For Athletes
Your body has always been part of how you know who you are.
For years, you may have been taught to listen to your body in very specific ways. Push through the pain. Follow the training plan. Hit the time. Get stronger. Get faster. Recover and do it again.
Your body may have been a source of pride, achievement, identity, and belonging.
But what happens when you stop competing? When you’re injured? When your routine and structure disappears When your body begins to change in ways you don’t understand? When you enter pregnancy and postpartum When you realize you don't know how to listen to your body unless it is telling you how to perform? What is your body for if not achievement or praise?
How do you know your worth when you stop measuring it by muscle mass and performance metrics?
Competitive athletics can provide structure, community, purpose, and a powerful sense of identity. It can also teach us to derive meaning and self-worth from achievement.
From performing in your body to living in your body
Former athletes may experience:
A loss of identity or sense of purpose
Changes in body image or body confidence
Difficulty adjusting to changes in training and routine
Feeling guilty for resting
Difficulty knowing when to push and when to stop
Anxiety about losing strength, fitness, or physical ability
A complicated relationship with food or body image
Feeling disconnected from the body outside of performance
Perfectionism and difficulty tolerating "good enough"
Struggling to feel accomplished without measurable achievement
This is particularly pertinent to former female athletes due to the often challenging relationship between the body, its perceived function, and perhaps it’s perceived desirability, existing within an already critical social landscape.
Athletes often learn to understand their bodies through performance. Strength, speed, endurance, flexibility, power, and physical capacity become central to how your body is valued.
If you have always related to and understood your body through athletic performance, physical appearance, and a coach’s validation, the natural shifts that occur to a retired athlete’s body can be disorienting.
Motherhood, pregnancy, birth, and postpartum can bring a different kind of reckoning. This can sound like:
“What is my body for now?”
“My body used to belong to me but now it’s responsible for growing and feeding someone else. Will I ever feel like my body is mine again? Will I ever desire touch again?”
“What if I lose all the muscle, strength, and fitness I worked so hard to build?”
“What if I never get back to the body I had before?”
“Will I ever be able to run, lift, compete, or train the way I used to?”
“Am I allowed to care about getting my body back when I’m supposed to be grateful for what it has done?”
“What if I don't recognize myself anymore?”
“How do I listen to my body when I’ve spent my whole life learning to push through what it tells me?”
“How do I deal with the guilt I feel when I leave my kid to go workout?”
“How do I deal with the resentment I feel toward my partner who’s body didn’t change?”
When performance becomes part of your identity
When your body becomes something different
What would happen if instead of asking, "What can my body do?", we asked, “What is my body telling me?”
In our therapy sessions, I will guide you through paying more attention to breath, tension, energy, sensations, impulses, emotions, and the subtle cues that became difficult to hear after years of ignoring or overriding them.
My somatic and depth-oriented approach creates space to reconnect with your body beyond performance, develop greater awareness of physical and emotional cues, and explore who you are when achievement is no longer the primary measure of worth.