Interview with Erica Curry who helps athletes build the skills they need to succeed on and off the court

Coffee and Contemplation with Susan Dunlop: I had the pleasure of speaking with Erica Curry, a licensed therapist and mental agility coach to athletes in California since 2017. Erica is an ex-division one springboard diver, who saw how much she and her teammates struggled with different mental health-related symptoms that went unnoticed due to the stigmatisation of mental health and the grind/push-through culture of athletics.

Susan Dunlop: Welcome to Coffee and Contemplation with Susan Dunlop. Hello, I am Susan Dunlop, a self leadership coach and 3 Vital Questions facilitator living in Noosa, Australia. If this is the first time you’ve joined me, welcome. And if you’ve been tuned in before, thank you for coming back.

Transcript from our Interview on 17 November 2023

People passionate about what they deliver to the world intrigue me and make me want to know what, how, and why they do what they do. I choose to surround myself with people who set magnificent visions, take risks to do good things in service of others, and are kind hearted, purposeful, and wise. Guests joining me on the Coffee and Contemplation podcast are invited to share their personal stories with vulnerability, for the benefit of others, and are people with either or both professional and experiential knowledge of the theme of each episode.

Our first guest after my six month break from recording is Erica Curry. Erica has been a licensed therapist and mental agility coach to athletes in California since 2017. Holding a degree in psychology and a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy, Erica found her way to that career via athletics.

As a Division 1 springboard diver, Erica saw how much she and her teammates struggled with different mental health related symptoms that went unnoticed due to the stigmatization of mental health and the grind/push through culture of athletics. Erica has spent the last six years helping athletes foster their own wellbeing and find their way after retirement.

Welcome, Erica.

Erica Curry: Susan, thank you so much for that beautiful introduction and thank you for having

Susan Dunlop: I’m looking forward to our chat today, Erica.

We’ve had a chat, as we do before these shows, and I was thinking that we will start with your beginnings and then move our discussion into what you struggled with and your work.

Does that sound like a sensible plan?

Erica Curry: Yep. Sounds like a plan to me.

Susan Dunlop: Cool. So let’s go with your beginnings. Did you always dream of becoming a springboard diver?

Erica Curry: Yeah, you know, I actually dreamed of being a gymnast. So what happened for me was I was a gymnast probably from the time I was four years old, and then I sustained a career ending injury when I was about 12.

I hurt my elbow. I didn’t know I had hurt it. One day I leapt up onto an uneven bar and my arm locked and I couldn’t move it. And I just fell off the bar and I was like, Oh, I can’t move my arm. I was taken to the doctor and they found out my humerus was broken, a piece of it was clipped off over the course of eight months, they said, and I was just powering through it.

And what was happening was little bits of bone were floating into my joint and making it so that I couldn’t move my arm. I ended up needing surgery, I had physical therapy and my elbow was really just not the same. The doctors let me know I have osteochondritis dissecants, and it’s basically like osteoporosis in children.

And they’re like, you’re likely going to keep re- injuring yourself if you keep at it with gymnastics. So that was absolutely heartbreaking, to say the least, and I was able to find my way to diving. It’s actually very similar to gymnastics, except for landing on your head. In gymnastics you definitely don’t want to do that. In diving there’s water.

So that was an easy shift. And I was like, you know what, I think I could do this. And I did always dream about doing a sport in college. So I was able to make the pivot and that’s actually how I found diving. It was a sad discovery that turned into something beautiful.

Susan Dunlop: The arms are definitely needed in gymnastics, but with diving it would be less pressure on your body.

Erica Curry: Yes, the impact is far less.

Susan Dunlop: So how old were you when you made that transition to become a diver?

Erica Curry: I was 14 years old. I think, like 13, 14, I was about to enter into high school. There are some people that specialize in their sport earlier and I thought I had specialised and I just transitioned okay.

Susan Dunlop: So leading onto that, you’ve said to me that you’re a Div 1 diver. What does Div 1 mean? It’s not something that I’ve heard about in Australia.

Erica Curry: I went to a Division 1 school. So it basically just means typically athletes who want to go pro, they’re more likely to, if they’re in a division one school diving, there’s not really a professional aspect to that.

And there are people looking to go to the Olympics, so they’re going to look for a division one school. That wasn’t my dream. I just knew I wanted the opportunity to get a scholarship to school, which typically division one schools are going to give that. And I wanted a school that was going to be heavily focused on athletics in combination with my academics.

So this is something to dispel to student athletes or high schoolers that are looking to get into college sports is it’s not the gold standard is to be a division one athlete. It really depends on what you want out of your college experience. So if you want to know you’re going to have a college experience heavily focused on education, something like division two or division three might be more helpful because it isn’t typically as demanding as division one.

The general distinction is there’s just more of an opportunity to go professional, or if you’re looking to go to the Olympics and have a heavy focus on athletics while you’re getting your education

Susan Dunlop: Your system’s quite different to us in Australia in the way you do have the focus on sport. It is here, but it’s definitely not as much as what I’ve heard from the US.

Could you share a personal story or example of yourself experiencing the struggle with mental health that you’ve talked about? Barriers you’ve faced? That type of thing.

Erica Curry: I feel like there were things that I got to see as well as things that I experienced.

I remember particularly when I entered college. I currently live in California and I went to school in New York, that’s 3000 miles away from my home. Going there to school after living in the same house my entire life, to say that was an adjustment, oh my goodness, yes! Quite the adjustment and I remember my anxiety picking up.

I’d never really noticed that I struggled with anxiety until I moved and was like, Oh my goodness, there’s so many things for me to learn how to do. I have to do a lot more things on my own simply because my family is so far away. And luckily I did have a roommate who was also a teammate that was super supportive.

I did receive a lot of help just from her family because she lived close by. So that was so nice to have someone who knew the reins and was familiar with the area to introduce me to friends. And then I did encounter struggles like anytime I shared that I felt my heart was pounding or I was having a heart palpitation, I would get some responses from teammates that was just Oh my gosh, stop being overly dramatic.

It just got swept under the rug and it was invalidating. And I don’t even know at the time I had the words to say I experienced that as invalidating. I think those are words I now have as I’m a therapist which I’m grateful for. I really remember feeling like I didn’t have anywhere that I could go that it would be accepted and understood that I was having these heart palpitations. It felt like my thoughts were racing and I was just sweating all the time and feeling nervous because it was brushed under the rug.

I don’t think anyone knew what to do with it and also don’t think anyone is trying to hurt my feelings. It’s just, it was a difficult adjustment and there weren’t avenues within the coaches or my direct teammates that were on the diving team with me who really understood what I was going through.

Susan Dunlop: I think a lot of people could relate to that and what you’re talking about, the palpitations. I’ve heard so many of my younger clients talk about going through that. And feeling a little bit awkward about having to say anything about it because they’re wondering I shouldn’t have a health condition that makes me feel like that. Is it a health condition? I don’t know.

Erica Curry: You literally just don’t even have the words for it. I remember feeling so nervous because I would have the heart issues and sometimes my vision would go blurry and now I know that’s a panic attack and I was very scared.

I was like, I’m going blind and No, you’re actually having a panic attack, everything will be okay. It was definitely scary because it felt like I couldn’t tell anyone and I was trying to think, did I hit the water with my eyes open and that’s why my vision’s doing this? What’s going on?

And just my brain cranking even more only made it worse. Going through all of that, knowing what I know now, my whole dream is to just help inform people of these things and give them the tools to be able to help themselves when they need it so that they can keep pushing forward and reaching their goals.

Susan Dunlop: And being away from home at that age, you’re an amazing human being to have to make that transition and live across the other side of the country, but was there a system in place you just didn’t know was there to access? Did your school have something there that you could have gone to ask for help?

Erica Curry: Absolutely. We did have, it was called the CAPS department. So it’s where students can receive counseling and I remember there would be a wait list for it. And then also it was just stigmatized. Athletes are very  you push through grind, get over it. Everything’s fine. And you don’t want to appear weak.

In part it felt not okay to admit weakness and I know myself too, I didn’t want to appear weak. That’s just not something that was appealing to me. Now I see it as being vulnerable and that’s okay. I didn’t know that when I was 18, that vulnerability was okay.

And then where I sought some relief was we had our athletics department, right? Their offices were right on top where we trained in the gym. And I was so lucky that our assistant athletic director was an old teammate of mine. So she was a huge source of support for me and helping me, and she would really just be like, Oh, okay. I hear what you’re saying. That did a lot for me, but I just needed some validation and someone to tell me that I was alright.

Susan Dunlop: That’s what we want, isn’t it? So what led to you transitioning to this life after sport?

Erica Curry: Something that I remember, I explored so much when I was in grad school, I knew that mental health was real. I was already studying psychology and I really connected to a class that was called the counseling for death and dying. So it was oriented around grief work. And then I also took a class on marriage and family therapy and I was like, Oh, these are both very interesting. I ultimately realized that grief work is a little bit heavy for me.

It is what introduced me into thinking I might want to become a therapist. That coupled with all of my teammates, I was so lucky to be surrounded by a group of women who are very driven and all of them were either going to be staying one extra year to become a physician assistant, graduating to become nurses, continuing school to become a lawyer, getting a PhD in bio something, I don’t even know, cause it’s like totally outside my scope or become a financial, like planner, financial person for the government.

I was just like I feel like I want to definitely also do something so it was a huge inspiration to see all the women around me doing so much. And I knew I enjoyed connecting with people and I know how much I got out of feeling like I was not alone and that there were other people who experienced what I was experiencing. I was like, you know what, I think it’s time for me to go home, further my education, and go to a school I always wanted to go to. I went to California State University, Long Beach, it’s very close to the water, and I grew up driving past that school, and to me that was going to college. So it was really cool to get to go to a dream school of mine and pursue something that I have a knack for, and I’m very happy I did.

Susan Dunlop: Lovely! So the work in terms of it being around athletes, was there a real, Aha moment in your coursework that you went, I really need to turn around and look back at those young athletes that I was. What happened there?

Erica Curry: I love that question. So what happened for me was I took a theories class and our professor, who I still speak with him to this day, he’s absolutely amazing. He asked us what population do you want to work with? And I’m telling you, there are no limits, no boundaries. Think of your ideal grouping of people to work with.

And I was like, okay, fine. If there’s absolutely no limits, I’m saying I want to work with professional athletes. That’s what I want to do. I want to support them with their mental health and whether they’re performing or trying to transition out of their sport. I want to be there for them. And so that’s really what started it all was I was asked that question. I really dug into it and was that is what would be ideal to me and that’s what I’m seeking out to do. I feel a lot of pull to helping student athletes, because there’s so many sports that, especially at the division one level where there’s so much emphasis on our athletics, that when we’re done, sometimes we’re not prepared and we’re like, Oh no, I’m supposed to have a whole career after this. What am I supposed to do?

Professional athletes go through a similar thing that is their career for so long, then they end and they’re like, Oh, I didn’t have an act two, what am I going to do?

Susan Dunlop: Can you repeat that question again that he asked you?

Erica Curry: He asked me what is our ideal population to work with? No boundaries, no limits, who do we see ourselves working with?

Susan Dunlop: Very good question. I like that. And when you’re talking about the ending of those Div 1 time and the professional career, what age are the people that you’re mostly working with?

Erica Curry: Most of it is when they’re ending their college career or they are in college and either just saying  do I want to keep going with this or do I want to keep going?

They’re in their early twenties and then with ending that’s anywhere from late twenties to mid thirties. Sometimes it’s a little older, not typically. It’s just because our bodies they can only take a beating for so long until our body physically is telling us it’s time to start wrapping it up.

So that’s typically the ages that I’m working with.

Susan Dunlop: How does the brain manage that? Because you’ve shared with me earlier about our brains don’t develop until somewhere into adulthood. I won’t make up what I’m talking about. You can tell me.

Erica Curry: You got it. You remembered it. For women, our brains are developing around 24. For men, it can be a little bit after. What happens? It’s influenced by our environment as well, because that’s where I noticed, at least for myself, like within my story, it’s the whole grind and push through culture of athletics.

And I remember thinking you’ve got to push through, grind through. I honestly didn’t even consider it being okay to stop early in my career. I’ve set a rule for myself. We’re going forward and so when it comes to our brain development and how athletics go, it also depends on what type of impact our sport has. If we’re talking football, like a high contact sport, there’s lots of issues that can happen with our memory down the line and just different brain traumatic brain injuries that yes, there are different treatments. I feel like neurologists are great with that.

 It just depends or things like wrestling, high impact sports can really damage in the longterm and in the short term, it’s just there. There’s a lot of research coming out now with football or is it soccer for, wait, is it American football? There we go. Just to be clear for everyone, I’m talking American football. And those can be impactful. As far as a sport like mine, it’s okay, you’ll be fine. It’s very low impact.

Susan Dunlop: That’s interesting too. When we were doing our prep for the chat, I looked up some statistics to share back with you on the topic and you said they were fairly spot on.

So I was thinking rather than me bore everyone with five really detailed statistics, could you choose say one that you’re interested in and share some insights into that based on your experience.

Erica Curry: I know that the second one that I can just read off here is the underreporting of mental health issues as far as research by the International Olympic Committee indicates that many athletes underreport mental health struggles with the fear of potential negative consequences, such as loss of sponsorship or playing time. Those are both significant barriers.

I think those things are so valid because there is so much fear, whether it’s what are other people going to think, or how’s this going to impact my ability to support my family, support myself. Those are major areas where we’re working with trying to balance this being the way we provide for ourselves and also having to look at our own wellbeing.

And then that brings up the whole idea of push through grind mentality of  I’m supposed to be a tough athlete, so I’m going to push through. I’m going to grind. I don’t need this bringing me any troubles. So you know what? It’s actually going to be less painful if I just push through this and I’ll deal with my own wellbeing later.

And my heart breaks when athletes feel like they’re in that position. Because, even at the college level, there can be the fear of losing your scholarship. Like for me, I know a huge part of why I was able to go to school was because I got a scholarship that played a factor too. I cannot risk losing the scholarship because then I’m not coming back to school and so there’s a lot of work to be done with normalizing mental health issues and having resources to be able to treat them, or even just having groups where athletes can talk about this.

Susan Dunlop: It’s interesting because I was listening to a grief counselor speak at an event recently. The topic was about resilience, but the problem is we are raised to appear strong and want to look strong, and I think of these people on the athletics track and I wouldn’t think what’s going on beneath the surface for them. You think, Oh, look at them. They’re amazing. You don’t think, wow, what are they struggling with below the surface?

Erica Curry: And that’s what’s so tough. And that’s also where my work as a therapist is so important to me too, because my brain goes into a million different clinical areas, because what happens is when we appear strong and resilient, that’s reinforced.

Our brain doesn’t understand that but we’re actually struggling on the inside. It’s just reinforced that Oh, people liked this. So we’re going to keep doing it regardless of how we feel on the inside. Because that’s just how reinforcement works and how we are as humans.

So it’s not like anyone even sets out to do that super consciously. It’s just what happens because we’re humans. And then that’s where you see things like perfectionism pop up. You can have some perfectionist tendencies and it doesn’t mess with you too much. However, when perfectionism is maladaptive and you have too much of a good thing, that’s when you see people are suffering where no one sees it and it can go undetected for so long. That’s when we’re seeing things like the depression rates of athletes that can go up.

And I know you had that stat of it being around like 34 percent and that’s pretty consistent within the U S as well. It’s because the resilience that we see up front is so readily reinforced that all the other stuff can go missed.

Susan Dunlop: Oh wow! So we will close later on some of the changes that are being made. You’re obviously part of that leading change, which is a lovely thought because really, athletes today are modeling in front of the children of tomorrow how to be, and it’d be lovely to see they can show up with a bit more vulnerability.

Erica Curry: Absolutely.

Susan Dunlop: Talking about teenagers and kids because obviously they’re the ones that are the people moving into these careers to become athletes.

I’ve worked with young women as their mentor and life skills coach, and I saw the bruising of them emotionally that led to them not wanting to return to sports mostly came from their parents. Their parents egos, their parents own needs more than theirs. Is that a rare or a common thing?

Erica Curry: I think that it can be (1) sports specific and (2), I think a lot of parents go through this.

I am aware there are coaches that specifically coach the parents of athletes on how to parent their child who is in elite sports.

I think a specific person that comes to mind.

Her name is Laura Wilkinson. She is an Olympic diver and she does help out parents who need help on how to manage their elite athlete child because it is really difficult and some things that can pop up is children will get burnt out in their sport. It’s a lot I know. I was there. There was a time when I thought I wanted to quit my sport when I was in high school.

Usually when a parent is also pressing on Oh, you gotta go, you gotta go, you gotta go. Then the kid is reinforced when they do go, it can create that same cycle that we’re talking about as a kid might just stop saying that they don’t want to go and they’re just going to appease their parent and they’re exhausted.

And that can actually lead to injury.

Because they’re feeling so exhausted and burnt out that they’re just doing this to get by because it pleases their parent. And then there are kids that are going to push back and be like, no, I’m tired. I don’t want to do this. Some things that can be helpful is validation.

 I feel like that’s so much of what I lean on and because that’s what has been so helpful to me. Just because a kid is saying they’re tired, it doesn’t mean they’re absolutely going to throw in the towel. They might miss their sport for two months and say, Oh my gosh, I really want to go back. I think I made a mistake.

Another idea of when to quit, if we’re having a bad practice and a teenager is saying  Oh my gosh, I just, I’m done. That was so horrible. I’m done. I quit is also thinking of it in the frame of, you know what, why don’t we, if we’re going to consider quitting, why don’t we quit on a day where emotions aren’t high?

Let’s think about it when we’re more regulated and if you still want to quit, can we first take a break and then if the break is something that you’re like, yeah, I’m still done. We can look into a longer term break. We don’t have to make any definite decisions.

Susan Dunlop: That’s a really good tip. I like that. I know even myself, you’re making me think of me with my children and whether it was music or whether it was a sport or dancing.

Anything, right?

And they’d come and say they want to stop, after you’ve invested all this money and all your time into it, you think, Oh my gosh and you take it on yourself. Oh, have I failed my child? Have I made them do something, and then you’re trying to justify it, but it’s all reactionary and it’s about having to just pause for a minute and go, so what’s really important here?

And I think I’ve learned that later in life, but yeah, definitely I can feel.

Erica Curry: It’s so tough! Because even with that financial piece, now that I’m an adult, when I was in my sport, I did not think of the financial component at all. I really applaud my parents for how they handled financial things like that. It was not a burden on me.

Now that I’m an adult, I’m like, oh my gosh, if I dumped that much money into something and my kid was saying they don’t want to do it, that would be tough. And then it does go back to what you just said of what’s really important here. And I think the only thing I would add to that tip is if a kid really wants to quit after a bad practice, they have to go back at least to one practice and then they can take their little break and then we’ll see how it goes from there.

That’s the only thing I would add just so we can regroup and still build some resiliency and show that we can do things. And then if you’re still wanting to quit after going back that next day, let’s look into it. And sometimes it shows sportsmanship also, because that’s an important skill to learn, depending on why it is we’re burnt out or why we want to end the sport that day.

Susan Dunlop: That’s very interesting. So in a competitive world, how can young athletes and their families balance pushing their limits for excellence and taking care of their mental and emotional wellbeing?

Erica Curry: Plainly have some fun. At the end of the day, it is not that serious. It’s not. You still want to go to the birthday parties. Go have some fun. Go to the mall. I don’t know. Do whatever you want to do for some fun. It’s not that serious. Everything will be okay. I feel like it’s real plain and simple on that

Susan Dunlop: Oh, that’s nice to hear that it is that plain and simple.

Erica Curry: Yeah, it can be hard to have fun sometimes, if we’re used to our routine.

And if people do find it’s hard to have fun, get curious about it. What about having fun seems so challenging? I know I’ve been there with that struggle too. I know I have some perfectionistic tendencies.

Susan Dunlop: So what’s one piece of advice you’d give 10 year old you drawing from your journey in sports and beyond that will help them with setbacks or boost their confidence and build an outcomes focused, empowered life. That’s all.

Erica Curry: That’s all. I think the advice I would give 10 year old me Is to ask myself what’s important. I think since both the sports I was a part of were rated on a zero to 10 scale. And I noticed that it was very important to me what other people thought and what type of scores I was going to get.

That left me in the dust for what was really important to me.

As far as values that I have, and I think for the sake of me being 10, I would just want to know, what’s important to you? What do you find to be important in this stage of life?

That would be really helpful.

Susan Dunlop: Do they have that in schools for children going towards athletics?

Erica Curry: Not that I know of. I would love that. I’m a Dialogical Behavioral Therapist and what I work with people initially is what are your values? What is important to you? And that is how we decide then what’s your goal? Okay, so if we reach this goal, that means you’ve been consistently living into your value.

I would have loved to gotten that straight for myself at a younger age and earlier on in my athletic career.

Susan Dunlop: So switching from teenagers and kids to the relatability of what you’ve experienced for business leaders. Just as athletes face challenges, business leaders encounter high stress situations.

How can the mental resilience you gained in sports apply to decision makers in the corporate world and any specific strategies that they could employ?

Erica Curry: Yeah, this is also an area I’m very passionate about. I find things like career coaching, executive coaching to be an area to break into at some point, and I think there’s so many skills that translate into the working world, especially high achieving areas of careers.

I think something that’s helpful when it comes to stress is when you make a decision, it’s over and done with. We do not go back to the drawing board time and time again. You make a decision. It’s over and done with. Because what happens is people who are executives also tend to struggle with perfectionistic tendencies.

So that means they’re wanting to get the exact perfect decision. You know what, you made the decision, we’re choosing to put it away. There’s a specific skill that I teach people, and it’s called turning the mind. It’s around radical acceptance. It’s a DBT skill. And what it is turning your mind literally just by reminding yourself, I made a decision on this already.

Also, it typically is not going to be the end of the world. Nobody is dying if you didn’t have the perfect decision. And I like to tell people that, because I also work with individuals who are contemplating ending their lives. If we’re talking like we’re at work, the odds that something is life and death. No, it’s not.

So you can use the skill of turning your mind just saying, Oh yes, I did make that decision. And is there an opportunity that it wasn’t the best decision?  Acknowledging it and going on to the next thing.

Susan Dunlop: Nice. It relates a lot to the type of work I’m doing with the 3 Vital Questions too, that we talk in terms of you set your outcome and you look at what’s supporting it and what’s inhibiting it and what actions can you take and then just choosing one really small one.

And if you can choose one, it’s possibly going to take you forward and that’s enough. And that’s the decision you’re talking about. You’ve made that decision and not to beat yourself up if it takes you back a step, because you’re going to learn from it. It’s not going to take you all the way back to the beginning.

It will just take you one step back and then you can maybe just take another step, but you’ve learned something.

Erica Curry: You’re building mastery. That’s what it’s all

Susan Dunlop: That’s really good. Can you share some examples of how mental agility coaching has made a significant difference in the performance and wellbeing of athletes you’ve worked with?

Erica Curry: Yeah, I would say a lot of it lends to the performance anxiety that athletes can experience. So it is taking things like turning the mind and being able to move forward.

And then also things like using your breath to literally slow down. Your heart rate so that you have more control. And it’s not like you’re just, Oh boy, I hope today’s a good day. It’s we do have some influence over today being an effective day. And then another skill is just looking ahead, whether it’s a way that you want a game to go, a meet to go, a competition to go.

And it, it does mean visualizing exactly what you want to happen.

So it’s saying what are you going to need in order to perform well? Envisioning going exactly the way you want it to, and also taking the time to envision how you will respond if things do not go according to plan, and knowing that will be okay to. Is it ideal. No. We’re hoping that things go the way you want it to and. It’s helpful to be prepared for what could happen. Typically, when we’ve been practicing at a sport over and over again, we know what is more likely to happen if we’re off a little bit. Because I’m not saying, go down the rabbit hole of all of the things that could go wrong.

I’m saying, pick what is most likely for you, based off your experience and your skill set, so that you know how to cope with that gracefully as well.

Susan Dunlop: Gracefully. I like that. That is so applicable to any person not just athletes. I like the idea of that. You’re making me think about some days when you struggle to think, what am I going to do? I don’t know whether I can get through this today  just to stop and to visualize that would be a really powerful experience.

Erica Curry: It makes me think of how you mentioned coaching life skills. A big part of what I do is that, and I also feel like so many athletes gain life skills from sports. So it is so interconnected.

Susan Dunlop: When I looked up the type of values and the strengths of athletes, it’s pretty incredible. What’s poured into an athlete or comes out of them, either way, it’s amazing. So we’re going to close out soon. That was a really quick half an hour. I was thinking we might tap into those insights I talked about earlier about evolving awareness and discussions around this issue.

There’s a bunch of statistics I shared with you. So maybe again, if you’d like to choose two or three just to close out on.

Erica Curry: I know that there’s some things that I know personally, as far as this being something that’s evolving in the world is even like Simone Biles in the last Olympics, she shared that she was going through some mental health struggles.

She didn’t get super specific from what I saw. A huge win for mental health and athletics because she decided to take care of herself and not go ahead and just push through and do it because everyone else expected her to and I was just like, Oh my goodness hats off to her for that.

And then some other things that have been happening in the U. S. from my knowledge is there have been therapists specifically hired through the athletics departments of schools so that athletes have an area to get some mental health support. And then even personally, I know I’ve been getting some contact from my Alma mater to do talks on what is life after athletics, because there are some statistics around about a 30 percent increase in mental health issues after wrapping up a sport and there’s some hypotheses around that. What I connected with the most is a lack of routine. All of a sudden we don’t have this hectic schedule anymore. So we’re just floundering. What do we do with our free time? And that kind of gives time for old stuff to bubble to the surface.

So those are some things that are happening that are helpful.

With the last point, I’m hoping to help fill that gap for athletes who end their sport and stuff comes bubbling up to the top and they’re not sure what to do with it. They’re having some issues with finding their identity. It’s there. You only lost the what you didn’t lose your why maybe it will look a little different and that’s okay.

Susan Dunlop: Lots more questions for you, but we won’t go there. One question is, clearly athletes would have struggled through the times of COVID.

Erica Curry: Yes. So true. Gosh. And you know what, I also feel for the athletes who went through the times of COVID because they did not get what they envisioned. They know what they were looking forward to about college athletics, they did not get that experience. No.

Susan Dunlop: I saw that with just university students in general here that you’re going to be in this big class environment and sharing ideas and bouncing things off each other where you’re suddenly sitting at home on computers, trying to work through manuals to answer a question that you could have just said, Hey, can you help me with this?

Erica Curry: Human beings, what we thrive on is connection. And I’m also curious for what research will show down the line for how that impacts very team heavy sports, how that impacted their performance as a team. Because so much of that is building trust with one another and feeling like you’re supporting one another.

And you are this tribal unit that’s going to reach a shared goal. And that’s really tough to keep in touch with when you’re all training separately or distanced.

Susan Dunlop: I think there are going to be lots of interesting statistics that come out of 2020 onwards.

So I’m just going to say now, thank you. Thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been a pleasure to understand the origins that fueled your passion for working with athletes. And obviously you’re not over, you’re at the beginning of what you want to bring to the world. I really appreciate that conversation and thank you for your time today before you go to your break away in Maui.

Erica Curry: Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate being here. This is a soul fuelling conversation.

Susan Dunlop: Oh, great. Thank you.

Listeners, as this is the first episode in a while, I’m going to close with the words of Michelle Obama, I love, on the importance of sharing our stories. Michelle says,

when we share our stories, we are reminded of the humanity in each other. When we take the time to understand each other’s stories, we become more forgiving, more empathetic and more inclusive.

Michelle Obama

The transcript of today’s conversation will be shared as an article on my website susandunlop.com.au within the next week, and Erica’s episode has been broadcast across I think 7 or 8 streaming sites. You can also watch for opportunities to pose your own questions to future guests via my Facebook and Instagram profiles: Susan Dunlop Lead Believe Create.

I am forever thankful to my beautiful guests for allowing me to understand them more and to share their stories.

Trust that you are blessed, even when you forget that you are blessed.

Take care of yourself. I look forward to being back soon. Bye for now!