The Discomfort Zone

Confidence through competence takes skillful, repeated contact with the discomfort zone. Most of us assume that means doing more: more challenges, more information, more effort.

In this solo episode of The Discomfort Zone Podcast, Anna Levesque, former professional whitewater kayaker and founder of Mind Body Paddle, explores the side of the discomfort zone that's easy to miss: the pause. Drawing on two decades of teaching, a recent gathering with fellow Instructor Trainer Educators, and a personal experiment with her phone during the Reboot and Refuel Reset, she looks at what happens to confidence when you subtract instead of add.

If slowing down feels riskier than pushing harder, this one is for you.

In this episode:

• What embracing the pause does for your mindset and your paddling

• The surprising link between your phone and your self-trust

• What Anna got wrong as a young instructor

• A paddling drill that quiets the mind and creates space

Listen now to create more space and confidence for yourself on and off the water. Available wherever you get your podcasts.

Picture yourself in massive surf, nerves firing, while your coach keeps pointing at the clouds. That's how Valerie Bertrand learned to turn nerves into excitement.

In this episode of The Discomfort Zone Podcast, Anna Levesque, former professional whitewater kayaker and founder of Mind Body Paddle, talks with Valerie Bertrand, a two-time world champion from Quebec who now paddles for Norway's national team. Valerie has competed at the highest level in five disciplines. They get into how nerves show up differently for different people, how Valerie works with her nerves on the river, and what she passes on to the young athletes she coaches.

What would change if the nerves you feel at the top of a rapid became something you could use?

If your nerves take over before you even peel out of the eddy, this one is for you.

In this episode:

• How Valerie taught her young son to shift the scary stories he was telling himself above rapids

• The first thing she looks for on every heat list

• The four-word motto she teaches young athletes for the moment after a bad ride

• Why some paddlers need cheering before a big move and others need you to stay quiet

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

What does it take to stay calm above a big rapid when you're also wondering whether the people in the eddy have your back?

In this episode of The Discomfort Zone Podcast, Anna Levesque, former professional whitewater kayaker and founder of Mind Body Paddle, talks with two instructors who are breaking barriers in whitewater kayaking. Rolando Arrieta is an ACA-certified whitewater kayak instructor and storyteller based in Washington, D.C. He launched Breaking Barriers, a two-day whitewater progression program on the Potomac for people of color. Courtney Smith is an ACA Level 4 whitewater kayak instructor and Class V boater who teamed up with Rolando on the project.

Every paddler knows the work of settling nerves above a rapid, but what does whitewater confidence take when the discomfort starts long before you even reach the river?

If you believe that whitewater paddling should be accessible to everyone, and want to learn what you can do to make it more accessible, this episode is for you.

In this episode:

• How a spot on speed skating's "falling stars" list got Rolando into kayaking

• What a seventh-grade Girl Scout told Courtney she was afraid of before a paddling trip

• The comment under a photo of new paddlers that sent people rushing into Courtney's DMs

• Why Rolando started Breaking Barriers, and the day on the Gauley he hopes to experience

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, and get inspired to bring someone new into your crew.

A year ago, a low back injury meant Anna Levesque couldn't sit in a kayak, or even a chair. She wondered if she would ever paddle whitewater again. This season she's back surfing, stern squirting, paddling Class IV whitewater, and coaching.

In this solo episode of The Discomfort Zone Podcast, Anna Levesque, former professional whitewater kayaker and founder of Mind Body Paddle, tells the full story of how she rehabbed a bulging disc without surgery.

She had to work through some serious discomfort, including letting go of kayaking, learning how to breathe again, going for walks at 4 a.m. because the pain was too much, and keeping the faith when it seemed impossible.

What do you hold onto through a long recovery when you can't do the thing that makes you feel like yourself?

If you're sidelined right now and wondering whether you'll be able to get back to what you love, this episode is for you.

In this episode:

• What happened when Anna tried to get back in her boat at month four

• The transformative yoga practice she took on when all she could do was lie down

• The breathing lesson that blew her mind

• The investment in her own healing that stretched her

• What she already had in place before the injury, and how it showed up during rehab

If you could use a hopeful story about getting back to your joyful place after serious injury, tune in wherever you get your podcasts.

How do you learn to trust yourself enough to know your limits, and still take the big risk when it counts?

In this episode of The Discomfort Zone Podcast, Anna Levesque, former professional whitewater kayaker and founder of Mind Body Paddle, talks with Nadia Burton, founder of WhatVest and Big Hollow Designs. Nadia spent more than 25 years in the ski industry, competing out of Jackson Hole, cat ski guiding, and running heli-ski base operations in Alaska. She left competitive skiing after five concussions in one season, and later walked out of an office job she calls her glass cage, to build her own outdoor industry business.

Today Nadia says she skis better than she ever has. So what shifted? And how does someone who once pushed past every limit decide which risks are worth taking now, on the mountain, on the river, and in business?

If you've ever pushed past your limits to prove something to yourself, this one is for you.

In this episode:

• Why Nadia still takes the bigger cliff jump

• What flipping and swimming have to do with losing money in business

• What Nadia's Dad said when she quit her job to sew for a living

• Is "follow your passion" bad business advice?

Tune in wherever you get your podcasts!

Have you ever wondered how the legendary Brown Claw got started?

Dave Fusilli runs West Coast sales and marketing for Pyranha Kayaks, is a longtime IR athlete, and is one of the founders of Demshitz and the Brown Claw. In this replay of one of the most downloaded episodes of The Discomfort Zone Podcast, Anna Levesque, former professional whitewater kayaker and founder of Mind Body Paddle, gets the real origin story, then asks Dave about the hardest stretch of his life.

Paddling icon Bren Orton traveled in the Pyranha van with Dave for years. Dave says he was always afraid of THAT phone call. Then it came.

If you want to be able to hold joy and grief at the same, this one is for you.

In this episode:

• Where the Brown Claw actually came from

• What Dave does above a big waterfall when his heart rate is up and his muscles stop cooperating

• Why Dave gives people 5 chances

• How he navigated the devastating loss of Bren

Listen in, stop taking yourself too seriously, and go throw somebody the Brown Claw.

On her birthday, Amy Bowers Cordalis was handed a detonator wired to a dam on the Klamath River and told to stomp on it as hard as she could.

In this episode of The Discomfort Zone Podcast, Anna Levesque, former professional whitewater kayaker and founder of Mind Body Paddle, talks with Amy Bowers Cordalis: Yurok attorney, executive director of Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group, UN Champions of the Earth laureate, and author of The Water Remembers. Her family fought for the Klamath and its salmon for six generations, from fish protests to the removal of four dams.

What does it take to win a six-generation fight nobody thought you could win? Amy shares the courage, faith, tenacity, and humor it took, and what she found by walking straight through the door of fear.

If you need an uplifting river story right now, this episode is for you.

In this episode:

• Her grandmother and great-grandmother facing down armed federal marshals from a rowboat, with granny panties tied to the net and a prayer song

• The 2002 fish kill that sent Amy to law school

• The Yurok worldview of balance and responsibility that fueled generations of resistance

• What her niece Keeya Wiki's first descent of the free-flowing Klamath means after 170 years of fighting

Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

Sommerville Johnston brought a rubber band to this recording. Stretched, it is the discomfort zone. Pulled further, it snaps. How much stress resilience do you have before you snap?

Sommerville Johnston is a licensed professional counselor, somatic experiencing practitioner, wilderness guide, and founder of Aspen Roots Collective. She joins Anna Levesque, former professional whitewater kayaker and founder of Mind Body Paddle, on The Discomfort Zone Podcast to talk about growing stress resilience and regulating your nervous system, on and off the water.

If you've been running at a higher level of stress than usual, this one is for you.

In this episode:

• The difference between the stress that is growing you and the stress that is about to take you out

• The back body practice for nervous system regulation you can do while you listen

• Why Anna stepped back from hard whitewater mid career, and what was different when she came back to Class IV

• Strategies for not letting perfectionism run or ruin you

A replay from The Discomfort Zone Podcast 2023 archives. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

She told everyone in the eddy she was only going to ferry. When she peeled out, she was shocked by what happened next.

The whitewater decision making strategy that Anna Levesque, former professional whitewater kayaker and founder of Mind Body Paddle, got from Clay Wright years ago sounded strange. In this solo episode of The Discomfort Zone Podcast she works out why it became the perfect strategy to come back from her back injury to surf Garburator, her favorite big wave of all time.

If you're the type who puts a lot of pressure on yourself to perform and prepare, but then find that nerves get the best of you in the moment, this episode is for you. In this episode:

• The moment Anna realized she was observing herself making a different choice than she had planned

• When to decide to commit and when to stay curious

• What Clay says to paddlers before running a river

• How to support others in making good decisions

Listen now and take your whitewater decision making to the next level, both on and off the water.