Run to Paradise Episode 6 : Always Think Of The Cows - Meriem Daoui

“Running is meant to be fun, it's meant to be liberating, it's meant to make you feel free. If you focus too much on how fast you run or what place you come it becomes toxic.”

This week I talk to one of my heroes - the irrepressible Meriem Daoui! Meriem is an athlete, a running coach and an oncology nurse and is infuriatingly humble about being so blindingly brilliant. She wouldn’t even let me say she had been voted the Best Tasmanian in Tasmania Award 2022 even though it (sort of) true!! Oh yeah and in 2021 she received the Peter Norman Humanitarian Award for leading a number of fundraising initiatives for cancer causes as well as her work with the Muslim Women in Sport Network. She’s been doing this since she was 16.

Meriem has many powerful insights to share about maintaining an athletic lifestyle and a generosity of spirit through myriad challenges; as a woman of faith and colour surviving racism and bullying in Australia, living with type one diabetes and surviving mental ill health and eating disorder. 

This episode gets pretty heavy and powerful, and the passion with which Meriem speaks about her own challenges and the way they’ve informed her approach to helping others to navigate the choppy waters of human life is unbelievably inspiring and moving. Her advice on these things is from a place of lived experience and true empathy. We both open up about mental illness and disordered eating in a very vulnerable way and I’m endlessly grateful for Meriem’s honesty and strength in creating a safe space for real discussion.

If this discussion of mental health and eating disorders has raised any concerns or triggered anything for you, don’t hesitate to call Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636

And remember, “It’s ok not to be ok”