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The Place for Connection
Welcome to The Place for Connection, where I believe that connection is the CURE – the podcast where soul meets science, and healing takes centre stage.
Hosted by psychologist, breathwork practitioner, and all-around vibe curator, Melissa Beaton, this podcast dives deep into the art and science of connection – to yourself, your community, and the big beautiful world around you.
Each episode is a juicy mix of expert wisdom and heartfelt stories from healers of ALL kinds: psychologists, bodyworkers, doulas, yogis, spiritual guides, and even the ones who heal with music, art, and a bit of magic. We’re here to inspire, uplift, and get real about what it takes to live a connected, purpose-driven life.
This isn’t your average self-help podcast. It’s a space where radical authenticity meets practical tools, where curiosity replaces judgment, and where the real work feels less like a chore and more like a calling.
Why listen?
Because you’ll leave every episode feeling seen, heard, and ready to take the next step in your own healing journey. Whether you’re a professional, a healer, someone seeking growth, or just here for the good vibes – this is the place for you.
Want to work with Melissa?
Reach out via the website contact page at www.zensohouse.com or instagram @zensohouse
The Place for Connection
Transforming Your Body Image and Performance Mindset with Jo Turek
Join us as Jo Turek, an insightful psychologist and dedicated recreational athlete, reveals her holistic approach to mental well-being. Jo's personal journey from a sedentary lifestyle to embracing her athletic identity offers a fresh perspective on the interconnectedness of nutrition, sleep, movement, and social connections in nurturing mental health. With a particular emphasis on the transformative power of becoming a recreational athlete, Jo encourages listeners to recognize their dedication and embrace their athletic identities, regardless of their competitive goals. Her insights are especially pertinent for women over 40, who face unique challenges in maintaining physical health and preventing injuries.
Our conversation uncovers Jo's experiences with extreme fitness modelling and the shift towards performance-based sports like CrossFit and marathon running. Straying from the pressures of aesthetic goals, Jo found empowerment in celebrating personal achievements and the joy of shared growth within a supportive community. Whether it's the humbling challenges of CrossFit or the meditative rhythm of long-distance running, Jo's story underscores the value of performance over appearance and the positive mindset shifts that accompany this realisation. Her reflections on the importance of community and mutual coaching highlight the profound impact of shared journeys in both fitness and psychology.
The episode also delves into the psychological aspects of high-performance sports, highlighting the challenges athletes face with body image and societal expectations. Jo shares her candid experiences with disordered eating and the pressures of maintaining certain physiques, particularly in competitive bodybuilding. Her transition to embracing all foods for mental well-being and healthier body image offers valuable lessons for listeners. Moreover, we explore the growing role of sports psychology and the unique resilience required by elite athletes. Jo's insights into balancing physiological needs with performance goals emphasise the importance of community and joy in fostering overall well-being, offering listeners a comprehensive understanding of the interplay between mental resilience and physical pursuits.
Jo Turek is available for consultations from The Good Joint in Burleigh in the beautiful Gold Coast in Australia, and via telehealth worldwide.
Melissa Beaton runs psychotherapy 1:1, group workshops, professional development opportunities, and breathwork workshops from her Southport based offices. She is also available via telehealth worldwide.
Find out more information about melissa at www.zensohouse.com
Welcome to the Place for Connection podcast. My name's Melissa and this podcast is all about connection to self, connection to body, connection to people, community and the environment. And today I have the most amazing guest for you. Her name is Jo Turek. She's a psychologist and an athlete. Jo, can you tell me a little bit about yourself, just to kind of get us started?
Speaker 2:Okay, so I'm a registered psychologist. I work across the lifespan, from children right up to adulthood, and my special area interest is definitely within the health and the sports psychology side of things. I look at psychology or mental health as a really holistic thing. So the underpinnings of all good mental well-being to me is having the fundamentals in place like how's your nutrition, how's your sleep, how's your movement in your body and I don't necessarily like to use the word exercise, just moving your body in kind of ways how your connections to other people and when we have these kind of fundamentals, you can see how much mental well-being transforms into that.
Speaker 2:So I take that along with me a lot into a lot of my therapy sessions, looking at a person from a very whole lens rather than just the specific issue that they're coming in for. That's just me as a therapist. But on, like me, on a personal level, I love that. You called me an athlete. I appreciate that, but I do train as if I was one. I like to call myself a recreational athlete and it's a term that I've dubbed to people that are not quite like going to the Olympics but train in a way that like, I do it because I love it and I love the science behind sport, and so every kind of athletic pursuit I've gone into I've come in with a mindset of like, okay, what is like the evidence suggest, how do I best optimize my performance? How can I measure it? And I like the science behind that and having the metrics and then seeing like outcomes unfold.
Speaker 2:So dabbled in a lot of different sports in my lifetime and it's given me so much. And I say that because I wasn't necessarily a super sporty kid or a teenager, I was actually really sedentary. Um, so I can. I can appreciate how much it's actually impacted my life, my sense of self, my self-esteem, because I've had a place in my life where I didn't have it at all so, yeah, that's me in a nutshell.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what? What led you to move towards kind of the? I love the term recreational athlete. I can appreciate that. Maybe I'm going to start using that term for myself.
Speaker 2:Well there's so many people like side note, so many people that won't use the term I'm not an athlete, right, but they're training consistently, say for a marathon, or they do like I mean, I'm using my own um examples but like they do crossfit kind of competitively or high rocks or whatever the thing is at the moment they're into triathlon and they're training like five, six, seven days a week yeah, maybe not seven, shouldn't do that, have a rest day, um but they're training a lot and consistently towards an athletic goal and maybe they're not going to the olympics or doing it like on a high level competition.
Speaker 2:It is social and they're training a lot and consistently towards an athletic goal. And maybe they're not going to the Olympics or doing it like on a high level competition. It is social and they're paying for this, but you're still training like an athlete, right. And so what I'm finding and this is something that's, I guess, a real tricky area to navigate is that these people don't consider themselves athletes and then therefore feel as though certain scientific evidence doesn't apply to them. So I'm going to use the the the having, not having a rest day thing as an example like people going oh, I can train seven days a week.
Speaker 2:I'm really burnt out and I can keep going because this marathon runner runs 100k a week and I'm only doing 50 k's a week yeah so this is basis of comparison or I don't need to feel and I have a dietician who's a really good friend of mine and we she's a sports dietician and we converse about this a lot um, but a lot of people coming to see are saying, well, I don't need to feel before my marathon training or my long runs, or I don't need to feel during my runs, I don't need up to 90 grams of carbs per hour based on body weight, because I'm not an actual athlete. I'm not, you know, I'm not actually going to the Olympics, so it shouldn't apply to me. Um, and yet you are a human in a human body and you're training as if you were. You know it's like high demand on your body.
Speaker 2:Um, so I like to use use I dub the term recreational athlete because you still are. Maybe you're not going to the Olympics. Yeah, you're a rec athlete. Side note, I don't even remember what your question was, but oh good, oh good.
Speaker 1:I was asking you about like what?
Speaker 1:led you to the journey and I also just wanted to kind of, I guess I guess, add some punch to what you just said, because even with my own, um, you know, training I mean I'm not training six days a week, I mean, yeah, sometimes five days and and I mix it up a lot and it's really interesting my podiatrist said anything over a half marathon if you're not fueling like an athlete, particularly for my age range.
Speaker 1:So sorry, yeah, to disclose that the over 40s club, you know we are at more risk of injury, particularly like stress, fractures and a whole range of other injuries, just because physiologically our bodies aren't designed for this kind of impactful effort without the correct fueling. So I think it is even for women who are maybe in that 40 plus age range, or for people who are early in their running, like I am, um, you know, fueling is a super important part of the whole process, even if you don't think of yourself necessarily as an as an athlete. So it's been pretty wild for me to learn, even just like the impact of carbohydrates, because we get kind of taught how naughty carbohydrates are.
Speaker 2:I could make this in totally different podcasts, but we will silo that part.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It makes me really passionate because I was exactly the same as you. You know we have, especially as women. Um, we got really pushed against like this very low carb era and all like that's gonna make me fat or um, and it took a lot of just like trusting trust that this is actually if you want the performance outcome, you need to be able to feel correctly, but honestly, once you've realized how good you can feel, you go wow, what have I been doing this whole time?
Speaker 2:yeah, and and, like you said, you're absolutely spot on. The older you get, I suppose, the more demand it is on your body. I think you can kind of get a get. I'm going to use quotation marks here. Get away with it in your like early 20s or late teens or, you know, all through 20s, and then things start to like catch up right um, and I'd like to say that you quote unquote get away with it, but there's so many other like health concerns that are coming up by not feeling correctly that you probably don't see. Mine was a again, big or no, it's not an overshare, it's a good one. I think it's really important, but I didn't have a period for about three and a half years oh my goodness wow yeah, so in my mid-20s yeah.
Speaker 2:I pretty much didn't have one. Maybe it was four years and prior to that, maybe from 20. No, maybe it's longer than that. Maybe it was like four to five years. I did not have a period, and this was a complete result of high stress, high demand in terms of training and not fueling correctly.
Speaker 1:I can't Not fueling enough.
Speaker 2:And so it's fine when you're in your 20s because you're like, oh, I can still train and I can still move and I recover, sort of okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know the 15-year-old and you kind of go. I love not having a period.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't have any symptoms. Okay, and then?
Speaker 2:you, yeah, but you don't know what that's doing long term. Thankfully, I'm really lucky that like of realised like this isn't right and I got it back naturally over time with changes to my diet, like I went to see a naturopath as well, but mainly it was actually eating enough and then actually supporting by having rest, so dialing back the training so that I could have consistency Anyway.
Speaker 1:So is that part of what brought you into this? Space like that experience in terms of like having your own. I guess symptoms associated with not feeling appropriately. It sounds like you developed a love of exercise early on and perhaps you know that the stress of that on your body, you know, naturally had hormonal impacts on you.
Speaker 2:From the sounds of things, yeah, hugely so I suppose the the reason I kind of really dove into this space was, like I said, I was like, quite sedentary. I didn't, um, necessarily I wasn't good at sport, um, when I was younger and I was a bit overweight when I was in my like, middle school and high school, um, and so I kind of avoided exercise. I didn't feel like I could keep up with my peers and it was like embarrassing to a degree, um, and the. The reason, um, and the the reason very, I guess, aesthetically or kind of like, not in a, the number one reason I got into moving was to change the way that I looked, so, um, alter my appearance, lose weight, etc.
Speaker 2:I'd seen my, my mother go through every diet under the sun right, okay, so every low carb, every weight watches, all of the things, um, seeing her lose a significant amount of weight. Seeing my dad go through yo-yo dieting on and off of like fasting, not fasting, eating no night, one meal a day, to all of the things, right, um, okay, so that was a, I guess a big factor in my understanding of like weight management or health was like you need to restrict and you need to exercise a lot to get your desired outcome, to feel good in your body. Okay, I kind of got into like just like walking and jogging and I lost a little bit of weight and then, um, I actually found the gym when I finished school.
Speaker 1:I was like 18 or something.
Speaker 2:Didn't ever wasn't really ever good at any sport, um, and then I kind of fell into the gym and found myself being, like, naturally good at it and I think this is the eastern European in me like just strong. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:We're carrying hay bales, like in my generations right, so I was just like naturally strong yeah and I put on muscle really easily, right like I think of a push-up, and I've grown pecs like it's just a weird thing. It's genetic, I suppose, but I got really good at it and I'm a very all-in person in everything that I do. It's a blessing and a curse.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I dove into it and, I guess, dove into the the extreme end of it and got into like competitive fitness modeling and bodybuilding and the reason I shared the story about like my parents and what I saw in terms of like changing or altering body shape, I feel was also a factor in how I approached that part of my life. So I went into it with the intention of looking the best that I ever could right have. All I wanted was a six-pack, right. All I wanted I would. That's all I wanted and, uh, you know, trained a ridiculous amount was eating. I had a coach for it and, very like traditional bodybuilding coach, I'm gonna say that you know, like the standard chicken and broccoli, fish and broccoli. I think you and I were doing an undergrad together.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure I remember your lunches at uni at the time. Yeah, you know one of our mutual friends as a day yes.
Speaker 2:I remember this story so vividly in my mind, but I'm just going to highlight the extremeness of like this process. Right, I was feeling quite faint in a tutorial that we were in and I was like, as a day I need to. I was so neurotic about it. I'm like it's been three hours, I need to eat. I have been counting down the minutes until my next meal.
Speaker 2:It's fish and broccoli and I'm like I just need to heat this up and I need to eat. But our tutor was quite I don't know strict, but he was like no eating in class right and as the day went up to him and was like excuse me, sir, but my friend has like hyperglycemia, she's got low blood sugar, she's like diabetic what a legend like she just made up this backstory.
Speaker 2:She needs to, she needs to eat. And he's like oh, right away, go take her with, go take her to the microwave, make sure she eats. It's fine, like, make sure she's okay. And he's like oh, right away, go take her with, go take her to get to the microwave, make sure she eats. It's fine, like, make sure she's okay. And so good, anyway, bless her. But I remember this story and I tell this story frequently in terms of like, how neurotic and how extreme it was.
Speaker 2:Like I wouldn't eat more than like I'd count my almonds yeah, it's like 10 almonds okay, you can have 10 almonds and then that got cut because too high fat and it was like training cardio twice a day, weight training once a day that was like to the end of it all. Anyway, I did that for a few years actually, like went through like cycles of cutting and ulking, I suppose, and going through the phases of preparing for a show, and it never really led me to any satisfaction with my body. I achieved that look, and I still was picking myself apart on stage. I'd lost 10 plus kilos to get onto that stage and it was like didn't get me anywhere. Um, and in the side bit of that I found so CrossFit was really underground back then.
Speaker 2:Like everyone does CrossFit now or like knows it, but no one knew what it was. This is 10 years ago now, um, and I decided to go into it because, again, I was kind of good at like lifting and gym stuff. Anyway, it kicked my butt, it was really humbling and it was all performance based, right, like it was. No one cared what you looked like, but if you could do a certain movement or you could beat that certain time or you could lift that certain weight, you were given kudos for that. You know, like you're getting a fist bump for that. You got a personal best, regardless of what that was. You get a fist bump for that. Like we all collectively suffer through a workout that's timed or whatever it might be, it's like an objective measure and everyone's like silently suffering collectively.
Speaker 1:And I love that Silent suffering.
Speaker 2:I love that and I remember kind of being like really humbled by it because I was like this is actually so hard and I thought I had a lot of ego when I was in my early 20s, naturally, and I remember Raul, who's a really good friend of mine now. He said do this for three months if you hate it. At the end of it I don't come back basically he owned this gym.
Speaker 2:I said, all right, I'll give it three months anyway. I got hooked for like 10 plus years, did it competitively again, but again the the change was that it was performance based, and that is the reason that I'm such an advocate for people going into like objective, performance-based sports rather than going to train, to adapt or manipulate the way that their body looks right like I don't think you don't, I think you can have, you know, aesthetic goals, but if they're your primary interest, it's like very, very, you're never going to be quite happy, right, you're never going to achieve whatever thing. It is right Because it's so subjective, yeah. And then I dove into like endurance-based sport marathon running again just for the metrics, just because of that real like silent meditation. That was a big one for me.
Speaker 2:And so the last couple of years I've been dabbling and running long distance.
Speaker 1:I've been watching your journey and it's so nice because, for those of you who don't know, jo and I we did do our undergraduate together at University of South Australia in Adelaide yes, adelaide and just randomly ended up on the Gold Coast together, at different times and for different reasons and different journeys, and I think it's been really nice I was actually talking to Dean, who runs the Nest before, in that there's been this kind of informal dual coaching of one another.
Speaker 2:As we went through the journey.
Speaker 1:yes, yeah, in me supporting you more with your psychology process, in me supporting you more with your psychology process, and then you supporting me with my forays into into running and um, endurance sports and performance sports, and I said there's something really beautiful about that kind of dual exchange where someone's got a specific skill setting.
Speaker 1:You're like, oh, I'm curious about this, can you help me?
Speaker 1:And one of the things I noticed that you've really helped me with personally is mindset. And I think there was a specific experience just before I did the half late last year and I was having a bit of a, a breakdown, I would say. I mean breakdown might be a little severe, but I was really doubting myself and doubting my capacity and I think a lot of that was cause I wasn't fueling properly at the time, uh, which I then went back and worked on and and a lot of it was. Was there something around you know that that I wouldn't be able to do it and and and I just remember I can't remember your exact words, but there was just so much reassurance in them that I could do it and that I didn't need to doubt myself and I could just trust in my body and trust in my training Like, I'm curious, as you've moved into more psychology, what have you taken from your own performance-based training into psychology that you see as helpful for you in terms of your work with?
Speaker 2:clients. I love this question because it's offered me so much in terms of like forging mental resilience. Right, it's that it's the physio. It's not. Every physical pursuit I've undertaken has never really been about the marathon itself or the, you know, getting into. My goal was to get into like individual high level competitions for CrossFit and I achieved that and I feel really proud of that. And obviously, running marathons and ultras and there was never. It was never about the marathon, for example. It was forging the, the discipline, to be like okay, diligently overcoming every single barrier or obstacle, mindfully listening to your body, being aware and then trusting the process.
Speaker 2:Trusting the process because week one feels like you're never going to get to that marathon distance right, yeah, yeah so, when you get to that point where you've done the race, it's not about the distance, it's not about the fact that you've done the race, it's the fact that you've, it's the work that's led up to it and you've gone.
Speaker 2:I did the hard thing and that applies to so many other aspects of my life and the only reason that I did the hard thing, or I overcame that, is because I broke it down and took a step at a time, right, I diligently just kept at it and trusted the process. Yeah, so when we, when we sow the sow the seeds, we we reap the fruit at the end, right, so we don't just like look at the seeds, do we? We kind of just trust that in the ground, we've done the hard work and it's going to show, right. Um. So that's something that I've taken in terms of just like. Whatever it is, that physical pursuit is more about forging the mental resilience to be able to use that in other aspects of your life, right, like I took that into career, I took that into study, I took that into relationship, right, so it's also applicable it's.
Speaker 1:It's interesting because I guess the way that you described that like sowing of the seeds and I often find there's a lot of um you know material about manifesting and um and high performance and that kind of one percent club and and I think what often doesn't get described is the steps that are taken in terms of reaching goals and how that is in kind of a stepwise manner. So it's not as though you know you're going to run a marathon tomorrow without training, that in a way, there are all these kind of stepwise processes that you put in place, like if you could go back to that younger version of yourself now and and give her some tools in terms of reaching the goals that you've reached right now, like what would be kind of the things that you would most want that younger version of you to know in the here and now uh, look there, there are no regrets.
Speaker 2:Firstly, I want to say that all of the experiences that I had nothing is by accident and I think that they led me to really understand and nurture my younger self as an adult now, because I'm kind to her and I can appreciate that she didn't believe in herself as much as she may have put on the front, ego put on the front that she's got it all together, yeah, um, but deep inside was a scared, very shy self-esteem, was low in that little girl, and so I can appreciate that I needed that to grow and to be, I guess, humbled by the experience and then really to understand. You know, because I work with a lot of ED clients, eating disorder clients and having dealt with my own disordered eating challenges around that very like aesthetic driven goals of competing, I feel as though just having that personal life experience makes it so much easier to understand where they're at. Yeah, and not to say that I don't. You know, there are those little voices that sometimes creep up or those thoughts that do enter. I'm just really much more mindful of their value and their weight.
Speaker 2:So if I was to tell my younger self I would have said girl, get into any sport. Right like anything where there's an objective measure, because the the body byproducts will happen. Right like that physical, physiological change will happen, whatever sport that you choose. Um, because your body is active, that's all like whatever you choose, right? If it's pilates, if it's yoga, if it's running, if it's badminton. Right like if you're choosing something based on the thing that, because you enjoy it, because you genuinely enjoy it, all the other byproducts will occur and maybe you might realize that the way that your body is shaped is the least important and interesting thing about you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. And that nourishment mindset. When you move from things being about, I guess, restriction and having all these rules and this is where I really work around goal setting I often find people come into goal setting with a lot of like negatively framed goals, like I want to lose this, I want to avoid eating this, and it even happened with my husband recently where he wanted to put a list of foods on the fridge that he couldn't consume and I said don't do that, Because as soon as you start focusing on what you can't have, you know your mind's going to move in that direction, towards that. And I've noticed in myself, probably a little like you, like when I move towards a positive goal, like I want to do a half marathon, or now I'm in this limbo about triathlon training and I'm really a bit anxious about.
Speaker 1:I'm excited for you.
Speaker 1:By the way, I'm a bit anxious about riding a bike still, um, so this is a whole new ball game, right in terms of learning a specific skill that I'm really just not good at, uh, and, and I think, yeah, one of the things I've learned the most is just how much it is, how how helpful it is to have a positively framed goal and that when you are moving towards that even like the nourishment that I get now, that as a runner, I get to eat, like you know, quite a lot of carbohydrates, and how beautiful is that, and not feel any kind of concern that that's going to, you know, have my weight fluctuating or you know.
Speaker 1:So I think this is kind of the thing like, when we are moving in these kind of really positive goals, that then that also has payoffs in all these other beautiful ways. And and I think it is accepting your body as it is, like in, and in saying that, you know, I accept that my body is never going to look a certain way that perhaps I idealized as a young woman. And and and can I be grateful that I have this you know, 40 something year old body now that lets me run over 20k's, I mean like that's a real gift, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And and when you think about mobility, particularly as you age, you know how much can you just be grateful to have this beautiful amount of mobility and be able to do things with your children or so true or with friends in ways that feels really energising? And yeah, I just I think it's. I think the way that you approach psychology is really beautiful, Like what specifically had you moving more into the eating disorder kind of space.
Speaker 2:Great question Again. Personal experience was a huge factor factor. It's something that I'm incredibly passionate about. Like I said, I lost a period, for I'm gonna say I keep saying to people three and a half years, but now I'm looking at the maths and it's closer to five and it was yeah, and it's purely purely because I went on like very extreme. You, you know, went from bodybuilding very extreme diet, very low calorie, and I got so sick of chicken and broccoli. I went like the complete opposite end and went like I went vegan, which I'm not against, but also was not having enough protein, not having enough carbohydrates.
Speaker 2:I know like basically it was fruit and vegetables my for many years and I was training CrossFit at the time six days a week and running. It was a lot of high impact, um, I didn't have rest days and it gave. It was stressful for me to have rest. Um, and it meant that I was restrictive with food, one I felt really uncomfortable about, like if people invited me to go to a restaurant it'd make me really anxious because I wouldn't know what I could eat.
Speaker 2:And for a while, veganism was like I said, I'm not against veganism, but it's always everything that you do. It's what intention is behind it. So you know, when I got into competitive bodybuilding, again, I'm not against it. I don't think most people can do it. I think there's a small percentage that are naturally gifted in that space, but for the majority, I don't think they. I don't advise it. But again, it comes with the intention. My intention was purely to manipulate what I looked like and because I came from a place of lack, and so to manipulate what I looked like and because I came from a place of lack and so I went into veganism, purely as a mask this one, this is going to hit home for a few people, I think so trigger warning but purely as a mask, because people wouldn't ask me oh, why aren't you eating or why won't you eat that?
Speaker 2:yeah yeah, so it was like you don't realize that at the time.
Speaker 2:But you got a little like oh, how easy, I don't have to explain myself and I don't have to yeah, so, anyway, moving out of that was a huge and it's the reason that I moved out of veganism not necessarily because I'm against having that diet, but for me in terms of my mental well-being and for me to recover from really disordered eating practices, I needed to accept that all foods were available in my diet. Right, that includes eggs and includes dairy and includes bread. That was a big one. Yes, it was a big one. Um, yes, yeah, yeah, it was a big one. I didn't eat bread. I ate a half an apple because a full apple was too many carbs, like yeah, okay, and like neurotically knew how much carbs, fats, proteins, how many calories are in everything. Like I look at food and I see numbers and so stepping out of that is always a work in progress for me.
Speaker 1:Um, okay so it sounds like there's a deep understanding in you how this operates for lots of people particularly maybe in in the sports space?
Speaker 2:yes, and this is also where I kind of dove in, because you know, especially in the sports space, like especially young athletes as well, like up and coming, whether they have to look a certain way or be a certain weight for their sport, yes, um, and the pressure of having that as well as just the everyday recreational athlete that sees high-end performers and goes well. I want to go into this sport.
Speaker 2:I want I should look like that yeah yeah, and I'm going to use crossfit as a prime example, because these girls have like six-pack abs and like they're just shredded. Yes, yeah, and I'm gonna use crossfit as a prime example, because these girls have like six pack abs and like they're just shredded yes yeah and they're like well, why don't I do six? I do six days a week of crossfit. Why don't I look like that?
Speaker 2:yeah yeah, maybe I need to eat less yeah or I see marathon matt, this is a huge one, the running space, because like okay, I have had this comment many times and people go you don't look like a runner, you look like, you look like a gym goer yeah, you don't look like a runner, yeah and, by the way, every everyone that has a body is a runner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like it doesn't. Like there is a five percent of the world that looks like marathon runners. Like the real small frame, yeah, ectomorph type body style that, yes, they're the ones that probably going to go to the olympics. Um, they're just, they're bought. They were just basically born to run yes, um yeah, but doesn't mean that you can't not one of those yeah, and that's cool like I, I'm so accepting of it. But it's yeah, those passing comments, okay, that's totally does that?
Speaker 1:does that still affect you?
Speaker 2:And it's something that, like again, I've had to work through many times because, regardless of whatever and I remind myself, because regardless of whatever sporting endeavour I go on, someone will have some kind of judgment or some kind of passing comment, even if it's not a judgment. So when I did like competitive, competitive bodybuilding, believe it or not, I was much more muscly than this, um, like so people would be like man, like you're staunch or like you're like back is massive, like a stingray, like you've like got so much muscle on you, and it used to almost bother me. Like I'm, like, I don't want you to say that about me.
Speaker 2:I feel self-conscious about it okay and the flip side of that is, obviously, when I got into endurance sport and people going, oh well, like it's, like you're not like that real stick thin marathon runner, yes, and so I'm reminded, like, regardless of the sporting endeavor, like my body is my body yeah but it's freaking phenomenal in terms of like being able to adapt to all of these different training modalities.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, yeah and then we we take it back to that primary goal of it being all right, but like physically, like my actual objective performance, like how amazing that I've just flipped from going into competitive CrossFit into like competitive marathon running oh fully yeah, it's been unreal to watch from the sidelines for me like yeah, and even watching know your progress in terms of distance and speed and seeing your confidence around that space.
Speaker 1:And I think I've seen you move really from that more image driven kind of mentality.
Speaker 1:And we used to talk about a lot at uni, right, because I was probably going through similar kind of crises of having been early 20s, always tended towards being quite thin and then, after having children, and then not having the same body type anymore, right, just carrying more weight and um, and I and I think you've always, you know, been very generous in your knowledge and your learning with me, um, but but just been really nice to see that shift in terms of how you're relating to your body, how how you're learning with me, but just been really nice to see that shift in terms of how you're relating to your body, how you're exercising and nourishing yourself and how you've connected with a beautiful community of what it looks like really like-minded peers as well who are all working in that space and helping other people kind of understand that space. Like in terms of, like your work in psychology because you've talked to me a little bit about wanting to work more in the high performance space Like, what kinds of work are you specifically kind of hoping to do yeah?
Speaker 2:so working with, like high-end athletes is something that I've dabbled slightly in, but would like to just carry on more of.
Speaker 1:Um.
Speaker 2:I think that's the.
Speaker 2:We talked about the 1%, as earlier on, and, uh, I think that there is so much more growing traction around sports psychology for, like, high end athletes and competitive sport, um, because they've got all the coaching, they've got all the physical abilities.
Speaker 2:But, honestly, the things that are separating the top end performers is what's going on between their ears and how they're able to handle. You know competition anxiety, how they're handling media and press, or you know what's been said about them or about their competitor. You know comparison in terms of other athletes in the same. You know up for the same competition or up for the same prize as them, um, athletes managing setbacks in, like injury or having to retire, is a huge one, um, because for a lot of them, especially retiring out of their sport, um, maybe due to injury or whatever it might be, or not being able to qualify for a certain thing that they've been working their ass off for the last four years, that sense of identity beyond sport too, um, this is the kind of area that I think should have more traction. That it does, and I think it will. It's growing, um, but that's the space that I really want to like tackle more of and I'm really interested and really intrigued by.
Speaker 2:I think high-end athletes all collectively have a particular mindset. There's something about the way that they operate and the way that they run. They're almost, like, so hyper fixated on their sport and have this undoubting knowledge of self-belief that they deserve to be at that high level. Right, like they had this just enormous sense of like no, I deserve this, like I and I will work as hard as I can to get there. Yeah, and in the same sentence, they're the same people that are coachable and flexible and adaptable to training modalities or training changes based on professionals that might know better than them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and they're diligent about the recovery and they're just. They'll take on feedback because it will help them in their chosen sport. Right? So they're so coachable, um, and yet so sure of themselves, yeah right, yeah, I think it's a beautiful mixture and I want to explore that more right, because I think that so much of that can be so applied to our recreational athletes or the everyday person that is not into athletics.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wonder how much like of the mindset of the athlete and even, you know, maybe not even professional athletes, but people who take their physical health seriously. So, whether that's through exercise, nutrition, you know, I guess, understanding their physiology, being aware of you, know where their nervous system is at moment to moment and being that deeply self-observing type. Because I guess for me, one of the biggest take-homes I've learned in terms of my objective athletic data is how that also translates to my nervous system data.
Speaker 2:Huge, I love this. I could go on about this too. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:It's next level, right, and I think I'm a bit like you, like the deeper I dive into something, I'm like, oh my gosh, it's like never-ending, like the amount you can learn, which is one of the reasons why I started the pod right Was to have people way smarter than me to come on and talk about things that I just don't know anything about. So I guess, like in terms of your understanding of that, like what have you learned through your own journey as a rec athlete, in terms of, I guess, whether it's anxiety regulation or, you know, addressing symptoms like depression that you think translate from athleticism to the psychological space that you think are important for people to learn about and know?
Speaker 2:I love this on your comment around like physiological markers, health markers and how that's translating into performance, but just your general like overall mood and like motivation. So something that I track or measure personally is like how my sleep performance is going and my resting heart rate every day.
Speaker 2:Um, and having these indicators maybe they're not entirely because I'm using in my garment my watch- yeah, and look, I'm sure that there's a discrepancy in terms of accuracy, but if I'm using that as the same baseline measure, I can tell when things are going to be higher or lower or like consistent, um, and checking, like heart rate variability, right so overnight, how my heart rate has been trending over the course of the evening, and it's usually a really nice confirmation for me. So when I wake up, I'm often like okay, how am I feeling like? Do I feel well rested, or do I feel like I've been hit by a truck, or do I feel like I want some more sleep, or like whatever it might be?
Speaker 2:and then it would be like oh, let's check what's what's happening in terms of data and usually it's pretty spot on and I use it as just a self observation tool and often I need that because I have a. You know, I have a background and a history of just grinding, no matter what and just like putting that aside and going whatever. You're just being a baby, just go and do. And now I'm doing this self check in and then using the watch, I suppose, as objective data to confirm.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And it's usually like hey, you know what? You've got two sets of evidence. Now, probably today is a good day for you to reduce the intensity or reduce the volume, or maybe this is the day you have that rest yes, yes this morning was a prime example.
Speaker 2:I was meant to go run like an easy 60 minutes and I woke up. I've had a pretty big week and I woke up, felt like I could keep sleeping. I like felt like I got hit by a truck and I went okay, like I actually need to rest, and I know that years prior I would have just gone suck it up princess, you gotta go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, athletes are so good at using objective data and self-awareness yeah and then monitoring that with their coach, because their coach won't say this is the black and white thing that you need to do. They adapt it based on performance because they know if I train like shit today, I'll get nothing out of it. My favourite quote ever was from a coach Olivia Park coach, so I'm not going to steal it, but she it's stayed with me for many years and it's fatigue masks intensity.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right. So you might think that you're training really hard, but it's because you feel like shit yes, oh, my god so what are you getting out of it right? And this is where it's so nice to then go into a performance-based sport, because it's not about burning calories, right, or burning, you know, to change my body. It's about like, well, actually, I have a marathon that I want to run at this time, at at this pace, and today's workout that's not actually going to help me lead to that goal. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so interesting and I love your focus on things like sleep and heart rate variability and also just simple things like going out and getting natural sunlight as soon as you wake up, and I think people don't realize the impact of these very basic tools in terms of overall psychological functioning and well-being and just how that sets you up neurohormonally, um, and our neurohormones regulate all of our um. You know autonomic functions, so brain, spinal cord. You know our organs, how we feel, what's happening in terms of oxygenation, how our digestive system operates, how we can absorb nutrients, you know. So it's so complicated and it's like when people aren't getting these basics kind of on the money and then they're coming in wanting this kind of more high level coaching. It's kind of like often I'll send people for sleep apnea tests and the amount of people who come back with sleep apnea who don't look like people who would typically have sleep apnea.
Speaker 1:And then suddenly they get a device for their mouth or a machine and they're like, oh, I don't feel depressed, I don't feel anxious, and it's huge. I think it's really important that as human beings can we look at kind of our biomarkers, so the things that just happen physically in our body. I think you started with this beautiful quote, and I know that from Anthea Todd, who's a chiro as well. She's got a book called what's my Body Telling Me. So it's like how much can we use our body as a marker for how we're feeling?
Speaker 1:And then I love the biometrics because often that can reinforce, like you said, okay, yeah, this is the right tact. Or perhaps, hey, my heart rate variability is quite poor right now. So what can I do to get it back down to baseline? And for me that's always breath work. It can shift me back into a parasympathetic state quite rapidly. Or I use intense exercise, because this is what people don't really know is the impact of stress and that can be from over-exercising, from not consuming enough calories on the nervous system and on hormonal production.
Speaker 2:I think you described that. I'm glad that you mentioned the, the like extremeness of training and not fueling correctly or recovering with like adequate calories um and nutrients.
Speaker 2:I don't want to say just, you could eat burgers and fries, yes, getting it like a good range of like micronutrients into you, um, and I suppose that's where I really loved stepping into like that eating disorder space where I'm also seeing clients come in with, you know, quite significant anxiety, for example, or depression, and the connection between the fact that they barely have energy to function in terms of because they're not consuming enough their brain is is not firing optimally because, again, it doesn't have the calories to support cognitive function, and so they're finding it hard to concentrate and they're really easy to distractible.
Speaker 2:They've got brain fog their life, their work becomes more difficult and it feels like I've got too much work stress. They're feeling like they can't support or can't give, because they're just fatigued to their partners or their family and they're feeling like. You know there's so many like facets that you don't, they don't, they don't, we don't realize has such an impact on the other areas of their life and just the, the things that are going on emotionally that connection 100%?
Speaker 1:do you know? Recently I I was doing like three and four day fasts it was probably about 12 months ago and I was having really good outcomes and feeling quite good, right. But then I just started doing it too often and I can't even remember how often was often Maybe like once a month here and there and I started to look like I was clinically depressed and I remember saying to my own psychologist I don't know what's going on, but I just feel very flat, I don't have any motivation, I feel quite weepy, which is super out of character for me like anytime that comes in, I'm like what is going on here, right?
Speaker 1:and he was like Mel, how knee-deep are you in fasting? Because he's a bit like me. He's like all or nothing and he's like I know this is your special interest of the current Special area. And he's like and what is the impact on your health? And he's like because I know when I did it it really affected my mood.
Speaker 1:So I think it's just like anything you do. I guess like there can be, yes, of course, positive outcomes, but it's also thinking from your physiology, because we're all different, yep, from your physiology. What does your physiology need to feel nurtured, nourished, connected and okay. And I think, for those of us who perhaps are high performers and we perform over and above what our biology is telling us it needs is to have things like tools, like, I guess, a whoop or Apple watch or a Garmin or whatever it is that you use as your biomarking tool to just go back and reflect on. And I think this can help build in, like that more intuitive awareness between oh yeah, actually my intuition's on on the ball, versus like, oh no, I'm actually really disconnected from my physiology and I do need a rest day, if that's a rest from work or a rest from play or a rest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I resonate and understand entirely around like just high performers or that kind of A-type personality or the higher, just the overachievers, so to speak, are the ones that are more inclined to be quite rigid in their approach to whatever pursuit they go on to, so they can go on the extreme end of anything right, like you just saying about like I'm just gonna hide over here, I'm, but I'm guilty as charged.
Speaker 2:I mean, this is why I call myself a doer yeah but I and I know it's a blessing and it also can be a curse, because I can take it. I can peter between the line of like this is great and then overstepping the line, and I've done that in many of my pursuits in my lifetime, learned that lesson every time the hard way. But it's also, you know, as I grow older and as I start to appreciate, just being more intuitive and, yeah, I use objective measures so I can confirm to myself and sometimes I need that confirmation because I guess I'm really stepping into the masculine of like. I need to overcome that. I have to overcome the challenge because I'm a grinder yeah, and I'm. I am this person. What does this say about me? If I don't, that's a big one and rather step into more of that feminine and flow and being okay with like, letting go and being like let let things just be as they are, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's really interesting my one of my coaches last year, Blake Worrell-Thompson. He often talks about this dialectic of the wanting the performance versus like, so maybe mask femme type stuff and where's the middle ground? And I think that's where kind of this data can come in handy in terms of like. If you are struggling with thinking, is this me just kind of giving up and going being a bit flighty and being like oh, this is because of blah, blah, blah. You know it's also having that data to go. Oh no, actually my body is struggling today, but but on that night I don't know if you saw my post on Instagram like I was at like zero percent in terms of my heart rate variability and I went out dancing that night till like 2am woke up a hundred percent. So I think sometimes it's like when, when you are depleted, nourishing yourself with something fun and joyful that maybe isn't too much physiologically but brings you back into like and another mate of mine online said he thinks anytime people are in community their heart rate variability data can increase too.
Speaker 1:I believe that it's kind of like when you are seeing these biomarkers that are showing that you're a bit poorly like, how much can you connect back to self, to others, to community yeah, I mean, I could just rabbit on about this to community? Um, yeah, I mean I could just rabbit on about this. I'm curious. I just want to give you some time to also talk about your work, what you're doing, how people can kind of reach out to you if they want to work with you, yeah, cool.
Speaker 2:So, um, currently I've just celebratorily started my business this year, so I've been working in the psych space for the last two and a half um, but branching out um, you can come see me in clinic. I work at the good joint, or under that umbrella in burley heads, monday to wednesday and then thursdays I'm out in community um servicing some of my pediatric clients and obviously, telehealth available. You can reach me at instagram is probably my height like easiest way to get me.
Speaker 2:So Joe Turek dot psychology is the handle. Otherwise, you can book in with me at the good joint work across the board, obviously, and predominantly with adults, monday to Wednesday, and, yeah, all things like in health and sport. But beyond that too, like I said, I look at health or mental wellbeing as a color. It's a holistic lens, right. So being able to see what's happening in your internal life and how that's you know the function of your behavior or how you're like reacting to your environment around you, is important too. That's your health, right. What goes on between your ears is your health too. So come see me, love a chat, we have a little tea and we have these not nice chairs like this, but they're pretty nice.
Speaker 1:They look nice, yeah, but these are exceptionally good chairs. These are beautiful.
Speaker 2:I want to take one. That's how you reach me, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome, beautiful. I want to take one. Um, that's how you reach me, okay. Yeah, awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the pod. I think, um, we'll definitely have you back again. Um, just because I think there's so much more deep diving we can do in terms of um, I guess even biometric data.
Speaker 2:It seems like we're both nerding out on that, so this must be our special area interest right now um, but yeah, always so grateful to chat to you.
Speaker 1:In terms of Jo's knowledge, you know she's definitely across all the high performance spaces. So if you're wanting someone who has the psychological training and also understands blocks around eating disorders even if it's not quite at eating disorder threshold, but you're just noticing some problematic eating patterns and perhaps you're also wanting some coaching mindset work, then I highly recommend Joe Turek to you. If you want to reach out to me, I'm at Zenso House Z-E-N-S-O-H-O-U-S-E. Thank you for watching or listening to the Place for Connection podcast and we'll see you in a fortnight.