Show Notes
Embodied Athlete
 In this wintery walk-and-talk episode, I explore what it really means to be an embodied athlete — not just someone who moves their body, but someone who can stay with their body through intensity, activation, rest, and everything in between. This episode is both personal and practical: I share my own multi-year journey of unlearning performance-based worth, navigating a long fertility season, and rebuilding my relationship with movement from the inside out.
We talk about how most of us are conditioned to override, push, rush, or disconnect during movement… and how somatic skills like interoception, presence, and capacity-tracking completely change the experience. I explore the nervous system science behind subtle cues, intensity cycles, dissociation, activation, injury prevention, and what it actually feels like to move from safety rather than stress.
Throughout the episode, I weave in winter sensory moments, co-regulation cues, breath awareness, and a gentle invitation to slow down — even in a culture speeding up. This conversation is for anyone rebuilding their athletic identity, recovering from a “slow season,” or wanting to feel more alive and present inside their body while they move.
Timestamps
00:00 — Welcome to a single-digit winter walk & behind-the-scenes of outdoor recording 02:00 — Holding high standards and imperfection: the nervous system in real-time 04:00 — Introducing today’s topic: what “embodied athlete” really means 06:00 — Origins of the concept & how your fitness work has evolved 08:00 — Slowing down the walking pace + noticing rushing as a nervous system habit 10:00 — Subtle body cues: breath changes, tension, and early stress signals 12:00 — Interoception as a skill: catching activation early instead of at a “9 or 11” 14:00 — How somatics reshaped your relationship with fitness, effort, and identity 16:00 — Fertility, loss of athletic control, and the unraveling of performance-based worth 18:00 — The collapse of “train your body and get what you want” culture 20:00 — High activation + exercise as a coping strategy (and why it eventually stopped working) 22:00 — The role of mindset tools in earlier versions of Ski Babes & Summer Strong 24:00 — Nervous system baseline shifts: from chronic activation → internal spaciousness 26:00 — Letting go of the athlete identity & finding worth separate from performance 28:00 — Presence as a core pillar of being an embodied athlete 30:00 — Dissociation during intensity: why it happens & how it functions 32:00 — Learning to stay present through activation, discomfort, and effort 34:00 — Practicing this in Ski Babes intervals: safety, choice, & uncoupling intensity from fear 36:00 — Injury prevention through presence: knowing the difference between “hard” vs. “harm” 38:00 — Orientation + environmental awareness as protection for the body 40:00 — Overriding vs. capacity: why pushing through everything takes a toll 42:00 — Making effort from safety instead of stress (and how different it feels) 44:00 — Returning to athletics from embodiment: what’s possible now 46:00 — Closing reflections from the snowy trail & continuing the Embodied Athlete series
Resources Mentioned

Learn more about Mind & Mountain Training/ Ski Babes + Summer Strong

Submit your questions for the Q&A [here]
Photos and links from this episode: www.mindandmountain.co/podcast 
 

Ver todos los episodios