#172: Dr Erin Ayala on Values, Mental Health & Redefining Self Care

I’m delighted to welcome Dr Erin Ayala to the podcast this week. Erin is a Licensed Psychologist, a certified Mental Performance Consultant and is listed as a licensed mental health provider on the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s Mental Health Register.  What I love about Erin’s perspective is that it’s holistic: she recognises that daily life, health and athletic performance are intertwined and inseparable from one another. When she’s not at work, Erin is also an endurance athlete (having completed 9 marathons and 1 Ironman) and these days is focused on life as an elite cyclist.  On top of that, she recently co-founded a cycling team called Stamina Racing Collective which prioritises people who would traditionally struggle to find a home in cycling (especially, black, indigenous, people of colour and non-binary and trans athletes) In this conversation, we discuss the power of values, the difficult decisions she had made based on those values and her surprising definition of self-care. Get the full show notes for the episode here. — Visit the Sparta Chicks Radio website here  Follow Sparta Chicks Radio on Facebook: facebook.com/SpartaChicks  Follow Erin on Instagram: @erineayala