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Empowering the Female Athlete w/ Karissa Johnson
14 Plays2 months ago
In this episode I sit down with Karissa Johnson, PhD candidate at the University of Saskatchewan where she focuses on research supporting female athletes through self-compassion. We talk about what self-compassion research and how that translates to helping athletes. How to build confidence, overcome challenges, and so much more.
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Transcript
Introduction & Carissa's Background
00:00:00
Tony Montgomery
All right, welcome to the show everyone. Today we have on Carissa Johnson. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
00:00:08
Karissa Johnson
Thank you for having me. I'm excited.
00:00:10
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, no, me too. Me too. Anytime we can kind of broach the idea of looking at a population that doesn't get a lot of um pub and research, I'm very excited to to go into that and dig into that. so um But can you quickly kind of give a ah background to um your education, anything else that could be pertinent to why you got into looking at females in academia and sports and all that other stuff?
00:00:35
Karissa Johnson
For sure. So I will start with a bit of my sport background, because that is ultimately what led me to the career path that I've chosen. I grew up in a small town and I have the opportunity to play a lot of different sports. They were kind of like you have to play. Otherwise, we don't have a team, that kind of small town.
00:00:52
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, okay. Okay.
00:00:53
Karissa Johnson
And I ended up playing and volleyball and softball a little bit more competitively. And I found in that shift of becoming a more competitive athlete, there was A lack of resources to support the and more pressure, higher expectations and the sense of isolation that you end up feeling when I was like plucked out and I was one of a handful of girls that would end up playing more competitive sport.
00:01:20
Karissa Johnson
And there were challenges like not feeling like I didn't belong on the team, being frustrated with my performance because the coaches are, it wasn't it wasn't coming from the coaches. It was definitely a perceived pressure and perceived performance expectations on my part.
00:01:36
Karissa Johnson
And there was also a lot of bullying where girls would make comments about like, oh, like you think you're so much better than us because you're going to play higher level sports. And it's like, I'm just... I was invited. I'm just trying to have a good time and you're being mean to me.
00:01:50
Karissa Johnson
So there was a, there was a variety of challenges
Academic Journey & Mentorship
00:01:53
Karissa Johnson
that came up. And i found when I was a young athlete, I often had men, well, my one woman coach got like, bless her. She, she created a so ah safe space for me.
00:02:06
Karissa Johnson
But when I got more competitive, I had a couple of male coaches in the And the philosophy was basically like, go cry behind the bench. And when you're ready, you can come back. And so that was a little bit about my like the challenges I faced as an athlete.
00:02:21
Karissa Johnson
And come high school graduation, i got accepted into that is that cat.
00:02:29
Tony Montgomery
Yes.
00:02:31
Karissa Johnson
So come high school graduation, i got accepted into the College of Kinesiology at the University of Saskatchewan. And this small intimate grad ceremony, we had the opportunity to share what we wanted to do in the future, what we planned on pursuing.
00:02:48
Karissa Johnson
And i was like, i don't know, what can I do with a kinesiology degree? So i got, got on, and got on Google, you know, and this idea of sports psychology and mental performance training came up.
00:02:53
Tony Montgomery
Very special.
00:03:00
Karissa Johnson
And i was just like, that's what I'm, one, I'm going to put that on my grad slideshow because that sounds cool. But also like, That also sounds really cool and why not?
00:03:11
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:03:13
Karissa Johnson
So throughout my, i just kind of gritted out my undergrad and I wasn't really sure what next steps would be. I kind of had this vague idea that I wanted to support young women athletes, but didn't have a concrete plan of what that was going to look like.
00:03:29
Karissa Johnson
So in the fourth year of my undergrad, I got connected with a, my wonderful supervisor, Dr. Kent Kowalski. He does a ton of, he does a ton of research in the area of self-compassion now.
00:03:40
Karissa Johnson
And i got connected with him as a fourth year student and I completed in my honors program with his supervision. And I was like, Hey, I guess I can, I need a master's degree if I want to get the required certification to be a mental performance consultant.
00:03:58
Karissa Johnson
So I guess a master's degree is the next step. Hey Kent, do you want to supervise a master's degree? And he was like, sure, let's just keep doing this thing. And so I did my master's degree with Kent and,
00:04:09
Karissa Johnson
After I finished my master's degree in 2020, I took a couple of years off. Just, I, I received out a few different PhD opportunities, but I was like, it's an opportunity, but i don't know if it's what I want to do right now.
00:04:26
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:04:27
Karissa Johnson
And nothing ever came of any of those initial conversations. Then in 2021, I got an email from my current supervisor, Dr.
Understanding Compassion and Mindfulness
00:04:39
Karissa Johnson
Leah Ferguson. She's also fabulous and does a ton of research in the area of self-compassion.
00:04:44
Karissa Johnson
And she said, hey, I have this grant. Take a read through it. If you're up for doing this project, I want you to be the one to do it.
00:04:55
Karissa Johnson
And so I took a read through it and i was like, could not think of a better project for me to hop onto. It's very applied. So I said yes. And now I'm in my third year of my PhD.
00:05:08
Karissa Johnson
So ah that's, yeah, that's my story. I'm not sure if you have any questions about it or want to follow up on any parts of it.
00:05:15
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, tons tons of questions. But the the interesting thing, a couple of things that you you touched on, one that's more salient now is the idea that you had really good mentorship um from the very beginning and you kind of had an idea of like what you wanted to go into and What I've seen in grad school programs a lot of times is there's a lot of students that don't know what they want to do.
00:05:38
Tony Montgomery
And then they kind of get like roped in into like, hey, you should do this type of research because it's fun. And then they get into it and they're like, well, this is not fun at all. you know And then they're like, but I'm stuck because I've already committed to this.
00:05:51
Tony Montgomery
um So that that could be a whole tangent on like bad mentorship. But it sounds like you had really good mentorship and you they've been able to really hone in your skills on what you wanted to do. And you talked about compassion um as part of the structure of your research. Can you kind of quickly define what compassion research is and what are some of the like sex differences that you found within compassion research, if you have found any?
00:06:17
Tony Montgomery
Thank
00:06:18
Karissa Johnson
Okay, so compassion. don't know a ton about compassion specifically. What I do know and how it's been taught to me is that compassion comes from a very Eastern Buddhist philosophy.
00:06:35
Karissa Johnson
Compassion is the motivation we have to ease suffering. When we think about Eastern Buddhist philosophy, we are just part of the bubble of suffering that we are trying to ease.
00:06:49
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:06:50
Karissa Johnson
When we Kristen Neff is somebody who pioneered the concept of self-compassion, and she's one of the primary researchers whose work I follow.
00:07:01
Karissa Johnson
And self-compassion is more so just the intentional, well, What's the difference between self-compassion and mindful self-compassion as well? But mindful self-compassion is the intentional practice of turning the motivation we feel to get rid of suffering towards ourselves.
00:07:21
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:07:21
Karissa Johnson
So... one something that's come up in some of the data analysis that I'm doing right now, and I don't know if this is going to be a final result, but it's just really sticking in my brain, is that being self-compassionate is about fighting for ourselves instead of with ourselves.
00:07:37
Karissa Johnson
So often, so often we make our lives harder than they need to be by being hard on ourselves. And self-compassion is basically saying like, instead of directing the fight inwards, we're we direct the fight outwards and what's the next action we're going to take and how are we going to improve instead of dwelling and ruminating on our suffering?
00:07:56
Karissa Johnson
So self-compassion has three components, mindfulness, self-compassion and common humanity. Mindfulness, common term that's frequently used and sometimes misconstrued, i think, and by the general population or by pop psych and what's easily accessible in books, where mindfulness is being in the present moment.
00:08:16
Karissa Johnson
It's not trying to change or adjust anything And sometimes that gets misconstrued with feeling good. Mindfulness is sometimes taught as a stress reliever. So if we're relieved of stress, we must be feeling great.
00:08:29
Karissa Johnson
But mindfulness is actually just not making our stress and anxiety and worries more intense than they need to be. So mindfulness is saying, I'm feeling anxious and that's okay.
00:08:43
Karissa Johnson
Rather than saying, I'm feeling anxious and I need to get rid of this anxiety. So, and then that often amplifies your anxiety by, because you're resisting it so much.
00:08:52
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:08:53
Karissa Johnson
so that is, that's mindfulness in a nutshell, definitely doesn't do it justice to what the concept and what the experience is to be mindful in a whole, as a whole. If I'm like there, I remember having one experience where I was going for a walk and engaging in your five senses. I like to say we have seven senses because,
00:09:13
Karissa Johnson
We also feel emotions and we feel our physical body moving. So I like to add those two senses on top of our traditional five senses. But if you can engage with all of your senses, is a really powerful way to practice mindfulness. And I remember having this one experience where I was walking to school and just like watching how the trees moved against the sky and how the sky was moving slower than the trees. And it was just like, this like really magical, really magical experience. And that's mindfulness of a moment. When we talk about mindfulness of emotions, it's really tapping into those body sensations.
00:09:47
Karissa Johnson
And it's really fascinating to be able to say, um, What does trying to think of something that's come up for me recently? Like, what's an intense emotion?
00:09:57
Karissa Johnson
ah Something that is like, if I'm talking about a difficult experience with my family, my back starts to bother me.
00:10:03
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:03
Karissa Johnson
And like we have all these physical sensations come up and mindfulness is saying like, i'm I'm feeling anxious about this thing. And as I'm feeling anxious and talking about this thing, I'm also feeling my body react. And part of my anxiousness is actually this tension in my back.
00:10:15
Karissa Johnson
And it's mindfulness is real is really fascinating and often misconstrued. So it's not trying to get rid of an emotion.
00:10:21
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:10:22
Karissa Johnson
It's just fully experiencing it for all that it is and not trying to fight it or get rid of it.
00:10:27
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, that's really interesting because like in when looking at like some of the research in mindfulness, in people with depression and anxiety, a lot of it is centered around pulling yourself out of your mind and into your body to help get rid of some of the intrusive thoughts, some of the rumination.
00:10:27
Karissa Johnson
And then, go ahead.
00:10:45
Tony Montgomery
and they found that when you compare that to meditation, that seems to be more helpful because of meditation, you stay in your mind, you stay in your You stay present within your mind and you're thinking about your thoughts. Whereas mindfulness, they want you to be more thinking about your body and that takes you out of your mind.
00:11:01
Tony Montgomery
But you're kind of saying that the way that you guys are defining mindfulness is more of a um acceptance of what's in your mind and an acknowledgement of what's in your mind and not necessarily distracting yourself with what's in your body unless you create awareness to it or like if if you feel it, right? you're not You're not actively trying to pull yourself out of your mind is what it sounds like you guys are defining it and as. And obviously we like with every research group, they create different definitions for everything. And that's where things can get a little muddy of like, what are we actually talking about? So the way that you defined it is is perfect,
00:11:38
Tony Montgomery
um But there might be some people that read research on mindfulness and they see that, oh, this is clearly just taking your mind out of your, like taking your thoughts out of your mind and putting it into your body, um which it could be that, but it sounds like yours is a little bit more um immersive.
00:11:53
Tony Montgomery
Okay.
00:11:54
Karissa Johnson
Yeah, I want to say it's both. I don't think it's one or the other. And I think it's really about finding a mindfulness practice and strategy that works for you. And we can sometimes if we're spending a lot of time up in our head, we miss what's going on in our body.
00:12:09
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:12:10
Karissa Johnson
That's why I say it's both like both go
00:12:11
Tony Montgomery
yeah
Self-Compassion & Identity
00:12:12
Karissa Johnson
on at the same time.
00:12:12
Karissa Johnson
We just tend to be very disconnected and live, live from the shoulders up, especially as academics, stress headaches are I'm very good at giving myself those because all of my energy is just up here all the time.
00:12:16
Tony Montgomery
Oh, yeah.
00:12:17
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:12:23
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:12:23
Karissa Johnson
um But yeah, mindfulness is both. And it's an awareness of an entire experience. And I think so in addition, so there's mindfulness, self-kindness, common humanity. Neff also describes self-compassion as having the um opposite of kind of like what self-compassion isn't.
00:12:44
Karissa Johnson
And so the opposite of mindfulness, Neff describes self-compassion. over-identification. Over-identification is that tendency to dwell and ruminate on difficulties.
00:12:55
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:12:57
Karissa Johnson
And that's where we often make our lives harder than they need to be. Where something that I'm going to say this because it's podcast and this isn't getting peer reviewed, but something that I think Kristin Neff's language sometimes misses is that avoidance can also happen.
00:13:14
Karissa Johnson
Like we can go to the extreme end of really dwelling and sitting in the hard stuff, or we could go to the far end and keep ourselves busy and pretend that everything is fine and dandy when actually our body is freaking out.
00:13:25
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:13:26
Karissa Johnson
We're just choosing not to pay attention to it. So avoidance is also a thing. And mindfulness is sitting in the middle where we're saying, oh, actually this stuff is hard, but I'm not dwelling on it so much that it's becoming a distraction from me being able to function.
00:13:38
Tony Montgomery
yeah no that's the the use of avoidance is interesting because like you have distraction which could be seen as avoidance but they're not the same thing because we like, when you look at the research on distraction, that can be something that's productive when the intensity of a stimulus is very high. Like, Oh, I'm having these anxious thoughts or I'm very depressed and I can um distract myself by going to do exercise.
00:14:04
Tony Montgomery
And then you kind of get out of those thoughts and then you get all those feel good things of exercise. So then you get like, Oh, well this distraction was good. Whereas like avoidance is like, I'm just going to completely ignore it and distract and not actually do anything.
00:14:19
Tony Montgomery
um It's not like a proactive thing. It's more of a reactive thing.
00:14:24
Karissa Johnson
Yeah, or like productive. And I think what I heard you describe is like you temper your engagement in the thoughts with physically getting into your body. I know you used exercise as an example, but that's kind of how we can use our breath to get into our body. When our mind feels really intense, you use your breath as an anchor.
00:14:44
Karissa Johnson
Maybe it's using exercise as an opportunity to be like, okay, wait, how is my body actually feeling? And I don't actually have to be stuck on this hamster wheel that's in my head. So I think it's neat that you use exercise as the example of the distraction, but your distraction could be, I mean, let's, let's be real.
00:14:59
Karissa Johnson
We love, I love watching a good TV show or it could be a hobby. And like, there's so many different ways that you can distract yourself from the intensity of it. And then when you have a little bit more space and are feeling a little bit less activated, it's a lot easier to sit with in a way that is more balanced.
00:15:14
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. no that
00:15:15
Karissa Johnson
Balanced is sometimes language of mindfulness.
00:15:17
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, yeah, that makes that makes a lot of sense.
00:15:18
Karissa Johnson
Yeah.
00:15:19
Tony Montgomery
Because it's also like, it's a choice that you're actively making to, I feel this. And now I can make the choice to overcome this. Because if I don't, I'm going to sit with it.
00:15:31
Tony Montgomery
And then it's just going to manifest, manifest, manifest. And I think that's like a lot of these things that you're talking about are like actions.
00:15:34
Karissa Johnson
Mm-hmm.
00:15:38
Tony Montgomery
They're more verb oriented than the noun oriented as far as like descriptors go. And I think having that choice of what you're doing, what you're putting yourself in is something that people that suffer with like mental health disorders or low self-esteem.
00:15:52
Tony Montgomery
they oftentimes feel like they don't have a choice in the matter. They don't feel like they have the opportunity to choose the things that happen in their life more that life happens to them. So the fact that they're choosing to watch TV or choosing exercise or choosing to focus on their breath, I think that initial thought of I'm choosing this helps to create this infrastructure of like, yeah, I'm in control.
00:16:11
Tony Montgomery
And once I have control, then my body starts to calm down. And maybe today's control is TV. Maybe tomorrow's control is exercise. But like I have all these tools to take control of it.
00:16:22
Karissa Johnson
I think that idea of like intentional choice is huge.
00:16:27
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:16:28
Karissa Johnson
So I really appreciate that language. So yeah, that was just, yeah, that was, so that's the little, the sneak peek of mindfulness and something else that's kind of coming up that comes up with mindfulness is the idea of non-judgment.
00:16:30
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:16:39
Karissa Johnson
So the second part of, of self-compassion or Neff's framework of self-compassion is self-kindness. The opposite of that being not um self-judgment.
00:16:50
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:16:51
Karissa Johnson
So part of mindfulness is a nonjudgmental neutral awareness. And that really ties in closely with this concept of self-kindness where we're, it's, this is the most self-explanatory part of self-compassion where it's just like, can we stop being so mean to ourselves?
00:17:06
Karissa Johnson
Like how about just for a second, we stop bullying ourselves and actually see some of the like beauty that we all have inside of us. And ah something that, so something that came out of my,
00:17:19
Karissa Johnson
Honors research, a whole three participants worth of data. But I do want to dig a little bit more into this in my PhD work was that it might not.
00:17:30
Karissa Johnson
ah This came up. No, that's a lie. This came up in my master's research. So then that would just publish. So this is actually legit knowledge where it wasn't so much that athletes like needed to be kind and nurturing to themselves all the time.
00:17:46
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:17:47
Karissa Johnson
But can we at least get to a space where we're neutral?
00:17:49
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:17:50
Karissa Johnson
Like we don't always need like, you're so wonderful and you're fantastic. And like, let's be fabulous and always be encouraging ourselves. But can we at least stop beating ourselves up long enough to take the next step?
00:18:02
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, no, that and makes a lot of sense.
00:18:04
Karissa Johnson
Yeah. a
00:18:05
Tony Montgomery
And when you when you say that, something that resonates with me, and maybe you um I'd like to get your thoughts on this is, i su I think Suzanne Davis or Suzanne David, she wrote a book on emotions.
00:18:16
Tony Montgomery
And um part of it is like, we don't want to define ourselves by our emotions, right? we We don't want to, part of self-kindness is like, or self-compassion and all those things is like, we don't want to say i'm a sad person, we want to say like today I feel sad, right? As opposed to just given that adjective to define who you are, you're kind of using it to define how you feel at that present moment.
00:18:41
Tony Montgomery
Is that something that kind of somewhat what correlates to this idea of like being more compassionate with yourself, being more kind with yourself? Like the words we use to define who we are can play a huge role. So like I define myself as I'm a loser because I struck out, you know,
00:18:57
Tony Montgomery
and two at bats. And therefore now I'm always going to be a loser. And if I do hit the ball the next time that was luck, that was an ability, right? Those, those words that we use to define us is something that I think is, is very powerful. And I didn't know if that was a correlates to what you're kind of talking about.
00:19:15
Karissa Johnson
Yeah, so i've I've heard this idea that if we if we can separate our identity from the emotion, it makes the emotion less powerful. anecdotally, i and hesitate i hesitate to fully accept that idea, but each their own, if it works for you, it works for you.
00:19:26
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:19:29
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Right.
00:19:32
Karissa Johnson
Something that i what I was taught is that emotions aren't facts. So the idea of just because you feel like a loser in this moment, really, it's a story because you don't, loser isn't a feeling, if you feel disappointed.
00:19:38
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:19:46
Tony Montgomery
right
00:19:48
Karissa Johnson
If you have the story that you are a loser, you are going to like the story just ends up repeating. But one, one example that I use is I'm disappointed. I'm so disappointed in myself. Therefore I must be a disappointment.
00:20:01
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah.
00:20:02
Karissa Johnson
And I do think that they're like taking that emotion of, I feel disappointed. Therefore I must be a disappointment. Taking that emotion and make, trying to make a fact out of it or trying to make that part of your identity is ah often where challenges come in. So if athletes can have the awareness to say like, oh, I'm maybe it's maybe it's I'm disappointed because I really cared about this.
00:20:26
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:20:27
Karissa Johnson
ah's That's a different thing. And I think just the story, the story behind the emotion is the important part. And it's not the emotion itself or identifying as a sad person isn't a isn't a bad thing. People are allowed to be sad people.
00:20:44
Karissa Johnson
That's fine. But if it's also sort of, I often use the metaphor of like stoking the fire. So if if we're stoking the fire with stories about how we are a loser and how we are a disappointment and how how shameful it is to have failed at all of these things, then your sadness is going to be a lot more intense.
00:21:03
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:21:04
Karissa Johnson
Sadness is just a feeling. The story is what makes the feeling consistent.
Research Focus on Women Athletes
00:21:09
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, no, I mean, that, that makes a lot of sense. Are you, have you looked at sex differences in terms of this goes, because I know the research shows that um female athletes, female participants in research are more, um they pay more attention, they have a more attentional biases towards negative stimuli.
00:21:25
Tony Montgomery
So therefore their stories that they create are going to be focused more on negativity. um But what they found in the research is that if you can put them through an exercise intervention, that helps improve their valence towards less negative things and their attention towards less negative things. And it can shift towards seeing positive things a little bit better. So I didn't know if that maybe if you saw male counterparts being less negative,
00:21:51
Tony Montgomery
harmful to the way they describe themselves and maybe the females are going be a little bit more hard on themselves.
00:21:58
Karissa Johnson
Yeah, so i haven't done a look, I haven't done a ton of work specifically on gender differences. We use the language of gender just because we are a very social, um like because we are a social science, we follow, use gender as language.
00:22:14
Karissa Johnson
And I primarily do research with women athletes. So I'm very familiar with the literature on women athletes, and I'm not super familiar on literature that um separates the two of them.
00:22:26
Karissa Johnson
So there's a lot of
00:22:26
Tony Montgomery
OK.
00:22:27
Karissa Johnson
so umm Like, I think it's so fascinating that like, I've never heard that women have a tendency for a stronger negativity bias.
00:22:34
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:22:34
Karissa Johnson
I find it fascinating. And in just like anecdotally, when I read a paper about women athletes talking about challenges versus a paper where men athletes are talking about challenges, I haven't done any formal analysis on this, but it just feels like they talk about their challenges in a different way.
00:22:54
Karissa Johnson
Where when women athletes talk about challenges, they feel very grand, but when men athletes talk about challenges, it's a lot more neutral. Like we talked about mindfulness and they're a lot more mindful of just like, yeah, it's hard sometimes.
00:23:04
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:23:07
Karissa Johnson
And you figure it out. Whereas women athletes are like, no, this is hard.
00:23:12
Tony Montgomery
Of
00:23:12
Karissa Johnson
And so, like I said, that's just me reading these articles and it could just be a difference between author, the author's voice and how they've chosen to write these articles.
00:23:21
Tony Montgomery
course.
00:23:23
Karissa Johnson
um But yeah, so I don't know a ton about gender differences or sex differences, depending on which
00:23:25
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:23:28
Tony Montgomery
and you You sound like my friend, Olivia Anderson, she's doing her PhD, she's graduating this semester and she was, I think she was doing her dissertation proposal or she was doing something along those lines. And one of the questions was asked was like, Oh, are you comparing this to males? And she's like,
00:23:47
Tony Montgomery
She's like, no, like males have enough research. I'm just focused on women. I only care about women. i want to start pushing that research. So I get it a hundred percent, uh, that that's a much needed area of interest. And if you're solely focused on that and the complexity does of that, like who cares about the other stuff? Like that's for another PhD person to figure out, right? You can only.
00:24:10
Tony Montgomery
focus on one thing at a time. So I get that.
00:24:12
Karissa Johnson
Yeah.
00:24:12
Tony Montgomery
I like that. I think the idea of comparisons um between genders is something that is interesting, but like, what does it really tell us other than maybe if like you're, especially in sports, because you're not, you don't coach them. Like you're not coaching them at the same, like there's no co-ed.
00:24:33
Tony Montgomery
So you don't really have to like, Maybe as a strength trainer, it'd be important to know gender differences because obviously women have a tendency to recover faster um um in exercise because they're more slow twitch dominant.
00:24:46
Tony Montgomery
So you'd have to change their rest periods to get the same training adaptations and things like that.
00:24:51
Karissa Johnson
I'm learning so much.
00:24:53
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, you know me too. me too yeah So you have to like train them differently in a sense of like what adaptation you want out of them because they're going to be more slow-twitch dominant. So they they have higher endurance capacity, which means they also can deliver oxygen and blood to the muscles faster, so they recover a lot faster.
00:25:09
Tony Montgomery
And there's a bunch of dynamics like that, but I think... I think it's good, needless to say, long tangent short, i think it's good to just focus on females and give them all the attention they need to come up with the research to catch up to all the male research that dominated the field for the last 50 years. So um I think that's awesome.
00:25:28
Karissa Johnson
Yeah, and I think there is still value in gender comparisons. I do think we we need research where we can more clearly understand how men and women show up differently in sport and the nuanced challenges that one group faces where the other where the other don't where the other doesn't.
00:25:40
Tony Montgomery
Okay.
00:25:46
Karissa Johnson
area. sorry um yeah just not my particular area
00:25:52
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, exactly. You can't know everything about everything, right?
00:25:54
Karissa Johnson
you said, that's for another PhD student to worry about.
00:25:56
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:25:57
Karissa Johnson
I have the same. I'm very much like I was reading a lot of feminist research and um a lot of stats about the the level of research for on women in sport.
00:26:10
Karissa Johnson
And i got so fired up. I could not write my dissertation.
00:26:12
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:26:13
Karissa Johnson
was like, i I cannot write it because all of this angers me so much. So that is that's where I'm at.
00:26:19
Tony Montgomery
And it's a fair feeling of anger because especially when you look at like the reasons why research was not done on females is so like ego male centric to where it was like, they're just too difficult to study. So we're not going to study them.
00:26:37
Tony Montgomery
And it's like, great. That's yeah, that's really practical. Like that's the way to do research is like, it's too difficult. I'm just going to go with the easy stuff. It's like, what a cop out, right?
00:26:46
Karissa Johnson
Right. And it's like, oh, that's difficult. How would you ask some more questions about it? And I read something else about because there was like some misinformation, like this is like back in the 50s, 60s, 70s about how high intensity sport wasn't good for women and how it would cause hysteria.
00:27:03
Karissa Johnson
And what triggered that was something to do with a woman's tennis tennis match got a higher audience, made more money than the men.
00:27:16
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:27:16
Karissa Johnson
So the men were like, well, I guess women aren't allowed to play anymore. and This is, I can't remember what this was about and I could be totally wrong. So like nobody take this as fact, but this idea of like, okay, so women were crushing it.
00:27:28
Karissa Johnson
And then the men were like, absolutely not. We're going to decide. We make the rules.
00:27:32
Tony Montgomery
Yep.
00:27:33
Karissa Johnson
None for you.
00:27:33
Tony Montgomery
That sounds about right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, we've come a long way since then.
Common Humanity & Eastern Philosophy
00:27:39
Tony Montgomery
Still got a long way to go. And that's that's where your job is ever so important.
00:27:45
Tony Montgomery
But yeah, I distracted you on a dump bunch of different tangents. We're on visit to the third part of the compassion piece. So we talked about self-compassion.
00:27:53
Karissa Johnson
Yeah,
00:27:54
Tony Montgomery
We talked about the kindness. And then if you want to go on to the kindness more, we can go into that more. You can go on to the third piece.
00:28:02
Karissa Johnson
I don't know if the self-kindness feels so much more self-explanatory than the other one. So i will just I will jump into common humanity and then I can chat more globally about self-compassion if that's where we end up going.
00:28:17
Karissa Johnson
I'm also, I love a good tangent, so that's okay too. But yeah, the final the final component is common humanity with the opposite of common humanity being isolation. Common humanity is this idea that we're part of being human is to feel pain.
00:28:31
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:28:33
Karissa Johnson
Things are not going to be glorious and fabulous all of the time. We are going to go through hard stuff. And some just having that awareness is a way to maintain perspective when you are going through a challenge.
00:28:46
Karissa Johnson
And the... There was what else about common humanity? Oh, something else that came to mind recently. So I went, went on a self-compassion retreat back in 2018 and,
00:28:59
Karissa Johnson
And learning about learning about common humanity fascinated me because I grew up in a household that was very um self-centered and a lot of self-pity.
00:29:09
Karissa Johnson
So this it was very much like, oh, I have a hard life and my life is the hardest. And like life's not a suffer off, I think, is one thing.
00:29:15
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:29:17
Karissa Johnson
We are all suffering and suffering is relative to our past experiences. So everybody's hard is different. And so, yeah, those are just a few ideas that I wanted to share this. So this idea being that I grew up in this household of like pity where like poor me and I'm the only one who has a hard time realizing that everybody goes through hard things. I'm like, what?
00:29:39
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:29:40
Karissa Johnson
Like even the most privileged person goes through hard things. Crazy. I never would have thought
00:29:49
Tony Montgomery
right
00:29:49
Karissa Johnson
And so then, yeah, so I'm really just like flabbergasted by this concept of common humanity. And I had this, so the way Neff talks about it is that we are all flawed. We all have weaknesses. We all fail at different things.
00:30:03
Karissa Johnson
And something that has come up for me recently is like, are, are we flawed or these all just things?
00:30:11
Tony Montgomery
o because flaw is being compared to normal and then who gets to determine what normal is
00:30:13
Karissa Johnson
No, if,
00:30:19
Tony Montgomery
as like human beings are just messy.
00:30:19
Karissa Johnson
Yeah.
00:30:21
Tony Montgomery
Like that, like we're all just messy.
00:30:24
Karissa Johnson
But that's normal. And so when we use this language of flawed, weak, inadequate, messy, is that not then putting a judgment on what this human existence is?
00:30:25
Tony Montgomery
Right.
00:30:34
Karissa Johnson
Anyway, so I had this thought and I know that people like it makes sense for people because people connect with this idea of um a negative story, this negative story we have about ourselves.
00:30:45
Karissa Johnson
So I get why they use that language. But at the same time, it's like, are we or not also just perpetuating these stories we have?
00:30:47
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:30:53
Karissa Johnson
And I think that this is where the translation from Eastern, Eastern philosophy is very much like everything just is.
00:30:59
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Okay.
00:31:00
Karissa Johnson
And then Neff is like, everything is weakness and flaws and inadequacy because that's what we identify with. So like, I get it. um The opposite of common humanity is isolation.
00:31:11
Karissa Johnson
And that's kind of what I talked about with the self-pity thing. So a lot of people misconstrue self-compassion with self-pity. where the difference is this connection to a larger humanity. And it really makes it, it makes a lot easier not to dwell quite so much on your hardships.
00:31:27
Karissa Johnson
But isolation is this idea that it's only me and I'm the only person going through a hard time. And then sometimes when we get in that headspace, we actually disconnect ourselves more from the people who are around.
00:31:39
Karissa Johnson
So it becomes this like self-fulfilling prophecy.
00:31:42
Tony Montgomery
oh yeah
00:31:42
Karissa Johnson
And not not a self-fulfilling prophecy, but this downward spiral of like, I am suffering and I'm the only one who suffers. Therefore, it doesn't feel safe to connect with other people right now because they are not going to be able to understand my suffering. So I'm just going to continue to distance myself.
00:31:55
Karissa Johnson
And then it creates a greater sense of isolation because you're not able to connect able to connect with people. So that's a little bit about common humanity.
00:32:03
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because all these principles are definitely foundationally built through Buddhism and They had right thousands of years ago.
00:32:14
Tony Montgomery
And now we're finally coming to the idea of like, yeah, let's quantify it. Let's study it. And you're like wow, they did have it right. it's like, how, like, how did they get it right? We have all the technology and science in the world and we're still muddling through it. And like, they figured it out so many thousands years ago.
00:32:31
Karissa Johnson
Right.
00:32:32
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Amazing.
00:32:34
Karissa Johnson
I know. i love it.
00:32:35
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, I love it too. I love it too. um One of the things I wanted to talk to you about was this idea of um mental female performance in sports.
Building Confidence in Athletes
00:32:46
Tony Montgomery
And um one of the things that came to mind was, you know, building confidence, um how can we facilitate that? How can we start to shift these mindsets, create better self-talk strategies?
00:33:01
Tony Montgomery
um How can we, like, what are some practical strategies of how to do that? So the idea is like building confidence in in female athletes through through the mental side of it.
00:33:13
Tony Montgomery
what What are some of the things that you're really focused on in this area that we're seeing that um we can start to utilize to help build this up?
00:33:22
Karissa Johnson
Okay, confidence is something that I've been very focused on in the last week. This is fresh, so fabulous topic. So when I have chatted with confidence chatted with athletes about confidence more recently, I've been leaning on a lot of Albert Bandura's self-efficacy work, where self-efficacy is like a domain-specific confidence.
00:33:37
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:33:42
Karissa Johnson
And i don't sometimes I introduce the word self-efficacy and how it's different, but you know i also I also, being that I work with young women, will introduce some of these like big concepts as like are you ready to learn a fancy word we're gonna learn a fancy word but then really try to bring it down to their level and like what is language that's going to make sense for them so i'll explain that but then we use the more global word of confidence and so number one we become more efficacious when we have positive past experiences with a task at hand so i so i basically frame this as have you done it well before
00:34:18
Karissa Johnson
That's your biggest source of confidence. However, and I'm going to stack these as like, I'll go through these four things and I'll offer a practice for each of them. The challenge is we do things well and we don't give ourselves credit for it.
00:34:30
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:34:31
Karissa Johnson
So something that I have the athletes I work with is is make a success list of, or like I'll get them to do this bit of a guided imagery and say like create a highlight reel of all of the moments you've enjoyed over this past season, or maybe it's over the last four years, or and just kind of depends on who I'm working with.
00:34:48
Karissa Johnson
So do this bit of an imagery, create a highlight reel. What are all those moments that stand out? They could be glimmers. just things that you enjoyed moments where you're like whoa I grew or moments where you're like I'm just if this is hard right now but I'm going to keep showing up because I'm working towards goals and then like make this list and it doesn't have to be the grand personal best getting a certain rank going to a certain competition but what are those small day-to-day things that you did to show up where you are today and have you ever given yourself credit for that
00:35:21
Karissa Johnson
Most people in the room are like, no, because this is just what's expected of me.
00:35:25
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:35:25
Karissa Johnson
I'm like, yeah, and you still do it. So like ah one of my favorite things is like if I have a room full of athletes that are separated into tables, they end up like sharing with their table and then um share with the room about what happened at their table.
00:35:28
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:35:40
Karissa Johnson
And or the conversation at their table. And as we go around the room, it's like, okay, thank you. Amazing. Love this like snaps for you. And we go around the room and everybody gets snaps and it feels so cheesy and cringy.
00:35:52
Karissa Johnson
And it's fun. and like, it's the smallest thing that you can do. And it doesn't have to be a grand celebration. But as long as you're bringing that energy of like, nice, nice. to whatever it is that you're doing. It could be a bubble bath. I love to bake as a celebration, like I bake all the time, but sometimes I make a batch of celebration cookies.
00:36:11
Karissa Johnson
And, um or maybe it's like sitting and watching a TV show being like, I'm watching this and good for me because I crushed it today. You know, like it can be the most mundane task that you're bringing this energy of like, look at what I'm doing well, really acknowledging it.
00:36:26
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:36:27
Karissa Johnson
So big thing, confidence comes from po from past experiences. Past success is a big is a big contributor to confidence, but you need to actually acknowledge that success has happened.
00:36:39
Karissa Johnson
Celebrating it is just like a nice addition.
00:36:42
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:36:42
Karissa Johnson
So the second part to Bandura's self-efficacy theory is vicarious experience. So watching other people do well can often be motivating for us.
00:36:55
Karissa Johnson
The challenge is in sport, it's a very competitive space. So seeing somebody else do well is often like, don't like that. That's a threat.
00:37:07
Karissa Johnson
Now I have to be better than them. And so I really try to encourage athletes to see other people's success as inspiration. We all have a unique own our unique set of qualities and strengths.
00:37:22
Karissa Johnson
And you will never be a carbon copy of another athlete. But can you use their success as inspiration? This is especially valuable for young women who like maybe you're working with a young volleyball player who sees somebody who's four years ahead of them and is like, wow, I want to be as good as them.
00:37:38
Karissa Johnson
Or, you know, I have maybe you're working with an athlete who is the older girl on the team, but has the least amount of years in the sport. So there's this pressure of like,
00:37:49
Karissa Johnson
oh, well, I need to be better than them because I'm older than them. When it's like, how about we just be inspired by like, in three years, you could be where they're at. And how fantastic is that?
00:38:00
Karissa Johnson
So I really try to reframe seeing others as a threat to seeing others as inspiration.
00:38:08
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, yeah,
00:38:08
Karissa Johnson
i'm I very much go against traditional sport culture in a lot of what I teach athletes. But I think if we're prioritizing well-being, we have to create a new culture in sport. So that's two.
00:38:21
Karissa Johnson
And number three is encouraging words. Our verbal ah verbal persuasion, I think, is maybe the language Banderer uses. But the fact that I'm like, it just means people say nice things about you.
00:38:33
Tony Montgomery
yeah.
00:38:33
Karissa Johnson
That's all. You know, like, let's make this simple for the kids and me.
00:38:34
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:38:38
Karissa Johnson
So when I talk about the encouraging words, I... really, really try to get athletes to realize how much they lean on their coach for encouragement. Like we love to hear if people say good things about us.
00:38:54
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:38:54
Karissa Johnson
But at the same time, does somebody ever give you a compliment? And you're like, thanks, but no, thanks. Thanks, but that compliment may be uncomfortable. So we're not actually fully, fully receiving it. Like we're so thirsty for it. And then when we get it, we're like, I'll just take a sip.
00:39:09
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:39:10
Karissa Johnson
And it's like, Let that soak in. We have these like intense stories about who we are that when we do get a positive story, we can't even accept it because we're so full of these stories that aren't helpful.
00:39:23
Karissa Johnson
And so I really, really try to call that to athletes' attention of like next time a teammate or a coach says something nice about you, believe it.
00:39:34
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:39:35
Karissa Johnson
And stop waiting for them to say it. Start saying it to yourself. So Kristen Neff has this one practice call. She has a few different versions of it, but it's something about a compassionate friend where she has you, has you visualize sitting in a safe space and getting really comfy and cozy. And then you invite a friend in and this friend is wise and all knowing, and they know exactly what to say all of the time.
00:40:01
Karissa Johnson
And it's just sitting with them. And sometimes I provide additional context to say like, they they say exactly what you need heading into this competition. Like what is that pep talk they're giving you? um so sometimes I'll add some contextual details like that.
00:40:15
Karissa Johnson
But what I, as the meditation closes, like part of the closing statements is this voice is always there. You can always connect to that voice. You just got to slow down and do it.
00:40:29
Karissa Johnson
And ah like until it becomes more natural and more normal. So the wise, compassionate friend is one that I've done to help athletes connect with their own kind inner voice.
00:40:41
Karissa Johnson
And i think if we can work on accepting compliments and kind words from others, as well as nurture that kindness in ourselves, That's really connecting to the encouraging words part of Bandura's theory. And again, all of these are connected or not again, but all of these are connected.
00:40:58
Karissa Johnson
This is just how my brain silos them as a consultant who works with athletes. And then the fourth one is body sensations. The fourth part of confidence is the physiological response.
00:41:11
Karissa Johnson
And i know I'm sure he uses different words. I could never remember this fourth piece. I just knew it was like, how does it feel in your body?
00:41:17
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:41:18
Karissa Johnson
So, When I talked, when we talked about body sensations earlier, so this is beautiful, beautiful for full circle moment here, but like, can you remember a time that you felt confident?
00:41:29
Karissa Johnson
And like, you can create the, do a little bit of imagery to create this picture in your mind of that moment where you're like feeling like a powerhouse, you're unstoppable, you're on top of the world.
00:41:40
Karissa Johnson
And how does it feel in your body? Like there's a bit of activation, there's also a sense of calm and trusting. And like, maybe it's like, if it's a like anger activation might be this fiery red color, but maybe your confident activation is like this really soft pink color. I'm thinking like cotton candy floating clouds, you know, like sunset clouds and really getting to connect with what does that energy of confidence even feel like?
00:42:08
Karissa Johnson
And I often like to bring in the concept of power posing, Into this part too, where we can hold our body in a certain position. Again, I don't know a ton about the literature on power posing, but I know our bodies and minds are connected. So again, if it works for, if it works for somebody, it works for somebody and that's all that matters.
Self-Criticism & Motivation
00:42:24
Karissa Johnson
And if you can get them to stand in like the Wonder Woman pose and like hands out, I love like the hands out to the side, just like I'm holding the world in my hands as a way to connect to like, what does that fiery, fierce, confident, unstoppable energy even feel like?
00:42:39
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:42:39
Karissa Johnson
And I think if we can work on, so that is, if we can work on seeing our own past success and celebrating it, if we can work on, what was the second one?
00:42:52
Karissa Johnson
Vicarious experience, seeing other people as inspiration rather than as a threat, seeing, creating our own inner voice of encouragement, and then really actually understanding what it means to feel confident.
00:43:05
Karissa Johnson
Like we're just tackling confidence from a few different angles. Right.
00:43:08
Karissa Johnson
So that's the conversation I've been having with athletes a lot and four of the practices that I walk athletes through. So follow questions. What you got for me?
00:43:08
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:43:16
Tony Montgomery
Fascinating. Yeah, yeah, of course, of course.
00:43:17
Karissa Johnson
ah
00:43:19
Tony Montgomery
So it's it's interesting because the dynamics of sports is totally different than the dynamics of human day-to-day interaction. um So one of the things you were talking about is like, we don't give ourselves enough credit.
00:43:35
Tony Montgomery
And I think that that's true in sports. But then when you think about like human nature and human behavior, it's very much the opposite. And the thing that I'm thinking of is you'll hear all these people say, you know, why don't you just exercise? Why don't you just eat better? Like what you, you lack discipline. You're lazy.
00:43:56
Tony Montgomery
i can do it. Why can't you do it? Right. So, so we say to ourselves, like, I can do it. I have all the confidence I can do it. So why can't you do it? And if you can't do it, but I can, therefore you're lazy as opposed to maybe that person has ah messed up hunger hormones. Maybe that person has more fat adiposity from childhood. Maybe these things are out of their control. and Maybe they're not lazy. Maybe they actually are disciplined.
00:44:20
Tony Montgomery
Right. But we give ourselves this credit. And when I think about that, I think about like determinism as well. Robert Sapolsky talks about this idea that we manifest this um sense of accomplishment in terms of like, oh, I I made it through the Ph.D. Right.
00:44:39
Tony Montgomery
So i'm I'm a hard worker. I'm really smart. I'm all these things. And in his mind, it's like, well, no, you're not. You're lucky because you're born into these things and these things shaped your life.
00:44:52
Tony Montgomery
So we do tend to give ourselves a lot of credit for a lot of our accomplishments And then we tend to minimize other people when they can't do what we do instead of being like, I'm just lucky that I got here.
00:45:07
Tony Montgomery
So when you say that in athletes, it does resonate with me that we are athletes are much harder on themselves than anyone else. But I think humans in general, we have this tendency to think like, I'm here because I worked so hard to get here. And if you don't work hard, you're not going ever make it to where I am, that type of deal, right?
00:45:25
Karissa Johnson
And I think that that is just perpetuating the egotistical culture that we live in of like, I'm harder working for you. Therefore, that is why I'm more successful. So they they really really attribute it to their own personal qualities.
00:45:37
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:45:37
Karissa Johnson
When like you said, the fact is life lined you up to get to where you are. And just because you're here right now doesn't mean in 10 years, things aren't going to flip and hard work.
00:45:48
Karissa Johnson
Yes, it's a good and valuable thing, but that is not the only reason why people are successful. And I've recently thought about this idea of being lazy and undisciplined. And it's like, are you lazy and undisciplined? Or does somebody just not have access to resources? Or do they lack clarity of what they're working towards? Do they not see value in movement just because that's that's the example that we're talking about?
00:46:10
Karissa Johnson
Or do they not even know where to start? Like, is just going for a walk good enough?
00:46:12
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:46:15
Karissa Johnson
I don't know, because Instagram tells me it's not.
00:46:17
Tony Montgomery
Right.
00:46:18
Karissa Johnson
So like we end up getting stuck in these stories about why we're not good enough.
00:46:18
Tony Montgomery
I missed
00:46:21
Karissa Johnson
And regardless, it's all based in judgment of me thinking I'm better than you because I did X, Y, z or me thinking I don't have the skills to do this because I'm not going to do it perfectly or the way I feel like it should be done.
00:46:34
Karissa Johnson
And it's all just full of judgment and expectations.
00:46:36
Tony Montgomery
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I think sports is one of those unique things where it's like fully meritocracy based. For the most part, there is obviously going to be some nepotism, some other stuff that goes on in sports. But for the most part, it is meritocracy based.
00:46:50
Tony Montgomery
And when you grow up in a culture that is valued for the athlete that you are, you're always going to be very self-critical.
00:46:53
Karissa Johnson
Mm-hmm.
00:46:59
Tony Montgomery
But when you grow up in a culture where it's like, you're not really that self-critical, it's very easy to be like, I'm going to point down at you because I know that I manifested this work ethic that I built for my, like, it's just so weird. And I think that's why sports is so great because it does, like, it makes you, it puts that pressure on you to like, think about these things, you know, and and work towards something as opposed to just think like, you know, I'm im the best. it's It's nice to be humbled sometimes, you know?
00:47:29
Karissa Johnson
Yeah. And I think like that is one thing that when you're challenged, you definitely get humbled at the same time. Being able to recognize that you persevere is valuable.
00:47:40
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:41
Karissa Johnson
Like there's definitely a balance.
00:47:42
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:47:43
Karissa Johnson
And, you know, I... I very much live in the world of like, we're all just on our own little journeys. And your journey is no better than mine.
00:47:50
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:47:51
Karissa Johnson
Like me, some that kind of like, I really resonate with that story you told because people will be like, Oh, you're doing a PhD. You're so smart. I'm like, no, I just really learned how to study and research is cool.
00:48:02
Karissa Johnson
And like, you know, I just learned the skills to get here.
00:48:05
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:48:05
Karissa Johnson
And like, if you wanted to, you could figure it out too.
00:48:05
Tony Montgomery
not
00:48:07
Karissa Johnson
But if you don't want to, that's cool.
00:48:07
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:48:08
Karissa Johnson
Do your own thing. i don't care.
00:48:09
Tony Montgomery
Right. i got I got lucky enough to find something that I love that makes work not feel hard. So then I love to work. And like, I understand how lucky I am. You might be in a PhD where you don't like it and therefore you don't want to work hard. And therefore some people are going to perceive that you're lazy. It's like, well, no, you just didn't get as lucky as I did by...
00:48:27
Tony Montgomery
getting into the right spot that you just fell in love with. Right. It's like, I think luck plays a big part of it.
00:48:30
Karissa Johnson
Yeah.
00:48:32
Tony Montgomery
And I just don't, I think people give themselves more credit than they give credit to luck a lot of times. And I understand why, and you know, it makes you feel like you're, you're in control of your life and you're doing the things that you want.
00:48:43
Tony Montgomery
And I find, I see the value in that. I just don't see the value in like tearing other people down to make you feel better as well. And I think that happens a lot.
00:48:52
Karissa Johnson
Ooh, that reminds me. So a word that you used earlier was self-esteem and self-esteem is what a lot of the early research in self-compassion was like, well, we need self-esteem was the gold standard.
00:49:06
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:49:06
Karissa Johnson
And in order to see self-compassion as valid, we need to prove that it is doing more than self-esteem. So much of self-esteem is about the comparison game. Who's doing better, who's doing better or worse.
00:49:16
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:49:19
Karissa Johnson
And the idea that we put judgments on certain things, is what makes something better or less than, but then we can only ever feel as good as our comparison group.
00:49:30
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm. Ha
00:49:30
Karissa Johnson
So if I'm the high performer in my, friend in quotes, in my friend group, where I'm going to post-secondary school and my other friends are working their corporate jobs, whatever, then I'm like, okay, look at me. I'll hoity to, it I don't actually think this
00:49:44
Tony Montgomery
ha ha.
00:49:45
Karissa Johnson
just like putting it out there um maybe we do use a sport example where it's quite a little bit less personal but like you have a you have one student you have one university student who is um varsity like a varsity athlete compared to like an engineer student everybody's like oh varsity athlete because look at you playing sports and doing all this wonderful stuff and like there's so much value well my friend sometimes frames it as the um
00:49:45
Tony Montgomery
Ha
00:49:52
Tony Montgomery
ha.
00:50:11
Karissa Johnson
the social capital you get from playing sports is just bonkers.
00:50:13
Tony Montgomery
you
00:50:15
Karissa Johnson
and so then everybody in society and this athlete included is like, Oh, I'm so much better than you. And look at how because I am playing sports and doing all the successful stuff and you're just in engineering or whatever that other college might be.
00:50:27
Karissa Johnson
And you're not nearly as good as me because you're not even a student athlete. And it's like, okay, well you picked that good for you. And they picked this and good for them. And like, What about, um then there might be another situation where it's like, okay, well, what about when this engineer wins this certain award and you're just over here, not just over here playing sports, but like, you know, and it's like, as well if as long as we're playing a comparison game, we're going to be miserable.
00:50:50
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah.
00:50:50
Karissa Johnson
Miserable deep down because it really makes it hard to connect with people. And like, you might feel good because you're constantly telling yourself that everybody's less than you. But it's going to be really hard to find connections in life.
00:51:04
Karissa Johnson
And we are very social creatures. So like, good luck when you have the story that everybody is doing worse than you for some reason or another.
00:51:12
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:51:13
Karissa Johnson
It's so easy to create a story of they're doing worse than me. But it's so often because we're insecure about the thing we're doing.
00:51:23
Tony Montgomery
yeah yeah
00:51:23
Karissa Johnson
We're like, I create a story that they're doing worse than I'm doing okay.
00:51:27
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:51:27
Karissa Johnson
But so much of that is fueled by insecurity. So even though it comes across as this like macho, macho, ooh, look at me, I'm so fabulous. It's so often fueled by an insecurity of not not being enough.
00:51:39
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, now they say the loudest person in the room is always the most insecure. And that that reigns true in in human nature. But again, this is coming back to like one of the things you said within sports, there's a bit of a contradiction, right? Because one of the things you were talking about is like, watch others to quote unquote, compare to strive towards them, right?
00:52:01
Tony Montgomery
So you are looking at them and saying like, oh, this is what I could be, right? You can compare yourself to other people and say like, oh yeah, they're successful, but they're no different than me.
00:52:12
Tony Montgomery
So if they can be successful, I can be successful. I see it i think it's like the tone of how you compare, right? And who you can compare yourself to. Like one of the things we know with goal setting is that if the goal is so extreme that it doesn't seem like you're ever going to reach it, maybe that'll beat you down. So if you are in basketball and you're in college basketball, maybe you'll compare yourself to the best player on your team.
00:52:36
Tony Montgomery
But if you can compare yourself to the best player to ever do it, which is Michael Jordan, no debate about it. Michael Jordan is the absolute best. I got all the stats to prove it. That might be something that like makes you be like, well, I'm never going to be that good. So like, why should I try?
00:52:51
Tony Montgomery
So have you found like there's a ah sweet spot of like, maybe how far you want to reach when you're trying to compare yourself to someone in order for you to actually get there so it doesn't destroy like your confidence and your motivation to continue on?
00:53:06
Karissa Johnson
Yeah, I think that's a really fascinating question. And I don't know if there's a way to measure it. Again, I'm not in like, I'm not in the self-esteem or social comparison world, but I think, I think a lot of it is what is like one, how far down the road are you looking?
00:53:26
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:53:26
Karissa Johnson
You know, like if you're thinking, if you're first year university student and you're like in four years, I want to be the best and NBA player there ever was. No, like you have an entire and NBA career to play before you get there.
00:53:37
Karissa Johnson
And so i think the timeline of when you think that goal is actually going to come to fruition plays a role. And so much of it is just tempering of like, sometimes day to day, you need to look at somebody different for that inspiration because something might feel like too much or not enough as motivation. And a lot of it comes down to the self-awareness. And this is, again, listening to body sensations of like, when I look at the fourth year, if I'm in my first year and I look at that fourth year player on my team, and I'm like, wow,
00:54:11
Karissa Johnson
they're so good. I want to be as consistent as them one day, or i want to be able to make these shots like them one day. um Some days that might feel motivating and some days that might feel overwhelming. And so on days where you need the motivation, maybe you look to that person and think, yes, that's what I'm going for.
00:54:27
Karissa Johnson
And on days where you're feeling overwhelmed by the process, maybe it's a matter of reminding yourself that like, Hey, actually you're good where you're at.
00:54:32
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:54:33
Karissa Johnson
And that comes down to self-awareness and being able to temper
00:54:36
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:54:38
Karissa Johnson
the um temper the not even quite comparison but the social aspect and how we lean on other people to measure where we're at I think that's I think that's a big part of it a lot of people just think it's all or nothing of like I either really need to push to be toward be like them or I'm worthless and it's like well some days you need to push and some days you need some grace welcome to being human
00:54:51
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:55:02
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. yeah Yeah, yeah, for
00:55:09
Karissa Johnson
It's so great.
00:55:10
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, yeah. And tell me what you think about this. Like the athletes that I work with, um I'll tell them something similar to this. I'll tell them, you know, look at, I deal with a lot of strength athletes. So power lifters, strongmen, things like that. And I say, okay, instead of comparing yourself to the best power lifter that you want to get to, how about pick like 10 of the best power lifters and think about like,
00:55:35
Tony Montgomery
what are they doing to be the best? Not like, what are their genetics allowing them to but but like, what are their day to day tasks that they're doing to be the best? Right? So if if you're on the bench, I would tell that person, like, look at the starters, look at what they do day to day.
00:55:50
Tony Montgomery
what What can you do that? Like, what are you not doing that they're doing that can make you better as opposed to like looking at this one person and he's like, Yeah, that person was born with a 40 inch vertical, maybe you're not going to get there. So like, what are the things you can control to to work on? So that way you're not putting one person on a pedestal.
00:56:07
Tony Montgomery
And you're not thinking about the outcome, you're thinking about the process to get there.
00:56:12
Karissa Johnson
And I think that's a really good reminder too, is focusing on the process is so important. Like if your goals ever feel so far out of reach that they're creating anxiety, you got to bring
Journaling & Mental Health
00:56:22
Karissa Johnson
it back to the process.
00:56:22
Karissa Johnson
And I think that idea of not putting people on a pedestal because there's nobody who's so perfect and fantastical that they deserve to be up on a pedestal. If they're up on a pedestal, you get your own pedestal get up on because we're all on the same level.
00:56:35
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:56:36
Karissa Johnson
Bring it back to the the Buddhist ideas. So I think it's fantastic that you're able to say like, What are the actions that they're taking? One, one exercise that is done in mental performance consulting is called performance profiling, where it says like, what is the goal that you're working towards?
00:56:52
Karissa Johnson
And if somebody already had that thing that you're working towards, what would they be doing on a day to day basis? Or what would be their character traits? How would they be showing up that has led to that success?
00:57:07
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:57:07
Karissa Johnson
So it might be like the person who can lift the person who can lift the most and the person that you're inspiring and aspiring to be like, um like eats their meals really consistently.
00:57:18
Karissa Johnson
It could be that they're getting enough sleep. It could be that they're hydrating properly. it could be that they are using their downtime in a way that's nurturing instead of draining and like really monitoring their energy levels.
00:57:30
Karissa Johnson
It could be that they have a strength of focus, a strength of leadership, a strength of tenacity, And how can you hone these personal strengths because personality personality is flexible.
00:57:42
Karissa Johnson
So like, how can you hone these strengths? And like, if you want, maybe they have a strength and self-awareness. So then you start journaling because you want to become more self-aware and all of these things, whether it's developing character character or developing a physical habit or action and how you're showing up, all are part of the process.
00:58:00
Karissa Johnson
And we do not spend enough time talking about the process at all.
00:58:03
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, no, i agree.
00:58:05
Karissa Johnson
Yeah.
00:58:05
Tony Montgomery
I agree. and And you brought up journaling and that's something that when you were talking about like encouraging words from from others and encouraging words from yourself, I immediately went to like, yeah, journaling that is a very powerful thing. Like writing it down is is very powerful.
00:58:22
Tony Montgomery
And it brought me back to this idea that like, So with with people that suffer from depression, um which kind of goes in hand with everything that you talked about and laid it out. So I don't know if Bandura was looking at kind of that model to kind of think about this thing, but people that suffer from depression, they have memory deficits and their memories tend to be more focused and anchored towards negative stimuli.
00:58:47
Tony Montgomery
So when you tell them like, hey, like just put on a smile, like, hey, just like, why can't you just be happy today? And it's like, well, because, or why can't you use positive words to describe yourself? It's because all their memories are negative.
00:59:02
Tony Montgomery
So the first thing that you talked about was like, but look at your past to change your memories, right? So then when you can change your memories, then you can start changing the positive outlooks. And they've shown that within the research, like if you're able to improve somebody's memory and depression, their episodic memory, their short term memory, you're able to improve their depressive state because they no longer see negative stimuli as their only memory, they're able to start um seeing positive ones they're able to start seeing life differently then they can start using those words of positive affirmation and and that stuff like that so it does physiologically like from the brain down bandura's thing does align with that beautifully so when you said that i was like oh that's like that's awesome it's cool to see all the connections come together um but the idea of like journaling positive words is something that i think is is very powerful and i think that um
00:59:55
Tony Montgomery
That's something that kind of got, I'm blanking on the word, but it got like captured as like a woo-woo negative thing. Like, oh, journaling is like, who journals? Like, why are you journaling, right? But when you look at the research on journaling and you look at the research of how powerful words are, like it makes total sense. One of the one of the things that people do with um traumatic experience, PTSD and stuff like that is they have them journal.
01:00:23
Tony Montgomery
And they ah they tell them like, okay, well, today you're going to journal for 45 minutes and I want you to journal the experience as you see it. And they do that. It's an intensive process. And then they come back the next day and they say, want you to do the same thing, but instead of using like negative words, use slightly more positive words. And they found that in three days of doing this journal process, they were able to alleviate a lot of the traumatic experiences because they were able to take the story that they had and have power over it because they were able to now give it the words that they could give it as opposed to the words that the person gave to them to create that trauma.
01:01:04
Tony Montgomery
And I think you can do that with sports and things like that. Like, yeah, maybe you don't think you're this or that, but like write it down, like convince yourself of it or something that we're doing in my lab right now is we're using the power of journaling to peers, right? So we know in the research that you're more likely to follow through with the things that you say, and you're more likely to be more compassionate with yourself if you're compassionate to others first.
01:01:30
Tony Montgomery
So one of the prompts we say is like, hey, you know, if your friend um wanted to get into exercise and they lack motivation to do it, like, what are some words you could um write to them to help them persevere and stick through the challenges and stuff like that? And what we're seeing in in our research is like,
01:01:48
Tony Montgomery
That's helping them have better positive valence towards exercise. That's helping them be more motivated towards exercise. And it's also improving their performance on the exercises that we're doing compared to the control group.
01:01:59
Tony Montgomery
Who's just journaling about their exercise experience. So it's like, things are very powerful. Um, so is that something you also work with them too on, on journaling, or is it just kind of like vocal, uh, manifestation type of stuff?
01:02:14
Karissa Johnson
I love a good journal prompt. The exercise you described reminds me of Kristen Neff's self-compassion break and Dr. Amber Mosowich, I'm not sure if you've read her 2013 article, but she did a similar intervention with women athletes.
01:02:30
Karissa Johnson
I believe she worked with self-critical women athletes and it's a prompt of describe the, describe the challenge in a very neutral way to practice mindfulness. um Or maybe it's treating yourself the way that you would treat a friend. I can never, sometimes I get those two mixed up, but point being is that you, you talk to yourself the way that you would talk to a friend and it's so powerful. And this is in the self-compassion work. And I love a good journal prompt. Sometimes when i sometimes I recommend that people get two different colors.
01:03:02
Karissa Johnson
And they can also like name their inner critic if their inner critic is the person that they're talking to. And so you have your inner critic in your journal in one color, and then you respond to it with your wise, compassionate friend voice in the other color, or sometimes we'll do like printing versus handwriting.
01:03:13
Tony Montgomery
name
01:03:21
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:03:22
Karissa Johnson
um But finding to finding a way to differentiate these two voices and then just going back and forth because like we have conversations with ourselves in our heads, put them down on paper,
01:03:31
Tony Montgomery
Oh, it's
01:03:32
Karissa Johnson
And it's like, it's just like such a fascinating way to work through it when you have the visual cue of these two different voices that are in your head. But all to say, like, love journaling. I think writing is incredibly powerful.
01:03:46
Karissa Johnson
And they're like, when I talk to athletes so often, it's like, well, well like free journaling, free writing is hard.
01:03:55
Tony Montgomery
yeah yeah
01:03:55
Karissa Johnson
Like, what do I write about? And so one prompt that I'll give them is to write about glimmers and moments of excellence. So glimmers are sometimes often like those things that are outside of us that feel good. And then those moments of excellence are creating a list of like, oh, I actually am doing well. Again, if you're depressed and can't get out of bed, your moment of excellence could be you brushed your teeth today.
01:04:15
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:04:15
Karissa Johnson
Because sometimes that's hard.
01:04:17
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:04:18
Karissa Johnson
And like there's no bar of what your moment of excellence can be. And so that's, that's one of my sort of like easy writing prompts and kind of like the same idea of like, don't tell me to be happy. When people tell me to write a gratitude list, I'm like, don't tell me what to be grateful for. Like, don't tell me to feel grateful.
01:04:33
Karissa Johnson
Grateful might not be the feeling that I connect with.
01:04:33
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah.
01:04:36
Karissa Johnson
So if it's a moment of excellence, I'm like, yeah, nice. That was awesome.
01:04:40
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:04:40
Karissa Johnson
I might not connect with the feeling of gratitude. So I've kind of tweaked that practice a little bit. So i'm like, don't tell me.
01:04:44
Tony Montgomery
yeah yeah
01:04:45
Karissa Johnson
um But yeah, I have a ton of like, Love journal prompts. I think journaling is a fantastic way to build self-awareness. And if we want to create any growth or um grow in any area of life, we need to be aware. If you don't know where you're starting, how are you going to know, like, how are you going to even start taking the next step?
Addressing Performance Anxiety
01:05:07
Tony Montgomery
yeah no it's yeah yeah self-awareness is definitely the the key and then just finding ways to manifest that is so valuable and it's not a huge uh time domain either it's just something that is simple fast um so i i love that i definitely think that that's a bunch of powerful tools um moving into this idea of like
01:05:07
Karissa Johnson
We got to be self-aware. Yeah.
01:05:29
Tony Montgomery
when when you deal with athletes, there's a lot of performance anxiety, there's a lot of injuries, there's a lot of these manifestations, like all these challenges that they that they have to deal with. um What are some ways that you've found to help cope with these things, to help um persevere through through challenging times?
01:05:49
Tony Montgomery
um What's some of the research showing specifically for the for the female athletes to kind of navigate this idea of um challenging situations?
01:05:58
Karissa Johnson
Yeah, I'm going to chat about performance anxiety specifically, just because it was one of the first ones that you mentioned, one that I've chatted about recently, and I think connects to a lot of the other challenges that come up.
01:06:09
Tony Montgomery
Yep.
01:06:10
Karissa Johnson
So performance anxiety is fueled by, again, I have all these frameworks in my head because this is just, this it creates such an easy way thinking. guiding athletes through sessions.
01:06:20
Karissa Johnson
So I can't remember where this research came from. but performance anxiety is fueled by a desire to do well. You care about the thing you want to do well in it.
01:06:31
Karissa Johnson
But then there's this lack of confidence that you can accomplish what's being asked asked of you. So we've already talked about confidence and how we can overcome this. Oh my goodness. People are getting so many of my little tidbits.
01:06:43
Karissa Johnson
People pay good money for this.
01:06:44
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:06:46
Karissa Johnson
um And then um so already talked about how to build confidence and how we can tackle performance anxiety through nurturing confidence. And then the third part of what fuels and stokes the fire of performance anxiety is being worried about what other people will think.
01:07:04
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:07:04
Karissa Johnson
And, When so often I'll have parents come to me and say like, we don't put any pressure on our athlete. It's cheap. They put so much pressure on themselves. And i don't think, I don't think people give enough credit to their reactions to success in sport where they might not directly be saying you have to win to be valuable.
01:07:29
Karissa Johnson
But when you have a grand celebration, For them getting the personal best or winning a competition and don't have the same grand celebration when they fall in a race and rank last, you are teaching them that they have to be successful to be loved.
01:07:49
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:07:49
Karissa Johnson
They have to be successful to get attention. And so I think that's, there's this one, I guess I'm not sure, i like I'm trying to tie it back to your question about like, what are the tools and skills to help, to help athletes overcome a lot of these challenges?
01:08:08
Karissa Johnson
I think performance anxiety, the reason I talked about it is it connects to fears around injuries, because if you're injured and you can't perform at the same level and you're worried about what other people will think, performance anxiety, you know, or anxiety of some form.
01:08:20
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:08:22
Karissa Johnson
And then if you are like if you have worried about how you're going to perform because it's a big competition and there's more pressure comes back to this idea of worrying about what other people will think.
01:08:35
Karissa Johnson
So much of our fears and challenges come from what we think other people will think.
01:08:44
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:08:45
Karissa Johnson
Even if those things never cross other people's minds, we just are the center of our own little worlds and assume other people think this much about us.
01:08:51
Tony Montgomery
Thank
01:08:54
Karissa Johnson
And people might have their judgments. People tend to, people think that way and sports a competitive world. So I'm not saying those things aren't happening, but really creating separation from other people's opinions and your are self-worth.
01:09:08
Karissa Johnson
And also, like, how are we shifting the opinion you have of yourself? Because maybe it's not so much that we're worried about what coach is going to say, but maybe you're mean to yourself and you're actually afraid of your own reaction.
01:09:21
Tony Montgomery
yeah yeah
01:09:22
Karissa Johnson
So, so much of it comes back to just how can we how can we start seeing our own value just because we're here showing up and we don't need to, we don't need to accomplish a certain thing in order to be worthy of love and validation. And I think your comment before about journaling where the first day they did this, the second day they they did this, the third third day they did this, it's a process.
01:09:47
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:09:48
Karissa Johnson
You know, our inner critic develops before the age of seven, I think is kind of what the literature says. Obviously it's going to be a little different depending on each individual. But I've kind of, ive started to use this metaphor of a sponge. So we're just, we're a sponge for information when we're a kid, because we're just trying to figure out how the world operates. It's a big, scary place. What's going on?
01:10:08
Karissa Johnson
And we assume that everybody knows more than we do. So as soon as somebody says something, we're like, fact, that's like grabbing onto that. The challenge all of this water that we're absorbing is sometimes dirt is like dirty water.
01:10:20
Tony Montgomery
Mm.
01:10:21
Karissa Johnson
And it's tainted with all of these stories that aren't true. Like you could have the teacher say like, Like, I'm like, what could a teacher say where you like, you're like, little your little brain misconstrues and you just hold on to that. I'm like, your could your teacher could say like, it's taking you longer than normal to catch on to this.
01:10:39
Karissa Johnson
Then it becomes a story of I'm bad at math. And then that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of you being anxious about math, which makes it harder harder to study for math. So then it's harder to be good at math. And so like, even though that's not what your teacher said, yourre like that's how your little brain made sense of it. And that's where we start to internalize these stories.
01:10:57
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
01:10:57
Karissa Johnson
And so then you think you have seven years of absorbing all this dirty, tainted water. It's going to take time to start wringing yourself out, plus building new stories with water that's a little bit cleaner.
01:11:14
Karissa Johnson
And so I think that that like, We have to wring ourselves out, which takes time. And we have to start absorbing these new stories and be willing to be open to them. So that's one metaphor that I've been using just to highlight that it's no it's not going to be any one skill, but I can guarantee that it will take time.
01:11:31
Karissa Johnson
But if you show up and put in the effort, if you want to be the athlete that is confident, do the mental performance training so that you can be the confident athlete. Like it's possible. You just got to do the thing to get there.
01:11:43
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, yeah. No, that's that's really great. One of the things you you touched on was the example of the teacher. And it could be something that you think of as a positive affirmation, right? So um growth mindset versus fixed mindset. Carol DeWitt has done a lot of research on that. And what they found was um when students got praise for intelligence, right?
01:12:08
Tony Montgomery
um they found that those kids created this identity of like, i am smart. So whenever things get presented to me that are super challenging, I'm actually not going to go away from that i'm I'm actually going to go away from that because if I get that answer wrong, then I'm not going to be smart anymore.
01:12:26
Tony Montgomery
And then they found them that they're more likely to cheat on test because they need to get an A because they're perceived as intelligent. Whereas the other group, the the growth mindset group, they were told about their work ethic. Like, oh, you're working so hard. you're doing And they found that those kids actually...
01:12:44
Tony Montgomery
found more challenging things to be more delightful. They enjoyed the challenging things because that's what they were getting praise for. Both of them sound like, yeah, that that's good praise both ways, but one precipitates this intelligence that they don't have control over as, and then one precipitates like effort is the key, right?
01:13:05
Tony Montgomery
And you're gonna go towards whichever one you start to believe because our mind, our brain is this prediction error machine, right?
01:13:05
Karissa Johnson
Yeah.
01:13:11
Tony Montgomery
So we have we have all these predictions based on the past. And then every time something new comes up, that's an error. And that goes back into the prediction method. So every time you get something, you just ingrain that prediction, ingrain that prediction, ingrain that memory.
01:13:25
Tony Montgomery
And then that definitely becomes you over time. But we know at any age, your brain's plastic. So you can rewire those thoughts simply by doing the things of like, what am I telling myself?
01:13:38
Tony Montgomery
Oh, I'm telling myself effort is important over winning. So therefore, I'm going to think about how much effort I can put into things as opposed to how much winning I'm going to do.
01:13:46
Karissa Johnson
Bye.
01:13:47
Tony Montgomery
And those shifts are so, so powerful. And even the thought of like, I want to shift my perception of anxiety. Right. So like anxiety or these these feelings that I have when something comes up.
01:14:01
Tony Montgomery
um This Lisa, Lisa Bear Feldman, she focuses on like emotions and how emotions are made and emotion regulation. And one of the stories she tells was her daughter, her like six year old daughter was in karate and she was at a tournament and she told her coach like, oh, I'm i'm nervous. Like I got this tingly feeling in my stomach.
01:14:24
Tony Montgomery
And the coach said, oh that's not that's not nerves. That's like energy. That's giving you the power so that you can do this. That's your body giving you. And it's like just that perception change makes it like, oh, this isn't a negative thing. This is actually like, paul it's giving me superpowers. Like, oh, I'm ready to attack, right? Like those things are so easy to do.
Gender Bias in Research & Academia
01:14:44
Karissa Johnson
Yeah, and we talk about reframing performance anxiety as excitement or energy.
01:14:49
Tony Montgomery
Great.
01:14:49
Karissa Johnson
That is a skill. Like that reframe is so simple and it takes practice, but can go such a long way. And this like anxiety we perceive as a negative thing and something we don't want,
01:15:04
Karissa Johnson
And excitement's a good thing. And so i tend to talk about energy or I tend to talk about energy or activation and how are you feeling in your body rather than labeling it as a as an emotion sometimes because those sensations in your body are what matter.
01:15:20
Karissa Johnson
And if we can interpret them in a way that's supporting our success, that's just going to be so that's going to be so much better for us. Yeah.
01:15:27
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:15:27
Karissa Johnson
I'm hearing so many connections in all of the topics as we've gone on this journey. It's fabulous. I love it.
01:15:33
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, no, it's great. It's great how like it's like they put a lot of thought into this stuff and makes it connect, right?
01:15:37
Karissa Johnson
right It's all making sense.
01:15:38
Tony Montgomery
Like, amazing, amazing. Yeah.
01:15:40
Karissa Johnson
Yeah.
01:15:42
Tony Montgomery
um Moving to the, we we touched on this idea that like academia and research is very male focused, male dominant for for a very long time. And now we're starting to focus more on on females.
01:15:55
Tony Montgomery
and And what are some of the differences? Like I said, my friend Olivia, her main focus is female athletes looking at um bone mineral density, reds, and all that type of stuff to see what's going on. And they're doing all kinds of research with the athletes at Oklahoma State, and it's it's amazing stuff.
01:16:14
Tony Montgomery
um But what are some of the, like, what are some of the barriers that we've, are we still facing barriers for females to do research? And I, one that is salient to me is I know that there's, there's, there was this group that wanted to do research on females.
01:16:31
Tony Montgomery
And, you know, whenever you do research, you're like, okay, these, this is the age that I want to do research on. Right. And this wasn't an athlete thing. This was like a cardiovascular thing. And they were like, well, I want to do it from 18 to like 40 and you're like, well, why did you pick 40? It's because we don't want to mess with menopause. Menopause is messy.
01:16:51
Tony Montgomery
So we're not going to do research on that because that might mess up the results, right? And you'll hear that all the time. Like, oh, what birth control are you on? Oh, we don't want to do research on that birth control. That's that's messy. like So I'm guessing that's one of the things that are still plagued in female research. But like, what else are we seeing? And even extrapolate on that if you want to.
01:17:15
Karissa Johnson
Yeah, I had a, I don't know if people watch this visually, but my face, my face says a lot. um
01:17:21
Tony Montgomery
Nothing.
01:17:22
Karissa Johnson
do not play poker. ah Thank goodness, because I would lose. The so I have, I have, I have friends who are having babies, i have family who are are going like in perimenopause and going through menopause.
01:17:39
Karissa Johnson
And It is fascinating to have conversations with these very intelligent women who are like, there is nothing out there.
01:17:50
Tony Montgomery
nothing
01:17:51
Karissa Johnson
Like, especially when you think in academia, we have access to journals. We have, we're in this silo.
01:17:57
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
01:17:58
Karissa Johnson
What do they we call it? It's our ivory tower of knowledge. And it takes 10 years to get current research out to the general population.
01:18:07
Tony Montgomery
can
01:18:09
Karissa Johnson
the Like it that blows my mind. So I still appreciate platforms like this where you can have at high, like knowledgeable people out there in a way that's accessible to people because that's what we need.
01:18:20
Karissa Johnson
ah So I think maybe that's one of the challenges we face right now is we are in an ivory tower and to be able to access the this fresh, hot off the press literature.
01:18:31
Karissa Johnson
One, you need to be able to understand academic language. And so even for me, i'm and I'm an academic, but for me to go and read a paper on the biology and physiology of menopause, it's a whole different ballgame.
01:18:42
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:18:43
Karissa Johnson
but i think And then academic writing on top of that is a challenge. And then um you, so like if you're in the area, you need to be able to read it, but we just keep everything, like everything so gatekept and so precious. And it's like, why is this not all just out there for people to read?
01:19:01
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:19:02
Karissa Johnson
And so, yeah, it's it's so wild how we're like, that's messy, so we're not going to touch it.
01:19:02
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:19:09
Karissa Johnson
When again, it goes back to the idea of like, you're in research to ask and you asking questions and the questions about the women?
01:19:14
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:19:17
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:19:18
Karissa Johnson
Probably because the women haven't been the one asking the questions.
01:19:22
Tony Montgomery
Very true.
01:19:22
Karissa Johnson
um
01:19:23
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:19:23
Karissa Johnson
So I, so yeah, anyways, I think it's just crazy the lack of research we have.
01:19:24
Tony Montgomery
ah chief
01:19:29
Karissa Johnson
And at least when you're in middle school like, you get a conversation about how your body's going to change as you go through puberty. There ain't nobody talking to you about your body changes when you were an adult.
01:19:41
Tony Montgomery
No, no.
01:19:42
Karissa Johnson
Like nobody, everybody's just like, i hope you have the tools to deal with it at this point in your life.
01:19:47
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, you'll figure it out.
01:19:48
Karissa Johnson
free You know, like figure it out.
01:19:49
Tony Montgomery
It's women's intuition. You'll get it going. You'll figure it out.
01:19:52
Karissa Johnson
ah Yeah.
01:19:54
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:19:54
Karissa Johnson
Oh my gosh. just So my other thought that came up as you were, as you were asking this question was, Do you know more about the ah I saw something on social media recently about grant applications being flagged for language around women, basically.
01:20:13
Tony Montgomery
Hmm.
01:20:15
Karissa Johnson
Do you know anything about this?
01:20:16
Tony Montgomery
Is this the DEI initiative that's going on and the and NIH funding restrictions that are going on and stuff like that? That's what that's what comes to mind? I'm not sure.
01:20:26
Karissa Johnson
maybe there was just a long list of words that if you had any of these words in your grant application, it would be flagged for basically deeper review, which I don't necessarily think is a bad thing.
01:20:35
Tony Montgomery
That's scary.
01:20:38
Karissa Johnson
I think that if we're using this language, we need to make sure we're doing things properly. And if we are separating out men and women versus females and males versus like, how are we keeping things clear and inclusive to everybody involved?
01:20:43
Tony Montgomery
Hmm.
01:20:55
Karissa Johnson
So I kind of get it on one hand, but on the other hand, it's like, okay, well, are you not doing the same if people mentioned men athletes? Or are you only caring if people mentioned women athletes?
01:21:02
Tony Montgomery
Right.
01:21:06
Karissa Johnson
So not like, and so again, I don't know, it might be what you're thinking.
01:21:06
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:21:11
Karissa Johnson
i just saw a long list where it's like, if you use these words in your grant application, it's going to get flagged. Basically, you're going to have to provide extra justification as to why you're using that language is where my head goes as somebody who's had to apply for grants before.
01:21:25
Tony Montgomery
Is it the language of like gender differences, sex differences, that type of thing?
01:21:25
Karissa Johnson
But
01:21:29
Tony Montgomery
Like they want you to use why are you doing research on women?
01:21:30
Karissa Johnson
no, it's like, it's women, female, sexual assault, like sexual assault, apologize if that's a trigger warning, but like, it was very much a, very it was a very gendered sex-based list that was biased towards women saying that if these are the things you're including in your grant application, it's going to get flagged for further, for like deeper, more critical,
01:21:55
Tony Montgomery
hu mate
01:21:56
Karissa Johnson
The
01:21:56
Tony Montgomery
mean the only The only thing that I can think of is if they're trying to parse out um naturally menstruating versus ah you know on the pill, which pill are they on? like Why did you pick this sample size?
01:22:10
Tony Montgomery
As with with men, like those things are aren't important. like Your sample size is not as important.
01:22:17
Karissa Johnson
ah privilege.
01:22:18
Tony Montgomery
I know, I know, but it's it's true, right? Like there's your sample size needs, like you need ah you need to have more justification for your women's sample size than you do for your for your male sample size.
01:22:22
Karissa Johnson
yeah
01:22:30
Tony Montgomery
And maybe maybe that's, I don't know, maybe I'm getting into it.
01:22:32
Karissa Johnson
I know. And that's where I'm like, I don't know if this is a bad thing or not, but it is actually a ah moment of like, what's, what's going on.
01:22:36
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:22:39
Tony Montgomery
The flag.
01:22:42
Karissa Johnson
Yeah.
01:22:42
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, yeah.
Diverse Perspectives in Research
01:22:44
Karissa Johnson
And something that I find wonderful to see is the number of women who are in my college in particular, lot in like a lot of powerhouse younger women.
01:22:51
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:22:54
Karissa Johnson
So that's really cool to see. i really do not align. Like I'm, I feel like such a non-traditional academic, kind of like I am in sport where like these are both very high performing spaces. And I'm like, I guess I'll publish because I have to.
01:23:10
Karissa Johnson
um You know, I'm like, I could not care less.
01:23:11
Tony Montgomery
yeah Is that is that, what what is what is that?
01:23:16
Karissa Johnson
Pardon? Pardon?
01:23:17
Tony Montgomery
Is that like imposter syndrome? Like, what is, what is that that's going on? Do you like, you feel like you're not, you don't fit in, in this field? Like, what what are we talking about with that?
01:23:26
Karissa Johnson
I think it's the egotistical masculine culture that is traditionally academic, like what that academia, academia traditionally is.
01:23:33
Tony Montgomery
even
01:23:37
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:23:37
Karissa Johnson
They both have this hyper competitive, egotistical, who's doing better. And it's all just a pissing contest for lack of better language. And I'm like, nice.
01:23:49
Karissa Johnson
Are you have a fun? I'm having fun.
01:23:51
Tony Montgomery
yeah yeah
01:23:51
Karissa Johnson
You know, like, and so I really, um I don't know if there's anything in particular that stands out. Being a woman in sport it is really exciting right now because the whole like women are getting more airtime. Women are getting better airtime um is really fabulous to see. So I will say like it's really exciting to be a woman academic in sport right now.
01:24:19
Karissa Johnson
And I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by powerhouse women academic colleagues. So we like, we we started the conversation talking about this like a support system.
01:24:25
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah.
01:24:29
Karissa Johnson
I see a lot of powerhouse women academics. So um when it comes to like entering the space, ah I never felt like it was a like super male dominated or that wasn't something that made me hesitant to come into, the culture made me hesitant to come into academia, not the the women who were in the space.
01:24:46
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:24:49
Karissa Johnson
And because I'm so deep in the silo of women in sport literature, I'm like, do we have research on men in this?
01:25:01
Karissa Johnson
Which is kind of nice.
01:25:02
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:25:02
Karissa Johnson
Because like you you asked about like the sex-based differences of like of ah my brain went to self-compassion. And I'm like, there is some literature out there, but it's like kind of unclear and there's not a ton of it. And we just, this is an area focus on women athletes and that's fabulous.
01:25:18
Tony Montgomery
yeah Yeah. No, I like it. I like, I mean, for me personally, like I like the idea of, um, having a diverse lab as much as possible because you get different perspectives. Like I want somebody that's like, you know, neurodivergent on one side. I want somebody that's, you know, female. I want somebody that is this, like, I want as many diverse people in there as possible that like challenge you and that like give you this perspective. You're like, oh, I didn't see things that way because of like the way I grew up. It's awesome.
01:25:50
Tony Montgomery
Like the military did that for me. opened my eyes to like, oh, like you're from, Alabama, I've never been from, I've never met anyone like you before. Like, oh, this is fascinating. Like I'm learning so much. Right.
01:26:02
Tony Montgomery
And then I think that allows you to like ask better questions in your research and all this other stuff. um So I do like that there's more diversity coming in to academia. My only concern is, and It's hard to say it's concern because I always think like people should go to where their passion is, but like, if your passion creates a silo, is that, is that a concern? Right? Like, but then it's like, how do you get men interested in female research?
01:26:37
Tony Montgomery
Right. That might be something that like through going on podcasts, like through exploring the knowledge, like maybe that'll get them more interested, but like maybe out of a male perspective in a siloed female thing might be good. I don't know. Like, I don't know. Like the the idea of like siloing yourself off
01:26:56
Karissa Johnson
I know. And that was like, I hope that that's not like a I think it's one of those things of like, I sometimes, I sometimes forget that the general knowledge we have is knowledge on men.
01:27:12
Tony Montgomery
Yep. yep
01:27:13
Karissa Johnson
And that is something that I highlight in my research where like, so there's been a lot of self-compassion of my, my dissertation is focused on developing a self-compassion program tailored to women athletes.
01:27:23
Karissa Johnson
Women athletes have been involved in the process. And some of the reason why I say this is needed in this, like we need to involve women athletes in the process is because, yeah, there have been successful programs done in the past that stayed in the literature.
01:27:40
Karissa Johnson
Why haven't they been implemented elsewhere?
01:27:43
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah.
01:27:43
Karissa Johnson
We're like, is it, and we don't have, even if they were, there's not a ton of justification in any of the programs I've read about why they chose to implement them in a certain way.
01:27:56
Karissa Johnson
But even if they're, and I also acknowledge that like word count makes it hard to publish the information sometimes.
01:28:01
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:28:02
Karissa Johnson
So that's where I'm like a critical eye. I'm not saying they didn't do their due diligence in structuring this, but even if they did, all of the intervention literature out there is based on men.
01:28:14
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:28:16
Karissa Johnson
So how relevant is it really? And if it's stuck in the literature, maybe there's a reason why it's stuck in the literature. Right.
01:28:21
Tony Montgomery
Right, not only is it based on men, but it's probably based on white college age males. one um One of my favorite books is this book called WEIRD and it's an acronym and it's like Western, educated, um always forget the eye rich, democratic, and it's this academic guy and he's talking about like how we build our ideas on this population of people when that's the minority of people in the world.
01:28:54
Tony Montgomery
And he gives all these examples of like different um places that have different ideas of how they do things. And one thing that's like salient to me is like the idea of suppression as a tool to build deal with anxiety and depression. And in America, what we found is that if you suppress your feelings, then the person that you're suppressing it with has a negative reaction to it because we regulate our nervous systems based on how we interact with each other.
01:29:26
Tony Montgomery
But what they found was in Japan and in Those cultures over there, they find suppression as a positive thing. So if you suppress your feelings with another person, that actually has positive emotional regulation strategies for them because their concept is culture and you're not bigger than...
01:29:48
Tony Montgomery
the family. And therefore it's better for you to suppress your feelings than to make the whole family feel it. Where in America, we're like, we're individualistic. I want you to feel what I feel. And if you don't feel what I feel, then I'm going to get upset.
01:30:03
Tony Montgomery
And then you're going to get upset because I'm not fully expressing myself. So even that like little thing is like different cultures create different things, but we don't, but we don't study that. We were like, what's the easiest participants to get in?
01:30:15
Tony Montgomery
And I like, even i see this a lot too. It's like, you'll get one cohort in for a study And they're like, oh, like this was easy to get in. but In my next study, I'm going to email those same 30 participants and be like, hey, I got another study coming up.
01:30:29
Tony Montgomery
do you want to do that? And it's like, well, then what's this like what are the sample sizes that we're actually getting here? So think that's another thing that needs to be looked at as well, because we know that there's differences in ethnicities, differences in, there's differences in everything, but we're just like, well, we need to publish.
01:30:36
Karissa Johnson
ye
01:30:48
Tony Montgomery
and we need to do this so we got to make it as fast as possible what's the easiest way to do it and i think i think you're right that is like a liability within academia how they structure everything and how it's all externally incentivized as opposed to internally intrinsically incentivized is a major problem and one thing you did touch on and sorry to keep rambling and this is i'm interviewing you but
01:31:14
Karissa Johnson
good
01:31:15
Tony Montgomery
you You talked about like the writing process. And I found that in academia, there's a lot of people that write for other academics. and not a lot of people write for the population who is actually paying us to do the research.
01:31:31
Tony Montgomery
So it's like, yeah, you use a bunch of big words, but only 10 people know what you're talking about. So what was the point of your research, right? and I think we need to do a better job of that. Like, how can we get these complex ideas and distill it into like manageable, understandable key concepts that people can read and go and run with, right? And like,
01:31:51
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, there's a lot of ways we can structure academia a lot better. I agree with that.
01:31:56
Karissa Johnson
Well, I think the focus is just not on knowledge translation.
01:32:01
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:32:01
Karissa Johnson
And I think maybe maybe um it's going that way more so now. But even then, knowledge translation is often an academic conference.
01:32:12
Karissa Johnson
And so you're just continuing to tell the same people about the things that you did in an academic way.
01:32:16
Tony Montgomery
Right.
01:32:17
Karissa Johnson
and And so then it's like, why, like knowledge translation needs to be at a population level. Who are these results for?
01:32:26
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, exactly.
01:32:28
Karissa Johnson
And how are we communicating it to the people that the results are for? And so something that we do in our research is follow up follow up with a summary of ah results and send it to the people who took part. And something that I really try to make a priority when I'm doing my sessions is to teach it in a way that they will understand.
01:32:47
Karissa Johnson
i don't need to use the word self-efficacy. Sure, I can teach it to them. And some of them are going to be, I always tell them to go home and say, what did you learn today? Self-efficacy. Cool. But like, they don't need to learn all of the deep theory and all the other big words that come with the theory.
01:33:01
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah.
01:33:02
Karissa Johnson
and so in these sessions, we're doing knowledge translation. But it's, I think it needs to be emphasized more. And like, some of the jargon and the frivolous language that is used in academic writing, it's just like, get over yourselves.
Myths & Stigmas in Women's Sports
01:33:18
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:33:19
Karissa Johnson
the whole Like, I'm educated, and I don't understand what you're saying.
01:33:22
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, it drives me crazy. Like I'll see people coming out of the science and they'll get into personal training and they're like, oh yeah, today going work your vastus medialis, your vastus lateralis, your sartorius and like, what?
01:33:24
Karissa Johnson
like
01:33:34
Tony Montgomery
And they're like, your quadriceps. And they're like, what? The front of your leg. Oh, let's just start with the front of my leg. Like, how about that? Like, what are we doing?
01:33:41
Karissa Johnson
Exactly. But I think we get excited when we're like, i know fancier words.
01:33:45
Tony Montgomery
yeah We do get excited. Yeah.
01:33:47
Karissa Johnson
And look at me, prove my intelligence by using my fancy words.
01:33:50
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, no, I agree. That's, yeah, we're like, the idea is like, we're trying to bridge the gap.
01:33:52
Karissa Johnson
Anyway.
01:33:56
Tony Montgomery
And I think one of the things that helps that be more salient to you is you, you do research, but then you also apply it to athletes at the same time.
01:33:57
Karissa Johnson
Yep.
01:34:05
Tony Montgomery
So you're getting like instant feedback of like, am i actually bridging the gap? Or am I still missing the holes? Whereas if you just do research, you never know if you're bridging the gap, because like, how do you know it's translated?
01:34:16
Tony Montgomery
And So you get that real time feedback. Not everyone gets that. I just want to make sure everyone knows and research like not everyone gets that. So it's it's a very awesome position to be in. And I'm sure it helps like dynamically shift the way that you're thinking about how you do your research. What are what are some of the things that you learn from your athletes that have shifted the way you started to do your research?
01:34:39
Karissa Johnson
o So I think what's fascinating, things that I've learned from athletes, I'm not sure if it's necessarily come from in session, but in my in my research, because I took such an athlete-centered approach in qualitative research, so i was running interviews and focus groups with athletes,
01:35:03
Karissa Johnson
It's just, I find qualitative data such a fascinating way of understanding the population that you're working with. And to understand that sometimes the way we've framed their challenges in the in the research doesn't really capture what they meant.
01:35:26
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:35:26
Karissa Johnson
And so something as simple as like one of the main challenges women athletes experience is poor performance.
01:35:26
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:35:32
Karissa Johnson
But I don't think that captures the nuance of it's not a poor performance. It's I didn't perform up to my expectation.
01:35:41
Tony Montgomery
ye
01:35:42
Karissa Johnson
you probably still performed well, but how high was your expectation? And that's where the that's where the pain and suffering comes in when there's a gap in expectation and reality.
01:35:53
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:35:53
Karissa Johnson
And i don't think the literature quite gets at the nuances of things like that. um What also comes to mind, and I know this isn't quite answering the question that you asked, but the idea of working, like I get the opportunity to say like hot off the press athletes, this is the newest literature and you get it because, because I'm the person in front of you.
01:36:17
Karissa Johnson
But I think if you're somebody who's, if I was only in academia, i would be looking at I would be looking at the relationship between self-compassion and constructs. i'm trying to think of all the constructs that we previously had in this research. I've changed our project a lot, but we were looking at mechanisms of self-compassion and how self-compassion worked.
01:36:39
Karissa Johnson
And like, what are the nuances that are going into self-compassion that are related to our stress response? And in talking to my supervisor, I'm like, why? We know self-compassion is good. Let's get it to them.
01:36:52
Karissa Johnson
Like, why do we have, why do we care how it works? That's not what I want to be doing.
01:36:56
Tony Montgomery
We love our mechanisms.
01:36:57
Karissa Johnson
And so, pardon?
01:36:59
Tony Montgomery
We love our mechanisms in research, that's for sure.
01:37:01
Karissa Johnson
Yeah. And like, still a very cool question, but also like, is it applicable the population of interest?
01:37:03
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:37:09
Karissa Johnson
And I don't think we necessarily have that applied. How is it going to actually impact the people who, It's who we're asking the question about. Sometimes it's just personal interest. Well, I care about this and it's relevant to some other stuff that I've been doing research in, but what's the actual real life application? I think we're so interested in the generation.
01:37:31
Karissa Johnson
Are we even taught knowledge translation as a generation of research? Like generation of research is like um build it brick by brick and don't put it out into the public until all of these beautiful bricks have been built. And I'm like, until we put it out to the public, we don't even know if people care about these bricks.
01:37:47
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, or if it works.
01:37:49
Karissa Johnson
Yeah.
01:37:49
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, no, I agree.
01:37:50
Karissa Johnson
You're like, are the bricks going to work when it's minus 50? We don't know.
01:37:54
Tony Montgomery
Right.
01:37:54
Karissa Johnson
And so I think it's just like having the real life experience has or having the having the applied experience of working with women athletes just really made me realize that it's like, why are we waiting to get this out there?
01:38:08
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:38:09
Karissa Johnson
Just
01:38:10
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:38:10
Karissa Johnson
And then you can do the mechanisms work in the background. I'm not doing that for my dissertation because that is going to so like that's just going to delay the process of getting this to athletes longer.
01:38:21
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:38:21
Karissa Johnson
You know, like your mechanism work can be an easy behind the scenes study of throw some measures together and work on a manuscript together.
01:38:22
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:38:29
Karissa Johnson
not Not my dissertation.
01:38:29
Tony Montgomery
Man. way Way to minimize mechanistic research. Man, Carissa, people are going to be so upset about that. but
01:38:37
Karissa Johnson
But, you know, like to do the mechanisms, it's send a survey out to some people and analyze the data.
01:38:43
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Okay.
01:38:44
Karissa Johnson
Not the applied programming of, you know, sometimes we need to know the mechanisms.
01:38:47
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah.
01:38:50
Karissa Johnson
I get the physiology. i Because what is your background? Is your background physiology, such sociology?
01:38:55
Tony Montgomery
Actually, I started psychology
01:38:55
Karissa Johnson
You've talked about what?
01:38:57
Karissa Johnson
Psychology?
01:38:58
Tony Montgomery
and exercise science. Yeah.
01:39:00
Karissa Johnson
Okay. Ooh, fancy, interdisciplinary.
01:39:03
Tony Montgomery
Very, very fancy. yes
01:39:05
Karissa Johnson
I like this. Okay. um I'm just thinking like sometimes physiologically speaking, we do need to understand things better.
01:39:12
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, of course. Of course.
01:39:13
Karissa Johnson
And like once you do programming, you do research on interventions. Once you know a little bit and then you see how people respond and oh, that's not quite what we expected.
01:39:24
Karissa Johnson
go back to understand mechanisms better. There's not enough programming on self-compassion even go back to say like, oh, what's going on here?
01:39:35
Karissa Johnson
Because we haven't done any programming with women athletes on a grand scale.
01:39:38
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. No. no
01:39:40
Karissa Johnson
Or like, not even, I'm not even doing a grand scale. I'm doing an implementation study. But um I just think that there needs to be both. Like, look at the mechanisms, apply it in applied in an intervention. Oh, what's not there?
01:39:52
Karissa Johnson
Look at the mechanisms again, then apply it again. And just like, there needs to be more application of sports psychology in particular, because I think we are very from from what I've experienced, and this, again, this could just be the world that I live in, but it does feel like a lot of it just cycles around what are all the theories that we're doing instead of how are we actually getting these resources to people and helping people make changes.
01:40:17
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:40:19
Karissa Johnson
think that's an important part.
01:40:19
Tony Montgomery
Well, because theories are way easier to write than, you know, interventions.
01:40:25
Karissa Johnson
That is true. Oh my goodness.
01:40:27
Tony Montgomery
That's probably why you you get that.
01:40:28
Karissa Johnson
and
01:40:29
Tony Montgomery
there's nothing there's nothing better than being an academic theorizer and philosophizer and not actually having any proof of it, right? Because that's what I see. ah x Exercise science does this all the time. It's like, well, I think your theory is wrong. And here's my theory. It's like, why don't you just do the intervention to like show us?
01:40:48
Tony Montgomery
And they're no, no, no. I'm just going to continue to manifest theories and not actually put it into practice. like, that drives
01:40:54
Karissa Johnson
Exactly. yeah we just we need to put it
Support Systems & Gender Bias
01:40:58
Karissa Johnson
into practice. And i think my my applied experience has really highlighted how critical it is to put research into practice instead of keeping it in our little ivory tower.
01:41:08
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, no, I agree. i I definitely liked that philosophy. Um, so let's just wrap up here with this last, last little bit. Um, what are, what are some of the common myths that you have to overcome with female athletes and sports psychology? Like, is there anything that perpetuates time and time again that you see that's like, why do you guys think this way? Like, this is, this is actually what's going on, you know?
01:41:34
Karissa Johnson
Yeah, I think so myth myths, myths for women athletes. I think that one, especially because I work with young women athletes. So i hear from a lot of parents that young women are putting pressure on themselves. And it's like they didn't magically start putting pressure on themselves.
01:41:46
Karissa Johnson
It came from somewhere. So let's just address that.
01:41:47
Tony Montgomery
Right. You don't come out the room with like, I'm going to be an Olympic athlete. Right.
01:41:52
Karissa Johnson
Right. Yeah. And but then all of a sudden I'm doubting my skills to be an Olympic athlete. No, we're born with hopes and dreams. We were born from a place of love and we're tur taught fear and hate. And I know like sometimes I share these ideas and i'm and ah I have like these very like hippie Eastern ways of thinking.
01:42:09
Karissa Johnson
and so it's, a yeah, if it hasn't been obvious so far, um something else that ah myths, I had two other things that came to mind when you talked about myths.
01:42:10
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. I like it. do too.
01:42:20
Karissa Johnson
Oh, something that comes to mind is the stigma around mental performance training and asking for support. So one of my favorite sessions that I offer is ah actually about grit.
01:42:31
Karissa Johnson
And one of my colleagues, she's now working out of the University of Alberta, Dr. Danielle Cormier. She is working on a, she's in the process of publishing a grounded theory of grit.
01:42:44
Karissa Johnson
So I won't give away too much, but the way I frame it is that gritty athletes have a solid support system at the end of the day. So part of it, so with that, part of being a gritty athlete is supporting yourself.
01:43:00
Karissa Johnson
And there's a few different ways that you can support yourself, but also being a gritty athlete requires support.
01:43:08
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:43:08
Karissa Johnson
So if we, ah if we like grit in sport culture and you want to be a gritty athlete, asking for help is part of that. And there is no shame in wanting support to overcome challenges because stuff gets hard sometimes.
01:43:24
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:43:24
Karissa Johnson
And it's not that there's anything wrong with you. And it's not that you are in like a victim mode or that you're weak. But it's just there's no shame in saying, let's like help me do this thing because I care about doing this thing.
01:43:38
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. do you think Do you think that's manifested in youth sports?
01:43:40
Karissa Johnson
and
01:43:44
Tony Montgomery
Because a lot of youth sports for female athletes, and maybe it's changed since I've been involved in in youth sports, but most of them are taught by men.
01:43:56
Tony Montgomery
And a lot of males stigmatize therapy. as weakness. So if you're being taught at a young age that like your emotions don't matter, go cry behind the bench and then come back and like that type of stuff, then yeah, that's gonna be very hard to overcome that stigma. So it is something that at your level at the collegiate level, that it's it should be talked about more and more because the more you talk about it, the more common it feels the less stigmatized it becomes.
01:44:26
Karissa Johnson
Yeah. And I think um there used to be this perception that asking for professional support, maybe I should put that caveat in there, but like asking for professional support used to be support was like, oh, you're going to go see a shrink, like a negative connotation when it's like, we all just need support.
01:44:43
Tony Montgomery
Like, oh, you're trying to handle it yourself. Yeah.
01:44:46
Karissa Johnson
We all just need support and support looks different. And, you know, sometimes i I was, I think I was talking to my psychiatrist. I forget because I talked to so many professionals where like, I go and see the student support coordinator and I see her multiple times a week, just like sitting in her office talking about life.
01:45:03
Karissa Johnson
And I have a psychiatrist and I have a counselor and I have like, this is my area of expertise. And I still have three professionals that I talk to on a regular basis. And it's okay because we all just need support and everybody's support system looks different.
01:45:19
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:45:19
Karissa Johnson
And depending on what's going on in life, you lean on them more or less, depending on how much you need them. But sometimes you just need a different perspective from the people who you're typically around.
01:45:26
Tony Montgomery
Yep.
01:45:29
Karissa Johnson
And when it comes to when it comes to like men coaching women's sport, I've been fortunate. And maybe this is a reflection of the conversation where like I've been fortunate fortunate enough where any of the teams that I interact with um often have a male coach, but are also very much like, no, please come in and have these conversations.
01:45:51
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:45:52
Karissa Johnson
But also, I wouldn't be there if the coach wasn't like, we're open to this. So you know, it's like, obviously, I'm only seeing the coaches who are supportive of it, because they're supportive of it.
01:46:01
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:46:02
Karissa Johnson
There's a lot of coaches out there who aren't supportive of it. And they're like, no, we'll figure it out. And how about just tough it up? And you're the problem. you Like, you know, there's
01:46:10
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:46:11
Karissa Johnson
Yeah. So I think the stigma, not necessarily a myth, but definitely ah stigma around reaching out for mental performance support.
01:46:20
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, I guess the myth would be that mental support is weakness.
01:46:20
Karissa Johnson
um
01:46:24
Karissa Johnson
Sure. Yeah. Beautiful.
01:46:25
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:46:25
Karissa Johnson
Yep. Can appreciate that frame. um And other myths.
01:46:34
Karissa Johnson
You know, sometimes something that comes up in the literature that I've read. okay, this is reminding me that i I do read some about men's experiences in sport or at at least hear about them because and read this really fascinating article and I would have to go back in my archives too to find the author.
01:46:53
Karissa Johnson
um But they did this project where they talked about coaches. um ah Highlighted
01:47:01
Tony Montgomery
Chris, can hold that thought for one second?
01:47:07
Karissa Johnson
perceptions, coaches, perceptions of women athletes. And so it wasn't necessarily men or women coaches, but it was just coaches of women athletes. And something that they talked about was, or how they talked about women athletes was any trait a woman displayed that didn't align with traditional sport culture was a problem.
01:47:31
Karissa Johnson
And so this idea of like, they, they're, they're more emotional. They want to know why we're doing things where boys just listen to me. And the, and also like they show emotions.
01:47:40
Tony Montgomery
m
01:47:46
Karissa Johnson
Men get angry too.
01:47:48
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:47:48
Karissa Johnson
Okay.
01:47:48
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:47:49
Karissa Johnson
Like, you know, you.
01:47:49
Tony Montgomery
Our high motion spectrum is much more limited, but they're, they're more, they're, they're very intense, you know?
01:47:56
Karissa Johnson
Yeah. And so it was, I just found it so fascinating that it's like, even though these coaches often claim to take a gender neutral approach, it's, it was still very much favoring this experience of men athletes. So, okay, this is where the other myth is that, and this is recent literature, like this isn't old.
01:48:18
Karissa Johnson
um Again, I wish I had the author's name, but I think a myth is that women and men have a quality in sport. And that's not in sports psychology specifically, but like this idea that like, I had a conversation with the with an academic peer who was like, women don't get the funding because they don't bring in the money.
01:48:37
Karissa Johnson
And I'm like, women can't bring in the money when they're not being televised. Women can't bring in the money when you're not selling seats to their games. So it's this systemic problem.
01:48:50
Karissa Johnson
And I think this was a conversation that, again, I had with an academic two years ago.
01:48:56
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
01:48:57
Karissa Johnson
So there is still this stereotype perpetuated that People don't care about women's sport. And I know that that's changing and that's why it's fabulous to be part of women's sport right now.
01:49:08
Karissa Johnson
But it's still we are just so far behind when it comes to access to funding, when it comes to gym times, when I hear that a woman's volleyball team gets the trash trash time to train at because the boys had to train first.
01:49:26
Karissa Johnson
Why?
01:49:27
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah.
01:49:29
Karissa Johnson
It still happening.
01:49:32
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. You know, what's crazy is that I think the one sport that, that it doesn't happen in is m MMA. Like this brutal fight like fight sport, women and men get paid relatively the same, the champions. and they But from a spectator's point of view, like everyone looks at the women fighters the same way they look at the male fighters.
01:49:55
Tony Montgomery
And why that's the case, I'm not 100% because that i know that men or people tend to look at and NBA like and WNBA, like those aren't even the same sport, you know, but like in MMA, this brutal, like, you know, and it's just...
01:50:14
Karissa Johnson
very like tough, true like you would think that like, grr, that's masculine.
01:50:15
Tony Montgomery
yeah Yeah, but the women get so much respect in that sport. and Like sometimes they're even like, I'm i i'm like, oh she's fighting. Like, that's like, I want to watch that one, right? And it's like, and I see that perpetuated through like all these MMA fans. I do jujitsu and MMA. So that's why I'm really geeked out on it. But yeah, I think that's like, and it's just fascinating to me that this brutal sport manifests more equality in how we perceive athletes than any other sport that I've ever seen.
01:50:47
Karissa Johnson
Yeah, that's rad. I love that. Love a lady fighter. Okay, that also, my brain still has so many ideas. When you say that, I just want people to also get fired up ah about the weight classes for women's wrestling at the Olympics.
01:50:59
Tony Montgomery
Oh, I saw, yeah.
01:51:01
Karissa Johnson
If we want something to fight about, fight about that. Because woman wrestler in the Olympics is something like 76 kilograms. That is not a large lady, especially for an athlete.
01:51:14
Karissa Johnson
Men's goes up to like 180 kilograms. Let's fight about that.
01:51:18
Tony Montgomery
I think the, I think the men's are 125 plus. Yeah.
01:51:22
Karissa Johnson
Okay, 125. Drastic. That's still 50 more kilograms than a woman is allowed to be.
01:51:26
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:51:27
Karissa Johnson
Whatever that math is, that was not the right math.
01:51:27
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:51:29
Karissa Johnson
But again, I don't, I'll trust you on that number.
01:51:30
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:51:32
Karissa Johnson
I don't know these. I just know there's a massive difference. So that got me fired up talking about equality and equality.
01:51:35
Tony Montgomery
I thought you were going into something because I love i love combat sports and the NCAA just made women's wrestling college college
Gender Equality in MMA & Closing Remarks
01:51:44
Tony Montgomery
sport. So I thought you were going to go into that as far as like growth in the sport and everything.
01:51:50
Karissa Johnson
I'm sorry, that just happened? Women's wrestling?
01:51:54
Tony Montgomery
as like, yeah, NCAA Division I collegiate sport through like all all of the colleges now. It was more like just a few here, few there.
01:52:05
Karissa Johnson
oh like,
01:52:06
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:52:08
Karissa Johnson
Gotcha.
01:52:08
Tony Montgomery
think...
01:52:09
Karissa Johnson
It took until now to figure that out, like to put that out there.
01:52:11
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah.
01:52:12
Karissa Johnson
Anyway, okay. So point being, we are behind. You have just affirmed that like, we are not equal. We are still very behind and have a lot of growth before we are actually on an equal playing field.
01:52:24
Karissa Johnson
I had another one and it slipped my brain. Another big thing that gets talked about a lot in sport as a challenge for women athletes is that women have to battle this and you you talking about MMA fighters brought this up and how they're seen on it as an like equal players were like, rad, these, these women are awesome. Look at them getting down and dirty. Right.
01:52:45
Karissa Johnson
Women in traditional sports like basketball, ah probably mma as well, but there's this balance between trained to be good at my sport. So I might be muscular.
01:52:57
Karissa Johnson
um and might look a certain way,
01:52:58
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:53:01
Karissa Johnson
And like my land might have these really thick thighs because we're powerful. And that's where like your thighs, your legs are so powerful. So you're thick and it's like, and then society is telling you that you have to be lean and thin.
01:53:15
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:53:17
Karissa Johnson
And so you're training in this sport to be really excellent as an athlete And then when you're living your day-to-day life, society is like, yeah, but your body looks weird. You're like, you're built like an athlete and that's a bad thing.
01:53:34
Karissa Johnson
And so we, we face so much pressure around our bodies to perform a certain way and look a certain way in sport where like, also if we show up too feminine and how dare we do our hair or makeup for an event where may, that makes us feel confident and empowered.
01:53:41
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:53:51
Karissa Johnson
That's too feminine for sport.
01:53:53
Tony Montgomery
Or too sexy or too, it's always too something, right?
01:53:53
Karissa Johnson
But then when we're existing in, Go ahead, sorry.
01:53:56
Tony Montgomery
Like too sexy, too this, too that. Women are definitely always too much. And they need to fit within this like dynamic stereotype that males feel comfortable with.
01:54:02
Karissa Johnson
Yeah.
01:54:08
Tony Montgomery
And it's like, can we get over that? Like, can we just let it go?
01:54:12
Karissa Johnson
Thank you for saying that. Thank you for saying that this is all about what men are saying of us and like, oh, we made a men uncomfortable because we looked good in sport and now we're making men uncomfortable because we looked strong and jacked on the street.
01:54:14
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:54:25
Karissa Johnson
It is men's perceptions because women would not care.
01:54:26
Tony Montgomery
Of course he is.
01:54:29
Karissa Johnson
The objectification and self-objectification of women is wild.
01:54:34
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. And the thing that kills me is just like the negative ramifications of the mind, the body that women like that, that it perpetuates to women like, oh, you got to look a certain way.
01:54:47
Tony Montgomery
Okay, well, I'm going to restrict my calories, then my bone mineral density is going to go bad, then I'm going to have hormone dysregulation.
01:54:52
Karissa Johnson
And that's where reds comes from. And then it impacts your performance. And then like, and so, yeah, there's like so interwoven where, and then it's the psychological game of now I'm spending so much energy and trying to manage what my body looks like instead of just spending energy focused on my performance and living my life.
01:55:10
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, I agree.
01:55:11
Karissa Johnson
So that is, and I know that men face their own unique challenges, like homophobia is something and like vulnerability, speaking like speaking of like the stigma about reaching out for help, that is still there for men athletes.
01:55:12
Tony Montgomery
I agree.
01:55:24
Karissa Johnson
But once it's okay for men athletes, it's going to be okay for women athletes. And that women athletes will still have a lot of these things going on in the background that are unique to them and they deserve their own unique support.
01:55:38
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, no, I agree.
01:55:39
Karissa Johnson
that's the argument that I make.
01:55:41
Karissa Johnson
for my research.
01:55:41
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, it's good argument.
01:55:42
Tony Montgomery
I like it. I like it.
01:55:43
Karissa Johnson
Thank you.
01:55:45
Tony Montgomery
Well, thanks for coming on the show, Carissa. appreciate all your knowledge and everything. I learned so much from this. I took a bunch of notes that I'll be looking into. So I appreciate you coming on and you know letting us know everything that you have about this stuff. It's it's fascinating.
01:56:00
Karissa Johnson
Thank you. I appreciate being a guest. It's so much fun to get to chat at high level with ah somebody else who's in the area, maybe like a little bit tangential. So yeah, i really appreciated the dialogue. Thank you so much.
01:56:13
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, thank you. And as more research comes out, I'll have you back on and we'll we'll do it again. All right, take care.
01:56:18
Karissa Johnson
Beautiful. I'll hold you to it. Thank you. You too. Bye.