitable and dropping and what all of it means. “I watched the BALCO documentary on Neflix and browse the ebook,” he reveals, referencing Untold: Hall of Shame, which investigated considered one of sports activities’ greatest steroid scandals. “Everybody in that documentary and ebook have been obsessive about profitable. Their solely factor was ‘win in any respect prices.’ Is profitable in any respect prices acceptable? Vince Lombardi had a well-known quote that mentioned, ‘Winning isn’t every little thing, it’s the one factor.’ Is that true? I don’t actually subscribe to that.” He claims that in 20 years, it will likely be “laborious for folks to recollect who received each single Super Bowl.” Whether or not that’s true, he mentioned the title that he received with the Green Bay Packers will all the time be particular. “I’ve mentioned many occasions that the thought of success and failure is sadly tied to profitable and dropping. That’s not a binary illustration, I don’t imagine,” he says. “You’re going to play your greatest generally and it’s not going to be ok. You’re going to play not your greatest and also you may not win. That doesn’t imply that’s not success. And the flip facet doesn’t imply it’s failure. I don’t really feel like I must show something to anyone however myself at this level, which is a superb place to be.”
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Fame Was a Struggle: “I Definitely Hated It At First”
Image Credit: Courtesy of Netflix Rodgers’ relationship to his movie star standing and the pitfalls of fame fall into focus within the second episode, which finds the soccer star speaking about how profitable the Super Bowl with the Green Bay Packers in 2010 utterly modified his life. “I didn’t do myself any favors with a number of the ladies that I dated after that that have been within the public eye,” he says, referring to a listing of affection pursuits that features Olivia Munn, Danica Patrick and Shailene Woodley. “I undoubtedly hated it at first — actually despised it. I loved my non-public life.” That life evaporated because of the commitments that got here as a Super Bowl champ (and MVP), together with high-profile appearances and a long-running partnership with State Farm. He additionally grew to become a goal of the tabloids and even received Jeopardy! “[Fame] just isn’t one thing I ever desired or needed, aside from enjoying on Sundays.”
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How a “Bullshit Show” Like ‘The Bachelorette’ Deepened a Family Rift
Image Credit: Amy Sussman/Getty Images Rodgers’ youthful brother, Jordan Rodgers, was a contestant on the massively well-liked actuality relationship present The Bachelorette. There was a scene in his season that discovered the season’s title character JoJo Fletcher touring to the Rodgers’ residence for dinner. The household left an open seat for Aaron, which is one thing he took problem with. “It wasn’t like I used to be tremendous duper shut with everybody within the household,” he explains, including that there was “stuff from highschool that made me really feel distant and I used to be quiet about it.” But then the present turned up the amount on it greater than he would’ve appreciated. “They go on a bullshit relationship present. They all agree that this was a great factor to do,” he says, referring to the empty seat at dinner. “A dinner that was through the [football] season, not that I used to be ever requested to go to [it].” As for the potential of discovering forgiveness at some point, Rodgers is optimistic. “People ask me, ‘Is there hope for reconciliation?’ I say, ‘Yeah, in fact. Of course.’ I don’t need them to fail, to wrestle, to have any strife or points. I don’t want any unwell will on them in any respect. It’s extra like this — we’re simply totally different steps on a timeline of our personal journeys.”
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From the Gridiron to the White House?
Image Credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Rodgers’ friendship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. generated numerous headlines when it was revealed that the controversial presidential candidate had requested the NFL star to be his working mate as vp. The docuseries follows the 2 as they went on a hike in Los Angeles on Feb. 15, 2024. “Have you considered going into politics,” Kennedy asks Rodgers. The native of Chico, California, says that he acquired into politics in highschool nevertheless it wasn’t till he realized extra in regards to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the uncle of RFK Jr., that the veil was pulled again for him. He doesn’t go into element about what that basically means, however he does say, “I haven’t had an open thought in politics till you introduced your candidacy.” Later within the episode, Rodgers reveals that it was after that hike that Kennedy requested him to hitch the race. He finally declined. “I really like soccer and I need to maintain enjoying, and I hated the way in which final yr went,” he says of the season through which he tore his Achilles whereas enjoying for the New York Jets. “There’s nonetheless some unfinished enterprise in New Jersey.”
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A Hero’s Journey: Rodgers Confronts Aging and Contemplates Football vs. Character Legacy
Image Credit: Courtesy of Netflix In the third and last episode of Enigma, Rodgers confronts some heavy topics, from ageing to legacy. In one scene as he’s driving to Jets apply, the then 40-year-old opens up on what it feels wish to be and see his age. “I used to joke about enjoying 12 years, and thought that may be fairly superior. I couldn’t imagine after I began my fifteenth season,” he says of his NFL profession, which has surpassed expectations. “Then I mentioned, ‘Being 40 and being a starter could be fairly cool.’ Now I’m 40, so it’s wild to be in my twentieth season simply fascinated about all of the adjustments through the years, from being a pimple-faced 21-year-old child who may solely develop a bit of little bit of facial hair on my chin to now having to determine whether or not I need to shade my chin hair that’s turning grey. It’s a enjoyable little life arc within the NFL. Knowing that is close to the tip, I’m actually having fun with the journey.” In the episode’s last moments, he investigates what legacy means to him by dividing it into two components, “soccer legacy” versus “character legacy.” “We’re all on some degree of a hero’s journey that often entails studying one thing and determining alongside the way in which,” he says, noting that it’s character legacy meaning essentially the most to him. And staying current alongside the way in which. “Life actually exists in thousands and thousands of little moments. So, simply can we be current to not miss out on the moments alongside the way in which that really make the journey worthwhile?” As for when his NFL journey will finish, Rodgers takes a beat and appears instantly into the digital camera: “It may very well be the final yr, nevertheless it couldn’t be.” Sounds like one thing an enigma would say.
