However the 35-year-old isn’t just content material with excelling in her sport and desires to make use of her platform for social good.
The marketing campaign hopes to set off a nationwide dialog about well-being and enhance folks’s consciousness of the issues in life that may have a unfavorable impression on one’s well being.
“So transportation and air high quality and a few of these issues that you just’re simply born into.
“It is actually about taking a holistic strategy to our well being and, you already know, determining how we spark conversations to create change for this.”
In November 2018, the American struggled with preeclampsia and had an emergency C-section at 32 weeks to ship her daughter.
“Clearly being an athlete and being wholesome, dwelling a wholesome way of life, I by no means anticipated to seek out myself in that place,” she added.
“And so to be there and to be, you already know, so scared and actually not feeling like I used to be educated concerning the circumstances, it is actually opened my eyes to form of the entire new world of well being.
“And actually not taking my very own well being as a right and actually wanting to boost consciousness round a few of these points.”
Discovering her voice
She says she felt compelled to talk out after the loss of life of George Floyd in 2020 and has continued to make use of her platform to combat for change.
“I believe it could possibly get irritating typically, taking up a number of the similar points,” she mentioned, including that she was hopeful that she may proceed to make a distinction.
“However on the similar time, I really feel it is such a privilege to have the ability to converse on behalf of others and to actually attempt to combat and to push for sure issues.
“It has been a course of to get thus far and I’ve actually grown and are available into my very own.
“I believe it was my very own private experiences that actually allowed me to say: ‘No, I want to come back ahead and I want to talk on issues which can be affecting not solely myself, however different ladies and different folks inside my group.'”
Biles and Osaka
Whereas it took Felix till later in her profession to talk out, she says she’s been proud to observe youthful superstars take management of the general public narrative.
She is especially impressed by the likes of Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka, who each bucked the pattern by addressing their psychological well being struggles this yr.
In some ways, Tokyo 2020 might be remembered as a cornerstone for athletes talking overtly concerning the pressures of competitors and Felix says it is about time.
“I believe for a very long time, you already know, athletes have simply been seen as invincible, and we’re no totally different than anyone else and we undergo struggles and challenges,” she mentioned, earlier than explaining how she offers with the stress.
“I believe actually making it a precedence, making our psychological well being a precedence and understanding whenever you’re not OK and what are the steps and what works for you.
“I do know when I’ve to lean into my help system, once I have to step away.
“Form of what helps me to have the ability to thrive and taking that point and taking that house for myself.”
‘An actual illustration for girls’
Felix, nevertheless, loved but extra Olympic success in Japan.
She added two medals to her haul — together with a gold within the ladies’s 400m dash relay — however such success did not at all times look possible.
Along with the problems of returning to the game with a younger daughter, Felix was additionally pressured to adapt her coaching schedule, training on empty soccer fields and seashores through the preliminary levels of the pandemic in 2020.
Her husband, Kenneth Ferguson, took go away from his job at Chrysler and the household moved to Los Angeles from Michigan so Felix may prepare together with her coach, Bob Kersee, forward of competitors.
Regardless of all of the sacrifice, Felix says it was price it.
“There have been so many superb moments, and I additionally felt like an actual illustration for girls and for individuals who had been instructed that their journeys and their tales have been over,” she mentioned about what might be her final Olympic Video games.
“And so I knew that I might have blended feelings. You already know, it has been part of my life for therefore lengthy, however on the similar time, there was a lot pleasure and success in these moments.”
