When fitness guru and content creator Kayla Nicole was going through a rough patch after her breakup last summer, she says starting talk therapy became her “a-ha moment.”
As someone who has always relied on physical fitness as a release from emotional stress, Nicole, 31, tells PEOPLE that she turned to therapy when she was in the “best shape” of her life but still felt “miserable inside.”
“I honestly say this and I mean this — I don’t like who I am when I’m not working out,” Nicole says, revealing that she prefers to finish working out in the morning. “I’m a naturally anxious person. I’ve had a few bouts of depression, and honestly, my fitness world has saved my life on numerous occasions.”
But when she was facing “a big breakup and a big life change” last summer, the former Los Angeles Lakers reporter said during a game that she learned, “It’s one thing to be physically ready, but it’s another thing to be mentally ready.”
Nicole, who was in an on-and-off relationship with NFL player Travis Kelce for five years, says it’s become a challenge for her to maintain her authenticity as a fitness influencer — a title she never describes herself by. Still, “I know I am,” she adds.
“It was like I was working out, I was in really good shape, but I felt like s… and I was sad, and it was hard to get out of bed. It got to the point where I was like, ‘Okay, what else can I do?’ So I started going to therapy,” she says.
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Kayla Nicole on Instagram. Kayla Nicole/Instagram
The host of an upcoming sports and fashion podcast says she struggled with major sleep and digestive issues before finding success with her therapist.
“Just full transparency, I went through this big breakup, a big life change, and I lost a significant amount of weight in a very short amount of time. I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t eating. I was really abusing melatonin to sleep at night,” she says.
Although she was “still working out” during this time, social media updates led to confusing feedback from her followers. “I post content and people say, ‘You look so good. Tell us your tricks. You look amazing.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m miserable. I’m miserable. I’m depressed,'” admits Nicole. “My abs were amazing, I had a six pack. And it was like, ‘I’ve never felt so bad in my life.’ ”
She continues, “So I started going to therapy and quickly realized, okay, it’s one thing to be physically fit, but it’s another thing to be mentally fit. You could be in the best shape of your life, but mentally, if you’re not a healthy person, you won’t feel good.”
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Kayla Nicole attends the Actively Black NYFW After Party at PEAK at Hudson Yards on September 8, 2023 in New York City.
Bennett Raglin/Getty
Finding success with talk therapy inspired Nicole to incorporate the tools she learned into her own fitness content, and now she’s “really excited” for her brand, Tribe Therepe, to “enter a new chapter” focused on “feel-good fitness.”
“It focuses on the mental health component of exercise, which is really, really important to me and really resonates with me, and really just encourages people to take care of themselves mentally,” he says, explaining, “I think when your mind is in a healthy place , your flesh will follow.”
Tribe Therepe also hopes to help those who may not be able to afford traditional therapy, says Nicole, noting, “Therapy is 1000% a luxury and I get that. So I really want to provide almost, like, a source of therapy for people who don’t need it money.”
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Instead, Nicole says that the Therepe tribe will “hopefully give you some little things that I learned in therapy that will help you become a better person.”
Looking back, Nicole says she would have told the version of herself from last year to “listen to her therapist a little more,” especially now that she could see the progress she had made. “I’m so grateful for the therapy because if I hadn’t done it, I don’t know how I would react right now. I have no idea,” she adds.
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Nicole and Kelce first started dating in 2017 before the couple officially called it quits in May 2022. Amid the media frenzy surrounding Kelce’s new romance with singer Taylor Swift, Nicole says she’s been unfairly targeted by internet trolls and negative attention.
Another message Nicole would have told herself last summer: “Shut up, baby,” she says. “You thought the worst was over, but buckle up and grab all your tools right now and put them in your bag because you’re going to need them.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education