athlete supportCopingEmpowermentFeelingsinjury recoveryMindset
How Teen Girl Athletes Can Use Visualization During Injury Recovery
The strongest muscle I trained for this tournament wasn’t my legs….
Last week, I had the privilege of competing at Ball Hockey Nationals with an incredible group of women. It was one of those weeks where your body is wonderfully tired and your heart, completely full.
Between multiple high-intensity games over just a few days, hours spent exploring the beautiful streets of Montreal, and saying yes! to every adventure I could, including more roller coasters than I ever imagined I’d ride, I found myself clueing into something that surprised me.
How grateful I was for how my body kept showing up for me.
Don’t get me wrong, my muscles were stiff at times, and there were moments when I wondered how much energy I had left in the tank. But each morning, I woke up feeling ready to do it all over again. My body recovered. It adapted. And it kept carrying me through every experience that week.
As I reflect on why this tournament left me in great condition all things considered, I keep coming back to one practice that has become one of the most important parts of my preparation.
Not strength training, nutrition, or stretching (although I love a good stretch and smoothie!).
That unnegotiable practice for me is: training my mind.
Training for More Than the Game
Training my mind doesn’t make me invincible, but I know our minds influence our experience of our bodies more than we often realize.
Over the past years, meditation and visualization have become regulars in my life, not just when I’m feeling stressed, but as a way of intentionally training my attention, calming my nervous system, and rehearsing the person I am becoming.
Before and during Nationals, I spent time visualizing myself moving freely. I imagined my body feeling strong, responsive, and capable. I pictured myself recovering between games, trusting my training, and staying present instead of worrying about what might happen.
Did visualization guarantee that outcome? Of course not.
But it prepared my mind to expect possibility rather than fear.
And I’ve noticed that this practice isn’t just changing how I play hockey. It’s changing how I move through life.
The Stories We Believe Become the Lives We Live
I always believed I couldn’t do cold plunges, at least not past hip depth.
“I just can’t handle the cold water on my spine!,” I told myself (and anyone who would listen).
Then one day, instead of accepting that story, I became curious. What if I focused on my breath instead of the discomfort? I started to imagine myself staying calm before I even stepped into the water. To my surprise, after my second attempt, I did it.
The cold wasn’t magically easier. But I was different.
The same thing happened this past week at La Ronde Amusement Park.
Up until now, I would describe myself as someone who is afraid of heights. Roller coasters and I have not exactly been best friends. I had built an identity around being the person who gets nauseous on those rides.
But this time, I noticed those old thoughts without automatically believing them as facts. Maybe I can be the person who straps on her anti-nausea bracelets and has a great time. On the rides, I breathed. I stayed as present as I could.
I reminded myself that fear doesn’t always get the final say.
I even noticed an incredible sunset on one of the bendy turns of a wild ride. By the end of the day, I had ridden roller coasters I never imagined I would. It wasn’t because I suddenly became fearless.
It was because I stopped letting an old story make decisions for me.
Your Brain Is Always Rehearsing Something
As a psychologist, I find this fascinating.
Our brains are always rehearsing a story of sorts, whether it’s confidence, worry, recovery, fear or something else.
Visualization has been studied extensively in sport psychology because mentally rehearsing movement activates many of the same neural pathways involved in performing the movement itself. While visualization doesn’t completely replace physical training, it can complement it by building confidence, enhancing focus, and preparing the nervous system for performance.
I think its impact extends beyond sport as well. The stories we repeatedly tell ourselves shape how we approach challenges.
“I’m injury-prone.”
“I’ll never get back to where I was.”
“I’ve always been anxious.”
These beliefs can become identities, and identities influence the choices we make every day.
- What if we became just a little more curious about those stories?
- If we didn’t automatically see them as facts?
- And we understood them as simply thoughts that had been repeated enough times to feel true?
Recovery Happens in the Mind, Too
This is one of the reasons I feel so passionate about supporting injured teen girl athletes. Recovery is about far more than the physical body. It’s emotional, psychological, and social, too.
Long before an athlete returns to her sport, she’s having thousands of conversations with herself. When we learn to calm our nervous system, intentionally direct our attention, and imagine possibility alongside uncertainty, we aren’t pretending challenges don’t exist. We’re creating the conditions to respond to those challenges with greater resilience.
Practice Possibility
Looking back on Nationals, I don’t know exactly how much my meditation practice contributed to how I felt physically. What I do know is that it changed how I experienced the week.
It helped me:
- Notice tension before it took over.
- Recover emotionally after difficult moments.
- Appreciate what my body was doing instead of constantly worrying about what it wasn’t.
- Trust myself.
Maybe that’s the greatest gift this practice has given me. The willingness to believe that I might be capable of more than yesterday’s story suggests.
Whether you’re an teen girl athlete recovering from an injury, navigating self-doubt, or simply someone standing at the edge of something that feels uncomfortable, remember this:
Your mind is always practicing something.
Maybe this time, choose to practice possibility.
Let’s Keep Walking Together
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With gratitude,
Chantal
