Made for More
Made for More
Why I dropped out of all my fall races... Embracing Self-Worth Beyond Athletics- SEASON THREE!!!
What does it mean to find self-worth beyond athletic achievements? As we kick off season three of "Made for More," I invite you to join me on a candid exploration of my journey through therapy with Katie and how it's transformed my understanding of identity and growth. Leaving behind my past as a softball player, I've discovered a new freedom in the gym and through participating in Hyrox races and marathons. This episode is all about redefining success and self-worth, not just in terms of athletic prowess but in embracing a fuller, more authentic life. Together, we'll unpack the lessons learned from stepping away from the familiar and the pressures of performance, and how this has helped me reconnect with my body and sense of femininity.
This season, I'm excited to share what I've learned about self-care, emotional growth, and the power of a growth mindset. From the decision to call off races to preparing for the Boston Marathon, you'll hear about the challenges and triumphs that come with prioritizing well-being over competition. Plus, stay tuned for potential changes and updates coming to the podcast, including a possible rebranding. It's refreshing to connect with you again and share these reflections and plans for the future. Your support through this transformative journey means the world to me, and I promise to keep you updated as the season unfolds.
Follow me on Instagram Here
Guys, hello, welcome to season three of Made for More. I'm Regan if we have not met yet and I'm so grateful that you are joining me today, whether you are in the gym, on a walk, in the car cleaning, getting ready, whatever so thankful that you were here. We took a little hiatus the past few months with podcasting. It was not intentional, but life kind of happened and I did not make podcast episodes a priority. And you know what? It was good because it ended up working out perfect and this is season three. I started my podcast in 2022 of November, so this is perfect. This is we're starting year three together, so welcome. We are going to say it was planned and it worked out perfect, but it's been, yeah it.
Speaker 1:A lot has happened since we have last chatted, had some incredible episodes last year or we'll say season two, right, had some really incredible, amazing guests, some very vulnerable conversations, some very real conversation, and that was the goal with my podcast is to keep it real and be inspired and be encouraged and, honestly, just feel like you're talking to a friend, and that's one of my favorite thing about podcasting, or listening to podcasts too, is that I feel like I know the people, that I listen to their podcasts, I feel like we're all in a room and I'm just talking to myself responding back to them, and I feel like we're best friends, and that is what I want this podcast to be. I this episode has been one that I've been wanting to record for about the past two months. Um, I, let's see, the beginning of this year started therapy, um, kind of life coaching therapy. She is incredible. Katie has completely changed my life this year and is such a wonderful human and she inspires me. But she has helped me uncover a lot about myself and learn a lot about myself and create more awareness so I can be a better human, a better girlfriend, a better coach and just know myself on a deeper level, which is so fun. If you have not done inner child work or gotten the chance to work with a therapist, it's an investment. But the good thing about learning about yourself is it's free, right. We spend the most time with ourself. There are so many incredible podcasts, incredible books, incredible YouTube videos that if you want to learn more about yourself, you have the opportunity. But when you can know those deeper core wounds and those deeper core desires about yourself, you show up better and you're more patient and you're more gracious and for me, it's allowed me to challenge myself in areas of my life and really cultivate a growth mindset with a lot of things, mindset with a lot of things, something that I so a little background on me and kind of what I my life has looked like growing up.
Speaker 1:I have always played sports, I've always been in athletics and I feel like the Lord blessed me with an athletic ability, with softball, and has allowed me to glorify him through that and just honestly have some really great accomplishments and really cool things happen. I do think growing up, softball was definitely my identity and through college too, it was. You know hey, my name is Reagan and I play softball right. That was always. That was me, that's what I did and that ultimately, I feel like, became a part of my identity and what my worth was found in and what my value was found in. I, growing up, had a lot of best friends, but I felt left out a lot. And it wasn't my friends, but it was me, this core wound inside of me, that felt left out and that the softball field. I remember thinking when I was growing up, the softball field was the only place that I did not care what people thought, I did not think about how I was walking or how it was moving or what I was saying, that people were going to judge me, like I felt so free. I felt so free and it truly had become a safe space for me, um, where I felt like I could be myself. And I just showed up and it was such a yeah, it was me and played through college. And something that people don't talk about often is that transition from being an athlete growing up and it kind of being your identity, um, and then getting out of college and you're like what am I? Who am I? Why do I take care of my body? What is my identity found in? How do I offer and provide value to people if it's not through athletics? And I feel like the gym became a very safe space for me. The feeling that I had on the softball field with not caring what people thought or just feeling so free and not judged it, showed up in the gym and the gym kind of became my safe space.
Speaker 1:The past two years I got into some doing some racing and I found out about High Rocks through one of my clients that was going to race and then made some friends in High Rocks before I even did one, and it inspired the crap out of me. I was excited to train, I was feeling motivated, I was feeling challenged, I was feeling like an athlete again. And the past, let's see. I did two or three races the first year. The second year, which was this past season, I believe, I did eight races and always had something to train for, always had something to look forward to. Along with that, the past year, I've done two marathons and one ultra marathon.
Speaker 1:So really, the past two years of my life, I have had something to train for, I have had something to work towards and I've had something to ultimately feel like I could create a name for myself. Kind of, not really, but wanting this deeper. What I realized is like wanting this deeper validation of proving to other people that I'm not a bad person, I could do something and I could be successful, and proving to myself that I could do that too, and I don't think it's a bad thing at all, right? I mean, all of us let's be real all of us love validation, right? If someone tells us that we're doing good, or someone tells us that we're beautiful, or someone goes out of their way to compliment us or say something kind to us and gives us that validation or that reassurance. It feels good Like if you say that it doesn't, you're lying. It 100% feels good. I was just talking about this with my therapist an hour ago. Is that we love validation? Right, it's not a bad thing. But the past two year and a half two years I definitely have found my validation and my worth, um, coming from what I could do and how it could perform.
Speaker 1:No, it didn't start out like that, but the past year I ran a marathon in Big Bear, california, qualified for Boston Um, and then I was training for high rocks at the beginning of 2024 and then decided that I was going to do a 50 mile race in Malibu. Training for that race was so fun, I mean. I did another podcast talking about the 50 mile race and if you haven't listened to it, you know, I think you should. I think it's very inspiring and kind of tells my thoughts during it. But leading up to that, I was on such a high. I think you should. I think it's very inspiring and kind of tells my thoughts during it. Um, but leading up to that, I was on such a high. I mean coming off of that. I was like there's nothing that I cannot do, like I truly believe I can do anything. And I hit burnout, like I did not expect it and I did not realize it, but I hit burnout, hit burnout, um.
Speaker 1:About two months or a month and a half after that, I was like I want to do another marathon in the fall or the winter and I want to do high rocks this fall. And I signed up for all three things two high rocks and the marathon in Hawaii and Honolulu in December and I came off that 50 mile race and I didn't run for about three, four weeks and then, since I signed up for those races, I was like I have to run, I have to train, I have to do these things and ultimately, training felt like such a and ultimately, training felt like such a chore. Um, it felt like such a chore. Obviously, there's going to be days and times that you don't want to work out and you have to have the discipline to do it and show up, and you know when those days first started happening. I'm like Reagan, you're not going to want to train every day, like this is how you get better, this is how you improve, right? And then a week went by and then week two came, and week three came and I was a month in and I was feeling that way every single day. I wasn't feeling inspired, I wasn't feeling excited, I was feeling like dreadful, I dreaded it and it ultimately took me back to softball practices and college softball, where it was like I don't want to do this, like it it's. It feels like a chore. It feels like a chore and I'm not getting paid to do this. No one's making me do these races.
Speaker 1:But ultimately, deep down, I felt like I had to train for something and I had to do something to have my worth or have a face on Instagram or in hybrid space, or to keep connections with people and prove my value and prove I can do this. And look at me. And it was just coming from such an unhealthy place and I decided one week that cause it felt so heavy. I decided one week I've talked to my therapist about it and I canceled the high rocks first and I was like Katie, I canceled my high rocks. It's like I feel like such a big burden is lifted off of me and I am so thankful that I'm not doing them this, like this fall. I'm so glad and she was like congratulations, like I'm proud of you, because I felt myself tying my worth and my who, I was, my identity to training for something or doing something. And it sounds silly saying it out loud because obviously, like I'm running Boston in April, there's going to be other races that I am doing and I'm going to do high rocks again, but my intention was not pure behind it and I started noticing that. And then I started training for the marathon and I felt so defeated and I felt so just why am I put like? Why am I doing this? I don't want to do this. I don't want to train for anything right now. I just want to live life and I want to feel good and I want to be excited and inspired again about training and finding new ways to move my body. So I canceled the Honolulu marathon and I feel like there's just been the biggest weight off of my shoulders.
Speaker 1:Um, the past few months I've had some big life changes. I moved from it, which I'm going to I'll probably do another episode on this but South Carolina or California, back to South Carolina, and then back to California, and I'm living in Orange County currently this is my home for now and big life changes have happened. Coming back from California in the beginning of July, my body was going through it. I got some labs run and my body was extremely stressed. My cortisol was tanked, was extremely stressed. My cortisol was tanked. Um, I, my, my body, metabolizing the food and using fuel for, or using food for, energy. It was not converting that into energy. Uh, my mitochondrial um function was off, like is off, and all of these things came back.
Speaker 1:And I was also feeling that way about racing and my races and training and such and getting that. I thought, okay, this is the perfect opportunity. It doesn't mean that I'm failing if I cancel a race, but it gives me an opportunity and allows me to cultivate a growth mindset, to work on other ways and find other ways to move my body, to work on other ways and find other ways to move my body and ultimately to trust my body without doing intense, high intensity, crazy, really hard and draining, stressful training and the past few months I have been implementing hot yoga, I've been doing Pilates and I just started adding in Legree and walking and my body feels great. My body feels really good. My overall fitness has gone down a little bit, obviously, and you know I am starting back from square one, I feel like with running, um, but I've I've gotten to a really good place before with it and I can get to a really good place with it again.
Speaker 1:So one of the biggest things is like has been trusting my body and knowing that because I'm not doing crazy high intensity, stressful workouts, that it doesn't mean that I'm going to gain a ton of fat and gain all this weight and just completely my body go to pieces because I'm not doing this crazy training. And trusting my body and getting more in tune with my body and eating things that fuel me and make me feel good has put me in such a good place and I love my body more. I feel more challenged by my body, I feel more feminine, I feel just really safe and I feel really good with my body. So not only did the physiological side of things need that mentally I needed that, physically I needed that and just emotionally I needed that. So calling off the races for the fall just to kind of give myself a chance to enjoy life and working out and eating again has been so freeing and now I don't feel this pressure and I don't feel like I'm tying my worth to how fast are my paces on my run. What's the hardest high rocks workouts I can do. When's the next race that I'm training for? And it's felt so freeing. Honestly, I feel like I'm more feminine, I'm more in tune with my body and I feel challenged in so many other ways. So I'm so grateful for that. And now I get to take a few.
Speaker 1:I've gotten to take a few months off from having a goal and training and now I get to start running again and prepare for Boston in April, which I am so excited for. And it it's. I'm going to be excited, I'm going to be motivated again because I gave my body a break and I let myself reset. Um, I'll be honest, I am a little I was telling my mom this I'm kind of scared to get back into running because I know that my paces are going to be slower and my fitness isn't as good as it was a few months ago. But that's part of it, right, utilizing and cultivating that growth mindset of I've done it before so I can do it again, and that is what I'm most excited for that physically, you know the the challenge maybe hasn't been there as much the past few months, but emotionally and mentally it has been present every single day and I feel like I've grown so much from it.
Speaker 1:Um, and I think too, god is such an ego, like ego hit for me, canceling races and saying, oh, I'm going to do like this marathon and I'm going to do these high rocks is of canceling them, of. I cause I hate not following through on things and I felt like it made me weak and made me look bad. And, oh, my gosh, okay, I'm sitting out, like sitting here, looking out the window, and I've not seen a butterfly since I have moved to California and like been living in Huntington and there is a huge butterfly. I'm like I'm going to try to take a video of it A huge butterfly outside of my window and it is, oh, that's such a God wink, okay, adhd brain, um, but it was such an ego thing just canceling your race and saying, oh, I'm going to do it. Ooh, actually I'm not going to do it because I'm not feeling motivated, because there was such a much deeper, um, underlying intention and it wasn't pure. So, yeah, I don't know if I just need to do a podcast episode about that to just kind of if anyone cared like why I said I was doing a race and then now I'm suddenly not doing it and I've.
Speaker 1:I want my intention and I want my heart to be pure and good behind things and not from a negative place or looking deeper for this validation and this worth and identity inside of something, because ultimately, at the end of the day, I felt like that became an idol and that is not what I want to use exercise or my body as Um.
Speaker 1:So God is kind of humbled and shown me some different things inside of that too. So, but I just rambled for a little bit I don't even know how long that was, but it just feels good to sit down and do this episode and just kind of, you know, give you a little peek into what I've been talking about with therapy and some deeper things that I've realized about myself too. But I love you guys and I'm excited for this season and kind of what's to come. We may see some rebranding and some things changing, which is exciting, exciting, but I will definitely keep you updated with that. But for now we're still thinking um or planning on a new episode every two weeks with podcasting. So thank you guys for listening. I love you so, so much, and I hope that you just have such a beautiful day.
