If there is someone you need to know that has garnered the interest of people across Los Angeles and the rest of the country, it is Teal Swan.
She is the creator of the popular “Ask Teal” YouTube series, author of six internationally published books, and the artist of hundreds of frequency paintings. But this wasn’t always her career.
Swan was previously a professional telemark skier on par to compete in Olympic competitions. “I was practically raised on skis!,” she tells us in an exclusive interview. Her father was an incredibly good skier. He was a racer that went on to fall in love with back country and big mountain skiing.
According to Swan, “My father, though endlessly patient with children, had a technique for teaching me how to ski… ‘try to keep up’… Hahahaha.”
But in 2009, something that would change the course of her life forever took place…the birth of her only child. Teal had to take a serious look at a lot of things coming up for her leading up to the day her son was born. “I learned so much about fear and self hate during those years.”
The world of sports does such a good job of disowning fear in athletes. Most skiers and athletes, Teal included back in the day, we were actively coached to stuff down the fear.
““Fear can burn the house down, don’t let it in” it’s what my first coach told me. So just like anybody else on the slope I did not admit to my fear. I rejected it. I suppressed, until I eventually became unaware of it. You know what happens when you ignore fear as an athlete? You become technically excellent, but you lack confidence,” she shared with us during our conversation.
People usually ignore fear until something happens that has them stumped.
In gymnastics it’s called twisties. And it’s described as losing control of your body as you spin through the air. You can imagine how dangerous this is, this minor crisis your mind and body experience while you are in the middle of a high-intensity (even life-threatening) activity. It can appear like it happens out of the blue. When in fact the signs have been there (and ignored) for a long time. This experience taught her that when you ignore fear and what that fear is trying to tell you, your body and mind will find a way to show you that something is critically wrong. Most people are taught and expected to ignore their fear.
Athletes too, just like any of us here in Los Angeles and across the nation, have been told by their parents, teachers, society, to suck it up and never admit to their fear. To feel fear is shameful, like there’s something wrong with you. Swan insists that if self-love would be taught for what it truly is, instead of cosmetized to be about “self pampering”, the world we live in would change dramatically. And through this experience of learning how to love herself through her own experience, a brand new career came upon the horizon.
These days, Swan can now be found teaching seminars all over the world to help others come out of a space of suffering and into greater depths of self love. Along the way, she has had to overcome some incredible obstacles in order to achieve the success and audience that she has today.
Swan has faced adversity and push-back for some of her approaches to mental and emotional well-being, as people that try her processes become confronted with the pain that they have been stuck in for a long time.
Traditionally speaking, most of us are taught to find ways to distract ourselves away from the pain; anything that allows us to cope with it, but what Teal does differently is to offer ways to deal with the pain directly, learn from it, and make new choices that allow one to have a healing experience which she defines simply as “experiencing the opposite.”
Per Teal, you can only avoid crises, prevent serious pain and maintain stability if you recognize the personal truths contained within the pain you feel, and act according to them when they first appear and are very small. If you don’t do this, you are in for HUGE drama, huge samsara waves, huge complexity, huge instability and lots of pain.
She often invites people to look at what choices they would make and consequences they would face if they were able to admit to the reality of what is creating the painful circumstance, and from this place, choose with their free will based on what is compatible for them and others around them in the direction of improvement.
After speaking with her directly and through learning about her path to where she is, it is clear that Teal Swan’s deepest intention is to set people free. Her mission is to make people aware and conscious so that with that awareness, they can begin to heal and live deeply meaningful, integrated, and empowered lives.
Learn more about her and her teachings at: http://tealswan.com
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