SPEAKER_00 0:00

On this episode, everyone knows that to be an elite athlete, it requires an incredible amount of physical skills and strength, endurance, flexibility, any combination of these physical traits is required depending on your sport. However, the mental game, especially at the elite levels of athletics, is often what gives some athletes the edge. That is where folks like Mika Shaw come in. Mika is the mental performance coach, meditation teacher, and former USA Swimming 10K national champion. Mika brings her unique experience as a professional athlete, mindfulness practitioner, and education in sports psychology to help athletes unlock their full potential by building a strong and resilient mind. She joins me to discuss what a mental performance coach is and what they do for athletes. Mika unpacks what tools pro-athletes use to improve their mental game and ultimately perform at their best. She also goes into great detail on how athletes utilize mindfulness, meditation, breath work, and sports psychology to improve mentally. I'm Jake Panasevich, and this is the Yoga with Jake podcasting.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Yeah, pretty good. Um, I live in Southern California and it's kind of a cloudy day today, but I think I appreciate the cloudy days a little bit more since it's usually very hot and sunny.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Lovely. Well, yeah, I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with me today. And uh big thanks to to Daya for introducing us. She was so great to talk to. And so um you come highly recommended from a very uh stellar person there, Daya.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Oh, thank you. Yeah, Daya's amazing. She's um a really good friend, and I love learning from her. She has a lot of wisdom to share.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Yeah, those are the best friends.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

I'm very thrilled to have this time with you, Amika. I was curious if we could start just by getting to know a little bit about yourself and and who you are and what your background is, and what brought you to uh your work currently.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Yeah, sure. Um so I grew up kind of all over the place. I grew up in um Washington State, Alaska, South Africa, and England. And um swimming was my sort of love and big sport. So I swam through um all of my childhood years into college. Um, and I was very just very competitive with and a big dreamer. So I always um had the vision and the dream of being an Olympian and a professional athlete. And I wasn't necessarily that caliber of athlete in college. Um, but uh after I graduated and was kind of floundering with my life direction, I guess, um, I started swimming in open water, uh, racing in open water swimming. Um, and that led me to train for the 08 Olympics in the 10K, which was the first year that it was an Olympic event. Um, and I made a lot of improvements, um, but sadly did not qualify for the Olympics. But that was really what sort of started me on my interest for like the mental side of sports. I understood in college, I had a sense that I was sort of getting in my own way on the mental side, but there wasn't a lot of support for that then. Um, and I didn't really know what to do about it. So when I started training professionally, I started reading a lot of books on sports psychology. Um, I started working with the mental skills coach, which was really helpful. And I just really dove into that side of training and high performance. Uh, when I retired from swimming, I decided I was gonna be a Pilates teacher. So I got my Pilates certification. Um, and then I decided I didn't want to teach Pilates, I wanted to teach yoga, so I got my first yoga certification. Um and in that time, I also had two children. So I wasn't actively pursuing a career in yoga, it was just something that I enjoyed doing and learning about. Um, as my kids got a little bit older, I did another yoga certification um and taught for a little while, um, very briefly. And I love yoga, I love Pilates, I love movement. I feel like movement was sort of the first therapy um for me. Uh in my second yoga certification, we explored meditation, and that was really interesting to me, and it sort of led me down the path of meditation. Um, and when I was teaching yoga, I realized that I didn't really like teaching yoga, um, but I was still really enthralled by the mental side of performance. And meditation was sort of this area that I had never been introduced to when I was an athlete. And I found it was really profound for me as a person, and I wanted to help athletes and teach athletes meditation so that maybe they could have the support and insights that I wish I had as an athlete. So that led me to getting my master's in sports psychology. Um and now I work with athletes. I'm a mental performance coach, so I help athletes with the mental side of training. Um, I really love using mindfulness and breath work as mental tools for athletes, sort of setting a foundation of mindfulness and simple breath work practices. And um yeah, that's kind of the the gist of it.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

There's there's a lot there. I um yeah. Did you so what do you think was lacking um as an athlete as far as on the mental side of the game? I know it seems as if it's very readily available now for athletes to get help with their mental side of performance. Um you hear athletes speak to it more frequently. You see professional sports teams with the mental performance coach on their staff. But looking back at your career, um, what did you notice was lacking? Did you not have that sort of support back then, or is this something that um that you struggled with as an athlete that you saw a gap in the field?

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Um, I think when I was swimming, so I graduated high school in 1999 and college um in 2004. And um the main lesson I learned was never to talk about how you felt and to um just sort of ignore how you were feeling and to work harder. And through working harder, everything would be solved. Um I am an internalizer. So I for so for me to sort of internalize my emotions and to not talk about them and to sort of hold them inside was sort of my coping skill, anyways. So then being told that to just not talk about how you felt and to hold it all inside, that's what I did. Um until shockingly, I couldn't hold it inside anymore and it became a problem. And I didn't really understand how to talk about my experience and how I was feeling. Um, I think when I was training um for 08, I did work with a mental skills coach, and I still think then there was sort of the misconception that if you were working with a sports psychologist or a mental skills coach that something was wrong with you and it felt um a little shameful, like you shouldn't admit that you were doing that, um, even though I found it really helpful. Um but I still think for me, it would have been helpful for me to. I didn't go to a therapist and sort of learn how to talk about how I was feeling until I was in my 30s, until after I had children. Um not making the Olympics was a really challenging experience for me. And I had a lot of internal turmoil from that that I didn't share with anybody, and also like my identity of like who am I if I'm not an athlete. Um, so sort of my journey through my 30s was learning how to talk about how I was feeling, and then learning tools to understand how to process those emotions and thoughts. Um, I think now there's a lot more access. There's so much knowledge that you can find online. There's so many more amazing books and resources, but I still think it's hard for people to get the help and the support that they need. Um, because there's even though it feels like there's a lot of people in my industry, I think for all of the athletes out there, there's, you know, there could definitely be more support.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Yeah. Could you talk a little bit about what you went through involving falling short of your goal of the Olympics? And then, you know, you mentioned that was kind of a tougher time in a in finding your a different identity outside of sport. I feel like a lot of athletes go through that. And I was curious what got you over that um that challenge.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Um so, like I said, I was a big internalizer, so I kind of held everything inside. And I also didn't really understand and have the awareness of how mean I was to myself. So I always had very high standards with what I should wanted to achieve. I was able to imagine that sort of high level that I wanted to be at. But I never really gave myself credit for all of the accomplishments that I made. So, sort of every step up that I achieved, it if I achieved it, it took away some of the um like glamour, I guess. So I've always felt like, well, if I did it, it's not that big of a deal. So it just became, well, now I've achieved this, I need to go on to the next thing. And if I achieve that, okay, not a big deal anymore. Just keep trying to like work your way up. Um, and I didn't really give myself any credit along the way. So when I the whole Olympic process was long and it was a little bit different than how pool swimming is chosen. Um and there was it was just a complicated process that at the end when I didn't make it, it felt like that voice inside of me that was always like, you're not good enough. Just it was like proof of of that and that I didn't make that final step that I had been training for so much. So I felt a lot of like guilt and shame over not making the Olympics. And then I felt I retired from swimming, I got married, which was a wonderful thing. I had a lot of wonderful things going on around me. Um, but I still sort of carried this shame with me for a while. And I did struggle with like who am I, what am I gonna do? Like my whole journey of like, oh, I'll just get a new certification. Like Pilates is the answer. I'm gonna be a Pilates teacher. And then, you know, it was yoga. And I just I was um, I did sports modeling through swimming. So I was modeling and started doing commercial acting. I was just kind of like all over the place on like what I was doing. Um, and then I became a mom, and that took, you know, a lot of my focus, and it was a what like the most amazing thing to ever happen to me. Um, but it felt, you know, overwhelming at times. And I think that was what it was when I became a mom that I sort of realized that I needed to learn better coping skills for to deal with sort of those feelings that I had inside of me. So that was when I went to therapy and started talking about my experience. And when I started actually saying things out loud, it it just made me realize like, oh, it's it's okay to say it out loud and to talk it through. And um meditation was really helpful for me to sort of learn how to step back and look at the thoughts that are arising in your mind and not take them so seriously to give yourself like a little space. Like that felt really helpful to me as well. Um, I think it's hard for athletes because you do have to put so much of yourself into your goal that it's hard to sort of cultivate these other aspects of your personality when you're training all day and you know, making sacrifices for that goal. Um so I think it is a very, I didn't realize it was a very common thing when I was experiencing it myself, but now um I can see it, you know, in other people's experiences. And luckily, I think we hear a lot more of athletes talking about their experiences as athletes and then also as their transition outside of sport and the struggles that they experience. So I think it helps hopefully the younger generation have a clearer picture of those issues.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Wonderful. Do you now you brought up the importance of being able to communicate and um express how you feel to handle um mental health? Was it through therapy you said that you you developed those skills? Um and you said meditation really helped what style of meditation or what does that look like for someone who's brand new to meditation or an athlete? How does how do you approach it now when talking about meditation for for someone who's uh a high performer?

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah. Um so when I talk about meditation, I usually teach from like a mindfulness perspective. So watching using something in the present moment as your anchor. So our breath is the easiest one because we always have it with us. So, you know, watching your breath and trying to watch just one breath at a time. Um, and I guess the really simplified version and the what I have found so helpful and what I think is so helpful for athletes is that cycle of picking something to focus on, getting distracted, and then choosing to refocus on that anchor and practicing that over and over again in meditation. And I think for really competitive people, it can be hard because it's not the same feedback as you get from sports or a lot of the other things. So it's like, oh, we'll just try harder, work harder, put more effort into it, and you're gonna be really good at it. Um with meditation, you have to, and I actually first learned this through yoga, is like that letting go of just like try not trying so hard, of just trying to find bring a little bit more ease into it, a little bit of curiosity, maybe a little bit of kindness, being able to sort of notice that cycle and rather noticing maybe the judgment you place on your ability to focus on your breath, and then with time and practice to be able to sort of notice this cycle of focusing, distracting, getting distracted and refocusing, um, strengthening that ability and then being able to see that play out in your life, whether it's in sport where you're focused on the task at hand and whatever sport that you're in, um, all the distractions that can come up, you know, internally, whether it's pain or fatigue or, you know, thoughts that you're having, or externally, whether it's your teammates or a competitor or a coach yelling at you, or you know, people in the stands in the crowd cheering, um being able to choose what you focus on. And when you get distracted, to not let that distraction be a major hindrance to your performance, to be able to have the to know that you can refocus and it's okay that you briefly got distracted that you do have the ability to refocus on what, on what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

And does that look like? So if you were to paint a picture, are you asking athletes to find a comfortable seat like we do in the beginning of yoga? Option to close your eyes and then notice your natural breath? Are you asking them to count the breath? Are you asking them just to not try to manipulate or deepen the breath, but just notice it? Or is there what's the technique when it comes to um paying attention to your breath?

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Yeah. Um, so usually I guess I don't always teach it in the same way every time, but I do really like to start with um belly breathing and just having them breathe deep into their belly for one minute a day. I think it helps find a time in the day that you can build your practice. Um, and then also to feel that intentional shift of your breath. Uh, I think simple breath work and meditation together are a really nice combination. Um, and I know some people consider it the same practice. I like to separate like understanding breath work from like understanding your stress response and being able to alter your stress response based on how you're breathing. So I think it's really helpful to have that intentional time where you practice breathing deep into your belly where you notice yourself maybe feeling a little bit more relaxed. So, in the real world, when you're feeling a little bit more um stressed, you can focus on your breath and you can you know that you have tools to help you feel more relaxed. So I like to start with belly breathing and then exploring different types of breath work. So building confidence in the practice of having a time during the day that you can practice. So figuring out, like, oh, it's better in the morning, at night, in between practice, whatever it is, finding that time that you can be so consistent, exploring different types of simple breath work. So um belly breathing, extending your exhale, box breathing, stuff like that, I really like. Um and then as that practice grows, as they feel more confident in their consistency to practice, the routine of the practice, um, and also understanding how different types of breath work help them in different situations. So knowing that maybe some people really like box breathing, some people don't like it. So figuring if that works for you, so you know you have this tool that you can use when you need it. Um and then once they feel a little bit more comfortable in the routine of practice, then switching to a more of a letting go of control and focusing on your breath, just one breath at a time. Um and then within that, also exploring like, is it helpful for you to count your breath? Is it helpful to do a guided meditation? Do you like to do it by your, you know, just by yourself? So um being open to exploring different ways to practice and seeing what works best for you. I think with good competitive people and myself included, I like starting with really simple breath work because it gives you a little bit more confidence of like you can say, like, oh, I am doing this right. I feel it in my I am directing the breath into my belly. I counted for four seconds and I held my breath for four seconds. You get that feedback of I'm doing it right, I'm doing it good, which I think athletes, we are sort of trained to want that feedback. Um and then when you move to meditation, where it's more like, well, you're gonna get distracted a lot, you're not gonna get the feedback that you're doing it right. Um, you're not gonna always feel relaxed. Some days you might feel impatient and agitated. Angry. Some days you might feel relaxed and super focused. And none of like all of those days are good practice. It's accepting what is in that moment, learning to accept what's in that moment. So I think it gives you a little bit more, a little bit more buy-in, I guess, to practice. Um and confidence as well of that, like you've already sort of made the routine. So it's learning to um try different strategies and hopefully um keep going with it.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Is that where you might find some athletes find buy-in with the commitment aspect of it? Like there is something to say about I did my meditation every day. And maybe that in itself is something athletes and I myself to need to maybe loosen my grip on this hold of having to have a routine every single day. But the but then again, there is something about do you think is that also a door in for folks to like develop this habit or this continual um practice? Is there any benefit in focusing in on the habit component of it or just doing it like a practice every every day or five days a week? Um, rather than focusing in on some sort of um point A to point B goal through their meditation or breath work, but just developing that habit? Is there any benefit in in that for athletes?

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Um I guess I I think of it more of like developing the habit first. And for some athletes, I think, especially younger athletes, it can be that could be the challenge is to developing the habit. When I start people on one minute of a day, I've never I've only had one person say they didn't have time for that. And I was actually surprised because I was like, whoa, one minute, you don't have one minute a day. But then with further exploration, it's like, well, you are on social media that you know you're doing a lot of other things. Like, how can we find this time for one minute? But by far, the vast majority of people have never said, no, I don't have time for a minute. Um, I like to make it so simple that it's like, well, there's not really an excuse. You do have a minute. So starting creating the habit and the routine um first. With I mean, I think perfectionism is a common trait in athletes, especially high performers. So I am wary about making it such a um, like I don't want it to feel like um a punishment if they forget to meditate or they're not. I don't necessarily like the counting, like, oh, let's get a 10-day streak, a 20-day streak, because I think it sort of builds into that perfectionist, like, I have to do this right every single day. Um so I think especially at first being a little bit giving a little bit more grace, like, okay, you forgot to practice today. You know, why did you forget to practice? Like, what do you think you could do next time to remember? Is it the time of day you're practicing? Um because I think along that in that aspect too, you're also practicing being a little bit of being kind to yourself, which I think is something that athletes could work on more. And it feels a little bit safer within this new routine that you're that you're creating that's not performance-based on your sport. So maybe you can extend a little bit of kindness to yourself in this aspect for forgetting to meditate today and in time, you might be able to see that that kindness can move over to your sport and be helpful there too.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Yeah, it's interesting. And why would you start with belly breathing? Is that an intentional way to get folks to pay attention to their breath, or is that a specific um technique that helps them breathe in a certain way? Why why start with belly breath?

SPEAKER_01 26:16

I think it's helpful to notice, to start noticing where you're breathing in your body. And so to be able to compare it to when I feel stressed, I feel the breath high up in my chest and I'm taking shorter breaths. And for an athlete that maybe um experiences a lot of like performance anxiety or nerves, that can be a common feeling, that shortness of breath, your breath getting tight in your throat. I know I definitely had a lot of nerves, and that was something that I experienced too. Um, so being able to feel the difference and understand like, oh, when I take slow, deep breaths into my belly, you can put your hand over your belly button and you can kind of feel the breath moving into that part of your body, even though it's not really going into your belly, but your uh diaphragm's expanding and you're feeling, you know, you can feel it. Um you can feel your hand, you know, on your belly button moving away from your spine. You can feel your hand moving towards your spine when you exhale. So it gives you that little tactical sensation, which I think can be helpful. Um, and you're building that awareness of when I'm breathed deep into my belly, I feel potentially a little bit more calm. I feel like my breath feels more full. And as you build awareness of your breath, then you might notice oh, when I am stressed, when I am feeling nervous, um, I feel like I'm breathing like really short high up in my chest. And now that I've been practicing this simple, it's so it's such a simple one to start with. I feel like it's easy to buy into. Um you can say, like, oh, I feel it really high up in my chest, and now I'm gonna take a couple of breaths deep into my belly, and you feel hopefully maybe a little bit of that release and tension because it's something you practice consistently. Um, that you can then use it in times that are more stressful.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Excellent. And uh now I was hoping you could help me differentiate now a little bit better the difference between now that's something that's considered breath work. Now, with crossing over into meditation, is it more of a focus in on the thoughts you're having with meditation? And the maybe your focus could be on the breath, but you're more so paying attention to the thoughts as they come up. Or how could you help me differentiate between the the two?

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Yeah. Um, I think people have different opinions on this. So this is sort of my my understanding of it and what the way I think is helpful um to look at it. When I think of breath work, I think more of like the physiological response that you're having, like using your breath as sort of a tool between your brain, your mind, and your body. Um so if you are feeling if you want to feel more relaxed, you can breathe, you know, focus on your exhales and you'll oh my gosh, you will. Sorry, I'm a loss for words.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

No worries. Take your time.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

I just my mind went totally blank. When you think about your nervous system and the parasympathetic and sympathetic um response, when you focus generally, when you focus on your exhales, lengthening your exhales out, you're stimulating your parasympathetic response, which is sort of that rest and digest um aspect of our nervous system. Whereas with our sympathetic nervous system, if you focus on sort of more I don't teach a lot of breath work that focuses on our sympathetic response because I feel like not very many people necessarily need it. We were already stressed, so working on finding a way to relax is more helpful. But if you do a breath, breath work sort of similar to um like inhaling and exhaling without a break in between. So sort of like inhale, exhale, and going through sort of a pattern where it feels it's a little bit more regimented. And you like when I practice that, I can feel my body sort of getting like sometimes I can feel a little bit more tension in my body. It feels to me a little bit more stressed, but it's also not giving yourself your body that exhale, like really slowing down your exhale, you feel more of that relaxed response. Um I'm sorry, I just messed up on your on your original question.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

No, that's helpful. I mean, I just so then how does that differentiate between you know the that breath work for specifics response compared to you know meditation? I know I was curious your I know there's different opinions on the differences between the two or how they even intermesh, but I'm just curious for you where they they kind of separate.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

Yeah, so sorry about that. I from the breath work perspective, I guess I think more of a physiological response. And from meditation, I think more of when you meditate, you're practical, you're building your ability to concentrate and you're expanding your awareness of your experience. So um when you intentionally change your breath, so even if it's something as simple as belly breathing, you're exerting a little bit of control over your breath. Um, when you're practicing meditation, like an awareness of breath meditation, you're trying as best you can to release that control and just watch your body breathing and to notice what comes up in that experience, whether you have certain thoughts about your ability to do that, um, whether you notice like a little bit of grasping, like you want to control your breath a little bit. Um, so there's more reflection, I guess, and more awareness on them, the meditation side. And I think a breath work is more there is that control. You there's also more of an intention of what that practice is going to elicit. So if you think I'm going to do um belly breathing, or I'm going to do a simple breath work where I extend my exhale. Maybe you breathe in for five seconds, exhale for seven seconds. Um, and because you've practiced it over time and you felt relaxed, the intention of doing that is that you will feel more relaxed than you do in this present moment. You might not fall asleep if you're feeling really stressed, but maybe it brings down that sort of arousal a little bit. Um, whereas with meditation, the intention is more to just notice and to accept what's happening in the present moment. Um, and it's not always going to be pleasant. You might not always feel relaxed, you might feel more agitated or you might feel um sleepy and distracted. And that practice is not about changing your like change. You want to feel relaxed, it's about accepting that in that moment this is how you feel, this is your experience, and that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

I love that. I um do you have I've had success, especially starting um meditation in visualizing, granted, with in connection with the breath, you know, inhaling, noticing these feelings coming up and almost like a a bubble or a cloud, and then exhale, which watch them pass by. So you notice that you're not your thoughts, but you're noticing as an observer uh your thoughts. Um is that am I is is that similar to how your philosophy in meditation is is that what you're meant to do is kind of notice what's coming up, not try to control it. Um, and it might not be blissful. In fact, you'll you'll get the whole range.

SPEAKER_02 34:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

And the hope is that you don't um I want to say the hope, but the idea is that you don't you realize that you're not your thoughts and you don't have to react to them, but you can notice what you're had, the thoughts you're having. Is that um how you approach your philosophy to or your you how you think about meditation?

SPEAKER_01 35:16

Yeah, it there's a lot of power in realizing you don't have to believe everything that you think.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

And also if you're able to sort of notice your thoughts and not be so reactive to them, um, and to sort of have that little bit of space to maybe choose a different response can be so powerful. Um, and I think practices like what you just described can be really helpful to sort of imagine that process. Maybe if you practice like everybody can create their own meditation practice with what resonates with them. In my daily practice, I keep it pretty simple. But I love I have a very vivid imagination. So I love practice like peppering in some practices that give you a little bit more of that imagination to see, you know, if it's if you're imagining your thoughts as sort of bubbles, you know, just arising and floating away. Or I love um uh the leaf in a stream imagery where you imagine yourself sitting, you know, in a beautiful outdoor location of your choosing, um, with a stream in front of you. So making it really vivid of you know what creating whether it's a place that you've been before, maybe that you thought was beautiful, or you could just create whatever you want in your mind, but you're sitting in front of a stream and you notice these little leaves floating by, and you start to sort of pick your thoughts when your thoughts come up. You take that thought and you put it in the leaf and you watch the leaf float on by and out of sight, and being able to sort of create that imagery of like, oh, this is a thought that's not me, it's just a thought, and I'm gonna watch it. Oh, it arrives, it arises. I'm gonna pop it on that little leaf and it's gonna float by and it's going to disappear. And then lo and behold, there's gonna be another thought that's gonna pop up. And just creating that imagery, I think, can be really helpful.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

And the idea is that you're not trying to stop those leaves, the thoughts, but just to notice them. You're gonna have them. And um that could be some intrusive thoughts for folks, right? Like um, that's normal to have some difficult thoughts. In fact, it it's a human condition to have difficult thoughts come up um when you go there, right? So, so folks should expect it not to just be easy stuff, or or I think some people think, oh, that's kind of just like daydreaming. But when it's intentional, it's it's something different going on there.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

For sure. I think it's interesting too. Is it it is true we're uh we are, it's it's natural for us to have negative thoughts or thoughts that aren't very helpful. Um, and when we're so focused on those negative thoughts, we miss the positive ones or we miss the neutral ones. And I think that can be really helpful too is noticing yes, the story I'm telling myself of I'm not good enough, um those thoughts are arising, but there's also thoughts that are helpful and inspiring and make me feel good, and my imagination just like blossoms into this like wonderful image. Um and if you can have the space to see that there's more than just these unhelpful thoughts, that there's helpful ones too, then you have more of a choice in what you're focused on.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

Interesting. Okay. So you could redirect your focus by developing this skill towards something more um productive or positive, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 39:29

I think I remember I think actually it was one of my yoga teachers in yoga training that said something along the lines of, you know, um some people don't they don't like using positive affirmations because they feel like they're lying to themselves. And um I have noticed some people love positive affirmations and it's like a practice that resonates with them, and that's wonderful. Like I think for everybody it's finding what works for you, and it you do not have to do the same thing if someone else is doing, you have to figure out like your special recipe. Um, for some people, I think they're so accustomed to these really negative thoughts that saying something positive can feel just very untrue. Uh, and like they're forcing it too much, and it just does not resonate with them. And I think the middle ground is noticing like very neutral thoughts that yes, you can have these um negative thoughts, and you can also focus your mind on something more neutral that has no like good or bad. It's just like, oh, I'm sitting at my desk right now. Like, that's just what I'm doing. Or if it's a sports-related thing, you could tell yourself something that you're doing in the moment, or the sky is blue. I see grass, there's leaves over there, whatever it is, and it doesn't have the same sort of hook as maybe trying to force yourself to be positive or letting yourself sort of fall into that habit of recycling these like more negative thoughts and can pull you out of that spiral long enough to maybe be a little bit more helpful when it comes to your performance in life, not not just in sports, but just in general and whatever you're experiencing.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Yeah, it's interesting. Do you find that athletes tend to get cling on to their identity as an athlete where their thoughts are very much focused on performance and their sport? Um, but through this practice, do they get a sense of uh they're of a more fuller person? There's more to them than just their sport.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

Um I don't know if necessarily that practice in general, but I think that's something that I try to work with and encourage is being able to see examples of yourself that are um not athlete related or not sport related, that your sport is something that you do, it's not who you are, and to encourage um to encourage giving yourself credit. So maybe celebrating yourself in a very small way, not like throwing yourself a massive party every time. Um, but maybe it's um, you know, if going out for like a treat afterwards, but just bringing a little bit more intention behind it or ordering your favorite takeout for dinner. And maybe it's something you're already doing, but when you put that little intention behind it of like, oh, I accomplished this goal, I'm gonna celebrate myself, or you know, it can be can sort of sort of open up that narrow view of yourself, and then also exploring things outside of your sport. Um, I know I don't know if you watch the Winter Olympics, there was a lot of examples of athletes knitting, uh, which I loved as a very bad kinn myself. Um I've had athletes that have bring art and draw, you know, when they're traveling or bring puzzles, just things. It's not necessarily that their identity is gonna shift to like, oh, I'm an expert puzzler or I'm a professional knit, but it's doing something outside of your sport that takes your mind off of your performance. Um, and it also gives you a little challenge of, oh, I'm gonna learn this new skill. And when you practice in a different area that's not sports related, you're still learning how to um navigate failures and mistakes, but in a little bit more of a gentle environment, because you probably don't care as much about messing up on your knitting than. You do on how you're performing in your in your sport. And I think that can be helpful to sort of open up the perspective of um being more than just an athlete, that you are a dynamic person that can do a lot of different things.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

Yeah, it's so interesting. You bring that up. I um wrestled my whole life. That was my sport and my brother. And yeah, I don't know if you're familiar, if you've a lot of folks are like, what is that when they when they see it, depending on where you live or or who you are. I don't know if you do you work with any wrestlers.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

I haven't, no.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

Okay. Well, it's yeah, it's it's an interesting, you know, it's a sport that doesn't involve a lot of fun usually.

unknown 44:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:42

There's not much. There's not much um there in the way of lightheartedness when somebody's trying to twerk your arm behind your back. Yeah. However, um for the first time, there's these high school phenoms coming up beating adult men in their way to the Olympics. And even in college, they just had the national like March Madness for Wrestling. We go every year. And uh yeah, it's really sweet. But you notice um they've made up these games that they play to warm up. Gosh, I forget the name of it, but one of the a lot of them play dodgeball, but then there's this like little trampoline game where they bounce the ball and they have to like run and relay the ball. And uh all these wrestling media companies want to go and see, hey, what's this high school phenom doing to perform so well? He's like, Well, you're going to uh you're gonna come watch us and record us play this game because we don't really we don't wrestle for practice at every day, you know. We don't just work our it's such a grueling long season of wrestling and it's brutal on your body um if you only do that. And I it's just so funny you bring that up because all these guys are basically using play, using game to the they always say the coaches now, like we gotta somehow make this fun. It's gotta be fun. So you forget that, I think, and your performance is it suffers when it's just based on wins and and losses.

SPEAKER_01 46:23

Yeah. Daya and I um have a book club, and that was actually one of the things we were talking about in our last meeting is both of us want to help athletes find more joy in what they're doing. Um even though I was brought up in an environment where it felt like joy, you know, joy was definitely not um encouraged. Not that it wasn't encouraged, just I don't remember examples of joy. Um, but for some people, they can feel almost scared that if they're happy and having fun, that that's gonna take away from from their performance. But I think that now people's mind is kind of expanding to there's more than one way to be an amazing athlete, uh incredible performer, and that you can, you know, if you enjoy what you're doing, um and you're having fun and playing for the love of it, that you know it's sustainable, more sustainable, and um, nothing's wrong with enjoying what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

Yeah, right. Can you imagine that's yeah, yeah? Tell that to uh some parents. I feel like the parents are the tough, sometimes the tougher nut to crack as a co I coach for a while. Um do you think parents are those who have come from like the old school way of doing things? You think they're coming around to these ideas as well? Um or does that take a different set of communication?

SPEAKER_01 47:59

I don't know. I want to think so, but I I think no. I I think that's a really hard one. And I've had yeah conversations with um Daya and then also other people in the mental performance space about how it would be so helpful to sort of focus attention on helping parents learn how to support their children. Um and I don't that's not an area that I feel called to, even though I think that it is definitely an area that is is missing and is really needed. I think generally parents have the best, you know, they're coming from a place of they want, you know, what's best for their kids. Um, but maybe getting it a little mixed up along the way with how to support their children. I've I find it interesting because I've had people over the years ask me how I got went so far in my sport and you know, tips, and they always want to share that their 10-year-old is you know the best on their team or that they're you know doing really great. And um, and my advice was always my mom was very supportive of me as a person, and she didn't know anything about swimming. And when she would come watch me, she would just she would feel nervous for me because she knew I was nervous and she'd feel happy for me if I felt joy, she was sad for me if I was sad. Um, but my desire was internal. I wanted to be the best athlete I could be. Um, and she supported me as a person. And when I tell people that, they don't actually don't like that response. They want something something that you know, my parents pushed me really hard, or they taught me this. Um taught me how to work harder than anybody or be perform better than everybody. But um I think supporting your children enjoying their sport and helping them be a good teammate and to bounce back from making mistakes and not feel judged, you know, for making a mistake, because that is part of the journey. Everybody's gonna make mistakes is really helpful. And it would it would be nice if more parents understood that, I guess. But it's okay for them to if your child wants it, they'll go farther, I think, than if they if the parent wants it. I think they need to kind of check their motivations, whether do they want this because this is their dream of their child, or do they want it because it feels like they're reliving some of their glory days, or you know, they want their kid to be successful because they didn't have that opportunity. Um, and it's not to say that those aren't okay, like good intentions, but sometimes they can be harmful.

SPEAKER_00 50:57

Okay. And how how do you handle burnout? Um, do you suggest like if someone is feeling the effects of uh their sport mentally to the point where they're just getting less interested in it or just struggling through it? Do you apply primarily meditation and breath work, or do they you have them take a break from the sport, or is there anything that you use for burnout specifically?

SPEAKER_01 51:29

Um I guess it would depend on the athlete and where they are in their career. And I try not to tell them what to do, but to help them figure out what would be best for them. So whether that's um taking a break, whether that's um focusing on areas outside of their sport to try to bring a little bit more um balance and enjoyment into their daily life, um taking more, you know, leaning more into recovery practices. Um so I think it would it's definitely like a by person, individual, yeah, yeah, individual basis. I think for younger kids, I would just I recommend like just try a different sport, maybe, or you know, like not being so afraid to uh take a break and to find your like rekindle that love of your sport. Um I think a big thing for young sports that or young athletes that I think it would be helpful if coaches, like coaches and parents supported was like we don't really know what your athlete what the person's gonna be as an athlete until they go through puberty. So before they've gone through puberty to like let them play, let them enjoy it just for the love of being part of a team and competing and not, I feel like the professionalization of youth sports is really harmful to kids. So if they're haven't gone through puberty yet and they're even if they're really competitive and you know want to be a professional athlete at 13 or whatever it is, but to not take it so seriously. And if they need a break to take a break, if they want to try a different sport, try a different sport, like keep try to support the love of the game, the love of the sport. Um, and that will help them navigate when it gets more challenging and more competitive when they get older and when the stakes are higher. Because you got to get through high school before you get to college. And it's just like every step up is you know more pressure and more work. And um, but I think for some athletes, if you are a professional athlete, you might not have the option to take a break, depending on where you are in your season. So you need to look at more of like how you're the other things that you're doing throughout the day that maybe you can tweak. And, you know, sometimes you do have to work through, like compartmentalize how you're feeling to get through a certain time, but giving yourself the space to work through it if you have to push it back a little bit, like in a later time, you're going to deal with this. But right now, to get to that next competition or whatever the big thing is that's coming up that's making it hard for you to take a break, you know, breaking it down into what you're doing on the daily basis and keeping yourself focused on the process to help you navigate that time.

SPEAKER_00 54:43

Okay. Yeah. I I feel like a lot of people on my radar, at least in wrestling, are pushing for multi-sport athletes all the way up to they're done with high school. And I think at least with that sport, it's injury related too. I think coaches are looking at there's only so many stressful wrestling matches you could wrestle by that age where you start to break your body a bit, break down, and break down mentally. I think kids often in that sport especially get burnt out easily. Um I think you pretty much answered this, but I was curious your thoughts on the like pretty much pay-to-play sports where kids are doing these travel teams, a real focus in on um specialty uh like teams as opposed to like this community-based school focused. Um it seems like it's evolved with almost every sport into you wanna be on this, you want to be a good hockey player? Well, the you know, the you better sign up for the camp in Canada, and then there's really gonna play now in like South America, so pony up and pay or you know, do you get a lot of that um sense or or uh do you feel as if sports have pushed that direction away from more of the community school-based sports? Yeah. And the effects of that on the on a mental health standpoint?

SPEAKER_01 56:18

Um most of the athletes I work with are college and professional. I feel like my opinions on the younger athletes is as a mother and seeing my friends with their kids in sports and sort of learning about that through their experience. My kids are more in the art world. My daughter is a she's into ballet, and I've noticed it with ballet. She just actually got burnt out and wanted to take a break from ballet, which we did and tried to get her into some different sports to try. And it was really challenging. She's 11. Um, and there wasn't a lot of beginner classes for her. There wasn't a lot of opportunities for her age to just come in not knowing the sport. So she wanted to try volleyball, and all of the opportunities for volleyball were club volleyball, which had a huge commitment right away, um, and a lot of money. And she just wanted to know, like, oh, do I like, you know, I've never played it before. Can I see what that's like? Um so I think it is it's hard to navigate. I think it's also hard if your kid wants to do the sport as a parent, even knowing that it's not great for them to specialize so young, if they're direct, if they're following their child's lead and their kids like, but I want to do this, I want to be part of this world and and pursue it this way. And you have the ability to pay all that money to let them do it, um, which is definitely a barrier for a lot of people. Um, I think it's challenging too, because I want them to pursue the things that they're into. And if that is the opportunity, so with ballet, it keeps getting more adding one more day. It's hard on your body. And the expectation is that you will be there for those certain days out of the week. Um, and swimming has a huge commitment. I mean, a lot of sports have this huge commitment, uh, and it's really challenging to do other things. And if your kid, it's a hard situation, I think, as a parent, because if your kid wants to do it, that's the world that they're entering and the expectation for it. So it's hard to sort of jump in there and say, No, my kid will not travel. And they will only trade two two days a week because they're also going to do this other sport. Because the team or coach will probably be like, Okay, well, they don't get any playing time or they can't join the team. And it's just it's complicated and it's frustrating, I think, as a parent, because I just think when they're young, they should be able to figure out what they like and explore different things. And I think when kids were able to do things by the season and play multiple sports, I still have some friends that their kids are doing that. They're playing, I'm bad with the seasons. I think baseball in the spring and soccer in the fall, and they do different things in the summer, and they're building a love for being athletic in sports without having to make a huge commitment to that one sport yet. But when I talk to the parents, they're like, well, it's coming because it's like, well, now it's like more club opportunities, or you know, it's um it's a hard, it's hard to take that route now, I think.

SPEAKER_00 59:39

Yeah, I was I was curious your thoughts on that. Um you brought up, you know, the uh importance of good recovery. And I feel it's very easy for athletes to go to add more, add more, cold plunge, sauna, uh, tape, tape your your mouth shut when you sleep. Uh yeah. You know, the list could go on and on and on.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:07

Whereas, you know, I don't think it's as like popular to say, you know, subtract and maybe just go to sleep early, put the phone down.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:17

It's what are your thoughts? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:20

Uh yeah, I think you're right. I think two of the probably the best things you could do is to put your phone away and prioritize your sleep. Um, I think there's so much information, and we get inundated with, you know, cult like all of the things like wear your whoop, track your data, go in the hot the coal plunge, and then go in the sauna, and then you know, wear your um like compression boots, and there's so many different things out there. Um, and I get pulled into that too. I'm like, oh, that's interesting. I want to try that.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:54

And same.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:55

Um, and I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Um I think I think I overuse doing things with intention a lot because I feel like with you, it is hard to keep adding things and when you're training, you know, for hours a day, than to say, oh, now I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna make myself this very nutritious meal that's gonna take two hours, and then I'm gonna prep my food for the next day, and then I'm gonna go in the sauna for 30 minutes and then get a massage. It's like there's just not enough time in the day. Um, so rather than adding, just thinking, like, where can you be a little bit more intentional? Like it's okay to sit down and relax and watch TV at the end of the day. Um, but maybe noticing I get if I watch something really violent or depressing, you know, it like I can go to bed feeling like tense and sad. So maybe that's not gonna be something that I'm gonna watch when I'm feeling already tense and sad, or I need to feel relaxed, like just being a little bit more mindful and intentional about the things that you're doing and noticing how you respond to them and maybe where you can make tweaks along the way that feel sustainable and um doable without adding a bunch more.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:16

Okay. And you did bring up, we brought up uh the phone. Do you have suggestions for folks who want to have a healthier relationship with the social media and the phone? Do you have them shut it off at a certain point of the day or take breaks? Like intention, like like you brought up a lot about intention and having intention behind things. It's just is it just a matter of developing a more intentional behavior around the phone, or or how do you how do you look at social media and the the phone?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:49

Yeah. Gosh. Um, I mean, I have a lot of opinions on it just personally, because I really struggle with the world of social media. Um I actually feel like a lot of the athletes that I'm working with at the moment have a pretty, I mean, at least from what they're telling me, obviously, I'm not around them all the time. So um, but they have a pretty good relationship with social media. Um and they're for some athletes, there is a pressure, you know, as part of their brand, and they have to, you know, post consistently, and uh that's part of their job. Um and so there is sort of that attention to making sure you set boundaries. So ultimately, if you're uh you need to perform well as an athlete over your so presence on social media, you might have to create boundaries for one over the other. Um but I think generally the athletes that I'm working with now at least have a pretty good um handle on it. I think maybe the some of the younger athletes are a little bit more aware about the dangers of social media, but just the overuse. Maybe they've been hearing it for a lot longer. Whereas I think my generation, we kind of grew up with it and created some habits that then we had to look back on and be like, oh yeah, this isn't really helpful, or I'm um scrolling a little bit too long. And obviously, I I'm not to say that young athletes don't struggle with that too, but um I haven't, I guess I haven't really had a lot of issues with that with athletes that I'm personally working with.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:38

Okay. Do you what you brought up you work at with a lot of collegiate and professional athletes? What do you work with specific what sports do you work with? Um is it a wide variety?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:54

Yeah. Um, I mean, I always say I'll work with any sport, any athlete that wants to do the work. I love learning about different sports and how the mental side um impacts how they perform. Um, I've been getting more into the golf community. Golf is really exciting for me as a I started playing myself last year, so learning how to play. Um, I feel like it's a unique mental challenge, um, especially coming from more of an endurance athlete to golf is has been an interesting challenge for me. Um, but I worked with a lot of different athletes. So right now I have golfers, um marathon runner, a couple water polo players. I worked with CrossFit, ballet, um, swimming, um, triathlon, just a lot of different sports. And it's the same mental skills, but just applied in a different way. So, and I think also in I've worked in the corporate space and you know, with people that aren't athletics. Athletes and it's the same skills, just applied and communicated in a different way.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:09

Would you say that it's the same with men versus women, or do you see trends uh male athletes versus female athletes?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:21

Um really. I think generally I've worked with more male athletes than female athletes. Um but they've all been really different. And I think the the biggest factor I think for me is when the person is open to talking about their experience and really being curious about like how they can make changes. So it's harder to work with an athlete, which I feel like is usually when they're younger, that does not give a lot of information about their experience. Cause it's harder to sort of figure out like what's working, what's not when they don't um yeah, I give a lot of information. So if I asked like, oh, how was practice yesterday? And they're like, good. It's like, okay. Well, like, let me tell me a little bit more. Um, and then some athletes, you know, I could just ask one question and the whole hour goes by with talking about that one practice. And there's so there's a lot of information to sort of like get out of that that conversation. So I think that would be the biggest difference. And it hasn't been um a difference between men and women. It's just whether how open they are to talking and how much detail they give.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:43

Yeah, it sounds like similar to your own personal experience, that almost that therapist component of it seems like a good starting point, that conversation and communication and being developing that skill set of expressing how you feel and what's going on. Um I've talked to a lot of therapists on here, um, specifically for men, and they've found I got another guy coming on next week who's really fascinating. He has a golf simulator and he has guys come in and they'll just open up. Like you ask them how their day was, they're like, good. And then they go hit a couple golf balls and like the floodgates open. It's so interesting. I don't know if you've had that experience. You find if you like do an activity while talking about how someone's feeling that they have a tendency to uh open up more, or is I've heard this with men specifically. They call it like a lot of folks are saying shoulder-to-shoul type of therapy, like more like go for a walk or a hike or and talk.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:52

I have heard that too, and I've heard it specifically for like talking to teenage boys that talking in the car can be more helpful because you're both facing forward and you're not like looking directly at them. Um almost all of the work that I do is via Zoom. So most of the athletes I work with aren't even in the same state as me. So we are, you know, just like we are today, just talking to each other through our computers. And then sometimes I have the ability to uh, you know, go on like a I've gone on a couple of practice rounds with a golfer I've worked with, or to see them, you know, any chance I can get to see them in person doing their sport is really helpful. Um, but I haven't personally experienced that. Um, most of the male athletes that I've worked with have been very open. I don't know if there's a difference, and this is I I don't know what the research says on this, or if because I am a woman, maybe there's a little less of a guard to maybe they feel more comfortable to express how they feel. I I have no idea. Um but from my experience, I think most of the men that I worked with have been quite open about their experience. Not as not that all of them are very emotional about it. Um, but it hasn't seemed to to be a problem in in the work that we're doing together. And I am not a um, I have my master's in sports psychology, so I'm not uh qualified to you know treat somebody with a mental health illness. I can't treat someone with for depression or anxiety. So um I'm working more on the I am working on the performance aspect of it. That doesn't mean that at times we don't talk about, you know, how their day is or things that are emotionally charged. Um kind of getting back to what you just mentioned. I think that sometimes people think that, oh, if you're gonna work on your mind, it's like a, we have to do like a drill or we have to do this practice. But I think sometimes just talking and saying, I'm nervous about this performance, this is how I feel about it, just saying it out loud to somebody can be really freeing because then it's like out of your head when it's in your head the entire time and you don't write it down on a piece of paper or say it out loud, it just sort of cycles through. So I think just talking about it can be the first really helpful step to working on your mental game.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:35

I love that. I feel at least on my radar, a lot of folks are coming around to this earlier on in their sporting careers and um even working with a mental health, mental performance coach before there is any uh negative effect of the mental game. It seems like it's as if I've heard athletes speak to it as if, oh, it's you know, I have my athletic trainer, I have I go see uh the physical therapist for certain physical pains. This is just another for my mental performance. Um and then I've heard athletes also describe their if they're going through a difficult mental uh health challenge that like it's an it's almost like an injury. That is, if I wouldn't just ignore the injury, the ankle sprain. And that's it's pretty cool to hear that it's uh that these younger athletes seem to really get it or starting to get it.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:40

Yeah. I think there's so many more examples of that now. There's so many athletes that are sharing their mental health journey, their struggles, also what's working. If you when you watch tennis, some of the athletes have their mental skills coach, mental performance coach, sports psychologist, whatever you want to call it, like in the stand, they travel with them, golf is the same. Um, so I think there's just so many more examples of that. And I always try to, especially for younger athletes, like explain that you know, high school is very competitive and challenging. And then you move up to college, which is more competitive and there's more pressure. And then those few that make it to being a professional athlete, like the physical skill gets you so far. But what's differentiating the people that make it to the next level is their mental ability. And I think when you think about the goats of particular sports, it's not necessarily that they have were physically gifted beyond belief. I mean, some of them are, um, but it was their it's their mental ability. It was how how resilient they are, it's their ability to focus and ignore distractions. And I also think there's they believe that there's improvements to be made. Um, and so they're willing to try new things, they're willing to work on do meditation to see if it gives them an advantage. They're open to working hard in different areas of their life, not just the physical. Um and I think it's exciting to think of like, well, you can work really hard still. There's so much information out there, but still, if you work on the if you work on your mind and you work on strengthening your mind, you will have a huge advantage over your competitors because they're still not doing the work.

unknown 1:14:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:30

Not all of them. So it's still like a uh an area that you can explore that you can get a huge advantage from.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:38

Yeah, it's I think that's uh a great uh way to wrap things up. But I I don't know if there's anything else that you want to put out there for folks, or um, is there any other components of this that you'd like to unpack before I let you go? Um I was curious about yoga because I love yoga and I felt like that was my door-in to more working on the mental side of things. I've I always thought maybe that was because of as an athlete, there's something about the movement aspect of that as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:15

Yeah. I think I was just I recently started practicing yoga again. Um, and I was kind of shocked by how different it seems from even just a couple years ago. Uh, just the studio environment.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:31

Um, yeah, yeah. I've got opinions about that.

unknown 1:15:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:35

Me too. I'm like, this is weird. Is this yoga?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:38

I don't know, but um right, totally. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:41

I feel like yoga is a a great way for people to slow down and to start to give themselves like a little opening into working on their mind. And when I first started practicing yoga in my 20s, I very much so was competitive and was like go to class and like I want to float up into a handstand and do these crazy arm balances, and one day I'm gonna do the splits. And it was very like performance-based. Uh, I'm a competitive person. So I wanted to like be really good at yoga. Um but I also laid in shavasana and had like quiet moments, and I think those are little seeds that sort of brew where I started to realize like, oh, it's okay to slow down. I don't have to force myself into the splits. I can just like take a couple nice deep breaths here and relax. And I actually go farther than when I was forcing it. Um and I slowly started to go inward, I guess, which sounds pretty cheesy because I feel like that's a marketing spogan for a lot of yoga studios in LA. Um but but I guess it's true. I started to, you know, be open to meditation, to practice like a little bit of breath work when they would give it to us in class. And I started to realize, like, oh, when I slow down, um, when I move my body and then sit and lay down at the end, like I feel different, like my day feels different throughout the like I gave myself this quiet moment and it felt um it felt important. And I think that sort of led me into working on my mind a little bit more. So I think yoga is a wonderful bridge um to working on your mind. Because I think for I've always thought for some of like I like movement feels very therapeutic to me. Even now, if I go for a walk, my mind sort of settles a little bit. I have a very busy mind. Um but slowing down and walking, or when I run, I feel inspired. When I swim, I feel it's quiet and I feel at peace. Uh, when I practice yoga, like it just feels good to like move in my body to but to slow down. So I think for some people using movement to get to the quiet place can be really helpful in a good segue. Um now I can meditate without moving first. Um but it started with movement. And I think that for some people, myself included, that can be really helpful.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:36

Yeah, and I I do think for me, it was the first time I had some a coach figure or teacher where it was like a lot of positivity, you know, where I felt like a lot of coaches are always like not good enough, not good enough, not good enough. And you start to believe you're just not good enough. Yeah, you know, whereas I had some some not so great yoga teachers too that kind of push on that button, but it had some really other great ones that, you know, were pushing on the athlete button where they wanted to help me improve and also kind of bring you up, bring you up, bring you up to the point where your self-talk, I've for me at least, started to shift to remember that how that teacher talked to you, like maybe start to talk to yourself a little bit more uh positively or with compassion.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:32

Yeah. And that can be such a profound experience.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:36

Uh-huh. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:38

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:41

That's that's sweet. If is there anything else uh that you want to put out there or anything that we didn't cover that you wanna want to talk about before we I let you go?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:55

Um no, I guess I always I feel like if anything from our conversation or from people listening, if it just piques their interest and um the journey that it's okay to start small, to you can do small things to have a big impact and that a little curiosity and kindness can go a really long way. So whether you're starting your mental skills journey or working on yourself, uh no better time than the present.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:32

Yes, I love that. And if folks do want to follow you um and support you, where should we point them? Where could they find you?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:43

Um, I currently don't have a very large presence on social media. I have a couple meditations on YouTube. Um and I am on Instagram. Everything is just Mika Shaw. Um, I am not super present there at the moment. Good for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:03

Um if you don't have to be, that's great. That's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:07

I'm always last year I took the year off and I just felt really burnt out from it. And this year I've been kind of thinking, oh, maybe I should dip my toes back in. But um it just feels to me, I do want to create more meditations on YouTube because it seems like it could be something helpful to people. But Instagram for me feels like a really big energy drain, and it feels like this hamster wheel that I I really don't want to be on.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:43

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:45

But every now and then I'm like, oh shoot, but I guess I should put myself back out there. So it's a um it's a journey. I don't know what I don't know where where it will lead me.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:55

Yeah, and that's spoken like a true mental performance, which I love that I respect that.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:04

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:06

But thank you for having me. And I'm it's been wonderful to to talk to you and get to know you a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:13

Likewise, I'd I'd love to uh circle back and do this again sometime. This is really helpful. Thanks for explaining things in a way that I could understand and the audience could follow. And um yeah, I appreciate your time. And I uh thanks for thanks for coming on.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:30

Yeah, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:33

All right. I'll take care.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:35

Okay, thank you so much, Jacob. It was lovely talking with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:38

All right, you too.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:39

Okay, bye.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:41

Bye. Thanks for tuning in. If you found my conversation with Mika Shaw to be informative, if it got you thinking, if you learned something, please leave the podcast a review and leave it five stars and share it with everyone you know. You can find me on all social media platforms, especially Instagram at Yoga with Jake, and on my website, yoga with Jake dot com. Until next time, take care of the