Simone Biles is one of the greatest athletes of all time. She has 4 skills named after her, and she's the most decorated gymnast ever, regardless of sex.

During the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Biles experienced the twisties, “a mental block which causes sudden loss of sense of spatial awareness.”

"Your brain loses track of where you are in the air. You find out where the ground is when you slam into it," according to CNN's Elle Reeve, who was a competitive gymnast for a decade. 

This can be extremely dangerous and can lead to life altering injuries, like the ones sustained by Jacoby Miles. She was 15 years old when she landed on her neck and ended up paralyzed.

After all was said and done, Biles decided to take a two-year mental health break from competing.

Adding to the mental stress she was under, she was one of the 265 girls that Larry Nassar, the former team doctor for the United States National Gymnastics Team, abused under the guise of medical treatment.

In an emotional testimony at a US Senate hearing about the FBI's mishandling of the Nassar case, she said, “To be clear, I blame Larry Nassar, and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse.”

"USA Gymnastics and the United States, Olympic and Paralympic Committee knew that I was abused by their official team doctor long before I was ever made aware of their knowledge.”

"The scars of this horrific abuse continue to live with all of us,” Biles said. “I worked incredibly hard to make sure that my presence could help maintain a connection between the failures [around the Nassar case] and the competition at Tokyo 2020.”

Now, two years later, Biles made a winning return to competition and is once again aiming for the top.

"I've been doing a lot of work on myself, I'm still in therapy weekly, and I'm excited to go out there and have the confidence I had before," Biles said in an interview after the event.

Lessons We Can Learn

What can we, as ordinary people who are not high level athletes learn from these stories? 

For starters, according to psychologists, we grow and progress when we step outside our comfort zone. Athletes of Simone Biles’ caliber have been doing it from a young age. Maybe this is what makes them different from the rest of us when getting over literal and figurative hurdles. 

But it’s not all about pushing. Slowing down and taking a break is just as important when it comes to protecting your physical and mental health, as Biles made clear. 

Each and every one of us is unique and has our own way of dealing with hardships and recharging our batteries. Find what your body and mind truly desire to keep you balanced and at peace.