On a wind-blown morning by the beach, with waves hammering the shore behind her, Australian pro athlete Anneli Maley sits down for a raw, unfiltered solo episode of Under The Surface. She didn’t even make sunrise. She’s tired, she’s human, she’s honest—and she’s ready to talk about the one topic most athletes keep buried beneath performance, expectations, and pressure: anxiety.
This isn’t a highlight reel.
This isn’t a filtered interview.
This is a professional athlete admitting, out loud, that she’s still trying to figure it all out.
Maley reveals that anxiety is not just something rookies feel, not something kids battle before tryouts—it’s something she still faces “before, during, and after” major sporting events. And she’s not hiding it anymore.
🔷 Anxiety Before Games: The Mind Trick That Changes Everything
Maley begins with the piece of wisdom that shook her to the core—something her psychologist told her years ago that she still uses to this day:
“The physical response of excitement and anxiety is the same.”
Heart racing.
Hands shaking.
Sweat building.
Stomach twisting.
The body doesn’t know the difference. Only the mind does.
So before games, when the familiar rush hits her chest and her thoughts start spiraling, Maley forces herself to stop—and re-label the feeling.
Not I’m anxious.
But I’m excited.
She admits she doesn’t always believe it in the moment. But the language shift matters. It reframes tension into readiness, fear into anticipation, self-doubt into energy.
She repeats this ritual before almost every game and even before practices.
The feeling comes. She pauses. She reframes.
And it works—not because it magically erases anxiety, but because it prevents it from taking control.
🔷 Anxiety During Games: The Circuit Breaker That Saves Her
Once the game starts, everything changes. Mistakes happen. Expectations rise. The noise gets louder. Anxiety hits harder.
This is where Maley’s second strategy comes in—a technique she calls her circuit breaker, something she and her psychologist built together.
She breaks the anxiety loop by doing this:
• A deep 4-second inhale
• A slow 8-second exhale
• Both palms pressed against her legs or pressed together
And she focuses—really focuses—on the physical feeling of her palms or her fingertips touching.
She laughs when she explains it, admitting she’s not a naturally dextrous person. So doing something simple like tapping her fingers together actually requires real concentration. That’s exactly why it works.
Your brain cannot fully obsess over an anxious thought while also trying to breathe deeply and coordinate physical sensations.
But she’s honest: she’s not perfect at it.
Sometimes she starts her breath and gets distracted halfway through.
Sometimes she stops tapping without realizing it because her mind jumps back to a mistake she just made.
Still, the circuit breaker is the most powerful tool she has mid-game.
Even when she doesn’t do it perfectly, it helps her reset, slow down, and stay inside the moment instead of drowning in it.
🔷 After Games (and Beyond): The Power of Saying It Out Loud
Maley’s third strategy might be the most surprising—and the most courageous.
She tells people when she’s anxious.
Teammates.
Coaches.
Friends.
Not in a dramatic way, not as a cry for help—simply as a truth that she refuses to carry alone anymore.
“Just vocalizing the anxiety and getting it outside of you is enough to take weight off your shoulders.”
She remembers being a kid and keeping everything bottled up, terrified of what others might think. Now she does the opposite. When she’s shooting with a coach, she’ll say, “I’m feeling anxious today. Not sure why, but I need to say it out loud.”
The moment the words leave her body, she feels lighter.
She notes an important detail most people forget:
When you’re anxious, your ability to absorb information drops.
So telling a coach or teammate makes the environment safer, because they know to communicate differently, more clearly, more patiently.
“Don’t be alone in it,” she says.
Not anymore.
🔷 Mindfulness, Nature, and the Unexpected Things That Help
As Maley talks, the beach becomes part of her story. You can hear the waves. You can feel the wind. She looks out at the water and explains how grounding the ocean has become in her personal battle with anxiety.
Swimming clears her mind.
The cold water resets her system.
Sand running between her fingers brings her back into her body.
Wind whipping through her hair makes her feel alive again.
She describes it as mindfulness—not the polished, Instagram version, but the raw, physical, sensory kind that forces you to notice something other than the storm in your head.
She plans to do a whole episode on mindfulness soon.
For now, she keeps it simple: feel the world, not the worry.
🔷 The Real Ending: Imperfect, Human, and Honest
Maley wraps up with a confession:
She’s not perfect at any of this.
Not even close.
She’s still working on it. Still learning. Still adding new tools.
Still battling anxiety even on beautiful beach mornings like this one.
And that’s exactly why this episode feels so real.
Before signing off, she flips her camera to show her dog sunbathing on a hill, sliding around awkwardly. She laughs. She sips her coffee. She reads a book. She prepares for practice.
Life keeps moving.
So does she.
And so can anyone listening.
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