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What Alysa Liu Can Teach Us About Self-Care and Achievement


If you are like me and love ice skating, the Winter Olympics have been absolutely amazing to watch and enjoy. Watching 20-year-old Alysa Liu skate has been one of the most beautiful and artistic performances I have seen in a very long time. But what makes her performances different, and what can we learn from her and her story?


Backstory


A bit of backstory about Alysa - she was born in 2005 in Clovis, California, growing up in Oakland, California, which is in the Bay Area. At 5 she began skating, becoming the youngest skater in history, as well as the third U.S. woman, to land a triple axel during an international competition at 12 years old, and became the youngest woman to win a U.S. championship title at 13*. Alysa was on track to become one of the most well-known figure skaters in history, going on to win many more titles, and at 16, she chose to retire. She stated that she had reached her skating goals and wanted to move on with her life, experiencing what it was like to just be a regular person**. 


For the next two years, she hung out with friends, started studying psychology at UCLA, and healed herself from the burnout she had been experiencing. Then, in June 2024, she decided to return to the ice, but explicitly stated she would only do it the way she wanted. She helped design her programs (music and routine), her outfits, even how long she was at the rink each day to practice***. She clearly stated that she is doing this for fun, and while she wanted to compete, she never expected to achieve world status again. That desire to have fun is so clear when you look at her performances at the Olympics. 


So what can we take from Alysa’s performance & journey to incorporate into our own lives? 


Listen to our bodies and intuition


Alysa knew that she no longer was experiencing joy from skating, and it was time for her to step away. She was experiencing burnout and wanted a different life for herself. This was something she had loved, but had been put on her rather than something she chose for herself. How many times in your life have you done something because you were good at it, and you enjoyed it to an extent, but in reflective moments you questioned whether it was best for you? When we get 5, 10, 15 years into a project, hobby, career, whatever it might be, that thing becomes a part of our identity. The idea of changing careers after 1-3 years, especially if it is the first job you ever had, is less daunting than 20 years into a field where you had to get multiple degrees/certifications/etc.


There is a point where it feels like we are abandoning ourselves by changing something that has become such a core part of our identity, and it can be incredibly scary & difficult. However, we must continue to be attuned to our bodies and intuition - if we are being cued that something is wrong, that cue is happening for a reason. 


Doing something only for fun and not to be the best is perfectly acceptable


Alysa came back to skating on her own terms, with her own rules, and the expectation that she was doing this for fun. She is a self-described artist and wanted to put her art on the stage for others to see and enjoy. The result? She won the first gold medal in women’s singles for the United States since 2002. In every moment of her performance you can see she is having a great time, and that this is a passion not a requirement. You love dancing but you are not built like a prima ballerina? That’s okay! Take that dance class, choreograph a piece to music you love, and have fun. Make that pottery, paint that canvas, and do it because it is fun, not because you feel you need to become a world class artist. So many people have passions and hobbies that they don’t pursue, or minimize the joy it brings them, because there is no ability to monetize the hobby. Fun for the sake of having fun is so incredibly important, playing is so important, and finding the thing that will bring you joy, regardless of your skill level, is vitally important as we continue to live through once in a lifetime events.


You can stop whenever - even if you are the best


Just because you are the absolute best person in the office at making spreadsheets, that does not mean you have to be the only one to make spreadsheets. Just because you are a prodigy, you do not have to continue to do that thing if it is no longer bringing you joy - and doubly so if it is harming you.


The disappointment from others for you not reaching your “potential” is not as problematic as you harming yourself due to the pressure to maintain a level of being the best. Again, it might be difficult to achieve separation from whatever it might be if it has been years of involvement, but every day you are able to work towards becoming the healthiest version of yourself you can.


Takeaways


While Alysa is a prodigy, and overall we should not compare ourselves to others, Alysa’s ability to leave a sport where she was internationally known, and reclaim what she wanted to do with her life, finding joy in studying psychology and spending time with friends, is something we can take in and apply to ourselves. It is everyone’s first time being human, learning what we like and what we don’t like.


We make the best decisions we can with the information presented to us at the time, and sometimes people tell us we made the wrong decision. But two years of allowing herself to heal from burnout and focus on what she needed to do for herself led to Alysa becoming a gold medal winner at the Olympics. What could 6 months of dedicated time to healing yourself from whatever struggle you are dealing with do for you? What about 2 years? What would it look like for you to try a hobby you have been putting off because you are worried you will be bad at it, or you can’t make money off of it? What would it be like to just play and have fun? What would it look like to become your most authentic self, finding what truly brings you happiness, even if that is wildly different than what it was 20 years ago?


If these things seem daunting to you, your anxiety increases at the idea of this, or you are afraid to start, congratulations, you are human. If you are worried that you cannot differentiate between healthy and unhealthy anxiety cues, you are not alone. We here at A New Hope Therapy Center would love to help you work through that anxiety and help you identify ways to play and have fun. We won’t tell you what to do, but we will gladly skate alongside you, being your collaborative partner as you determine what you want moving forward.




JoAnna Hubbard, LMHC, NCC works in both the mental health and legal realms, working as a law clerk, therapist, and psychometrist. She has studied psychology and sociology (BA), criminal law, mediation, and contracts (JD), and clinical mental health counseling (MA), dedicating the past decade and a half to learning about these systems and assisting with bridging the gaps in understanding between them. Through this work, she has found a love for incorporating her passions of gaming, books, and art to help people overcome the barriers they face in their day to day life. If she isn't working, you can find her performing, reading with her dog, or spending time with loved ones. 

 
 
 

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