40. [Season 4] How to Build Mental Resilience and Embrace Body Confidence with Erin, Sports Psychologist
n this empowering episode, Jess speaks with Erin, a sports psychologist, who shares her journey from traditional therapy to sports psychology, highlighting her battle with body image and self-identity while in grad school. The conversation navigates the pressure of societal messages, particularly around body image and athletic performance, and how these often shape our self-perception. Erin encourages listeners to become more aware of these narratives and to challenge them by embracing more self-compassionate and constructive perspectives.
A focal point of the discussion is the transformative power of mindfulness meditation for athletes. Erin explains how it helps individuals stay grounded, manage anxiety, and respond to situations thoughtfully rather than reactively. This practice strengthens self-awareness, making it easier for athletes to maintain focus and adjust when faced with challenging emotions during their performances.
Together, Jess and Erin also explore the importance of building sustainable habits and resisting perfectionism. By focusing on the identity we wish to embody, rather than just end goals, we can nurture resilient behaviors that align with who we want to become. Emphasizing curiosity and acceptance, Erin illustrates that understanding our own triggers and habits can lead us to a more fulfilling and self-compassionate mindset, in sports and beyond.
Connect with Erin HERE.
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Speaker 1: 0:09
Hello, friend, and welcome to Sturdy Girl, a podcast focused on strength, not size, where you will hear conversations around flexible body image, cultivating confidence and being a resilient human in both body and mind. Sturdy Girl is the podcast where we shift the focus away from your appearance and on to living the big, rad life you deserve. Hello, friends, and welcome back to another episode of Sturdy Girl. I am so stoked with the series of interviews we are along the ride for during the season. But today's guest we have Erin, joining us. Thank you for being here. I feel like I've already gotten to know you a little bit just with. We had a little pre-chat a couple weeks ago. But introduce yourself, Tell me a little bit about what you do.
Speaker 2: 0:52
So excited to be here. I also I was so happy to have found you. I'm like, oh, we could be friends. So my name is Erin she her pronouns.
Speaker 2: 1:01
I am based in Minneapolis, minnesota, and I am a sports psychologist. That's kind of the quick and dirty version. The somewhat longer, more moderate version is I went to grad school to become a traditional therapist psychologist. Really liked research, really liked health psychology, really struggled with self-care while in grad school and like body image and self identity, figuring out who I was, like being.
Speaker 2: 1:23
I had just gotten out of a big relationship and so I was single for the first time in a long time in a new state in grad school, and so then I started running for self-care. So that was in 2009 that I started and I have since done a bunch of marathons. And then I got the triathlon bug, and then I got the cycling bug and I raced bikes for several years and now I'm returning to running and cycling after eight years. So I'm a sports psychologist and a very avid endurance athlete who has done a lot of work with especially just female athletes girls women, also a good amount of work with trans and non-binary athletes, and so my day to day is really one on one meetings and sessions. Think of mental health therapy for athletes. So it's like therapy. But we put that athletic identity front and center a lot of the time because it takes up so much space in our lives as athletes.
Speaker 1: 2:12
So that's me. I love that. What a great rundown. I don't have a good, let's say, elevator pitch, if you will, of who I am and what I do, and yours was so well versed and concise, that's like the short-ish version.
Speaker 2: 2:24
It's taken me a long time to get it, and some days are better than others when I share it, so well done.
Speaker 1: 2:30
Okay. So you started school with mine to be a therapist, and was it interest through classes you were taking or personal experience with running, like what shifted things for you to be like all right, we're working with athletes. This is my jam.
Speaker 2: 2:43
Yeah, when I was younger, in high school and in college, I didn't plan on being a therapist and I remember my own therapist when I was in high school was like you're really insightful or something where she's like you'd be a really good therapist someday. And I kind of latched onto that information and I was like, okay, psychology, maybe I'll go in that direction. And so then I did that for undergrad and then I'll never forget, I was sitting in my advisor's office as a freshman or sophomore must have been as a freshman picking classes for the next semester and I had been told that biology of women was like quote unquote easier than the general bio one and two. Because there was a really big nursing program at my school where I went to college and I was told it was pretty demanding and I've never been a huge fan of bio. And she looked at me and I told her this and she's like do you want to go to grad school? And no one had ever asked me that question. I had never really considered it and I was like, well, I guess so maybe. And she's like, then you should take general bio one and two. And I was like, okay, I guess that's what I'm doing and who likes to be a doer of all things. I like to try new things.
Speaker 2: 3:45
I became a stats tutor, I joined a research team, I started teaching lab classes in psychology and they encouraged me to apply to grad school. I was like, well, I don't want to do something where I'll be pigeonholed, where, like being a therapist, for example, where that's like the one thing that I'll be doing. I want to have a lot of different options, and so a PhD in counseling psychology was a good option for me, because then I could go the academic route if I wanted to, and be a professor. I could just do research. I could do a lot of different things. And so it was in grad school. Then I assumed I'd be a professor, and then my postdoc was in health psychology, helping med students with self-care and then researching their self-care, or lack thereof, and how they dealt with stress and quality of life. And then I started working with more athletes. And then I fell in love with sports psychology and I also had an opportunity to teach an undergrad course in sports psych. I was like this is really cool.
Speaker 2: 4:39
Then I did the professor thing for I don't know a handful of years four or five years maybe, and then started sports psychology part time and fell in love with it and then eventually had to let go of academia altogether because I just couldn't do both anymore. It just wasn't sustainable, and so I started sports psychology practice, I'd say 2018. And then in 2020, I went full time and then in 2023, I left the group that I was practicing for and then started my own business. So now I'm technically a one woman operation. I'm kind of the only one in client facing roles, but I have a couple of people who support me behind the scenes with emails, marketing, content development, research, things like that. So really it's been an accidental journey. I've just really followed my intuition, my energy, my passion along the way. Never thought I would be where I am today and I'm loving it. It's really cool.
Speaker 1: 5:33
That's awesome, though, and especially, too, it's like the exploration piece. You know, hearing like, okay, I was interested in this and this is how I got started. But as you went along and you're like, okay, like this better, no, we like this. And then having those experiences and being able to make those, I say pivots, right to be able to say, actually, it's these areas that interest me, and now to have your own business and be doing what you enjoy and love and get fulfillment from on a day-to-day basis right, which is so cool, especially like when I was in a professor and then when I was in group practice.
Speaker 2: 5:59
It was kind of the generalist where I would see all athletes, all sports sports all ages and levels and whatnot. And now I have more of kind of a niche, which has been super cool because now I can really lean into that and then all of the clients who come to me feel like they're the perfect client. So I work with almost all women and girls, some trans and non-binary athletes, and then most of my sports are endurance. So I've got rowers and paddlers, I've got runners, whether ultra trail runs or like track and field or cross country high school I've got cyclists, triathletes.
Speaker 2: 6:31
Nordic skiing is huge in Minnesota so I see a lot of Nordic skiers, cross country skiing as well. So it's really cool because it's just a different mindset, with kind of that exercise induced pain that we deal with and kind of the mental blocks and the pain cave, and so I'm able to really lean into that niche of endurance and then gender as well, which allows me to dig deeper into, for example, like perimenopause and that transition and changes in body shape and body composition and what that brings up and how that affects mental health Right, and so it allows me to go that much deeper in the areas I'm most passionate about, and it makes my work that much richer and better along the way. That was awesome, okay.
Speaker 1: 7:09
I know that we had put a poll on social media to pick a topic on what we want to focus on. But before I dive into like what everyone voted on and we chat about that, I wanted to just ask a little bit more about like with the endurance piece. I call it a gritty mindset when we talk endurance, like are there any tips? Like little bits that you give?
Speaker 1: 7:31
A lot of our listeners are endurance athletes. I have like equal parts endurance athletes and like powerlifters Awesome, right, yeah, but you're thinking about that endurance piece. Having competed in endurance events and competed in things like powerlifting, there's such a different mindset in both. They're both hard, like I'm not saying powerlifting is easy, it's not where you can go out for hours at a time. Has a different mindset than like all right, I've got this one rep max, I'm getting on the platform. I have one minute, you know, and you do that nine times in a day. Versus like how do I keep going and deal with the shenanigans in my brain Because that endurance, there are so many stories that we tell ourselves or so much of that self-talk piece or so much of those things that play a part in your performance.
Speaker 2: 8:12
Sorry, I'm like going off on a tangent it's so, it's so important and, honestly, the tip that I kind of use you can use for like powerlifting as well. So the thing that I always say is all too often we trick ourselves into believing that this next event that we're going to have is going to be a really good one or at least we hope that it's going to be a really good one and we conveniently ignore the pain and frustration and angst and worries along the way, like we don't plan for it. And part of that is our culture of being like manifest positivity, just think positive, just be confident, and so we feel like we're unintentionally screwing ourselves if we think about some of the worst case scenarios or what could happen. So I'm very much a realist and so what I say is as an endurance athlete let's say you've got we'll just say a half marathon and it's a race. If you are running to your maximal potential or your abilities, how would most people feel at mile 10? They're going to hurt, right. They're not going to feel good at mile 10 out of 13 if they really are truly running to their potential and pushing the pace, because at that point the fatigue starts to really settle in, your mind starts playing mind games with you. You're like I don't know if I can hold this for another 5k, maybe I should just ease up.
Speaker 2: 9:20
All of that stuff starts, and so what I always say is plan for it. So then, when it shows up, you're like okay, this is the part of the race where I want to quit, or this is the part of the race where I want to slow down, or my brain tells me to just ease up and I'm not going to do it. So you basically plan in advance, and in therapy we call it like cope ahead, and it's a skill that we use for like emotion regulation and distress tolerance. This is no different, it's just in the race setting. So then you bring that to weightlifting or powerlifting Same thing. Let's say you're warming up, you're doing a couple of easier lifts to warm up for maybe the final set or the final max rep, and then it's like, okay, this is the part in the day where my brain starts telling me I'm not going to make the lift or I'm too fatigued or I just don't got it.
Speaker 2: 10:03
Whatever the case may be, you normalize it because we know that our brains are trying to look out for us and they like to be that like over helpful friend that's not actually helpful and giving us all of these worst case scenarios and like, well, you should be careful you might get injured. Don't do that, but be intentional with those decisions. For exercise induced pain. We know within reason you can dig deeper pain. We know within reason you can dig deeper. But within reason, push yourself. It should feel hard, that's okay. Don't expect to feel like a superhero. If you're two thirds of the way into the race and you're really struggling, chances are you're doing it right.
Speaker 1: 10:32
Yeah, it's embracing discomfort, knowing like, okay, if this is going to be uncomfortable, how am I going to handle the discomfort? That's a skill set to be learned and practiced and I mean that's the half of what I was saying like training your brain as well as training your body. It's not supposed to be comfortable. You're not supposed to be loving life two thirds of the way through a race.
Speaker 2: 10:51
Right, you plan for it. And so then what I do with my athletes is say OK, what does your brain tell you? What are the stories that come up? I'm not good enough, I'm too slow, I'm too fat, I'm too old? There's usually you're too much of something or you're not enough of something else. What are those stories? So when they show up, then we just name the story. Okay, I've heard this story before. This is the like I can't climb story. I'm not a climber. As a cyclist, there are so many stereotypes about do you look like a sprinter? Do you look like a climber? Right, what if you can also be an all-arounder and do all of those things moderately? Well, it's trying to kind of let your brain play in the gray area. We just like labels. Our brain likes to be black and white. It's easier, it's more efficient, but it's not always serving us, and so it's being able to kind of embrace those nuances and get curious with the stories underneath those sayings and the things that we say to ourselves.
Speaker 1: 11:38
Where did these things come from. I think that's a conversation I've had a lot with athletes as far as like the runner who starts lifting and then they're like I'm not strong enough. Should I squat twice my body weight or deadlift this much? What am I aiming for? And you're like it's not that piece. It's not that you're not strong enough. That's another conversation we're having. You're not trying to be an elite power lifter while also running marathons, right, that's not the goal here. That's not the goal here. What are you hoping to get out of strength training? We are avoiding injury, we're maintaining muscle mass and, yeah, we're building strength. But do you want to deadlift 300 pounds? Like that's not a measure of you being a better person, but it's so interesting what we put on ourselves.
Speaker 2: 12:19
Yes, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves. And then there's those other worries of, well, what if I bulk up, or what if I get too big, or what if I slow down because I weigh more, because I have more muscle mass, like all of those things. And it's like, well, what do you actually want in being an athlete? What are you looking for? It's embracing those nuances and being willing to ask the questions but then to like ask back instead of looking for one right answer.
Speaker 1: 12:36
Okay, question along these lines, though, as you are returning to running and you're coming back to these things we have done work on body image, we have done work on self-confidence, on those pieces, on those mindset, but do you still get that little voice in the back of your head? You're not the runner you used to be and you're like, hey, excuse me, no matter what we do it still creeps in Totally, even like as a sports psychologist who teaches this stuff.
Speaker 2: 12:59
Yes, I still deal with all of these things.
Speaker 2: 13:01
I still have negative self-talk Like that inner critic is still there, and a lot of it is because of, just like sport, diet, culture and all of these gendered assumptions that people make about what an athlete quote unquote should or should not look like, and we internalize them just whether we want to or not.
Speaker 2: 13:16
It's like a fish here. It's like the water that you're swimming in, it's the air that we breathe. We can't get away from it, but I think the key is to be aware of it and then to just name it when it shows up, because we also know, like the more that, especially for women, the more that we internalize all of these messages about what our body should look like, and the more that we internalize the like be lean, you know, and that a runner is supposed to look a certain way, the more likely we are to engage in disordered eating. The worse the body satisfaction is, the more their body surveillance where we start, like checking ourselves in the mirror how are my clothes fitting? And so we have to be willing to let go of those messages in order to actually find the sense of self worth as athletes, instead of looking to these external cues of like well, do I look the role or do I look the part? Because then we're just cheating ourselves.
Speaker 1: 14:02
Well, let's continue this conversation Because this is the resounding answer from our audience. When we placed that poll on social media was talking about tools to support body acceptance or how to respond to that negative self-talk and that internalized messaging around appearance, around weight. Let's keep this conversation going, because that is you speaking gender specific. Because I am in a female body, I can't speak for men, but the messaging for women in our society is wild and even if you're not reading direct headlines, you are watching TV or movies with women who embody a certain body type. You watch movies from like the early 2000s. I rewatched the Devil Wears Prada not too long ago. It was like Anne Hathaway and she talks about. She came in as a size six and they were calling her fat and too big and she didn't fit in anything when she started working at this fashion magazine Right, and then, like two thirds of the way through the movie, she's like I'm a size four, so suddenly she's so much thinner and it's more acceptable.
Speaker 2: 14:56
And she's like in, like she's made it.
Speaker 1: 14:58
Yeah, yeah. And so it's like, even if we don't necessarily have like the direct thought process of oh, I saw this model, that's what I'm supposed to look like. Oh, this headline says this is what healthy looks like. We see bodies every day. We see what's promoted in movies, tv shows, magazines, billboards, all the things. Yep, it's all around us.
Speaker 2: 15:18
Yep, I think there are so many different tools and the thing that I always think about is think of a tool belt or even another analogy is like a chocolate chip cookie recipe. Like we always start with the Nestle Tollhouse yellow chocolate chips recipe on the back of the bag because we know it works, and then over time you can change the recipe based off of your preferences. You can add more or fewer chocolate chips, you can add peanut butter or nuts or oatmeal, right? So think of all of the sports. Psychology stuff is really similar and, frankly, coaching and performance, it's similar. Different things work for different people. So with any of these strategies we talk through, if it doesn't work for you, that's okay, try it again in a different context and stay curious about it. But not all of these things will work beautifully. And then some of them you might be like whoa, that worked right away and it was amazing. So I think one of the most important pieces is recognizing, like when we tell ourselves these stories, we have to recognize that society has taught us and shown us these messages. So it's not our fault that we feel this way about ourselves, because sometimes there's this self criticism or shame of like I feel like I should da da, da, da da. Well, like, not necessarily if you've been swimming in all of these messages about what a woman should look like and so understanding, like when we are always kind of surveying our bodies and checking in. Technically, it's just another form. It's self objectification, it's body objectification. We're looking at our body from the outside and judging it and seeing it as an object. So, as athletes, it makes sense because our bodies are also tools, right. But it's like focusing on, rather, what it looks like as opposed to what it does, and that's a really important distinction. And so it's really important to recognize we're not actually helping ourselves if we're just focusing on what our body looks like and kind of picking it apart, because we're reinforcing all of these messages that society has been giving us anyway. So what does this look like on a day to day basis? I think it can be certain things like, and it also depends on your social network. It depends on your personality kind of your skill set and what else is going on in relationships.
Speaker 2: 17:15
Knowing what your triggers are is really important. I'm a huge fan of doing a regular social media audit where I scroll through. Anytime I see a before and after photo I unfollow, even if it means that person is, you know, was living a quote unquote very unhealthy lifestyle and had maybe a lot of difficulty and health concerns and was seen as obese or overweight. And now they've lost all this weight and now they're wonderfully healthy. Like, nope. I'm not going to fall victim to some of those messages Kudos to that person for being healthier, but I don't want to praise them for being in a smaller body. Like. That's just not a message that I want to internalize. So I unfollow on social media or even the like fit inspiration, fitspiration hashtags and fitspiration accounts Finspiration, nope, unfollow. So that, I think, is a really important tool because I know for me personally, that is one of my triggers of being like okay, well, how do I compare to so-and-so? Have I gained weight? Do I feel softer now? Am I less lean? And those messages aren't helping me Understanding that being able to have conversations with people about body talk is huge.
Speaker 2: 18:18
I think often we do this as women to each other as well. We'll be like you look really tired today, are you okay? That's body talk. We're focused on that person's appearance and judging them and evaluating them based off of that. Is that actually helping us. Or like wow, your arms look so good. What have you been doing lately? It's meant to be a compliment, but it's reinforcing these messages of the looks and what is seen as a good body or like an attractive body. Do we want to compliment our friend? Yeah, but it could be like wow, I love the way that you're carrying yourself today. It looks like you feel really strong. What have you been doing lately? Focus on the feelings and focus on the person, not on their body or their looks. So be willing to have those conversations so that when someone comes to you and they're like you look such and such, or like oh, I feel so fat today.
Speaker 2: 19:05
Right, being like I feel uncomfortable when we talk about bodies or we focus only on bodies before feelings or personality, characteristics or strengths or accomplishments. So like, can we change up the script? I'm working really hard on it. Are you willing to work with me too? So I think that's a really helpful tool. Is just that assertive communication? And then the final one. There are more, but the final one I'll stick with and then we can kind of go down whatever rabbit hole you'd like is naming the story, and so this is like when I see something in the media or someone says a remark of like oh you do you work out, you look like an athlete, or any sort of body talk that might trigger me is I just name the story and I'm like okay, here's the diet culture story. This is what athletes look like story. I'm familiar with this story. I know how this goes because by naming it, you're acknowledging it and then you can work toward accepting it and choosing how you want to respond. So lots of potential tools.
Speaker 1: 19:55
No, those are all fantastic. You were mentioning, like us, learning our triggers. That is such a rabbit hole in and of itself because it takes time and effort. So when you're giving tips on a podcast with something as big as this, of talking about body acceptance and talking about internalized messaging and those things, it's not just a oh my gosh. I listened to this episode and I got these tools and now I'm great. It's having to practice and it's trial and error and it's taking time and, like you said, with a lot of the tools, it's you try something out and you see if it works, but you try it again and again, like it's not just going to be a single time thing. And I think that's really important here because learning triggers, learning body image triggers, learning those pieces of oh, this called into question, like my sense of self, okay, those take a lot of time to learn because that awareness piece of even knowing that it's a trigger Until we start noticing the repeated messaging, we can just suddenly be like, oh my gosh, I'm hating on myself so much and I'm really uncomfortable and I can't look in the mirror in these clothes and all of a sudden it's this spiral, yeah.
Speaker 1: 20:52
And you're like how did I get here? And it was because one of your friends, when you were out in a group, made a comment about how fat they feel and they're six sizes smaller than you are, or something. And then you're like well, my God, what does that mean about me? And you started down this path? Well, I'm never wearing this outfit again because it obviously looked terrible. And if they think they're you know, and you just start that spiral and it's such a hard thing to teach, is that awareness piece of just start paying attention to your thoughts more? What does that look like? What does that feel like? What do you start saying to yourself when people bring up conversations and you're like that's diet culture.
Speaker 1: 21:25
Okay, this is like the thin ideal coming out. This is like the society's deception of like perfect beauty. Okay, well, guess what? If you look back through history, how much have ideal women's bodies changed? One decade it's having a really small waist and a really big butt. Another decade it was looking like a tube of toothpaste and being flat everywhere. Another decade it was having like the most conical boobs possible. It just depends on when you were alive for what the ideal is. What does that mean for us? Well, it means there's not actually an ideal. So how do we like have that?
Speaker 2: 21:55
conversation. Right, it's so hard and I still like I catch myself with it pretty regularly, like just the other day. So I'm dog sitting for a friend right now and I took her dog for a run yesterday and I was like I took him running, we did great and we only did 10 minute or 1030 pace, though, and just by that she called me on it and she's like hey, that's like the sprinting pace for some people and I was like thank you for checking me on this, and that was just yesterday. And then I think of a few months ago I was at a conference. It was for like a female athlete conference and they had all the speakers together the night beforehand and they had hors d'oeuvres and cookies, desserts, things like that. There were a lot of extra cookies and one of the moderators or kind of directors was like feel free to take as many as you want. And I said something along the lines of oh, I shouldn't take more than something because then I'll eat them all.
Speaker 2: 22:50
And like at this female athlete conference that we're all talking about body image and the importance of strength, and like what we're doing and how we're modeling these things for the next generation. I'm still falling susceptible to these messages, but the piece that is so important is owning up to it and learning from it and then not blaming yourself for it, because I think it's easy to get really defensive and being like, no, no, no, no, I didn't mean it that way, if someone says something, but no, we've got to have these, we've got to call each other in and have these conversations, and being like, oh my gosh, it's everywhere, because then we're more aware of it, we can normalize the conversations and then we can start to challenge all of these assumptions and messages in society.
Speaker 1: 23:23
And I think too to your point about just that like, oh no, I shouldn't, because then I'm going to eat all of it. That is such a strong, strong, internalized message of like I'm trying to think of how to even say this for it to make sense, because it's something that I have noticed over time when you interact with women, even if you don't necessarily mean it, it is something to say in the moment instead of just no-transcript, and it's something quote, unquote, normal that someone would say. And it's such a weirdly internalized where maybe you don't believe it, but that message has been repeated so many times that it comes up.
Speaker 2: 24:37
I see it often of like oh, I can't keep sugar in the house, I can't keep cookies in my house. So I think this is a really important piece of diet culture that has a lot of links to gender and confidence, especially because diet culture kind of caters to these quick fixes so one. It makes money off of our dissatisfaction with our bodies. These quick fixes so one. It makes money off of our dissatisfaction with our bodies. So let's note that. But then what it does is it kind of like sells to you by pulling on those emotional strings of like you don't conform to what bodies should like. So let me help you. Here's how to do it. And then how to do it is like keto or intermittent fasting or whole 30 or paleo or whatever it is, whatever the trend of the year is or the season, and people may see results short term and it's not sustainable because of the restriction needed to follow all of those regimens or diets. And so then what happens is we quote unquote fall off the wagon and then quote unquote fail and then go back to like regular eating patterns and then gain weight and then see ourselves as unable to like self-regulate or self-control and we see ourselves as the problem of like I just have to try harder, I just have to be more motivated. But then it decreases our confidence and our ability to stick with it. And then we also know, with diets, people are more likely to gain weight with each diet, and so then it's this reinforcing cycle and then you're more dissatisfied with your body and then you try the next one, and so it's trying to break those patterns and being like no, I'm not.
Speaker 2: 25:56
And for me, I'm just really stubborn and defiant sometimes. So I'm like I'm not falling for your messages. Nice try. But I think that's one of the best things that we can do is being like actually, I really am comfortable with my body. Some things I love about it, some things I don't. It is what it is. I'm not going to try to change it, not for you. If I change it for anyone, it's going to be for me. Thank you very much. That's body acceptance, exactly so. I think we don't have to love our bodies. I think we should respect them and, in my personal opinion, diet culture and falling susceptible to it is not how I respect my body. That doesn't.
Speaker 1: 26:27
No, but the messaging around it is so strong I mean, that's a big part of that is these repeated diets as well. So it worked for so-and-so. If it doesn't work for me, like I failed, I've tried all these other things. Well, maybe this is the thing we're always looking for those answers, and just keying into the messaging around.
Speaker 1: 26:43
How much money industries make preying on our insecurities, preying on our desire for this ideal look or body size or appearances. It's something that we can read a line in a book or a magazine or an article or a report or something and you're like, oh yeah, I know there's so many industries that make money off of me. And then, when you pull back and you look at the weight loss industry, when you look at, like cosmetics not that there's anything wrong with wearing makeup or anything like that, but cosmetics are to alter our appearance in some way. Don't get me wrong. I got mascara on, I put filled in the bald spot on my eyebrows because I just like a little symmetry. That's fine.
Speaker 1: 27:21
But then you look at all these other pieces of the quote unquote beauty industry, wellness industry. How much money is being made off of our desire not to get wrinkles, to cover up gray hair. Get rid of cellulite. My gosh, I remember middle school and like being so worried about cellulite that I was like buying these coffee scrubs and stuff with my babysitting money and my mom's like what are you doing? What is this?
Speaker 2: 27:44
But it's wild One thing I always say about like cosmetics, I like hair, I like makeup, I like doing my nails, I like wearing jewelry, like wearing cute clothes. Right, I always ask myself, like, am I doing this so that I can feel like more creative or to express myself as a person, or am I doing it to try to conform to certain standards? And that question is usually really helpful for me at helping to kind of differentiate. So, if I can be more creative with like nail polish or clothes or eyeshadow, great. Or am I doing it because I'm anxious about a presentation and I want to look the right role? Or, like you know, it's trying to kind of get curious with what's driving me to do this right now. Do I really need to do my hair? Do I need to get rid of my grays? Right, there's not a right or wrong answer, but it's just being mindful of how much money they make off of our dissatisfaction.
Speaker 1: 28:29
Absolutely. What are we making this mean about ourselves if we're like, oh, I'm feeling pulled to do this thing, well, why? Right? Yeah, there's such a huge part of that. I love that you keep using the word curiosity, because that comes along with that piece of awareness that we've talked about, I have talked about on so many different Sturdy Girl episodes, because it is really the most important starting point to work on our mindset, to work on our relationship with ourself, with behavior.
Speaker 1: 28:56
Change, like all of the things, is just being able to pay attention to something non-judgmentally. And so that's like with my coaching clients. My tagline for Everwild Performance is stay curious, get gritty. And that curiosity piece is so important because you're saying I'm not leading with judgment. I see this workout on my schedule for intervals and I am feeling some type of way about it, but I want to get curious for what I am capable of and how I can challenge myself and get out of a comfort zone. What does this look like? Instead of like, oh, I don't feel very good about this and I'm like feeling some type of way and it's going to be really hard and I don't know if I'm good enough and I'm not going to run fast enough and I right.
Speaker 2: 29:36
I won't be able to do it.
Speaker 1: 29:37
Yeah. Instead you're saying, hmm, what are we capable of today? And so I found myself recently I leave little notes next to either like the workouts or long runs as people are building up for a couple of people running ultras in the next couple of months One of the things I've started saying unintentionally, but it's repeated itself like please lead with curiosity and carbs. It just keeps coming out because, in addition to training our body and training our brain, we have to train our stomachs when we're running ultras or any kind of endurance events. And so I'm like I like this curiosity and carbs.
Speaker 2: 30:07
Yeah, that's also the same. Curiosity can be so helpful when it comes to our self-sabotaging behaviors. I'll use myself as an example. I often procrastinate with workouts, and so getting curious about it has been really helpful and really important for me of being like okay, what is it that is postponing, or why am I avoiding this workout in particular? What's going on here, versus the days where I just come home and put on my running clothes and do what I'm assigned, which goes so much more smoothly. But that's not every day, and so it's like being like okay, am I stressed because I feel like I have to get more work done and work is more valuable than my workout. Is it I have a difficult workout and I'm afraid I won't be able to do it? Is it that I don't like the feeling of running at a certain pace or biking at a certain wattage or power? Just what is it about this? Am I avoiding? Because we also know in general, as humans and like a lot of my work as a sports psychologist is helping people understand as humans we are really good at avoiding difficult thoughts and feelings. It's very natural. It comes naturally.
Speaker 2: 31:08
We are taught to do this from the start. When we cry. Parents comfort us in an effort to get us to stop of like no, no, no, no, no, what's wrong? What's wrong Like, because they don't want us to be upset Right. And so we get this message that being in distress is a bad thing. We get a message that stress is bad. We get a message that anxiety and depression are bad. But again, those are judgments and depression can be like. That's a little bit different. Anxiety, in a lot of ways, can be really helpful and constructive, especially for performers, for athletes. We need a healthy amount of anxiety to really perform at our best. But when we feel the butterflies in our stomach or our heart racing or our stomach flipping or having to go to the bathroom a million times, we're like this is bad. I'm not supposed to feel anxious. So it's like slow up and get curious about it being like okay. So actually, if this were a shape, what would the shape be? If this were a color, what would it be? Name the anxiety, bring it with you.
Speaker 2: 31:59
And so I think it's similar where we just have to be careful with the judgments that we're making, because often it's some sort of avoidance. We're avoiding this thing that's going to kind of prompt or trigger difficult thoughts I don't know if I can do this or I'm not good enough or difficult feelings, shame, guilt, anxiety, depression, loneliness or isolation All of those things might come up in sport, because we're testing ourselves, we're pushing ourselves, and so I think for me, a lot of the avoidance with workouts is I think it's double-sided Some of it is me feeling like I should be working because that's what I've been awarded for over the years of like you're such a hard worker, so I get that reinforced. And then it's also avoiding the difficult feelings and sensations of threshold intervals. It's like they're not really fun but they're important. So, yeah, so that's a bit of a tangent, but I think a really important one is we have way difficult thoughts and feelings and we just need to own up to it.
Speaker 1: 32:54
It's the resistance piece because that, even simplifying it more from like athletic pursuits, behavior change, habit formation, yep, there is a resistance. I mean I'm going to like simplify this all the way down to like my day to day as a dental hygienist. Yes, when.
Speaker 1: 33:07
I have conversations with patients around brushing twice a day, flossing daily. I don't talk to them from a place of shame or guilt or you know why aren't you flossing daily? As adults we've heard it since we were little kids we know what we should be doing, but there is a reason why we're not doing the thing, or reasons plural and so that is like the most basic thing that I talk with patients about is that it's a habit. What is the resistance, what is the friction that's happening for us to not be able to do the thing, in this case, flossing. Okay, we don't really like it Most of the time.
Speaker 1: 33:39
Most people are like well, I'm just too tired at the end of the day. Okay, is there another time of day that it works better for you? Where can we build that in? What kind of resistance? What are we saying to ourselves? Is there a bowl of flossers next to your coffee pot? So when the coffee's brewing in the morning, you floss your teeth? Do you take vitamins every day? Do we pair it with that? Do you throw it in the shower? Like, where do we create an environment that makes the thing happen? Reduce the friction. But it's also it's that curiosity piece of what's the resistance? Like you said? Why am I avoiding this? It's very interesting as a hygienist, just in the smallest thing of a habit like flossing that takes a minute of our days, that patients give me the weirdest looks because they're like. I have never thought about it that way. It's just this thing that I don't like doing, that no one likes doing, so I just avoid it and I know it's important.
Speaker 2: 34:26
But that knowledge, the gap between the knowing and doing right, so that's just where, like that, going all the way up to workouts and runs and all of those pieces to what's like the short term versus the long term, gratification and like the payoffs right, because, like flossing, most people aren't gonna be like oh, I feel so good, that was awesome. Same thing for like mindfulness meditation, because I also continue to struggle. I go in ebbs and flows. Some days I'm really great, some weeks I'm great, some months I'm great, others nope. And one of the reasons, I believe, is in the moment it doesn't feel like you're getting a lot of bang for your buck. You're gonna be like, okay, I sat there quietly and reflected on my thoughts and my feelings and I noticed them non-judgmentally and now I'm aware of them. Awesome, what does that actually do for you? We know in the long run the benefits are incredible.
Speaker 2: 35:15
And if there's like one sports psychology tool that I would want athletes to use, it would be mindfulness meditation, because the research is so clear but it's hard to do as a habit, because in the moment you're like why am I doing this?
Speaker 2: 35:26
This feels pointless, because we don't in the moment feel that like immediate benefit Running or lifting or getting really good workout in.
Speaker 2: 35:33
Often we've got those endorphins and so then that helps kind of pick up habits and stick with them, whereas like flossing, mindfulness, meditation, other things, mobility or foam rolling or other types of PT. You're not feeling really great when you're doing it and so then it's hard to motivate yourself to continue. So then we have to look for other strategies like habit trackers, visual I'll do stars on a calendar so you can reward yourself like elementary school. There's nothing wrong with that. We like visual cues as humans, so you have like accountability buddy, so there are different ways that you can kind of gamify it. But I do think it's really important is asking yourself that like who do I want to be as an athlete, as a person, and what would that type of person be doing for habits? And that's kind of like James Clear talks about that in his book Atomic Habits. Like start with your identity and who you want to be as a person and then reverse engineer that.
Speaker 1: 36:21
I don't know, are you familiar with Karin Norden? She's a PhD, does a lot with behavior change, so she talks a lot about that identity piece of. Ok, if you're working on these habits, if you're wanting to do certain things, you need to first ask yourself what kind of person do I want to become? Who do I want to be? This future version of me, what do they do, what are they like? And then, yeah, reverse engineer that. Ok, what, what do my daily habits look like? To be that person, what does that mean for me? And letting that guide actions to say, okay, well, what would future me do in this situation? Well, future me wants to run a 50K, so I probably need to be pretty consistent with my running. Future me wants to run this race injury free, so that mobility piece is really important, but going okay.
Speaker 1: 37:07
So, going back to the mindfulness meditation, which just thank you for talking about, because, sad tangent, I have read three books now on Buddhism in the last like month because and you'll, you'll appreciate this acceptance and commitment therapy principles have a lot of ties to Buddhist principles, a bunch, yep. And so I was like, all right, I got to learn more about this. Yes, so the talk about awareness. Awareness is part of that mindfulness meditation piece and so I just I've been nerding out really hard on those things. But two pieces to that. One, as athletes, as endurance athletes specifically, there is a personality type of people that tend to get into endurance sports, where movement, movement is really important to us to keep ourselves moving. And, like you said, endorphins, those things when we slow down and we sit still and we sit still inside our heads, yep, and we hate it and we're like what the hell are we doing right now? This is awful, yep, it reminds me. Have you seen Inside Out the Pixar movie?
Speaker 2: 38:03
Not yet and as a therapist I'm ashamed to admit it because it's all about emotions and feelings, and I've heard that the anxiety one is really good.
Speaker 1: 38:11
So, yeah, the second one's in theaters right now and my nieces, who are like six and seven and a half, just recently watched it and they're like we got to learn what anxiety is and what does delusional mean. And you're talking all these things, but talking about mindfulness and being inside your own head made me think about like the control center with all the emotions you know, like that's, that's such a piece. So, oh my gosh, watch it. Report back. I love kids movies. So like when they come out, I'm like, yeah, that sounds awesome, it's so good. But what I was going to, where I'm leading with this of mindfulness and meditation, what are some of the benefits? Because you said you've been like nerding out on this a little bit recently. So, yeah, tell me some of this so we can like encourage our listeners to at least consider incorporating this.
Speaker 2: 38:51
It is a game changer. So the benefits are if I were to summit or summarize the benefits, it allows you to respond to difficult thoughts, feelings and situations rather than react. So it creates more space between the thing that might be triggering you and how you choose to respond to that thing because of increased self-awareness and a lack of judgment. So basically, it helps you slow down and be less emotionally reactive and more even keeled and grounded. It also helps with self-awareness. It helps with emotions, like identifying and naming emotions. And so what does this mean for endurance athletes? It is so good because what happens is and I'll just say, a lot of athletes will start, a lot of people will start, and they'll be like I suck at meditation, I keep getting distracted, I can't focus on one thing, and to that I say that's the point is to notice your thoughts and get distracted. And then, when you get distracted, you notice it and you bring yourself back. And every time you notice it and you bring yourself back. And every time you notice it and you bring yourself back without beating yourself up non-judgmentally, just like I'm from Minnesota, so I make fun of like oh there I go again. You catch yourself and you bring yourself back Each time you do that. That's like a rep the more reps you get, the more intuitive and the more natural it starts to come to you. So then what can happen?
Speaker 2: 40:07
I'll use last night as an example. I was driving a friend home and I'm in Twin Cities. So we've got highways and you know, on ramps, off ramps, someone just like cut right in front of me coming onto the highway and I could have easily in the past gotten really angry and triggered and reacted, or maybe like tailgundam or whatever, and instead I laughed and I was like well, you're having a day, aren't you Like? It allows you to step back and not react to these situations as strongly as you might otherwise. So how does this apply to athletes, especially endurance athletes, though I would argue all sports for sure, endurance athletes we've got a lot of time in our heads in general. So then what can happen is we can notice when we're going down an unhelpful rabbit hole and we can catch ourselves and we can bring ourselves back home. And by back home it's like what is my pace, how is my feeling, how's my hydration, how's my body feeling? And then you can respond to that information, as opposed to going to those dark places and not being able to pull yourself out. For other athletes, like I think of weightlifting, powerlifting, especially in regulating the nervous system, you've got to be revved up in order to get those max lifts. That's why you'll see some people like jumping or yelling or hitting or slapping themselves. It's to get that nervous system going.
Speaker 2: 41:20
Mindfulness meditation helps you understand where you are and where you need to be and basically being like I'm not revved up enough, like I need some more something to get me going in order to lift this, and so then you're able to hype yourself up and be your best type person. Or, like a start of a race, jitters are going wild. You know you're really anxious. Mindfulness can help you in that moment of being like wow, I'm really, I'm really anxious right now, without freaking out about the anxiety. So then you're just noticing the anxiety and just being like oh, that's interesting, haven't felt this in a while. The anxiety and just being like, oh, that's interesting, haven't felt this in a while. Or you can just name it and being like well, this is the time of the race where I start to get really anxious and I feel like quitting. Everything's going according to plan. So you basically just learn how to notice patterns and then respond appropriately. Yeah, meditation is awesome.
Speaker 1: 42:04
And it's. It's an ebb and flow thing. It's you get good for a while and there's days, weeks, months and it slows down and it's not. We're not talking about. Okay, this needs to be a daily thing, every single day of your life. We're human and we recognize that's such a huge part of this as a practice.
Speaker 2: 42:19
Exactly. It's no different than like PT or mobility or these other habits that we might try to pick up, or like having a recovery drink after a workout or taking creatine, oh my god, why is taking creatine regularly?
Speaker 1: 42:31
I don't understand. There's no resistance to it, there's no anything. It just is all of a sudden oh yeah, creatine.
Speaker 2: 42:37
Okay, I'm just going to do this again.
Speaker 1: 42:39
I have gummy bear like creatine gummy bears right now and now I remember because I'm like I want some gummy bears.
Speaker 2: 42:46
Yep, so those are out and that's like all those little hacks is like, okay, how can we do it with the least amount of friction possible, so that it's as easy as possible? And so you can do that for meditation, like that habit stacking. You know you can do it during certain times a day because then your brain is like, oh, this is when we meditate. You can do it with an app and push notifications. There are all these different things that you can try, but I say like, just try and then if it doesn't work, like it's, you can. If you drop a habit, it's.
Speaker 1: 43:13
Is there anything else along the lines of body acceptance or appearance or internalized messaging that you want to touch on at all? I know we've kind of like we've deviated all over the place and I know our audience said they wanted body acceptance, chat, internalized messaging and I'm like, OK, was there anything?
Speaker 2: 43:28
else. One thing I'll say I'm sure you've talked about this on former episodes and it never hurts to repeat it a thousand times is for anyone who has a pair of skinny jeans in the closet the skinny jeans, not this, not the style and cut, but like the jeans that you used to fit into because you were 10 or 20 pounds lighter for the love of all things in your world and mine, get rid of them. Just be willing to let go of the clothes that used to fit you. Body grief is very real, and comparing our old bodies to our current bodies, and every time we hold on to these clothes with this like hope that we'll be able to fit into them again, we are not serving ourselves. And so, for one very concrete tip, go into your closet and get rid of the clothes that don't make you feel good when you put them on.
Speaker 1: 44:13
I had a personal stylist on a couple of seasons ago on the podcast, and one of her 2024 2024 style goal is to wear everything in her closet.
Speaker 1: 44:21
Yeah, and so it's helped her. Like OK, by the end of the year, if I haven't worn the thing, we're ditching the thing, and so that would be exactly those. Like what are we trying to achieve by keeping those smaller clothes in our closet? That's not what we want to strive for. It's understanding that our bodies change and they're meant to change. They're not meant to stay the same. And proportionally, things shift and you know, whatever else I'm not going to be the size I was in high school and there's nothing wrong with that. Doesn't make me any less of a person. It doesn't mean I failed. Let that shit go. And if you want to use like Poshmark and sell it or something, if that's like what you want to get some fulfillment out of, like saying goodbye to the thing, yeah.
Speaker 2: 45:01
Or like Madewell jeans, like they've got like a jean exchange, like reimbursement type of thing, and like there's a lot of companies that do that, or just donate to a really good cause. There's so many options, but if you haven't worn it in a really long time, just let it go. Wear clothes that make you feel good. I think that's so important.
Speaker 1: 45:18
That's half the battle, though. Sometimes, when our bodies change, there's the avoidance of putting clothes on or trying things on or doing that, and that's where one of the biggest pieces for as our bodies change is being curious on clothing, because it is such a mind game. When things change and you try to put clothes on and you're like I can't remember the last time I wore pants with a waistband but like zipping and buttoning, this is not fun Find the stuff that's comfortable. Or I will say, too, when we're like, wear what's comfortable, wear what makes you feel good and I'm trying to remember what podcast I listened to, but it was someone talking about learning to express themselves through the clothing they wear. So, like you were mentioning earlier, when you put clothes on because it helps you feel more like you or more creative, or feel like you're expressing yourself there is something to be said about.
Speaker 1: 46:01
I used to shop from the rooftops like wear the crop top, wear the short shorts, wear whatever you want, honestly, but like, when people want to wear something so let's say, the crop top or it's neon colors, when they're typically a gray and black palette they want to wear the thing. It's going to be uncomfortable the first few times they wear it, but if they feel like they're expressing themselves, that's the kind of discomfort that's worth embracing. I feel like there's a distinction there, because that that's kind of something that I've started getting a little bit curious about, because I mean, I'm sitting here in like bike shorts and an oversized t shirt, but, like I have been trying to get a little more curious with like, well, what kind of clothes help me feel like me? Or wanting to express myself beyond like wearing scrubs four days a week and workout clothes and running clothes and whatever else? When you go to put on the regular street clothes Okay, I still have shirts from college, I still have clothing that I've had for a long time.
Speaker 1: 46:50
You know you lean into like Costco fashion and stuff like that. Okay, well, how do I express myself? What feels good in this? And maybe a little uncomfortable at first, but hey, like this feels like I'm expressing me.
Speaker 2: 47:00
Yes, I once had like a design friend. I said something along the lines of oh, I wish I could wear that, but I can't pull that off. And she's like put it on, and you're pulling it off, that's it. And so it's like kind of like the whole idea of you want to pull it off, put it on, done, you're pulling it off, so try it done, done and done.
Speaker 1: 47:20
I think we covered a lot of ground. I was just thinking about your own journey through movement, exercise, triathlons, running, all the things. Do you feel like there was especially like with relationship to appearance and your relationship with yourself? Was there any one big thing that you feel like you had to unlearn, or one big turning point that was like, oh my gosh, I have been self-sabotaging the hell out of myself.
Speaker 2: 47:44
Yes, I have come a really long way. When I was younger, I really struggled with body image, especially middle school. I was always taller than a lot of other girls my age, and then the term that my mom always used was like big boned. I don't know, it's how I'm built. It is what it is. I'll never forget wanting to do dance or gymnastics and being told I was too big boned to do it. I had the same thing happen. It just guts me, and being like that's how young the messages were for me.
Speaker 2: 48:11
I must have been in like kindergarten or first grade at that point I was so little, and so I think what I've had to unlearn is there's no one body type for certain sports, like you don't need a certain body type to do certain things, and being willing to push back against that. And then also learning and unlearning and unpacking and accepting the stereotypes about what it means to be a cyclist or a runner or a triathlete, because I'll still get comments of, like you look like this or you don't look like this, what does that even mean? And so just learning how to unpack that and accept it and then being willing to push back on it. I think, as a feminist. One of the best ways to kind of push back against all of these messages in our culture is to just to take pride in my body and to accept it for what it is and to not buy into those messages. And so I think it has been a really long learning and unlearning process as someone who's still. I still bike and race competitively and I'm sure this will also come up with my running. I'm larger in stature and body size than a lot of the women in like the pro elite category, and so every time I tow the line at those races, especially if I know there's a hilly race, those messages come up. Because I've internalized this message that I'm not a climber because I weigh more, which is so relative right.
Speaker 2: 49:20
But even like virtual racing for anyone on Zwift, like they used to I don't know if they I think they may have since taken it off like the public main face page but you have to report your height and your weight for virtual racing, because with more muscle mass comes more power, and so like if I was putting out a bunch of power in a race and I said that I was 120 pounds, which I'm like 165, I would be schooling everyone and dropping everyone in the race, and it would be basically like quote unquote, weight doping, so.
Speaker 2: 49:48
But what they would do for accountability and honesty with this platform is they would publicize the heights and the weights of all the riders, and including the power numbers, just for data transparency, to prevent cheating. That makes sense. They would then bold and highlight the highest and lowest numbers in each field, and I can't tell you how many times my weight has been read in bold on that platform, because I was the largest, the one with the highest weight in the Peloton. So things like that, where that comes up for me, where I've had to unlearn it, and being like, yeah, erin, you weigh more than other women in this field and you push out a lot more watts and power than they do. So wait till you drop them on a descent or a diesel engine on the flat and then climbing might be their jam, but they're not going to be able to hold on to me once we get to the other side of that mountain. So it's just being able to remind myself of those types of things, because it still comes up at.
Speaker 1: 50:39
You know, in my mid thirties it's wild, I think about that for, like, weight classes with powerlifting too, exactly, yeah, and then competing within weight classes and then everyone's in awesome singlets and looking at bodies and those things too. But that's a big part of it.
Speaker 1: 51:01
So we work with it. Like I said, you know they're different. There's no one right way. Do what works for you, but in general, avoidance isn't really going to help us. I think too, there is a piece of that in that unlearning process of, okay, height and weight are metrics and, yeah, we have that internalized messaging from one of your kids.
Speaker 1: 51:08
I had the same thing I am not a small human being called sturdy as a kid I did gymnastics and ballet and then it was right around that pre-puberty, like 10-ish, that my ballet instructor was like you're excused from class until you can find your grace, was the comment made. But because I was in that weird pre-pubescent where you kind of bulk up a little bit before you grow, and that was like destroying to me, because then the teacher had a conversation with my mom how I was too big for class and I wasn't graceful anymore and all of those things. And it's just, oh, my mom, how I was too big for class and I wasn't graceful anymore and all of those things. And it's just, oh, my gosh, I'm just a human doing my thing.
Speaker 2: 51:42
Like I just want to try new things. So it's like reminding all of us speaking and listening like we all have our stories, we all have the skeletons in the closet, we all have our baggage. We've got to be kind to each other.
Speaker 1: 51:52
And there's a lot of that talking about the unlearning, a process of even like, bringing awareness around beliefs, beliefs that we don't even know we've had how we've grown up, messaging that we've received. The more that we pay attention to those things, the more that we're curious right just to bring this full circle the more that we can learn about ourselves, improve the relationship with ourselves and improve our relationship with how we relate to the world around us and not letting that messaging get us as much which, at the end of the day, helps the next generation of girls and women.
Speaker 2: 52:20
There's nothing cooler than that being able to like, slowly move the needle to see some of these improvements Exactly. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: 52:26
Thank you for such a great conversation.
Speaker 2: 52:28
This was so fun.
Speaker 1: 52:29
We can just keep going and going.
Speaker 2: 52:32
And do it again in the future. For sure?
Speaker 1: 52:34
Okay, a couple of wrap up questions just for fun. What for sure? Okay, a couple of wrap up questions just for fun.
Speaker 2: 52:38
What is your favorite kind of dessert? Ooh, tiramisu. I love coffee, so I'm a sucker for tiramisu, but I also love chocolate chip cookies but they have to be like soft baked.
Speaker 1: 52:49
Okay, yes, I need a little crunch on the outside and then soft the rest of the way through Cookies are, like I've said already, my favorite. Okay.
Speaker 2: 52:59
Coffee question how? How do you take your coffee? What's your go-to beverage? I do a lot of iced coffee, even in the winter in Minnesota when it's like negative 20 outside, there's something about it. So iced coffee, sometimes I'll add like a little bit of oat milk, but like the cold brew, that's kind of my jam.
Speaker 1: 53:10
I love it. Iced coffee all summer so far. I don't know how long it'll continue. Like stereotypical millennial, I need my like sweet little treat. That was every morning. Okay, what is one activity that brings you joy and takes your attention away from your body?
Speaker 2: 53:25
I've never seen myself as a creative person or artist, but I do love arts and crafts. I recently got back into crocheting and I'm crocheting a blanket. It's going to be so cool. I'm really excited. There's this thing. There's like a trend for crocheters, people who crochet with weather blankets where, like, they'll make a blanket and each row or line represents the temperature, the high, for that day, and so it's really cool because it's you know, it'll be like red in June and July and then it'll be like blues in January. So it's just a fun way to kind of mark the year. So I'm doing that for my training and so, like, lifting is one color, biking is another color, running is another color, hiking is another color, and so that has been really cool project. It's going to take forever and I'm hoping I will be done by the end of the year, but basically, whatever my workout is for the day, or if it's a rest day, that just will become the next line in the blanket.
Speaker 1: 54:18
And that's been a really cool, fun project. Ok, that's awesome because that goes back to the whole like gold star chart for habits and stuff.
Speaker 2: 54:24
It's like this visual reminder of my journey and what I've done for the year, especially because I got really burnt out from cycling and so there's going to be like a whole month in there of rest, which, as athletes, we're like don't fall off the wagon, like don't whatever. Too many messages about don't fall off the wagon, like don't whatever. Too many messages about don't rest. So there's a whole month that's going to be like one big block of one color and that's when I wasn't working out. And then it's going to start adding runs in the second half of the year, because I didn't start running until a couple months ago. So it's going to be really cool because it represents my journey as an athlete this year and like a lot of cycling and good amount of lifting, some hiking and then burnt out Okay, she was clearly resting during that month and then start adding more colors for the running and the training that I'm doing. So I'm excited, that's so awesome.
Speaker 1: 55:07
I learned to crochet when I was a kid and I have not picked it up in forever. Yeah.
Speaker 2: 55:11
That's so cool. I'm stoked. I'm going to do like a nerdy reel on Instagram about it or something, so it will happen.
Speaker 1: 55:17
Yeah, a little time lapse. Yes, all that Sweet. Okay, two more questions. One, what is the number one book you've recommended or given as a gift?
Speaker 2: 55:26
Ooh, okay, can I do two? Can I break the rules, of course? Okay, well, I guess I don't have to grab them or show them because people can't see Number one for any anxious achievers, perfectionists, high achievers, catherine Morgan Schaffler, the Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control Really great book. And then the other one that I recommend most often is the Confidence Gap by Russ Harris. So Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control is really great at looking at the gendered nature of perfectionism and how it's reinforced in our society and how it shows up, especially for women, and helping you understand it doesn't have to be a bad thing, you just have to manage it. And then the Confidence Gap is a acceptance and commitment therapy book written for just popular press, general public, with a lot of really great tools and tangible like tips that you can take to help with confidence but also to deal with other unpleasant emotions. So that's a win in my book.
Speaker 1: 56:16
That's fantastic. Last question where can audiences find you?
Speaker 2: 56:19
to learn more. Yeah, instagram is probably the best place. I also have like website mailing list. For sure, we're starting to get that rocking and rolling with a newsletter. So my Instagram is Scotty sport psychology. Scotty is S, k, a, d, I and sport is singular, not plural, so it's Scotty Sport Psychology. Email is hello at scottysportpsychologycom website scottysportpsychologycom, and you'll get a pop-up if you go to the website to sign up for the newsletter. We've got some exciting stuff coming out, so then you can be first on the list to get it.
Speaker 1: 56:51
Props, I'm working on a body image get started. Guide as my freebie for signing up for an email list, because that's like my goal before the end of the year is to start building that stuff out. My gosh, being a solopreneur man, there's so much to learn.
Speaker 2: 57:06
Yeah, especially going to grad school, for, like psychology, I never learned business or marketing or funnels or weed magnets or there's so many. I'm like it's been fun to learn. There have been a lot of like stumbles and failures along the way, but I'm here for it, learning new skills.
Speaker 1: 57:20
I feel like it teaches you a lot about yourself in the process, right, yeah, all right, friend. Thank you so much for a great interview. Friends, thank you for listening to another great episode and we'll catch you next Friday. Thank you, yeah.