Sophie Mariam is a Colorado-based policy advocate, yogi, and outdoor enthusiast who believes deeply in the healing power of movement, nature, and community. Follow her Telluride Mountain Run adventure fundraiser and support her mission to get more women and girls into nature!
Somewhere along the way, many of us learned to experience movement through the lens of performance.
How do we get faster, stronger, more productive, more impressive, more aesthetically appealing for everyone except ourselves?
I grew up dancing and trained classically in ballet, and there is still an inner critic within me whose volume I work to turn down every day. I think this voice is merely an adult evolution of a fearful child who wants to fit in, and wants to be “right” by external standards, and wants to mold herself to be accepted.
I still navigate the tension between loving physical challenge and wanting to stay rooted in joy rather than outcomes. Between ambition and presence. Between discipline and softness.
And yet, there are moments when all of that falls away. When I find a sense of adventure for the Inner Child who needs a moment to wonder, to roam free in a sense of wildness, play & possibility.
Moments where awe interrupts the constant self-evaluation. Where embodied presence becomes louder than perfectionism. Where the mountains remind me that I was never meant to spend my whole life performing my worth.
The mountains of Colorado feel like coming home in that way.
The outdoors has slowly taught me another way of being. One rooted not in proving, but in presence. In awe. In remembering that joy, play, rest, curiosity, and wonder are not distractions from life, but essential parts of it.
Researcher and psychologist Dacher Keltner, who studies awe and human emotion, describes awe as an experience that quiets the “default self” — the constant mental chatter centered on achievement, comparison, and ego. Awe, he argues, helps us feel more connected to each other, more grounded in the present moment, and more alive.
I think that’s part of why wild places heal us.
There’s something about standing beneath massive alpine peaks or watching sunlight move across a canyon wall that reorganizes your priorities for a second. Your nervous system softens. Your attention widens. You remember you are part of something larger than your productivity.
Yes, I can still set performance-based goals because working towards something feels motivating and fun, but I’m learning to enjoy the process more. To be content even in the messy middle.
Yogic philosophy speaks to this too. In the Yoga Sutras, there’s the concept of *santosha* (aka contentment). Merely an invitation to meet life fully as it is rather than constantly grasping for more. There’s also *aparigraha*, or non-grasping: loosening our attachment to outcomes, identities, and external validation.
The outdoors has become one of the places where I practice that most honestly.
Ironically, I discovered this even more deeply through ultrarunning. This is a sport that, on paper, sounds deeply intense and wildly unnecessary to many folks.
But what fascinated me was hearing ultrarunners describe races in ways that barely centered competition or times at all. People talked about the community, the sunrises, the strange joy of moving through landscapes for hours. Plenty of people weren’t chasing podiums or PRs. They were there to experience something bigger than themselves.
To do something hard, yes, but also to find wonder along the way.
And honestly? Running a 50K is kind of ridiculous. Sure. But this is another part of what makes it beautiful, that it teaches you to say: why not me?
To set an audacious goal and realize you are capable of far more than you imagined. To understand how often fear, perfectionism, or self-doubt are the very things keeping you small.
A few months ago, during my first 50K, this realization hit me while sitting on a rock in the middle of the Western Colorado desert. I had stopped caring about my race time entirely. I was staring out at red canyon walls, wildflowers pushing through dust, layers of ancient sediment carved by time, and the winding river guiding us forward through the landscape. My feet hurt, and I had no idea exactly where I was, or even what my finish time would be.
I remember thinking: this is the point. Not proving something, optimizing myself, or becoming more “impressive.” Just being fully, overwhelmingly alive.
Support Paula’s Adventure Fundraiser
So when the opportunity came to take on another challenge, this time the Telluride Mountain Run, with half the distance and nearly double the vertical gain, I said yes. Not because I need to conquer a mountain or suffering is inherently noble. But because these experiences keep bringing me back to myself.
This August, I’ll be running the Telluride Mountain Run in support of The Cairn Project, an organization helping more women and girls access transformative outdoor experiences.
And while the race itself is a meaningful physical challenge, what feels even more meaningful is the invitation underneath it: to reconnect with the wild, adventurous, playful parts of ourselves that so many of us have been taught to quiet down.
To get louder, more audacious, and take up space.
To trust our bodies to carry us through hard shit.
To experience awe.
To remember that wonder is not childish…. It’s necessary. It brings us back to who we are.
Because every woman deserves spaces where she can feel strong, free, connected, and fully herself.
