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Last week during the 2024 Paris Olympics, the world’s greatest gymnast, the GOAT, Simone Biles, shared something powerful: regular therapy has been part of her Olympic preparation. Why? Because Simone discovered firsthand how deeply connected our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls are.
Back at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Biles made the heart-breaking decision to drop out of the competition to prioritize her mental health. “I have to focus on my mental health… We have to protect our minds and our bodies and not just do what the world wants us to do. I don’t trust myself as much anymore… There were a couple of days when everybody tweets you and you feel the weight of the world.”
During the Olympic games in Tokyo, all eyes were on Simone, and she was feeling the pressure. One misstep during one of her record-setting routines had the potential to result not just in physical injury, but in the world commenting on her mistakes. In the world of social media and its enablement of behind-the-keyboard bullies, many of those comments were likely to be unkind.
Biles didn’t let that stop her though. She may have dropped out of those Tokyo games, but she knew there was a longer game to be played. She saw the work laid out in front of her– and it wasn’t entirely physical. She turned to someone who could help her better understand the link between her mental state and her performance: her therapist.
From her experience in Tokyo and working with a mental health professional, Biles has discovered something in herself that is even deeper than just "mental health": she has realized that not only does she need to take care of her body and mind, she also needs to create and maintain a connection with her WHY. When she observed that she couldn’t perform at her highest level anymore, she recognized that it was because she was focusing on external praise (or lack thereof). She learned that attempting to operate from that focus only gives us a surface-level amount of motivation and resilience.
Simone came to understand that she had lost her connection with WHY she wanted to go for those gold medals in the first place. This inner work requires getting in touch with our heart and soul, because as humans, that is where our WHY can be found.
Performing for external praise disconnected Simone from her inner purpose. She recognized that true fulfillment comes from within, from living in alignment with our deepest WHY.
When we find ourselves performing solely for the benefit of praise or recognition from others, it means we have lost our connection with the meaning and purpose we find in our efforts. When we continuously hustle without maintaining our connection with our deeper WHY, we don’t get very far, and we expose ourselves to burnout and mental distress.
Living and performing for external rewards is what we call in our THRIVING FROM WITHIN® Journey Guide living from our “Cultural Self.” From an early age, most of us learn that we receive the most love and belonging when we achieve, we tend to our appearance, we obtain status or affluence, or we receive accolades. In other words, love and acceptance come from external validation for our efforts.
Most of us spend the majority of our lives chasing these things, but here’s the thing: they don’t ultimately fulfill us. While we might be excited for a while once we achieve that new degree or buy that fancy car we’ve been working toward, we find ourselves unfulfilled again shortly thereafter and looking for the next thing that might make us happy.
External rewards don’t give us staying power and they don’t build up our resiliency muscles. In essence, looking outward for ultimate fulfillment decreases our overall sense of well-being, as Biles found out in Tokyo.
What is well-being? As we describe in more detail in here, well-being is a state of overall contentment and inner peace, rooted in a sense of deep connectedness to ourselves, the people and world around us. It is a lifestyle choice that must be regularly practiced to maintain, and is present regardless of life situations (like olympic competitions) or external circumstances (such as the content of public comments on social media). A firm foundation in well-being, through a deep grounding in our WHY, often manifests itself as a feeling of unwavering self-confidence that can give us the daily energy we need to navigate life's many challenges.
Between her statements last week on therapy and an interview she has given this week, Simone shares what has made the difference in these Paris games, and it all comes down to her WHY.
In the interview with NBC Sports on Tuesday, she mentions at least three reasons why she works so hard to compete and they are all rooted in the heart and soul/spirit dimensions of our human experience.
First, Simone spoke about performing feeling like pure joy, an emotion that emerges when the four aspects of our being, body, mind, heart, and soul, are efforting in unison. Second, she repeatedly mentions her fellow gymnasts and the trials and triumphs they have shared together. Simone knows she isn’t alone and because of this, she feels motivated to work for the betterment of the team. This is the power of community, something that requires vulnerability and whole-person well-being in body, mind, heart and soul to fully engage in.
Last, she talks about leaving a legacy for the women and girls in the world of gymnastics and at her home gym in Texas. Working to pave the way for others, to leave a legacy, is working towards something greater than yourself, a virtue that originates in our soul/spirit dimension and cannot be cultivated without a deep connection to that part of yourself.
The fruits of Simone’s labors to better connect with the deeper parts of herself have obviously worked wonders in Paris. During these 2024 games, she has not only won 4 new medals, three of them gold, but has also demonstrated the magic of becoming more present to her experience and showing up as truly her best self.
Simone's self-transcendence, a hallmark trait of a deep sense of well-being, was demonstrated countless times during the games. Not only did she actively work to encourage and empower her competition, she even bowed to Brazilian athlete Rebeca Andrade at the podium when Andrade beat her out in the floor event. To be able to transcend the view that one's competition are merely obstacles to overcome and instead view them as fellow human beings who have often worked just as hard as oneself– or perhaps harder, depending on the cultural and familial situation a competitor starts from– requires a level of strength, security in one's sense of self and abilities, and leadership that not all athletes possess.
Simone embodies the fruits of labor that come to deepen one's sense of well-being. At the Institute for Life & Care, we teach that well-being can be learned in ever-increasing ways and depths, and one can sense that they are on the right track with they find themselves embodying these "7 Healing Attitudes" more and more on a day-to-day basis: peace, compassion and kindness, mission and purpose, healing and forgiveness, gratitude, joy, and love.
From what we've witnessed over these last few weeks at the Paris Olympic games, Simone Biles is experiencing and demonstrating exactly those attitudes, and we're excited to watch and see what she does next in her career. Yes, the world is still watching, but it doesn't seem to be bothering her one bit. Perhaps we can all learn something from the watching.
You don’t need to be an Olympic champion or even work with a therapist to discover your WHY and deepen your sense of well-being. Our unique programming, rooted in meaning-centered psychotherapy, gives you the tools you need to connect with your deepest purpose. Whether you engage with our programming completely on your own with our 100% online program or with one of our qualified Journey Guides, you’ll be on your way to reaching your fullest potential, just like Simone. Why not start today?
Our THRIVING FROM WITHIN® Journey Guides are not therapy. Self-discovery and personal growth are valuable pursuits and may bring up sensitive, sometimes painful, thoughts. If you experience significant discomfort at any point while engaging with our Guides or programs, please seek the appropriate help of a professional as soon as possible.
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Photos Credits:
https://www.today.com/news/paris-olympics/simone-biles-explains-rebeca-andrade-podium-bow-rcna165320
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