Life Kit - Olympic Runner Alexi Pappas On Learning To Ask For Help

Episode Date: January 25, 2021

Alexi Pappas is an Olympic runner, an actor and, now, a memoirist. In her new book, Bravey, she shares her struggles with mental health and learning to seek help.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is NPR's Life Kit. I'm Ari Shapiro. Alexi Pappas wears a lot of hats. She's an Olympic runner who ran the 10,000 meters for the Greek national team in Rio. She's a filmmaker and actor. Her latest indie rom-com, Olympic Dreams, was filmed during the 2018 Winter Games. And now she's also a memoirist. Her new book is called Bravey. Bravey is a word that came about from a poem I wrote, which was run like a bravey, sleep like a baby, dream like a crazy, replace can't with maybe. After she tweeted that poem, the word bravey took on a life of its own as a battle cry for Pappas and the young runners who idolize her. Growing up, I often chased outward-facing words and labels like strong, fierce, fast, funny, and I realized that they describe an energy you project in the world.

But this word, bravey, felt different. It felt like a choice about the relationship you have with yourself. It's a fitting title for her memoir. I think of Alexi Pappas as someone fiercely focused on hugely ambitious external goals. But in this book, she turns that focus inward to examine her childhood, her family, and her own mind. This episode of Life Kit, Alexi Pappas on asking for help, understanding the real meaning of success and what it means to be a Bravey.

Before we jump back into this episode, we want to say welcome to any new Life Kit listeners. We're glad you're here. You can expect each episode to have helpful takeaways to get you started on whatever life project you're looking to tackle. There are episodes on money, physical and mental health, parenting, and much more. So take a look around. We're sure there's an episode that answers a question you've been asking yourself. Okay, back to the episode. Pappas starts the introduction of her memoir with why she started running,

and I asked her to read the first paragraph. My earliest memory of running was in the first grade, when a boy in my class made fun of my best friend, and I not only chased him down, but caught him and stabbed him with a pencil to make sure he knew I wasn't around. In middle school, I channeled my athletic ability in a more productive way. The track team organized chasing. We had weekly meets at the local high school dirt track, which was very exciting to us 12 year olds. The meets were coed and I won them all. I liked the feeling of winning.

It made me feel like I mattered. All I've ever wanted in my life is to matter. First of all, I just love that your running debut was like as an Avenger, basically stabbing a villain. But I want to ask about that last sentence, all I've ever wanted in my life is to matter. When did you realize that feeling like you matter is what's most important to you? Well, I'll first admit that I think that it wasn't the most sustainable feeling to have. And I'd learned that later in life. But where it started was the first like five years of my life coincided with my mom's last. And my mom took her own life just before I turned five. And my experience with her in those first five or so years were difficult and made me feel like I didn't matter enough for her to stay. And that five-year-old understanding of the world really motivated me to matter to everybody else.

And it fueled me to do great things. I chased, you know, an Olympic dream and other big dreams and got those things. But what I needed to learn eventually and did learn the hard way is that chasing those external accomplishments was never going to solve that internal problem. You described this period just after the Olympics in Rio, where externally, things were going amazingly for you. You had just set a Greek record in the 10,000 meters, your movie had a distribution deal, but you were in really deep pain. And it was really difficult for you to to seek help yeah i think it's that came from chasing this somewhat singular goal of making it to the olympics for a substantial period of time and and never planning for what came next and and when it did end instead of slowing down and pausing and recognizing the impact of an event like that, I was searching for what was next. And that came from that childhood want to always matter,

always be performing. And that's unsustainable, but I didn't understand it at that time. And so I spun out and scrambled to figure out what the next big goal was, what was my next thing instead of pausing, and just letting the impact of that event absorb and that period of my life, just, you know, have its catharsis, if you will. Yeah. You know, in the foreword to this book, the actress Maya Rudolph says Olympians are the closest thing we have to superheroes. Does being perceived as a superhero make it more difficult to talk about these periods you're describing? Totally, because the strangest feeling is when the way the world sees you is completely opposite of the way you feel or see yourself. And that makes it hard to feel like you should need help or can, are allowed to get help. And it made it really difficult for me until

my dad, who had seen what my mom went through, made me get help. And that's what I needed. And then when my doctor helped me understand that my brain was a body part, just like my leg, and it could get injured like any other body part, and it could also heal like any other body part. And suddenly it was not about Olympian or not or superhero or not. It was just this body needs to heal, and it's going to take some time and it can heal. It's interesting to me that in the book you actually describe asking for help as a superpower. And in this part of the book, you're talking about when your mother was no longer around, asking other mothers to teach you how to cook or do other domestic things. You're not talking about like the big life events that you asked for help with,

but just the small events. I think eventually we start to lose that muscle that wants to have mentors or ask for help. And I just have tried to just keep exercising that muscle because I knew how helpful it was for me growing up and also how generous people are to allow someone who needs help to imitate them or be by their side without judging them or like watching them watch them if that makes sense yeah and then the awareness that somebody might be watching me now and that everything I do and say someone might take and run with as I did when I was little. And that awareness feels like a privilege and also a responsibility. There's an idea you talk about in the book, befriending pain. How did you learn to befriend pain?

Well, I think it starts with the understanding that even for an Olympian, running hurts and there's going to be pain in our existence. So, and then growing up, first of all, I experienced a lot of bad pain, which was watching my mom hurt herself. And I was aware that running like sports and other, you know, athletic feats are good pain and so I fundamentally knew that it was like a good variety of pain and I started to try to greet pain that I knew would come inevitably every every race like an expected guest at my dinner party and and to understand pain as a sensation and not a threat. Because in sports, unless you're injured, it is good pain. It is a sensation and we can come to expect it and embrace it differently. There's something that your doctor told you as you were working through your depression that

doesn't relate directly to this, but it comes to mind, which is that like, I have a body, but I'm not my body. I have feelings, but I, which is that I have a body, but I'm not my body. I have feelings, but I'm not my feelings. I have thoughts, but I'm not my thoughts, which just having read the book, that stuck in my head. And it seems relevant to this too. Totally. I think the way we see and label and identify our experiences in the world starts to dictate how we place ourselves and see the world right and so

i think i think it's as much for our survival that we look at pain differently as it is for our genuine enjoyment of our life which will be painful no matter what right and you're saying this applies to non-olympians too that anyone befriend pain, even if they're not choosing to race and push their body to extremes. Yeah. And to see it as a part of life. So if we're offended by pain or sadness every time it comes, then life's going to be pretty challenging because those are part of life. But if we can amuse in those experiences or expect them, it doesn't feel as offensive or unpleasant. It just feels like we're doing it. We're like in life and this is a part of it. So having like excavated all of this and interrogated this about yourself and your motivations and your values, you're still running. Why? Yeah. So I ran the 10,000 in Rio and I've always had

a curiosity for the marathon. It, you know, it started in Greece where I'm competing and I still have not had that feeling in a marathon that I had in the 10K in Rio of complete mind and body synergy. And I'm curious if I can get there, you know, exploring the outermost bounds of my mind and body in the marathon. It's also a good way to see a place like whether, you know, however long I compete, I see new countries compete in the Olympics. It is an efficient and fun way to experience the world regardless of the goal. Alexi Pappas, her new memoir is called Bravey, Chasing Dreams, Befriending Pain, and Other Big Ideas.

It's been great talking with you. Thank you so much. Thank you. And if you or someone you know is thinking about suicide, there are free trained counselors available 24-7. You can call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255. And if you love LifeKit and want more, subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org slash LifeKit Newsletter. And we always want to hear from you. If you've got a good tip or a question you want us to tackle, leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823. Or email us a voice memo at lifekit at npr.org.

This episode was produced by Elena Burnett. Special thanks to Connor Donovan. Megan Cain is LifeGets Managing Producer and Beth Donovan is our Senior Editor. I'm Ari Shapiro. Thanks for listening. We are still in the middle of this pandemic. And right now, having science news you can trust, from variants to vaccines, is essential. NPR Shortwave has your back. About 10 minutes every weekday, listen and subscribe to Shortwave, the daily science podcast from NPR.