Awake Athlete Podcast

What is the loving story and what is the feeling of ignorance? Wrapping up season one with this thought provoking finale that includes a challenge to take with you. Until next time…..

There’s a lot to chew on in this episode as I go deeply into the discernment of the mind and the brain. What are these two things? Are they the same? Does one follow the other and how do they assist us in the purification process of awakening? Yup, all that.

Hey listen, we can get a meal-plan, we can count calories and we can hire a nutritionist but if we’re not getting to the belief system that is keeping us from a joyful relationship with food then we are walking the road to nowhere. A short episode to lay some basics around the transformative power of food. 

For an Awake Athlete, mastery is the only option. As we all head in that direction, it’s key to understand the qualities of a master and what mindset is at the base of living with such impeccability. 

What does a sensation-filled run look like for an Awake Athlete? I dive into the relationship with pain and different techniques that have served me well from mantras to belief systems. In this episode I share a recent experience when I finished a 15-mile run with a 5-mile tempo and my feet hurt real dang bad.

Believing that the ego is the enemy is a mechanism of the ego. Being mad at the ego is a mechanism of the ego. Feeling alone, victimized, angry and unsettled are mechanisms of the ego. Learn to shine a light on this little bugger of love by knowing its qualities and classic moves. 

This process and its outcome may be different than what you think, perhaps the very opposite of what you’ve been doing thus far. Listen in with an open mind, try out one of the techniques in this episode and commit to living in freedom with new understanding.

It’s a simple recipe and one that stands the test of time, like thousands of years of time. A recipe that is best put together before the momentum of the day begins and the one that is so simple, we make it hard and give up.

As athletes, we have this incredible blessing of moving the body often and we know that this leaves us feeling better than before the workout. Let’s face it, many times, our training is our outlet to process life. It’s the space where our problems fall away. In this episode, I discuss the difference between clearing our head in problem energy and clearing our head in solution energy.

We are always creating in this life but most of us are creating by default and living a life that is built on a record of the past. Replaying, replaying and replaying until we wake up and get in the gap, that’s when all the good stuff happens. The gap is where we take our power back and create our lives on purpose.

A little about me, a little about this podcast and my biggest observance that brought this all to life. Plus the non-negotiable of mental training and the signs to know that the mind is in control of the athlete and not the other way around.

Are you ready to go deep? Because that’s where this 15-minute Yoga Nidra practice takes you, into a deep yogic sleep. It’s a practice that I’ve been incorporating into my training since I first heard about its restorative effects years ago. I’m excited to share with you my first-ever yoga nidra class. 

We’ve all woken up in the middle of the night with the weight of the world on our chests. We’ve all laid there for hours trying to get back to sleep while our mind catastrophes our future and our nervous systems hold steady in survival mode. We know that none of this is helpful to getting stronger, faster or more durable as an athlete yet we all have suffered at the hands of a restless night. Being an Awake Athlete doesn’t mean we will be immune to these storms but it does mean that we’ll have a big toolbox within our grips to ease our suffering, allow our bodies the rest they require and become the masters of our minds along the way.

What to do when we shine the light on an unhelpful cycle in our life? How do we navigate the change we desire, and when is the appropriate time to dismantle what no longer serves us? In this episode, I share how I broke a cycle in my life and became the loving story. 

What we hold onto, holds onto us. Life is a passing show; when we attach to any of it, we will feel tension. Attachment breeds suffering, so it’s best to learn how to jive with the ever-changing tides of this ocean of motion called life.When we are unwilling to leave the past in the past, we hold ourselves captive from the future possibilities. When we judge others on their behavior, cling too tightly to material things, and constrict around how things need to unfold, we are not free. In this season finale, I share how they catch monkeys in India and why the monkeys are not victims to their captives but captives to themselves. We can learn a lot from this story, and the intent as an awake athlete is to inquire often about our grip on life. 

Let's get one thing straight; the mind is a thought-producing machine. The meditation assignment is not stopping thoughts, so if your excuse for not meditating is your mind is too busy, excuse no more. To even know that we have a quiet mind is a thought. The truth is, the moments of quiet in the mind are unnoticeable. I share a few stories in this episode; the first was about my meditation teacher when he studied the effects of meditation on the brain at the university level. The results of one meditator's experience may surprise you. In the least, I believe it will make sense.The second story is about an experience I had in meditation when I got tested. Armed to float in a pond of peace, I met feelings of anger and frustration instead. The Awake Athlete path grows narrow as we walk it, and the challenges get bigger, so if you know one thing, know this, you will be tested.

“I should be running faster,” “my family should get along better,” “he shouldn’t work so hard,” “I should be more fit” - sound familiar?We should on ourselves and others, all the time. Our society is full of people shoulding on each other, and it’s time we shine a light on this strain of resistance that fuels feelings of anxiety, depression, and separation.When we stop shoulding, we stop fighting the way things are, and we open space for positive change. Life is a boomerang game. What we throw out, we get back. If we are throwing out resistance, we are going to receive resistance. If we throw out acceptance, we will see more reasons to accept.I share a technique I used with my family that we can apply to anyone or anything in our lives. My experience is that when we alleviate shoulding, we welcome ease and flow.

Ahimsa is doing the least amount of harm in any given situation. If we look at our world today, I think we can all agree that practicing ahimsa would benefit the whole, and don’t forget the whole includes you. When we bring awareness into our life as a way of life, we wake up to how we move through the world. When we see how we move through the world, we get a clear picture of where we stand in position to how we desire to stand in the world.We shine a light on mental preferences that may create limitations in our experience and expose the truth around our relationships, including food. This is not a heavy episode because our connection to food is not emotional when we see things in truth. Enlightenment is seeing things as they are. There is nothing fancy about an enlightened viewpoint, but there is something quite powerful about seeing ourselves as we are right now without judgment. In this episode, I share a bit about my story of shifting to a plant-based diet and the fear that I faced leading into my first Ironman as a vegan athlete. The clarity I attained kicked up intense emotion for me as I identified disconnection in my life, and it allowed me to steady myself on the path to being the person I desire to be in this life.You are perfect where you are now. The question is, are you awake to where you are now? Because that information is key to where you are going and who you desire to be.

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. " - Lao TzuIt wouldn't be a season without an embarrassing story, and this one is around a time in my life when results stalking was a regular part of my race prep—a strategy I considered a necessary piece for my race day success.Telling this story to a bunch of triathletes, especially back in my hay day of swimming with fists, would have been entirely acceptable. But, this story unfolded during my yoga teacher training, where the ego was under fire, and mine was acting up.In response to my foolish tactics and defensiveness around them, my yoga teacher replied with a dismissive remark about how that part of me would fall away. This sent me over the edge and threatened my identity as an athlete striving to be better.Years later, I can tell you that he was right, and I"m so grateful.At points along the Awake Athlete path, we will face moments when we question our identity; we will see characteristics fall away, and we will realize that they are the parts we have outgrown. We never lose the essential components that make us great.

Awakening begins when we realize there is more to this life than what we see, taste, smell, touch, and hear. If we are dissatisfied with our reality, we can tune ourselves towards a new reality just like a musician tunes an instrument. If we are ready, we can let go of the Old World way of seeing to believing and open to the New World way of believing it to see it.It is our essence to expand. Look at science; there are discoveries every day, all of which are born in the imagination first. We are co-creators in our reality, we have a say in how our life unfolds, and it has everything to do with our energy's resonance which governs our response to life. Awakening is about owning our impact globally, being a deliberate creator alongside the energy that holds planetary alignment, and constantly tuning ourselves. All it takes is unwavering dedication and utter detachment, which is the good news because, for athletes, this is what we do best. Set a goal, stay focused, achieve the goal. Rinse and repeat.