Ep 79: RISE Athletes with Caroline Burckle
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Ep 79: RISE Athletes with Caroline Burckle
Episode 79: Show Notes
Today’s guest is Caroline Burckle, a professional athlete who swam in the Beijing Olympics in 2008. After being mentally and physically wrecked by the end of her experience with competitive sport, she co-founded RISE Athletes, a virtual mentoring program where professional and olympic athletes empower youth athletes with transferable skills to impact sport and life performance, helping to better prepare them for the mental and physical challenges of navigating athletic competition at the highest level.
Caroline spent a decade in pursuit of her Olympic goal and spent a decade thereafter understanding her pain, and it is this work that helped her blend art, mindset, and sport to discover herself, her shadows, her light, her movement, and her purpose.
In this episode, Caroline reflects on her role as a ‘feeler’ and the belief systems she created at a young age that equated self-worth with achievement. She also speaks candidly about her mental health journey and shares how the work she does today was informed by her own mental health struggles as an athlete, as well as her current mission to help others understand how we can utilize our emotions as information rather than suppressing them.
We also touched on the mind-body connection, healing trauma through Somatic Experiencing, and Caroline’s past and present perceptions of success, plus so much more!
This conversation provides a fascinating peek behind the curtain of what it's actually like to be an Olympic athlete. It also offers further evidence that your purpose is likely hiding in whatever you perceive to be your biggest obstacle in life.
Make sure to join us as we dive into the backstory of Caroline Burckle and see exactly how a swimming pool in Kentucky became the gateway to finding her purpose!
Key Points From This Episode:
Caroline’s favorite activities as a child, which all involved being outside with her brother.
Her role as the ‘feeler’ in the group and how she learned to manage her deeply felt emotions.
Learn about ‘The Lake’; an old limestone quarry converted into a swimming pool in Kentucky.
The lead-by-example approach that Caroline’s parents took when it came to sport.
Caroline on how she viewed swimming as more of an art form than a sport.
How Venus Williams and Pete Sampras played into young Caroline’s perceptions of success.
The belief system she had at a young age that equated achievement with worth and love.
Her awareness of the mind-body connection; how she bridged the gap between placing ninth at Olympic trials and going to the 2008 Olympics.
Caroline speaks candidly about her mental health journey, which was very rocky in college.
How the work she does today was informed by her own mental health struggles as an athlete.
How discovering visualization transformed Caroline’s approach to swimming.
Hear about the period post-Olympics, when she decided to retire from competitive sport.
Discovering that sport was simply a platform for her experience as a human being.
What Caroline understood about her life’s purpose and why she believes it’s something that many professional athletes struggle with after retiring.
Caroline’s drive to understand how we can achieve similar goals by doing things differently.
Significant milestones along her path of reconstruction, including reconnecting with art and healing her trauma through Somatic Experiencing.
Caroline shares her experience of calling the crisis hotline in her darkest moments.
Insight into her mission to help others understand how we can utilize feelings as information.
Her advice for coaches: become attuned to the different ways that each athlete operates.
How Caroline views success now based on how she feels in her body.
Tweetables:
“The reason why I always felt so out of place is because I saw everything as art or creativity. Swimming, to me, was an art form. It was a way for me to express myself using my body and doing so in a way that was fluid.” — @caroburckle [0:18:07]
“I had this belief system and I had created these stories at a young age that I wasn't going to make people happy if I didn't perform well. Enter the achievement mindset. Enter doing [more and more] to try and get love and prove [myself].” — @caroburckle [0:25:59]
“There has to be a better way to understand what athletes go through, from pressures of performance to personal relationships to coaching relationships to nutrition and [body image] – especially swimmers and gymnasts and people in no clothes. These types of conversations are real.” — @caroburckle [0:37:28]
“[I have] this passion for understanding why and how we can all achieve a similar goal [by] doing it differently. I honestly think that has been a big driver for a lot of my life, is how can we figure out how to do things our own way?” — @caroburckle [0:51:51]
“Those moments, those pivotal, chaotic moments can actually be hugely informational when you look at them in hindsight. It's hard to see that in the moment.” — @caroburckle [1:03:44]
“My mission is to allow ourselves to understand how we can utilize feelings as information. It's not something to [be ashamed of], or get trapped in, but it's something to utilize and bring to the surface, so we can identify what we need to take responsibility for.” — @caroburckle [1:04:22]
“I succeed and I view success on the way I feel. I can tell in my body when I'm anxious. I can tell my body when I'm not feeling complete and whole, when I guard and restrict. When I feel fluid with what's happening in my life, that to me is success.” — @caroburckle [1:08:09]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: