132. Christen Press: How to Get Your Bliss Back

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Okay, welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.

We are very excited today because on the podcast, we have a sporty spirit spice.

It's my kind of day.

Okay.

And your kind of day.

Yeah, and I'm not going to, exactly.

Yeah.

That's why we love this person because we feel like she's half you and half me.

That's right.

She's someone we can agree upon, right?

Okay.

Tell real quick before we introduce who it is.

Okay, it's Kristen Press, which everyone already knows by that introduction.

I always love that.

We try to like surprise

the secret.

Because I talk about her all the time.

They know because it's already in like the podcast.

That's right.

That's right.

So tell me, before we bring her on, can you tell the story that you told me the first time you ever met Kristen?

Yes.

So this is one of my first memories of you, Kristen.

And I remember we got roomed together.

And I don't remember what country we were in, but we were in a different country.

And I walked into the the hotel room and you were on the bed with your back straight up against the headboard and your eyes were closed.

And I looked at you and I thought, what the fuck is she doing?

Is she okay?

What's happening right now?

And like,

because you had never seen anyone meditate.

Well, she was meditating.

Right, right, right, right.

Obviously, yeah.

And it was the first time I had seen somebody do that in real life, like in the national team environment.

So I think I tried to be quiet.

Checked her pulse first.

And that was like impossible.

So eventually you came to.

And

I think I probably asked you about it and was super curious because I think I've always been very curious in that spiritual space.

And what happened next was actually quite interesting because

it kind of developed an intimidation.

I was like intimidated by you because you had this part in you that you were

exploring that I wished that I could explore in myself.

And because she wasn't asking you for advice.

She was looking inside herself.

Yes.

That's what drove you nuts.

Yeah.

Did you know that you have always intimidated Abby Wombach?

No, this is news to me.

News to me.

I have definitely startled quite a few roommates with my meditation practice, especially early on in the national team because I'm pretty quiet.

So I didn't tell people I was going to meditate.

They just found me that way.

But this is news to me that I ever intimidated you because I quite certainly was going through the same thing on my end, but maybe for different reasons.

Yeah, I just thought it was so cool.

um for such a young kid to come into the kind of environment like the national team and to actually do your own thing it was super common for all of us, myself included, to just assimilate and just like do whatever anybody else is doing and just try to do it harder and more.

I just love that memory of you.

And it kind of solidified this deep respect, even though, you know, people don't understand this about the national team, like

we are.

close, but we're also competing against each other for like time on the field.

And that, that time on the field has repercussions in lots of different ways.

Pod squad, just think about that.

Okay.

You're like, you're hanging out with your best friends in a room and then somebody blows a whistle and is like, everybody run and one of you has to win.

Like imagine.

We don't have to imagine.

We lived that.

I still lived that.

Yes.

It's so wild.

Okay.

Kristen Press is a two-time World Cup champion and Olympian.

I'm sorry, just imagine racing all of my friends.

Okay.

As well as a leading forward at Los Angeles Angel City FC, Woot Woot, an entrepreneur and advocate for inclusivity, Kristen, along with her U.S.

women's national teammates, Megan Rapido, Tobin Heath, and Megan Klingenberg, launched their company, Re-Inc, a purpose-driven global lifestyle brand.

A leader both on and off the field, Kristen was one of the key players leading the charge for the Equal Play, Equal Pay campaign to highlight the pay discrepancy between the women's and men's national teams, which led to the new agreement and to her role as player representative for the U.S.

Women's National Team Players Association.

Kristen Press, welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.

You do a lot of hard things.

Thank you for having me.

I am so happy to be here.

And thanks for that very lovely introduction.

So, Kristen, you weren't always just spirit spice.

You used to be stressy spice.

You know me.

Yeah.

In college, you actually talked about being miserable playing soccer, that you used to cry on the field, that you constantly felt like you weren't good enough.

Can you take us back to that time and talk to us about what playing soccer was like for you then?

Yeah, I have so many thoughts from your story, Abby, just swirling in my head of where to begin.

But to go back to the beginning, I grew up in Southern California, which is a hotbed for women's soccer.

in a very competitive family.

And I'm a middle child.

So I was vying for the attention of my parents my whole life.

And soccer soccer was the way that I thought I was going to get that.

And I think many people experience in sport this idea that, you know, if you win a game, you'll be satisfied.

Or if you score a goal, then your parents are going to be satisfied or it'll help their life

or their relationship.

So I think my introduction to sport was in a really quite toxic and quite pressure-ridden environment where I thought that my worth and my value was dependent on my performance.

It's the typical sports story.

I think so many people go through that,

but it didn't work for me.

It didn't work for my well-being.

It didn't work, it didn't make my parents happy ultimately, but it also didn't allow me to be my best.

And so

actually, the better I got, the worse it was for me.

And that was all the way through college.

And through college, I saw some of my teammates start to to make the national team.

We obviously experienced this huge boom in women's soccer where it became really important.

And there was like glory to be had.

And so with that, the pressure of like getting a scholarship and going to college and scoring in college got the pressure got bigger and bigger.

It was make the national team be the best player.

And so the closer I got, the worse it was.

And that was my experience in college.

And I started seeing some of my teammates on the national team.

And I started to feel for the first time in my career that I wasn't reaching those those dreams that I wasn't able to be the best player that I wasn't getting that call up and I was drowning in that and I think both my parents were so invested in my career that they began to drown in this idea of like I wouldn't be happy unless I got there and then I was feeling like they wouldn't be happy unless I got there

and actually this is how my meditation practice was born my little sister also played up to college soccer, and she had

a lot harder of a time than I did, struggled with mental illness, hated soccer, got like sick when she played, so much anxiety.

So in her own journey, she went to meditation to try to find a way to cope with the stresses of her life.

and started a Vedic meditation practice and then convinced our whole family we should all do it together.

That's how my family is.

So we all go to this guru to learn how to meditate.

Yep.

And now my sister's a meditation instructor.

So this is her whole life.

That's when I found my meditation practice.

And of course, so much applied to sport.

the meditative nature of letting things go, letting thoughts come in and go out.

It's like so applicable when you're on the field.

Like you miss a shot, let it go.

And just like training your brain to be focused.

So it was really applicable to me in like a concrete way.

But ultimately what happened is like once I started to let go in a larger sense of these dreams, of these accolades, of these needs, need to succeed,

I started playing White Butter.

And it was like a breath of fresh air.

Also at the same time, the the women's league that was then folded.

So there was no place for me to play.

I was out of college and I went to Sweden where I was putting a huge distance between all of those expectations and all of the people who had expectations and me.

And those two things happened at the same time.

Learned to meditate, started playing just kind of for the love of it and gave up on my dream of making the national team.

Just like I said, it's never going to happen.

But the current coach for the national team was in Sweden and I was there for two months before I got my first call up.

And so it was, in my mind, I always say it was the scenic route to the national team.

So hold on a second.

So pod squad, listen, she goes to Sweden.

She's like, screw it.

The league folded.

So I'm just going to go to Sweden and actually have joy playing and play like you say, like no one's watching.

And the national team coach happened to be watching because she is Swedish.

Holy crap.

Okay.

So then she calls you and is like, actually, you are going to be on the national team.

Surprise, surprise.

And you're like, shit.

I wish it was all that easy.

It was she called and said, you have have a small snowball's chance in hell of being on the national team, but you're going to get a chance.

Okay.

And what I was waiting for was that chance.

And so I think that's the reason that when I came into the national team, I came with this

determination to stay true to myself

because I knew that the traditional competitive pressure,

that type of culture of American sports did not get me to the national team.

So it wasn't going to keep me on the national team.

And so it was, it was actually quite hard socially because

it's easier when you fit in and when you follow.

And as a young player, kind of being like, I have to be me,

that kind of put a divide between me and a lot of people off the field.

But I knew it was what I had to do to be well and to to be successful.

So besides meditating, what are you talking about when you say I had to be true to myself and that causes divides?

I think it was just overall approach to training, to what I thought made me tick, to putting myself in environments that were right for me, even if it made other people uncomfortable, like meditating in my room with a roommate that's actually quite uncomfortable.

Doing my own recovery when the group was doing something else and me feeling like this worked.

And I actually remember, Abby, I have a memory of you asking Lauren Cheney Holiday, who was my friend on the team, one of my first friends on the team, like, oh, does Kristen just like being alone?

And she told me that you said that because I was always off kind of doing my own thing.

And I think that that is what made me feel like.

I had to do that to be there.

But then there was a little bit of like dissonance between how I was behaving and what was expected for a new player on the team.

Because I'm entering this group where everyone's amazing and they're at the top of their game, and there's so much to learn from them.

And there was this little sense of like, does she not think she needs to learn from us?

Because she's doing it her own way.

Yeah.

I remember that when I walked into the room and I saw you meditating, that was in and around the same time that I was reading Susan Kane's book, Quiet, because Becky Sauerbrunn was also on the team and she's like this raging introvert.

And I like couldn't connect with her.

I felt like me and her were like oil and water.

And I was trying to me and you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

It's ironic, very ironic that I've married a raging intro.

But I just think that I hope you know that what you did was you freed so many other people to come into that environment and to feel a little bit, maybe not fully, but a little bit more confident in like doing their thing.

And so you see some of these players.

expressing themselves in all the kinds of ways.

And I actually like deeply believe, Kristen, that you are a really big revolutionary when it comes to that, because it's so much harder to do what you did than to do what I did, where I just stepped in and I was like, okay, me a ham, I'll do whatever you want.

Like,

how high do you want me to jump?

I'll do it.

I just want you to know that there's so much respect there.

Even if there was like a feeling of like dissonance or disconnection at times, there was, for me, at least, I can speak for myself, like I always respected the hell out of you for making that choice because I knew that it was a harder road, maybe a more lonely road too.

So I think it's really amazing.

And it's hopeful to all of us who are, I mean, there's so, so many things times we talk on the podcast about like, how do we

introverts, sensitive people, spirit spices, like how do we function inside of cultures that are so American, like so cutthroat and churning and, you know, even capital, like all of it.

Just, so Kristen, I want to ask you, you talk about how you were in a cycle when you were young about trying to impress your parents that you thought they'd never be happy unless you were great.

They thought you wouldn't be happy unless you were great.

You talk about the pursuit of greatness that your family had.

Do you believe in the pursuit of greatness?

And what are the downfalls of chasing greatness?

Would that be a theme of your chosen family, the family you have one day?

Would you choose chasing greatness as a family value?

100%.

But I think it depends on your definition of greatness.

Because I kind of hear, I hear a little bit of your answer and your question.

But if the answer is no, Kristen.

So you've already failed.

But I think for me, the pursuit of greatness, while it caused

anxiety and stress, and it caused me to lose myself, it's also what caused me to find myself again.

And it pushed me out of my comfort level to

be true to me.

And ultimately,

you know, the old cliche, like the journey's the destination, but that's only true if you're trying to get somewhere.

And that's for me, the pursuit of greatness.

And I can take my injury right now, where there's this

idea that a successful recovery is a speedy recovery, or there is an idea that

I need to get to a certain place.

I need to get back.

I need to do these things, these milestones.

And I reject that.

I reject that it needs to be a speedy recovery.

I reject that I need to like be on this certain pace.

But

in order for me to find like value, it's in the intention of my journey.

And my journey is to grow and to get better every day and to be well.

And then to share that as I can with other people around me as an energy, as like a lifestyle.

And if I was satisfied with where I was, where, you know, I can't run currently, like I can't do things.

If I was satisfied, that's not peace.

So I think it's that

intent.

to be moving, to be growing.

That is greatness.

And I think it is helpful to have a target.

And I am very goal goal-oriented.

Every day I write down, like, this is my goal for the day.

This is what I want to achieve.

And

I just have to be able to have peace when I don't get there.

But I don't ever want to stop writing down that goal.

I don't ever want to stop pursuing greatness.

I just want to balance that with acceptance of what ultimately happens.

I think that's so interesting because so many people in the world probably believe that spirituality and this this desire for greatness can't be put together, right?

Like that they're mutually exclusive.

But I think what you're saying is that there's more nuance to that in that, not just like your recovery, but you can be

a multitude of things.

You can have a path, spiritual or not, and also want to chase this kind of excellence and greatness that you get to define every single day, right?

I think that that's really interesting.

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Do you have any advice?

Because there's a lot of parents that listen.

We are now part of

soccer land with children.

So we spend all of our life on the sidelines of the soccer.

And it's a slow hell.

The parents are unfinging believable, Kristen.

Like, you may have experienced some of this in your lifetime.

But, like, we actually started bringing blow pops to

sideline and just shoving them in parents' mouths when they started screaming, just like going down the sideline.

Just, we would call it start sucking to stop sucking.

Like, just put the lollipop in your mouth, and it will remind you to shut up.

It's amazing to see parents lose themselves.

I do it too.

Do you have any advice for

how to

parent

children who are pursuing greatness without having them feel like their worth depends on it, or their relationship, or their connection with their parents depends on it?

Anything you wish would have happened, or do you ever think about that?

Yeah, I can only give parenting advice from the perspective of the child, obviously.

But I think it was somewhere along the line I felt like I was forgotten about.

And at one point, it was,

Kristen wants this, so we want this.

And then I think that I was cut out of the equation.

It was like, we want this.

And

it wasn't until my mom got sick that she and I were able to overcome that

struggle in our relationship.

And I have a memory years before my mom was sick,

where I was, you working in my spirituality, on my meditation practice, working with a few people.

And the theme of this journey that I was on was surrender.

And

it helped you identify what it was that you wanted the most.

And then you had to let go of it.

And this was, I was already on the national team.

So I was an adult.

And I remember.

in a hotel in the national team getting on my hands and knees every morning and saying, I surrender the need for my mother's approval.

Oh.

And because like as a full grown adult,

still needing to know that, like still needing to feel that it was for her, that I was playing for her.

And I almost lost my own love of the game because of that.

And,

you know, through that time, I shared that experience with my mother.

And it was like, we both had this aha moment.

where one day I was like on my hands and knees and I got up and I was like, what if I'm wrong?

What if she hasn't forgotten about me?

What if she actually already loves me and accepts me?

What if she actually thinks I'm amazing?

And I am the one who's like miscalibrating and I'm projecting all my own fears on her.

And I'm saying, you know, she forgot about me.

She has these goals for soccer.

But what if that's me?

And it just like hit me that my mom already accepted me.

And it kind of hit her

that I didn't need some of these things things that she thought I needed.

And we both were able to like move on from that.

So it's a really roundabout way of giving advice.

But I think the key to it is like acceptance and showing all people that you care, whether they're your parent or your child or your friend or your lover, like that you accept them for who they are and meeting people as full people,

not just, you know, as career people.

because ultimately that's you know what was my deepest need was to be accepted by my my mother and i thought that that meant for so many years like i had to be a great player i had to be on the national team i had to do these things but it really has nothing to do with that it has to do with

you know who you are like what's at your core what you're striving for and like what that means to the other person and what it means to the world

Damn.

Tell us.

So, you know, you've done your career differently.

You do things differently.

And Pod Squad, you just have to watch the soccer game and just, if you just watch her on the field, it's just different.

Things are, it's just, I don't know.

She just like floats and flits about.

And then somehow the goal, the, the, the, the ball gets in the goal.

Okay, so you just have to watch her, but it's different.

And

another thing that's different is I watched how you did grief differently when you lost your mother, who you love so, so very much.

You

actually signed with Angel City and then took a mental health break, right?

Yes, I did.

I didn't even know why at the time.

I was just like, that's the coolest thing I've ever heard.

But can you tell us why

and what you did during that time?

Yeah, so a big part of it was the emotional journey that I went on with my mom.

She was healthy one day and then like deeply sick the next and had about three months where she was very sick.

And then she passed.

And in those three months, I feel like we lived 30 years in terms of our relationship and our conversations.

And a big part of it was like acceptance of each other and this fear that we both had that the other person didn't love us or didn't respect us or didn't accept us.

We went through that, and

my mom cared so much about me and about soccer.

She just loved it and she was so invested.

And actually, I was with the national team in Spain in January of 2019.

And I scored in that game in Spain.

And I got back on a flight the next day and flew home.

And my mom had brain bleed when I was on the flight.

And I actually never saw her again.

And as soon as I walked into the hospital room where my family was, my dad said,

the last exchange i had with your mom was showing her your goal and she was so happy so like that kind of gives you a sense of like how deeply tied my whole family is to my career that it meant so much to my dad that that was his last interaction with my mom

so that was january 2019 and i had missed a lot of camp when my mom was sick and it was a world cup year so i took a little bit of time and i just went straight back into it and we were preparing for a world cup We had our pay equity lawsuit.

There was just so much happening.

And I'm a very emotional person.

I'm very dramatic.

So I process things like in big ways, in big moments, but I'm generally not

sad.

I'm generally not like mopey or tired.

I just like have these outbursts of emotion and then like I bounce back.

And so that's kind of how I was dealing with my grief.

Like it was like these big dramatic moments and then I'd like get back to practice and get back to life and that went through the world cup and all the way um

honestly for for for years it went on like through covid it went on through the olympics and

i started to think

why did my grieving experience look so different from my sister's or from other people's.

And there's this like weird comparison that happens, which isn't fair, but kind of can't help but do it.

And I was like, this doesn't feel right.

I reflected on it and I was like, I never took a break.

I never processed.

I never stopped.

And I didn't feel like it was killing me, but I felt like I was missing something, some sort of like next step, some sort of clarity.

and almost like a growth in my relationship with my mom that I saw in front of me.

And

we, well, obviously, the period of playing soccer through COVID was really hard and difficult.

And the Olympics was really special and difficult.

And it was like all this pressure was like

just like mounting on me.

And

I've always kind of done it my own way.

I've always been on the national team in my own way.

And I remember when I had this revelation that I was like, I've done this consistently since 2012.

It is now 2021.

And

I need some perspective

and

I need time to grieve.

And I, my relationship with my mom is so tied to soccer.

I need to not have soccer to understand where that leads like me and my mom.

And

yeah, you're probably like catching on to this.

I feel like my relationship with my mom is like ongoing and it's something that I have to like do cultivate now.

So it was like, I need to have my relationship with my mom without soccer for this period period of time.

In that same moment where I was like, I'm going to take four months off.

I also had this feeling of

competitiveness that it was like, I can do this.

I can show a good way.

I can help release some of this pressure that I'm sure other athletes are feeling.

And I will come back and I will be better.

And it will be a good thing for the world to show that you can do this.

That was last fall.

And I then spent four months traveling and living my best life.

I became a pilgrim and I went on El Camino to Santiago and I just walked everywhere.

I traveled all these places and I really worked on

my relationship with my mother, my relationship with myself, my identity without soccer and where all those pieces fit.

And I think I had this fear because I had such a toxic relationship with soccer for so long that I would never want to come back.

And I never felt like that.

The whole time I was like, this is

this moment and there will be another moment.

And

now it's like an interesting thing to reflect on because obviously I came back for a few months and then had my first major injury.

And so there's this feeling of

this probably never would have happened.

if I hadn't taken form of like I can just say that.

I don't I don't have a lot of like regret.

I'm not that type of person, but I just think that's the facts.

But the question is, like, did I gain more anyway?

Did that, that help me prepare?

Did that help prepare me for this, for this next journey?

And,

you know, I think in so many ways,

the way I grew, like, I imagine myself so often just taking step after step on El Camino with nothing

to burden me, but just taking the next step and the simplicity of that and like the profound effect it had in its like

most basic form of living, just letting your foot kiss the ground.

That's all you had to do.

I feel like it shaped like everything that I am from like this point forward and it prepared me for so much.

But it came with a big risk of my place on the national team.

my ability to compete at the highest level, a little bit of a fear of maybe I never even liked this sport and I just did it for somebody else what if that was

what if i realize i hate it that's like we're that's why most people don't stop their lives kristen that's why most of us don't stop our lives because we're afraid of failure

my biggest fear yeah was that like i real i would realize i hated it and never want to go back

and then the universe is so beautiful uh giving you and i know that maybe you're not here yet but it as soon as i heard you got injured, I thought, oh, this is going to be interesting to see how she processes this.

It's like the universe's little joke, like, ooh, let's see how you handle this a little bit.

Like,

I'm going to, I'm going to show you, give you an opportunity to even question it even a little bit more.

Like, cause

what the fuck did you not learn on the El Camino that you still.

It wasn't a long enough hike, Kristen.

Listen, we've had shows straight on.

We'll hook you up.

You just need a longer hike.

I mean, that's exactly, exactly how I reacted.

I was like, I had this plan.

I was going to leave soccer and then I was going to come back and show everyone.

Of course.

And then it just got blown up in my face.

And I was like, no, I already did the hard part.

And now the hard part's ahead of me.

So it is.

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Can you talk to us about what you mean when you say

my ongoing relationship with my mother?

My whole heart just like jumped when you said that.

Can you just tell us what you mean and how that shows up in your life and what you're doing and what that relationship is?

Yes.

So when my mom passed, I got really good advice from a family friend.

And he said to me,

reflecting on his own experience of losing his mother that the moment that she died she was with him forever and while he was alive you have to like go physically see people but when someone's no longer alive you never have to travel to see them they're always there that articulation is exactly what my experience has been um

it's hard when relationships are really hard when people are alive and you have to do these things to make sure you feel like you're prioritizing them, making them feel loved, all these things.

And I was like, it was just completely gone.

Like I never had to get on a flight.

I never had to make a phone call.

My mom was just always with me.

And because of this journey that she and I went on, I felt like I learned what I call Stacey 2.0, my mom's name Stacey, was Stacey 2.0, which was like a mother that didn't care about me as an athlete.

She just cared about me as the human.

And that's who I met.

And that's the person I get to continue to cultivate a relationship with.

So sometimes when things are going wrong or hard and I feel like, oh, I've failed and I've let these people down, I'm like, no,

no.

Like, and I can even look up to the sky and I'm like, my mom is here and she doesn't care about this.

That was like something I learned that was wrong.

And I've now unlearned it.

I have this relationship with my mom that's growing because I can still revert to those old pathways where I'm like, I missed the goal.

My mom must be disappointed.

And now I'm trying to cultivate this new pathway that

is, you know, when you're omnipresent and when you're transcendental, which I think is what happens in a way when you pass,

there is no like limited human nature.

And so I get to experience this relationship with my mom where I know 1000% she's proud of me, that she accepts me.

And I get to live my life with that freedom.

And I get to talk to her in a way that I often couldn't when she was alive because I had fear

of, you know, fear of my flaws, fear of her flaws.

And now, like, the fear is gone because she sees me at my worst.

There's no hiding from her.

Like, you know, when you're a kid, you're trying to hide everything from your mom.

There's no hiding anymore.

And that's the relationship that I cultivate.

And it's a daily thing that a conversation with my mom and an understanding of each other.

Oh my gosh, it's like, it's like the most beautiful thing.

I know, I'm like crying over here because so many people I know, especially in the LGBTQ space, struggle in many ways or have struggled with their parents and the approval of their parents.

And I'm just so afraid.

I've been so afraid of like when my parents die, that there will be like all this stuff that's undone.

And like what you've just done is like make me feel so much less afraid of that because

of your experience.

Like that is such a life-giving.

No more human nature.

That's so good.

No more fear.

No more all of that gone and just pure love.

Took my breath away.

And also,

also, I just want to say this.

When you stepped away from the game, much like Simone Biles did from the Olympics, the pod squad might not know how revolutionary that is in sport um

to say no my mental health is going to take priority over this team over this country over this medal or whatever it is and i think you and simone show that it's possible to step away and come back i just remember feeling like so jealous whoa they get to take care of themselves like fully

and like that was

i mean it was always an option i just never took it and i just think that it it's another way you've shown your your courage to take that, that like relentless pursuit.

For me, like your relentless pursuit of your own personal greatness, that's what it was.

Is is just so rare.

So, Kristen, you've already solved death for us.

So, could we just get, I want to move on to another one.

I just feel like we have like 20 more minutes.

We can solve a couple other things.

Cause if we can solve death.

The rest has to be easy, right?

Okay.

I mean, for real, death has always still been a problem.

I'm like, till now.

I know.

I'm like sweating how much that was profound.

So I want to talk to you about suffering because I have heard and read you say that you do not choose to suffer, right?

That you are unlearning suffering.

And what I want to say about that is that that is blasphemy in this country, okay?

That it is the religious way, the capitalistic way, the parenting way, the romantic love way, the sports way, the

American way that the more you suffer,

the more you earn.

No pain or the more you write.

Right.

No guts, no glory, no pain, no gain.

When we talked about this, Abby said, no, I fully believed when I was playing, if I suffer the most, I will be the best.

So

you think that there's another way.

You said there is a general consensus in sports that you just suffer, you push through it and keep going.

And that's what makes you tough.

But I believe in my heart that there's another way.

Can you tell us what's the other way?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Great.

my own philosophies it's amazing like i know anything i'm like oh sure i can tell you about this

just dislayer i know nothing about anything but no you fix death so you do know something

um but i think there's a fine line between discipline and suffering

and

I do think that suffering is a part of life, but with acceptance, the suffering isn't actually suffering.

I think it's discipline.

So that's where it's a little bit tricky.

So when I think about sport, the consensus of, you know, you have to run to your sick, you have to give up so much.

That's like an endless suffering.

And

when I think of myself on the field and I like put myself like on the field emotionally, there's this unpleasant thing that happens to many athletes when they're not in flow state, where you're playing, but you're also like like watching a movie of yourself playing, and it's a highlight reel of all your mistakes.

And

it's very distracting from the actual playing.

And I think there's a lot of decisions that you can make on and off the field as a human, as an athlete, so that

your

whole life is more aligned in a way that's blissful.

And I

actively work towards a flow state where

playing soccer would be the most blissful and joyous thing that I ever did.

And I believe that if I loved it, if I'm laughing, if I'm smiling, that's when I'm at my best.

And there's this belief that like you want it so bad, and that's what motivates you.

But what if that's not what motivates you, like the trophy?

Like, what if it's like something much bigger than that that you're working towards?

Because what happens?

And I mean, everybody knows this, like you win the trophy, you get the medal and you feel empty inside.

And so it's like this big, like laugh in your face moment where you're like, I worked so hard to get here and I'm still not where I want to be.

And so the letting go of that like fixed goal is like the letting go of the suffering.

And it's like working towards

acceptance and bliss.

And there's this quote, I think it's Buddha, says like someday you'll tilt your head back and look at the sky and you'll just laugh because everything is exactly how it should be.

And it's this idea that like life is perfect.

We just are missing it.

We've put all these barriers and expectations and unhealthy routines between us and the perfection, but the perfection is still there.

And I think sport is a way that actually breaks down those barriers because you know no matter what relationship you have with sport, there is always moments that great athletes, people who run

humans, they find that bliss, they find that transcendence, they find that flow, and it kind of helps you dip into it.

I can imagine dancers,

like all different types of people, artists, these like creative forces like help you find that.

And

my hope is that there's like the more times you find that space, that flow, that ease, that joy, then the closer it gets to you.

So you can keep finding it more and more.

And the more I find it, the better I'll play for sure.

So if you want to just do it to get to the next place, like you probably like missed the mark, but like it becomes something that you can train.

And that's when I, when I walked on El Camino de Santiago, it was like I was able to find that state of presence

every day, you know, for a week.

And then when I left, it was then my job to find that

place.

in a regular life, like when I have other things to do, when it's not that simple, when I go back on the field, like, how can I access that state of joy and flow?

That's not to say my life is without suffering, but I do believe in this reality that can exist, that's bliss.

It's so far different than the average pro-athlete's way, where it's numbers, heart rates, you know, repetitions, how many sprints you can do, how many calories you're expending, like all of that stuff feels so countercultural, what you're trying to create for yourself.

Are you trying to like

show this way to the people around you on your team?

Are you a spirit spice evangelist or do you keep your spirit spice to yourself?

Maybe a little half because I think I'm still on my way.

And I still have so much to learn and to get.

to understand before I feel like

satisfied with it.

I guess maybe you never feel satisfied.

It's like a giant catch-22.

But I think the people that are closest to me, they know it because they know my hurt and my journey and how I had to let go of that to get here.

So, in that world, there's like no other option than for me to go deep into my sense of spirituality.

But what you said, Adi, is like so important because it's still about numbers and sprints.

It's still there, but like there's this way to do it that is intertwined with acceptance.

And like a very simple example is like running.

You're going to run so hard, you know, whatever it is, box to box, your mile, and it's going to physically like hurt.

It's going to burn, your muscles are going to burn, you're going to get sick.

And that's something you have to do, whether or not you want to be a spirit spice or not.

Like it's just part of the job.

But you can actually

have your brain focus on certain things, like certain parts of your body.

So sometimes when I'm doing

hard cardio that's unpleasant, I do a body scan.

So I like, I'm running and I'm like, okay, what does my toe feel like?

And I'll like scan each part of my body and just that simple shift of awareness away from like whatever part of my body is really hurting, it makes it so that it doesn't hurt.

It's like literally like a magic trick.

I try to tell people this.

You can just focus on something else, stay in tune with that.

and you can still do the suffering but for me now it's discipline like now it's the discipline of doing the work and it's the discipline of doing the training of your brain so that you know your life is like in the direction that you want it to be.

I like that.

I gotta try it.

I like it.

A little body scan.

Little body scan.

A little body scan, mid-exercise.

I used to just count for some reason when I was in the depths of it.

I just count out loud so that I could, I wouldn't think about it.

So maybe

exactly.

So something.

Kristen, you

helped lead the charge for racial and gender justice in the NWSL.

So I just think it's super important to sometimes when we talk about spirituality or any of this, people tend to think either or.

If you're talking about the spiritual world, you are not boots on the ground involved in justice work, which is just couldn't be less true here.

Once again, this is an and both situation for Kristen.

So you said the revolution is not about what you say or post.

Instagram and TikTok are going to be, you're going to have problems with that, Kristen.

It is about the inner work you do today and every day to fuel a lifetime of activism.

The work starts within.

How does racial justice start within?

This thought has come up so many times while we're talking.

I believe that the thing you can do to help the world.

is to help yourself and to cultivate peace and energy because I believe in that energy exchange.

That's my spirituality.

And so,

in order to help others be well, you must be well yourself.

And that's where the two things get tied.

And I think there is a place for

anger and frustration and

all the things that come, I think, with activism and fighting against status quo structures.

But I think there's also

a place for like a break and a place for

cultivating your own sense of being grounded so that you can go again and fight again.

And I think that they're actually really intertwined.

And when I think of my

identity as a Black woman, I think so many of

my

so much of my understanding about race came from this place of fear and a place of anger

and a little bit of confusion and insecurity that comes from you know fear and anger and i think that that's when it goes back to inner work like me understanding my identity my family my history how i came to be what is my purpose there's a lot of guilt i think that goes into activism it's like i'm not doing enough um i'm not contributing i should be doing this.

Look what that person's doing.

And that's like balanced by

knowing yourself, being grounded, knowing your truth, knowing that can't all get solved in one day,

and just being accepting of taking that next step.

For me, that's looked like, you know, reading our players association so that we could take some power back.

from the federation and fight for equality.

And it's looked like having to have really hard conversations with reporters about coaches that were treating people unfairly.

And that takes a strength that can only come from

being well and being me and being you.

And I just think that that balance is important.

And I think, you know, it's actually crazy to think that people think

justice fighting and spirituality are at odds, because for me, they're exactly the same.

And it's like your belief in a greater good is like why how you get through the work.

It's how you do the work.

It's it's your why at the end.

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So you said energy exchange and the way that works is your spirituality.

Can you tell me what you mean?

Yes.

So I think every person that you interact with, you just have an energy exchange.

I think people who are

really good at it, like you don't even have to be in the room with them and you feel the presence.

And there's just like a so simple, like a warmth that you feel, like something that makes you at ease.

And I think that that's like a an idealistic version of like the best form of the human.

It's the human that lifts their head back and laughs because everything's perfect but i think that that's something that we all are working towards like

ultimately

like what i want to do on this earth is just like leave it a little happier leave it a little safer and you can think really macro and you're like okay then i have to change this policy but it's like you can also just like make someone feel safe in a moment and that's the energy exchange But I think that we are a collective.

I believe in like oneness.

I believe that like my well-being is tied to your well-being.

And so the more well that I am, the more well that you are.

And in that humanity, like we can all move in the same direction.

If we're in that interchange of energy, I think that that's special.

And it's also like very motivating for me because when I have an interaction with someone, especially when I'm being my introverted self.

um i i feel like oh i want to protect me or i want to keep this for me or like this is my boundary and those are things that are important but there's something that's just so life giving to me to just know that, like, a smile or just a warmth, it's contagious and it can lift somebody and that person can then spread it on.

And in that way, like simple moments can have massive impact.

Yeah, it's the idea of like you change the world, but the world is often just the world that's within your fingertips, like just the world around you.

So beautiful.

If we are suffering and we're like, all right, I'm just going to do a body scan.

Okay.

And then it won't be suffering.

It'll be awareness.

But my question is, how do you know

when you're in a situation that's the wrong kind of heart?

Like you shouldn't be just body scanning.

You should be body leaving.

How do you know, have you ever been in a situation where the answer was not acceptance?

The answer was end this.

Because people are always asking us about that.

I think it's like one of the best questions.

How do you know when to dig deep and how do you know when to quit digging?

Wow, I love that question.

I'm puzzling over it and I'm thinking of environments that I've been in that

were not safe or good.

And I'm like the type of person where, like, I have really high standards.

So I like speak about like spirituality and acceptance, but I have a really high standard for things.

I don't put up with a lot.

I, you know, came from a tough family.

So I never

feel

like

if something

is like triggering or unsafe, I never attach that to the same place where I'm like

trying to understand myself better.

You know, like those are two separate things.

But if I think of like an unsafe software environment where things are going wrong, we've all seen an end-of-the-sault.

It's happened in all phases of our career.

I do think that I have to accept it to fix it.

I don't have to accept it to live with it, but I accept it to fix it.

Because when you're volatile or when you're overly emotional, then like that's not the best place to make progress.

And so, in order to like have the conversations, the hard conversations, um, and do the work, I have to be able to have processed the bad parts of it.

Um,

but I do think that to some degree that comes naturally to me, I make boundaries and I stick to that.

Give us an example of like boundary setting because that's a big topic of this conversation.

And in my marriage, I'm still learning.

Yeah, what are some of your boundaries?

In friendship or in relationships with other people, how do you teach people how to treat you?

I have, I mean, the most...

severe example is like I have a relationship where I will only interact with this person while the sun's up because the sun goes down and it's a scary situation.

And it's a relationship that I've been dealing with my whole life where I have felt unsafe.

And it wasn't until two years ago and it worked with a therapist that this idea came about

like I don't have to put myself in that situation.

even though it's a person that I love dearly and I have to see and I feel guilty when I don't and all of those things.

But I think that's, it has been a revolutionary boundary for me because it's like,

I love that.

I can still love this person

within the way that I can.

And my boundary doesn't mean that I don't love them.

It actually allows me to love them.

Yeah.

If I was going to see this person at night, I would not love them.

Yes.

Boundaries are good for relationships.

Yes, that's beautiful.

I love that only during sun hours.

I mean, you can say

out.

I love it.

I want to talk about the 2015 ticker tape parade because I read something that you wrote about that that was so beautiful.

It really feels like the way that you describe it, that you experiencing that first ticker tape parade led to the equal pay settlement because you say that you stood there and you looked at the people celebrating you and how many people were in those streets because they cared that you won.

And then you you compared that to how you were being treated and paid and it didn't align

and you had an awakening

yeah wow

no that i mean you just said it exactly how i experienced it i think in 2015

i had no idea what the magnitude of that tournament would be And when you're in a world championship, Abby, you know better than me,

you're in isolation, you're in a bubble and you're like heads down, like just trying to get through to the next game.

And then you come out of this experience.

And that in itself would be a whole podcast if it's like really mentally hard.

But you come out and you like open your eyes and you're like, oh yeah, something else other than my World Cup exists.

But what happened was we opened our eyes and our lives had changed.

And we like went into the tournament as like somewhat well-known people.

And we came out as like these beacons of hope for people.

And

that was a complete surprise for me.

You know, I didn't know that that was going to happen.

I had no idea.

And I think people who had played another world championships probably knew, but I was like, what the heck?

How did this happen?

Like, I didn't even know anyone was watching, you know, like all of these people in the stand.

And then we had that ticker tape parade, which was like the perfect picturesque setting of like so many people crying and cheering.

And it's like the absolute best part of sport coupled with

the hope of equality

and like those two things coming together.

And

it was like a moment, it was like a reckoning where I was like, Well, we're extremely valuable in this moment from like a complete business sense.

Of course, the reason that it was impactful to me totally separate, but I was like, Hey,

a lot of people want something from us right now.

Like, we have a huge value in our market.

Why aren't we being compensated that way?

And I think that's what started this re-upping of our players association to take back power because it was this knowledge of our own value.

And I think that's what the world does is they try to hide your value from you so that you don't know.

And in this moment, there was no hiding it because there were thousands of people throwing tiny pieces of paper at us.

And

that was enough to know that, you know, we deserved better.

Oh my God, it's so good.

It makes me remember, I actually talked to Glennon a lot about this in terms of post-retirement guilt and the consciousness that we have now and seeing you all come to settlement with U.S.

soccer.

I just remember

feeling like

I didn't do enough.

Like I just accepted such mediocre standards for so long.

And I've had to actually do a lot of personal work in accepting that part.

And because I do think that there is a role we all play on this like spectrum, this continuum of justice.

But I can't help but look back and go, oh, I just took such minimal.

I mean, we have this conversation all the time about business.

She's like, Abby, like.

You are worth more than this.

You can actually go back and say, no, I could go on and talk about this forever, but I just, there was nobody that was more proud and more happy for you all.

Cause it almost needed like us old folks, like us old OGs needed to not be in the team for you to actually get this accomplished.

It like sometimes the old does need to go out for the new to be able to step into a new paradigm.

And you all did that so well.

But you know, I feel like we all feel that we haven't done enough.

And I think like from the outside world, a settlement was such a a massive accomplishment, but there is so much work to be done.

So the same feeling that you're expressing, like I absolutely still feel it.

The way I always talk to people about it is like when you join the US Women's National Team, you're handed a torch because something happened long before I was on the team that made that team

just

a symbol of hope for people.

And that comes with great responsibility.

But you're handed this torch and you carry it as hard like as high and as far as you can and then you hand it off and our

any success we had was built on the work that you did and

same will be of the next generation and i think that that's like kind of a drag on like fighting for justice and activism in general, that it's so riddled with guilt.

I wish we can all be rid of that because like in my own life, I think all the time, like, I'm not doing enough, but that i know it's wrong i try to fight it i'm like i'm doing what i can that's something but it's it's so true and i think it like paralyzes people and makes them afraid to do anything to do what they can because it will still feel like it's not enough when you think that you're not doing enough do you think of your mom when you're thinking of something that you know is not true that you know somebody who loved you without human nature would not believe does that help you to have an actual relationship with someone who is free of all human bullshit so that you can get fixed out of it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's true.

I think that I'll have these thoughts and then it's not even that conscious, but it's just like I can even just think like, mom.

And then I'm like, ah, there, and it's just like this reminder that something's bigger than like this small thing that I'm feeling.

that you feel it and it feels so big, but it's not the end.

And like now my mom just like represents that for me so it kind of like pulls me out and gives me some perspective so thanks mom katie going

okay kristen press with that we're gonna end our next right thing i just think i'm thinking already about the beginning of this conversation and about how much we suffering we could be saved from if we would communicate more with our people

like if you're a parent and you've got a kid don't assume that they know

that you love them just without any of the achievements.

Tell them, tell them, tell them, tell them.

I'm going to today.

And also, let's just do what Kristen does and just do our best to make the world a little bit happier and a little bit safer, even if it's just the people in the room we're in.

Well, let me tell you, my life post-soccer has gotten exponentially better.

I know that in my heart, I've probably wanted to be more like you.

and like work on the full humanity of myself.

I was afraid that it would distract from the soccer.

So I did the opposite.

I just did all soccer.

And then now I'm just like fully into my humanity.

And the fact that you're so ahead of that game makes me know that your retirement is going to be filled.

You are not going to believe how much joy you can experience without this other thing that became so much of who you are.

The thing that you spent most of your time doing.

I keep telling all

the players who are still playing.

I'm like, just you wait.

It gets,

it gets so much better.

Yeah.

The other side.

Yeah.

The the other side.

Kristen, you're a dream.

We'll adore you so much.

We will see you at the games.

Love you.

See you at the games.

See you at the bottom.

Bye, Pod Squad.

Bye.

I give you Tish Milton and Brandy Carlisle.

I walked through fire.

I came out the other side.

I chased desire, I made sure

I got what's mine

And I continue

to believe

That I'm the one for me

And because I'm mine,

I walk the line

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on map.

A final destination

we lack.

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to reknown.

We'll finally find our way back home

and through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do a hard thing.

I hit rock bottom, it felt like a brand new start.

I'm not the problem.

Sometimes things fall apart.

And I continue to believe

the best

people are free.

And it took some time,

but I'm finally fine.

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on that.

A final destination

we lack.

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to reknown.

We'll finally find our way back home

and through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring

we can do a hard day

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on that.

We might get lost, but we're okay with that.

We've stopped asking directions

in some places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find

our way back home

and through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do hard

things.

Yeah, we can do hard things.

Yeah, we

can do hard

things.

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