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Greetings friends and happy
August I'm Lavonne Martin Florio,

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the host of the podcast series.

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Taking a deep breath

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life requires moments of reflections that
are often accompanied by taking a deep.

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I like to refer to these moments
as aha moments, which are a sudden

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realization, inspiration, insight
recognition, or comprehension that

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catalyzes a more profound sense of self
and can be a springboard for growth.

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So welcome to my vision of
sharing stories of transitions and

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triumphs today's episode continues.

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My thoughts from episode one.

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Which was when it's over this
episode, celebrates a momentous

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feat in my life and athletic career
mentioned in the previous podcast

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of my journey through the Olympics.

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But today is a special day.

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Today is my Olympic versus.

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30 years ago, I crossed the finish
line in one of the craziest Olympic

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finals in the women's 100 meter.

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All my life.

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I have dreamed about that moment that
I would stand on the podium in a packed

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stadium while awaiting an Olympic
metal being placed around my neck.

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Every, since I watched my athletic
idle Benita Fitzgerald at the

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1984 Olympic games in Los Angeles.

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Cross the finish line in first place.

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Cementing her place in our athletic
society, in our world as the first

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African American gold medalist in the 100
hurdles, I wanted that same feeling that

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day finally arrived on August 6th, 1990.

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I walked out in my USA metal  ceremony
outfit after successfully crossing

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the finish line in the silver metal
position a few months earlier, I wasn't

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even predicted that I was going to
make the 92 Olympic team let alone

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metal at those Barcelona Olympics.

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But guess what?

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I did.

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I defied the odds.

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I surprised myself and the world.

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I will forever be etched in history as the
silver medalists in these Olympic games.

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What do I mean by that?

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So we all know in life and in
particular in athletics, things can

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change from one day to the next.

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You can be a champion on one
day and the next day you may

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not even make it to the finals.

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On that particular day of August
6th, 1992, I walked away as the

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second best hurdler in the world.

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And I was thrilled.

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I had accomplished my goal.

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I had given myself a victory, my
community, a victory my community

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in Dayton, Ohio was a statics.

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My family, my coaches, everyone that
had been associated with me, even Benita

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Fitzgerald, who was waiting for me before
I went out to get my medal, to give me the

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biggest hug and tell me how proud she was.

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Okay.

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But to my surprise, I had a hollow
feeling that accompany my most incredible

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track and field accomplishments.

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That journey was so exhilarating,
but in the end, and yes,

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I knew the end was coming.

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I felt hot.

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And so, as I mentioned before, there
were years that I spent in my heart,

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not outwardly, but in my heart, trying
to replicate that Olympic feeling

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instead of acknowledging when it's over.

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And so I can recognize in me
that transitions are always hard.

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Like I said earlier change is inevitable,
but for some reason I tend to linger

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in the comfortable spaces of my leg.

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And so these past years in particular,
these past four years, I have been

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working on myself and it has caused
me to do some serious reflections.

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So while I have been pondering, I can
trace some of these feelings of insecurity

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to two distinct childhood memory.

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And I want to share those with you
because to me , it connects as to why

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I struggle a lot of times with change.

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So the first one is happened to me.

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When I was in second grade,
I went to a Catholic school.

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I grew up Catholic and I attended this
school from second to fourth grade.

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I love my school.

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I love my school.

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I love my friends.

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I love my team.

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I felt safe in this space because it
was also the church that I attended.

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In second grade I had this great Nigerian
teacher who was very strict, but she

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was loving and halfway through that
school year, she had recommended to

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my parents that I should be promoted
the next year to fourth grade.

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In other words, she felt that I needed to
skip the third grade and go to the fourth.

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Part of the reason why is that?

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I had a huge vocabulary.

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I had a out of this
world  reading appetite.

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My comprehension level was off
the charts for a second grader.

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And Mrs.

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Ooma felt that I needed to skip third
grade and go on to fourth grade.

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Well, I wasn't included in the
discussion at all my parents, black

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parents in the seventies, they
didn't ask their kids about what they

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thought, like what happens today.

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I came from that mantra, children
should be seen and not heard.

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And so that decision was made
for me to move to fourth grade

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and my comfort level was spooked.

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Now let me add this little caveat.

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As I transitioned to fourth grade,
I still had to go back and take

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third grade math because my math
skills were on par at grade level.

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So being with fourth graders
all day who were nine, almost 10

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years old, I'm an eight year old.

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And then having to come back and take the
math class with my regular class, that

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I would have the regular grade that I
would have been in that was challenging.

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So fourth grade I've found to be
challenging, not the academics

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part, but the social and emotional
adjustments were a serious struggle.

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I always felt like I was
behind the eight ball.

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I was never comfortable.

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I never felt accepted by
the kids in the class.

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And why would I be?

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I was eight.

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They were nine going onto.

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My confidence was shaken.

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I never made the adjustment insecurity
prevail throughout my academic years

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and even all the way through college.

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Think about it.

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I'm always socially and emotionally
a year behind any  promotion that

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I was in academically, I never
shared those feelings with them.

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I never made the core relation
until recently as I've

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started on my healing journey.

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It's like Maya Angelou said at 50,
I began to know who I was and it was

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like waking up to myself and I agree.

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My next experience was when I was
in fifth grade, before fifth grade,

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I grew up in a very typical street
in the inner city of Dayton, Ohio.

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Growing up.

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I had no idea of the
happenings in my neighborhood.

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I had no idea that it was crime written.

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I had no idea there was a nefarious
dealings that were going on.

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All I knew was that I felt safe,  I
loved my childhood friends and I had

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a childlike freedom on Ardmore street.

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I remember very vividly.

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That we would ride our bikes, my brother
and I unbeknownst to us, our mother was

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watching us, but we felt like we were
free to the end of the street, into

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this big lot that we thought was huge.

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And we would just ride our bikes
in a literal circle and just

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laugh and felt free and had fun.

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When I think about it today,
that lot wasn't that big.

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But to us, it was huge.

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It was free.

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One of my other best memories about
living on that street was that I could

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walk to my maternal grandparents home.

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That was a few blocks away.

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I was very close to my
maternal side of of our family.

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And so that predictable
life made me feel safe.

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Well, one day my parents who
were hard working black parents

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wanted to provide a live.

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For us that included good
schools, a safer neighborhood

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and acquired her side of life.

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So they moved us out of
the city to the suburbs.

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We moved into a plan community that
provided the relief that  my parents

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sought for our family of four.

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my little sister would be more
than about five years later.

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So she wasn't included in.

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If I'm honest, it's one of the
earliest memories I have in my

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life of being anxious about change,
starting a new school, acquiring new

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friends, having my first exposure
to white people was different than

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any experience I have ever had.

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And if you're African-American
you understand what I mean?

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When I say your first exposures
to dealing with Caucasian.

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I found out later in life that some of
our neighbors were unhappy that a black

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family was even living next door to them.

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I realized now that I didn't know
this fact then, but I felt something

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was different in this new community
than that all black neighborhood

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that I had grew up in, in the city,
unbeknownst to my parents, I struggled.

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I struggled greatly with this change.

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I never shared it, or even knew
that I still carried this memory in

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my heart to this day, but I always
had the surety of track and field.

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It was my happy place.

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It was where I felt free, different,
except it, every time I rent X,

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especially when I won, I was important.

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I was a winner.

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I can transform into my
version of a superwoman on the.

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And that's why transitioning
from the end of my career to

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regular life was difficult.

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I was right back where I started anxious
about the uncertainty of what lies ahead.

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Well, a couple of weeks ago I had a
little bit of an anxious thought when

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I was watching the world championships
of track and field take place on U S

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soil for the first time ever in Eugene.

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I competed in a world championships
in 1987  in Rome, Italy.

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And that was my first and
only world championships.

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And so I know how much this meant
to have these games here in the

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U S the first world championships
was 1983 in Helsinki, Finland and

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to have in 2022, the first world
championships on us soil was exhibiting.

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Well, I often get asked or I got
asked within those couple of weeks.

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Why wasn't I there?

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Yeah, I decided not to go to the
world championships for a few reasons.

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Number one, I'm always
respectful of my husband.

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Who's a coach and not wanting to
invade his space while he's working.

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That's one.

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I definitely want to be respectful.

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Number two, I've had been to Eugene,
Oregon a couple of times this year,

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and I really wasn't looking forward
to going back to Eugene and in

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particular I don't deal really well.

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Crowds.

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And so I wasn't interested in that,
but if I'm being really honest

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with myself, I have worked really
hard to step away and separate.

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Lubana the track athlete
from Lavanya, the person.

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And I did not want to put myself back
into that environment of, of the feelings.

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And I'm trying to describe what those
feelings are like, that feelings.

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I guess the feelings of replicating
that moment, those moments that I had

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as an athlete, I've worked really hard
to kind of like step away from that,

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but I want to admit something to you.

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As I saw pictures, as I saw videos,
as I talked to a few people who

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were at the competition, I had that
same lingering feeling in my head.

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About I wasn't there.

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I was missing out.

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I wasn't a part of it.

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That same feelings that I was healing or
being healed from, started to come back.

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I made the decision to go off
to Cancun and watch the track

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meets while looking at the ocean,
because that's what I love to do.

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As a matter of fact, my spouse,
my partner, my husband, he said

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to me, go do what makes you happy?

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And that's something that made me happy
while on that trip, I went and visited

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a Mayan temple and I am a history buff.

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And so  it was on my bucket list to
go to . Well, I learned something

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that shit's needs are I learned a lot,
but one thing that was an inspiration

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for me, apart from the fact that
the Mayans are a phenomenal people.

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What they were able to do, how
they were able to create it,

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create their society was amazing.

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The stories that we hear about
them are, are so skewed from the

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colonizers perception, but they are a
wonderful marvelous people, but here's

00:14:25.259 --> 00:14:30.929
one thing that I learned from the
Mayans when they built their cities.

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And in particular, this temple that
I was telling you about, they built

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their cities on top of each other.

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So if you were to dig deep
inside this temple, you will see

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that there is a smaller temple,
another temple on top of that.

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And then the large temple that we
see when we recognize that it's one

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of the new seven wonders of the.

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They build upon what is underneath
or what was the laid foundation.

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And that's what I realized that
I have these layers of myself.

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That's built upon some
of these foundations.

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And in particular, I'm not saying
that it's a positive thing either.

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I'm saying these feelings
that I have of change.

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And I might bury one and build
on top of that and bury that

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and build on top of that.

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And I never really deal with the deep
downness of why I struggle with change.

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And when it's over, new
beginnings are scary and they're

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terrifying, but it's never over.

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It just changes.

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And so after I pondered how I was feeling
about watching the track meet and what I

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felt like I was missing out, I recognized
I wasn't missing out on anything.

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I recognize that the joys in my life
is not what I may feel like it's

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changed or what I may be losing.

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It's what I cling to.

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Buddha said that you only
lose what you clean too.

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That's the challenge, wanting life
to stay static and status quo.

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That's the challenge not embracing
the change that is to come.

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The change that will happen.

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The change that is inevitable,
that's the beauty of life.

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So when I look at some of these young
people, and when I talked to some

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of these young people, I recognize
that part of my role is to encourage

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part of my role is to be a beacon.

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Part of my role is to.

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Take what I know and not force
it, but just take what I know and

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be there as  as a healing balm,
because we all go through changes.

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As I mentioned the last time we
all go through changes, whether

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it's our children growing up and
leaving the home, that's a change.

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Whether it's the change in a new
job, whether it's moving, whether

00:17:24.132 --> 00:17:27.672
it's a loss of a friendship or the
loss of a loved one, these are all

00:17:27.672 --> 00:17:35.629
changes that we have to recognize
happens in our lives, but it's okay.

00:17:37.219 --> 00:17:42.199
So as I think back to my childhood and I
think back to how I did not handle and you

00:17:42.199 --> 00:17:45.589
know, what thought of why I didn't handle
it well is because I didn't tell any.

00:17:48.119 --> 00:17:54.689
So the next guest that I will have
on the podcast is a friend that had

00:17:54.779 --> 00:17:59.673
made herself available to me during a
really difficult timeframe in my life.

00:18:00.153 --> 00:18:04.053
And I recognize that it's through
transparency and it's through

00:18:04.053 --> 00:18:08.523
being able to, to open up it's
through recognizing chain.

00:18:09.408 --> 00:18:13.362
And it's through embracing it
is where the healing comes.

00:18:13.722 --> 00:18:17.502
And so I'm excited to introduce
you to her in the next podcast.

00:18:18.042 --> 00:18:24.642
And as I stated I'm forever grateful
to my spouse who encourages me to

00:18:24.672 --> 00:18:27.008
pursue those things that make me happy.

00:18:27.278 --> 00:18:29.348
And he encourages that and supports that.

00:18:29.558 --> 00:18:31.598
And I encourage and support that for him.

00:18:32.168 --> 00:18:34.928
And for that I'm eternally grateful.

00:18:35.828 --> 00:18:39.538
So as I end the podcast for
today, I hope this encourages

00:18:39.538 --> 00:18:42.118
you to continue to journey on.

00:18:43.688 --> 00:18:45.308
, whatever is set before you,