Erica Terblanche on roaming alone and untethered, wild horses, and love

A positive psychology coach and international endurance athlete touches on running 205km without stopping, selfie narratives, and the secret behind carrying on when you feel you simply cannot.

1 Which childhood experiences shaped your love of nature and of bringing about change?

I was privileged to grow up on a far-flung farm in the Orange Free State and spent many happy days in the veld roaming around alone and untethered, fishing with a handline in the Palmiet river, and climbing the windmills. I fell in love with nature and the life and beauty in it at the youngest age. I can’t remember a time when I didn't feel this kinship with nature and longing for it when I was away from it. When I was 11 years old, we moved to town. I remember to this day the feeling of trauma and entrapment looking out at the concrete walls and washing lines.

2 Could you recall one or more unforgettable moments from your numerous international endurance sport experiences?

There are so many that it is hard to choose - and I write about many of these moments in my book Run for the Love of Life. But perhaps a moment that will stay with me for the rest of my life was on an adventure race in the Drakensberg. I quote from Run:

"One night, twelve years before running in Utah, when I was still adventure racing, my adventure racing team and I crested onto the high marshland plateau of the Drakensberg in Lesotho. We had not slept for 72 hours. Our bodies were on the brink and the air felt thin and sharp at 3500m altitude. A thick mist lay wet and heavy across the moonlit vastness.

Suddenly a herd of wild horses galloped out of the moon-white swirl, saw us, and stopped.

We stood there, us four racers on the nether end of our endurance, and the ten-fold wild herd necking the air. We stood like that for the longest time, an eternity, in real time maybe two minutes. The pack leader snorted, flicked his mane, turned, and galloped off into the moonlit mist, his herd hurtling on his heel. Brian vomited loudly – he had been puking all day from altitude sickness. My team captain Kobus laughed and patted him on the back. We picked up after the horses, no-one uttering a word about what we had just witnessed. There were no words big enough.

Throughout my endurance running years I had experienced a thousand moments like these – moments in Nature so extraordinary that they changed me forever."

Erica talks about nature-deficit disorder, her experience as an endurance athlete and the magic of kayaking with small groups in Greece.

3 What is the secret behind carrying on when you feel you simply cannot?

The secret is getting to the edge, and then at that point where you think you simply can't give any more, you discover it is not true, and that there is always more. I suppose one could literally run or endure until physical collapse or death intervenes. I don't hold the record for the person who has run the furthest in human history, but I have run far, more than 205km without stopping, and what I know is that I had not yet reached my limit then. Who knows where the edge is? I think it is at that place where the heart is no longer in what you are doing.

Erica shares her gruelling experience of menopause, inspires women to move into the power version of themselves and invites them to become part of a supportive community!

4 How do you view the relationship between physical discomfort and mental growth?

What a beautiful and inviting question! I believe THAT is where growth happens. Stepping over that golden threshold of challenge, difficulty and discomfort, one steps into the realm of one's best possible self. It is often the most difficult periods and greatest losses or hardships of our lives that shape us the most. And if we choose, for the better.

Erica explains which building blocks of happiness we can integrate into our lives.

5 Inspiring and encouraging others seems to come naturally to you. Why do you think this is so?

This observation fills me with delight. I believe, Mariette, I inspire because people excite me. When I meet someone I really SEE them; and I see their incredible potential and the great possibilities of their life and I believe people can access these high states if they wish to and are committed. And I encourage people because I understand from childhood experience through to adulthood how the smallest bit of genuine encouragement has the potential to change the course of someone's life in a positive way.

6 What is your personal view of “love, the many-splendoured thing”?

I believe it is the greatest shaping force in life. It is Divine and it is primal. It is a chemical addiction - carried forward on a cocktail of dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin. And it is deeply spiritual and transcends the narrow boundaries of the body and our time in the physical realm. Love is easy and love is the hardest work of our life. I believe love is the central purpose of life. Whether eros or agape, philia or storge. But nobody can say it better than Mary Oliver.

West Wind 2
by Mary Oliver

You are young. So you know everything. You leap

into the boat and begin rowing. But, listen to me.

Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without

any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.

Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and

your heart, and your heart's little intelligence, and listen to

me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent

penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a

dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile

away and still out of sight, the churn of the water

as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the

sharp rocks --- when you feel the mist on your mouth

and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls

plunging and steaming --- then row, row for your life

toward it.

7 What are your dreams for the future?

I am deeply excited to have entered the third and fourth acts of my life. I have turned fifty and feel, as I come through the powerful gateways of menopause, how I am beginning to do the work I am meant to and to be in the world in the way that will be most beneficial and leave the most helpful ripple effect for those around me.

More and more I am spending my body and soul energy on teaching, coaching, and speaking about deep well-being and the secrets of a happy and fulfilled life and loving every minute of it as I see people lighting up and taking charge of their lives and of the best they can become.

I am also highly pregnant with the next two books and am so keen to write both of them in succession within the next two years. Watch this space.

8 What are your ideals for humanity?

What I wish for is that people will come loose from the addiction of ego and success and material things. I wish for people to access the wisdom of how little we need to be happy and to understand that it is in the giving and in service where our greatest joy and peace and happiness and personal significance reside - and not to get on the remorseless hedonic treadmill of seeking happiness in achievement, in winning, in having and in consuming. What I wish for is that the next generations are wise enough to not fall for the individualist, achievement-obsessed, ego and selfie narratives but that they understand that the further away we get from self-importance the closer we get to inner peace and happiness. And the freer we are to actualise our fullest potential and pursue the work and endeavours that will be most meaningful.

My hope is also that we will become reconnected with nature in a way that is within the right context - that as a species we will begin to grasp that all living creatures have an equal right to life and happiness, and that we will begin to understand that the earth was not made exclusively for the pleasure of humans alone. And that we will begin to use our great technology and advancements to help turn the tide of environmental destruction, but in a way that is profoundly fair to all of Nature. It is necessary and good to dream big. It will be our biggest and most eloquent dreams that will help shift the human narrative and how we ultimately choose to behave.

About Erica

Positive psychology coach, international endurance athlete and author Erica Terblanche is based in Cape Town. She completed a degree in B.Sc. Surveying, a Master’s degree in Business, a B.Sc. degree in Psychology, and a Master’s Degree in Positive Psychology; a Coaching Qualification in Systems transformation (ORSC), a Personal Coaching qualification – CTI, and a certification as Barrett’s Values Coach and in use of the Time to Think methodology (Nancy Klein). She is currently studying towards a certificate in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

She has 15 years of podium achievement in international endurance sport, having won many of the world's most well-known multi-day desert endurance races.

Erica has qualified and worked as a Youth Leader for National Trust working holidays, UK, educating young adults (16-18 years) in maintaining the natural environment. She is serving as a trustee on the Human Values Foundation Board UK to bring values education into schools in the UK, SA and India.

She is the founder of an outdoor adventure and personal development company, Teach a Girl to Fish, and a well-being, personal development and team building business under the umbrella of Thrive Guru.