EP. 176 — Being Brave with Alexi Pappas

Jameela: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of I Weigh with Jameela Jamil, a podcast against shame. I have another very inspiring episode for you this week with a former Olympian. She is also an ultra runner, a filmmaker and an author of the book, Bravey, which has done so well and helped so many people. Her name is Alexi Pappas, and she has joined me this week to talk about all things mental health, all things trauma, all things resilience and the importance of discipline and how discipline has come to be seen as something that people push back upon and see as only a bad thing, whereas actually, it’s most often a massive key to our happiness, not just our successes, not the kind of traditional successes, but real true success of happiness and health. And I think that’s really cool. And it’s a wonderful part of our chat. She takes me through her career, her experiences, her post Olympic blues and depression, the support of athletes around her, what inspires her and mostly how she is looking to inspire others and her book, Bravey, certainly done that and now she’s made a [00:01:00] young readers edition, which is out on August 22nd and I highly recommend it because it’s such a cool read. It’s so inspiring and so, the message, the uplifting and inspiring and wonderful message of someone’s triumph against all odds that I think all young people could benefit from regardless of who they are or what gender they are or where they come from. We need more stories like this in the world. We need more people like her in the world. So please enjoy the lovely Alexi Pappas.

Well, Alexi, welcome to I Weigh. How are you?

Alexi: I’m doing great. I am, it’s hot, but it’s like slightly less warm today. And I went on a jog before this with my friend who has a baby. [00:02:00] And I actually, we did a stroller run and we traded off and I haven’t like pushed, I’ve only pushed a stroller running once in my life, and it was another friend years ago. It’s really hard pushing a stroller while you’re running.

Jameela: A hundred percent. I mean, it’s hard pushing a stroller when you’re doing anything by the looks of things. It’s, it’s, uh, fucking intense, but how do you feel afterwards? Do you feel like you got an extra brain workout?

Alexi: Yeah. You’re, well and you’re trying not to like disturb the stasis of the baby, like the baby was asleep.

Jameela: Oh shit.

Alexi: So when there’s bumps, you have to like, I mean, sometimes you just roll over them and the baby’s fine. And I think that’s where the phrase sleep like a baby comes from, um, but, but it’s a little, you know, you’re navigating, you can’t really use your core. Anyway, that’s not what we’re here to talk about, but it was just interesting how it affects your body to have this thing in front of you that you’re pushing.

Jameela: Yeah. So how have you been?

Alexi: I’ve been good. I, I feel like I’m Tarzan in the middle of a leap in between two [00:03:00] vines and that means that I’m like excited and happy but like busy and overwhelmed and also like, just, that’s just how I feel like, like Tarzan a little bit.

Jameela: I’ve never had that answer. I’ve had hundreds of episodes of this podcast and no one has ever told me that they feel like Tarzan in between two vines. So you’d say it’s a positive feeling? Is this just because you’re promoting something, you’re putting something out there in the world and so you feel like you’re kind of in that scary moment just at the tip of the roller coaster before you go into the descent.

Alexi: There’s the book coming out. There’s also just, you know, I’m about to try and jog-walk a hundred miles that I may not be entirely prepared to do. And as an athlete moving into the arts, there’s this like kind of transition that every athlete makes when they’re not competing hard, but might still be doing their sport in a different way. There’s like personal transitions happening. [00:04:00] There’s just a lot of things. And I think the feeling isn’t, it’s that you’re equipped enough, like you make, you’re making the leap, but there’s still like a, there’s a thrilled terror. It’s exciting, but it’s overwhelming and you have to just keep going forward. You know, you’re not going back.

Jameela: You are about to embark on a 100 mile walk-run. Can you tell me what that is and how you’re feeling about it?

Alexi: So I used to compete, you know, on the track and that’s a very contained, uh, event that I ran the 10, 000 meters. It’s the longest event on the track, so that’s long, but a hundred miles is very, very, very long. And I’ve started doing ultra marathons sometimes for fun. And also because look, I think what’s so cool is being out in nature for a period of time where you’ve dedicated that period of time to being out there and you are not meant [00:05:00] to be anywhere else. And the only other place I feel like that is like being on set for like a production where like you are meant to be there, right? You’re exactly where you belong. And in these ultra marathons, you know, I, I love being out in nature, but I’m not always going to give myself more than like an hour to go out on a walk or run in Topanga or something. And so this feels like an opportunity where my only goal, it’s so, it’s in Colorado. It’s called Leadville. It’s like a historic old 100 mile race and you usually have to qualify and they’ve invited me to do it, so it’s like I might be in over my head. But my only goal is to keep moving and keep eating and that’s it.

Jameela: How long does it take people to complete a hundred mile run?

Alexi: I don’t know, over a day and

Jameela: I should fucking hope so.

Alexi: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn’t, I don’t know. I honestly, I know there’s a cutoff time and I know you can have a pacer.

Jameela: Okay, you are now starting to freak me out. I know you said that you like hadn’t fully trained, but you don’t know. Are you gonna die? Don’t die.

Alexi: No, no, [00:06:00] no. There’s, there are aid stations every few miles. And so it’s kind of like you’re going from buffet to buffet. So if you think about it like that, like a nature buffet walk, that’s run walk, that’s sort of fun.

Jameela: So is part of the kind of draw to this, and I say this is just like a, you know, I’m a recovering exercise phobe, right? So is the goal of this to, because you love that feeling of being removed from technology and the news and the distraction and you get to kind of hyper focus on this thing that is so human and so you and your body in this together with one path, one, you know, because that’s what our brains were originally supposed to do, is that we’re really only supposed to focus on one thing at a time and we are seeing via the mental health statistics, how awful it is for us to be so overstimulated and distracted and trying to, you know, we’ve made multitasking something that is a Um, you know, a positive thing and in many ways it can be, but it also isn’t necessarily [00:07:00] very good for settling our brain. Is that what it is that draws you in is the fact that you’re just like, I get to be an old school human who just has one fucking task to get from A to B and it’s just me and my body in this shit together?

Alexi: Yes. And

Jameela: I can see that. I can see that. Even I can see that.

Alexi: Well, in ultras, what I’m learning is that unlike track or some other sports where you’re meant to be mind over body, like you’re actually meant to push, push beyond what your body is saying in some other sports and other events in ultra because it’s so long, you have to listen to exactly where you are in a moment and honor it, which will mean that your race will be very different from your competitors or from anybody else. And that’s the best way to finish. It’s the best way to be safe. And it might mean that you feel like walking downhills and running up hills, which might feel counterintuitive to like an objective strategic plan to get through 100 miles. And I think what’s so satisfying is realizing is, is like [00:08:00] connecting in with yourself and answering to whatever it is that you need in the moment so that you are not redlining, because you never want to redline in an ultra.

Jameela: What does redline mean?

Alexi: Redline is like the feeling of furrowing your brow and like gritting in the way that you might think about running. You know, when you think about running, you’re like, rawr, like furrowed brow, hard sweat, difficult. And like with this, you have to feel like you are doing, um, you’re not trying too hard in any given moment. So it shouldn’t feel, it should feel green, yellow, not red, right?

Jameela: You’re my hero because I don’t run unless I’m being chased, so I find this very inspiring. If I was doing this, I would pencil roll the whole way, which I bet is technically within the rules. You know what that is?

Alexi: No.

Jameela: You just, you lie down flat and you put your arms out almost in a point, like a pencil, and then you just roll your body all the way. And it would take me several years, I think, to complete, but I would do it. That’s how I would be able to do this.

Alexi: That’s the best way to roll down a hill.

Jameela: Thank you.

Alexi: Is the [00:09:00] pencil roll, right?

Jameela: Thank you. And you know what? Hearing that from an Olympian makes me feel incredibly vindicated.

Okay, so, speaking of mental health and, and this challenge and your approach and what it is that appeals to you, you are someone who has used your platform from your extraordinary physical abilities to be able to use your platform to talk about mental health, the incredible journey you’ve had throughout your life and what impact that has had on how you feel.

And I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind talking to me a bit about that, a bit about your story and why you’ve chosen to share it.

Alexi: Well, I haven’t really shared anything until I felt wiser than the person that was going through it. And I feel like that’s important to point out first, because I’m not actually someone who will share when I’m in the middle of the trenches dealing with something that I don’t even understand that I need help with. That’s like, my core team will [00:10:00] know, the people who are helping me will know. And that’s because that’s how you get through those things. Or for me, for me, maybe some people like share every moment of every challenge, but that was never, that was never useful for me. Um, but when I’ve like gotten through something and feel wiser than the person who went through it, I think it’s helpful to share if there’s something useful that you can share, whether it’s like a vocabulary shift in your head.

And so, so for me, I grew up, mental health was very confusing. I lost my mom when I was young. She took her own life when I was four, but I didn’t know that until later in life. And then I didn’t understand, you know, how to look at it and see it until after I experienced a post Olympic depression after the Rio Olympics. And then I really had to understand it because I had to heal from, uh, my own mental health injury and the way that I was able to heal was to see it [00:11:00] as an injury. And before that, it felt like a very scary thing that I was told, you know, my mom had these, just was so sad that she had to go and that was just a very confusing way to grow up

Jameela: And your mother had mental health issues, right? She, uh, she thought she was maybe bipolar.

Alexi: She was manic bipolar.

Jameela: Right.

Alexi: Um, and she was violent with herself and had addiction problems. And so when I was young, my experience with her was she wasn’t living at home. She was in a rehab for a drug type thing, or she was in a mental health facility and she would come home sometimes but like it was a very special occasion when she was home and so our dynamic at home was very unique to that situation.

Jameela: Mm. You talk about the post, you know, Olympic depression that you experienced. Was any of [00:12:00] that also the aftermath of, of what it takes to be a champion athlete? Like, what is that life like? And what is all that attention and pressure like?

Alexi: Being an athlete is, uh, it’s like you’re living on a very specific planet, kind of, because the rules are different. So when I was training really, really hard, my priorities were to my body, right? Like they were answering to going to, I was in a training group. I lived in rural Oregon. I would go to training camps for one month, every three months to get altitude training. Uh, I ran 125 miles a week. I ate liver once a week and bone marrow. And there was just so many details that, um, I look back on fondly, but at the time it was normal, right? So you just live this very specific existence and it’s [00:13:00] repetitive. It’s unglamorous. It’s fun because running is a social sport.

Jameela: But in some ways it can also probably be a bit antisocial because you can’t go out and do the things that young people do and you can’t take risks with your body.

Alexi: Yeah. You’re like super advanced in one way, like your body. And then you’re very, very like my twenties, I probably drank or got drunk less times than I could count on one hand, my twenties. That’s a time when a lot of people are pretty, pretty social. And so it’s just a very specific life that I feel happy about because I fully committed and I think that is like a really, really worthy thing to do in life is to, there’s a difference between being interested in something and being committed. And to be interested is you, you want it, but you will be okay, uh, or you will maybe see barriers as a reason why you can’t get it. You will like, there’s, there’s the difference between being interested and committed are just the choices you make when you’re challenged. And a committed person will make the choice to, [00:14:00] uh, keep deferring, you know, their disbelief about it’s impossibility.

Jameela: Yeah, you say it’s action over how you feel. It’s not a mindset. It’s what you actually do.

Alexi: It’s what you do.

Jameela: Yeah. That’s a lovely picture that you paint of that. But also, is any of that stressful, especially when you take it to an Olympic level? It’s so competitive and there’s so much pressure on you.

Alexi: Yeah. And I was trying to pay my bills with it, like that’s hard to have your body be your job. It’s really hard because you have to be perfect. Like you, if you break or can’t do it, these contracts are often structured where if you don’t perform your contracts cut in half. And that’s really, really scary, and it’s really hard, and I think the only way to, like, do it healthily is to you never plan your life more than a year in advance. That’s like genuinely how I feel because you might exceed your [00:15:00] expectations after a year or need, like you might undersell yourself. If you were like in five years, I want to do this. Usually we think we’re not as capable as we are, but also you might be

Jameela: Especially women.

Alexi: Yeah, so I think people should never plan more than a year in advance and then evaluate and like adjust, but also evaluate and adjust the, the environment that you’re in. So like, for an athlete, you need the best coach that works for you. You need the training environment. You need the teammates, and then you need to be in the incubator and doing the work. You can’t question the training while you’re doing it, and that’s a part of that commitment. And what I feel bad for is if somebody ends up in a situation with like a not great coach or not great, some situation that isn’t their

Jameela: Ideal.

Alexi: It isn’t their ideal and doesn’t have anything to do with their athletic potential. It just has to do with their circumstance. That’s what makes me frustrated because, um, you have to commit fully. And that means you might commit fully to a coach or a program that is not the best for [00:16:00] you. And that’s the risk you take, right? Coaches are so important because what they’re asking the athlete to do is try your best every day and they will moderate you a bit, right? They’ll see you and be like, we’re pulling you one rep early because I see that you’re, you’ve done enough because we’re hard on ourselves. Or they’ll look at you and you’ll be crying through a rep and they’ll know that they can tell you to take your watch off and keep going. And that happened to me so many times. My coach was like, you need to get through this one. And he knew cause he, and I trusted him intrinsically.

Jameela: Well, this is why we see so many young athletes, especially young female athletes, like breaking down younger and younger and having to leave because they’re not being supported appropriately. And also it’s so much pressure and so much fame and attention at such a young age. And I don’t know if there’s very much preparation for what that feels like when you are in that spotlight.

Alexi: Yeah. And, and, and puberty is so important. Like, I cannot stress enough. I didn’t run through my like puberty years. I [00:17:00] was kicked off my team in high school. I wasn’t a bad kid or anything, but our coaches wanted us to just run. And I didn’t want to just run when I was 16. I wanted to play soccer and do theater. And so I developed like into a very strong, durable, like soccer playing person, woman. And so when I started to do the more serious training, I could handle it because my bones were like, solid, right? And so I think

Jameela: Yeah, a lot of these athletes are training through puberty and it’s

Alexi: Yes.

Jameela: It’s harming their bone density. They’re often not eating enough. That’s also bad. They, a lot of them don’t menstruate until they’re way older than is, you know, supposed to happen for their body.

Alexi: Yeah, and women have a different athletic trajectory than, than guys. So it’s just like we peak later. So again, I think it kind of comes back to the dream itself is not the problem. It’s like, how are we stepping into that, that wonderland? Like I’ll just say like, you’re like Alice in Wonderland when you go in and chase any dream, [00:18:00] and, like, how, what backpack does she have on? How, like, strong are her bones? What are the, like, I don’t know, what are the coaches in the form of, you know, like, it’s gonna be wild, but you just wanna have, like, as best you can, those tools in the form of guidance and durability.

Jameela: And so, is the depression that comes after that any trauma from the previous years? Or is it just that was such a high and everything was leading towards that? And that was my purpose and that was my life. And now it’s kind of done for another four years.

Alexi: So you’re asking, is it also about what you just experienced?

Jameela: Yeah. What I’m saying is that the post Olympic depression, because actually I think back to a lot of the athletes that I know have seen publicly or watched them, you know, or even just musicians who come off a crazy tour like this deflation of them. I can’t relate to that at all because I’ve never been in a situation like that. So I’m just curious as to like, do you [00:19:00] think causes that post Olympic depression?

Alexi: I think that it’s actually quite normal to have the dip after the peak. Like, you know, with pregnancy, isn’t there a word for like the fourth trimester now that’s like the post, like it’s a, it’s embraced that after you, I don’t know, but like, after you give birth, there’s a period of time when it’s expected that you might have a rebalancing of things and maybe it’s controversial to say that, like, I actually think it’s quite normal to have that dip, but I think it’s the rejection of the feelings that makes it worse. So if we can just accept that, like, the dip is, you know, it begins as like a melancholy and it only be maybe it becomes worse and it becomes, um, high risk or or like suicidal when we reject that it’s okay to have those feelings. But if we just were to give it [00:20:00] space and resources to to like, come back a little bit on it’s, not just on its own, but like, to not resist it so much, um, but to your point about what does the buildup do to like exacerbate the depression or the moment after it’s just, you’re suppressing so much during a buildup. You know how people get sick after like a big, you know, people get sick after premieres and big sporting events, they get sick. It’s because your body is actually like super resilient and capable, and your mind is too, but it, it, it needs to level out at a certain point. And so we gotta give it that decompressive time, the decompression, and even build in what is that decompression mean for you? So like, it could mean doing nothing. It could mean going on a hike or whatever, but just not resisting so much what it is that we are, [00:21:00] um, and also maybe not being so offended by it. This, like, disgust we have with ourselves when we feel not great. We feel spoiled. You know what it is? The feeling of being guilty or spoiled for feeling something, it’s a secondary emotion which is a judgment of our real emotion. So you feel bad and then you feel spoiled that you feel bad. So it’s like we just have to start getting rid of some of the secondary emotions associated with a post peak dip so that it can come back a lot quicker. Uh, it’s the same thing with an injury. Like when you’re injured and I see people cross training through their injuries, They come back way slower, whereas if you just like take the foot off the brakes, you’re more likely to just like let all that inflammation go away and heal than if you try and make up for the time.

Jameela: 100%.

Alexi: Yeah. You have to let go of control, maybe. That’s, that’s hard.

Jameela: It is hard. And [00:22:00] so then when you find yourself post Olympics, which is, you know, I think another really interesting thing that you talk about is the fact that a lot of people expect that it’s when life is at its kind of lowest point that mental illness is more likely to creep in. But actually for a lot of people, yourself included, it was actually when you were at your highest high that that’s when it all came knocking.

Alexi: Yeah. You know, I think it’s probably that we don’t think about the moment after these big peaks that we’re chasing, like if there’s a goal like the Olympics or, you know, finishing a movie or something, you usually, if you were to think about the moment after you wouldn’t get to that peak in the first place. So you’re not told to prepare for the moment after, but I was thinking about it recently about, like, the emoji of a mountain. Like, you know, the emoji is very, uh, symmetrical. And if we think about a peak as a mountain, when we get there, there’s a whole other half of the mountain to complete before it becomes [00:23:00] a full mountain, right? And we don’t really, you know, prepare for the thing afterwards, and so I chased the Olympic dream for the same, you know, same objective reasons as anyone. It was, you know, exciting and fun and felt good. It didn’t feel like it was hurting anybody, um, and it felt positive and when it was over, I think what most of us find no matter how we perform is that it doesn’t quite satisfy us in the way that we thought it might, like the feeling of completeness, you might feel complete as an athelete, but there’s like a whole human or whatever it is that was driving you that won’t be satisfied by an outward facing achievement, right? It’ll, it will ask for the next, you’ll want the next thing. Um, and I didn’t pause. So I didn’t honor the other side of the mountain. It was a cliff, right? I just fell off, and I’ve since learned, I went to Burning Man last year for like three days. And you know what, they have this term in Burning Man [00:24:00] called the decompression. And it’s like, everyone’s like detoxing from whatever they’re, they did there. And I think it’s kind of brilliant because there’s a chapter afterwards that they honor to like come down from these peaks. But for athletes at the Olympics, the question they ask you at the finish line is what’s next? That’s like the question that you get. And you probably don’t know that answer. Or if you’re asked it, you think I need to begin this next thing tomorrow and not honor the adrenal fatigue, all the recovery required to kind of re compress, kind of like when you squeeze a marshmallow, just to let it, let it come back after all that pushing.

Jameela: For you, when all that, I mean, it must be confusing. I remember it was at my highest point in my career that my mental health took me down as fast as possible. And I remember feeling so confused because I was like, I have everything that anyone could ever want right now. I’m flying. How could I feel so [00:25:00] sad? Like, how could I be this unbalanced or ungrateful? Like, what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I enjoy this? And, and so then the shame sort of then piled, I don’t know if you experienced anything like this, but kind of like shame and confusion piled on top of the fact that I was being told by everyone that this is my moment. This is the time to celebrate. I should be so happy. And it made me feel even fucking sadder. Is that something you can relate to?

Alexi: Yeah. Cause the way the world sees you and the way you feel inside when those don’t match, you start to feel like an alien and you, you feel disconnected and just that disconnect between the way the people are seeing you and how you feel is very lonely and it’s almost like we’re all like, if every human is a planet, like a planet in the sky. And the way the world sees us is like how you see a planet. So we see the moon or Mars or whatever, and it looks like it’s certain, that’s how people see us. But what we feel is [00:26:00] like the core of our planet, right? And no one can see your core truly. Like maybe your dog and your partner can like basically see it. But like you are the only one with like number one access to your core presumably. When those things are so different, it’s like, it gives you that shame.

Jameela: And it becomes quite dehumanizing. You can almost dehumanize yourself where you just feel like what I feel is wrong. What I feel is not normal. I’m not normal. And so you said that you decided to look at this mental health issue rather than, you know, relating it to your mother and her struggles or thinking this is something that’s just in me. This is an injury. I am, I’m experiencing an injury of the mind. Can you talk to me more about that?

Alexi: So when I finally got help, it was like my dad was noticing these symptoms that he remembered from my mom. And he was the one that was like, you, you need to talk to someone. And I, I didn’t want to, but he made the appointments [00:27:00] and sometimes you need that, you know, so that’s okay. And when I met this, I met two doctors first of all, and I, and one of them, I just did not connect with, like, it was like, she thought I was, she was like, you’re going to kill yourself tomorrow. Like, she was like, she was just like cold. And I didn’t, it just felt weird. And then I met this other doctor, Dr. Arpaio, and he wore these shirts with like, animals printed on them like from the gas station. You know, I was just like, that’s my, okay. It’s like a coach where you’re like, I could follow this person or I can sit down with this human and he said, once I told him everything that I was feeling, which was a lot of, you know, really bad thoughts that felt like they were repeating over and over again. He said, you know, Lex, like when you’re little and you fall down, um, and you scratch your knee or you break your leg, that is an injury to your body, right? And what you’ve experienced here is like an injury to your brain. It’s like you fell down rollerblading, and you have this injury and that, mine [00:28:00] was a situational depression that’s, you know, because there’s different types of mental health.

Jameela: Will you explain to people what a situational depression is?

Alexi: Yeah, it’s when a series or one thing happens to you. Someone dies, you lose your job, like you have a breakup. It’s like things happen, um, and then you feel okay, okay. And then you, you sort of fall off a cliff. It’s what it feels like, and so it means that you can recover, but you’ve, you can sometimes fall pretty hard, so it is, it is like an injury in that way. And once he, Dr. Arpaio said that, it changed my whole perspective on how I saw myself because before I thought depression kind of like creeps up on you like a little ghoul and just gets you and then it’s a cloud inside of you and you don’t know how to get it out, like you can’t grab a cloud. But when it was an injury, I was like, alright, how would I deal with an injury? I would, you know, seek out help. I would understand that not every [00:29:00] physio in the physical sense, but in this case, every, not every doctor works for me, but I will find one that speaks to me. It might take medical intervention, like medicine. It might take, it will take time, you know, as, as a broken bone takes time to heal it. A broken bone hurts every day for a long time, but as long as we’re staying off of it doing our bone broth or whatever you do, the actions, you know that it’s healing, even if you don’t feel better.

And he told me that actions change first, then thoughts, then feelings in that order, actions, then thoughts, then feelings. So he was almost like, I get it. You’re sad every day. Cool. Whatever. What are your actions? And so I started treating it like this was my new Olympics. Like I am. He’s my coach. I’m going to do the actions. Yes, I feel whatever I feel, but actions will catalyze the rest of this response. And so I became quite disciplined about it. And was not training [00:30:00] and it and it worked over time, um, but it took, you know, subscribing to this thing like, like you might a physical injury and it is a physical injury because depression is often like, uh, just an extreme depletion, right? And so when you talked about your peak, and feeling that dip, like it might have been partly just a real, real depletion from what it took to get there and a natural,

Jameela: Well, yeah, but also I think for me, it’s the fact that for some reason in my late twenties and for a lot of my friends in their late twenties, a lot of the old stuff we’ve been made, we’ve been able to suppress started to surface. And I don’t know if that’s because we were all about to approach our thirties or something. I don’t know if it’s because we were getting older. And so, you know, you’re kind of shedding your youth to become the person you’re going to be. But for some reason, when I guess when you’re at the top of any industry or any like path or school or [00:31:00] whatever, it normally takes you sacrificing everything else that you need in order to achieve that one thing, all of your energy, all of your reserve goes to that one thing and you stop seeing your friends as much and you stop having as much affection in your life, you stop the self care, you stop comfort, you stop treats. You just become obsessed with this one thing and it consumes every part of you and every minute of your day and you don’t sleep enough and you don’t really look after yourself. You almost definitely never eat enough. And so I feel as though, um, at my peak of my success is also when I was my most physically and mentally vulnerable because I had done none of the natural self care I was doing without even realizing it and so that’s when it took me down and it just became very confusing to have to feel so sad when I was supposed to feel so happy and it made me feel very ungrateful and strange. But yeah, that’s, that’s what I think caused it. But for me, it [00:32:00] was not something that had just happened so much as things that happened in my childhood that came back to haunt me, you know?

Alexi: Yeah.

Jameela: It’s also hard to achieve. It’s also hard to lose a parent young sometimes for some people and then have this big moment and they’re not there.

Alexi: Yeah.

Jameela: You know, there’s just a multitude of things that can, that can happen, I imagine.

Alexi: Well, it’s interesting you say that because what it really points to is, well, there’s two things. Like one, it’s, is it, is it useful to ask why? Like, that’s a really interesting question, because you are where you are, there are probably a bajillion different whys, they’re unique, they’re, but what does the why, I’m not saying it’s not important, I’m literally saying, asking why, and needing that answer doesn’t always fix it.

Jameela: I think it doesn’t always fix it, but I think it depends on the issue, right? Like for me, I needed the why so I could go back and look at it and heal. Like I needed to know what the cause was rather than just handle the symptom. But I can also understand why you don’t [00:33:00] always need to interrogate the symptoms. Some people don’t know. Some people have a chemical issue. Some people what happened to them happened when they were pre verbal. They don’t remember it. So I agree that you shouldn’t have to know the exact lineage of the issue, but I think for some people it does help.

Alexi: Yeah.

Jameela: And I think it’s important not to focus on it and feel like, well, that’s my story now, that’s always going to be the issue. It’s important to go, that’s where it started. Here’s where I am now. Not for everyone. I’m just saying for someone like me, that’s where it started. Here’s where I’m at now. Where do I want to go and where do I want to go is what I chose to focus on rather than what happened to me to put me here in the first place.

Alexi: Yeah. And in that sense, it’s, it’s a combination of, of it all. Well, the other thing is like, we’re basically, you and I are talking about goals, right? Like you were saying you were singularly, you were, you would achieve some peak, right? And, and I achieved some peak and it’s an interesting thing because like, I want to be careful not to say like, these goals are the [00:34:00] problem, like chasing a big dream is a problem, right? So however, a big dream is also like a distraction in some ways, right? Because you’re so singular and it feels so full purpose. It feels so good. And so to negotiate, like not discouraging people from having hard goals that they may or may not get, but, but, but maybe there’s a, there’s like a, a wise way to get there that we

Jameela: Yeah, there’s a difference we can split. I’m sure I could have still achieved the same success and slept more. I’m sure I could have just taken it down just a notch in some way. I’m sure I could have still seen my friends. Like I’m, I’m sure I didn’t need to be so obsessive about the goal.

In your work, you have been very emphatic about, you know, runners, especially being very careful to be sustainable in their training to, to make sure that they are eating enough. Something that women runners in [00:35:00] particular are not always encouraged to do because the lighter you are, the faster, you know, it is said you will go, but you believe in nourishing your body. You believe in looking after yourself, you believe in listening to your body, which I think is why this hundred mile insanity, uh, appeals so much to you. And so I don’t think what you’re advocating is ever like, don’t have the big dream. I don’t think you regret the 2016 Olympics. I just think you want to do it in as healthy a way as possible, right?

Alexi: Yeah, and to have the like tools and vocabulary to understand how you feel, because isn’t it so interesting that, like, we have the words we have, right? Like, I’ve been thinking about words lately, like, you could sometimes describe how you feel, but if you can’t describe how you feel exactly, or you don’t know yet, it doesn’t mean you don’t have the feeling. It just means you can’t, like,

Jameela: Express it.

Alexi: Express it. And then I’m like, is it a problem if you can’t express it, or [00:36:00] what do I do with feelings I can’t express? And is it important to express it or is it important to just, like, have it within myself? Anyway, this is not a going anywhere other than the thing that you want going into those dreams is to have as much of an understanding about what’s possible, um, as you can, you know.

Jameela: Yeah, and just before we move on, like something you and I were talking about in our little chat the other day, you know, when we’re saying we’re not trying to ever discourage anyone from having a goal. I was telling you that, like, recently, I was talking about discipline on the Internet and the importance of having discipline. And it doesn’t always just have to look like having abs and sinewy arms like you don’t have to be able to see my discipline to know that I have it just from looking at me, that I’m okay if I don’t have the body of what looks like a disciplined person, I know I’m a disciplined person. And then when I posted about it there was a lot of kind of pushback from some people saying, why is discipline so important in the first place? Why are we pushing for people to have discipline? Discipline is not important. And [00:37:00] actually I pushed further back against that saying, I think discipline is important. I just think it’s become bastardized under a capitalist system, right? We think of discipline as something that doesn’t actually benefit you in the end, that you are forced just to do ’cause you are under the kind of boot of capitalism and actually discipline comes in all kinds of important ways. I have discipline towards being a good friend. I make sure that I show up for my friends. I’m disciplined towards my mental health. I’m disciplined towards now finally, at last, at like 85 years old, looking after my physical health and going to the doctor’s appointments and eating properly and learning how to cook, you know, so it has taken discipline to outrun anorexia. It has taken discipline to be good at my job. Discipline is not a bad thing. It just means working hard now, even if you don’t feel like it for something that’s going to benefit you in the future. And I feel like you and I have a similar take on that because it’s massively been discipline that’s gotten you to where [00:38:00] you are now.

Alexi: Yeah. Well, I, I remember in your interview with Dr. Chawla, you said something along the lines of sometimes you feel like less sensitive than your friends, or like you have a certain, it’s not a hardness, but it’s some, it’s a maybe discipline falls in that world or, uh, you’re less just you said that something along those lines and I felt like I related to it in so far as like I’m a pretty like direct person and with myself with others and and I think the word discipline, maybe it’s just become it’s like when a rubber band gets too stretched out. Like maybe the word has been exhausted and it like doesn’t serve its purpose anymore and maybe the better word for it is commitment. Commitment, right? Like, because if you are committed to your health or being a good friend, it just means that the decisions you’re making align with that goal that you’ve decided is important to you. [00:39:00] And the word discipline kind of suggests that like furrowed brow, it has this, like, it has a personality to it that we don’t like, or maybe identify with at least for me. Like when I’m super disciplined, but I think what I really am is I’m committed and it means I know my North star, whatever that is, whether it’s be a good friend, go to the Olympics and the decisions I’m making need to fall under that North star. And if they don’t, and look, fun things, we talked about this fun things fall under the North star too. You’ve got to relax and whatnot to get to those great goals, but if it falls way far away from that North star, it’s in another galaxy, I’m not going to do it. And that’s discipline, right? Your actions are aligning with your goals, and you’re aware of your goals, and you’re not a leaf getting blown by every single wind.

Jameela: Yeah, I think something that puts people off is the idea that it’s going to be hard if it’s discipline. You’re talking about the furrowed brow, right? But I also think that while, you know, my generation was taught too much about, like, hardship is good, [00:40:00] stoicism, good, and easy is bad and lazy. And so I feel like we’ve swung all the other way. I spoke about this a few weeks ago with Dr. Seerut Chawla, who you were referencing, um, but then the response to that has been, no, we need soft. Everything has to be soft. Everything has to be, uh, comfortable. And actually, If we’re just going to be realistic about the world, and the terrible things that happen sometimes, or the hardships that do happen, and the goals that are harder to meet, and there are hurdles, we have to not become afraid of what is hard, or what is uncomfortable. I understand not wanting to think of the furrowed brow, but also, sometimes, that’s just that is part of the journey and I think kind of part of what I feel like my responsibility is and I, I, I get this from your book is that you are also encouraging people that it’s okay to veer towards what feels difficult or strenuous, just don’t kill yourself for it.

Alexi: Yeah.

Jameela: But don’t be afraid of working really hard and a little bit of struggle. It’s, it’s, [00:41:00] it’s often where a lot of the most amazing growth comes from.

Alexi: Yeah, and it’s deeply satisfying to be moving toward like a bright thing ahead of you, right? It might hurt. Like, I don’t know if you imagine like you’re walking through and there’s like, I don’t know. I’m thinking about like walking against the wind, but you see this like awesome sparkly thing at a distance and you’re like, yes, there’s like wind coming at you. There’s rain, there’s snow, there’s all this stuff and you’re trudging, but there’s something awesome about going toward that goal. And that’s probably, like a very athletic perspective on things because athletes have goals that they expect will be hard. They know they’re going to lose along the way. This is one of the reasons why sports are great because they teach you that like, you know, the winning baseball teams don’t win every game, but they win at the end.

And so I think there are many ways to train ourselves to normalize all the challenge and the pain and like have an amusement about it and a [00:42:00] jockeyness and a jolly like determination, um, and then it becomes fun. Like, it can be really fun if you know where you’re going and why you’re going there, right? If you don’t believe in the North Star, like where you’re driving yourself toward, that’s where it gets hard because you’re like, why am I going through all this? Why am I challenged? So maybe, maybe going back to our talking about the why, thinking about like, why did we commit to this thing in the beginning? And is it still important to us once if we know our why, maybe that helps the pain feel like a sensation and not a threat so much. Yeah, I don’t know. I think that some young people are afraid to chase a goal because it will, because they might not get it or because it might be hard. And that feels very sad to me.

Jameela: Some people also, you’ve said to me, you know, feel afraid that sometimes what it takes to achieve the top of that pyramid or, you know, the end of [00:43:00] what that discipline looks like, can make you seem like you’re a bitch or you’re selfish and that’s something that women in particular feel afraid of is, is going after something that they dream of, whatever that thing may be.

For me, I had to be selfish to be able to achieve my mental health goal of not feeling suicidal anymore. I had to cut people off. I had to say no to things. I had to let people down for a while until I was better. So like, fine, some people might thought I was being a selfish bitch, but that was my discipline and I’m alive because I made that decision. Um, can you talk to me about that? And is that something you ever felt? Were you, did you ever feel like you were the bad guy?

Alexi: Yeah, I

Jameela: You got portrayed that way, rather?

Alexi: Well, in a few ways. Like, when I was really, really fit, I felt like my body looked not how my personality felt. So I was so, I looked like, like a feral bobcat, you know, like I was so, you know, it just felt like, and I was kind of in multiple worlds.

Jameela: I mean, I’m getting quite a [00:44:00] visual here, so you’re going to have to be more specific because I’m imagining you furry and covered in garbage.

Alexi: Like, I just was

Jameela: Mangey. I’m getting a lot of mange.

Alexi: Yeah, well, you know, long distance running is not a glamorous sport. You will poop your pants, like, things will happen, but what I mean is, like, you’re disciplined.

Jameela: Wait, did you actually shit yourself while running?

Alexi: I’ve done it multiple times in races and, and, um,

Jameela: Oh my God. That’s amazing. That is fucking discipline.

Alexi: At one time I was in New York city. It was my first professional race. It was horrifying because it was fifth avenue. And I remember my new coach and like my new Olympic teammates.

Jameela: Not on fifth avenue.

Alexi: It was the worst thing.

Jameela: Oh my God.

Alexi: I remember my coach, my coach was like, all right, love you. And he was like, oh, okay. Okay. And he like, didn’t have me, you know, I didn’t stop because you don’t, you don’t, you just do it, but I had missed

Jameela: What could, could, could people tell? Could you, was it visible?

Alexi: Yeah. There’s no mud on 5th Avenue. Of course they could, but, but in running people, [00:45:00] like, look, it didn’t happen often and I had to really figure that out. I was eating, like, you know, too much fiber the day before. There’s things that happen.

Jameela: Wait, would you stop by the road or would you just shit and run?

Alexi: No, you just go. Like, look.

Jameela: You run while, that’s amazing.

Alexi: You just do it. I mean, unless you’re like sick and, and, and in a way you are, you are sick, but like, you, you know, some sports are, are beautiful performances that are judged and some are objective, get across that finish line. And those are two different ways to look at, you know, pooping your pants.

Jameela: What happens at, sorry, I will get off this in a second. I’m such a fucking four year old, but like what happens at the end of the race, right? You get to the end of the race and no one wants to come and hug you. I mean,

Alexi: No, it’s very, it’s very sweet what happens because people understand like the effort you put in and uh, the one time when it happened, the American record holder for the marathon who I’d never met and she was like my role model and it was my first 10k on the roads and it happened. Look, it [00:46:00] didn’t happen that, whatever, everyone’s going to think, anyway. So, and she wrapped

Jameela: No, you have no idea how much cooler this makes you. You have no idea how much more of a legend this makes you.

Alexi: Well, she wrapped me in a towel at the finish line and she turns to me and she goes, welcome to the 10k honey. And I was like, you know what? What an awesome person. She’s, you know, 20 years older than me. She could be threatened by the fact that I was literally right behind her trying to chase her down. And instead she wrapped me in a towel, helped me change out of those little race buns and said something hilarious to me. And I would do the same thing if, if, if someone, you know, younger than me came and that happened to them, because she basically was like, it was just generous of her. And it was different than if like a random mom wrapped me in one of those, you know, marathon blankets and which would have been fine, but it was like a peer and a mentor to me.

Jameela: It was like a poo medal. That’s what it was.

Alexi: Exactly. It was a poo medal. And how sweet. And we have to support each [00:47:00] other that way, right? Like, because chasing dreams, like, you are vulnerable. You will only run your best if you risk pooping your pants in a way, right?

Jameela: Yes. Yes. Yeah, yeah. In life. I enjoy this metaphor. I agree. Sometimes you’re just gonna get covered in shit, and that’s okay.

Alexi: Yeah. And it’s about

Jameela: That’s the journey.

Alexi: And who do you surround yourself with, right? Like, there’s the, there’s the, poo shamers, and then

Jameela: No. This is so great.

Alexi: But like, you have to be around people who can kind of laugh at that, and also, you know, have a, uh, an admiring amusement about these things that happen because we’re going to, to encounter these things along our journey if we’re doing something that’s really hard for us. Um, and life is really funny. I mean, it’s really hard, but they’re, it’s funny, too, a little bit.

Jameela: A hundred percent, like, being able to laugh at these moments. Like, I wasn’t even running anywhere, I’ve shit myself in the street, you know? Like, it just, like, life, life just comes at you fast sometimes. [00:48:00] A little faster out your asshole sometimes than you expect. But you know what? You finish the race, you’re a fucking legend.

Talk to me about Bravey, because you were talking earlier about language and how important it is to have language and how you didn’t have that. uh, when you were younger and you were struggling. And so you didn’t even really know how to reach out because you didn’t know what to say was even wrong. That’s become a huge motivator behind these books of yours, uh, is to be able to just offer up the language to people who maybe weren’t exposed to this conversation before. And the, you know, the conversation about mental health is obviously now one of the biggest conversations in the zeitgeist, right? And we have all these labels uh, floating around everywhere and there’s so much pathologizing, almost too much pathologizing, some might say. Some clinical psychologists are starting to say publicly, and what you’re doing is just offering for the people who can’t just go, yes, I am that label, they don’t know exactly how they feel. They just feel a discomfort. You are trying to kind of like offer them a flashlight in the distance.

Alexi: [00:49:00] Yeah. Well, books are cool in that way, right? Like, there’s a time and a place for everything. Like, a podcast is its own special creature, and books and movies and Instagram posts, they’re all different. And a book is one way to offer very thoughtful, curated words for people to ingest and take in as their own. And the goal, you know, of writing a book is that it’s not a diary, right? It communicates in its end form, right? And so I just wanted to share for whoever it might be useful to what visuals or words helped me shift and feel helpable. Like in the simplest form, I think in with the mental health discussions, like the thing that you want to feel is helpable. You don’t want to feel completely original. You want to feel like you, you are unique and you are, but you also like are [00:50:00] understood. And so Bravey, you know, it’s a memoir. The Young Readers is more instructional, much less about my life and much more simplified terms about how to see challenge, how to chase big dreams and how to, you know, just go the side door into the house instead of the front door. Because sometimes the front door is very scary or feels locked.

Jameela: Mm hmm. So you’re encouraging burglary?

Alexi: I’m encouraging burglary through the side door so that you get caught. Haha. Um, and

Jameela: But also, you know, one of those terms is, you know, will you talk to me about how you describe your anxiety or depression or, you know, feelings of trauma? You use a different word.

Alexi: Yeah. Since I wrote the adult book, and I’ve learned to shift my vocabulary from, from the word trauma or stress or those words, um, to the word unease. And this is, this is a word that I was [00:51:00] taught to think about when I actually had some body pain come up. This is, this is almost the opposite of, of depression. I was like, my body was hurting. And eventually I learned that what was really going on was, I was in a really difficult, uh, situation at home that was causing, that was emotionally stressful and it was, it was causing physical pain. And I had trouble with the word trauma, um, or those other words that people use.

Jameela: Can I ask why?

Alexi: Because it feels like you have to make a judgment on your own feelings. Like it felt like you have to compare yourself to other people and you’d be like, is this trauma? What’s trauma? Is it, what’s trauma? I don’t know. I just,

Jameela: Yeah. And the term trauma has become so like hyper used that it’s kind of lost some of its value.

Alexi: Yeah, and everybody’s using it. I’m not a doctor. I don’t, I mean, I, I, I think also I’m like a pretty shy person about, even though [00:52:00] I’ve written about what happened to me growing up, like what I’ve learned is that I downplay a lot of like, I’m like, yeah, but everybody has their shit, you know. And I’m always like, but I’m okay. And it’s so, so the word trauma is very difficult for me to use, but unease is a word that that I understand because I could be uneasy if I’m driving with a friend who’s a terrible driver. I could be uneasy if I, you know, am playing a sport I don’t, I don’t know I’m terrible at or something or trying to skateboard. So unease just felt like a word that wasn’t didn’t require this level of analysis. It was just a feeling. We know when we’re uneasy. And so what I’ve tried to to think about recently is just trying to put myself in situations where I am at ease most of the time if I can be and knowing that if I’m uneasy, it’s not a choice. It just is. It’s like cellular, right? You’re just, you are uneasy. And I think that [00:53:00] word is more useful than some of the other words we’re using right now because it’s simplified. And, and, and what I’ve learned essentially,

Jameela: It sounds more manageable when you say it like that.

Alexi: Yeah, and it sounds like.

Jameela: If I say I’m in trauma, then immediately the word trauma just has such a huge resonance because of the multitude of things that can mean that you’re right. That if I were to say I’m having a moment of unease, it would make it feel, you know, I think sometimes we’re worried about downplaying it because then it will be downplayed by the people around us and they won’t take it seriously that we have a need, which is why we try to find the big word. And that’s super understandable, but saying unease helps me feel like it’s more manageable. Like fuck what everyone else thinks. It gives me the space to go like, okay, you know what, this is unease. I can get back to ease. I’ve known ease before. I’m going to, it feels more fluid and it feels gentler. And so I like that word a lot, actually.

Alexi: It’s a nice word. And when you’re, you know, what, what I, [00:54:00] what I learned is essentially like when your body is super uneasy consistently over time, and that could be someone’s in a bad Job situation or not in a great living situation or other, your body stops recovering and usually when people get in pain and look, I’m not a, I’m not a doctor or anything, but it’s like, this is the simple terms that made sense to me. Your body will become pain wherever it is weakest because it’s not recovering systemically. So it’s not that this unease is like manifesting in your right shoulder, and that’s why it hurts. It’s just your whole body, you know, it is it can become an easy consistently over time. And so, like you said, to, to address that unease immediately is how it will prevent it from having, you know, these, these more drastic effects, whether it’s physical or mental.

Jameela: And the term trauma, I guess, can sometimes make you feel like it’s this big historical event that is taking over me right now in the present, and it’s, you know, it’s in control, I’m not in control, and it feels [00:55:00] very big. And actually, when you need to remedy something, you don’t need to look at it as a big thing. It’s not helpful to you, you need to look at it as something you can kind of make little micro movements to get out of, right?

Alexi: Yeah. I mean, they say that when a ship wants to change continents, like if you were driving a ship and you wanted to go to a different continent, it only turns like a little bit and then it will, you know, over time, it’ll go to a whole different place. And I think like when we’re trying to address our own lives, like sometimes a right turn is super necessary, right? Like I admired what, what you said in your prior podcast about like how you can be very like, you said you were really good about like, you know, being polarizing essentially, but so sometimes we need to make a right turn, right?

Jameela: Yeah.

Alexi: But sometimes we should try like a little shift and see how it takes effect. Like if you add one,

Jameela: I, yeah, I make a, I make a sharp turn when I know that I can’t begin any form of recovery where I am at. So if [00:56:00] I’m in the company of a particular family member who is traumatizing me, or if I’m in a job situation that I find lucky enough to be have the security to get out of when I’m aware that no incremental change I make will help me until I’m out of somewhere that I am not safe, I’m very good at just going, no, sorry, fuck off, goodbye. Um, but other than that, I agree with you that it’s taken years for me to fix my shit,

Alexi: Right? It’s like a million little

Jameela: I’m still doing it. Yeah.

Alexi: Yeah. I think that we can drastically change our lives by changing one little thing at a time. And I think that sometimes when people read these books about people who came from here and went here, they think that it, they just have a presumption that it happened all at once. It was like, she was this and now she’s this. And it’s like, I bet you it was a million tiny decisions, a million tiny pivots and awareness. and that like eventually brought that person to where they were.

Jameela: And so in your book for, that is kind of more, because obviously you have the one [00:57:00] for adults, but in this one, in this Bravey that’s for children, what, can you just like break down some of the ideas of this book and what you want children to be able to get, and parents to be able to get from it?

Alexi: Yeah, I think it’s not as, like, it doesn’t treat the child like a child. So it is like a mature young reader’s book. Um, and that’s because, you know, I ate adult food when I was a child too, and I wouldn’t have wanted to be fed a kid’s meal. So it’s not a kid’s meal, but it is not as gory and it is not as specific to my life because I also think as a kid, I would have rather gotten the information and applied it to myself rather than maybe read all about somebody else’s life.

Jameela: Yeah.

Alexi: So, you know, instead of love, we’re dealing with crushes instead of, um, you know, your working life, we’re dealing with chasing like big dreams and the imagination. Um, and one of the things that I’m most excited about [00:58:00] is the idea of, um, how to look at the pain that you feel when you’re changing. And you and I talked about this a little earlier, but I learned recently that when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly in the world, it, I used to think like they go into the chrysalis and there’s some chrysalises outside my house right now. And it kind of looks like just a caterpillar’s in there, but what actually happens is they become total liquid, like a caterpillar will become liquid glop, and then it will become a butterfly. And I think that is the coolest thing to know, because, um, when we’re going through change, we might be reduced to our lowest, crappiest, glop state before we become the next thing. And whenever I’m going through change, I always feel like shit. I feel like liquid glop. And the impulse that I always have is to want to go back and put it all together again and not be a hot mess anymore [00:59:00] and to be a caterpillar forever. But once I learned about this scientific truth, I was like, okay, glop is good. This is actually means I’m moving forward into becoming a butterfly. And I know that sounds like, yeah, I don’t know what it sounds like, but I think it’s really cool.

Jameela: I think it sounds sexy I think. No haha.

Alexi: Isn’t it nice to be able to like, we don’t

Jameela: No, but I do understand what you’re saying. And also like it sometimes, you know, it’s that known expression of like needing to hit the ground to be able to have the momentum for the upward, upward trajectory. Right. You know, it’s like, sometimes that’s just, that’s what you need.

Alexi: That’s the grasshopper metaphor of course.

Jameela: Yes. Haha! And so like, I, uh, mine’s always going to be more stern than yours. Yours is like cute and gloppy. Um, and mine is about, uh, smashing against the floor, but I, uh, I agree with you and it is the journey to change is so rarely hot or dignified or cool, um, or clean. It [01:00:00] is almost always the worst mess you’ve ever been in and sometimes that’s, that’s what it will take to instigate the fundamental change it’s going to take to really shift the course of your life. And I think it’s great that you write about that. I think it’s great that you’re so open about it. I think it’s so vital. It’s what I tried to do on this podcast to show everyone all of the gross, dirty bits and mistakes and misjudgments because we are human and being human is inherently inelegant and women are very, very, very seldom afforded the, um, the right to be inelegant, the right to be messy and chaotic and to shit our pants in the middle of a race and just keep going. Uh, there’s something very allegorical about that story. And I think that it’s wonderful to have people like you show the chaos and the mess and encourage the chaos and the mess and find the beauty in it and find the hope in it and tell people, you know, to reassure them [01:01:00] that that means keep going. I think that’s great.

Alexi: Yeah. And that we have a agency in it, right? Cause like we could choose to not become the butterfly like humans are not caterpillars. So like we have to consciously move ourselves forward. That’s different, you know, cause you can not evolve. I mean, you can resist it at least. I had a question for you because it’s so, because you’re asking about a book and I think like there’s a lot of pressure in writing a book because it feels similar to a movie like a thing that has bookends and you and it’s done, right? You can’t, it’s not as much of a dialogue and I feel like with with podcasting it must be so interesting because surely you’ve evolved since whatever you’ve said from a year you know like I feel like this is a more, this is like more like you’re creating like this vine that has like different seasons and features.

Jameela: It’s like a learning journal.

Alexi: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so.

Jameela: [01:02:00] And I have to apologize on here at least like once every four months. I have a seasonal, whoops, I fucked that up. Sorry.

Alexi: It must be nice though, because it’s kind of like embracing that that’s like normal.

Jameela: Totally. And I think the similarity between what you and I do is that like, I’m always trying to find a new way to discover something or to explain something. And that’s what you’re doing is finding new terminology, finding more comforting or accessible ways to understand what’s going on with you or to understand what’s going on with your friend. You know, I think what’s cool about your book, uh, for younger people is that also even if a kid isn’t struggling, their friends statistically likely are. And so then you actually feel armed to to know what to do because I remember just feeling so helpless when someone at school was clearly struggling with like an eating disorder or, you know, academia hyper focus that was ruining their life and you just don’t know what to do or what to say. And you’re giving younger people, you know, in a world that they’re [01:03:00] exposed to so much adult stuff, but without the adult understanding, you’re, you’re arming them with a way of feeling like, okay, I can, I think I know how to approach this. I know, I can, I know how to identify that and I think that’s really great. And I really thank you for doing that because there isn’t enough of that in the world.

Alexi: I’m grateful to, to be able to do it. It’s a, it’s a privilege to be able to put something into the world, you know, I mean, yeah.

Jameela: I find the podcast healing because then I go through all this shit and then I get to share it with other people and we figure it out together and we learn together as a community. And then it kind of recycles a lot of the awful things I’ve been through because if I hadn’t gone through them, I wouldn’t be able to talk to amazing people and, you know, learn from them and listen to them and and share with them. I wouldn’t be able to understand or empathize. And has writing these books healed anything in you after everything you’ve kind of gone through?

Alexi: Well, [01:04:00] I think you have to do your healing outside of your work a little bit, right? Like you have to have some personal time, you know, like I couldn’t have, I don’t think I could have written the book to get through what I’ve been through, but I think writing it was helpful because, well, it’s, it’s healing to help other people, right? Like it is, it is help. It feels like important and, and valuable and worthy and good. That’s like a thing. I think it’s also kind of helpful to do the thing and then put it down and then move on with your life. Like, I think some people, something I’m trying to do, and I’ve never said this, so I don’t know exactly how to articulate it, but like a lot of people now are aware, like, I lost my mom to suicide. I went through a post Olympic depression. I did these things. That is [01:05:00] always going to be true. I always am happy to talk about them and I want to share and help. Um, but I want to live a life too. And there’s a chapter that will be lived right now that could become another book. I’m not saying I’m going to write a book. I’m just saying, like, I think it’s also important as humans to like maybe express what you if you have a want to express, express it. It’s a movie. It’s whatever you

Jameela: Then leave it behind.

Alexi: Well, and then yeah, become, then go make all your other mistakes and have your next discomforts that you’ll learn and grow. Like, I think it’s just so important that we don’t just keep living through that.

Jameela: Well, yeah, that kind of, you know, again, signals back to not allowing your pain or your traumatic events to become your identity. Making sure to go, that happened. It did happen. It was real. It was fucking hard. I’m a legend for coming through. But it’s over now.

Alexi: Yeah.

Jameela: And I, I can, will and must move as far away from it as I can. And we need to encourage people to do that more because social media followings [01:06:00] grow when you overshare and when you, uh, have that as a big part of your identity because people relate to it, but I worry that then it encourages people to stay in it too much. And I appreciate the sentiment a lot.

Alexi: Yeah. Otherwise it’s almost like you’re Peter panning yourself, which athletes, you know, do this. They want to be fit and young forever and play defense on what they’ve done often. Like it would be easier to just be what you were forever. Um, and we’re not Peter Pan and there’s something awesome about growing up and adding to your own, your own self. And yeah, it’s just, it’s look, everything is, is fun and great and, and healing in its own ways. It’s also like cathartic so that you can, you can move forward. Uh, it’s like a brick of a house that you’re building and you’re like, cool, solid brick doesn’t go away. House is bigger than one brick.

Jameela: Thank you so much for your time today. It’s been [01:07:00] so nice to talk to you and so interesting to to hear your insight about the world of athleticism and discipline and mental health. Before you go, will you tell me please, what do you weigh?

Alexi: I weigh that I’m always glop, that is I’m always changing. But I’m also always curious.

Jameela: Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode. I Weigh With Jameela Jamil is produced and researched by myself, Jameela Jamil, Erin Finnegan and Kimmie Gregory. It is edited by Andrew Carson and the beautiful music you are hearing now is made by my boyfriend, James Blake. If you haven’t already, please rate, review, and subscribe to the show. It’s a great way to show your support.

We also have a bonus series exclusively on Stitcher Premium called Ask Jameela Anything. Check it out. You can get a free month of Stitcher Premium by going to stitcher.com/premium and using the promo code iweigh. Lastly, over at I Weigh we would love to hear from you and share what you weigh at the end of this podcast.

You can leave us a voicemail at 1 [01:08:00] 818 660 5543 or email us what you weigh at iweighpodcast@gmail.com. And now we would love to pass the mic to one of our fabulous listeners.

Listener: I weigh, well, I don’t know what the hell I weigh because I stopped stepping on a scale three years ago, and it’s the best thing I ever did for myself.

For me, it’s not about that number. It’s about how I feel. How I feel when I look in the mirror. Yeah, I’ll never have abs, but my arms and ass are looking fire because of my workouts. And do I feel at peace, loved, seen, supported? The answer is yes. So my weight is no more significant than my age and my feelings are what I weigh.