The decision to medically retire can be a grueling one especially for an athlete coping with chronic illness for years. In this interview, former collegiate gymnast Zoe Schweitzer talks about the challenges of coping with constant setbacks in her gymnastics career including injuries, chronic illness, and COVID-shutdowns. Zoe shares how she came to know it was time to medically retire and what led her to be confident in that decision. She opens up the emotional toll the anticipation of her social media announcement had on her and shares her experience navigating the related grief process of losing her identity as an athlete.

Through the process of letting go of others’ expectations and building up her identity, she stopped shrinking back and learned how to confidently live in full authenticity of who she is and who she was made to be. Zoe talks about the power of community and how she was able to utilize her existing community for support while also building new community in her transition following medical retirement. Grounding herself in her faith and in finding her greater purpose allowed her to think positively about the future, envisioning a meaningful life even without gymnastics. She also learned that gymnastics wasn’t the end-all-be-all and could appreciate how her athletic career had actually served her well in preparing her for life beyond sport.

You won’t want to miss the top three things Zoe learned in medical retirement that transformed her thinking and gave her a solid foundation to build a new path forward.