"Alysa Liu just won Olympic gold… and had me rethinking everything I thought I knew about Olympic pressure.
What caught my attention wasn’t the medal.
It was how she looked while she was skating.
Joyful. Relaxed. Almost carefree.
If you’ve been around elite athletes, that’s unusual. At that level most competitors carry a visible weight of expectation.
Then I learned her story.
After the Beijing Olympics, she retired at 16 because she didn’t want her entire life to be skating. She wanted friends. Hobbies. A normal season of life.
Two years later she came back — but only on her terms. Her music. Her costumes. Her schedule. Her voice.
Watching her compete, she didn’t look like someone trying to prove anything.
She looked like someone who chose to be there.
She had already walked away once.
So skating wasn’t who she was anymore.
It was something she chose.
The goal isn’t caring less about what you do.
It’s needing it less to tell you who you are.
Sometimes people don’t burn out from hard work.
They burn out from living a version of success they didn’t choose."
What caught my attention wasn’t the medal.
It was how she looked while she was skating.
Joyful. Relaxed. Almost carefree.
If you’ve been around elite athletes, that’s unusual. At that level most competitors carry a visible weight of expectation.
Then I learned her story.
After the Beijing Olympics, she retired at 16 because she didn’t want her entire life to be skating. She wanted friends. Hobbies. A normal season of life.
Two years later she came back — but only on her terms. Her music. Her costumes. Her schedule. Her voice.
Watching her compete, she didn’t look like someone trying to prove anything.
She looked like someone who chose to be there.
She had already walked away once.
So skating wasn’t who she was anymore.
It was something she chose.
The goal isn’t caring less about what you do.
It’s needing it less to tell you who you are.
Sometimes people don’t burn out from hard work.
They burn out from living a version of success they didn’t choose."
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"YOUR TEARS CONTAIN A NATURAL PAINKILLER 6 TIMES STRONGER THAN MORPHINE. AND YOU WERE TRAINED TO HOLD THEM BACK.
In 2006, researchers at the Pasteur Institute in Paris discovered a molecule in human tears called leucine-enkephalin. It is an endogenous opioid. Your body manufactures it. It binds to the same receptors as morphine. It is six times more potent.
Every time you cry, your body is not breaking down. It is self-medicating.
Dr. William Frey at the University of Minnesota proved that emotional tears have a completely different chemical composition than reflex tears. When you cry from cutting an onion, the tears are mostly water. When you cry from grief, stress, or pain, the tears contain cortisol, adrenaline, prolactin, and leucine-enkephalin. Your body is literally flushing stress hormones out through your eyes and replacing them with its own painkiller.
People who cry regularly have lower blood pressure, lower cortisol levels, and stronger immune function than those who suppress tears. This has been measured.
Men are told crying is weakness. Women are told it is emotional instability. Children are told to stop. An entire species trained to suppress the one biological mechanism designed to flush poison from the body and replace it with medicine.
You have a pharmacy behind your eyes. It activates automatically when you need it most. It costs nothing. It requires no prescription. And for your entire life, you were told to shut it off.
The next time your body tells you to cry, let it. It knows exactly what it is doing."
In 2006, researchers at the Pasteur Institute in Paris discovered a molecule in human tears called leucine-enkephalin. It is an endogenous opioid. Your body manufactures it. It binds to the same receptors as morphine. It is six times more potent.
Every time you cry, your body is not breaking down. It is self-medicating.
Dr. William Frey at the University of Minnesota proved that emotional tears have a completely different chemical composition than reflex tears. When you cry from cutting an onion, the tears are mostly water. When you cry from grief, stress, or pain, the tears contain cortisol, adrenaline, prolactin, and leucine-enkephalin. Your body is literally flushing stress hormones out through your eyes and replacing them with its own painkiller.
People who cry regularly have lower blood pressure, lower cortisol levels, and stronger immune function than those who suppress tears. This has been measured.
Men are told crying is weakness. Women are told it is emotional instability. Children are told to stop. An entire species trained to suppress the one biological mechanism designed to flush poison from the body and replace it with medicine.
You have a pharmacy behind your eyes. It activates automatically when you need it most. It costs nothing. It requires no prescription. And for your entire life, you were told to shut it off.
The next time your body tells you to cry, let it. It knows exactly what it is doing."
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