Soul Boom - Turning Trauma into Olympic Glory w/ Alexi Pappas

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

Olympian Alexi Pappas opens up to Rainn Wilson about how childhood trauma shaped her journey to the 2016 Olympics and beyond. She explores the complex relationship between emotional pain, perfectionism, and achievement, discussing post-Olympic depression and the unexpected pressures that follow reaching the pinnacle of success. Alexi shares personal stories about her mother's suicide and the role of sports in her healing, while offering insights into how visualization and resilience can help us navigate life’s challenges. This conversation dives deep into the human experience, making it a must-watch for anyone interested in mental health, high performance, and overcoming adversity. Thank you to our sponsors! Pique Tea (15% OFF!): https://piquelife.com/SOUL Squarespace: https://squarespace.com/soulboom Waking Up app (1st month FREE!): https://wakingup.com/soulboom Fetzer Institute: https://fetzer.org/ Sign up for our newsletter! https://soulboom.substack.com SUBSCRIBE to Soul Boom!! https://bit.ly/Subscribe2SoulBoom Watch our Clips: https://bit.ly/SoulBoomCLIPS Watch WISDOM DUMP: https://bit.ly/WISDOMDUMP Follow us! Instagram: http://instagram.com/soulboom TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@soulboom Sponsor Soul Boom: [e-mail] Work with Soul Boom: [e-mail] Send Fan Creations, Questions, Comments: [e-mail] Produced by: Kartik Chainani Executive Produced by: Ford Bowers, Samah Tokmachi Spring Green Films Production Supervisor: Mike O'Brien Voicing Change Media Theme Music by: Marcos Moscat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I don't know if it has direction specific in the material world, but you will find it. So I lost my mom young. She took her own life. So I latched on to the Olympics because I was good at sports. And it was a way to definitely matter. Like I wanted to be indispensable to something. When nobody talked to me, about her. It just felt like I didn't matter enough for her to stay. And that's a childish thing to think,

but that's just how it felt when I was six and went to the 1996 Olympics and saw the Olympians and said, I want to be that so that people, I have a place in this world and a credential that will not be taken away from me. Hey there, it's me, Rain Wilson, and I want to dig into the human experience. I want to have conversations about a spiritual revolution. Let's get deep with a our favorite thinkers, friends, and entertainers about life, meaning, and idiocy. Welcome to the Soul Boom podcast. I am an ungainly pudgy, middle-aged man. I've never been in athletics, but recently I've always loved tennis and always kind of played it off and on, and I had a pretty good natural

skill at it. For some reason, I don't know why. I was pretty good at tennis. Here I am in my late 50s. And we move out and there's a little tennis club next to my house. So I joined it. So I'm in the USTA tennis team. And we play matches against other clubs. So it's a bunch of pudgy middle-aged men. Some of them are quite good at tennis and played in high school or even college. And there's me like in the middle.

And it's been so interesting to me because I've had a taste of competition and sports in my mid-late 50s. I've never dealt with like athletic pressure before. So I'm dealing for the first time, like I'm 55, 55, 6 years old, feeling like pressure nerves. And it's been an incredible learning experience. And you really clearly care. Like nerves just come from caring, right?

Like if you were apathetic about the result and if you were somehow impervious to how you affect other people, or whatever, right? Then it wouldn't affect you in a way that makes you detached from the universe or something. But you care. And isn't it an interesting thing to care about something that you know is not life or death, but you care so much and you actually will affect the people right next to you, like in a very direct way?

Yeah, because who the fuck? You were, you're an Olympian. You were competing for Greece and you're, you know, you have TV cameras. you have a billion people watching you. This is like, who the fuck cares if my tennis club loses or wins against this other tennis club? But you can care too much so that it affects your nerves. So it's been a really interesting personal odyssey to learn about dealing with the pressure of competition in my 50s.

Yeah. Can we talk about it more? I would love to. Because you, you're a professional athlete. I would love to hear like, you're the first one I've spoken. Well, I kind of forgot what it felt like to be, like, that nervous because I haven't been competing super hard in a long time. Like, I've been guiding blind athletes and doing other things, but that's like nerves on someone else's behalf. But I threw the first pitch at the

Giants game, like this past year at the baseball game. And my dad looked like he, this was like the best day of his life or whatever because he's a giant's guy. But I felt a lot of pressure because I wanted to throw a strike. And I grew up playing softball. but that isn't underhand. Yeah, yeah. Like, I've never thrown a baseball and held, you know, the stitches like that, that distance, that crowd. It's a long way. I did the first pitch once at Dodgers game.

It's a long way. It's a long way. The pitcher's mound to that mitt is, it's kind of crazy how far it is. Yeah, and they don't expect you. Look, they set you up with a catcher. They actually had my dad do it, so I was like, I need to throw the strike. But what I realized was that, like, sports and especially sports that, seem effortless and smooth.

Like, it's all in the practice and preparation, and that in the practice and preparation, you hone the skills practice is where you... You workshop. You workshop and you grow the muscle memory in practice. And then what I imagine you're working on in the meditation, in the therapy and the other stuff, is how to then kind of let all that go.

and when you're in the game, be present. Because the muscle memory is in there. You have the, if you've practiced. Right. Right. But the nerves tighten you, and then they make your body kind of your enemy. Right.

And it's how do you like... Have you ever experienced that in a race? No, because I've always felt extremely prepared, and I visualize ahead of time, and I know that I'm prepared. I take time to acknowledge the preparation. Maybe even the visualization ahead of time. maybe that's something I should work on.

Yeah. So with that, you might take time like a day or two before a tennis match, not like the day of, maybe the day before. And just, first of all, like, acknowledge that you put in time to get there and that you're already on the team, right? You're not trying to make the team. You're on the team. Whatever team that captain puts you on, you're not trying to earn the spot.

You've got the spot. So that's one thing. And the other thing is to imagine some of the hurdles that you might. imagine will come. So like the different kinds of, I don't know, what are they called shots? Like you have to basically imagine the, the. Someone might have a really hard flat serve that comes in really low and it's really hard to return. So spend some time seeing yourself return it. See yourself return the various shots that are challenging for you. See yourself make a mistake and then come back and do the next thing you need to do. Right. And once you, and see yourself thrive

in that, like, because you can, right? Presumably. But this is like hypnosis. It's visualizing. It's another version of that, kind of. Well, that's really cool. Yeah, mental exercise, yeah. But this one would probably be more one-on-one with yourself

because you are probably the only one that knows what those, what the biggest challenges will be for you. So you can kind of get into all the nooks and crannies of everything you can predict. Yeah. And then when you get in the match, there's still going to be stuff you can't predict that you haven't already seen yourself overcome, but you'll have more willpower, less nerves built up to deal with the stuff. Like, you will have already seen yourself handle most of those challenges.

And it does help because then you step in and you're like, you're kind of, it's almost like you've rehearsed the play. And now you're going to go do the play. It doesn't mean that something's not going to go weird in the play, right? In theater, something is always going to be unexpected. But you've rehearsed it enough. It's kind of like those bobsled guys and you see them before the bobsledding. and they're like going.

Yes. And then I'm going like this. And then the curve is like this. And I lean in. You see them going through their, yeah, their paces mentally. And then you can kind of be yourself because you've probably done a lot in your life

that actually has prepared you to be a great athlete. You just have it. No, but mentally, right? Like you've done things where you've prepared and then you've had to execute on something. Doing theater is really hard because it's, you're on a tightrope. You're out live.

You've got the lines hopefully memorized. and things can go very wrong. And, right, that's, there's a, there's a lot, there's a lot of similarities. You were talking about the similarities between theater and athletic performance. You survived those, right? So you can, like, what I mean is, like, I really feel like the only thing that you're working on, as I know the nerves are a real thing, but I think once they get connected to, like,

the parts of you that have been preparing for this. in other ways for years, then all it really is is the muscle memory that you're putting in. And that's all in practice. I really should practice. You should practice. That's the real lesson here. You need to practice. Are you someone, I assume you're someone who, like, is trying his best, right?

Like, you try your, you are. Yes. Crazily, yes. So, but isn't that just the simple answer for it? It's like, if you're someone who's always trying his best and you are always like, Well, then now you're getting to perfectionism. So I guess that's what it is. So how do you deal with perfectionism?

Because isn't that a big part of competing at a professional level as an athlete? And it's certainly a part of making movies. I know you've addressed this too when you speak to a lot of adolescent girls about mental health issues and whatnot. Like self-forgiveness and love and, you know, allowance and acceptance. Yeah, where I've gone wrong has not been with trying to be perfect for the sake of being perfect. It was like where I've gone wrong is if my intelligence at that time demanded something of me and I was asking something of myself that was already asking too much or invalid. So what I mean is I've always just tried to ask myself to try my best.

Like that is, I don't, I don't, I can never be the best unless I try my best anyway. So it's a step along the journey. And that's where when I go to bed at night, if I can't sleep if, I can't sleep if I don't believe that I've tried my best. If I'm not the best. How did you learn that? Where did you get that from? Well, if I had to answer, I never thought about it, is maybe my dad, my dad never demanded that I be the best. But he always would say, just try, just try, just try.

And that was when I couldn't sleep at night, he would just say, just try, Lex, just try. When I was the worst on my team at Dartmouth, he'd be like, just keep trying, just keep showing up. And so I think it was like that was the value that I was taught is like, just try. And that was a nice thing. It also meant that I wasn't allowed to give up. He didn't say just pivot. He said, just try. And so maybe that's where the trying came from.

and then I tried to build in sometimes it's hard to know have you tried your best or not like if you're laying at night you're like did I try my best today it's like how do you even quantify that and that's where I've tried to talk to myself after a hard effort

and say it out loud because sometimes I don't remember the effort but I can remember what I said so like I don't know when you're playing tennis with your teammates if you guys are like high five and say yeah like at night you might remember that You might not remember how far you reached for that ball, but you might remember the celebration afterwards.

And so I've tried to build in, like, throughout the day, I talked to myself and say, like, man, that was hard. Or you're doing your bed. Like, I just say stuff. Like, I love you. I just say it because I know that I'll remember that at night and that will let me sleep. So you say self-affirmations during the day, during the struggle? I think so. Or, you know, because, like, the athletics taught me, because you're often training with

people to be like, do something hard and then be like, you know, fuck yeah. Like you, you do it naturally as an athlete and you, if you're training with other people especially, but I'll do it when I'm alone and I'll do it when I'm writing and I'll do it when I'm doing non-athletic stuff so that I can sleep at night. And that's the only way I'm going to be my best is if I try my best. And I think with the places that I've gone wrong or let myself down, it hasn't been because I wasn't the best. It has been because I didn't have the right information. And I was trying my best following the wrong guidebook. So I thought that these were the rules and that that's what trying your best meant. And it led me down a very painful path, you know, with mental health stuff.

Can you talk a little bit about that? How did your mental health struggles? What were they? and how did they arise during this process of competing at an international level and making movies at an international level? Yeah. So I lost my mom young. She took her own life. Maybe we should start with that story for people that aren't familiar because it's so seminal to who you are and the course of your life. Yeah.

And I wish it wasn't. Not like I wish it didn't happen, but I wish it didn't matter so much. Like, that sucks sometimes when you're like, make, like, we are not neutral people. Like, we are just not. We are. And I think it's probably the greatest challenge in life to both, like, accept whatever adaptations we've made because of circumstance. And also not accept that that circumstance needs to exist forever. Like, to balance those two, to basically reconcile the adaptations.

while building a house, which is your life that doesn't perpetuate that, is probably the balance that we all struggle with the most because you're kind of, you're neutralizing and you're building at the same time. But for me, specifically, so when I was little, my mom had manic bipolar disorder. And I think it got, I don't know that much about her still because my dad doesn't really talk about her sometimes if I, like, really talk to him, but he's not. It's not that he doesn't, I really have to ask. And she was really sick.

I think she got more sick when I was born. I think she had really bad postpartum and she had scoliosis. And so she was on painkillers and she got addicted to them. So she had a, and she had an alcohol problem. She had a substance abuse problems. And she was really smart. So she could like, she was like writing her own prescriptions and getting more of the pain killers. So she was able to like get her.

Play the system a little bit. Yeah. To the point where I almost admire her. I'm like, oh, my God. She was, like, so scrappy to, like, go to these boutique pharmacies that didn't have computer systems and, like, get – and I'm like, oh, I see that in me a little bit when I used to, like, get myself out of class in high school. Like, not the same thing, but I'm like, I'm pretty smart too. But so she was really sick. And she, you know, I saved her life one time.

And that's, like, been really – that's a really hard memory because it's an unseeable thing. It's an unseeable thing to see your parent trying to – lacerate themselves and then tell you not to tell anyone. Like, it was horrible. But I didn't really understand then, like, what it was. I just knew instinctually this is bad and got her help. And- You were very young at the time.

You were four or five years old at this point. Yeah, yeah. And it's hard because you're like, why is she not emoting? Like, why does this not? Because she wasn't, that's really the scariest part is, like, why doesn't this affect her? And both why doesn't pain affect her and why doesn't me seeing this pain? Why doesn't her hurting me affect her?

And I think that's probably like my biggest problem in life is like when people hurt me, I don't, it hurts. And I'm like, why don't, why doesn't this matter to them? And that's hard because I'm like trying to like get something from somebody else when you can't really need anything from anybody else in life. And so, but it made me feel like I was going to be. kind of alone on this planet, right? My dad is an engineer. He raised us so dedicated, but very much put them in sports so they can learn how to fall down and get back up, make sure they go to school,

make sure they have lunch. But he had to work, and he's not a very emotionally available guy. And so I didn't really understand it all, but I grew up and developed a lot of adaptations and skills to survive. And where it took me was all the way to the Olympics. Because you're, and I think I did not feel pain like normal kids feel. I still think I don't feel it normally. Physical pain or emotional pain. Both. I don't feel it. Like people feel it. And I can push really, really, really hard because I guess you could make adaptations. If you experience pain super severe, just like if someone hears really loud noises, they might, their hearing might be naturally recalibrated to not hear as well. I don't think. I don't think.

I feel pain like normal people do. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. And it's like, I feel way more pain than normal people. That's, maybe. No, it hurts to walk up the stairs. I'm taking the escalator.

Yeah, I don't, I can, I can just like plow through it. And that's good and bad. You have a suicidal, mentally ill mom. And can you draw a line between the trauma? that you suffered being raised by her and being a successful movie maker, podcaster, and Olympian? What was it about that trauma that might have galvanized you toward this, you know, incredible resume that you have? Well, trauma is an engine, kind of.

So it, like, gives you this battery in you that gives you. that gives you, I mean, it gives you a vague ambition at the very least. It is energized. I don't know if it has direction specific in the material world, but you will find it. So I latched on to the Olympics because I was good at sports. And it was a way to definitely matter. Like I wanted to be indispensable to something because it felt like when nobody talked to me about her, it just felt like I didn't matter enough for her to stay. And that's a childish thing to think, but that's just how it felt when I was six

and went to the 1996 Olympics and saw the Olympians and said, I want to be that. So that people, I have a place in this world and a credential that will not be taken away from me. So I think it drove me to that. And I'm sure there's a lot of like characteristics about myself that with or without her mental health would have helped me. But I think where it, to answer your question, I don't know, right?

So you're saying it created a drive in you to matter because I can relate to that because I didn't go through near the trauma you went through, but my mom left when I was a year and a half, two years old. So, and my dad got married various times. and I didn't really see my birth mother until I was like 15 or 16. So I always think back about like, what is it with this acting thing? Like, you know, because at its heart, there is an element of acting of like, hey, notice me and do you love me? And there's something about the sad clown of like, hey, I'm making you laugh.

Hey, I'm so funny. Hey, look at me. Do you adore me? Like Sally Field, like you love me. You really love me. holding her Oscar, like there is some, not necessarily, but in so many actors, there's some like broken piece there. And to me, I tie it back to this childhood drama, which is even pre-memory.

But what is that that wired me to kind of like want to be adored and make people laugh and be the sad clown? And maybe if my mom and dad had stayed together and just kind of had a regular divorce and a regular life, I'd be a high school English teacher in Bellevue, Washington. There's nothing wrong with being a high school English teacher in Bellevue Washington, but that trauma set me on a trajectory. And I wonder, too, like in your work with adolescent girls, do you talk to them about the fact that, hey, you don't have to be a victim of your trauma, that you can kind of,

like, heal and harness the trauma, like you said, like it's an energy force? Generally, anyone younger than me, I just, like, cares so much for because I would have loved at that age to have somebody reached down instead of me reaching up. Like, I wanted so badly, like, this whatever, sisters type. A mentor, yeah. Yeah, just, like, whatever. Just someone to, like, guide me in a more, like, comforting way, not just, like, here's your dinner, this is the soccer team. Just a more, like, how am I supposed to think? and how do I feel okay?

And so if I can make these, essentially I'm like, look, I've had a very polarizing life, high highs, low lows. So I'm in a unique situation to be able to communicate in a way that might actually matter to these people.

Because if I was like an okay runner and whatever, it just might not resonate, right? It's like sometimes these things allow you to communicate. But as far as the actual, like, messaging, it's just like, there are things that happen

that we cannot continue. control, there are things that have happened. And those things are not okay, but you can be okay, right? And so it's okay that both of those things are true, but don't live in just one or the other. Don't say that, don't make an excuse that that stuff was okay, or you deserved it, or you're going to live a life of perpetuating the truth that you are deserving of bad things. And then you will have more, it'll be a harbinger of all that stuff, right? But also, don't just say I'm okay, right? It's both. It's both. And so I think I'm trying to live that myself, and I'm also just trying to kind of live a life where I'm both in the driver's seat of my life

and also open in my own ways about what the effects were. And that's why books are interesting because you can take time to process, go through your own therapy, and then write the book. I'm not just like putting everything on social media every day because I am in this whole healing process myself. So, so, yeah. Was it healing for you to write Bravy? Or had you done the healing before? I think I did it before. Like I think, I know a lot of people ask that.

And I feel like the nice answer would be like it's so healing to write it. And it is, but it's actually a craft to write it. It is a, I see it as a sport to write essays. It is a discipline and an art and a challenge to create sentences and tell stories and spin yarns in a way that is impactful and exciting and elucidating all at the same time. I was saying to you before we were recording, like, I loved the book Bravely so much because it was like, it's fun, it's light, it's fun, it's light, it's moving, it's moving, it's moving, it's like, oh my God, it's incredibly vulnerable. and it just stops and you're like, you know, and, and then you have that, and then you're dealing with that, and then all of a sudden it's really funny again. And then it's making a series of really valuable points. And so as you're reading it, you're being constantly surprised as the best storytelling is.

The best storytelling when you see a great film, I think it feels right and feels like everything happened the way it needed to happen. And I felt this way about like the holdovers this year, which is one of my favorite movies. That if everything felt just right and at the same time I was constantly surprised. I always thought it was going to go this way and then it would stop and it would go in a different way. And that is so hard to do. Isn't that kind of how life is? And that is exactly how life is.

And then when you look back on life, everything kind of fits in and you're like, wow, that was meant to happen in that way. Incredible. Yeah. But it's constantly surprising. Yeah. And they should really teach kids that. They should really teach kids that life is just going to be so surprising no matter what. Because I think a lot of the rhetoric is like, chase your dreams.

You can control your destiny. You choose who you are. And it's like these poor kids. Recently I did a video on my social media about talking about how millennials struggle with resilience. And that's what you're talking about because resilience is an understanding that life is unpredictable. and that there are joys and there are great sorrows, and that the sorrow can teach us about the joy, and the sorrow will soon pass.

And sometimes life is drudgery, too. So I think social media says life needs to all be joy and all discipline and no drudgery and no pain. And there was a lot of pushback from millennials. I was really surprised, like, we're resilient. What are you talking about? we're the most resilient. How would you address this issue of resilience in young people?

That's a great question. For me, it comes back to sports because even the winningest baseball teams do not win every game. And it's super normal in sports to lose. Like, it is so normal. And that I think is one of the reasons why sports are good for kids, lots of sports, because they will lose. And it will become, like, when you put water over rocks, it'll soften your ability to handle the losing and go into the game or whatever the game is of your life and know that losing is a high possibility and it doesn't mean that you're going to lose the whole thing. It doesn't mean you lose the season. It means you lose the game and then you go back and you learn from it. Why it's probably hard for kids to think that way is because a lot of those losses in sports, there's a team behind you, whether it's a team sport or you know you got a coach or you know it's a sport or you know it's a sport or you're

you know, you know, there's a safety in sports, and when it's your life, it's really exposing. But I think it's really just that resilience is, needs to come back to the foundational understanding that losing is normal and losing is an ingredient to winning. And losing does not represent mistakes. Losing represents opportunities to learn lessons. So setbacks are opportunities. Setbacks are opportunities. And the only real fuckups in life or mess ups in life,

are when you know you need to make a pivot, whether it's athletic or otherwise, when you know you need to make a pivot and you don't make it. That's the mistake. It's not, everything else is just a lesson and that is literally life. Life is just less. But life is also about knowing you need to make a pivot and not doing it and then is hitting the same test again and not making the pivot and knowing you should and doing it again. And sometimes it takes five, six, seven times or 11 times before you make that change. Which requires like a pause between moments in life. Like that's really what we have to build in is like, you know, you talk about your meditation and the hypnosis and all the things. All these things are giving us moments to recalibrate and figure out what are the turns we need

to make. Like if we do not slow down and stop and at set intervals, goals, not all the time, then we won't be able to absorb and make the pivots that we could make. Do you have any examples of this from your life? Yeah, after the Olympics. So after the Olympics, like all Olympians, I felt depressed. And I did so well. And I had a friend who won a gold medal and he had post-Olympic depression. And I had a friend who got last place and she had post-Olympic depression. So it happens. it's a normal adrenal fatigue. You don't think about the people who get last place in the Olympics.

I'm sorry, I've never really even thought that. And I'm like, of course there's someone who gets last place. Yeah. But they still won. They weren't the fucking Olympics. Yeah. Yeah. It is incredible to go to the Olympics.

It is not a loss. Yeah. Amazing. I'm sorry. No, no. It's just going. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. You're thinking. You're visualizing. So there was a big come down after performing on the biggest national. international stage humanity is ever created. Yes, there's a big come down. And you're not supposed to think about the moment after. Nobody tells you to, it would be frowned upon to be like,

I'm about to go to the Olympics and I will be thinking, you know, about the week after right now. Nobody encourages that. So nobody thinks about it. And then when you get there, there's a panic because, and you're fatigue, but there's a panic because everybody's asking you what's next. Everybody, right when you finish the race. all the interviewers, how do you feel what's next? How do you feel what's next? And that's probably the case with a lot of people peaking in life at anything, making a movie, writing a book,

what's next? It's like, geez, I just got here. I just did all the, I don't know what's next. So you assume what's next is kind of assigning an assignment to somebody that they may not have already taken on. And you get a panic feeling and you start again because you're giving an answer that gives yourself another task, and you don't pause. And so I didn't pause. You didn't pause. And what did you do? I trained the next day. I kept running, and I was about to start sponsor negotiations, because often Olympic cycles coincide with sponsor negotiations, so I was stressed about that. And I moved my life from Eugene to Mammoth, a high altitude place so that I could elevate

my running even more by committing to living at 8,000 feet. And I was extremely stressed, but I felt like I needed to capitalize on the momentum. And also, on a personal level, what I was told about my mom was that she was just so sad that she had to go. That's all I've ever been told. She was just so sad she had to go. She had to go. And that narrative made me feel like there was some genetic.

And her brother took his own life. And then her mom was sick. So genetically, I'm like, well, I better not be sad because, It seemed inevitable that my mom had to go. So I also rejected any kind of feelings of depression and sadness because I didn't want to have to go. I thought it was like a disease or something that you, it's like you can't. Once you want to have to go, you got to go. And I'm like, I don't want to want to die.

So when I started to feel those feelings, I rejected them and didn't tell anyone because I thought it was something I could never walk back from, right, or heal from. So it got worse. So what happened? You just, because I imagine you take depression and fear and sorrow and you try and sweep that under a carpet or put it in a closet and it's going to come back stronger than ever if it's not really dealt with. For sure. So, well, it becomes anxiety, right? And debilitating. Like, so I had voices.

I moved to Mammoth and I kept training and I was running like 120 miles a week. at 8,000 feet with other Olympians with one hour of sleep at night. And I would go to practice. Because you were having trouble sleeping. I couldn't sleep. I had so much anxiety about. And, you know, anxiety I've been taught is like it's either a real fear or not, right? Yeah.

There's anxiety is meant to help us from the bear eating us or whatever, right? Yeah. But if there's no bear, then it's just like an unfelt feeling or, you know, a superimposed fear, right? It's not there, right? My sponsor says fear stands for false evidence appearing real. That's exactly it. Yeah, false evidence. I always love that. So I always think like, I'm in fear. I'm like, false evidence appearing real. I love that. I'm like, could we teach kids that or is that, are those words to,

no, kids could understand that. I love that. Oh, my God, I love it so much. Thank you for telling me that. Keep it. It's yours. I'm going to keep it. I'm going to keep it. I'm going to keep it. So I wasn't sleeping and I was training really hard. And I tore my hamstring because like you just can't run these I was running crazy workouts because I was so fit and going through these negotiations signing and then having suicidal thoughts like all the time that were becoming like a broken record in my head it was like my own voice saying I want to die all the time like I would be talking to people and there was like a voice in my head and I had to do appearances with kids that admired me and I felt crazy because I was like they look up to me

but I am a terrible person because I want to die. And so I was surviving. It was just so bad. And what people need to hear is this is coming off of being on top of the world, you know, setting the Greek national record for long distance running and, you know, being on top of the world and competing like with a, in the top, you know, couple dozen of, you know what I mean? People at the height of your, and then right after that, like, because I'm so jazzed by

this because I recently have been sharing about how miserable I was at points of time on the office. And people are just like, because I'm making millions of dollars. I'm adored. I'm getting Emmy nominations. I'm getting sponsorship deals. And you feel spoiled. You feel spoiled for feeling bad. You do not, you feel like a spoiled brat. And you can't, you can't share it because it's like, what are you talking about? You're on a hit TV show. But I did face a lot of, a lot of demons during that time, a lot of, but a lot of narcissism and I deserve more and why don't want I get more and then I feel bad for that. And so anyways, but continue.

So you're with these kids. I like this conversation. I like this conversation because to be able to talk about this with you is so special to me because the more you can relate to somebody who was in a similarly Olympic. I mean, you were on the Olympics of television. I'm sorry, but you were. and you know it. You are a superstar.

You are a space jam. You are like, you are. And that is, the fact is, is you talking about it and me talking about it is really important because then we are kind of creating a nice, safe tent under which anybody underneath this who feels anything like this can at least not have the secondary emotion to judge their, right?

Like, it's... Judge the reason. reality of what they're going through. Yeah. You tear your hamstring, go back to the story. So you hit a wall. You hit bottom. So now I can't run.

And that was the first injury in my life. I never got injured before that. Very grateful about that. And so I had to stop. And then I wasn't sleeping in. I wasn't running. And I was living in a mountain town where people only ski or exercise mammoth lakes. Yeah.

And I felt so crazy. Like I was so, I felt horrible. and I was certain that I would never feel better. And that is a sign of mental unhealth if you think you know your future. Like when you are sure that you will feel X, Y, or Z in the future, you are sick because nobody knows the future, right? And that's a really good thing to notice. That if you think that things will never change or things will never get better, then

that's like, that's, that is an internal cry for help. It's kind of like, oh, you need help right away because that's absolutely not true. but I know a lot of people that deal with depression and they feel that way. And in that their darkest points, they're like, this will never. This will never. This will never left or change. And how dare we think that? Because it's so, it is sort of like, what do you think you know it all?

You know, like we don't. We don't. We don't. And it makes me so, it makes me mad when when people think they know everything about the future. And it makes me mad that I didn't see that. I didn't understand the flags, right? But my dad did. So my dad, God, flawed angel, my dad, he took all my phone calls.

I called him probably four times a day when I was just like in the forest walking around wanting to die. And we're all flawed angels, by the way. Keep going out. That's so nice. And he took all my calls and he just said that he recognized this, right? Because he'd been through with my mom. And he made me get help. And he and my brother helped make doctors appointments, and there was no mental health help directly in person in Mammoth Lake.

So I had to move back to Eugene. So I let my Olympic goals go. And we always need a North Star. And I switched. Once I realized I was sick, I needed help, and I accepted that. I let my North Star switch from survival or the Olympics or whatever else to health because I knew I could tell. Total health, mental health, physical health. Yeah, everything. But I was just seeing Dr. Arpaea, and he told me the very life-saving thing that,

basically he said when I told him all my symptoms, that I was injured. He said that just like my leg was injured or you could fall down and scratch your leg and break your leg, he said, you've fallen down. You were okay, you were okay, and then you fell. And you have an injury and a scratch on your brain. And that was life-changing for me. Because I didn't know how to see mental health. I was, you know, when I learned about it from my mom, it was like a ghost that overcomes you. And then you are the ghost. And it's not.

It can be an injury that can be rehabbed. Rehabed. Maybe not completely resolved. Some injuries stick around, right? But you can manage it and approach it like any other injury. So that whole thing, I suddenly locked into how I would approach an injury. injury, which is like you find help. Not every help is going to work for you, right? You know that you're... You test them out. You test them out. Just trial and error basis, yeah. Exactly. And that he told me that

your actions will change first, then your thoughts, then your feelings in that order only. Actions, then thoughts, then feelings. Very Buddhist. But it was helpful because same with your physical injuries. Like if you break your leg, you might sleep 10 hours every night, have your bow. broth and whatever, and you still feel the pain, but you're doing the actions and the feeling of the broken leg will eventually go away, but you know that you're healing. So that's how I approached the depression, where I felt terrible every morning, but I stopped being so offended by the feelings because I knew I was doing the actions, which was like the therapy, all the things that he was having me do. I started feeling terrible in about December. I started feeling better in July,

August, glimmers of joy. And then I knew that, like, if I ever started to dip again, which we dip all the time, like, life is just a series of, like, to go back to my actions and try and catch it earlier than I did, right, go less deep into that hole. Talk me through this journey of. fifth year track Nike, Eugene, making a movie and also then performing, how does that history go? I went from a school where athletics were not the primary focus of the school. There's no athletic scholarship to a school where it was the best running school in the country. I don't know. It felt

like going into like a camp where you're like, I'm really going to immerse here. And I will be a kind of professional athlete at a school, but they really care about running there. And my only goal was to contribute to the team. Like I really, that thing that you said about, you don't want to let your teammates down. I just wanted to matter. And on a team that's that good, one point will make the difference and did between us winning a national championship and not. So it's like you doing your best can really matter. And there's a sense of purpose with that. So I'm there in Eugene. And it was fun to focus. And I think that's something that I'm craving in my life is like the ability to be singularly focused on a goal

and see what you can do if you are. So I was focused on that, right? And we won the national championships in both the seasons that I was there. That's amazing. It was so fun. Like, it is so fun to win with a team. Like, cross-country is a team sport.

Track is, but cross-country even more so, you're like on a battlefield and the personalities. I think to learn how to be around different girls who are all really good at what they do, but they would not be friends in a sandbox. These people are colleagues. They, right? There's a balance of pushing each other in practice and then wanting to be the number one spot and whatever, whatever. So I was kind of this older team captain Lee trying to keep everyone in balance and just get us to keep moving toward our goal. It was like fascinating and fun. And, uh,

And I saw these professional athletes in town. And when the year was up, I had the opportunity to join the team and just stay in Eugene and join this Nike team. And I wanted to do it because I wanted to keep exploring this thing. Because you wanted free swag from Nike. I just wanted the shoes, you know? We just, that's all we want. No. And that was fun.

And I had a coach who had been to the Olympics. And I think that's another thing is just having a situation where, you know, you believe you could do your best because of whatever the environment is. What was your biggest struggle in that period? I think at first it was being okay with having gone to an Ivy League school and basically not making any money for five years, but chasing a dream. Like it was like I had, I figured it out, but I had like food partnerships with like local Eugene businesses.

And I wrote articles for the local like running non-year, nonprofit. And I figured that out, but I think there was always this sense of like, basically trying to keep myself out of survival mode when I was trying to do something extraordinary. You can't be in survival mode. You have to essentially know you're taking care of yourself and then put survival out of the way, like know that you have your basics covered and then do the work. So maybe just making sure I stayed out of fear of the future so that I could be present and do the work. And then balancing, making that movie was hard. Like financing a movie was hard when when I didn't have any like connections, nothing. And tell us, tell us about that movie. So, yeah, Tractown. I made in the two years before I went to the Olympics and I wrote it, directed it, produced it, financed, brought, you know, raised private equity investment. And it was sort of like I'd go to practice every day. come home, take a nap, and then work on the film stuff, then run again because we ran twice a day,

and then work on the film stuff until I was too tired and go to sleep. And it was fun because it was like, yes, full of purpose, but it was hard because, like you said, it was the first time I realized that unlike in running where it's kind of this, you know, meritocracy, you work hard, you get this, right? In the film world, you're convincing people, your storytelling, there's nuance, There's dynamics. There's, right? There's more personalities to deal with. And so to kind of balance that one of these things was just work hard, push through pain, simple, but painful. And this other thing was complicated, but exciting and different was like, was cool. It was cool because then you

go to practice and you're like, oh, all I have to do is push through my tears. I can do that. And then you go to the film stuff and you're like, oh, all I have to do is like, write another email, you know, to get this thing to move along. I can do that, right? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. One relieved the other. And then I made this movie, Tractown, and went through the Sundance Labs with it.

And it was not a, it's, I'm, it represented the height of my intelligence at that time. I think we should probably come with a word, though, that helps people feel okay about that feeling. Well, I love that. I love that you're going to that because I think I need to do some better work about, like, you seem so accepting. It's like, that was the height of my expressive powers and of who I was at that time. And you had a grace and acceptance when I heard you when you said that. I don't have that. And I wish that I had. And I need to do some work there. I need to do some hypnotherapy. So you have a new podcast that we are shooting in this room. You have an altogether different set than I do.

And your podcast is called Mentor Buffet. Is that right? So, and I imagine with the various coaches that you've had and helpers along the way, like mentors are very important to you. Can you talk about this role of mentors in your life and why you want to highlight the story of people getting help? at the right time from the right voices in the right place? Yeah.

Well, mentorship is like this incredible resource that we have on earth, being humans on earth, that we, I think, are, I think, it feels like when you're introduced to the concept, it's something that someone gives to you passively, right? And you're very lucky if someone reaches down and gives you mentorship. But I think I've always tried to reach for it and thought maybe I'm, whether or not I'm deserving of it, I need it. So it was a need for me to be like, how do I be a girl? How do I be an Olympian? How do I be all the things that I don't have a

direct access to knowing how to become? And so I just tried to ask and be a good asker, meaning like be grateful for the things people are helping you with and try and be, you know, basically be a mente in a way that you might get mentorship. You know, like a little... Well, it takes humility. Yeah, yeah. And it takes like an earnestness and patience and a determination and an understanding that not everyone has availability for you and that's okay, right?

So I just kind of was like, this is a thing I can get without having anything at all. It's just me. I'm just a person who has good intentions and potential. Please help me. And that has been really helpful. And I've had enough there. It's like rock climbing where like you can kind of get and it's not imitating how these people do their life. It's like how are they thinking? That's the best thing to learn for me. And so the show, I mean the show is inspired by a chapter of Bravey called the

Mentor Buffet, which just talks about a few people in my life and Dr. Arpae is definitely one of them. But I think talking to people about their mentors is really going to be interesting. because none of us really got here alone, right? We don't do it alone. We really don't do it alone. Yeah. I'm so excited to be recording on your podcast, too, and I've been thinking a lot about, like, all the help I got.

You know, I'm super privileged. You know, I was able to go to, like, really good schools and, you know, but the help is, it's there for all of us if we look, if we're open to it. The Rule of Thirds is the best advice I ever got. Wow. I think it's the best advice. And it was from my Olympic coach. I was struggling in a workout before the Olympics, and he had me take off my watch.

And that's a thing when your coach is like, take off your watch and keep going, because he's basically saying put in the effort without worrying about the result. And he said it was the rule of thirds. He said that the rule of thirds means that when you're chasing a dream or doing anything hard, you're supposed to feel good a third of the time, okay, a third of the time, and crappy a third of the time. Wow. And that that means you are pushing and doing something in a balance that represents chasing a dream. You're doing it right if you're feeling crappy a third of the time.

Yes. So that's a great lesson for young people to hear. Yeah. Like you feel crappy a third of a time about what you're doing and how you're pursuing it and how it's working out. Perfect. Chef's kiss. Right, because that's where the growth happens, right? That's where you're pushing and you're forcing yourselves to adapt, right? They're being challenged in that third. But you have to keep it in balance. Just like you don't want to feel too good too much of the time. You also don't want to feel too bad too much of the time.

But doesn't social media often lead us to feel like we're supposed to be at maximum bliss level happiness like all the time or like 80 or 90% of the time? Yeah, social media makes it seem like we're supposed to feel good most of the time or that if you have this crappy time or day, that it is kind of a break from the achieving side of you, that it's like it's okay to not feel okay all the time as if you're taking a break, not as if it's a part of the dream chase. Do you know what I'm saying? It's almost like when you don't feel good, it's almost like they're saying, give yourself a break instead of show up for the crappy third and put in the effort that day

because you're going to get so much out of it. Right? I feel that there's a lot of dialogue saying on the days you don't feel great. And there are days when you should just go home, not just take the watch off and go home. But there are days to take your watch off and do the workout anyway and give 90% of crap. Right? Yeah. So I think social media is like, yeah, it's creating either feel all good, all the

the time or like put yourself in the put yourself on the bench when you don't feel good and you have to understand the difference between feeling crappy and fatigue like fatigue is deeper uh that's when you go into your deeper stores right so there's a difference between having a bad a rough day and being fatigued and one is a sustainable part of chasing a dream and the other represents burnout Another thing that you've spoken about in your work is befriending pain. And you talked earlier about how you kind of don't, you've have a super high pain threshold. How do you befriend pain? Because contemporary society says, oh, you feel pain, stop.

Right. You know, and don't feel any pain. Well, you have to know the difference between good pain and bad pain. Okay. Right? So good pain is the pain of doing the last rep of your workout when you're not, injured, but you're tired. Right?

Bad pain would be you have an injury and you're pushing through. That's bad pain. And you could imagine what that means in an emotional circumstance, not a physical one. I think also befriending pain is that visualization that you and I talked about earlier, where if you like come to expect that challenge to come, whatever it is for you, then when it comes, you can greet it like an expected guest at your brain. birthday party, not like an intruder. So most of the things we're doing athletic and otherwise are going to have controversy

that we can maybe visualize ahead of time. And when we do, it's just another guest at the party kind of. It's like Simon and Garfunkel, Hello Darkness, my old friend. Yeah. But I think that that's great because I know with my anxiety and even with depression, I realize now that I utilized that and I didn't even know what I was doing, which is like, oh, there it is. You know, like I'll wake up in the morning just like, oh, no, this isn't going to work out. And false evidence appearing real.

Like, and I didn't do this. I'm so stressed. And I'm never going to get it all done. And then I'm able to, because I've done the work, I'm able to kind of go, oh, there you are. Hi, Mr. Anxiety. Like, welcome to the party. welcome to the birthday party. There you are.

You're not necessarily real. I'm not going to be a victim to you, but I acknowledge you and welcome you and I can learn from you. And, you know, I can give you a big hug and we'll go through this together. As opposed to like, oh, no anxiety. Or, oh, no anxiety. And I let it overwhelm me. Yeah, it's like anxiety is like a dog or something where like that you're in charge of the dog.

Like you're the dog's owner. Like you're going to take the dog on a walk even if it's having a freak out that day. You know, I have a dog. And I feel like she sometimes barks for a reason and sometimes she barks for no reason. And she's watching me, though, right? Like the anxiety is ultimately looking at us to take charge unless we think that it's in charge, which it's not. Right. Right.

I love that idea, taking your dog, taking your anxiety dog for a walk. I don't know. And you see people with dogs and the dogs are walking them. Yes, yes, yes, exactly. And, yeah. Yeah, that's a great analogy. Do you have a higher power in your life? Just my mom, who's like a, she's like a puck from a midsummer night's dream.

You feel like a certain connection and guidance? Not guidance, more like she's like giving me the bad luck and the good luck. in my life because I have good luck and I have bad luck and I think she's kind of like mischievous good so she's like not aged past when she died and she's still like as mischievous as she was but she wants me to like be okay but she's not going to protect me from like she's not going to like really take care of me but she is there to like inspire cajole I think she just puts things in front of me sometimes that are like hard or good but ultimately good because I can, they're never like things I can't get through.

But she's probably there. Like, you know, hiding my socks. Your mom hides your socks? Like a sense of humor. Like I think we have kind of like a sense of humor with like all this stuff a little bit of like, you're going to be okay. But also like good luck with that, you know, that kind of thing. I'm just trying to like keep exploring myself in a way that will probably have me

understand her better anyway, right? Because something in there is half her, sort of, right? So I'm curious about, like, I don't really know what that is, but if I just keep exploring myself, I will understand her better anyway. Do you ever talk to her? Yeah, I used to visit her grave a lot in the Bay Area, and I went recently and visited her. And I was, like, kind of mad at her, sort of, because I, like, went through a lot of hard stuff in the last year, and I just, like, didn't really understand it. And I just, like, think that I miss her more and more. And that, like, sucks because you think you're going to miss them less and less.

Like, you, I think, I don't know you, I miss her more and more. So, yeah, I talked to her then. I mostly talked to her when I visit her. I was really distraught. I couldn't find her because I hadn't gone in a long time. And then I found her. That was horrible. If you go to visit someone, you can't find them.

That's so sad. Well, I think she's probably not just at her gravesite. I think that she's... Do you believe that? I absolutely believe that. What do you think about it all? Do you think that they're just... Well, my father passed away three and a half years ago.

We were very, very close. He was a deeply flawed angel as well. But I would say at least four or five times a week I'm in conversation with him. I don't like pray to him, but I feel his... energy sometimes and I feel certain things happen and I feel a connection there and people might say, oh, that's bullshit. But I feel it's true. I've also asked him for help in very specific ways. I've asked him for help with my son to help with some guidance and inspiration and mentorship with my son who's 19. That's awesome. Yeah. That's really cool. I never really cool. I never

I never thought to ask her for anything because I never thought I could. I never thought I would get anything. Yeah. I think our souls are in another plane beyond this physical one and they're able to connect with us. I don't think they'd work like magic angels, but I think that there's, there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, that are dreamt of in your philosophy, says Hamlet. And I think that that's true. Thank you for telling me that. I'm going to ask. Yeah. Good.

Yeah. That's cool. Well, that's awesome. This conversation has been such a privilege, so much fun, such an honor. I feel the same way. I'm just so happy you exist because you're like a, you're a really wonderful person in real life and that you never know, obviously, with people. And I'm, and you just don't know. You're a pretty wonderful person. So let's make podcast gooey, wonderful magic. Yeah, this is fun. Thanks.

Cool. The Soul Boom Podcast. Subscribe now on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get your stupid podcasts.