Discovering Ourselves in Mindfulness & Triathlon Training
Practicing Patience, Embodiment, and Breaking Free from Body Dysmorphia
From training for an Iron Man competition to tapping into your creativity to repairing your own self-image, exercise and mindfulness practices help create steps to positive change.
“There’s a lot to learn about life through exercise, through triathlons, or through any kind of movement,” shares Dr. Susan Gershenhorn, PhD. Dr. Susan is a licensed psychologist and an accomplished athlete with seven half Iron Mans under her belt. Susan applies what she learns from movement to her own life. In this episode of the Pongo podcast, we discuss taking time to slow down, listening to our body’s needs, and how to be more loving toward ourselves.
Triathlons are a lot like life in that both require patience and creating a sense of balance. Whether you’re preparing for a triathlon or just struggling to fall asleep, mindfulness practices like breathing and visualization can be helpful. Many of the things we do in life involve a lengthy process, so learning how to practice being patient is key.
This episode also tackles body dysmorphia and its prevalence in our society. We share our experiences breaking free from our own body dysmorphia, and how we continually discover being kind to ourselves in allowing ourselves to be vulnerable with others.
Then in episode 14, veteran stand up comedian Myq Kaplan reveals how approached his mindfulness practice from a different angle: he applies his experiences on the stage to how he thinks about life, and vice versa. “Physically if you put in the work and the time and the effort, then something will happen, something will change," he realized.
Myq has been doing stand up comedy for 20 years, performing in multiple countries. By understanding how to create change and to feel the results of his actions in his physical body, he discovered that comedy was going to take similar effort and time.
Myq shares about his early life & career in which he was unaware of his own body. When he first got access to running on a treadmill, Myq discovered that by physically going through the process of building up endurance slowly, change would naturally occur over time.
He applied this lesson to his comedy career, realizing that change would come as long as he put the time and effort in. When he began doing stand up, Myq describes himself as more of a conduit for sound and ideas, rather than as a physical being on the stage. He then grew into the embodiment of his own art form in being both the creator and the creation all at once. He discovers his presence in his own physical body through exercise, mindfulness activities such as meditation, and starting each day with a full liter of water.
Learn more in this episode about embodiment and how we find both our physical bodies and our ability to fully share our thoughts and creative endeavors.
