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Understanding and Overcoming Anxious Attachment StyleHaving an anxious attachment style can make relationships challenging. In the beginning of my 14-year relationship with my partner, I was anxiously attached and felt like an insecure mess, embodying many of these behaviours.

My partner called me his ‘beautiful nightmare’ because I would constantly seek reassurance, experiencing a lot of negative emotions like jealousy, worry, and fear. My low self-esteem made me constantly second guess him. I questioned whether he loved me on a daily basis and rummaged through his phone looking for evidence that he was up to no good.

I was clingy as hell and would get separation anxiety whenever we were apart, counting down the hours until we’d see each other again.

Maybe you relate?

Anxious attachment is characterised by behaviours such as craving emotional intimacy, fear of abandonment, excessive dependence on relationships, and seeking validation from others.

Understanding how to self soothe anxious attachment could be key in helping you to have a secure relationship and better mental health.

You might be wondering how to fix anxious attachment style so that you can have a healthy relationship. Here’s a detailed look at what this means and how you can work towards healing.

Get your FREE Anxiety Toolkit What is attachment theory?Attachment theory is a psychological model that describes how individuals emotionally bond with others and how these relationships affect their behaviour and interactions. Developed by psychiatrist John Bowlby and psychologist Mary Ainsworth in the mid-20th century, it outlines how early relationships with caregivers can set patterns for later relationships. The theory categorises attachment styles into secure, anxious, and avoidant, each reflecting different ways of relating to others based on early experiences of nurturing, responsiveness, and attention from caregivers.

Additionally, understanding insecure attachment and the various insecure attachment styles, including anxious, avoidant, and disorganised, is crucial for comprehending the full spectrum of attachment theory, especially in the context of how childhood trauma and experiences contribute to these styles and their impact on adult relationships.

Attachment stylesAttachment theory identifies four primary attachment styles:

1. Secure Attachment: Individuals feel secure and connected, allowing them to be independent and to feel safe in a relationship. They trust others and are comfortable with emotional closeness.
2. Anxious Attachment: Individuals often feel insecure and are overly dependent on others for reassurance. They may have a heightened sense of relationship threats and may display clingy behaviour.
3. Avoidant Attachment: Individuals protect themselves by being self-reliant and minimising closeness with others. They often feel uncomfortable with emotional intimacy.
4. Fearful-Avoidant Attachment (also known as Disorganised Attachment Style): A mix of anxious and avoidant styles, individuals in this category desire close relationships but are wary of trusting others and fear being hurt. This attachment style is characterized by a blend of behaviors that are both anxious and avoidant, often resulting from experiences with insecure caregivers or childhood trauma, leading to a disorganised approach to relationships.

These styles reflect how people perceive and respond to intimacy and dependence in relationships.

What is Anxious Attachment?Anxious attachment is a way some people feel attached to others. They often need lots of reassurance and might worry a lot about their relationships. For someone with an anxious attachment, navigating the emotional landscape of relationships can be particularly challenging, as they grapple with fears of abandonment and a desire for closeness that can seem overwhelming. They might feel anxious if they don’t know where they stand with someone.

Signs You Might Be Anxiously AttachedHere are some signs that you might have an anxious attachment style:

1. Constant Need for Reassurance: You often seek validation and reassurance from your partner or friends about their feelings towards you. For example, you might need to be reminded that the person loves you several times a day.
2. Fear of Abandonment: You worry excessively that others will leave or reject you, even over minor issues. You feel very upset if you think someone is upset with you, for example.
3. Highly Sensitive to Partners’ Actions: You are overly sensitive to changes in a partner’s mood or behaviour, interpreting them as signs of a problem in the relationship. For example, you get very worried if they don’t text back quickly.
4. Clinginess: You may become overly dependent or clingy, fearing that giving space will lead to loss. That might look like an excessive need to be hugging or touching for reassurance.
5. Difficulty Trusting Others: Despite a desire for close relationships, you may struggle to fully trust others’ commitment and intentions. You might experience jealousy or trust issues, doing things like reading their messages or excessive questioning about where they went after work.

Understanding Anxious Attachment TriggersAnxious attachment triggers are situations that make you feel especially insecure or worried. It could be when someone changes plans, or when you feel someone is being distant. Knowing what triggers your anxiety can help you manage your reactions better.

Make a note of your anxious attachment triggers and think about how you’d like to handle each one? Is there a healthier coping strategy you can employ instead? What self soothing techniques could you try?

Download your FREE High Functioning Anxiety Workbook Secure attachment styleHaving a secure attachment style typically means feeling comfortable with both intimacy and independence in relationships. For example, a person with a secure attachment style can enjoy deep connections without fear of abandonment. They trust their partners and are confident in expressing their needs and feelings. If a disagreement occurs, they address it openly and constructively without fearing the relationship’s end.

They also support their partner’s independence, understanding that needing space or having separate interests is healthy, not a threat to the relationship. Embracing a journey towards a more secure attachment style involves recognizing and healing from past wounds, fostering emotional intelligence, and practicing mindfulness and self-regulation, which ultimately leads to a more fulfilling and secure way of engaging in relationships.

How to Overcome Anxious Attachment1. Learn About Your Attachment Style: Understanding that you have an anxious attachment style is the first step in healing.

1. Talk Therapy: Working with a therapist can help a lot. They can teach you about why you feel this way and how to feel more secure.

2. Communication Skills: Learning how to talk about your feelings and needs can make a big difference. It helps you feel more secure and understood.

3. Self-soothing Techniques: When you’re feeling anxious, knowing how to calm yourself can help you not react in a panic.

4. Build Your Self-Esteem: Sometimes, feeling better about yourself can make you less anxious in relationships. Do things that you enjoy and are good at and take the time to remind yourself about your good qualities.

Get your FREE Confidence Affirmations DownloadHow to self-soothe anxious attachmentWhat is self-soothing?Self-soothing when it comes to anxious attachment involves techniques to calm and reassure oneself during moments of anxiety or insecurity in relationships. The aim is to manage the intense emotions and fears of abandonment or rejection that those with anxious attachment often experience, helping them maintain emotional balance without excessively relying on reassurance from others. These techniques empower you to handle their anxieties independently, fostering healthier and more stable relationships.

To self-soothe if you have an anxious attachment style, consider these strategies:

1. Mindfulness and Breathing Exercises: Practice mindfulness to stay present and reduce overthinking. Use deep breathing techniques to calm your nervous system in anxious moments. Try these breathing exercises for anxiety to get started.

2. Positive Self-Talk: Engage in positive self-talk by creating a list of affirmations tailored to counteract your insecurities, and repeat these affirmations regularly to build self-esteem. Download some positive affirmations here.

3. Journaling: Write down your thoughts and feelings to understand them better and gain perspective. Daily entries about your interactions and emotional responses can help you identify triggers and adjust your reactions over time. This reflection is crucial for understanding and improving your relationship dynamics.

4. Set Boundaries: Learn to identify and communicate your needs and limits in relationships to reduce anxiety. Clearly define what is acceptable and what is not in your relationships, and communicate these boundaries to others. This helps reduce anxiety and ensures that your relationships are respectful and supportive.

5. Seek Support: Talking to friends or a therapist can provide reassurance and help you develop healthier ways of relating to others.

These techniques can help manage feelings of anxiety and foster a sense of security within yourself

Healing Anxious Attachment StyleHealing from anxious attachment involves working on yourself and your relationships. It’s about building trust in yourself and learning that you are worth being loved, even with your worries.

Remember, overcoming anxious attachment takes time and effort. It’s okay to ask for help and it’s okay to take it one step at a time.

How to move from anxious attachment to secureMoving from an anxious attachment to a secure attachment involves developing self-awareness, managing emotions effectively, and building trust in relationships.

Begin by understanding your triggers and why they affect you, and practice responding to them in healthier ways. Engage in therapy or counseling to explore deeper issues. Cultivate self-soothing techniques like mindfulness or meditation to handle stress independently. Improving communication skills to express needs and feelings clearly can also foster security.

Over time, these practices can help you form more stable and trusting relationships. With time and attention you can move from an anxious to a more secure attachment style.

Get your FREE Anxiety Toolkit Frequently asked questionsWhat is disorganised attachment style?Disorganised attachment style often develops in children who experience inconsistent or frightening responses from caregivers. As adults, they might show behaviours that are a mix of avoidant and anxious styles, appearing confused or contradictory in their interactions. They may struggle with feeling secure in relationships and often display unpredictable emotional responses.

What is the dismissive avoidant attachment style?The dismissive avoidant attachment style is characterised by a strong sense of independence and self-sufficiency. Individuals with this style often distance themselves emotionally from others, preferring not to rely on others or open up. They might dismiss the importance of relationships and have difficulty trusting others.

What is the anxious preoccupied attachment style?The anxious-preoccupied attachment style is characterised by a strong desire for closeness coupled with insecurity about relationships. Individuals with this style often fear that others do not value them as m45y uch as they value others, leading to a constant need for reassurance and approval. This can result in clingy or dependent behavior, as they seek to maintain connection and alleviate their anxiety about potential abandonment or rejection. This attachment style arises from inconsistent or unpredictable responses from caregivers during early development.

What is an anxious and avoidant relationship?An anxious and avoidant relationship involves one partner with an anxious attachment style, who craves closeness and security, and another with an avoidant attachment style, who values independence and often withdraws in response to closeness. This dynamic can create a cycle of frustration and dissatisfaction for both partners.

How to stop anxious attachment?To overcome anxious attachment, focus on developing self-awareness and understanding your triggers. Practice self-soothing techniques such as deep breathing and mindfulness. Strengthen your self-esteem through positive affirmations and setting personal goals. Therapy can also be very helpful in addressing underlying issues and learning healthier attachment behaviours.

How to develop a secure attachment style?

Developing a secure attachment style involves working on self-esteem, practicing effective communication, and building trust gradually in relationships. Emotional regulation through mindfulness and therapy can help address insecurities. Also, consistently engaging in honest and open interactions with others while respecting boundaries can reinforce feelings of security and trust.

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In the past, I had big dreams, but a lack of confidence in public speaking held me back in my career. I wanted to help a lot of people, work with interesting companies and share my ideas far and wide. I wanted to make a great living and have the freedom to work on projects I loved.⁠ ⁠

A fear of public speaking, networking and any kind of ‘putting myself out there’ used to be so exhausting and stressful to me that I’d often decide it wasn’t worth it.⁠ ⁠A fear of failure or rejection left me paralysed.⁠ ⁠And a sense that I wasn’t good enough made it hard for me to enjoy my work.⁠ ⁠

A few years ago I knew I needed to change if I wanted to play a bigger game, so I decided to work on my public speaking confidence and boost my self confidence.

It soon paid off.⁠ ⁠

I started putting myself forward for things instead of holding myself back. I started my podcast. I became more visible on social media. Pitched myself for PR. Started running live workshops to a couple of hundred people at a time. Doing talks for incredible companies like Stella McCartney and American Express. And networking and meeting more new people.⁠ ⁠ ⁠

Yes, the idea of standing in front of an audience can be daunting. But it is possible to overcome the fear and step into more confidence.

How to be a confident public speakerIf you’re looking to turn your nervous energy into a dynamic presentation, here are nine highly effective strategies to boost your confidence in public speaking.

1. Start with a funny storyStarting a speech with a funny story can be highly effective for several reasons. Firstly, it captures the audience’s attention right from the beginning, setting a positive tone for the rest of the speech. Humour also makes you seem more relatable and approachable, helping to break down barriers and foster a connection with the audience. Making others laugh will also put you at ease, reducing any anxiety and nerves.

2. Embrace Mindfulness TechniquesMindfulness isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a powerful tool to manage public speaking anxiety. Before your next speech, try a simple breathing exercise: take slow, deliberate breaths for a couple of minutes to centre your thoughts and calm your nerves. Research shows that such mindfulness exercises can significantly reduce stress.

2. Utilise Power PosesUnderstanding the importance of body language and confident body language is key in public speaking, as it significantly affects how your message is received and your own confidence levels. Amy Cuddy’s famous research on power poses suggests that holding a pose that opens up your body can help you feel more confident. Before you take the stage or before a big presentation, spend a few minutes in a power pose—stand tall with your hands on your hips and your chin tilted upward. This could boost your presence as you speak, giving you more confidence. While the exact results discussed in Cuddy’s Ted Talk were not replicable, many people report feeling more confident after power posing.

3. Practice Vocal VariabilityThink about how TV presenters or those with big social media followings speak online, with enthusiasm and a lot of variation in their voice. They’re far from monotone. Changing your pitch, tone, and volume can capture and hold your audience’s attention whilst making you sound confident. Practice speaking with variations in speed and volume; record yourself and listen to see how it impacts the delivery of your message. You could try doing some vocal warm up exercises like these to warm up your voice. La la la laaaa!

4. Master the Art of PausingGet comfortable with silences! Those that lack confidence often rush through their speech, trying to get it over with as soon as possible. Strategic pauses during your presentation can enhance understanding and retention for your audience. They give you gravitas. Use pauses after important points to let the information sink in, or to build anticipation before revealing key details. Emphasising key points with confidence is essential in retaining the audience’s attention and ensuring your message is heard. Pausing also give you a chance to take a deep breath, which also helps you to relax.

5. Develop a Pre-Speech RoutineCreate a set routine before you speak in public: this might include reviewing your notes, practicing your speech once, or performing a vocal warm-up. Maybe there are relaxing essential oils you can inhale, or a certain song you can play to boost your confidence. Consistency in your preparation can make you feel more prepared and less anxious.

6. Engage in Mental RehearsalVisualise your public speaking event going well. Imagine yourself speaking confidently, your audience reacting positively, and you handling questions with ease. Sports psychologists widely recommend this technique to enhance athletic performance, and it can work wonders for public speakers too. This process can transform a nervous speaker into a confident public speaker, even introverts can become confident public speakers with the right mindset and preparation.

7. Record and Review Your SpeechesThis may make you cringe, but it’s an important step. Recording your practices or actual performances can provide critical insights. From watching a video back of myself being interviewed on a podcast, I realised that I was making a weird claw with one of my hands, something I made a point of not doing in the future! Reviewing these recordings can help you notice patterns, such as unnecessary fillers or gestures, and improve upon them.

8. Seek Constructive FeedbackAfter practicing or delivering a speech, ask peers, mentors or audience members for feedback. Make sure it’s detailed and constructive, focusing on both strengths and areas for improvement. Reminding yourself of the positive feedback can help you to feel confident about your next speaking event.

9. Challenge yourselfWhen I was overcoming a fear of public speaking, I did things to purposefully go outside of my comfort zone. I did sober karaoke in a restaurant, and would challenge myself to always be the first to speak up or ask a question in a group. Organisations like Toastmasters provide a supportive environment where you can practice public speaking and receive structured, peer feedback. Regularly putting yourself in situations where you can practice in a low-stress environment builds familiarity and reduces anxiety. Participating in public speaking events are excellent ways to gain experience and observe effective techniques in action. You could also try improv classes or stand up comedy classes as ways to challenge yourself. Doing something outside of your comfort zone and seeing yourself survive builds confidence because you realise you are capable!

In ConclusionPublic speaking is a skill, and like any skill, it gets better with practice. By incorporating these advanced techniques into your routine, you’ll not only improve your speaking abilities but also increase your overall confidence. Avoiding common pitfalls that can cause you to lose confidence is crucial in maintaining the audience’s interest and doing your presentation confidently.

Remember, every speaker has room for improvement, so keep practicing and pushing your boundaries. Public speaking skills are invaluable, not only for career advancement but also for improving confidence in everyday life.

Public speaking courses like Speak Easy offer targeted strategies to overcome anxiety and become a more effective public speaker.

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Job interview confidence is something I’ve struggled with and I wondered if it would ever be possible for me to be confident in an interview.

I once, I was nervous for the whole 2 week period beforehand – I had butterflies in my stomach and a sense of foreboding dread that ruined my peace of mind.

It might be that you’ve got an interview coming up that you’d like to feel confident about. Or perhaps you’re avoiding even putting yourself forward for jobs because the idea of an interview is too daunting.

It’s normal to feel a mix of excitement, nervousness or even terror, but with the right preparation and mindset, you can walk into any interview with confidence. Maintaining a positive attitude throughout the interview process is crucial for leaving a lasting impression on potential employers.

This guide will explore practical tips and strategies to boost your confidence, so that you leave a lasting impression on your potential employers and bag your dream job.

Understanding How to Answer Interview Questions ConfidentlyConfidence in an interview is not about boasting your achievements or being overly assertive. It’s about putting your best foot forward and conveying your skills, experience, and personality in the best possible light. Confidence comes from preparation, self-awareness, and the ability to communicate effectively, including delivering well structured answers that are clear, concise, and address the interviewer’s concerns directly. Let’s dive into how you can cultivate these qualities.

Preparation: The Foundation of Confidence1. Research the Company: Understand their values, culture, and recent achievements. This knowledge not only helps you tailor your responses but also shows your genuine interest in the company. Additionally, review the job description to identify key skills and qualifications that you can highlight during the interview. 2. Know Your Resume/ CV Inside Out: Be ready to discuss anything you’ve mentioned on your resume. Prepare stories that illustrate your achievements and skills, focusing on the challenges, actions, and results. Develop concise stories that highlight your achievements and skills, ensuring they align with the job description and showcase your suitability for the role. 3. Prepare for Behavioural Interview Questions: Familiarise yourself with behavioural interview questions and use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to structure your responses. Providing concrete examples from your past experiences will illustrate your abilities and make your answers more compelling. 4. Mock Interviews: Practice with a friend or in front of a mirror. Have them ask you interview questions so that you can get practice in how to answer interview questions confidently. Maintain good eye contact, speak slowly and remember to breathe. Record yourself to observe your body language and to improve your delivery. 5. Prepare Questions: Have insightful questions ready to ask the interviewer. It shows your enthusiasm and curiosity about the role and company.

Strategies for Building ConfidencePositive Self-Talk and VisualisationStarting by addressing your inner critic is essential. Often, our minds are filled with self-doubt and negative thoughts, which can undermine our confidence, especially in high-pressure situations like job interviews. Actively replacing these negative thoughts with positive affirmations can shift your mindset. For example, instead of thinking “I’m not good enough,” affirm “I am well-prepared and qualified.”

Visualisation techniques complement this by allowing you to mentally rehearse success. Imagine yourself succeeding in the interview, answering questions with confidence, engaging with the interviewer, and envisioning the positive outcomes, such as receiving a job offer. This mental rehearsal can significantly boost your confidence.

Maintain Good Eye Contact and Body LanguageYour body language speaks volumes before you even say a word. Practice power poses like putting your hands on your hips to increase your presence and reduce stress. During the interview, remember to:

– Smile and make eye contact.

– Offer a firm handshake.

– Sit up straight but comfortably.

– Use hand gestures naturally to express yourself.

Mindfulness and Breathing TechniquesMindfulness can help centre your thoughts and calm nerves. Practice deep breathing exercises before the interview to reduce anxiety and improve focus. Breathe into your belly for a count of 4 and breathe out slowly for a count of 6. Check out these breathing exercises for anxiety.

Practical Tips for the Day* Dress for Success: Choose an outfit that is professional and makes you feel confident. * Arrive Early: Being late can increase stress. Arriving early gives you time to relax and review your notes. * Listen Carefully: Active listening shows respect and allows for more thoughtful responses. * Be Concise and Clear: Answer questions directly and avoid rambling. It’s okay to pause and think before responding. * Identify and Remember Your Key Points: Before the interview, pinpoint personal key points that highlight your best qualities, including both professional achievements and personal strengths. Weave these key points into your responses to showcase your uniqueness and make a memorable impression. Practice your answers out loud to better memorise these key points and improve your delivery.

Get the Public Speaking Hypnosis Audio here Overcoming Common ChallengesDealing with Nervousness: Acknowledge your nerves as a natural response to something important. Use this energy positively to show enthusiasm. Telling yourself that any nervous feelings are excitement, can help.

Answering Tough Questions: If faced with a difficult question, it’s fine to say, “That’s a great question. Could I take a moment to think about it?” This shows thoughtful consideration.

Discussing Weaknesses: When asked about weaknesses, choose something you’ve worked on improving. Highlight the steps you’ve taken to overcome it.

Job Interview Confidence Q&AQ: How do I stop feeling nervous before an interview?A: Practice mindfulness and breathing exercises to calm your mind. Preparation and mock interviews also reduce nervousness by making you more familiar with what to expect. Focus on your relevant skills and prepare to provide concrete examples.

Q: What if I don’t know the answer to a question?A: It’s okay to admit you don’t know something. Consider saying, “I’m not familiar with that, but I’m keen to learn more about it.”

Q: How can I make a good impression in the first five minutes?A: Use positive body language, smile, and make eye contact. Start with a strong introduction about yourself and your professional background.

Q: How do I deal with rejection after an interview?A: View each interview as a learning experience. Everyone gets rejected sometimes. Ask for feedback, reflect on your performance, and use the insights to improve for next time.

Confidence in interviews is a skill that can be developed with preparation, practice, and a positive mindset. Remember, it’s not just about selling yourself but also about determining if the role and company are the right fit for you. By applying these tips and strategies, you’ll not only feel more confident but also increase your chances of success. Good luck!

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Fear of failure is something that everyone experiences from time to time (yup, even mega successful people apparently). However if you’re of a sensitive nature (like me!) it might be that a fear of failure is something that really causes you problems, holding you back and making your life a daily struggle. I’m a hypnotherapist […]

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It’s Sunday night and you’re tossing and turning, a knot of nervous energy in your tummy. You’ve got a big presentation on Monday and you can’t stop imagining the faces of all your colleagues staring back at you as you take the stage. Public speaking anxiety can wreak havoc on our peace of mind. But […]

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Picture this, you have a golden opportunity lying right in front of you, yet you find yourself tidying your desk, organising the books on your shelf or scrolling through social media, doing everything but seizing that opportunity. It’s a classic sign you fear success, where the subconscious mind creates barriers to avoid stepping into the […]

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Are you tired of constantly battling anxiety and stress? You’re in good company. In the UK in 2021/22, 22.5% of people reported high anxiety levels, according to the Mental Health Foundation.

Millions of people worldwide experience anxiety, but the good news is that there are proven ways to stop anxiety and stress. In this blog post, we will explore various strategies that can help you regain control over your life and enjoy a more peaceful, stress-free existence.

I’m Chloe Brotheridge, anxiety expert, hypnotherapist and author, and I’ve not only experienced anxiety myself, but helped thousands of people to become their calmest selves.

Let’s dig in to this topic.

Recognise and Acknowledge AnxietyRecognising and acknowledging anxiety is a crucial first step in managing it. When you become aware of your anxiety, you can start to address it head-on instead of letting it control your life.

Our relationship to anxiety can make a big difference. In my bestselling book, The Anxiety Solution, I talk about this idea that anxiety is a teacher, trying to get you to learn something, change something or heal and grow. It’s easy to see anxiety as the enemy that we just want to eliminate. But acknowledging anxiety and being open to what it might be trying to teach us helps us to drop some of the resistance we feel and see the opportunity for learning and growth within it.

Below, I’ll discuss how to identify anxiety symptoms, accept the feelings it brings, and differentiate between reality and anxious thoughts.

Identifying anxiety symptomsAnxiety, including anxiety disorder, can manifest in various ways, such as physical symptoms like rapid heart rate, sweating, and stomach discomfort. Symptoms of anxiety can also include things like having negative thoughts, an anxious energy, brain fog, headaches and irritability. Being able to identify these symptoms is essential in understanding and addressing anxiety effectively, especially when feeling anxious makes intense anxiety symptoms worse.

By noticing the first signs of anxiety, you can take proactive steps to prevent episodes or panic attacks before they occur, thus avoiding a full-blown panic attack.

What are those first signs for you? Perhaps it’s getting more headaches, aches and pains, feeling restless or being snappy with your partner. Recognising the symptoms of anxiety early can help you to take proactive steps to nip it in the bud.

Accepting the feelingAccepting the feeling of anxiety can prevent it from escalating and help you manage it better. When you feel anxious, try to:

• Bring your attention to the present moment
• Observe the feeling without judgment
• Acknowledge that it is a normal emotion (hey, you’re human after all)
• Remember that everyone experiences anxiety from time to time.

Take a few deep breaths and focus on your breathing. This can help to ground you in the right direction. Some people find it helpful to ‘float’ with the feelings instead of fighting against them. The more we resist anxiety, the more it persists. By accepting and allowing the feelings, they can start to calm down all by themselves.

Download your FREE High Functioning Anxiety Workbook Differentiating between reality and anxious thoughtsDistinguishing between reality and anxious thoughts can be beneficial in managing anxiety and keeping a balanced outlook. To separate reality from anxious thoughts, try using grounding techniques, such as the 5-4-3-2-1 coping technique. This method helps you focus on your senses, reducing feelings of anxiety and grounding you in the present moment.

Here’s how it works:

• 5: Identify five things you can see around you. It could be a pen, a spot on the ceiling, anything in your surroundings.
• 4: Identify four things you can touch around you. It might be your hair, a pillow, or the ground under your feet.
• 3: Identify three things you can hear. This could be the sound of wind, birds chirping, or the distant noise of traffic.
• 2: Identify two things you can smell. Maybe you can smell flowers or freshly baked bread.
• 1: Identify one thing you can taste. It might be the lingering taste of a drink or a snack.

When you’re focusing on your senses and your body, it’s hard to also be worrying. Our brains can’t do the two things at once.

Implement Relaxation TechniquesRelaxation techniques can be a powerful ally in your fight to calm anxiety. By practicing these techniques, you can help relieve anxiety and promote a sense of calm and relaxation.

Deep breathing exercisesDeep breathing exercises can help you calm your mind and body during anxious moments. By focusing on your breath and taking slow, deep breaths, you can effectively reduce anxiety and bring relaxation to your body.

One helpful exercise is to breathe out for slightly longer than you breathe in, which can help slow your heart rate and ease feelings of anxiety. This works because it stimulates the vagus nerve, activating the rest and digest mode of the nervous system. Just a few deep breaths in enough to start feeling calmer.

Download your FREE High Functioning Anxiety Workbook Mindfulness meditationMindfulness meditation involves being mindful of the present moment and accepting it without judgment. Practicing mindfulness meditation can help reduce negative thoughts and bring focus to the present moment, which may be beneficial in managing anxiety.

To practice mindfulness meditation, find a comfortable and quiet place to sit and focus on your breath. Notice the rise and fall of your belly or the feeling of the air leaving and entering your nostrils. This practice can improve focus, increase self-awareness, and decrease stress and anxiety.

Progressive muscle relaxationProgressive muscle relaxation is a technique that helps reduce tension and stress by tensing and relaxing different muscle groups in the body. This practice can help release tension and improve sleep, both of which can be beneficial in reducing anxiety.

To practice progressive muscle relaxation, start by finding a comfortable position to sit or lie down in. Then, gently tense and relax each muscle group in the body, starting with the feet and working your way up to the head.

Utilise DistractionsUtilising distractions can be a helpful tool for managing anxiety by offering a break from anxious thoughts and providing a sense of control. Distractions can come in many forms, such as engaging in enjoyable activities, connecting with others, and listening to calming music

In the following subsections, we will explore each of these distractions and how they can help you manage anxiety.

Do something you enjoyEngaging in enjoyable activities can help divert your mind from anxious thoughts and promote relaxation. Participating in activities that bring joy and relaxation can be beneficial for easing anxiety and reducing stress.

Some examples of enjoyable activities include listening to music, taking a soothing bath, writing in a journal, working on a puzzle, or practicing yoga.

Connect with othersConnecting with others can provide support and help in reducing anxiety. Sharing your experiences with friends, family, or support groups can offer valuable emotional support and understanding, as well as providing a different perspective on your situation.

By connecting with others who share similar experiences, you can learn from their coping strategies and gain insight into your own anxiety management.

So call or text a friend, head out to meet someone or check in with your favourite online support group.

Listen to calming musicListening to calming music can have a soothing effect on your mind and help reduce anxiety. Calming music may include instrumental, classical, or even nature sounds. Research has shown that listening to calming music can help reduce stress and anxiety, promote better sleep, and enhance focus and concentration.

Try creating a personal playlist of relaxing tunes or exploring streaming services and apps for curated playlists.

Adopt a Healthy LifestyleAdopting a healthy lifestyle is essential for managing anxiety effectively. Your brain is part of your body and a healthy body really does lead to a healthier mind. Although this isn’t new information, things like regular exercise, a balanced diet, and prioritising sleep can all help reduce anxiety and improve your overall well-being.

Regular exerciseThe NHS in the UK have said that if exercise were a pill, it would be the most cost-effective drug ever made. Regular exercise can help reduce anxiety by releasing endorphins, which are hormones that can help reduce stress and promote relaxation. Exercise can also help to reduce tension and improve sleep, both of which are beneficial in reducing anxiety.

Some examples of exercises that could be helpful for reducing anxiety include walking, running, swimming, yoga, and tai chi.

Balanced dietA balanced diet can help maintain overall health and reduce anxiety. Eating a variety of nutritious foods from all the food groups, such as fruits, vegetables, grains, proteins, dairy, and healthy fats, can provide the body with the necessary nutrients to keep it functioning optimally and promote a sense of calm and relaxation.

Maintaining a balanced diet can also help in weight management, nutrient intake, energy levels, disease prevention, digestion, and mental well-being. Learn about anti-anxiety foods here.

Prioritise sleepYou know how when you’re tired everything just seems harder and more stressful? There’s a good reason. A lack of sleep increases levels of the stress hormone cortisol in our bodies. Prioritising sleep can help reduce anxiety and lower stress levels. Sleep helps balance stress hormones, restore energy, and enhance cognitive functioning, which can help lower stress levels and boost one’s ability to cope with stress.

To prioritise sleep, consider creating a consistent sleep schedule, avoiding caffeine (especially after noon) and alcohol before bed, limiting screen time before bed, and creating a relaxing bedtime routine.

Challenge Negative ThoughtsChallenging negative thoughts can help you manage anxiety by replacing them with more positive and realistic perspectives. Below are some ways you can do this:

Cognitive restructuringCognitive restructuring involves:

• Identifying and changing negative thought patterns that contribute to anxiety
• Recognising patterns of negative thinking, such as catastrophising (thinking the worst) or overgeneralising
• Gently challenging negative thoughts and shifting them to more positive and realistic perspectives

Cognitive restructuring can help in addressing the root causes of anxiety and developing effective coping strategies.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do cognitive restructuring:1. Identify Negative Thoughts: The first step in cognitive restructuring is recognising your negative thoughts. These are often automatic and pop up without conscious effort. They might include thoughts like “I’m a failure” or “I can’t do anything right.” 2. Challenge Negative Thoughts: Once you’ve identified your negative thoughts, the next step is to challenge them. Ask yourself if the thoughts are accurate and if there’s evidence to support them. Often, you’ll find that these thoughts are based on feelings rather than facts. 3. Replace Negative Thoughts: After challenging your negative thoughts, replace them with more positive and realistic thoughts. Instead of thinking “I’m a failure,” you might think “I didn’t do well on that task, but that doesn’t mean I’m a failure. I can learn and improve.” 4. Practice: Cognitive restructuring is a skill that takes practice. The more you do it, the better you’ll get at recognising and challenging negative thoughts.

Remember, it’s perfectly normal to have negative thoughts from time to time. However, if you find that negative thoughts are causing significant distress or interfering with your life, it may be helpful to seek professional help. A therapist or counsellor can provide guidance and support as you work through this process.

Download your FREE High Functioning Anxiety Workbook Positive affirmationsPositive affirmations are statements that encourage a more positive outlook and potentially reduce stress. By repeating positive affirmations, you can help shift your perspective from negative thoughts to more positive ones, providing a sense of control and self-empowerment that can help reduce stress and anxiety.

Some examples of positive affirmations include “I am capable and strong,” “I am worthy of love and respect,” and “I am enough”. Download a positive affirmations audio recording here.

Gratitude practiceGratitude practice involves taking time to appreciate the good things in life, which can help us focus on the positive aspects of life and reduce anxiety. By expressing gratitude, you can improve your mental health, boost your immune system, and enhance your relationships.

Some ways to practice gratitude include writing a gratitude journal, expressing gratitude to others, and taking time to reflect on the things you are thankful for.

This could look like:

• Writing down 5 things you’re grateful for each day.
• Talking about what you’re grateful for with a friend or family member.
• Reflecting on the day at the end of the day and finding 3 good things that happened that day.

The idea of a gratitude practise is supported by a huge number of studies and is thought to train your mind to be more positive.

Seek Professional HelpIf your anxiety continues to cause disruption in your life, it may be beneficial to seek professional help. Professionals can provide various treatment options, such as therapy, medication, and support groups, to help you manage your anxiety more effectively.

Below are some different types of professional help available and how they can benefit you.

Therapy optionsTherapy options can help in addressing the root causes of anxiety and developing coping strategies. Some therapy approaches that might be helpful in managing anxiety include:

• Cognitive-behavioral therapy
• Psychotherapy
• Mindfulness-based therapy
• Dialectical behaviour therapy
• Hypnotherapy

By working with a mental health professional, you can gain a greater understanding of your thoughts, shift negative thinking patterns, and support your mental health.

MedicationMedication, such as anti-anxiety medication, can help in managing anxiety symptoms and improving overall well-being. Various medications may be prescribed to help manage anxiety, such as:

• Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
• Serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs)
• Benzodiazepines
• Tricyclic antidepressants
• Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs)

It is important to take medication as prescribed and discuss any adverse reactions with your doctor.

Support groupsFeeling like you’re the only one who’s ever felt this way is a common experience in those with anxiety. I remember thinking that everyone else ‘had it all together’ and that I was ‘uniquely broken’.

Support groups help you to remember you’re not alone. They can provide a safe space to share experiences and learn from others dealing with anxiety. By connecting with others who share similar experiences, you can gain insight into your own anxiety management and learn coping strategies from others.

Support groups can also offer emotional support, validation, and understanding, which can help improve mental health outcomes.

Develop Coping StrategiesDeveloping coping strategies can help you manage anxiety more effectively. By learning various techniques and behaviours to deal with stress and difficult situations, you can regain control over your life and reduce anxiety.

Grounding techniquesGrounding techniques can help bring focus to the present moment and reduce anxiety. These techniques involve using your senses to focus on your environment and bring you into the present moment. Examples of grounding techniques include counting objects in the room, focusing on the sensation of your feet on the ground, and focusing on the sensation of your breath.

By using these techniques, you can become more aware of your surroundings and be more present in your surroundings.

JournalingJournaling can help in:

• Expressing thoughts and feelings
• Providing clarity
• Reducing anxiety
• Processing emotions
• Gaining insight into thoughts
• Promoting self-awareness
• Enhancing emotional well-being.

To begin journaling, find a relaxing time and place, pick a journal that appeals to you, and start by jotting down your thoughts and emotions. Write down your worries or write down the story of something that happened to you that you found anxiety provoking or stressful. It can help you to offload and process worries and create a sense of perspective.

VisualisationVisualisation involves creating a mental image of a peaceful environment to help promote feelings of calm and reduce anxiety. By picturing a tranquil environment, such as:

• a beach
• a forest
• a mountain
• a garden

You can focus on the details of the environment and bring a sense of relaxation to your mind.

To practice visualisation, find a comfortable and peaceful place to sit or lie down, close your eyes, and imagine a serene environment. Use all of your senses to make it a richer experience – imagining what you can see, hear, feel, smell, taste and touch.

Download The Hypnotherapy Pack hereSet BoundariesSetting boundaries is crucial in managing anxiety effectively. Boundaries are all about what is and isn’t ok with you. By determining what behaviours are acceptable and creating expectations, you can foster healthy relationships and maintain a sense of control and safety.

Limit exposure to stressorsLimiting exposure to stressors can help reduce anxiety and maintain a balanced lifestyle. By avoiding stressful situations and taking breaks from stressful activities, you can increase your resilience and enhance your mental health.

It’s important to recognise and manage stress triggers in daily life in a calm manner to maintain a healthy balance between work and leisure. Sometimes that might mean saying no, even to something you’d like to do, because you’re prioritising your mental health.

Practice assertivenessPracticing assertiveness can help in setting healthy boundaries and reducing anxiety. Being assertive involves expressing yourself in a direct and honest manner while still being mindful of the rights and feelings of others.

By communicating your boundaries clearly and consistently, you can ensure that your needs are met and your relationships remain healthy and supportive. Learn more about setting boundaries here.

Let’s sum it all upManaging anxiety involves a combination of recognising and acknowledging anxiety, implementing relaxation techniques, utilising distractions, adopting a healthy lifestyle, challenging negative thoughts, seeking professional help, developing coping strategies, and setting boundaries. By incorporating these proven strategies into your daily life, you can regain control over your anxiety and live a more peaceful, stress-free existence. You’re not alone in this journey, and with determination and the right tools, you can overcome anxiety and lead a happier, healthier life.

Download your FREE High Functioning Anxiety Workbook Frequently Asked QuestionsHow can I stop anxiety fast?Take time to accept and acknowledge your anxiety, use calming breathing exercises and engage in calming activities such as exercise and yoga. Distract yourself, visualise peace and share your feelings with others.

Challenge negative thoughts and seek support from family, friends or a health professional.

What are the 4 coping skills for anxiety?Coping with anxiety includes using mindfulness, deep breathing, positive thinking, and muscle relaxation techniques. All of these can help you manage your anxiety in a healthy way.

What are some effective relaxation techniques for managing anxiety?Deep breathing exercises, mindfulness meditation, and progressive muscle relaxation are all effective ways to manage anxiety. Taking time for yourself to focus on your breath and body can help reduce stress and tension associated with anxiety.

How can regular exercise help reduce anxiety?Regular exercise releases endorphins that can help reduce stress and promote relaxation, making it an effective way to manage anxiety.

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Have you ever considered hypnotherapy as a way to tackle your personal challenges but felt uncertain about its effectiveness or convenience? Online hypnotherapy or hypnotherapy downloads may be the answer you’ve been looking for!

As a hypnotherapist with 12 years experience, in this post we’ll explore the benefits, debunk common myths, and provide you with practical tips on how to get the most out of online hypnotherapy sessions.

Embracing Online HypnotherapyIt’s no secret that mental health issues and personal challenges can be tough to manage, but online hypnotherapy sessions offer a convenient and effective alternative to in-person sessions. Imagine being able to access top-quality therapy from the comfort of your own home, without any geographical boundaries or the need to travel to a hypnotherapist’s office. Studies have shown that online hypnotherapy work is just as effective as meeting in person and follows the same structured approach.

In online sessions, therapists harness the power of hypnotherapy to help clients overcome obstacles and reach their goals through online therapy. Choosing a reliable online platform like Zoom or Skype is also a critical part of this process, as it guarantees a secure and stable connection.

With a free consultation to discuss your needs and goals, you’ll be on your way to a happier, healthier life through hypnotherapy online.

Download your FREE High Functioning Anxiety Workbook The Power of Clinical HypnotherapySolution focused hypnotherapy is a powerful tool that can bring about meaningful change in clients’ lives. By focusing on the desired outcome, therapists can help clients break down barriers and create a clear path to achieving their goals.

This approach is particularly effective in online hypnotherapy sessions, where clients can work through their challenges in the comfort of their familiar surroundings.

Success Stories: Real-Life TransformationsTo truly understand the transformative power of online hypnotherapy, let’s explore some real-life success stories. Clients have experienced profound improvements in overcoming anxiety, boosting self-confidence, and enhancing public speaking skills.

These transformations are a testament to the effectiveness and flexibility of online hypnotherapy sessions, making online hypnosis work a valuable tool for personal growth.

Overcoming Anxiety and Panic AttacksFor those struggling with anxiety and panic attacks, online hypnotherapy has been a game-changer. Clients have reported significant reductions in anxiety levels and an overall improvement in their quality of life.

By using relaxation techniques, guided imagery, and visualisation, online hypnotherapy sessions have provided clients with the tools to manage their anxiety more effectively and regain control over their lives.

After using The Hypnotherapy Pack, Anna said “I’m noticing huge improvements to my levels of anxiety and the pressure I put myself under.”

Download The Hypnotherapy Pack hereBoosting Confidence and Self-EsteemGemma experienced a big shift listening to online hypnotherapy recordings for confidence.

‘I really can feel a difference, even after only a handful of listens. Focusing on confidence, I feel like it has unlocked something in me which has allowed me to take strides in how confident I feel. I am so glad I took the leap and look forward to getting stuck into more of the topics in the near future.”

Public speakingPublic speaking can be a daunting task for many, but online hypnotherapy has helped clients conquer stage fright and improve their communication skills. Techniques such as visualisation, positive affirmations, and relaxation have allowed clients to feel more confident and at ease when speaking in public, ultimately enhancing their performance and overcoming their fears.

Preparing for Your First Online Hypnotherapy SessionPrior to embarking on your first online hypnotherapy session, find a quiet place where you can lay down, with your head supported.

Creating a Calm EnvironmentA calm and comfortable space is crucial for a successful online hypnotherapy session. Find a quiet, private spot where you won’t be disturbed, and minimise distractions such as phones or TVs. Most of my clients are laying down on their bed or sofa. It can be nice to use headphones as it allows you to hear the music and the therapists voice easily.

Aromatherapy, or other relaxation techniques can help create a peaceful atmosphere. The more relaxed and focused you are during your session, the more effective your hypnotherapy will be.

Technical RequirementsFor a smooth online hypnotherapy experience, having a reliable internet connection, a device equipped with a webcam and microphone, and a distraction-free space is essential.

Your online hypnotherapist will guide you through the process, ensuring that you have everything you need for a successful session.

Debunking Myths About Online HypnotherapyMisconceptions about online hypnotherapy are widespread, with common concerns revolving around control, safety, and its effectiveness in comparison to in-person therapy. However, studies indicate that online hypnotherapy is equally effective as its in-person counterpart, with clients retaining control during the entire process.

With the guidance of a qualified online hypnotherapist, you can rest assured that your sessions will be safe and effective.

Control and Safety During Online HypnosisMany people worry about losing control during online hypnosis, but rest assured, online hypnotherapy is a safe and controlled experience. You don’t lose control during hypnotherapy and it’s impossible to get stuck in hypnosis, even if you lose the internet connection.

Effectiveness Compared to In-Person TherapyWhen it comes to the effectiveness of online hypnotherapy compared to in-person therapy, many people wonder, “does online hypnotherapy work?” Research has shown that online sessions are just as successful. Clients have reported similar levels of satisfaction and progress with online hypnotherapy as they have with face-to-face sessions, making online hypnotherapy a viable and convenient alternative for those seeking support and guidance. Many of my clients have said that they prefer it online, because they’re in their own space and don’t need to travel anywhere afterwards.

Hypnotherapy recordings and how they workHypnotherapy recordings are another valuable tool that allow you to access hypnotherapy easily and more affordably. These recordings provide added convenience and flexibility for clients, allowing them to:

• Access therapeutic support any time, any where
• Listen to the recordings multiple times for reinforcement
• Practice relaxation techniques and self-hypnosis
• Focus on specific areas of improvement

Let’s delve deeper into how hypnotherapy recordings work and their benefits.

Download The Hypnotherapy Pack hereBenefits of hypnotherapy downloadsHypnotherapy downloads offer clients the ability to access therapy at their own pace and in their own time, making them an excellent addition or replacement for live online sessions. With the convenience of hypnotherapy downloads, clients can continue their progress, reinforce positive changes, and maintain long-term success.

Finding the Right Online HypnotherapistA successful online hypnotherapy experience hinges on finding a hypnotherapist who aligns with your needs and preferences. Have an initial consultation first and come armed with questions so you can get the most out of the consultation.

Let’s explore how to find the right online hypnotherapist for your unique goals and challenges.

Importance of Initial ConsultationAn initial consultation, often starting with an initial chat, is essential for determining if a hypnotherapist is the right fit for your needs. This consultation allows you to discuss your goals, ask questions, and get a feel for the therapist’s approach and style.

It’s an opportunity to ensure that both you and your hypnotherapist are on the same page about the therapy process, and to customise your treatment plan accordingly.

Questions to Ask Your Potential HypnotherapistWhen considering a potential online hypnotherapist, it’s important to ask questions about their experience, qualifications, and approach. Some key questions to ask include:

What’s your experience with online hypnotherapy? What techniques do you use? How long will each session last? What is your approach to hypnotherapy? What results can I expect?

By asking these questions, you’ll be better informed to make the right decision for your needs.

Tips for Maximising the Benefits of Online HypnotherapyMaximising the benefits of your online hypnotherapy sessions requires goal setting, expectation management, and practicing self-hypnosis techniques. Having well-defined goals and expectations prepares you to collaborate effectively with your hypnotherapist, helping you attain your desired results.

Let’s discuss some tips for maximising the benefits of online hypnotherapy.

Setting Goals and ExpectationsBefore starting your online hypnotherapy journey, take some time to consider your goals and expectations. Discuss these with your hypnotherapist during the initial consultation to ensure that your sessions are tailored to your needs.

Having clear goals in place will help you stay focused and motivated throughout your therapy, ultimately leading to better results.

Practicing Self-Hypnosis TechniquesPracticing self-hypnosis techniques can enhance the benefits of online hypnotherapy and promote long-term change. Techniques such as progressive muscle relaxation, meditation, and deep breathing can help with increased relaxation, improved focus, and better control over emotions and reactions.

By incorporating these techniques into your daily routine, you’ll be better equipped to maintain the positive changes achieved through online hypnotherapy sessions.

Let’s sum it upOnline hypnotherapy offers a convenient and effective alternative to traditional in-person therapy. With the right online hypnotherapist, a comfortable environment, and a commitment to practicing self-hypnosis techniques, you can achieve lasting change and overcome your personal challenges. Don’t let geographical boundaries or busy schedules hold you back – unlock the benefits of online hypnotherapy now and start living the life you deserve.

Download your FREE High Functioning Anxiety Workbook Frequently Asked QuestionsDoes online hypnotherapy work?Yes, online hypnotherapy is just as effective as face to face hypnotherapy – some people even feel more relaxed and comfortable working in their own environment, which can positively impact the outcome.

Many people find that online hypnotherapy is more convenient and accessible than traditional face to face sessions, as they can be done from the comfort of their own home. This can be especially beneficial for those who have difficulty travelling or have limited access to traditional therapy.

Online hypnotherapy.

Is hypnosis better in person or online?It appears that there is no difference between face-to-face and online hypnotherapy results, and some people actually prefer the online environment for being more receptive to hypnotherapy. Being in your own space and not having to travel to the appointment are all perks.

This suggests that online hypnotherapy can be just as effective as traditional face-to-face hypnotherapy.

What do I need for a successful online hypnotherapy session?A successful online hypnotherapy session requires a reliable internet connection, a device with a webcam and microphone, and a quiet and comfortable space.

Creating the right environment for a successful session is essential for the client to feel comfortable and relaxed. This will help them focus on the hypnotherapy session and get the most out of it.

How can I find the right online hypnotherapist for me?Schedule an initial consultation to get a feel for the hypnotherapist’s experience and approach, and make sure they’re the right fit for you.

Ask questions to ensure you have all the information you need to make an informed decision. Find someone you have rapport with; being able to be open and being able to trust your therapist are key to its success.

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Have you ever experienced that feeling of unease, your heart pounding, and your mind racing with a million thoughts? Anxiety is a common emotion that we all face at some point in our lives. But when it starts to interfere with your daily life, it’s time to take action and learn how to reduce anxiety. One approach is to turn to natural remedies when you want to learn how to reduce anxiety symptoms.

I’m an anxiety expert and therapist who has experienced anxiety first hand, and in this post, we’ll explore various natural remedies, from physical activity and nutrition to mindfulness and connecting with others, which can help you regain control of your anxiety and feel calmer.

Embrace Physical ActivityWhen anxiety strikes, it’s easy to get caught up in a cycle of negative thoughts and feelings. Engaging in physical activity can effectively disrupt this cycle. Exercise has been shown to improve mental health, increase concentration, and boost mood, which can all help alleviate anxiety symptoms. From brisk walks and short circuit routines to biking around the neighbourhood, any form of physical activity can be a potent weapon in your battle against anxiety.

If you’re a beginner or looking for something less intense, fear not. Activities like Pilates and yoga can also be beneficial for your mental health, especially if you’re dealing with an anxiety disorder. Plus, spending time outdoors and connecting with nature during your workouts can further enhance your overall well-being.

No matter which type of exercise you choose, make sure to breathe deeply and focus on the present moment. Deep breathing can help restore normal breathing patterns and reduce anxiety. The next time anxiety strikes, harness the power of physical activity to manage stress and alleviate anxiety symptoms.

Adopt a Nutritious DietDid you know that the foods you eat can impact your mental health? Adopting a nutritious diet rich in specific nutrients can help reduce anxiety by promoting overall mental and physical health.

Below, we’ll look at four essential nutrients for anxiety relief: omega-3 fatty acids, B vitamins, magnesium, and probiotics.

Omega-3 Fatty AcidsOmega-3 fatty acids, found in fish oil, play a significant role in supporting brain function and mood regulation, which can help reduce anxiety. Researchers found that those taking higher levels of omega 3 (2,000mg a day) had a reduction in anxiety symptoms. These essential fatty acids have also been linked to lower depression association. So, how can you get your hands on some omega-3s? Incorporate fish oil into your diet, or consume oily fish like salmon, mackerel, and sardines, which are rich in omega-3 fatty acids. This natural alternative to anti-anxiety medication can be beneficial for some individuals.

In addition to fish, other dietary sources of omega-3 fatty acids include walnuts, chia seeds, and flaxseeds. If you’re not a fan of fish or nuts, you can also consider taking omega-3 supplements. Sometimes these are made of algae and are a vegan source of omega 3. However, it’s essential to consult your healthcare provider before starting any supplementation, as it may interact with certain medications or have side effects.

Incorporating omega-3 fatty acids into your diet not only paves the way for anxiety relief, but also bolsters your overall brain health and well-being. So don’t hesitate to add some fish or nuts to your next meal to reap the benefits of this powerful nutrient.

B VitaminsB vitamins play a crucial role in our body’s stress response and overall mental health. In particular, vitamin B6 has been found to be effective in reducing anxiety and stress. Research has shown that taking high doses of vitamin B6 supplements can make a significant difference in reducing feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression. In addition, vitamin B6 supplementation has been known to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. Other B vitamins, such as B9 and B12, are also thought to be beneficial in treating symptoms of anxiety.

You can obtain B vitamins from various foods, such as:

• Eggs
• Dairy
• Legumes
• Nuts
• Whole grains

However, some people, like vegans or vegetarians, may have difficulty getting enough B vitamins through their diet and may benefit from taking supplements. Consult your healthcare provider before starting any supplementation, as it may interact with certain medications or have side effects.

Incorporating B vitamins into your diet or supplement routine bolsters your body’s capacity to respond to stress and manage anxiety effectively. So, give your body the tools it needs to combat stress by ensuring you’re getting enough of these essential nutrients.

MagnesiumMagnesium is an essential mineral that plays a key role in regulating stress and anxiety. It assists with:

• Brain functions that reduce stress and anxiety
• Encouraging the production of melatonin and serotonin (which increase relaxation)
• Regulating anxiety by increasing GABAergic availability

While more research is needed, current studies suggest that magnesium may be beneficial in managing anxiety.

You can obtain magnesium through your diet by consuming foods like dark leafy greens, nuts, seeds, legumes, and whole grains. If you’re considering taking a magnesium supplement, it’s best to consult your doctor first. Taking too much magnesium can cause unpleasant side effects like nausea, diarrhea, and abdominal cramping.

Magnesium is essential for keeping stress and anxiety in check. Ensure you’re getting enough of this vital mineral through your diet or supplements (with your doctor’s guidance) to support your mental health and well-being.

ProbioticsProbiotics, the beneficial bacteria found in fermented foods, can help improve gut health, which is linked to mental well-being and anxiety reduction. Studies suggest that certain strains of probiotics, such as Bifidobacterium longum and Lactobacillus acidophilus, may help with stress and anxiety management and even depression. However, more research is needed to fully understand their effects on anxiety and stress.

Fermented foods like yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, and kombucha are excellent sources of probiotics. You can also find probiotic supplements at health food stores and online if you prefer. Be sure to consult your healthcare provider before starting any supplementation, as it may interact with certain medications or have side effects.

By incorporating probiotics into your diet or taking supplements, you can support your gut health and mental well-being, ultimately helping to reduce anxiety. So, give your gut a boost by adding some fermented foods to your diet or considering probiotic supplements.

Download your FREE High Functioning Anxiety Workbook Limit StimulantsStimulants like caffeine and nicotine can exacerbate anxiety symptoms, making it crucial to limit their intake. Cutting back on caffeine and alcohol can help with anxiety by reducing symptoms such as shakiness and rapid heartbeat. Moreover, smoking has been known to alter the pathways in the brain associated with anxiety symptoms, making it even more important to reduce or quit cigarette smoking.

Caffeine, in particular, can cause or worsen anxiety disorders, including generalised anxiety disorder and chronic anxiety, and even lead to panic attacks in people with panic disorder. Limiting caffeine intake by opting for decaffeinated or herbal teas and reducing the consumption of energy drinks, coffee, and chocolate can help manage anxiety symptoms more effectively.

Limiting intake of stimulants such as caffeine and nicotine is a proactive measure towards managing anxiety symptoms and fostering overall mental health. So, consider swapping that morning coffee for a calming herbal tea or a decaf version.

Prioritise Quality SleepWe all know that a good night’s sleep is essential for our overall well-being, but did you know it’s also crucial for maintaining mental health and reducing anxiety? Ensuring you get adequate, quality sleep can help you manage stress and anxiety more effectively. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that adults aim for 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night.

To improve your sleep quality, consider establishing a regular sleep schedule, creating a relaxing bedtime routine, and minimising distractions in your sleep environment. Prioritising quality sleep can not only help you feel refreshed and rejuvenated, but also play a vital role in managing anxiety and maintaining optimal mental health.

Practice Mindfulness TechniquesMindfulness techniques, such as meditation and deep breathing, have gained popularity in recent years as effective ways to manage stress and anxiety. These practices can help increase self-awareness, promote relaxation, and allow you to better manage your thoughts and feelings. Studies have shown that practicing mindfulness techniques can help restore normal breathing patterns and reduce anxiety.

Meditation, in particular, can help you feel more calm and content by increasing your capacity to be mindful of all thoughts and feelings. Deep breathing exercises, on the other hand, can help relieve stress and anxiety by encouraging you to breathe deeply and focus on the present moment.

Incorporating mindfulness techniques into your daily routine can help you combat anxiety and excessive worry more effectively. So, whether you choose meditation, deep breathing exercises, or even a combination of both, remember that practicing mindfulness can be a powerful tool in your anxiety management arsenal.

Explore AromatherapyAromatherapy, a natural way to help reduce anxiety, involves using essential oils known for their calming and relaxing effects. Essential oils, derived from natural plant extracts, can be used in various ways, such as inhaling them directly, adding them to a warm bath, or using a diffuser. Some popular essential oils for anxiety relief include lavender, chamomile, and bergamot.

Research has shown that aromatherapy can help reduce anxiety and stress, promote relaxation, and improve emotional well-being. Incorporating aromatherapy into your self-care routine offers a natural pathway for anxiety and stress relief, while bolstering your overall mental health.

So consider exploring the world of aromatherapy and essential oils to find the scents that resonate with you and help you feel more relaxed and at ease in your daily life.

Herbal remediesHerbal supplements, such as chamomile tea and CBD oil, can offer natural relief for anxiety by calming nerves and promoting relaxation. Chamomile tea, for instance, can help alter cortisol levels, a stress hormone, providing a soothing effect on the body and mind. CBD oil, a natural remedy derived from the cannabis plant, has been suggested to help reduce anxiety symptoms without causing major side effects.

While herbal remedies can provide an alternative to traditional treatments for anxiety, it’s essential to consult a doctor before using them, as they may interact with certain medications or have side effects.

Exploring natural remedies, herbal supplements, and traditional treatments under the guidance of a healthcare professional opens up additional avenues to relieve anxiety and allows you to determine the most effective approach for managing your anxiety symptoms, including physical symptoms.

Engage in Creative OutletsEngaging in creative outlets like journaling, art, or music therapy can help reduce anxiety by providing a healthy way to express emotions and cope with stress. These activities can help you channel your anxious energy into something productive and fulfilling, allowing you to release pent-up stress and anxiety in a constructive manner.

Journaling, for example, has been found to be particularly helpful for teenagers and children experiencing anxiety. Writing down your thoughts and feelings can provide a sense of relief and help you gain perspective on your anxiety. Art and music therapy, on the other hand, can be therapeutic outlets for expressing emotions and managing stress in a creative way.

Engaging in creative outlets not only offers a healthy coping mechanism for anxiety, but also nurtures self-expression and personal growth. So consider exploring different creative activities to find the ones that resonate with you and help you manage your anxiety more effectively.

Spend Time in NatureSpending time in nature can have a profound impact on anxiety relief, promoting relaxation, boosting mood, and improving cognitive abilities. Research has shown that even just 20 minutes in nature can lower stress hormones and improve mental health. So, whether you’re going for a walk in the park, hiking on a trail, or simply sitting and taking in the scenery, immersing yourself in nature can be a powerful way to alleviate anxiety.

There are many ways to enjoy nature and reap its benefits, such as bird watching, gardening, or camping. Incorporating nature into your daily life cultivates an environment conducive to relaxation and mental well-being.

So next time you’re feeling anxious, consider spending some time in nature to clear your mind, boost your mood, and reconnect with your inner peace.

Connect with OthersConnecting with others through social activities, support groups, or animal therapy can help reduce anxiety by providing companionship, love, and emotional support. Building connections with others can offer a sense of belonging and help you navigate your anxiety journey more effectively.

Support groups, in particular, can provide a safe space for individuals experiencing anxiety disorders to share their experiences, learn from others, and develop coping strategies. Animal therapy, on the other hand, can offer unconditional love and support, helping to alleviate anxiety symptoms and promote overall mental health.

Connecting with others, through social activities, support groups, or animal therapy, not only helps in reducing anxiety, but also nurtures meaningful relationships and emotional connections that enhance your overall well-being.

Consider Complementary TherapiesComplementary therapies, such as acupuncture or hypnotherapy, can offer additional anxiety relief options for those seeking alternative approaches to managing their anxiety symptoms. While these therapies may not work for everyone, they can provide valuable support for those who find traditional treatments ineffective or inaccessible.

Acupuncture, an ancient Eastern practice, has been shown to help reduce:

• fear
• stress
• anxiety
• panic disorder
• panic attack

HypnotherapyHypnotherapy uses the power of suggestion to help individuals manage their anxiety symptoms and develop healthier coping mechanisms. This therapeutic approach harnesses the subconscious mind to change negative thought patterns and behaviours. By guiding you into a deeply relaxed state, the hypnotherapist can access your subconscious and introduce positive suggestions that can help you manage your anxiety more effectively. This can include techniques for managing stress, boosting self-confidence, or altering the way you respond to anxiety triggers. It’s important to note that hypnotherapy is not about controlling your mind, but rather empowering you to take control of your own thoughts and behaviours. It’s a collaborative process where you and the hypnotherapist work together to achieve your goals.

Download The Hypnotherapy Pack hereFrequently Asked QuestionsHow can I relieve anxiety fast?Try calming breathing exercises, talking to someone about your feelings, and exercising as strategies to manage anxiety and reduce stress.

Listening to music or creating a new playlist can also help relax your mind.

What are the 3 coping resources for anxiety?Visualisation, meditation and yoga are excellent coping resources for anxiety. Make sure to prioritise sleep and talk with your doctor if needed.

What are 5 ways to reduce anxiety?Five ways to reduce anxiety are to practice coping strategies, engage in deep breathing exercises, try relaxation techniques, challenge negative thoughts, and practice mindfulness.

With these strategies, you can work towards relieving your anxiety.

What types of physical activities can help reduce anxiety?Exercising regularly can be a great way to reduce anxiety, with activities like brisk walking, biking, Pilates, yoga and circuit routines helping to improve mental health, increase concentration and boost mood.

These activities can be done in the comfort of your own home, or outdoors in a park or other natural environment. They can also be done alone or with friends, making them a great way to socialize and stay connected.

Regular exercise can also help to reduce stress levels and improve health.

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Is your mindset helping you or holding you back?

If we want to achieve success, our mindset has incredible power.

For senior business leaders, founders, business owners and entrepreneurs, your mindset can be your greatest asset or your biggest obstacle.

With the right mindset, leadership and business can be fun, and success can come more easily.

Developing a Success MindsetBelow, I’m sharing 11 things that will help you to create the mental attitude of success and positivity to fuel growth in your business or working life.

1. Embrace a Growth MindsetMost people have a fixed mindset. It’s where we believe that our intelligence, talents and capabilities are fixed and there’s little we can do about them.

A successful mindset is a growth mindset. A growth mindset is the belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed through dedication and hard work.

Developing a growth mindset involves cultivating a belief in our capacity to learn, adapt and improve through effort and perseverance. To foster this mindset, we must embrace challenges as opportunities for growth, view failures as learning experiences, and seek new experiences that stretch our abilities.

In a work setting, a leader who receives constructive feedback doesn’t see it as criticism but as helpful feedback that can be used to enhance their skills. Entrepreneurs who encounter setbacks don’t abandon their ventures but use failures to refine their strategies.

I often share a mantra with my clients to help them develop a growth mindset: ‘Everything is a stepping stone towards greater and greater success’. Remind yourself of this often!

1. Set Clear GoalsHow can we get there if we don’t know where we’re going? Goal-setting is vital for any entrepreneur or leader. It starts with stepping away from what success looks like for other people and instead defining what success looks like for you. Don’t let societal pressures or others’ expectations dictate your definition of success. It should be authentic to you, not based on others’ opinions (like, your parents!).

We want to look at our values and purpose, what our ideal day looks like, and consider factors like personal growth, relationships, health, and well-being.

If you have financial goals, how much and by when would you like to reach them? If you’d like more work-life balance – what does that look like? Do you finish work at 4 pm and take Fridays off? Being specific is key.

Break down your long-term goals into smaller, achievable milestones, and celebrate each accomplishment. Regularly review your goals and definition of success. As you evolve or enter a different season in your life, your aspirations might change, and that’s okay.

Download your FREE High Functioning Anxiety Workbook 3. Reprogramme your subconscious blocksWe all have limiting beliefs that hold us back. They are blocks in the unconscious mind, deeply ingrained thoughts or perceptions that stop us from realising our full potential and achieving our goals. In business and leadership, limiting beliefs can stop us from achieving success and growth or mean that we self-sabotage or repeat mistakes over and over again.

Sometimes, we’re well aware of these unconscious blocks, while other times, these beliefs are buried so deep that it takes some digging to recognise what’s there.

Common beliefs can be things like ‘I’m not good enough’, ‘I’m a fraud’ or ‘My family will dislike me if I make more money than them’. Once we’re aware of the limiting thought patterns, we can change them using hypnotherapy, coaching and a range of other tools and approaches to create subconscious transformation. Doing so frees you up to reach your next level of success.

1. Build a Support NetworkIt can be lonely at the top, and when you’re an entrepreneur or leader, you can sometimes feel as though you’re battling alone with no one understanding your unique struggles.

How can you surround yourself with supportive mentors, business besties, peers, and team members? Building a network of like-minded women can provide encouragement, inspiration, and constructive feedback.

Knowing that you’re not alone is a huge step in building self-confidence, and that’s why peer support is an essential aspect of my group coaching programmes. Hearing that other people struggle with the same things you do is worth its weight in gold, as is hearing how others overcome these struggles and create success.

When you gather a group of successful women together, you realise that not feeling good enough, self-doubt, imposter syndrome and challenges with boundaries, and people-pleasing are completely normal. Realising how universal they are helps to take the sting out and reminds us this is something we can work through and succeed despite these things.

1. Practice MeditationIf you ask top performers and successful people about their habits and routines, meditation is nearly always a part of their schedule. Many people say to themselves that they ‘don’t have time’ to meditate. But what if meditation had the power to give us more time because of the mental clarity, focus and increased productivity it provides? Many studies support the idea that meditation leads to better productivity, easier decision making and lowered stress levels. Other studies also suggest that when leaders meditate, it positively impacts their direct reports.

Whether listening to meditation on an app, learning Transcendental Meditation or even trying hypnotherapy – making this part of your daily routine is key to creating a successful mindset.

1. Cultivate Resilience with kindnessCan a success mindset also be a kind one? Absolutely. There’s an out-of-date idea that we need tough love and to crack the whip in order to get ahead, but science doesn’t support this approach for creating success.

Being kind to yourself is the number one thing you can do to build resilience. It cushions you against failure, meaning that you’re more able to bounce back and try again. But the inner critical voice is always waiting to pounce on any perceived mistake, despite the fact that setbacks are natural in entrepreneurship and leadership. However, positive self-talk helps to combat a negative mindset, low self-esteem and self-doubt.

Practising self-compassion is simple but not always easy. It’s about speaking to yourself as you would a good friend, cultivating an inner voice of patience, kindness and understanding.

The next time you hear your inner voice bitching about that small mistake you made on an email – take a deep breath and ask yourself, ‘What would I say to a good friend in my position?’ It takes practice, but as you catch yourself and change your perspective repeatedly, it starts to become second nature.

1. Celebrate Successes, Big and SmallTeresa Amabile and Steven J Kramer from Harvard Business School created what they call ‘The Progress Principle’. They found that ‘Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work.’ They discovered that the best thing we can do is to record and acknowledge our progress and celebrate the small wins.

What small win can you celebrate today? It could be sending an email you’ve been putting off, having a difficult conversation, completing a document or making a start on a big project. Take the time to notice that you made progress today, no matter how small a step it was.

Too many of us breeze on to the next task and fail to acknowledge and celebrate achievements along the way. But recognising your progress boosts motivation and creativity and creates a positive mindset that’s primed for success.

1. Align with Your Values and PurposeWhen your business goals align with your personal values and mission, this alignment creates a deeper connection to your work and your motivation.

It guides your decisions, inspires innovation, and attracts employees and customers who share your vision. Businesses rooted in values and purpose have the resilience to weather challenges and the ability to positively impact society.

Do your personal values align with your work or business values? Do you know what your purpose is? If not, how could you bring more of what’s important to you into your work? Other people will also be able to feel your authenticity when you connect to this.

1. Avoid Comparison TrapsAs much as we may want to cheer other women on, let’s be honest; other people’s successes can be triggering. Seeing a colleague get the promotion you wanted or another business owner get an incredible new client can leave us feeling less than.

On one hand we may want success for others, but on the other it brings up all our feelings of unworthiness, not-enoughness and our loud self-criticism.

Instead, we must focus on our unique journey and remember that our uniqueness makes us incomparable. No one has the unique blend of gifts, challenges, strengths, privileges and hardships that you do. Your path is going to look very different to someone else’s. You might be in a particular season of your life, like in the beginning stages of a start-up or have just returned to work, exhausted from maternity leave. Don’t compare your winter to someone else’s spring.

If you can’t help but compare yourself (it’s natural and normal to do so, BTW, look into social comparison theory for more on this) – what can you do to keep your blinkers on and stick to your own path? That might look like muting or unfollowing people on Instagram who trigger you or networking with people outside your niche. You might not have to do this forever. When you’re in a better place, and your self-esteem is more robust, you can unmute them, but for now, be kind to yourself.

1. Have an abundance mentalityMany of us have a lack mentality. From a young age, we’re taught that life is a zero-sum game (there can only be one winner), that we need to compete, and that money doesn’t grow on trees. Maybe you didn’t have enough money or food when you were growing up.

Added to that, the media gives us the impression that we’re never ‘good enough’ and that we never have or do enough. All of these things can create subconscious programmes that there isn’t enough to go around, which leads us to have a scarcity mindset.

Developing an abundance mentality in business involves shifting from a scarcity-focused mindset to one that embraces the concept of limitless opportunities. It’s about recognising that success is not finite and that there’s enough room for growth, collaboration, and prosperity for everyone.

To cultivate this mindset, we can focus on collaboration rather than competition, seeking win-win scenarios that benefit all parties involved. Embracing a philosophy of continuous learning and improvement also contributes to abundance, as it fosters adaptability and openness to new ideas.

Take the time to focus on the abundance that you already have in your life, whether it’s simple things like clean water running from the taps, healthy food on your plate or being grateful for a client paying on time or having enough money to pay yourself each month. Remembering that you already have a lot of abundance in your life is the first step to creating an abundance mindset.

1. Seek Professional HelpProfessional coaching or therapy can be beneficial in overcoming deep-seated mental blocks or challenges. If you’re a leader or business owner and you feel stuck, blocked or overwhelmed – I’d love to help. I support leaders in feeling grounded and calm and removing unconscious blocks that hold them back so that they can take bold action in their work.

Cultivating a success mindset takes effort, positive self-talk, self-improvement and incorporating practises into our everyday lives. Our minds are malleable and constantly changing, and with a few simple tweaks, we can create significant changes.

If you’d like to talk to me about how we can work together to help you create a success mindset and overcome your unconscious blocks – learn more here and book a call with me.

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What’s the deal with high-functioning anxiety? In this blog post, I’ll discuss the ins and outs and the practical steps you can take to overcome it. While some people may experience symptoms that interfere with their daily lives, others can push through and function relatively normally. This is known as high-functioning anxiety, a condition that […]

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Anxiety is a common and often overwhelming emotion that can interfere with our daily lives. If you’re looking for ways to manage your anxiety and live a calmer, more peaceful life, you’ll find the best podcasts for anxiety below.

From expert advice and coping strategies to mindfulness practices and personal stories, these podcasts offer a range of approaches to dealing with anxiety.

Whether you’re seeking professional help or just looking for some extra support, these seven podcasts are a great resource for anyone looking to reduce anxiety and increase well-being.

“The Calmer You Podcast” by Chloe BrotheridgeThe Calmer You Podcast is about helping you to heal anxiety, quiet the inner critic and live a more expansive life of calm and confidence.

“The Anxiety Coaches Podcast” by Gina RyanThe Anxiety Coaches Podcast brings you a relaxing and inspiring show sharing lifestyle changes to calm your nervous system and help you heal Anxiety, Panic, Stress, and PTSD for life! We Bring you 2 episodes every week. There is no need to walk this path alone. Join us for a relaxing, informative, and inspiring time and start your journey into more peace and calm today. Find meditations, info about stress, anxiety, healthy living, and more

“The Mindful Minute” by Meryl ArnettMeryl created this podcast as a way to share mindfulness meditation as a support of one’s everyday joy. She has been practicing and teaching mindfulness meditation for 10 years as an everyday practitioner.

“The Anxiety Guy Podcast” by Dennis SimsekThe Anxiety Guy Podcast is another resource you need to begin lessening and eventually ending your struggles with generalized anxiety disorder, hypochondria, and depression.

“Owning It” by Caroline ForanFrom author Caroline Foran, comes Owning It: The Anxiety Podcast – with everything you need to hear to get on top of your anxiety. This practical and relaxed series explores everything from what anxiety is and why it happens to us, how our brains work and why it’s actually very normal to the various tools and techniques necessary for owning it.

“The Happiness Lab”by Dr. Laurie SantosIn the pursuit of happiness, it’s easy to get caught up in societal expectations. More money, a better job, vacations that make everyone on your social media feed green with envy… you may believe these are the keys to a happier life. However, this common misconception couldn’t be further from the truth.

Dr. Laurie Santos, a renowned professor at Yale University, has delved deep into the science of happiness, uncovering startling revelations about what truly enriches our lives. Shockingly, she has found that most of us are steering in the wrong direction when it comes to seeking joy. We’re often chasing after things that, in the grand scheme of our lives, won’t bring us the happiness we crave. Dr. Santos is ready to take you on a journey through the latest scientific research on happiness. Along the way, she’ll weave in surprising and inspiring stories that challenge our traditional notions of joy and fulfillment.

“The One You Feed” by Eric Zimmer and Chris ForbesThe One You Feed podcast uses the parable of two wolves at battle within us as a jumping-off point for meaningful discussions about how to live skilfully amidst life’s inherent challenges.

Frequently Asked QuestionsWhat is Anxiety?Do podcasts help with anxiety?What else could I listen to?What is the 333 method?

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Anxiety is a common condition that affects millions of people around the world. In the UK, over 8 million people are experiencing an anxiety disorder at any time (Mental Health UK). According to MIND, 1 in 6 people will experience a common mental health condition like anxiety or depression in any given week.

But what’s the deal with high-functioning anxiety?

While some people may experience symptoms that interfere with their daily lives, others can push through and function relatively normally. This is known as high-functioning anxiety, a condition that is often overlooked and misunderstood.

Unfortunately, according to the Mental Health Foundation, only 50% of people with anxiety seek help. Many people are battling on, hoping that things will resolve themselves or believing that nothing will work to help them. But therapists and doctors agree, anxiety is very treatable; it’s not something we have to be stuck with for life.

Many people may not realise that high-functioning anxiety can be incredibly debilitating, even though the person may appear to be functioning well on the surface. People with high-functioning anxiety often have a great deal of inner turmoil, worrying excessively about things that may not seem like a big deal to others.

They may also put a lot of pressure on themselves to perform well, leading to a cycle of stress and anxiety that can be difficult to break. While they may appear highly competent and successful, their anxiety can significantly impact their mental health, relationships, and quality of life.

It’s also important to note that just because someone appears to be functioning well does not mean they do not need help or support. Learning about the condition and having some tools to cope can be an essential step in managing high-functioning anxiety and improving overall well-being.

In this article, we’ll explore what high-functioning anxiety is, its impact, and strategies for coping with it.

What is High-Functioning Anxiety?High-functioning anxiety is a term used to describe people who appear to have their lives together and perform well in their daily tasks but struggle with anxiety. These individuals may seem like high achievers, but a constant sense of worry and self-doubt often plagues them.

Unlike other forms of anxiety, high-functioning anxiety doesn’t necessarily cause the person to avoid situations that trigger anxiety. Instead, they may push themselves to work harder and accomplish more, in an effort to quell their inner turmoil. But just because you seem ok on the outside, it doesn’t mean that the struggle is any less real. It’s exhausting having to wear a mask and pretend everything is ok when on the inside, you’re having a hard time.

How does high-functioning anxiety differ from regular anxiety?First, you should know one thing about high-functioning anxiety; it’s not an official diagnosis. Anxiety is always on a spectrum from severe to less severe. Your doctor is more likely to diagnose you with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) because high-functioning anxiety is not in the DSM, the diagnosis manual for mental disorders.

However, high-functioning anxiety differs from regular anxiety in several ways. Firstly, people with high-functioning anxiety can often push through their anxious feelings and continue to perform their daily tasks. You’re still functioning well in life, and the anxiety isn’t so severe that you cannot cope with the day-to-day. That said, it doesn’t mean your anxiety is any less real or valid.

Secondly, these individuals may be prone to perfectionism, people pleasing and overworking themselves, so you might be fairly or even very successful in life. You might be a high achiever. You’ve got an excellent job, a close-knit family and a big circle of friends. It’s just that an undercurrent of anxiety runs through your life. You’re more prone to experiencing things like burnout or workplace stress.

Lastly, high-functioning anxiety can be more challenging to diagnose because the individual appears to be doing well on the outside. You may not ‘look’ like the typical person with anxiety. Other people may find it hard to believe you ever struggle with overwhelm, worries or not feeling good enough, but it’s there nonetheless. You might be less likely to seek help because on the outside, ‘everything is fine’.

What are the Symptoms of High-Functioning Anxiety?High-functioning anxiety can present differently in different people, but some common symptoms include:

• Overthinking and analysing every decision
• Worrying about the future and what could go wrong.
• Perfectionism and fear of failure
• Difficulty relaxing or enjoying leisure time
• Self-criticism, negative self-talk and never feeling good enough.
• Physical symptoms such as headaches, stomachaches, and muscle tension.

The Impact of High-Functioning AnxietyWhile high-functioning anxiety may not prevent a person from functioning daily, it can affect their mental and physical health over time. The constant stress and worry can lead to burnout, fatigue, and other health problems. It can also cause relationship problems, as the person may have difficulty relaxing and connecting with others. Or you might feel irritable and snappy with your loved ones.

You may experience exhaustion, headaches, difficulty sleeping, and other physical symptoms of stress. People with this condition may also struggle to relax or take time for themselves. They may feel guilty if they are not productive. A common refrain is that they find relaxing hard, even on holiday!

Sarah, a 32-year-old project manager, described it like this:

‘I have always been a perfectionist, and I put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed. I’m always thinking about the next thing I must do, and I have difficulty relaxing or enjoying myself. Even when I’m doing something fun, a voice in my head tells me I should be doing something more productive.

Jane told me, ‘My anxiety manifests in different ways. I have trouble falling asleep at night because my mind is racing with everything I need to do the next day. I get irritable when things don’t go as planned, and I have a hard time letting go of control. I’m always double-checking things and worrying about making mistakes.’

Procrastination and high-functioning anxietyPeople with high-functioning anxiety often struggle with procrastination and perfectionism, which can lead to a vicious cycle of stress and worry. They may be afraid to start a task because they feel it has to be perfect, or they may put it off until the last minute because they fear failure. This can lead to increased stress levels, leading to more procrastination. Another thing that can happen is that we get overwhelmed by all the steps that are needed in order to achieve a goal, and this overwhelm stops us from starting. You’ve wanted to start your own business, but the sheer number of things you’d have to do leaves your head spinning, and you can’t take action. Or, you’d love to get a new job, but the thought of having to sort out your CV and make it perfect means you stay stuck.

When we’re overwhelmed, it’s hard to think clearly, and we can get into a state of analysis paralysis where it’s hard to move forwards. When you procrastinate, things take longer, so you might be someone who works long hours or works at the weekends to make up for this. This adds to the sense of exhaustion.

High functioning anxiety at work A marketing manager, Michelle said, ‘One of the biggest challenges for me is managing my anxiety at work. I’m a high achiever, always looking for ways to improve my performance. But my anxiety gets in the way. I worry about making mistakes or not meeting expectations, even when I know logically that I’m doing a good job. It’s hard to turn off that voice in my head that tells me I’m not doing enough.’

One issue with high-functioning anxiety at work is that the traits of perfectionism, overworking and people-pleasing may be praised a reinforced. Your boss may love that you stay late each night, and she commends your dedication. Your colleagues may look to you for help because of your eye for detail and willingness to help others. It may even have become a part of your identity at work that you’re the high flyer that others can rely on. However, there’s a cost to you and your mental health. Getting more coughs and colds, finding it hard to switch off and sleep at night, and struggling to balance work and home life could all be signs that high-functioning anxiety is impacting you at work.

What causes high-functioning anxietyHigh-functioning anxiety is caused by a combination of genetic, environmental, and psychological factors. It can be triggered by a stressful event such as a traumatic experience or the death of a loved one. People with an anxious personality type may also be more prone to this disorder. Additionally, people who have difficulty expressing their emotions or setting boundaries may develop high-functioning anxiety in order to cope with their stress and fear.

The causes of high-functioning anxiety are not fully understood, and it’s likely that many different factors contribute to the development of this condition. However, here are some possible causes and risk factors that may play a role:

1. Genetics: Some research suggests that anxiety disorders may run in families, indicating a possible genetic component.
2. Environment: Traumatic experiences, stressful life events, and chronic stress can all contribute to the development of anxiety. This might include things like moving house or being made redundant.
3. Personality: People who are highly conscientious, perfectionistic, or have a strong need for control may be more prone to developing high-functioning anxiety.
4. Brain chemistry: Some believe that anxiety is related to imbalances in brain chemicals such as serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine.
5. Cultural and societal pressures: In today’s society, there is often pressure to achieve and excel in all areas of life. This can contribute to anxiety, self-doubt and not feeling good enough.
6. Upbringing: Early life experiences and parental styles can affect how we think and feel about ourselves and the world later in life.
7. Behavioural: Our behaviours and habits can either exacerbate anxiety or reduce it. Drinking lots of coffee or alcohol, having a poor diet, and a lack of exercise and sleep can contribute to high-functioning anxiety.

It’s important to note that everyone is different, and what may cause high-functioning anxiety in one person may not be the same for another. Often a combination of factors is involved.

How do early life experiences play a role in high-functioning anxiety?Early life experiences can play a significant role in the development of high-functioning anxiety. Childhood experiences such as traumatic events, neglect, or growing up in an unpredictable or chaotic environment can all contribute to the development of anxiety.

It might be that you had very loving parents, but, wanting the best for you, they were critical of you and your achievements. If you were getting A’s at school, they were wondering why they weren’t A*’s. Perhaps your parents were controlling or chaotic, and this in turn created a need within you to be in control or maybe you moved around a lot and went to different schools and so you felt you had to develop a facade of being ‘perfect’ in order to cope with all the new situations and people.

Research has shown that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can have a lasting impact on a person’s mental and physical health. ACEs can include physical or emotional abuse, neglect, parental substance abuse or mental illness, and domestic violence.

In particular, experiences of emotional neglect or abuse can lead to the development of anxiety disorders, including high-functioning anxiety. Children who grow up in an environment where their emotions are not validated or where they are criticised or punished for expressing their feelings may learn to suppress their emotions and develop a fear of vulnerability.

As they grow older, these individuals may become highly self-critical and perfectionistic and may feel the need to constantly perform and achieve to gain validation and avoid criticism. This can lead to a pattern of overworking, overthinking, and over-analysing, all of which are characteristic of high-functioning anxiety.

Learning about the root causes of anxiety in childhood and aiming to understand why you are the way you are is a crucial step in overcoming it.

Burnout and high-functioning anxiety Even though you may be able to function well in your daily life, you may still experience significant stress and pressure to perform at a high level, which can contribute to burnout.

Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged exposure to stress. It is often seen in individuals working in high-pressure environments, such as healthcare, education, start-ups, small businesses or corporate settings. Burnout can lead to various symptoms, including fatigue, cynicism, and decreased productivity.

High-functioning anxiety can contribute to burnout because individuals with this condition may need to perform constantly at a high level. This can lead to overworking and neglecting self-care, contributing to burnout. Additionally, those with high-functioning anxiety may struggle to set boundaries and say no to additional responsibilities, leading to an increased workload and further contributing to burnout.

Those of us with high-functioning anxiety need to be aware of our stress levels and practice self-care to prevent burnout. This may include taking breaks, setting boundaries, and seeking support from mental health professionals.

Coping Strategies for High-Functioning AnxietyIf you’re struggling with high-functioning anxiety, there are strategies you can use to help manage your symptoms. Here are a few tips to get started:

1. Download the High Functioning Anxiety Workbook. It allows you to discover the number one thing holding you back and the best steps to overcome it.
2. Practice self-care: Make time for activities that you enjoy and that help you relax. That means carving out time in your schedule and putting it in the diary. This could include exercise, meditation, reading, or spending time in nature. If you secretly fear that self-care is indulgent or a waste of time, this is especially important for you.
3. Challenge negative thoughts: When you notice negative thoughts creeping in, challenge them with evidence-based counterarguments. Ask yourself if there’s evidence to support your worries or if you’re catastrophising. What would a kind and loving friend say about what you’re worrying about? Can you imagine them saying it to you?
4. Practice mindfulness: Mindfulness is a practice that involves being present in the moment and accepting your thoughts and feelings without judgment. It can help you manage stress and anxiety by bringing your attention to the present moment. Mindfulness is like a muscle, and we can practise being mindful in everyday life by paying attention to what we’re doing, feeling, smelling, tasting and experiencing. In the shower, whilst eating lunch, or walking in the park are great moments to tune in and stay present.
5. Seek professional support: A mental health professional can help you develop coping strategies, overcome past experiences that may play a role and provide additional support and resources. This is especially important if you think you have past traumas that need to be resolved.
6. Register for my free anxiety masterclass: www.calmer-you.com/anxiety. You’ll learn my 3 secrets to overcoming anxiety and becoming your calmest self and experience a relaxing hypnotherapy session.

Breaking the Stigma Surrounding High-Functioning AnxietyOne of the challenges of high-functioning anxiety is that it’s often hidden from others. People with high-functioning anxiety may feel ashamed or embarrassed about their struggles or fear being judged. Wearing a mask and pretending to others that everything is ok when it’s not is exhausting and is part of why we can burn out when we have high-functioning anxiety.

Remember that anxiety is treatable, and taking steps to feel calmer will positively impact you, your work and your family life. Change is absolutely possible.

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When you possess good self-esteem and confidence, there’s no doubt it opens up a world of opportunity, but what happens if you don’t? A report for Mental Health UK tells us that only a small amount of adults in the UK report positive mental health (13%), 4 in ten reporting feelings of depression and a quarter having experienced panic attacks. Those statistics are concerning but they are not insurmountable. So why are people feeling a lack of self-esteem and confidence?

First of all, what is self-esteem? Forgive me if you already know, butsometimes, people need a gentle reminder. Self-esteem is feeling good about yourself, respecting yourself, feelingpositive about your persona and being able to take on every day withconfidence.

The role of social mediaWith the rise of social media displaying images of happy,beautiful and self-assured people living celebrity lifestyles, it’s no surprisethere are so many out there feeling inadequate with low self-esteem. Of course, those pictures only display thevery best of people –it is practically impossible for every single human on theplanet to live up to that expectation because it isn’t a true reflection ofreal life. However, it’s easy to getcaught up in the social media pressures and then there are other pressures too.

Have you felt rebuffed?You may well just be the shy type, or you get butterflies at the thought of doing something that takes you out of your comfort zone? Maybe you’ve experienced rebuffs in the past and those knocks have stayed with you. Luckily, self-esteem and confidence is something that you can build on. They’re so important too, when you have confidence and you feel good about yourself, you don’t let doubt stand in your way. You have the power to take on complicated tasks or try new things, safe in the knowledge that you should succeed! You also don’t let knock-backs affect your mind-set and you feel happier within yourself. Self-esteem and confidence are the keys to positivity, so let’s look at 9 ways to build them up:

1. Stay in tune with your inner voiceDidyou know that the average human has up to 70,000 thoughts a day! Now imagine what happens if most of thosethoughts are positive thoughts! You’dfeel great!

Ifyou generally feel negative, you canbet your bottom dollar that many of your 70,000 thoughts will have some sort ofnegative connotation. By trying to stayin tune with your thoughts you can turn those negative ones into positives! For example, if you wake up and your firstthought is that you’re dreading the day ahead. Quickly switch it around to reminding yourself of something nice that you’regoing to do – even if it’s as small as chatting to your friend later! Or whynot decide to wear your favourite outfit. The important message here is when you remember, turn that negativethought into a positive, it will help.

1. Remind yourself of your positive attributesAreyou a good listener? Do your friendsturn to you for sound advice? Perhapsyou’re a fantastic dancer – or you have the most beautiful eyes? You may well have worked your way up thecorporate ladder or you run your home with military precision! You could be anartist or have a talent for singing? Thepoint is, every person on earth has so many wonderful aspects of theirpersonality but it’s easy to forget what they are. Make a list of what you’re good at (keepfocussing on positive thoughts) and add to that list every time you remembersomething you know you do well or something about you that others appreciate.Put that list somewhere you can see it and if you feel a sense of self-doubt,read that list.

2. Be good to othersWhenyou do something nice for someone else, you feel good about yourself! So, pay a stranger a compliment, offer tohelp a friend or just do something small like make a cup of coffee for a busycolleague. When you’re appreciated, youinstantly know that you’ve brightened someone else’s day and it releasesfeel-good endorphins. Remember how goodit feels when someone does something nice for you? When you know you’ve made someone happy, youfeel fantastic!

3. Take some exerciseSometimesit’s hard to get to the gym! Not only istime precious – filled up with work, family, friends and chores, for lots ofpeople, the thought of exercise is enough to send them running in the otherdirection (pardon the pun). However,exercise is what you need to release those happy hormones again and is a superbstress-reliever. Exercise makes you feelbetter about yourself and if you do go to a gym, it gives you the added bonusof being surrounded by people giving you a sense of community. Exercise is part of self-care and that’svital for everyone to do, to feel good. Even if you’re not partial to lifting weights or using the step machine,a daily walk in the fresh air for 20 minutes will make you feel much lighterinside.

4. Show yourself some loveFollowingon from exercise as self-care, if you don’t look after yourself, you won’t beable to build confidence. Self-care isreally important and encompasses a variety of different things, from taking aluxurious bubble bath with candles to being mindfully kind to yourself. Make time to do things you enjoy, take in ahappy movie with a good friend, spend time with your loved ones, read a bookthat encourages positive thinking. Boostyour confidence by buying a new top that you know suits your colouring. Feeling good about yourself goes a long way toself-esteem building and confidence.

5. Sleep wellIfyou don’t sleep well, you won’t function well. Sleep problems create anxietyand when you don’t get sufficient rest, you are far more irritable. When you have a good night’s sleep, you feelmuch more able to cope with the day ahead. If you do have sleep problems,making sure you relax for a good hour or so before bed can help as can having adark room and banishing all electronic items from the bedroom. Be sure to stop using your iPad ortablet/mobile phone a good hour before you go to bed because their brightlights can interrupt sleep patterns.

6. Eat wellEatingwell will also help you feel better about yourself and a nutritious dietnourishes the body and mind, while stabilising mood. If you don’t eat, you don’t feel good, fact. Thebody needs an abundance of vitamins and minerals to function properly so makesure you enjoy a balanced diet of protein, carbohydrates and “good” fats alongwith plenty of fruit and vegetables and schedule a proper breakfast, lunch anddinner.

7. Don’t drink or smokeTurningto cigarettes, recreational drugs or alcohol is a temptation especially as theycan boost mood. However, thatmood-enhancer is only for the short term and obviously damages your body in thelong-term. Remember, dependency on anyof these addictive things can stop you from dealing with your problems. It’s fine to have an alcoholic drink once ina while but when it becomes a regular occurrence, it becomes problematic. The bottom line is don’t use cigarettes,recreational drugs or alcohol as a crutch.

8. Set yourself a goal!Challengeyourself. If you believe in theimpossible, it will happen! Set yourselfa goal – perhaps it’s rock climbing, or to complete a half marathon? Maybe you want to try for that promotion? Or it could be you‘d like to broaden yoursocial life. Write down the goals youwant to achieve and choose one at a time, if you want to recruit a friend or acolleague to help – don’t be frightened to ask, remember – if you don’t ask,you don’t get. Set yourself a time-scaleand make it a project. When you achieveone of your goals, you’ll feel an incredible sense of accomplishment and that’sa real confidence booster.

Thesetips are designed to help you give you a self-esteem boost or greater confidence. However, if you do feel depressed or anxiouson a regular basis, you might find some benefit in visiting a professionalcounsellor or making an appointment with your GP. It’s important to explore the reasons why youdon’t feel yourself and a professional will guide with further tips and ideasto boost your mood so you can make great strides in life.

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Let’s face it; relationships bring up all our stuff, and there is no one more annoying in the whole world than the person you love the most.

Navigating relationships with high–functioning anxiety is hard, not only for us, but for our partner too!

Stress, anxiety, low self-esteem and trauma can hijack our emotions, while feeling anxious and on edge can mean we’re more likely to get triggered.

If you’re busy and tired (and let’s be honest, who isn’t) it’s easy to lose your temper, experience dips in your mood and get into arguments.

I’ve been with my partner for 13 years, and the first 3 years were hell because of my anxiety. We’ve seen FIVE different relationship therapists, and I’ve read countless books. These days, we’re in a MUCH better place, and we rarely argue (even with a 6-month-old in tow).

Below I’m sharing my top tips for navigating relationships with high-functioning anxiety.

Clear and kind communicationIt used to feel like groundhog day in my house, having the same argument repeatedly. If it wasn’t about who emptied the dishwasher (usually me), it was about taking about the bins (usually me, again). It was only when I changed my communication approach that things changed. The following is based on Michael Rosenburg’s ‘Non-Violent Communication’ (crap name, brilliant concept). First, you make an observation and state only the facts; ‘I’ve emptied the dishwasher every day this week’. This is much better than my usual refrain of ‘You NEVER empty the dishwasher, you bas*ard!’

Then you talk about how the situation makes you feel. You don’t say, ‘you make me feel angry!’ Instead, you say, ‘I’m feeling overwhelmed right now’.

Then, you make a request. For example, ‘Would you be able to empty the dishwasher on alternate days, please?’

To summarise: Make an observation, state how you feel and make a request.

According to Rosenburg, this communication method is cleaner and expresses things in a way that doesn’t trigger the other person’s defences, making you more likely to get your needs met.

Another essential thing to remember is our tone. If you ask for things in a grumpy or snappy manner (I have a tendency to do this), it will often trigger the other person’s defences, and you’re unlikely to get your needs met.

In the classic relationship book, Getting the Love You Want, Dr. Harville Hendrix and Dr. Helen Hunt recommend saying things in a light and friendly way.

I know it’s not easy when you’re pissed off.

But trust me when I tell you, you’re 1000x more likely to elicit a positive response when you ask for things in a pleasant voice!

Don’t discuss issues when you’re in a low moodThis tip comes from one of my favourite relationship books, The Relationship Handbook by George Pranski. When you’re in a low mood, it skews your perception of everything. You’re wearing your gloomy glasses, and the whole relationship can have a negative slant. Being in a highly emotional state means we can’t make good decisions.

So don’t sit down for a serious talk when you’re feeling rubbish or triggered.

It might be that you’re just tired, hungry or having a bad day. Wait for the mood to pass before raising issues or making any decisions. It’s also important to remember that moods pass (I’m not talking about clinical depression here), even though it can seem like it will last forever when we’re in a bad mood. Wait for the dark clouds to clear and save the big discussions for when you’re in a more resourceful state.

Have a family meetingMy slightly anxious and controlling need to ‘get things done’ and ‘be organised’ can mean I ambush my partner with requests throughout the day. Asking Aidan to put something in the loft when he’s just about to get on a Zoom call, or letting him know I’m craving more quality time with him while we rush out the door to go and see his parents, never goes well. Bringing up issues or making requests on the fly can make the other person feel ambushed or overwhelmed.

Enter: the family meeting.

Since having regular meetings to discuss big and minor issues, we’ve resolved more things with less stress. We create the time and space to sit down, discuss things, and make decisions and an action plan.

No one feels ambushed or overwhelmed because they’re in the middle of something else. And we schedule a time to do things in the meeting, like putting things in the loft or spending more time together.

Love,

Chloe x

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It’s one of the most relaxing things you can do for yourself, and it can also be incredibly beneficial for your mental and physical health. But most people have never tried it!

Hypnotherapy is a form of psychotherapy that uses hypnosis to help people make positive changes in their lives. It can be used to treat a variety of issues, from anxiety and confidence to public speaking and addiction.

The benefits of hypnotherapy are numerous. It can help reduce stress, improve sleep, and increase relaxation. It can also help people overcome fears and phobias, manage chronic pain, and even quit smoking.

Hypnotherapy can also be used to improve self-esteem and confidence, as well as to help people cope with difficult emotions.

Hypnotherapy is a safe and effective form of therapy that has been around for centuries. It works by inducing a trance-like state in which the patient is more open to suggestions. During this state, the therapist (or hypnotherapy recording) can help the patient access their subconscious mind and make positive changes.

Non-sleep deep restHypnotherapy can also induce a state of deep relaxation, known as non-sleep deep rest. This powerful form of relaxation can help reduce stress and improve overall well-being. Non-sleep deep rest has been shown to reduce cortisol levels associated with stress and anxiety. It can also help improve concentration and focus, as well as reduce fatigue and insomnia.

Access the subconsciousOne of the most potent benefits of hypnotherapy is its ability to access the subconscious mind. Anxiety is a subconscious process – no one consciously ‘decides’ to feel anxious, so we need to address it at this deeper level. The subconscious mind holds all of our memories, beliefs, and emotions, and it can be challenging to access these on our own. It’s where all of our thoughts and feelings originate from. Hypnotherapy can help us tap into this part of ourselves and make positive changes that we may not have been able to make on our own.

It’s an effortless form of therapyHypnotherapy is one of the easiest forms of therapy out there. It doesn’t require any special equipment, and it can be done in the comfort of your own home while listening to a recording. All you need is a comfortable chair or bed and your headphones. Hypnotherapy recordings are also affordable, making it accessible to almost everyone.

It shifts your thoughts and feelingsHypnotherapy can help shift our thoughts and feelings in a positive direction. It can help us to break free from negative thought patterns and beliefs, such as self-doubt or fear of failure. Hypnotherapy can also help us to become more aware of our emotions and how they affect our behaviour. This awareness can be incredibly powerful in helping us make positive life changes.

Overall, hypnotherapy is a safe and effective therapy that can help us make positive changes in our lives. It can reduce stress, improve sleep, and increase relaxation. It can also help us access our subconscious mind and make positive shifts in our thoughts and feelings. Hypnotherapy is an effortless therapy accessible to almost everyone, making it an excellent option for anyone looking to make positive changes.

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Welcome to our blog post on the best podcasts for stress management!

If you’re feeling overwhelmed and in need of some relaxation, then these podcasts are for you.

From guided meditations to expert advice, these podcasts offer a variety of tools and techniques to help you manage stress and find inner peace.

In this post, we’ll be sharing our top seven picks for the best podcasts for stress management.

So grab your headphones, sit back, and let these podcasts help you unwind.

1. “The Calmer You Podcast” by Chloe Brotheridge
2. “The Stressless Life” by Dr. Jenny Yip
3. “The Stress Mastery Podcast” by Dr. Mike Dow
4. “The Urban Monk” by Pedram Shojai
5. “The One You Feed” by Eric Zimmer and Chris Forbes
6. “The Mindful Minute” by Meryl Arnett
7. “10% Happier with Dan Harris” by Dan Harris
8. “The Art of Charm” by AJ Harbinger and Johnny Dzubak

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Anxiety is a common and often overwhelming emotion that can interfere with our daily lives. If you’re looking for ways to manage your anxiety and live a calmer, more peaceful life, these podcasts may be able to help.

From expert advice and coping strategies to mindfulness practices and personal stories, these podcasts offer a range of approaches to dealing with anxiety.

Whether you’re seeking professional help or just looking for some extra support, these seven podcasts are a great resource for anyone looking to reduce anxiety and increase well-being.

1. “The Calmer You Podcast” by Chloe Brotheridge
2. “The Anxiety Coaches Podcast” by Carl and Karen
3. “The Mindful Minute” by Meryl Arnett
4. “The Anxiety Guy Podcast” by Kevin G.
5. “Owning It” by Caroline Foran
6. “The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos” by Dr. Laurie Santos
7. “The One You Feed” by Eric Zimmer and Chris Forbes

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Welcome to our blog post on the best podcasts for confidence!

In today’s fast-paced world, it can be easy to lose sight of our own abilities and self-worth.

Whether you’re looking to boost your confidence in your personal or professional life, these podcasts can help you develop a stronger sense of self-assurance and belief in yourself.

From interviews with successful entrepreneurs and experts to practical tips and strategies for building confidence, these podcasts offer a wealth of valuable insights and inspiration.

Without further ado, here are our top picks for the best podcasts for confidence.

1. “The Calmer You Podcast” by Chloe Brotheridge
2. “The School of Greatness” by Lewis Howes
3. “The Art of Charm” by Jordan Harbinger
4. “Happier with Gretchen Rubin” by Gretchen Rubin and Elizabeth Craft
5. “The Science of Success” by Matt Bodnar
6. “The Tim Ferriss Show” by Tim Ferriss
7. “The Tony Robbins Podcast” by Tony Robbins

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Can people with anxiety be high-functioning?Yes, people with anxiety can be high-functioning. High-functioning anxiety is a type of anxiety disorder that can cause mental and physical symptoms of anxiety, but the person is still able to manage life responsibilities—such as work, relationships, or school—while coping with the condition. They may look ‘fine’ on the outside and others may never guess that they struggle, but inside it’s a different story.

Common symptoms include intense worrying and rumination, difficulty concentrating, feeling overwhelmed, and physical symptoms such as headaches, sweating, trembling, and chest pain. People with high-functioning anxiety often experience perfectionism when it comes to their responsibilities or goals. It is important for people with this type of anxiety to seek professional help in order to manage their condition.

What is high-functioning anxiety?It’s characterised by feelings of anxiety and worry, even though the person appears to be functioning normally in daily life. People with high-functioning anxiety may juggle work, social activities, and relationships while still regularly experiencing anxious thoughts or feelings of stress.

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What are the symptoms of high-functioning anxiety?Common symptoms of high-functioning anxiety are:

• Constant worry or nervousness
• Having difficulty sleeping, focusing, and making decisions
• Procrastination
• Perfectionism
• Worrying about what people think excessively
• Headaches
• Burn out
• Experiencing physical symptoms such as a racing heart, shaking, stomach problems and dizziness

Despite having high levels of anxiety, people with high-functioning anxiety disorders are more likely to be able to manage their daily routines and responsibilities. This is because they have learned how to mask their anxiety or manage it to a point where they can still function in everyday life.

How is high-functioning anxiety diagnosed?High-functioning anxiety is often used to describe the type of anxiety that is more high-functioning than other types in that people may appear to be coping outwardly. It's not listed in the DSM-5, the diagnostic manual for mental illnesses and is therefore not something you would be diagnosed with. However, you may still be diagnosed with anxiety, even if it is high-functioning.

What's the difference between high-functioning anxiety and anxiety?People with high-functioning anxiety may be able to manage their daily responsibilities. In contrast, people with GAD often experience more severe symptoms and difficulty functioning daily. Those with high-functioning anxiety may appear to have it all together to the outside world, whilst inside, they struggle.

How is high-functioning anxiety treated?Treatment for high-functioning anxiety may include cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), hypnotherapy, mindfulness-based therapy, exposure therapy, lifestyle and diet changes, medication, trauma therapy, or a combination of approaches. Medicines used to treat anxiety include selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and benzodiazepines.

Hypnotherapy for anxiety works firstly by helping the person to relax deeply. Once relaxed, the subconscious mind becomes more receptive to positive ideas and suggestions. It can help you to change the way you think and feel at a deep level, release old programming, and feel more optimistic about the future.

Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) aims to help a person identify and change negative thought patterns and behaviours that may be contributing to their anxiety. This can include learning relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing or progressive muscle relaxation, as well as challenging and changing distorted thoughts.

Mindfulness-based therapy involves learning to pay attention to one's thoughts and feelings in a non-judgmental way, and to recognise when anxiety is starting to build. This can include practising mindfulness meditation or other techniques, such as paying attention to the present moment, practising self-compassion and letting go of negative thoughts.

Exposure therapy involves gradually exposing a person to the things they fear or avoid to reduce their anxiety. This can be done in a controlled environment, such as in a therapy session or in real-life situations. By slowly exposing ourselves to anxiety triggers, we can teach our nervous system that it's safe and that we can cope.

Can high-functioning anxiety be managed or cured?With proper treatment, high-functioning anxiety can be effectively managed, and the symptoms significantly reduced. People with high-functioning anxiety often experience periods of remission. Still, it is crucial to continue treatment and self-care strategies to keep symptoms from returning.

Is high-functioning anxiety a mental illness?High-functioning anxiety isn't listed in the DSM-5 and therefore isn't classified as a mental illness but is usually considered to be a type of generalised anxiety disorder.

What can I do to treat high-functioning anxiety?A simple step you can take now is to download this free workbook to help with high-functioning anxiety. Then try to High Functioning Anxiety Hypnotherapy Pack to get started with hypnotherapy in just 10 minutes a day.

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From the outside, it may seem like high-achieving women have it all together. You look the part, you remember people’s birthdays, the kids have matching socks, and you’re always on time. You carry snacks in your handbag for low blood sugar moments, and your colleagues can rely on you to get things done. But inside, high-functioning anxiety can sabotage our happiness.

What you can’t see is the constant worry and fear that comes with trying to maintain the facade of calmness when you’re anything but.

It’s stressful having to pretend you’re okay while putting yourself under a tonne of pressure.

You’re like a swan, serene on the surface but paddling furiously below the waterline to keep afloat.

But there’s some good news; high-functioning anxiety is relatively easy to treat, and your high-performing nature means you’re capable of doing what it takes to feel better.

Here are 7 surprising symptoms of high-functioning anxiety and how to handle them – from an anxiety therapist who’s been there.

Excessive worry about the futurePeople with high-functioning anxiety tend to worry excessively about the future. This may be due to a fear of failure or worries about what could go wrong in any situation. This type of worrying can lead to feelings of helplessness and often disrupts daily life, taking you out of the moment. It may impact your sleep as your mind buzzes with images of things that could go wrong in the future. You may also suffer from physical symptoms, such as difficulty breathing, a racing heart, and tightness in the chest. No fun at all.

In the past, I believed that worrying would protect me against things going wrong. But no amount of worrying can change the future; you can worry all you like about what the weather will be like on your wedding day, but no worrying will stop it from raining!

If you find yourself in an anxiety spiral, worrying about the future, ask yourself, ‘Is thing something I can control?’ If yes, do something small to take action now. If not, visualise yourself letting it go, by taking off a heavy rucksack full of worries or letting go of a balloon and watching it float off into the sky.

You’re a perfectionistPerfectionism can be a blessing and a curse. We are careful about our work because we want the outcome to be above and beyond the standard – which is admirable but can also be overwhelming. I admit that I’m guilty of wanting things to be perfect, from my writing to my hobbies, like playing the guitar. As much as I desire things to turn out well, this pressure often makes me feel overwhelmed and anxious, ruining the experience and any chance of things feeling perfect anyway!

The key, then, is balance: seeking improvement without losing sight of personal well-being along the way. I repeat the mantras to myself, ‘good enough really is enough’ and ‘seek progress over perfection’, and they help. I remind myself that perfect is only ever someone’s opinion, and we can’t control the views of other people. I ask myself, would this be good enough for a ‘reasonable person’? If the answer is yes, I consciously choose to lower my standards, relax my stomach and jaw and try to surrender as much as possible.

ProcrastinationPerfectionism can make it difficult to even start a task because you fear not being able to complete it to your high standards. Only a few people realise this, but perfectionism can lead to procrastination. People with high-functioning anxiety may struggle with procrastination, feeling overwhelmed and uncertain about how to tackle tasks perfectly. Additionally, anxiety can interfere with a person’s ability to focus and concentrate, making it difficult to get started on tasks. Procrastination may be a way of coping with these feelings of anxiety and uncertainty, as it provides a temporary sense of relief from the pressure to perform. ‘Phew!’ you think to yourself, I’ll deal with that tomorrow. However, this coping mechanism can ultimately make the situation worse; as we all know, tasks that are put off tend to become more daunting and stressful over time. My advice for tackling procrastination is to break things into tiny chunks. A task like ‘build a website’ is overwhelming and daunting, but break it down into the first step, ‘research possible urls’ and it becomes much easier to manage. When you’re procrastinating, getting started is often the hardest part, so tell yourself you’ll do a task ‘quick and dirty’ at first, then improve on it later.

You’re a people pleaser.People-pleasing can be a tough habit to kick, especially when our self-worth is closely tied to the approval of others. Were you raised to be a ‘good girl?’ Does the idea of telling someone ‘no’ make you cringe?

Unfortunately, we often ignore our own internal voice in favour of what others think. We end up neglecting our needs and desires, growing resentful or even burning out.

Assertiveness is key (which can be agony when you’re used to being ‘the nice one’), allowing us to remain true to ourselves without coming off as selfish or inconsiderate.

To overcome people-pleasing, two things need to happen. First, we need to know what we want, which can be challenging when we’re used to putting others first or doubting ourselves and our own opinions.

Then, we must have the courage to communicate that effectively to others.

Practise tuning into your ‘inner compass’. It’s that part of you inside that lets you know when something is a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ for you. Get used to asking yourself this question and notice how you feel inside.

Then practise clear communication, making a statement of the facts and then a request. For example, ‘Indian food gives me indigestion in the evenings; could we go for Thai tonight?’

Your needs and wants are valid. Remember that when you take care of yourself, you have more to give to others. Depleting yourself by people-pleasing serves no one.

You’re a control freakBeing a “control freak” has a bad rap, but it isn’t something to be ashamed of – in fact, it can be a great trait to have in the proper context.

Having someone be ‘in control’ can be a wonderful thing! Everyone needs direction and structure sometimes: just look at a sports team or classroom for instance. But when does control go too far? It’s a problem when the need to be in control makes you stressed and anxious or upsets other people.

When it comes to controlling behaviour, the first step is recognising where you feel the need to control things and where that might come from. Acknowledging any traumatic events, such as feeling like you lacked control as a youngster, can help you move forward and take back control of your life. Did others exert their control over you to an excessive degree? Were things chaotic or out of control? All of these situations can mean that we develop controlling tendencies to cope with what went on in the past.

The thing with control is that the more we try to control things, the less in control we feel. Again, I recommend returning to this idea of what a reasonable person would do. Step into their shoes and assess the situation; what would their response be, and what would they let go of?

You’re always on the goBeing constantly on the go can make for an exciting life, but it also presents unique challenges. We all know someone (maybe it’s you) who’s practically addicted to being busy and achieving things. There’s never enough time in the day to get everything done, and often things crucial to our well-being, such as getting enough sleep or eating nutritious meals, are sacrificed in favour of productivity. All the excitement of rushing around can easily spill over into anxiety.

To successfully remain on the move, we must make thoughtful decisions about where and how we allocate our energy and when to rest or slow down. It may be necessary to say no to certain opportunities, prioritise what matters most and build in ‘white space’ into our diaries, thereby preserving our physical and mental health amidst the hustle and bustle.

Allowing ourselves adequate rest is also important; breaks away from chaos are essential for clarity of mind and a positive attitude. Although always being on the go can be draining at times, it can still result in exciting experiences if we take care of ourselves along the way and remember to stop every once in a while.

You have trouble sleepingThe pressure you feel from others (or put on yourself) and worries that come along with high-functioning anxiety can mean our adrenals are activated, and our mind is buzzing at bedtime.

We all know not getting enough restful sleep can take its toll on our physical and mental health. A lack of sleep can lead to more anxiety which worsens our sleep, creating a vicious cycle where everything feels more challenging. Life can take on a nightmarish quality (as a new Mum, I can attest to this!).

If you are having trouble sleeping, it might be worth talking to your doctor about possible treatments or lifestyle changes that could help improve your quality of sleep.

Make sure your sleep hygiene is on point. Experiment with sleep aids from ashwagandha to weighted blankets and hypnotherapy recordings until you find something that helps. Read a novel before bed to help your brain to switch off and prioritise an early bedtime to make up for any tossing and turning.

So there you have it! From this list, it’s clear that being a go-getter can often lead to some not-so-great habits. But it doesn’t have to be this way! Next time you feel overwhelmed or like you need to control everything, take a step back and remember, you’re doing great—and if things aren’t perfect, you’ll still be okay. If you find yourself struggling in any of these areas, know that there are ways to change your anxious tendencies for the better.

My absolute favourite tool for tackling high-functioning anxiety is my hypnotherapy pack – download it here.

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Here I’m sharing my quick + fun way to review the year.

Reviewing the year can be tricky when you have anxiety; it’s easy to focus on what you didn’t do, didn’t achieve or milestones you feel you didn’t reach.

If you’re reading this, I’m willing to bet you’re prone to seeing the worst in yourself, giving yourself a hard time and worrying about the future.

With this review process, we’re ‘panning for gold’, looking for the good stuff amongst the year’s highs and lows, searching for the lessons and setting some very gentle, positive intentions for the year ahead. When we review the year, we can notice what’s been good, recognise what’s been hard and find clarity on what to focus on going forward.

You can take your time over this process, making a hot chocolate and writing it in your journal by fire. Or it can be done quick and dirty, in stolen moments between taking care of the kids or watching all important boxsets.

I’ve done this since 2015, and I have each one saved in a document, so I can go back and see what each year was like and how things have evolved (because there is ALWAYS evolution, even if it doesn’t seem like it) over time. It’s great to look back on all I achieved each year and how the things I struggled with one year ceased to matter or were overcome the following year.

When I compare this year to previous ones, it’s definitely short on some of the ‘achievements’ I’ve had in previous years. I didn’t publish any books or speak on any stages. I spent the whole year very tired and pregnant then looking after my tiny baby. I took a lot of naps. I ate a lot of crisps in bed and rewatched the entirety of SATC. I said no to opportunities to prioritise feeling calm and rested.

And that’s ok!Can you recognise, whether you smashed it in 2022 or were unwell with long co*id, healing a broken heart, beset with anxiety or navigating any number of life plot twists, that there was value there?

Every path is valid, and you are enough, no matter what happened or didn’t happen this year.

So be kind to yourself with this process. Especially if you have high standards that always feel out of reach.

The trend for setting intense ‘new year, new me’ goals is over; they often just set us up for disappointment and self-criticism.

Instead, I recommend clarifying how you want to feel and what brings you joy, and aiming to gently incorporate more of that into your life.

You could copy and paste these prompts into a document to type into or copy them down into your journal.

Grab a cuppa, and let’s go…What I did in 2022What were the highlights of the things you did this year? Did you make a new friend? Try out a new restaurant? Move house? Learn to cook a great dhal? Grow and birth a baby?

Lessons I learned in 2022Did you learn to rest and slow down? Did you set a boundary with a family member, learn to embrace imperfection or spot red flags in a potential date?

Things I achieved in 2022Achievements can be big (buying a house) or small (finally clearing out that drawer) – so celebrate them all.

Challenges in 2022Here, we’re just acknowledging that there were hard things this year. Sometimes naming things can give us clarity on how to move forward. Remember to be compassionate to yourself with the things you struggle with; EVERYONE is struggling with something (I don’t care how perfect things look on Instagram). What did you struggle with? What thoughts or feelings troubled you? What hurt? What held you back? Side note: It can be interesting to re-read years later and see how you overcame them!

Things I’m grateful for in 2022What objects, places, people, things and situations can you feel grateful for in 2022? Focus on the specifics for the best mood-boosting results.

For me, I’m grateful for

– an insulated house

– laughs with my sister

– those curry packs from Booths that make Indian cooking so easy

– for this scented hand cream on my desk with a pump for easy application whilst holding a baby!!

What I’m letting go of in 2023Are you looking to break up with overworking? Are you done with people-pleasing? Are you ready to let go of that friend who doesn’t support you?

What I want more of in 2023What is most important to you? What lights you up? What do you want to make time for? What would be fun to do this coming year?

And there you have it! I hope this helps. I’d love to hear what you’re taking from this – get in touch and let me know.

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This post is sponsored by the iCandy Core – the latest pushchair from iCandy.

Being a new mum is supposed to be the best time of our life. We’re expected to feel so filled with love and joy that nothing can dent our happiness.

Yes, it’s amazing – but often the reality of being a new mum can be different from what we expected. It can feel overwhelming, hard, upsetting at times, and a whole host of other emotions, all at once.

There are so many factors that impact our health and happiness, even without a baby, but add the intense experience of childbirth into the mix along with lack of sleep, the sudden responsibility, the hormones rushing through our system, and the influx of well-wishers and messages, and it can suddenly start to all feel like too much.

It can be hard to admit you’re struggling when the expectation is that you should be enjoying every minute.

Putting on a mask of happiness and joy, when inside you’re feeling anything but, can be extremely stressful and tiring, when there’s already so much on your shoulders.

So how can we manage our anxiety and stress as a new mum?

Signs to look out for that you might have anxiety as a new mumPostnatal depression can often take the spotlight but postpartum anxiety is just as common. Like any anxiety, there is a sense of fear around something going wrong. This time, it’s primarily linked to caring for a baby; not doing something right, not doing something enough, doing something wrong, and on it goes.

While excessive worry about the health and welfare of the baby can be an obvious sign, there are others too. These can include racing thoughts, feeling constantly on edge, having intrusive thoughts, a sensation that something terrible is about to happen, and feeling agitated and deeply stressed about life. Physical symptoms of anxiety can also be common, such as shortness of breath and shallow breathing, dizziness, excessive sweating, and nausea.

If you notice yourself feeling anxious, there’s always help at hand. As a first step, it’s a good idea to speak to your health visitor or GP. It’s also important to share how you’re feeling with those who love you. They only want the best for you, especially at this time, and you’re not letting anyone down or disappointing them by sharing how you’re really feeling.

While opening up can be the hardest thing, it is often the most worthwhile. Here are five other ways to calm anxiety as a new mum:

1. Prioritise restWhile it may be hard to catch up on sleep as a new mum, when you make it your priority it can have a powerful impact on your health. When we’re tired, our adrenals pump out more cortisol because our bodies perceive the lack of sleep as a threat. Cortisol is a stress hormone so the less sleep we have, the more it can add to our anxiety. So, catch up on rest as much as you can and you’ll feel all the better, and calmer, for it.

2. Remember you’re not aloneA big step in feeling calmer is remembering you’re not alone. Having a baby is a huge, life-changing event and can take some adjustment. You might find yourself spending long periods of time alone with just you and your baby which can be isolating and lonely. So, when you’re feeling lonely or anxious, just picking up the phone or inviting a friend over can make a world of difference and take your mind off those anxious thoughts. There are also lots of support groups out there, from breastfeeding groups to baby massages, which bring new mums together.

3. Speak to yourself as you would a friendSelf-compassion is one of the most important skills any of us can build, and it’s especially useful during anxious times. If you had a friend who you loved more than anyone else in the world, and they were going through a hard time, what would you say to them? What would your tone of voice sound like and what words would you share to comfort and reassure them? Now say these words to yourself and show yourself the love and compassion you need at this time. You’re doing an amazing job, you just need to trust in yourself.

4. Accept help (and learn to ask for it)Accepting help can be difficult when you’re used to handling everything yourself or being the one to help others. Motherhood isn’t called the hardest job in the world for nothing. Suddenly you go from working a 9-5 job to one that is 24/7. And as much as we might like to think of ourselves as capable and independent, the truth is most of us are going to need help in our new demanding role. While stubbornness can be a good thing, it often gets in the way of receiving the help we really need. If you have visitors, let them know how they can help out, whether it’s bringing around some food, holding the baby so you can have a shower, hanging out the washing, or emptying the dishwasher. People actually like to help and feel useful so don’t deprive them of that! Let them help because they’ll want to and you’ll need it.

5. Remember ‘this too shall pass’When those long nights seem to last forever, whether it’s when you’re struggling with some aspect of feeding your baby or they have colic, know that nothing lasts forever. Almost everything is a stage and will pass, often sooner than you think. Every difficult thing you’ve ever had to do in your life has been and gone, and this moment of time is no exception. Take a deep breath and remember that everything passes and there’s always light at the end of the tunnel.

Chloe Brotheridge is a hypnotherapist, coach, and mentor at www.calmer-you.com and the host of The Calmer You Podcast. She specialises in helping people calm stress and anxiety and feel more confident. She’s the author of two books published by Penguin, the best-selling The Anxiety Solution and ‘The Confidence Solution’. Find her on Instagram @ChloeBrotheridge.

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This post is sponsored by the iCandy Core – the latest pushchair from iCandy. Do you have pregnancy-related anxiety? If so, you’re not alone.  Pregnancy can be a time of great joy, but it can also be a time of great stress. There can be many things which cause concern during pregnancy; will the baby be healthy? […]

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What ’causes’ anxiety? For most of us, the answer is ‘it’s complicated’ but in this week’s podcast, I’m sharing some top causes of anxiety and what you can do about them from healing past traumas to making changes to your diet. Get the Ultimate Hypnotherapy Collection – 12 powerful downloads to become your calmest, happiest […]

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I’m finally sharing my positive birth story now that I have mastered the baby wrap and have some hands free to type! Quick Disclaimer – Anything can happen in birth and even though I did a lot of preparation, much of it is down to luck on the day and I got lucky that things […]

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How to create a work-life balance when you’re busy is the golden question. We live in a world where we’re supposed to have it all, do it all, and still manage to find time for our careers, our families, and ourselves. It’s a culture that has emerged out of our fast-paced society, one which is […]

The post Ep 202. 8 Simple Steps to More Work-Life Balance appeared first on Calmer you.

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This post is sponsored by the iCandy Core – the latest pushchair from iCandy. Having a new baby turns your life upside down. You’re dealing with having a new, tiny human that’s suddenly your responsibility to keep alive, your daily routine has shifted dramatically and everything is suddenly different.  However, what we often don’t consider is how […]

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In this week’s podcast, I’m sharing about a health issue I had recently that woke me up to a BIG mistake we often make when it comes to anxiety and our mental health. Once you’ve had a listen, let me know, do you do this too? I’m also sharing some powerful coaching questions to ask […]

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95% of your thoughts, feelings, behaviours, and habits are thought to originate in your unconscious mind. Let that sink in for a moment! You actually have very little conscious control over most of your experience. If you’re not hacking your unconscious mind, you are seriously missing out. In this week’s podcast, I’m sharing my 5 […]

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This post is sponsored by the iCandy Core – the latest pushchair from iCandy. While taking care of your new baby is your absolute priority as a new mum, if your cup is empty, there won’t be anything left to give. This is why it’s important to fill up your own cup with rest, compassion, […]

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How’s your mood right now? In this week’s podcast, I’m sharing about 7 Ways to Boost Low Mood from supplements to how to question your thoughts. Get the Positivity Reset Toolkit – learn the 5 steps to shifting your mood and turning a bad day into a better one https://www.calmer-you.com/positive/

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Does hypnotherapy even work? Will you cluck like a chicken or lose control? I’m busting the top myths I see about hypnotherapy and how you can get the most from it. Get the Ultimate Hypnotherapy Collection – 12 powerful downloads to become your calmest, happiest self www.calmer-you.com/collection

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Anxiety is one of the most common mental health conditions in the UK. According to Mind, 1 in 6 people report experiencing a common mental health problem (like anxiety and depression) in any given week in England. Hypnotherapy is a treatment option worth considering if you are one of the millions of people who suffer […]

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Eve Gracie is an American actress, dancer, model, martial arts instructor, and former professional wrestler. She is best known for her time with WWE, where she was the first-ever three-time WWE Divas Champion. Learn more about the Women Empowered Programme at https://www.gracieuniversity.com/ We discuss: How martial arts improve our confidence and lower anxiety How to […]

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“If you are willing to do only what’s easy, life will be hard. But if you are willing to do what’s hard, life will be easy.” T Harv Eker Have you ever found that your world can start to feel really small when you’re anxious or in a low mood? Stress, fear, and apathy can […]

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Do you struggle with sleep during the summer months? I teamed up with Rescue Remedy to bring you my top tips for getting better sleep in the summer. Let me know in the comment which you’ll be trying! Download your FREE Anxiety toolkit here

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When it comes to the inner critic, we’re often told to quiet, shhhh, or get rid of the inner critic. In this podcast, I’m going to share how listening to the inner critic could be a valuable way to move past it instead. Download the High Functioning Anxiety hypnotherapy Pack at https://www.calmer-you.com/hypnotherapy-pack/. Athletic Greens is […]

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Feeling low is unfortunately a common side effect of being human. It’s not sustainable to be happy and positive all the time, and feeling low can, and does, happen.  While it’s important to look on the bright side and feel grateful for what we have, we also want to avoid sliding into a mindset of […]

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Insomnia is the most common sleep disorder, affecting around one in five people. You may have insomnia if you find it hard to go to sleep, wake up several times during the night, or wake up too early. During the day you may feel sleepy, anxious, irritable, and unable to concentrate or remember things. In […]

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It was the summer of 2010 – I was sitting in the small box room in a house that I shared with 4 others. Looking out the window while sitting at my computer, tears streamed down my face.  It was a beautiful evening outside, you know these gorgeous summer evenings when the sun is really […]

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95% of your thoughts, feelings, behaviours, and habits are thought to originate in your unconscious mind.  Let that sink in for a moment! You actually have very little conscious control over most of your experience.  If you’re not hacking your unconscious mind, you are seriously missing out. It’s no wonder that things that you might […]

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In this episode, I discuss the importance of rest, and how it is a vital step in overcoming stress and anxiety. Get your FREE checklist for Anxiety-Free Public Speaking https://www.calmer-you.com/speaking/ Download the High Functioning Anxiety hypnotherapy Pack at https://www.calmer-you.com/hypnotherapy-pack/

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In this solo episode, I talk about why get experience comparison and some simple ways to reframe it and overcome it. Get your FREE checklist for Anxiety-Free Public Speaking: https://www.calmer-you.com/speaking Download the High Functioning Anxiety hypnotherapy Pack at https://www.calmer-you.com/hypnotherapy-pack Listen the the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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There are many reasons why most people experience fear when it comes to speaking in front of a group. If you’re looking for ways to overcome your public speaking fear, this episode is for you. Get your FREE checklist for Anxiety-Free Public Speaking: https://www.calmer-you.com/speaking/ Athletic Greens is going to give you a FREE 1 year […]

The post Ep 191. 5 Reasons You Fear Public Speaking and How to Overcome Them appeared first on Calmer you.

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Jessica is a psychotherapist and the author of Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love. We discuss: The signs that you might be anxiously attached How to heal and feel more secure in life and love Advice for parents on raising secure children Why you might need more self-fulness in your life Get […]

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Anna Mathur is a mum of three, and a psychotherapist, author, and speaker. Her new book is called The Little Book of Calm for New Mums. In this episode, we discuss: The anxieties that new Mums experience How to handle the lack of sleep Letting go of the idea of perfect Plus loads more advice […]

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Do you have to give a presentation at work soon? Are you dreading it? Or maybe you know you have to give an update at the next team meeting? Don’t worry; you’re not alone. Many people – in fact, most people – feel anxious or scared when they have to speak in public. But don’t […]

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Do you have a public speaking fear? You’re not alone! Many of us are aware that it’s one of the biggest fears we have as human beings, and the National Institute of Mental Health found that 75% of us fear public speaking more than death. Many, in fact, MOST people experience fear when it comes […]

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In this solo episode, I’m sharing the signs of health anxiety and some practical tips and advice on overcoming it. Join the Anxiety Masterclass at https://calmer-you.com/anxiety. Here’s the NHS document I mention in the podcast: https://www.calmer-you.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Coping-with-health-anxiety2-final1.pdf

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You probably know the feeling when you turn off the alarm for work, having already been up for most of the night. The horrible feeling of knowing that you have to face another commute pressed up against strangers in a packed train. Coping with work stress as a woman can be extremely challenging. In post-COVID […]

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We’re living in uncertain times. Whether world events, the pandemic, or personal setbacks in your life, uncertainty can cause our confidence to take a hit. In this episode, I’m sharing the reasons you might be lacking in confidence right now and the practical things you can do to regain your confidence. Athletic Greens is going […]

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How Work Stress Interferes with Your Sleep When problems and projects at work are becoming overwhelming, it can feel like collapsing into bed from exhaustion will be a piece of cake. But too often, as soon as our eyes shut, our brains decide that now is the perfect time to run through every worry in […]

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In this solo episode, I’ve shared the most important things I’ve learned about anxiety – including lots of practical steps you can take today. Athletic Greens is going to give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is […]

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In this solo episode, I’m answering more of your questions. I discuss: How to handle a fear of death and dying Why it’s normal not to feel confident when you’re doing something new Handling fear of doctors and medication Dealing with a fear of losing control Download your FREE work stress guide at https://calmer-you.com/stress

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How to create a work-life balance when you’re busy is the golden question. We live in a world where we’re supposed to have it all, do it all, and still manage to find time for our careers, our families, and ourselves. It’s a culture that has emerged out of our fast-paced society, one which is […]

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In this solo episode I’m talking about my own experience of pregnancy so far, the anxiety that’s cropped up, and my own personal and professional advice on how to tackle it. Please note that I talk about sensitive topics like miscarriage in this episode. I’m sharing: How to deal with the uncertainty of the first […]

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Simon Alexander Ong is a personal development entrepreneur, coach, public speaker, and author of the book, Energize. We discuss: What it means to focus on energy management over time management How Simon went from shy and introverted to speaking on stages How to create a live vision board (I am definitely trying this!) The real […]

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It is no surprise that one can get pretty burnt out from working without taking breaks. However, there are times one would feel overwhelmed at work and not be able to explain it. Many people assume that it might be the workload, and sometimes, they believe that it might be their health, especially their mental […]

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Dr. Jenna Macciochi is a researcher, lecturer, and author of ‘Your Blueprint for Strong Immunity: Personalise Your Diet and Lifestyle for Better Health’ We discuss: Whether or not it’s actually possible to ‘boost’ your immune system How the immune system impacts our mental health (and how to improve it) Loads of practical tips on how […]

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I discuss things like: The things that help my personal and professional development the most. How to have better boundaries with family members. How to adjust to the new normal after the pandemic. And whether or not I’m writing another book Find The Podcast ‘Well Connected by Murad’ wherever you listen to podcasts. Visit https://www.murad.co.uk […]

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Here, I’m listing 7 of the best podcasts for mindfulness. Mindfulness has become a popular practice in recent years, with people using it to reduce stress and anxiety. If you’re looking for a way to start practicing mindfulness, listening to podcasts can be a great way to get started. There are a number of different […]

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Find The Podcast ‘Well Connected by Murad’ wherever you listen to podcasts. Visit https://www.murad.co.uk or https://www.murad.com and use the code CALMERYOU to save 20% and get free shipping on orders over $60

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In this solo episode of The Calmer You Podcast I’m sharing my tips on handling work stress like a pro (no need to move to a desert island or change careers) Tackle your work stress once and for all with this specifically designed hypnotherapy session. Check out ‘Well Connected by Murad’ the Digital Magazine at […]

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Here I’m sharing 7 of the best podcasts for women. There are a lot of great podcasts out there, but when it comes to finding the best podcasts for women, it can be tough to know where to start. That’s why we’ve put together a list of seven of the best podcasts for women, covering […]

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Greg Hammer, MD, Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, Physician, Best-Selling Author, and Mindfulness Expert. Author of Gain without Pain. We discuss: Why we all need more resilience Concrete mindfulness steps you can take in less than 4 minutes each morning to slow down, decompress, and feel more positive. Why suffering is optional and […]

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Dr. Nate Zinnser works with the top US military to prepare them mentally for leadership and for action. He also trains top sportsmen and women to develop the self-belief essential for world-class performance. He’s directed the Performance Psychology Programme at the US Military Academy for nearly 30 years. Author of the new book The Confident […]

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Here, I’m sharing 7 of the best podcasts for self-improvement. Self-improvement is an important part of life. It’s the process of working on ourselves to become the best versions of ourselves possible. While there are many ways to go about self-improvement, podcasts can be a great way to get started. Here are seven of the […]

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Visit https://www.murad.co.uk or https://www.murad.com and use the code CALMERYOU to save 20% and get free shipping on orders over $60 Toni Tone is a Content Creator, Speaker, and Author. Her debut book, ‘I Wish I Knew This Earlier – Lessons on Love’ became an instant Sunday Times bestseller, debuting at number three on The Sunday […]

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Do you feel like you are constantly under pressure at work? If you’re coping with work stress, you’re not alone. According to HSE, workers in the UK were suffering from work-related stress, depression, or anxiety (new or long-standing) in 2020/21, and levels of work stress have increased since the pandemic. Work is one of the […]

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Are you feeling run down? Do you feel like you can’t keep up with your work or your personal life? You may be experiencing burnout signs. I led a workshop recently for stressed and anxious women. We talked about the burnout signs I’ll list below. Everyone on the call said they could relate to the […]

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Get your FREE High Functioning Anxiety Workbook at https://calmer-you.com/workbook Adam has taught his signature style of alignment-focused yoga across classes, trainings, and conferences in 20+ countries fuelled by a fascination with anatomy and a desire to ask ‘why?’ Holly sings mantras and plays crystal bowls to seas of sleeping yogis at events, festivals and studios […]

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Join my 12-week online course for anxiety https://calmer-you.com/programm We discuss: How Megan got into this area and whether she has experienced climate anxiety herself How climate anxiety different from other types of anxiety Why you shouldn’t beat yourself up Some practical tools for people who might be struggling with climate anxiety?

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If you’re like most people, it’s probably challenging to recognise when you’ve got an issue with boundaries. It’s not something that we talk about day to day, and many of us don’t even know what a boundary is until we experience one firsthand. In the last few years, we’re talking about it more and more, […]

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Join this FREE Anxiety Masterclass at https://calmer-you.com/anxiety Dr. Megan Rossi is a registered dietician with an award-winning Ph.D. in gut health. A leading Research Fellow at King’s College London, Dr. Rossi is currently investigating nutrition-based therapies in gut health, including pre-and probiotics, dietary fibers, the low FODMAP diet, and food additives as well as leading […]

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Join this FREE Anxiety Masterclass at https://calmer-you.com/anxiety Jess Joy is one half of, and co-founder of I Am Paying Attention. Jess and her best friend and now business partner, Charlotte Mia, created the community-led ADHD + Autism platform a little over a year ago after supporting each other as they began their neurodivergent journeys. They’ve […]

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Get your FREE High Functioning Anxiety Workbook https://calmer-you.com/workbook/ Irene Fehr, Sex & Intimacy Coach, MA, CCPC, helps women overcome the “I must be broken sexually” syndrome by exposing the oh-so-common societal myths about women’s libido that lead to self-criticism, shame, and body hate. We discuss: How society makes women feel broken sexually — and kills their […]

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Get your FREE High Functioning Anxiety Workbook at https://calmer-you.com/workbook My guest this week is Johann Hari, author of Stolen Focus and Lost Connections.   We discuss:   Why our focus has been stolen and the reasons it’s an issue How sleep, stress, and anxiety feed into our inability to focus The personal and structural changes […]

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In a world of plastic surgery, pore-blurring primer, air-brush phone filters and spell checkers, flaws and mistakes can feel unacceptable. It seems fairly ridiculous written down, but what we often do is compare ourselves to the idea of a perfect woman. This is a lose-lose game. It goes back to our deep-seated fear that if […]

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How do you feel as we approach the end of 2021? Are you starting to review your year? From what I’m hearing (and I know this feeling all too well myself) it’s easy to think that we didn’t achieve the things we set out to at the beginning of the year. Maybe there are work […]

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Get your FREE High Functioning Anxiety Workbook at https://calmer-you.com/workbook In this solo episode I discuss: The main reasons that Christmas triggers your anxiety How to let go of our expectations around Christmas How to stay calm with family Taking the pressure off yourself and accepting ‘good enough’

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Perfectionism is a double edged sward. Many people think of it as a good quality to have, but often the cost is greater than any benefit. If you find yourself beating yourself up, never feeling good enough and putting tonnes of pressure on yourself, it’s time to overcome perfectionism and free yourself from it’s tyranny. […]

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Join me in this online course for anxiety https://calmer-you.com/programme – enrolment ends on 31st October 2022. Abbe Greenberg and Maggie Sarachek, authors of THE ANXIETY SISTERS’ SURVIVAL GUIDE are this week’s guests. We discuss: How they both recovered from anxiety  They share what a spin kit is and how you can make one Plus their 3 […]

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Anxiety at work is incredibly hard to deal with. You’re in the bathroom, dapping cold water on your face with a tissue. You thought about having a little cry in the toilet cubicle but you can’t bear the thought of going back to your desk and seeing your colleagues with a tear-stained face. Or maybe […]

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Join The Calmer You Collective monthly membership https://calmer-you.com/collective In this solo episode I’m talking about: How I discovered hypnotherapy and how it worked for me The top myths about hypnotherapy How hypnotherapy could benefit you

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Check out my online course for anxiety https://calmer-you.com/programme I chat to Emma Campbell aka Limitless Em Author, Speaker, Columnist, Survivor and runner about: -What it means to be limitless -Being a Mum of triplets -How she handles the anxiety and uncertainty of experiencing cancer -How she stays positive Get your FREE anxiety toolkit at https://calmer-you.com/free

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Join my monthly membership, The Calmer You Collective https://calmer-you.com/collective Joshua Fletcher, also known as AnxietyJosh on social media, is a psychotherapist specialising in working with anxiety and panic, as well as authoring three popular best-selling books on the subject and hosting The Panic Pod podcast. We discuss: -How Josh overcame his own crippling anxiety and panic attacks -How to […]

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Anxiety can be a debilitating condition that affects many people (22% of women according to The mental Health Foundation!) The Anxiety Test is an online tool that will help you identify what your current level of anxiety is and provide tips for how to cope with it. The post contains an anxiety test which you […]

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Join the 5 Day Anxiety Challenge at https://calmer-you.com/anxietychallenge Naomi Shragai joins me on the podcast about how to handle work. She is an executive coach, psychological business consultant and qualified psychotherapist with over 30 years of experience working with organisations, executives, and teams, as well as individuals, couples, and families. In this episode we discuss: […]

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Anxiety quotes are a way to relieve anxiety and feel calmer. Anxiety is a common problem that many people face (around 22% of women arriving to The Mental Health Foundation). It can be caused by many things, from being overworked, to past traumas, to life changes or grief. Anxiety quotes have been shown to help […]

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This solo episode is all about high functioning anxiety. I talk about the signs and how to manage them.⁠⁠It’s not a medical term. From the outside you may be receiving praise and your life looks like it is going well, yet on the inside you might be experiencing lots of stress, tension and anxiety.⁠ I […]

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This solo episode of The Calmer You Podcast is all about High Functioning Anxiety. I talk about the signs and how to manage them.⁠

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When you have High Functioning Anxiety, you appear ‘fine’ on the outside. Others may see you as successful, yet on the inside you might be experiencing lots of stress, tension and anxiety.⁠

Scroll down to listen and make sure you subscribe to The Calmer You Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to get all the latest episodes.

Plus – don’t forget to download this FREE High Functioning Anxiety Workbook – click here.

I discuss: * How praise makes things worse * Perfectionism * Burnout * Overthinking and worry * People pleasing * The inability to relax * Inner critic

Download your FREE High Functioning Anxiety Workbook

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In this solo episode, I talk about life stage anxiety for those of us in our 20’s and 30’s.

I discuss the pressure to:⁠ ♦️ buy a house⁠ ♦️ get married⁠ ♦️ have babies⁠ ♦️ And why every path has value⁠

Download your FREE Future-Self Meditation, designed to help you to quieten self-doubt and start moving towards your dream life. 


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The post Ep 160. Life Stage Anxiety (Marriage! Babies! Houses!) appeared first on Calmer you.

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In this solo episode, I talk about life stage anxiety for those of us in our 20’s and 30’s. I discuss the pressure to:⁠ ♦️ buy a house⁠ ♦️ get married⁠ ♦️ have babies⁠ ♦️ And why every path has value⁠ Download your FREE Future-Self Meditation, designed to help you to quieten self-doubt and start […]

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What is high functioning anxiety? High functioning anxiety is when you have a personal or professional life that appears successful from the outside, but you’re a hot mess on the inside.

It can manifest itself in lots of different ways – whether it shows up as overworking, overthinking, not being able to switch off or needing to be in control all the time.

And honestly, it’s exhausting.

What it’s like to have high functioning anxiety? Our personal lives may be quite good —we may have a stable marriage and thriving kids. We might excel at work where we’re considered hardworking and intelligent individuals who receive promotions without issue… But deep down inside, there is an onslaught of self-doubt and excessive worry about everything imaginable. From how people perceive us to whether we left the stove on—and a deep sense of shame and embarrassment about our feelings.

The problem with high-functioning anxiety is that in many ways we get rewards for our anxiety provoking behaviours (more on this below!) but you can only fool yourself for so long before it takes a toll on your well-being.

The Characteristics of High Functioning Anxiety Many with high-functioning anxiety report fatigue from all the overthinking, sleeplessness, or difficulty concentrating on tasks. Burnout is one side effect of high functioning anxiety. Being in a constant state of worry and the accompanying tension can’t be good for anyone. It’s really hard to function this way on a daily basis, not to mention tiring. You may also avoid or withdraw from social contact because of tension and worry. Or, your relationships suffer because anxiety can create a huge amount of irritation that your loved ones may bear the brunt of.

What It Looks Like Essentially, when you have high functioning anxiety, you look fine from the outside, successful even. But inside, you may be experiencing heart palpitations, digestive issues, sleepless nights, and excessive worrying. You may repeatedly seek reassurance from others, or you may be an overachiever who is desperate to impress, pulling out all the stops to keep others happy. Others have been fidgety and find it hard to keep still. Or perhaps you look tired or run down from lack of sleep and excess stress or you’re losing or gaining weight because of either over or underrating due to stress and anxiety.

What can you do to stop high functioning anxiety? There’s good news; this type of anxiety is highly treatable, and you don’t need to be stuck with it. Your type-A nature may even mean you have a better chance than others at overcoming anxiety as you are more likely to give things a try (and stick to!) things that may help.

Below I’m sharing 7 signs you have high functioning anxiety and how to tackle them: Perfectionism Many people with high functioning anxiety have a strong need for acceptance and validation, including the need to be seen as perfect.

Anxiety can lead to a fear of rejection, fear of judgment, or shame about who we are, and we may strive for perfection to feel good enough. The anxiety-prone person may feel persistent shame and self-loathing when they fail to meet their excessively high expectations.

This sense of needing to be perfect often leads to fears about rejection or judgment from others. We may push ourselves in relationships or at work because we fear negative criticism.

Perfectionism is often thought of as a good thing; it can be praised and positively reinforced or rewarded by others. But if it leaves you constantly feeling as though you’re not good enough, it’s a problem. You might get stuck in cycles of procrastination because it’s easier to put something off than to do it imperfectly.

If you’re a perfectionist, it’s essential to learn that good enough is enough and that done is better than perfect. An exercise from CBT is to practise lowering your standards, even if only by a little. Doing so teaches you that even if things are imperfect, they can still be ok and you survive!

Waking Up Early or Struggling to Get to Sleep Are you a member of the 5 AM crew (but you’d rather you weren’t?) When we have high-functioning anxiety, the excess of stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol could mean you wake up early in the morning – or struggle to switch off and sleep at night.

A wind-down routine is an effective way to prevent insomnia in those with high-functioning anxiety.

Are you setting a regular bedtime and making time to unwind beforehand? For example, I aim to be in bed with my head on the pillow at 10 PM, which means I need to start getting ready for bed at around 9:20 PM. That means stepping away from the laptop and my phone and engaging in some relaxing, pre-sleep activities. A wind-down routine should include:

• Reading a book before bed. Lighthearted fiction is best!
• Drinking a cup of herbal tea.
• Taking a bath.
• Inhaling some essential oils
• Giving yourself a facial massage
• Meditating or listening to a hypnosis session

This will help you to unwind and prepare for a restful night’s sleep.

You Can’t Switch Off and Relax A common refrain that my clients tell me is; ‘I can’t relax, not even on holiday!’. This is classic high functioning anxiety behaviour. When we can’t stop racing thoughts and worry, even during our downtime, it’s essential that you learn some tools and techniques that will help you to calm your mind and relax. Try listening to a hypnotherapy recording (download one I made for you for free below) to quieten your conscious mind and help you to relax your body deeply. Remember that rest is just as important as activity. Repeat after me, ‘I need rest to be at my best!’.

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High Functioning Anxiety Leads to Burnout Are you feeling exhausted in the morning, even after 8 hours of sleep? Crying for no reason? Feeling as though you are at the end of your tether and close to collapse? High functioning anxiety can lead to burnout when you constantly push yourself to meet your excessively high expectations.

Burnout refers to a state of mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion. It's is often characterised by feelings of cynicism, depression, irritability, and even low self-confidence. This overload may be caused by long working hours or heavy workloads, or excessive pressure that we put on ourselves. The message from health professionals is clear; avoid reaching a point of burnout at all costs.

The recovery time can be long and time-consuming, and you'll wish you took better care of yourself in the first instance. Get to know the signs of stress that your body is showing you, and listen. The body whispers at first then starts to shout if we don't pay attention and give ourselves the rest we need and deserve. Build in early nights and prioritise rest and relaxation; rest is productive, and it's essential that we recharge our batteries - otherwise, you'll soon be running on empty.

You're an Excessive Worrier Hey fellow worrier. I see you. A tiny army of 'what if's march through your mind each night, and the days are spent over analysing and overthinking about every possible outcome of the situation you're in. While a certain amount of worrying is normal - if it's ruining your peace of mind and stopping you from being present - it could be a sign of anxiety.

This type of worrying often has to do with feeling out of control or wanting to control external events with our thoughts. I know, sounds crazy! But we believe somehow that by worrying and fretting, we'll stop bad things from happening. But we need to remember that worrying doesn't stop bad things from happening, and, when you're tense, stressed, and out of the present moment, you're much less likely to be able to handle any challenges that arise. I always try to remind myself, I am most safe and in control when I'm calm.

You're a People Pleaser A people pleaser puts others' needs before their own, sometimes at the expense of their own needs or even their mental health. Your sense of self and worth may depend on what other people think, or keeping others happy may be very important to your sense of calm.

If others are upset or annoying with you, or you have to say no – it can throw you off balance, so you try to ensure this isn't the case. Being a people pleaser can mean you over-work to keep others happy, and you neglect your own needs – leading to you feel exhausted, overworked, and anxious.

You might worry excessively over what people think of you, as you try to control their perception of you so that it's positive.

But here's the thing about people-pleasing; you can't control what others think of you. Your best bet for being liked is by being yourself and knowing that you will attract the people that are right for you. Plus, people-pleasing is exhausting, and you deserve to get your needs met too. If you're a people pleaser, get into the habit of asking yourself, 'What do I want/need in this situation?' It might be hard to say no at first, but it's like a muscle that gets stronger the more we flex it. When you get better at saying no and putting yourself first, you'll find your anxiety levels reduce.

You Constantly Beat Yourself Up I know that when we're in a down mood, the voice inside our head can be relentless and toxic, criticising us for all of life's misfortunes or perceived shortcomings. We judge ourselves harshly, which makes us feel anxious so remember

'You are not your thoughts!'

Just because you have a thought doesn't mean you need to listen to them; they're just fears masquerading as facts- narratives from a small part of yourself who is scared and wants control but doesn't believe in you enough to let you be in charge. So when the voice comes, just say to it: 'Thank you for your opinion, but I'm not listening. You're a complex human being who has many facets and aspects of yourself that are good – so stop criticising all of them!

Hopefully, these signs and tips will put you on your way to feeling less anxious.

Famous People With High Functioning Anxiety Oprah, Stephen Colbert, Kourtney Kardashian, Adele, Ryan Reynolds, Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, and Missy Elliot are all high achievers who have spoken out about their experiences of anxiety, so you're in great company.

Getting Help: Download my FREE anxiety toolkit below and start regaining control of your anxiety right now.

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What is high functioning anxiety? High functioning anxiety is when you have a personal or professional life that appears successful from the outside, but you’re a hot mess on the inside. I’d dare say that most of us with high-functioning anxiety are probably doing pretty well on the outside, but inside, feel like we are […]

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Anxiety causes? I’ve got you.

We all experience anxiety in our lives. It is a natural reaction to fear, pain, or uncertainty. Anxiety can be caused by many things such as changes in routine, stress at work or school, environmental factors like noise and crowds, or even just not getting enough sleep. It can also have more deep-rooted causes.

What are the symptoms of anxiety? In order to get anxiety under control, it’s essential to know the different anxiety symptoms and causes. Symptoms of anxiety can include an intense feeling of dread or a sense that something terrible is about to happen. It can be worrying about the future or having intrusive thoughts. Physical effects may be headaches, sweating, dizziness, trouble breathing normally, and more. The intensity of these feelings is usually linked to how anxiety causes are dealt with.

Some of these causes are more common than others, but they all need attention when dealing with them, so you don’t end up suffering unnecessarily from anxiety any longer!

Click here to get your FREE Anxiety Toolkit What if I have anxiety for no reason? You may feel as though you have anxiety for no reason. The truth is, that if you do some digging, you’ll likely find one or more factors that give you insights into your anxiety causes. Usually, there is no single anxiety cause but a range of reasons that come together to create anxiety.

By reading on, you’ll get ideas on what causes your anxiety and how you can start to manage it.

Biological anxiety causes This type of anxiety can be related to a medical condition that needs treatment. The most common anxiety cause in this category is hyperthyroidism, though other illnesses like diabetes and asthma can also be the root of your anxiety symptoms. If you think it might be related to something physical, please speak to your doctor to see if anxiety can be treated through medication or other treatments. Always talk to your doctor if you suspect this.

Genetic causes of anxiety It’s estimated that around 23% of anxiety is down to genetic factors, the rest is down to life experiences and lifestyle factors. So even though genetics play a role, it’s certainly not the only cause. Just because you have a parent with anxiety doesn’t necessarily mean you are destined for anxiety too or that the anxiety will always be with you.

Lifestyle causes of anxiety Lack of sleep is a common cause of anxiety. It can be a vicious cycle since anxiety can lead to a lack of sleep, which leads to more anxiety…and the cycle continues.

Having a newborn baby at home or working shifts can disrupt one’s sleep cycle, which can lead to feelings of anxiety.

When we’re tired, we produce more adrenaline, which can lead to us feeling on edge.

Anxiety can also make you feel tired – it uses up a lot of energy to be in fight or flight all the time!

If insomnia is the cause, look for ways to improve your sleep hygiene. Making sure the room is dark, cool, quiet, and comfortable are simple steps that make a big difference. You could also try listening to a sleep meditation or hypnotherapy session to help you to switch off and sleep – try this one I made by entering your details below to get a FREE Hypnotherapy Mp3 to help you to relax and switch off.

Click here to get your FREE Anxiety Toolkit Social anxiety causes This anxiety is often related to performance, social situations, or public speaking. it’s a fear of being judged by others. Early life experiences can cause it – say you got up to speak at the front of the class and garbled your words and everyone laughed. This event could stay with you, and your nervous system responds by putting you into fight or flight in similar situations when you have to speak to people. Social anxiety can make us want to avoid situations that trigger anxiety, but it’s important not to avoid them! The anxiety will be worse if you avoid situations because you are affirming to yourself that that’s a dangerous situation that you should steer clear of! Instead, find ways to challenge yourself to face your fear slowly. Soon, your nervous system will learn that social situations are safe for you and your nerves will calm down.

Workplace anxiety causes This type of anxiety might come from being afraid of losing your job or pressure to do with workload or deadlines. It’s a hugely common one! Perhaps you’re facing redundancy, your workplace is going through ‘restructuring’ or maybe you’re new in your job and feel the need to prove yourself. Workplace anxiety can trigger our fight or flight response because our work is our literal means of survival and paying the bills, putting a roof over our heads, and feeding ourselves and our families. If it’s available, see if your employer offers any support in terms of coaching or therapy. Make sure you’re taking regular breaks at work, getting out and having a walk, and finding ways to switch off after work and relax. Remember that even though your anxious brain may go to the worst-case scenario, the worst-case very rarely happens.

Caffiene anxiety causes Too much caffeine causes anxiety; fact: If you’re feeling anxiety from drinking too much coffee, try cutting back and see if your anxiety subsides. I once had a client who was drinking 7 cups of coffee a day and hadn’t realised this was a big cause of her anxiety. Coffee is a stimulant and increases our adrenaline levels. In people that are sensitive to anxiety, caffeine could be enough to trigger an episode.

Alcohol can also be an anxiety cause. Sorry, but it’s true. Yes, it may seem to calm you down in the moment as you kick back after work with a glass of Rose, but make no mistake, alcohol is bad news for anxiety. The anxiety may be lessened at the time, but alcohol is a depressant which means it’s dragging you down and slowing your brain. As soon as the effects wear off, anxiety symptoms will come back full force if not worse, than before because of all that extra adrenaline pumping through your body from drinking too much. Not to mention any shame, guilt, or embarrassment you might be experiencing if you overdid it on the booze the night before. Try cutting it out or cutting it down as an experiment and see what impact it has on your anxiety.

Sugar Sugar can also be a cause of anxiety, or it can at least make it worse when you eat too much sugar, your blood sugar levels spike. This sudden increase and then inevitable drop-off in blood sugar could make you feel anxious or jittery after the sugar high wears off. It’s important to know how much sugar you’re eating so that this doesn’t happen, so make sure you read the label and check for hidden sugars in food. Hint: anything on the ingredients list that ends in ‘ose’ (eg fructose, glucose) is sugar! Try cutting down on sugar and see if it makes a difference for your anxiety.

Trauma or past event anxiety causes The experience of anxiety can be a result of past events and trauma. This type of anxiety will usually cause a person to worry about future events or fear that they have lost the skills and abilities they had before their traumatic event. It can cause an automatic response of fear and anxiety when similar situations come up again. For example, if you were involved in a car accident, you may experience anxiety when travelling in cars. The beginning stages of post-traumatic stress disorder often cause a feeling of alienation, detachment, and numbness when faced with reminders of the past event. Always speak to your doctor if you feel you are experiencing trauma.

The first thing to do is to get help from a counsellor, therapist, or psychologist that specialises in trauma. They are able to guide you through your thoughts and feelings while also helping you cope with your anxiety symptoms.

Grief and loss Grief is a part of the healing process that allows for recovery from loss, and anxiety can be a symptom of grief that not many people talk about. It’s important to acknowledge that anxious or fearful feelings can be a normal part of the grieving process.

Grief may be felt not only by those who have lost a loved one but those who have suffered any kind of loss such as losing their job or becoming disabled due to illness. This temporary feeling can be very painful and lead some people into depression.

Many people find comfort in expressing their feelings through writing or through creative activities such as painting, drawing, or even singing. Seeking a grief counsellor to help you work through your experience is recommended to not go through the experience alone. Grief doesn’t have a time limit and it’s not something that you should be expected to be over within weeks. Take your time and seek help, you’re not alone.

Big life events Big life events such as moving house, getting married, having a baby or getting divorced can all trigger anxiety.

It’s important to recognise that normal feelings of anxiety in these circumstances signify that your mind and body are working correctly. It’s not a sign of weakness; change can be scary. Exciting things, like having a baby, can bring along anxiety with it. It’s normal. If the anxiety feels excessive or you’re struggling to cope, seek help. Having therapy can enable you to move through lives changes with more ease.

You’re not stuck with anxiety The most important thing is to recognise the causes of anxiety, so you can take steps to change it. Anxiety treatment starts with understanding why anxiety might be present in the first place and then finding out how to manage it best for you! Just because you’re feeling anxious now, doesn’t mean you always will be. Many people recover from anxiety and find ways to make it manageable. Anxiety affects people from all walks of life so it’s important to know that anxiety is not a sign of weakness.

Click here to get your FREE Anxiety Toolkit The post Top 11 Anxiety Causes and How to Manage Them appeared first on Calmer you.

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Anxiety causes? I’ve got you. We all experience anxiety in our lives. It is a natural reaction to fear, pain, or uncertainty. Anxiety can be caused by many things such as changes in routine, stress at work or school, environmental factors like noise and crowds, or even just not getting enough sleep. It can also […]

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Does hypnotherapy work for anxiety? Hypnotherapy for anxiety; it can’t really work, can it? It’s a question I’ve been asked at many dinner parties. Having spent the last 10 years helping people by using hypnotherapy for anxiety, I can assure you that it does. The hypnotherapy process is an interesting one, and it can be […]

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Does hypnotherapy work for anxiety? Hypnotherapy for anxiety; it can’t really work, can it?

It’s a question I’ve been asked at many dinner parties.

Having spent the last 10 years helping people by using hypnotherapy for anxiety, I can assure you that it does.

The hypnotherapy process is an interesting one, and it can be difficult to know if hypnotherapy for anxiety will work for you. Many people ask themselves, “how can it really work?”

This blog post will help answer that question with a discussion on what hypnotherapy is, how it works, and whether or not hypnosis actually helps relieve the symptoms of anxiety, plus how to get started with it yourself (for FREE!)

What hypnotherapy is Hypnotherapy for anxiety aims to reduce or eliminate your fear, worry, panic attacks, and other unpleasant feelings by changing how you think and feel at a deep level.

Hypnotherapy is a process by which the therapist guides you into a very deep state of relaxation. It isn’t magic (although it can sometimes feel that way) but a process that helps you to access the deeper part of your mind, the unconscious.

When you’re in a deeper state, your conscious mind quietens down, and your unconscious mind opens up and becomes more receptive to helpful thoughts and feelings.

Suggestions are given to you while you are in this deep state. They are designed to help with every aspect of anxiety, from excessive worries to negative thinking to the physical sensations often associated with anxiety.

Hypnotherapy is a natural process, and anyone can be hypnotised if they want to be. No one can be hypnotised against their will!

A key benefit of hypnotherapy is that it can be done either with a therapist or on your own by listening to a hypnotherapy recording.

Click here to download your FREE Hypnotherapy for Anxiety Mp3

How hypnotherapy for anxiety works The hypnotherapy process helps you to relax deeply; this in itself helps you to find inner peace by releasing stresses, tensions, and emotions that may have been trapped within your unconscious mind. It’s not only the fact that hypnotherapy is deeply relaxing; it’s also the power of suggestion whilst in that deep state that helps to create significant and lasting changes.

Some people are nervous to try hypnotherapy, but it’s very safe and effective. You have nothing to lose and so much calmness to gain. All you need to do is listen and let the hypnotherapy (or the hypnotherapist) do the work. You might be required to use your imagination at times so that you can start using your imagination as a force for good rather than one that makes you anxious.

How hypnotherapy helps with anxiety The hypnotherapy process is tailored to suit the individual, as each person’s hypnosis experience will be different.

Hypnosis can help people feel more confident and relaxed in social situations or when they are speaking in public. It can also help them cope better with stressors like work deadlines. Using hypnotherapy for anxiety can also help you to feel better when faced with situations like public speaking.

A big issue for those with anxiety is that they worry about the future or the past – things that happened or things that could go wrong. Hypnotherapy can help you to be present and mindful so that you’re focused on the here and now, not in the future or the past. Whatever type of anxiety you struggle with, from social anxiety, GAD, phobias, or health anxiety, hypnotherapy can help.

What are the benefits of using hypnotherapy to treat anxiety? Hypnotherapy for anxiety is a beautiful way to change how you feel and think about your life in general. An important thing to know is this; Anxiety is a very unconscious process. No one ‘decides’ to feel anxious, to have a racing heart, uncontrollable worries, or a nervous tummy. These are automatic, unconscious processes that those with anxiety battle daily. It makes sense to treat anxiety at the unconscious level. You might have found that other approaches haven’t worked for you; talking about your anxiety or even trying meditation can sometimes only scratch the surface of what can often be a deeply rooted issue. With hypnotherapy, we can access the unconscious mind to change our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours at a deep level.

How is hypnotherapy used to treat anxiety? Hypnotherapy for anxiety works at the root cause of your anxiety; the unconscious mind. One of hypnotherapy’s key benefits is that it helps you to change old habits and unhealthy thoughts at a deep level to help manage anxiety more effectively. Most of us have taken on board some old patterns from the past. Maybe you are repeating patterns from your childhood or holding on to ideas that are no longer useful. Whether you had anxious parents, experienced bullying at school, suffered a traumatic event or you experience low self-esteem, hypnotherapy enables you to go in and change unconscious beliefs so that you can be free of the past.

I designed my hypnotherapy for anxiety course to address different areas of anxiety. Helping you be present and aware in the moment, feeling relaxed in your body, being kind to yourself, and feeling good about yourself and your abilities are just a few ways that hypnotherapy can work for anxiety. Hypnotherapy can help you love and accept yourself on a deep level which many people find makes a huge impact on their level of calm. It can also be instrumental in quietening the inner critic, which is often the cause of much anxiety.

What Are the Drawbacks of Hypnotherapy? There is a misconception about hypnotherapy being used against someone’s will without their knowledge of it happening. This couldn’t be further from the truth; hypnosis cannot occur unless both parties want it to happen. You can’t be hypnotised if you don’t want to be. Another myth is that you might lose control or get ‘stuck in hypnosis. This does not happen; it’s impossible to get stuck in hypnosis, and people often report feeling more in control after a session.

Hypnotherapy is exceptionally safe. Just don’t listen to recordings while driving! It cannot do any harm and does not change anything unless you want it to change. Think of it as a profound and empowering relaxation that helps you to make changes.

What does the process of hypnotherapy for anxiety involve? During hypnotherapy, you’re invited to get comfortable and close your eyes. Make sure you won’t be disturbed for the duration of the session.

If you’re with a therapist, they may have a couch or comfortable chair for you to sit it. If you’re listening to a hypnotherapy recording you can lie down in your bed or on the sofa.

Click here to download your FREE Hypnotherapy for Anxiety Mp3 It’s a good idea if you can have your head supported so you can totally relax. Use headphones if you have them. You’ll then be guided into a deep state of relaxation and given suggestions that will help you to feel calmer, be kinder to yourself, feel more physically relaxed, and more present – or whatever it is that will help you most with your anxiety. Afterward, you’ll feel refreshed and alert, like you’ve just had a long nap, and you’ll be ready to go to sleep or get on with your day.

What’s the difference between hypnosis and hypnotherapy? These terms essentially mean the same thing; getting into a deep state of relaxation so that your unconscious mind is open and able to accept suggestions. However, hypnosis is a term more often associated with stage performances. Everyone has seen a stage show where someone is on stage, clucking like a chicken or eating an onion-like it’s an apple! While this can demonstrate the power of hypnosis, hypnotherapy is far more empowering and is about helping the client to reach their goals and make the changes that they want to in their life. Hypnotherapy isn’t about losing control; it’s about giving you back control over your life.

Do hypnotherapy recordings work for anxiety? Yes! I first discovered the power of hypnotherapy for anxiety myself about 11 years ago. I was struggling with low self-esteem, chronic worrying, and hated social situations. I listened to a hypnotherapy recording every day for 2 weeks. I was shocked to discover it worked. I didn’t become the world’s calmest person overnight, but the changes were tangible. Suddenly I could hear myself think over the mental noise. I felt more sociable and confident with people, and I started feeling more relaxed and at ease in myself. These days I love getting to share hypnotherapy with thousands of people all over the world.

Click here to download your FREE Hypnotherapy for Anxiety Mp3

This all sounds amazing – where can I try it? You can download your FREE Hypnotherapy for Anxiety Mp3 by entering your details below.

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Confidence is a feeling that can be difficult to come by. When you have it, you feel unstoppable and like anything is possible. When you don’t have it, even the smallest of tasks can seem overwhelming. What if I told you there was a way for you to quickly gain confidence in any situation? A […]

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Confidence is a feeling that can be difficult to come by. When you have it, you feel unstoppable and like anything is possible.

When you don’t have it, even the smallest of tasks can seem overwhelming.

What if I told you there was a way for you to quickly gain confidence in any situation?

A lot of people will say that they don’t like themselves. Maybe they have low self-esteem, or maybe they don’t think they’re good enough for other people. The truth is that we all have issues and things about ourselves that we wish we could change. I know I do!

What’s so great about affirmations is that anyone can use them, no matter what’s going on in your life. They’re free and couldn’t be easier.

Affirmations are usually thought of as being a little out there or even cheesy, but I’m here to tell you why you should incorporate them into your life!

No matter what’s going on, no matter what has happened or what’s about to happen – with these simple affirmations your confidence will skyrocket!

What does it really mean to be confident? There are many ways to define confidence and there might not be one perfect answer but most people would agree that having confidence means believing in yourself no matter what situation you find yourself in.

This blog post will talk about confidence affirmations and how they can help boost your self-confidence so you can feel more comfortable with who you are, both inside and out!

We’ll also go over some tips for getting started if this sounds like something that interests you!

What are confidence affirmations? An affirmation is just a statement that you’re telling yourself to build new beliefs about something. They can be used for all kinds of things, but the most common type of self-affirmation is to boost your confidence with statements.

Most of the time, people will create affirmations that they want to believe about themselves. These statements will then focus on your “want” so that you can build new beliefs about it. For example, maybe you’d like to be more confident in social situations or you want to feel confident in your body.

This might seem a little strange at first, but there’s a reason that it works so well. Studies have shown us that we can literally change the way our brain thinks about something by repeating these thoughts over and over again!

How to make affirmations work for you First, make sure that whatever statement or affirmation you create is something YOU actually want to believe – not just something someone else thinks you should say. You can use the examples below to get started, but when you’re creating your own be sure that it’s something that will actually mean something to you and YOU only!

Think about what you want to believe about yourself. Maybe there are some things you’ve been struggling with recently or even something that has always bothered you about yourself.

Maybe you’re not happy with your public speaking skills or how you look but deep down inside you really wish you could love yourself for who you are and all the awesome things that make up who YOU are!

How to use confidence affirmations Even if you don’t feel confident right now, you can change that by using these affirmations! Once you learn how to reframe your thinking, you will be able to overcome any obstacle and get that confidence back.

The most effective way to use a self-confidence affirmation is right when you wake up in the morning.

Just before getting out of bed, repeat one of the positive statements you have written down – and really mean it.

By repeating the affirmation first thing in the morning, you set your intention and reinforce this goal throughout the day.

First thing in the morning, your mind is in a very receptive state, the affirmations are most likely to take hold at this time.

You can also download this FREE Confidence Affirmations MP3 that I created and listen to them, repeating them out loud or in your own head.

Click here to download your FREE Confidence Affirmations Mp3 If you repeat your confidence affirmations every day for a week or two, they will create new neural pathways that help to make these feelings of self-confidence a permanent part of your life.

How will it feel? Waking up and repeating these affirmations may seem weird at first, but you’ll quickly find that they work! As you continue to repeat them, your confidence levels will rise until one day – boom! – you wake up feeling like the most confident version of yourself ever.

Confidence affirmations are all about being consistent. So, don’t give up if they don’t seem to work right away – keep repeating them, and soon you’ll see how strong a force self-confidence can be!

Do confidence affirmations work? Have confidence affirmations worked for me? Hells yes! I used to struggle big time with my confidence. I hated networking events, struggled to make new friends and public speaking was a no-no. When I discovered affirmations, I was SUPER sceptical. I thought it would be impossible to change my confidence.

But I started to say affirmations to myself every day in the shower. It was subtle at first, but I started to enjoy saying them more and more.

Soon, I found myself wanting to network more, asking questions when I didn’t know the answer, and even trying public speaking! They helped me find my self-confidence and now I hope they’ll change your life too.

Here are some examples of self-confidence affirmations that EVERYBODY can use! Example #1: I love myself. For people who struggle with not liking themselves, this is a great one to start off with. It’s also suitable for people who don’t believe they’re worthy of the things they want in life and feel they aren’t allowed to have those things.

For these people, it may not be that they don’t like themselves but more that they feel undeserving of the things they want because they think their life is “less than” or “not as good” as other people’s. If this is you, then instead of focusing on loving yourself, we’re going to focus on the second part of this affirmation:

Example #2: I deserve love. This particular statement is excellent for people who don’t feel like they’re worthy of something. This is one that most people can benefit from in some way or another, but definitely, those who struggle with feeling like they aren’t good enough!

Another variation of this is: I am worthy.

Example #3: I love and accept myself just the way I am. This statement is great for people who struggle with body image issues or even feeling they aren’t enough in some other way. Our society can often tell us that we need to be a certain way, look a certain way, or even be a certain age to be considered attractive.

This one is great for anyone who cares what other people think of them. If there’s anything in your life that you’re struggling with and wish you could change about yourself but can’t (or aren’t allowed to) then this one might help!

Example #4: I am valuable and worthwhile. This is another that most people can benefit from in some way or another! If you ever find yourself feeling like you’re not good enough for something or even worthless, then this one will work wonders to help alleviate those thoughts and feelings!

What daily affirmations can you use to build self-confidence? Here are some more ideas. Either write your own personalized affirmations or choose from the ones below:

I am confident in my abilities.

I am a confident person

I am proud of the person I am.

I like myself.

I am enough.

It is easy for me to feel confident about my intelligence and capabilities.

There’s nothing that can’t be accomplished once I set my mind to it!

Confidence affirmations are sometimes seen as a bit cheesy because they don’t always seem believable.

They can feel very unrealistic at the moment, making it hard for people to take them seriously. But if you find yourself saying these phrases to yourself every day, you may start to notice a change: they become more and more second nature and soon your confidence will gradually improve!

Plus, repeating these phrases slowly but surely creates new neural pathways that help make these feelings of self-confidence a permanent part of your life. In other words, your brain learns to feel confident by believing and repeating these phrases. You literally have nothing to lose by giving this a try.

Listen to your confidence affirmations An amazing way to include confidence affirmations in your life is to have them playing in your ears as you work or go about your day.

Have them on in the background while you do a workout, the washing up or cooking dinner.

Say them to yourself while you put your makeup on or when you’re driving. Consistently listening and repeating the affirmations will slowly start to reprogramme your unconscious mind, so that these new, empowering thoughts become your norm.

Download your confidence affirmations below.

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Take the next step and start seeing how powerful your words can be. If you've got it in your head that you're not a confident person, then what else are you going to do? You've likely spent a lifetime telling yourself negative affirmations. Isn't it time to change that? If you carry on as you have always been you're only going to get more of the same!

You are so much more than you think. You get to decide how good and happy your life is. Start using self-confidence affirmations and watch your life transform.

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How can we build confidence? And why is confidence building so important?

I read this quote recently and it hit home; ”Lack of confidence kills more dreams than lack of ability’‘ – James Clear

What is the one thing that can stop you from going after your goals?

Confidence.

And a lack of confidence is a dream killer.

Building your confidence is the number one thing you need for a successful life.

Below I’m sharing 7 reasons why confidence is a superpower and how you can build it.

Confidence is an enabler Confidence has the power to let us do things that we would never have dreamed of doing before. It can help us get jobs, make friends, and go on dates and say yes to opportunities – all due to the power of this one feeling! It means you get out of your own way (yes, you really are your own worst energy!) and allows you to move forward.

Confidence builder: Ask yourself; what would I do if I knew I couldn’t fail?

Confidence is a skill we can develop It may be a superpower but it’s available for all! Confidence isn’t some kind of magic superpower that we’re endowed with at birth – it’s something that we develop over time. We have to choose to be confident every day, and sometimes there will be days when we need more time to feel comfortable doing new things or stuff that is out of our comfort zone.

Confidence building tip: Remember that confidence is something that can improve and you’ll likely be inspired to continue working towards it.

Taking risks Confidence is worthing building because it helps you take risks and try new things, which can lead to success. The benefit of taking risks is that you will expand your comfort zone, which in turn leads to more opportunities and as a result, higher confidence. Confidence allows us to say yes, even when we’re scared. Being able to stand up for yourself or ask someone in your industry to meet you for a coffee are both examples where you have to take a risk. It can feel scary – but once you’ve done it, you’ll be filled with a sense of possibility and inner strength.

Confidence building tip: What is one tiny risk you could take today?

Taking action Self-belief leads to action. A confident person is good at taking action because they know that they can do it. Without action, there can be no success. They don’t fall into the trap of overthinking things, which leads to negative feelings and analysis paralysis! Ruminating is a sure-fire way to spin your wheels and stay stuck in the mud of inaction. No amount of overthinking can make up for taking action. You’ll learn more, fail fast and figure out what works best when you take action.

Confidence building tip: Break your steps down into teeny-tiny ones and make a pledge to yourself to take one small step forwards today. You’ve got this.

Others believe in you Confidence is a superpower because it makes people believe in your ideas which can lead to success. Confidence is contagious.

If other people like your ideas and think they’re good, then they’ll be willing to help out when you need them. Getting practical help, mentoring, financial help or just encouragement is more likely to come from others when you believe in yourself first. If others believe in you, they might even introduce you to new opportunities that they know about or recommend you to people.

Confidence building tip: Pre-visualise events going well. Imagine yourself showing up with confidence, speaking easily and freely and holding yourself with pride. Your imagination is powerful, and you can programme your unconscious for confidence this way.

You give things a try Confidence is a superpower because without it, we would never be able to achieve our goals or live our dreams. Think about it; if you don’t believe in yourself, you won’t even try. If you don’t try, you’re guaranteed to fail as the saying goes. This isn’t about doing things perfectly or never making mistakes, oh no. But having the confidence to try and make mistakes means you learn and grow along the way. It is from experience where confidence comes from, and when you’re bold enough to try, your confidence is sure to increase.

Confidence building tip: Instead of waiting for perfection, or when you’re ready, affirm to yourself, ‘I focus on progress over perfection’.

Confidence is attractive The survey results are in, and its unanimous. Confidence is sexy.

Confidence is a superpower because it makes you more attractive to others. Think of yourself as an energy magnet; you’re either attracting your goals to you or repelling them away. Confidence makes you shine. When you love yourself, other people pick up on it, and it makes them like you too. Confident people have a magnetism that draws others to them instead of repelling them.

Confidence building tip: To harness this, make a note of all the compliments and good feedback you’ve been given over the years and remind yourself of them often.

You handle criticism better Confidence is a superpower because it helps you accept your imperfections and when you do this, you become more self-aware which in turn lets you handle criticism better.

Self-awareness means that when someone criticises or points out areas where you can improve, you are more likely to listen and take it on board because the criticisms don’t throw your confidence off. You’re able to accept them with open arms because they don’t worry you and, in fact, give you a kick to improve and be your best self!

Confidence building tip: Criticism is just useful information you can use to help you to get better. What are 3 things you can learn from a recent piece of criticism?

With all of these benefits of having confidence as your superpower, there’s no reason not to start building your confidence today. It’s a skill you can develop and with a bit of attention in this direction, you can grow your confidence.

Download your FREE Confidence Affirmations Mp3 and start feeling more confident in minutes.

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How can we build confidence? And why is confidence building so important? I read this quote recently and it hit home; ”Lack of confidence kills more dreams than lack of ability’‘ – James Clear What is the one thing that can stop you from going after your goals? Confidence. And a lack of confidence is […]

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Cate Sevilla is an author, journalist and consultant who has led editorial teams for some of the world’s largest media and technology companies. In her debut book, How to Work Without Losing Your Mind, she opens up about the good, the bad and the ugly situations she’s found herself in at work. We discuss: Why […]

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Cate Sevilla is an author, journalist and consultant who has led editorial teams for some of the world’s largest media and technology companies. In her debut book, How to Work Without Losing Your Mind, she opens up about the good, the bad and the ugly situations she’s found herself in at work.

We discuss: * Why having Beyonce’s work ethic is harming our mental health * Toxic work cultures and how to handle them * Setting boundaries at work and why we struggle so much to do this

For the full episode, search for ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app in iTunes or on Spotify or come on over to https://calmer-you.com/blog

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://calmer-you.com/free. You’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

Download your FREE Future-Self Meditation, designed to help you to quieten self-doubt and start moving towards your dream life. 


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Ep 157. How to feel more confident in meetings (or on Zoom)

In this short solo episode I share simple, practical ways to feel more confident in meetings, on Zoom or during presentations.

Download your FREE confidence affirmations mp3 www.calmer-you.com/confidence

Join The Brave New You Confidence Course www.calmer-you.com/cc

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Ep 157. How to feel more confident in meetings (or on Zoom) In this short solo episode I share simple, practical ways to feel more confident in meetings, on Zoom or during presentations. Download your FREE confidence affirmations mp3 www.calmer-you.com/confidence Join The Brave New You Confidence Course www.calmer-you.com/cc

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In this short solo episode I share simple, practical ways to feel more confident in meetings, on Zoom or during presentations.

Download your FREE confidence affirmations mp3 www.calmer-you.com/confidence

Join The Brave New You Confidence Course www.calmer-you.com/cc

The post Ep 157. How to feel more confident in meetings (or on Zoom) appeared first on Calmer you.

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In this short solo episode I share simple, practical ways to feel more confident in meetings, on Zoom or during presentations. Download your FREE confidence affirmations mp3 www.calmer-you.com/confidence Join The Brave New You Confidence Course www.calmer-you.com/cc  

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The incredible Kristin Neff PhD, author of the new book Fierce self-compassion: The feminist guide for women to understand, appreciate and speak up for themselves, joins me on this week’s episode. If you don’t know who Kristin is, she is quite a big deal in the self-compassion world. A leading voice, I quoted her several times […]

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The incredible Kristin Neff PhD, author of the new book Fierce self-compassion: The feminist guide for women to understand, appreciate and speak up for themselves, joins me on this week’s episode. If you don’t know who Kristin is, she is quite a big deal in the self-compassion world. A leading voice, I quoted her several times in my book The Anxiety Solution.

We discuss: * Why the words fierce and kind don’t often come together and why they should * Her own story around self-compassion * Why she wrote this book specifically for women * Why is it so hard for us to be kind to ourself * Tapping into anger as a force for good

Download your FREE Future-Self Meditation, designed to help you to quieten self-doubt and start moving towards your dream life. 


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The wonderful Poppy Jamie, author of Happy not Perfect joins me on the Calmer You Podcast this week. She is an entrepreneur, influencer, and rising star in the mental health & mindfulness space. In her book she shares how to upgrade your mind, challenge your thoughts and free yourself from anxiety. We discuss: What it […]

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The wonderful Poppy Jamie, author of Happy not Perfect joins me on the Calmer You Podcast this week. She is an entrepreneur, influencer, and rising star in the mental health & mindfulness space. In her book she shares how to upgrade your mind, challenge your thoughts and free yourself from anxiety.

We discuss: * What it means to be happy but not perfect * How to become conscious of your feelings * Her experience with anxiety and imposter syndrome * Workaholicism and burnout and what has helped her * What she is struggling with at the moment and how she is overcoming it

Download your FREE Future-Self Meditation, designed to help you to quieten self-doubt and start moving towards your dream life.

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How can we overcome social anxiety? Social anxiety can cause one to feel sick, nauseous, shakey and sweaty to name just a few. It can make you feel as though the spotlight is on you (even if it isn’t) and that everyone is staring at you and judging you. I know that feeling of self-consciousness. […]

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How can we overcome social anxiety? Social anxiety can cause one to feel sick, nauseous, shakey and sweaty to name just a few. It can make you feel as though the spotlight is on you (even if it isn’t) and that everyone is staring at you and judging you. I know that feeling of self-consciousness. You’re out with a group and you just don’t feel like yourself. You’re desperately trying to ‘act normal’, which makes you feel even less normal and suddenly you’re either garbling your words or so shy that you shut down like a frightened clam who just can’t get the words out.

Image by Kelsey Chance

Scarred by the experience, it becomes even harder to prize yourself from the couch and force yourself to go to a social event. Suddenly, social anxiety is winning, your world is getting smaller and the longer you leave it, the harder it is to change.

I have also struggled with social anxiety As someone who has struggled myself in social situations I know just how upsetting, frustrating and anxiety-producing these things can be.
In the past, I would avoid parties or networking events, I found it hard to make new friends and I would get incredibly nervous even when meeting someone for a casual coffee.

People with social anxiety suffer from fear and avoidance of any activity or situation that might involve interaction. Your imagination goes into overdrive and you suddenly develop the ability to read minds and predict the future. ‘Everyone’ hates you and you imagine that if you go out, people will ignore you, you’ll say ‘the wrong thing’ or you’ll get embarrassed and make a fool of yourself.

It’s just the worst.

Don’t leave social anxiety unchecked But there’s one thing you need to know; social anxiety is one of those things where if we don’t address it, it can sadly get worse. Don’t leave this unchecked; follow some of the advice below and you’ll be well on your way to overcoming social anxiety.

Here are some ways you can overcome social anxiety so that it no longer holds you back.

Don’t worry about what people think The first step in feeling less self-conscious and overcoming social anxiety is to try your best not to worry about what other people will think of you. Even better, to remember that people are not even thinking about you at all. Easier said than done, right? But when people are naturally confident and at ease, they are not thinking about themselves at all. Their attention is directed outwards onto the other person and the conversation that they’re having. Practising mindfulness helps us to train our minds to be present instead of thinking about the past, the future or whether the person we’re talking to thinks we’re ‘boring’ or not.

Embarrassment is temporary Image by Laura Chouette

The next thing we can do for ourselves is to realize any doubt or embarrassment will be temporary. Feelings of fear in social situations may very well die down once you get there and start interacting with people. And even if a moment of embarrassment does arise, once the moment has passed, there won’t even be anything worth remembering! We’ll often think that everyone else can ‘tell’ we’re nervous or lacking in self-confidence. But I promise this comes back to thinking that the spotlight is on you (it isn’t), and people are far too concerned about themselves and how they’re coming across to think about you (no offence!)

Breathwork You have the power within yourself to control social anxiety–it’s just a matter of figuring out how best for your individual situation. For some people, deep breathing can really help. When faced with an anxious feeling or bodily response that is less than desirable, such as nausea or shaking hands, try breathing deep breaths through both nostrils. Let your belly expand with every breath. Feet your feet flat on the floor. I remember doing this in meeting situations where we had to go around the table and introduce ourselves. Deep breaths send a signal to your nervous system to relax, while focusing on your feet on the floor helps to ground you.

Taking a different perspective Try to see things from this perspective; remember a time when a friend or loved one was supportive of you. Remember when they told you “You’re awesome!” whenever you were having doubts before an interview? Or ‘You’re so much better than him!’ after a breakup? They meant every word, so don’t forget- many people like, love and appreciate you for being you. Not everyone will like you, and that’s ok. But some people are going to think you’re freakin’ awesome, and it’s worth being you just for them.

Image by Anthony Tran

Here’s another thing I’ve noticed about social anxiety. Sometimes people think you’re being rude and unfriendly. I used to be thought of as ‘standoffish’ when the reality was I was just shy.

I know that might be hard to hear – especially as you may desperately want friends or you think of yourself as a friendly person- but it’s true. When you’re shy, a person of few words or subdued (because you’re anxious!) this can send a message to the other person that you’re not interested in them. This might sound like strange advice, but if you have social anxiety, it’s important that your voice sounds friendly. Smile. Give some energy to your voice rather than allowing your voice to be monotone or trail off. People like friendly people and people who like them so try to being your best energy to conversations (even if you’re feeling super anxious).

Building confidence Lastly – confidence comes from challenging ourselves and taking action. Again, you might not want to hear this but if you want to overcome social anxiety, you’ve got to get your sweet self out there. When you go into a situation that scares you and you don’t die, your nervous system learns ‘Hey, maybe parties aren’t the life or death thing I though they were’ and it calls off the alarm. Next time it gets easier and before long you’ll be able to do more and feel calmer and safer doing so.

If you need further help with social anxiety – download this FREE social confidence MP3 and give your social confidence a boost in just a few minutes.

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Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

Dr Grace Lordan, author of Think Big, is an Associate Professor in Behavioural Science at the LSE. She is a director of their new MSc in Behavioural Science, and the founding director of The Inclusion Initiative (TII). An economist by background, her research is focused on understanding why some individuals succeed in life and others don’t.

In her book Think Big she draws on her own experiences and challenges as a woman in the stereotypically male-dominated arena of economics. And as a self-identified easily distracted procrastinator, she lays out an easy-to-adopt road map to achieving your goals, whether they be personal, health or career orientated.

We discuss: * How to keep focused when you’re an easily distracted procrastinator * Why are our personal narratives so important * The top cognitive biases that are holding you back at work * The 90-minute weekly commitment that could be a game-changer for you

For the full episode, search for ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app in iTunes or on Spotify or come on over to https://calmer-you.com/blog

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://calmer-you.com/free. You’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

https://calmer-you.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/chloe-brotheridge-grace-lordan-1.mp3 The post Ep 154. Think Big with Dr. Grace Lordan appeared first on Calmer you.

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Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://www.calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts. Dr Grace Lordan, author of Think Big,  is an Associate Professor in Behavioural Science at the LSE. She is a director of their new MSc in Behavioural Science, and the founding […]

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Emmy Brunner is the author of Find Your True Voice and Trauma Redefined. She is also a personal empowerment and transformation coach, psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, founder of The Recover Clinic and speaker. We discuss: Why trauma is at the root of many of our psychological problems The destructive patterns we get stuck in (helloooo self-sabotage!) How […]

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Emmy Brunner is the author of Find Your True Voice and Trauma Redefined. She is also a personal empowerment and transformation coach, psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, founder of The Recover Clinic and speaker.

We discuss: * Why trauma is at the root of many of our psychological problems * The destructive patterns we get stuck in (helloooo self-sabotage!) * How we can connect with our spiritual selves and why it matters

For the full episode search for ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app in iTunes or on Spotify.

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://calmer-you.com/free. You’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

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Selina Barker is a Career and Life Design Coach and author of a new book about burnout – Burnt Out: the exhausted person’s guide to thriving in a fast-paced world. Also the author of the Goodbye Hello journals, creator of the Audible Series ‘The Career Change Coach’ and co-host of the Project Love podcast. She […]

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Selina Barker is a Career and Life Design Coach and author of a new book about burnout – Burnt Out: the exhausted person’s guide to thriving in a fast-paced world. Also the author of the Goodbye Hello journals, creator of the Audible Series ‘The Career Change Coach’ and co-host of the Project Love podcast. She joins me this week on the Calmer You podcast talking about burnout.

We discuss: * What it is about our culture that means so many are burning out * How to quieten the shitty committee AKA your inner critic * The importance of emotional energy and how to balance it

For the full episode search for ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app in iTunes or on Spotify or come on over to https://calmer-you.com/blog

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

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So you want to stop negative thoughts. I get it. They’ve plagued me too. Have you ever had a day where the morning starts off great, but by the time lunch rolls around your mood has completely changed? Or have you ever had a day when you wake up and feel like something is wrong, […]

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So you want to stop negative thoughts. I get it. They’ve plagued me too.

Have you ever had a day where the morning starts off great, but by the time lunch rolls around your mood has completely changed?

Or have you ever had a day when you wake up and feel like something is wrong, but can’t quite put your finger on it?

And you can’t seem to stop negative thoughts that keep on coming?

It could be something someone said to you or something you saw on social media.

Either way, negative thoughts are real and can affect our moods in ways we don’t even realise.

In this blog post, I’m going to share 7 tips for preventing these negative thoughts from becoming a part of your everyday life.

We all know that we can get carried away with negative thoughts. I’ve been there too. But what if I told you that it’s possible to stop those negative thoughts from popping up in your head? Sounds like a dream come true, right?

Here are seven ways I personally use to stop my negative thoughts from taking over: 1) Start practising self-care Self-care looks different for everyone. For some, it might be that bubble bath, blasting Enya on the stereo and some boujee bubbles for the tub. For others, it could be going out on a date with your partner, buying some flowers for the house, stroking the neighbour’s dog. I like to think about self-care as nourishment. Think about what helps you to feel nourished and cared for and make it a priority. A nurtured body leads to a positive mind and will soothe away those negative thoughts.

2) Stop comparing yourself to others Don’t compare your Instagram feed to someone else’s and remember everyone struggles. As a therapist, I’ve heard the problems of hundreds of people (some of whose lives look AMAZING on Instagram, but IRL are a shit show), and I can assure you – everyone is struggling with something. If you can’t resist comparing, take a break from the online world and return to real life for a bit. A social media vacation can give you a chance to recalibrate and come back to yourself. If it’s not an option, can you mute the people who trigger you? No one needs to know. Come back home to yourself and focus on yourself and your life; what are you grateful for? What’s really working for you in your life right now? Even if it’s something tiny – spending time every day counting your blessings is a sure-fire way to let go of negative thoughts.

3) Talk out any issues you’re having so they don’t turn into bigger ones The thing with negative thoughts is that if we try to suppress them, bury them and keep them to ourselves – they get bigger and stronger! Writing things down, telling a friend, a therapist, or the cat can help you to put your negative thoughts and feelings into words. There’s a saying in therapy land, ‘You’ve got to name it to tame it’. When we put our feelings and thoughts into words, we feel calmer, more in control and more resilient. Try it now.

4) Practice self-compassion This really is so important. Like, really, really important. We all know we should be kinder to ourselves, but how many of us do it? You might be being mean to yourself on autopilot all day and not even realise. The first step is to recognise the negative shit that you’re saying to yourself. Then ask yourself, ‘How would I speak to a friend in my position?’ Then, phrase those negative thoughts with phrases like “I’m doing my best” or “It’s okay that I don’t know everything.” Self-compassion is a practice, we need to train ourselves to be kinder but the benefits are huge when we manage it.

5) Get outside

A good way to get rid of bad thoughts is by going out in nature. It’s amazing how much better you feel when you’re surrounded by trees and the sound of birds chirping. Walking in a forest is an excellent way to take a break from daily life and refresh your mind. You can walk along the river, listen to the birds, or sit under a big tree and observe the squirrels playing around. In Japan, they’ve long known about the benefits of ‘forest bathing’. Ecotherapy has been studied and researched and found useful in the treatment of anxiety and depression – so this stuff works for shifting negative thoughts. Can you stop what you’re doing (after you’ve read this blog) and get outside?

6) Declutter to stop negative thoughts

Can decluttering around your home really stop negative thoughts?

Maybe.

Like the old saying goes, tidy house, tidy mind, right?

Get rid of any clutter around the house, including old clothes, shoes, and books. Yes, I know you love that old t-shirt with the hole in it and those ratty shoes are your favourites. But why do you still have them? And now is a good time to get rid of all those cute but old AF hoody you’ve been sleeping in and invest in something that makes you feel good. Our clothes and surrounding can reflect our sense of worth and value and having something that makes you feel a million bucks could give your self-esteem a boost (and therefore reduce any negative thoughts). It’s at least worth a try.

7) Allowing your thoughts to be there.

I know, I know. You can’t just sit there and do nothing while negative thoughts run through your head. But what if you could let them be a passing thought instead of obsessing over them? In mindfulness, Buddhist teachers ask us to remember that we are not the thoughts themselves but rather to observe of those thoughts. Imagine the thoughts are like passing clouds. You can watch as they float into view and then out again.

There are many ways to stop negative thoughts, but the most important thing is that you don’t let them define who you are. Thoughts are not facts and just because you’re thinking negatively now, doesn’t mean you always will. In fact, thoughts are changing moment by moment and you are only ever one thought away from a more positive mood.

If you need a little help getting there, try some of these positive affirmations by entering your details below. It will only take 10 minutes out of your day – it might even change the way you think about yourself and turn those negative thoughts into something more positive.

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Dr. Jud as over 20 years at Yale, MIT and Brown University researching how our brains form negative behavior patterns, bad habits and addictions, and has identified the specific techniques needed to create lasting change.

We discuss:

• Why we’re so anxious
• How anxiety can actually be a habit
• How does mindfulness help with anxiety (it’s not what most people think)
• A powerful mindset shift for anxiety

For the full episode search for ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app in iTunes or on Spotify or come on over to https://calmer-you.com/blog

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

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Dr. Jud as over 20 years at Yale, MIT and Brown University researching how our brains form negative behavior patterns, bad habits and addictions, and has identified the specific techniques needed to create lasting change. We discuss: Why we’re so anxious How anxiety can actually be a habit How does mindfulness help with anxiety (it’s […]

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bar-domain="calmer-me.lpages.co" async defer> Psycho-therapist Stefanie Stahl focuses her work on the inner child. She can’t imagine doing anything else. Her profession is her vocation.

Her new book The Child in You is a fascinating read.

We chat about: * How we can stop past experiences from holding us back in life * How to do inner child work (and the practical steps to take!) * The gifts of introversion

For the full episode search for ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app in iTunes or on Spotify or come on over to https://calmer-you.com/blog

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

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bar-domain="calmer-me.lpages.co" async defer> Psycho-therapist Stefanie Stahl focuses her work on the inner child. She can’t imagine doing anything else. Her profession is her vocation.  Her new book The Child in You is a fascinating read. We chat about: How we can stop past experiences from holding us back in life How to do inner child work […]

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Brita Fernandez Schmidt is the author of Fears to Fierce. Driven by her purpose, Brita believes that every woman has a fierce power to fulfill her dreams. Brita coaches women to help them transform their lives by awakening, and acting on, the power they have within. She is an advocate and promoter of women’s power, […]

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Brita Fernandez Schmidt is the author of Fears to Fierce. Driven by her purpose, Brita believes that every woman has a fierce power to fulfill her dreams.

Brita coaches women to help them transform their lives by awakening, and acting on, the power they have within. She is an advocate and promoter of women’s power, women’s rights and equality. She also frequently writes and speaks publicly about the challenges women face all over the world in the context of poverty and conflict.

Brita currently serves as the Executive Director of Women for Women International – UK and is the Senior Vice President for Europe and External Relations globally. She co-founded Women for Women International in Germany in 2018. Brita is also the Chair of the Network Gender Action for Peace and Security and Chief Adviser to Fair Share. Previously she was the Programmes & Policy Director at Womankind Worldwide and she started her career as Policy Officer at the European Women’s Lobby.

How about that for a bio? I hope you enjoy this important and inspiring episode.

• Why inspiration is so important (and how to feel more inspired!)
• How to go from fears to fierce
• When you feel like you’re too much or not enough
• How to find your purpose

For the full episode search for ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app in iTunes or on Spotify or come on over to https://calmer-you.com/blog

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

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Adrienne Herbert is a personal trainer, Adidas global ambassador, mentor and TEDx international speaker. She has been featured in Women’s Health magazine, the Sunday Times Style magazine and Marie Claire. And, was named a “New Face of Wellness’ by British VOGUE.

Adrienne shares her passion for fitness as a personal trainer, as well as encouraging and motivating others by writing, creating videos, speaking at events and hosting workshops.

I hope you love this episode as much as I do.

We chat about: * How to be more optimistic, motivated and energised * Her powerful mantra and how it can help you too * Adrienne shares her most powerful habits that could change your life * How she handles overwhelm

For the full episode search for ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app in iTunes or on Spotify or come on over to https://calmer-you.com/blog

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

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Adrienne Herbert is a personal trainer, Adidas global ambassador, mentor and TEDx international speaker. She has been featured in Women’s Health magazine, the Sunday Times Style magazine and Marie Claire. And, was named a “New Face of Wellness’ by British VOGUE. Adrienne shares her passion for fitness as a personal trainer, as well as encouraging and motivating […]

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It was such a pleasure to speak with the Founder of Vulnerable AF Veronica Kaulinis. She founded Vulnerable AF to show heart-centered leaders how to be braver so they can courageously and authentically communicate what they want.

Vulnerable AF is a global movement that encourages vulnerability, and expansion. It offers an intimate, deep and thought-provoking conversations in a safe space.

Her mission is to expose any negative stigmas of vulnerability.

We chat about: * What does it mean to be vulnerable? * The line between vulnerability and oversharing * The importance of doing uncomfortable things * How to get out of your head and into your body

For the full episode search for ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app in iTunes or on Spotify or come on over to https://calmer-you.com/blog

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://calmer-you.com/free. You’ll be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

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It was such a pleasure to speak with the Founder of Vulnerable AF Veronica Kaulinis. She founded Vulnerable AF to show heart-centered leaders how to be braver so they can courageously and authentically communicate what they want. Vulnerable AF is a global movement that encourages vulnerability, and expansion. It offers an intimate, deep and thought-provoking […]

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Hope Edelman joins me on the Calmer You podcast for a deep dive into the experience of grief.

Hope has been writing, speaking, and leading workshops and retreats in the bereavement field for more than 25 years. She was 17 when she lost her mother to breast cancer. And 40 when her father died. Events that inspired her to offer grief education and support to those who cannot otherwise receive it.

We discuss:

• The pressure on us to be grieving ‘properly’?
• What advice do you have for people who are fearful about loved ones dying?
• How can we support someone else in grief?
• Hope shares her perspective on 5 stages of grief – and why many of us have gotten this wrong
• Why we’re communally grieving after the year we’ve had

For the full episode search for ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app in iTunes or on Spotify or come on over to https://calmer-you.com/blog

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

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Hope Edelman joins me on the Calmer You podcast for a deep dive into the experience of grief. Hope has been writing, speaking, and leading workshops and retreats in the bereavement field for more than 25 years. She was 17 when she lost her mother to breast cancer. And 40 when her father died. Events that […]

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My guest on the podcast today is Fiona Buckland. Fiona is a leadership coach and facilitator, passionate about helping people develop deeper, wiser leadership of themselves, so they can be the leaders our world needs.

A Fulbright scholar with a Ph.D. from New York University, her clients include The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, Alexander McQueen, Viacom, Soho House and Twitter. Her new book is Thoughtful Leadership – A Guide to Leading with Body, Mind and Soul

We chat about:

• What does it mean to be leaders of our own lives?
• Fiona’s incredible advice for those with imposter syndrome
• Why people pleasing is a stress response
• Should we all contemplate our own death?

For the full episode search for ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app in iTunes or on Spotify or come on over to https://calmer-you.com/blog

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

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My guest on the podcast today is Fiona Buckland. Fiona is a leadership coach and facilitator, passionate about helping people develop deeper, wiser leadership of themselves, so they can be the leaders our world needs. A Fulbright scholar with a Ph.D. from New York University, her clients include The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, Alexander McQueen, […]

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Shakira Akabusi is a pre and postnatal fitness expert and the daughter of an Olympic medalist. A motivational speaker, writer, and mother of two, she’s also a founder of a movement called StrongLikeMum. Which empowers pre and postnatal women through sports, fitness, and health. We chat about: The pressure on Mums and why she founded ‘Strong […]

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Shakira Akabusi is a pre and postnatal fitness expert and the daughter of an Olympic medalist.

A motivational speaker, writer, and mother of two, she’s also a founder of a movement called StrongLikeMum. Which empowers pre and postnatal women through sports, fitness, and health.

We chat about:

• The pressure on Mums and why she founded ‘Strong Like Mum’.
• Shakira shares her experience of OCD and anxiety and what helped her the most.
• Her experience of having hypnotherapy with me.
• Staying fit as a busy mum of 4.

For the full episode search for ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app in iTunes or on Spotify or come on over to https://calmer-you.com/blog

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://calmer-you.com/free. You’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

To join my free workshop ‘The 3 simple strategies to expand your private practice into an online business’ RSVP at www.calmer-you.com/bworkshop

Thanks so much for listening!

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Emma Forbes has had a long-standing career as a TV and Radio Presenter for BBC shows such as ‘Live & Kicking’ and years on air with the BBC. In October 2020, Emma started the Life and Soul Podcast. Born out of Emma’s appreciation for all things well-being and combined with years of broadcasting, the Life […]

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Emma Forbes has had a long-standing career as a TV and Radio Presenter for BBC shows such as ‘Live & Kicking’ and years on air with the BBC. In October 2020, Emma started the Life and Soul Podcast. Born out of Emma’s appreciation for all things well-being and combined with years of broadcasting, the Life & Soul Podcast is all about what really makes people tick.

We chat about: * How lockdown life has been and how it’s changed her outlook * Her anxiety story and what helped * How she got the confidence to interview big stars * Why she started the Life and Soul podcast

https://open.acast.com/public/streams/5ffbf534a502c646644d47c5/episodes/6038b105d119da37757e8f73.mp3

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

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Callie Thorpe is a speaker, writer, occasional model and host of the podcast The Confidence Corner. We discuss: How to go on a journey of self-love and acceptance The top things she’s learned from doing her podcast ‘The Confidence Corner?’ Dealing with internet bullies Callie’s advice to her younger self https://open.acast.com/public/streams/5ffbf534a502c646644d47c5/episodes/6035e4b51a175f7bfce4f5c0.mp3 Don’t forget to grab […]

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Callie Thorpe is a speaker, writer, occasional model and host of the podcast The Confidence Corner.

We discuss: * How to go on a journey of self-love and acceptance * The top things she’s learned from doing her podcast ‘The Confidence Corner?’ * Dealing with internet bullies * Callie’s advice to her younger self

https://open.acast.com/public/streams/5ffbf534a502c646644d47c5/episodes/6035e4b51a175f7bfce4f5c0.mp3 Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://www.calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app in iTunes or on Spotify to get the latest episodes straight to your phone or come on over to https://calmer-you.com/blog to watch the video of us chatting.

Thanks so much for listening!

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Laura Wilkes is a Cycle Coach, Yin Yoga Teacher and Female Empowerment Educator. Combining her love of yoga, body awareness, female biochemistry and women’s health and wellness, she shares in an authentic and accessible way to bring the wisdom and power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness – the awareness of what happens inside of the female body from bleed to bleed – into more women’s lives.

We discuss: * PMS and how it impacts anxiety and confidence * Why self-love is so important when it comes to our cycle * The magic of cycle tracking * How the pill impacts our cycle

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at www.calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app or in iTunes to get the latest episodes and please leave me a review 🙂

https://player.acast.com/5ffbf534a502c646644d47c5/episodes/ep-140-periods-with-laura-wilkes

Thanks so much for listening!

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Laura Wilkes is a Cycle Coach, Yin Yoga Teacher and Female Empowerment Educator. Combining her love of yoga, body awareness, female biochemistry and women’s health and wellness, she shares in an authentic and accessible way to bring the wisdom and power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness – the awareness of what happens inside of the female […]

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Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at www.calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

Colette Heneghan is a nutritionist and coach and author of How to have Energy.

We discuss: * How to navigate the minefield of nutrition – just what is healthy, anyway? * How to find the time to make healthy food when you’re on a schedule * Why when and how you eat matters too (and why even the Tokyo stock exchange take lunch) * Snacking for energy * The definitive answer on coffee and energy

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app or in iTunes to get the latest episodes and please leave me a review 🙂

Thanks so much for listening!

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Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at www.calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts. Colette Heneghan is a nutritionist and coach and author of How to have Energy. We discuss: How to navigate the minefield of nutrition – just what is healthy, anyway? […]

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On this week’s episode of the Calmer You podcast I’m speaking with Michaela Thomas about how to create lasting connection. Michaela Thomas is a Clinical Psychologist, Couples Therapist and founder of The Thomas Connection. She’s the author of the new book The Lasting Connection. Michaela helps high-striving busy people find balance over burnout, so they can […]

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On this week’s episode of the Calmer You podcast I’m speaking with Michaela Thomas about how to create lasting connection.

Michaela Thomas is a Clinical Psychologist, Couples Therapist and founder of The Thomas Connection. She’s the author of the new book The Lasting Connection. Michaela helps high-striving busy people find balance over burnout, so they can live, love and work in a more meaningful way.

She is on a mission to show couples how to stay compassionate and connected even when feeling under pressure, using her online courses, workshops and therapy.

We discuss: * The secret to making a relationship last * Why you don’t need to have a perfect relationship * The secret to making a relationship last * Why you don’t need to have a perfect relationship * Figuring out your attachment style and how to find security in a relationship even if you’re anxious * The vitally important component that’s missing from our relationships – and our relationship with ourselves.

You can find out more about Michaela at her website The Thomas Connection Website and get inspiration from her posts over at Instagram

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app in iTunes or on Spotify to get the latest episodes straight to your phone or come on over to https://calmer-you.com/blog to watch the video of us chatting.

Freebies Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://www.calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

Thanks so much for listening!

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John Tierney and Roy Baumeister join me for this week’s illuminating episode of the Calmer You Podcast.

They are out to revolutionise our understanding of the most coveted human virtue: self-control. They are so generous with the content they share. I hope you love this podcast

John Tierney is the author of Willpower and writes the ‘Findings’ science column for the New York Times. His writing has won awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Institute of Physics.

Roy F. Baumeister is the author of Willpower and a social psychologist who explores how we think about the self, and why we feel and act the way we do. He is especially known for his work on the subjects of willpower, self-control, and self-esteem, and how they relate to human morality and success.

We discuss: * What the power of bad is and how it could be ruling your life * The ‘rule of 4’ and how it’s essential to maintain healthy relationships * Why good enough really is enough * A vital practise for being a more positive person

I’d love to hear what you think – come and find me on Instagram www.instagram.com/chloebrotheridge

New course now available My 12-week course for anxiety, ‘Your Calmest Self’, is open for enrolment now https://calmer-you.com/programme.

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John Tierney and Roy Baumeister join me for this week’s illuminating episode of the Calmer You Podcast. They are out to revolutionise our understanding of the most coveted human virtue: self-control. They are so generous with the content they share. I hope you love this podcast John Tierney is the author of Willpower and writes the ‘Findings’ science […]

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In this episode of the Calmer You podcast I speak with Sarah Wilson, author and activist, about her new book ‘This one wild and precious life‘. This inspiring chat is a hopeful path forward in a fractured world. We discuss: The thing that finally turned Sarah’s anxiety around How Sarah processes her feelings of grief, […]

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In this episode of the Calmer You podcast I speak with Sarah Wilson, author and activist, about her new book ‘This one wild and precious life‘. This inspiring chat is a hopeful path forward in a fractured world.

We discuss: * The thing that finally turned Sarah’s anxiety around * How Sarah processes her feelings of grief, anxiety and anger * ‘Soul nerding’ and how it could be the answer to many of our problems

I hope you enjoy it.

Courses I hope you’ll check out my membership www.calmer-you.com/collective or anxiety course www.calmer-you.com/programme

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Bob Roth is a meditation teacher to the stars and the CEO of the David Lynch Foundation.

We discuss: * The 3 types of meditation and how they impact the brain (this FASCINATED me) * How meditation can help with performance, anxiety and even PTSD * Advice for people who say they can’t meditate or don’t have time (that’s most of us, right?)

Freebies Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts. Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app in iTunes or on Spotify to get the latest episodes straight to your phone.

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Bob Roth is a meditation teacher to the stars and the CEO of the David Lynch Foundation. We discuss: The 3 types of meditation and how they impact the brain (this FASCINATED me) How meditation can help with performance, anxiety and even PTSD Advice for people who say they can’t meditate or don’t have time […]

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Today is a solo episode where I’m sharing 5 ways to handle overwhelm.  I’ll share signs of signs overwhelm, what can happen and how to handle it. Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at www.calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts. Please subscribe to ‘The […]

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Today is a solo episode where I’m sharing 5 ways to handle overwhelm. 

I’ll share signs of signs overwhelm, what can happen and how to handle it.

Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at www.calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app or in iTunes to get the latest episodes and please leave me a review 🙂

Thanks so much for listening!

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On this week’s podcast the extraordinary Amisha Ghadiali joins me for a conversation about the important topic of intuition. Amisha is an intuitive therapist, yoga & meditation teacher, leadership mentor, and author of the new book, which I absolutely loved, called Intuition. This is something I’ve been trying to cultivate more of and if you […]

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On this week’s podcast the extraordinary Amisha Ghadiali joins me for a conversation about the important topic of intuition.

Amisha is an intuitive therapist, yoga & meditation teacher, leadership mentor, and author of the new book, which I absolutely loved, called Intuition.

This is something I’ve been trying to cultivate more of and if you are interested in this as well then this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

We discuss: * What is intuition? * How can we tell the difference between intuition and fear? * Simple ways we can tune into our intuition more * How to stop the inner critic from getting in the way

Freebies Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts. Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app in iTunes or on Spotify to get the latest episodes straight to your phone.

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This was an impromptu episode answering the many questions I received about the topic of making my big move to Bali. This isn’t about a holiday but what I’ve been learning that could possibly be beneficial in your life as well. In this solo episode I share: How to overcome your fears of what people […]

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This was an impromptu episode answering the many questions I received about the topic of making my big move to Bali.

This isn’t about a holiday but what I’ve been learning that could possibly be beneficial in your life as well.

In this solo episode I share: * How to overcome your fears of what people will think of your dreams * The uncomfortable way that I’m growing my confidence right now * How to let an experience change you * Why you must listen to yourself and do what’s right for you

Freebies Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://www.calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app in iTunes or on Spotify to get the latest episodes straight to your phone or come on over to https://calmer-you.com/blog to watch the video of us chatting.

Thanks so much for listening!

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Toral Shah is a Nutritional Scientist (MSc Nutr Med), Functional Medicine Practitioner, Food and Health writer and Consultant. Toral is passionate about breast cancer and cancer charities. She founded The Urban Kitchen, linking her passions: nutrition, science and food.

She is the go to person for the science of food and cancer. You’ll love her approach with science-backed practical tools.

We discuss: * Toral shares her experience of overcoming breast cancer twice * The importance of sleep, for like, everything (how Covid could be messing with your sleep cycle) * The power of food for our health and the science of food and cancer

Connect with Toral * Instagram * Website * Kick Start Cancer Nutrition – free e-book * A blog post she wrote about sleep and supplements

Calmer Collective The Calmer Collective is a new membership programme to help you achieve your goals and turn the daily grind into a delight and enjoy the precious moments in between. Expect montly hypnotherapy sessions and workshops, guest teachers and the first month includes a sound healing.

Find out more at Calmer Collective. Doors close on Friday 3 September.

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Toral Shah is a Nutritional Scientist (MSc Nutr Med), Functional Medicine Practitioner, Food and  Health writer and Consultant. Toral is passionate about breast cancer and cancer charities.  She founded The Urban Kitchen, linking her passions: nutrition, science and food. She is the go to person for the science of food and cancer. You’ll love her approach with […]

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This week’s guest is Tally Rye, personal trainer and author of Train Happy. Her goal is to help you ditch diet culture and re-discover a positive relationship with fitness, food and your body. We dig into: What is intuitive movement? How can we motivate ourselves to exercise (esp if our mood is low?) Diet culture […]

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This week’s guest is Tally Rye, personal trainer and author of Train Happy. Her goal is to help you ditch diet culture and re-discover a positive relationship with fitness, food and your body.

We dig into: * What is intuitive movement? * How can we motivate ourselves to exercise (esp if our mood is low?) * Diet culture and how it’s changing * Plus Tally shares why you don’t need to hit rock bottom before getting therapy.

Find out more about Tally * Website * Instagram * Book: Train Happy

Check out the Calmer You Collective at www.calmer-you.com/collective

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In this episode of The Calmer You Podcast I speak to Lily Cole, model, actress and entrepreneur and author of the new book ‘Who Cares Wins’.

We discuss: * Why we don’t need to be perfect when it comes to the planet * How to tackle climate guilt * Reasons to be optimistic about the future * Eco-anxiety and how Lily handles it herself * Who Cares Wins

Free tool kit Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at www.calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

Subscribe to the podcast Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app or in Apple Podcasts to get the latest episodes and please leave me a review 🙂

Thanks so much for listening!

Find out more about Lily * Website * Book Who Cares Wins * Instagram * Podcast – Who Cares Wins

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In this episode of The Calmer You Podcast I speak to Lily Cole, model, actress and entrepreneur and author of the new book ‘Who Cares  Wins’.    We discuss: Why we don’t need to be perfect when it comes to the planet  How to tackle climate guilt   Reasons to be optimistic about the future […]

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This week, I speak with Dr Radha Modgil, GP, broadcaster and author. Also a campaigner for wellbeing, you’ll love what she shares about overwhelm. We chat about: How to tackle overwhelm Managing emotional burnout Coping with the winter months Talking to young children about emotions Find out more about Radha You can find out more about […]

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This week, I speak with Dr Radha Modgil, GP, broadcaster and author. Also a campaigner for wellbeing, you’ll love what she shares about overwhelm.

We chat about:

• How to tackle overwhelm
• Managing emotional burnout
• Coping with the winter months
• Talking to young children about emotions

Find out more about Radha You can find out more about her from her website.

Freebies Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://www.calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app in iTunes or on Spotify to get the latest episodes straight to your phone or come on over to https://calmer-you.com/blog to watch the video of us chatting.

Thanks so much for listening!

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Today I speak with TV presenter and author of The Switch Amanda Byram. If you feel challenged by perfectionism, tune in to this episode.

We chat about: * How Amanda made ‘The Switch’ in her own life * How to end the battle with the voice in your head * How her relationship with caffeine and alcohol has changed (and yours can too!) * Perfectionism – Getting off the perfection treadmill

How to find out more about Amanda * Instagram * Website

Freebies Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit at https://www.calmer-you.com/free and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts. There is more over there about managing perfectionism as well.

Come and find me on Instagram www.instagram.com/chloebrotheridge – I’d love to see you there!

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app in iTunes or on Spotify to get the latest episodes straight to your phone or come on over to https://calmer-you.com/blog to watch the video of us chatting.

Thanks so much for listening!

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Today I speak with TV presenter and author of The Switch Amanda Byram. If you feel challenged by perfectionism, tune in to this episode. We chat about: How Amanda made ‘The Switch’ in her own life How to end the battle with the voice in your head How her relationship with caffeine and alcohol has changed […]

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Today on the Calmer You podcast, I’m joined by Sjaniel Turrell, holistic beauty expert and conscious make-up artist.  We chat about What makes something a conscious make-up or beauty product? How to deal with our used beauty packaging Can natural beauty products be as good (or better?) as the bigger high tech brands Sjaniel shares […]

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Today on the Calmer You podcast, I’m joined by Sjaniel Turrell, holistic beauty expert and conscious make-up artist.

We chat about * What makes something a conscious make-up or beauty product? * How to deal with our used beauty packaging * Can natural beauty products be as good (or better?) as the bigger high tech brands * Sjaniel shares her favourite (inexpensive!) beauty ritual

You can find Sjaniel at: * Instagram * Her website: https://www.sjanielturrell.com/

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Today I’m speaking with Katie Thistleton about her own journey and experience with depression and anxiety She is best known for her role on CBBC and is also radio presenter on Radio 1 Life Hacks.

If you suffer from depression you are not alone. Katie shares candidly about her experience. So many of the extraordinary guests that have appeared on the podcast share their experiences as well.

Katie brings out the best in people and I hope you feel this after listening to the podcast.

Today we chat about: * What has helped her with anxiety and depression * What was it like to be on TV every day for 6 years * We get into anti-depressants * How to be more confident in front of other people

Hear more from Katie * Instagram * Check out her book Dear Katie: Real Problems. Real Advice * Radio 1 Life Hacks podcast

Calmer You Collective launching I have something really exciting coming up. A monthly membership, the Calmer You Collective, launching to help you be your most happiest, calmest and confident self. And, you can always access free resources at https://calmer-you.com/.

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Today I’m speaking with Katie Thistleton about her own journey and experience with depression and anxiety She is best known for her role on CBBC and is also radio presenter on Radio 1 Life Hacks. If you suffer from depression you are not alone. Katie shares candidly about her experience. So many of the extraordinary […]

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Today on the Calmer You podcast, I am joined by self-care expert Francesca Blechner. She is the author of the new book Self-care for Life in the City. She is also a holistic health coach and transformational breath practitioner. What a wealth of knowledge she has about self-care, and I just loved speaking with her. I hope she leaves you feeling as calm as I felt after the episode.

We chat about: * how to stay calm in our busy fast-paced lives * getting clear with what is important to us * her favorite self-care practices * how we can define self-care for ourselves

How to connect with Francesca * Website: https://wholisticbodylife.com/ * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/wholisticbodylife/

Freebies Don’t forget you can download loads of freebies for wellness, self-care, anxiety and confidence at my website Calmer-you.com. You can also find out about my app and my one on one sessions.

Subscribe to the podcast Please do subscribe to this podcast in the apple podcast app. If you have enjoyed it or found it helpful, please leave me a review. It makes a massive difference to helping the podcast get discovered by other people.

Get in touch Come on over and find me on Instagram. I’m hanging out there every day where you can find more tips on self-care. My handle is @ChloeBrotheridge. I’m also on Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook offering content to suppport you.

Let me know what you thought of this episode. Please share it with anyone who might need to hear this today. I’m sending you loads of love and I hope you have a brilliant week ahead.

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Today on the Calmer You podcast, I am joined by self-care expert Francesca Blechner. She is the author of the new book Self-care for Life in the City. She is also a holistic health coach and transformational breath practitioner. What a wealth of knowledge she has about self-care, and I just loved speaking with her. […]

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This episode of the Calmer You podcast about Autumn Anxiety is a re-release from Autumn 2018. It had such a good response from the community, I thought it would be just as relevant and helpful for Autumn 2020. Top tips for Autumn Anxiety I’m talking about my top tips for managing autumn anxiety and feeling […]

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This episode of the Calmer You podcast about Autumn Anxiety is a re-release from Autumn 2018. It had such a good response from the community, I thought it would be just as relevant and helpful for Autumn 2020.

Top tips for Autumn Anxiety I’m talking about my top tips for managing autumn anxiety and feeling good this autumn. If you feel unsettled or anxious during this time of year, there are reasons you might experience this and you are not alone!

What are your tips? If you have any tips for getting through this change of season come over to Instagram and share them with me. I’m here most days sharing inspiring tips and advice.

Freebies

And don’t forget to grab your FREE guided relaxation MP3 at www.calmer-you.com/free. You’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast‘ in the podcast app or in iTunes to get the latest episodes. And, please leave me a review 🙂

Thanks so much for listening!

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This podcast is all about helping you become your calmest most confident self and this episode with a monk is one that I think you’ll find quite intriguing.

Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche, monk and author of the book From a Mountain in Tibet joins me on The Calmer You podcast today. Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche is a lama in the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism and abbot of the Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery and Tibetan Centre in Scotland, the first and largest of its kind in the West.

Wow! He has lived an incredible life, which he shares during this podcast and in his book.

Think of this episode as a calming healing transmission from an important figure and monk in Buddhism.

We chat about: * How he escaped from Tibet * How we can let go of our problems * Tips on meditating * Why we rely too much on plans * This episode contains unintentional ASMR (Google it:)

I really hope you like this episode.

Listen here: To find out more about the monk and Lama * Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery and Tibetan Centre in Scotland – LINK * More about Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche – LINK * To find his book From a mountain in Tibet – LINK

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This podcast is all about helping you become your calmest most confident self and this episode with a monk is one that I think you’ll find quite intriguing. Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche, monk and author of the book From a Mountain in Tibet joins me on The Calmer You podcast today. Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche […]

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Welcome to the Calmer You podcast This week on the Calmer You podcast, Bernadette Russell joins me for a welcome, insightful and hopeful episode.

Bernadette is an expert on hope and kindness, as well as a writer, performer and activist who plants a lot of trees – and helps others do the same. She is author of The Little Book of Kindness and The Little Book of Wonder, both published by Orion and in multiple foreign editions around the world.

More about Bernadette Since 2012, she has toured the US and UK speaking about the importance and life-changing experience of practicing kindness, including for BBC Radio 4 Saturday Live, Action for Happiness, Birmingham School of Philosophy, People United’s Kindness Symposium, The Roundhouse, Tate Britain, Turner Contemporary, Sunday Assembly and the Southbank Centre, where she was nominated as one of sixty-seven change-makers for her project 366 Days of Kindness. Since 2018 she has worked with the Royal Albert Hall, producing performances with kindness and creativity at their heart.

We discuss: * Acts of kindness and how it transformed Bernadette’s life * How to be hopeful in today’s world * The importance of our support network * Positivity bias and how we can cultivate it

Chloe Brotheridge: Hello and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach and hypnotherapist and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution and Brave New Girl. And this podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest, happiest and most confident self.

Welcome to today’s episode Thank you so much for listening today. My guest is Bernadette Russell, who is an expert on being hopeful and kindness as well as a writer, performer and activist who plants a lot of trees and helps others do the same.

She is the author of The Little Book of kindness and the Little Book of Wonder, and her latest book, How to be Hopeful is out on the 10th of September 2020.

She gave me hope This episode honestly couldn’t have come at a better time for me. On the day of recording this episode with her I had had a bit of a strange day and honestly was feeling a bit hopeless. Speaking to her was like a balm for the soul.

Acts of kindness I really hope you’re gonna enjoy this episode we talked about her experience of doing acts of kindness. Now she’s been on a real journey with this. She did a whole year of daily acts of kindness, and she shares about the impact that has had on her life and the sorts of things that she did. It is super inspiring and hopeful.

How to be hopeful We talk about how to be hopeful in today’s world where I mean, no one’s going to blame you if you’re feeling hopeless, or despairing or worried or anxious considering everything that’s going on in the world in 2020.

Cultivating positivity bias We talked about the importance of our support network, and we get into the idea of positivity bias. Now, you might have heard of a negativity bias, which is what we all have as human beings kind of wired into us. We notice negative things because when we were evolving, it would have helped to keep us safe. We’re going to talk about a positivity bias and how we can cultivate that instead.

So I hope you love this episode. As always, if you want to come over to my website, www.calmer-you.com, you’ll find the video of Bernadette and I talking, and you’ll also find the transcript. So, if you will, and if your loved ones prefer to read instead of listening to a podcast and you can head over to Calmer You and check that out.

Go to the website for freebies And I’ve got loads of freebies, on my websites resources for anxiety and confidence. So if you want to head on over to, again, www.calmer-you.com, you’re going to find ways to enter your email address and get those freebies so that I can support you in different ways.

I hope you enjoy this episode with Bernadette Russell. Can you just tell the listeners a bit about who you are, what you do and how you, you know got to where you are today?

Meet Bernadette Bernadette: Yeah, so my name is Bernadette Russell. I started as a theatre maker. That sort of performer and maker theatre. Then back in 2011, which feels like the olden days now, because so much has happened since then, I was it at the Edinburgh Festival and during that time I don’t know if anyone remembers but the riots started in England. I think the impact it had on me as I’d already been thinking about it in quite a gloomy way about all the troubles of the world.

One small thing to make a difference There’s oil shortages and exploitation and famine and war, constant war and all the rest of it. I wasn’t thinking about it all the time. But it was a background anxiety and then the riots were very upsetting and it directly affected a lot of my friends and the response to the riots. I came back to London feeling a bit down. I needed to become more hopeful.

And then I went into the post office and there was a boy in front of me of the queue. And he was trying to send in his driving license application, but he thought it was fre post. Anyway, I gave him 50 p for a stamp. And he was immensely grateful, like disproportionately grateful. I was kind of a bit taken aback. And on the bus on the way home, I thought that was kind of a definite thing that made a difference, a little bit of a difference.

50p well spent Then I got home and I said to my partner. And I said, I’m gonna do that every day, for a stranger, every day for a year and see what happens in this really reckless way. There was no planning, and I didn’t sort of do it on January the first like a sensible person. It was August the 11th. And I did it and it changed absolutely everything for me. It changed my life and has coloured everything I’ve done.

It changed my direction. So I started writing a lot more. I still make theatre, but it tends to be about kindness and compassion and connectivity and being hopeful. So yeah, that was their 50 p well spent.

Chloe Brotheridge: I love that story. You know, this conversation for me personally has come up just at the right time. Only yesterday, I managed to get embroiled in a kind of Twitter spat. Whereby someone was posting stuff about refugees, and I sort of weighed in with my other perspective, and then they kind of sent a load of their friends to kind of comment on things I’d written basically. It left me asking Why did I get into that?

Is it still possible to feel hopeful? So talking about hope, I think is so important for me today and obviously, everything that’s going on in the world. There’s so many reasons why we could feel hopeless, whether it’s racism, climate, economy, pandemic, do you think it is still possible to feel hopeful in these times?

Bernadette: Yes, yes, I do. I’m sorry that happened to you. It’s horrible and unnecessary. I’m going to be bold and say the reason for all of this sort of anger and hate and sort of rage is always about fear.

When fear no longer serves us Obviously fear is useful sometimes because if you didn’t have any fear, you’d just leap over buildings and you’d probably end up with a few broken legs. Fear is useful sometimes. But the amount of fear messages we receive, you know, refugees are coming in on boats, by the way to refer to your story and you know, they’re bringing COVID with them. I’ve seen these stories. They are told to stoke fear and are overwhelming. Not very hopeful.

So in a way, it’s completely understandable that people respond in a fearful way, which includes despair and sort of hopelessness. But it’s not the only story. So for me, it’s all about storytelling, and it’s just not true. And so it feels like our responsibility to seek out a source for joy and to seek out the other stories and the other people.

There are plenty of good stories And for some reason, I think a lot not all but a lot of the mainstream media is caught into this kind of negative story. As if that’s intellectually superior to tell the bad side of things. And I would argue that it’s not. And also that even though in previous times it might have served us well, it no longer serves us because it’s feeding people with so much fear and anxiety. It’s resulting in people not doing anything, not making changes, not trying, being scared, looking down, attacking each other. So it no longer serves us.

There is much to be hopeful about And I feel like there’s a lot of hope in the fact actually what we can do and you do it and your work as well please say, okay, there are all these troubles. But there is also this organisation in Uganda who are helping the local community plant a forest and start their own farm. And there is also this amazing school in Barnsley who were taking out care packages to old people who are nearby. There were also these amazing refugees who’ve contributed brilliantly to the village in Wales where they arrived. That community is getting on amazingly and supporting each other.

It’s about positive stories and just moving away from that foamy, frothy negative space.

Chloe Brotheridge: I’m not sure how I feel about Twitter. I feel like it’s become quite toxic anyway. I need to be searching out those better stories clearly.

Amplify the voices that need to be heard Bernadette: I think Twitter can be good too. I’m quite ruthless because I think that we’ve got this incredible democratic tool. It’s still a democratic space, I think social media, which we can use to platform stories, amplify voices that need amplifying and support we can do that still.

Don’t follow the negativity We still have the power to do it. So I would just say you’re going to hear the bad news anyway. Guaranteed. So get rid of them. Don’t follow those accounts that feed that stuff. Feed, recognise what you need, and if what you need are true, you know, not, not kind of fluffy kitten story. So those are lovely as well, but In search of solutions-driven stories. Stories about joy and being hopeful that will feed you because it helps your mental health. But it does also help to heal the world and then share them as well.

Fill your feeds with positivty All my social media feeds are positive and interesting because I’ve been quite ruthless about that. I just get rid of it. Watch the news for 10 minutes in the morning. So I know the latest horrors happening, but then try and engage with people and organisations who were looking for the answers. And there are so many, I promise you. In fact, after this, I’ll send you some.

Avoid checking the headlines all day Chloe Brotheridge: That’d be great. So making sure that you’re following things that are sharing more positive stories and perhaps limiting the news consumption to a few minutes a day so that you know what’s happening but not necessarily checking in several times an hour on the latest headlines. Probably not gonna lead you to feel very good.

Bernadette: Yeah, I think so. And some people dismiss that as a sort of, you know, not a very serious way of engaging with the news. But actually that’s all you need to know. Then the rest of it is about making you feel better, helping you to show how you can live a better life and how you can engage positively towards positive change.

Does hope come naturally Chloe Brotheridge: Are you a naturally positive person? Does hope come easily and naturally to you? Was it something you’ve had to work on?

Bernadette: That’s such a brilliant question. Thank you for asking that. And I think I’ve taught myself. Since 2011 when I went on that journey doing acts of kindness shifted my gaze towards kindness. I was looking at the same view, but from a different window.

Looking out for kindness So I started to notice people being kind, because I chose to focus on it. I started to look out for hope and lookout for people that were actively trying to make the world a better place. Gradually, that kind of shifts You, you, you start to automatically look out and see those things.

Bright side thinking That’s not to say some days I feel floored by the bad news or I’ve had a piece of personal bad news that makes me sad, but that’s okay. Because we’re complex and sadness and despair even is part of the human experience. Now I definitely recover better, because I committed to a sort of bright side thinking.

I think it’s possible for anyone to do that. Simply say this is what I need to be happy and to help and focus on it. Yeah, I definitely am more resilient.

Look for reasons to be hopeful Chloe Brotheridge: Right. So making a commitment to looking out and noticing those reasons to be hopeful. And then that actually trains you to see those things more and to notice them more.

Bernadette: Yeah, and to remind yourself, so if you feel yourself slipping down from the weight of the world ask yourself to notice one beautiful thing today. Find one hopeful story, and to think about a kindness that you’ve received or that you’ve witnessed, and they do work to pull you out of it. If you can’t, you’ll always find something. I don’t know that a day goes by that isn’t full of beauty

Gratitude – it really does work Chloe Brotheridge: It reminds me of all the research that’s been done into gratitude practices. And it can almost sound a bit kind of fluffy, just be grateful. But actually, there’s been so much. So many studies have found that it really does work and it really can train your mind to be more positive. So looking out for those beautiful things every day is going to mean that you’re able to notice them and discover more beautiful things to recognise. Yeah.

It’s enough Bernadette: If you’re feeling particularly low on some days, or you’re having a really tough time, gratitude can be hard to reach as well. And that’s okay. And I think on those days, it’s good to think to yourself, okay, well, what did I do today? That was good, and that can be a really small thing, like, I managed to make myself dinner or I managed to make my bed or I managed to get up. It can be really small. Some days, that’s enough, you know, if you’re really flattened, it’s enough that you managed to have your dinner or go out for a walk. Ithink we need to be really gentle with ourselves as well. We’re in challenging times, aren’t we?

The little things count to Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, and just those things that we so often discount, you know, we just take them for granted that we can get up and go for a walk that day or have a shower. Somedays even that is challenging.

Bernadette: On those days, it’s amazing that you’ve managed to do that. You know, it’s astounding and also it gives us hope. Even on a really terrible day, to be able to say I still got up is a strength to be recognized. And it’s recognising that strength. That can give us hope. I’ve still been in the world and I’ve achieved things and demonstrate strengths. So I found that really useful because we’ve had a really difficult few months. Everyone in different ways.

Acts of kindness Chloe Brotheridge: I really wanted to ask you more about the acts of kindness that you did over 366 days. Can you say a bit more about that?

Bernadette: So it’s 366. I do know how long a year is, but it was over a leap year. It started spontaneously. I’m quite shy really. So I was like, gosh, I’ve made myself a right bloomin task here to approach a stranger every day but I’ve really just decided to commit to it. To keep myself interested, I tried to make most days a different thing.

Ideas of kindness At the beginning, I was doing things like buying stranger’s bunches of flowers and leaving chocolates in my neighbor’s house. Sponsoring anyone that I saw on Facebook that was doing a run. It got really expensive. I thought I’m not sure this is sustainable because it’s expensive. Also, if I’m trying to encourage other people to do it, the money way might not be the most helpful way of doing it. So then I started thinking about paying people compliments, just having conversations with strangers on the train or in the shop.

Bernadette: I wrote letters to strangers asking if they’re okay. A lot of people started to contact me on social media and said, I know someone that’s really lonely. Will you send them a card? So I started doing things like that. There were these twins that my friends told me about so on their birthday I sang Happy Birthday. It’s really good fun, Chloe, it was really good fun and it also sometimes really stressful.

Get outside your comfort zone I learned a lot on the way. Then I decided I’m going to, I’m going to try and choose somebody who I might be less inclined to talk to. I remember one time I was on this train and there was a posh man speaking incredibly loud. I noticed I had a bias because he had a loud posh voice putting me off. Like, that’s ridiculous. I don’t know this man. So I went over and talked to him. And he and I had such a brilliant conversation. He was amazing.

It didn’t work once, that’s it There’s only one time in the whole year that it didn’t work out so well, which is pretty good statistically. And that was at Euston station. I think that was just because, to be fair, people are rushing around trying to get to their trains. They probably thought that I was trying to sell them a mobile phone deal or something. And, but it was absolutely delightful.

Chloe Brotheridge: So amazing. I love each one of these examples. It has definitely given me some inspiration to do more of that. And I think especially if you’re somebody that is a bit shy. This could be a really amazing way to challenge yourself in a kind of gentle and positive way. To show yourself that you can go and speak to someone or strike a conversation or move past fears and misconceptions.

Endless ways to be kind Bernadette: Some days I felt like I haven’t got it in me today to go up and talk to someone. On those days I wrote a letter. When writing the book I thought it was really important to show all the examples. So there are sort of introvert access points as well as extrovert about access points in terms of doing things.

Health benefits of kindness It’s hugely beneficial to your mental health because you just get this massive hit of serotonin and oxytocin the good mood hormone. You’re constantly on a high and it really counters cortisol, which is a stress hormone that we can suffer with. So it really does offer immediate payback.

Chloe Brotheridge: Thanks. Right. I love it. Yeah. And I had Dr. David Hamilton on the podcast a couple months ago. He talks about the research that kindness is really good for your heart health, it’s really good for lowering inflammation. There’s loads of these physical effects that it has on us, but go beyond just the kind of nice thing to do. It has a real physical impact on us.

Doing something from the goodness of your heart Bernadette: Yeah, I always say doing something from the goodness of your heart protects your heart. And, I used a lot of his research actually. I realised that there was a whole ecosystem of people working in this area about kindness and self-compassion and being hopeful.

He was one of the people I came across and it was great. It’s just really interesting, beneficial and buoyant. To have to feel that you’re standing on the foundation of researched science. And because the lived experience is valid and really important, as well. But it’s also really nice to feel like, okay, that neuroscientists, of that group of researchers have actually backed up our lived experience with this. So I think that’s really helpful. He’s great, isn’t he?

Chloe Brotheridge: He’s brilliant. In your book, you talk about how children have a positivity bias. And I was really curious if you could explain a bit more about that.

Children can find joy and play wherever they are Bernadette: That started with a very good friend of mine, Marian Dugan. She worked for an organisation called Clowns Without Borders, who work with refugee children in camps in Calais and in Greece. She was the person that got me interested in it because she spoke about how she noticed that these children even in pretty dire circumstances, would find whatever was available to play. And bits of rubbish, and making them into toys and that she observed and shared with me that she was astonished how the children in the camps found joy and play wherever they were. And I found that really moving but also really inspiring.

Rose-tinted glasses of children I was like, so what happens to us? You know, why is it harder for us and I came across this work of Janet Waskowski, who’s an associate professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina. And she researched what she saw as children’s rose-tinted glasses and their positivity. Psychologists aren’t entirely sure yet why children have their positivity bias. But she thought that it was partly due to their positive social experiences that most children are lucky to have early in life.

Curiosity is key There’s also ideas about the need for effects so children are learning and curiosity is important and necessary for them. I was interested in that with regard to the children that Marian saw who you could say, perhaps haven’t had the most positive environment to grow up in. Often they have their families around them and their brothers and sisters, which is great, and that they still have that. So it seems like there’s the beginning of research into why children have this and an investigation into what happens and at what age and why we lose that, although we don’t all lose that.

Regaining our rose-tinted glasses And I think again, we can train ourselves to get that back. And yeah, she said that children as young as three, and up to around 12 have this positivity bias when. After that things change. And so I just started to think about how we could capture some of that as adults, the things that children have and I thought about the importance of playing and the importance of imagination, and the importance of finding joy in things.

Undoubtedly, it’s harder for us when we have the responsibilities that perhaps most children don’t have. But we can borrow some of the stuff from our younger selves to help us be more positive, put up rose-tinted glasses back on.

Bring on our curiosity Chloe Brotheridge: Wouldn’t be nice. I think there really is something about trying to tune in to that childlike curiosity for the world again, and openness and exploring. It makes a massive difference to how happy we are or how calm we are as well. And if we see things with curiosity, rather than making a judgement or making an assumption.

Bernadette: Absolutely 100% agree and also curiosity is very important with regard to fear and with regret. To hope as well, because if you choose to be curious, especially if you’re scared of situation, if you choose to be curious about it, and open. And I’m not saying that that’s easy, but to say what’s happening here, what’s good here? What can be done here or what’s interesting here, you’re much more likely to do to overcome your fear, I think.

Play is for grown-ups too Does that make sense? So I know that I if I try to walk towards things I’m scared of, with curiosity, because children do that, I think. And when you watch children, they do that. I mean, sometimes that’s why we have to protect them. Curiosity is something that we don’t allow ourselves and we don’t allow ourselves to play enough. Play is an expression of curiosity and trying things out, which is why actually I think during COVID the explosive expression of creativity, you know, people being allowed to express themselves creatively and giving themselves permission. For me, I felt a really positive part of that. Curiosity and exploration play is for grownups as well.

Asking for help Chloe Brotheridge: Amazing. I wanted to move on to talking a bit about our support network. It’s something that perhaps has changed in certain ways to lockdown maybe some in some ways for the better, in some ways, the worst. I know one of the topics that you dig into in the book is around asking for help and the importance of support. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Bernadette: Absolutely. And so, obviously, I mean, this applies to everything. Hopefully I think COVID or lockdown provided an opportunity for some people to say, What do I need? What do I need in order to be happy in order to have a good life? So one, it’s useful to define what good life means to you. And that’s fine, whatever that is. But also, it’s to recognise and I think, our interdependence on each other. Our connectivity was in sharp relief in a beautiful way during lockdown.

Connection We actually need each other. We are connected, and that’s a beautiful thing. So I think it’s really important in order to support yourself and in order to remain hopeful to think about what you need. Think about who do you go to when you need someone that’s just gonna make you laugh? You know, that person or friend is great, aren’t they? Who are you going to if you need some really honest advice. Someone that’s not going to mollycoddling. If you need to borrow some money, who you’re going to go to, if you need someone to help you with child care or to walk your dog, or you’re going to go to have a really great night out. Who’s that gonna be?

Make a list I literally wrote it down. Three people are covering a lot of those jobs for you. That’s okay. But I think it’s probably useful to think of a bit of a wider net. It’s okay if you don’t have that yet. Something worth thinking about. I really could do with someone who can perhaps give me some really ruthless advice and looking out for that and sort of inviting that.

Maybe that’s revealed itself a little bit to us over the last few months. Like who that person is, who always makes you laugh. And who that person is who can help you out if you need practical help. It’s courageous to identify what you need and literally keeping a list and then sort of seeking them out. Try to fill in the gaps gently if you need to. I’m a big fan of writing things down. I mean, I hope it doesn’t sound cold, but I just think it’s a really useful way of helping yourself to focus on it.

Ask for help Chloe Brotheridge: Absolutely, yes, writing it down solidifies it. I’m just going to read a quote from the book. “Every single person in the world will need help at some point in their lives and people who care about you would much rather you ask for their help and suffer alone.”

Bernadette: I believe that to be true. It takes courage to ask for help. And it especially takes courage to ask for help when you feel low, because you’re vulnerable. So it’s useful if preceding that you’ve done yourself the favour of saying, actually, this is the person to go for this particular kind of help.

It’s about love For example, if my friend Kate was in terrible trouble, would I rather she asked for help? Yes, I would! You just have to trust that if the person can’t help you in the way that you’re asking at that particular time that they’ll be honest and open about that. You can have a conversation. It’s about conquering fear in a way. And it’s about love. It’s about self-love. And it’s about reaching out with love as well.

People feel valued when asked for help People are eager to help. Look at what we saw during lockdown. The very fact that the appeal for NHS volunteers was oversubscribed by seven times. That’s demonstration that people are eager to help. They’re passionate about helping actually. You could say it’s an act of kindness because it’s offering somebody a purpose and a job. It is a gift actually to say can you help me it’s also recognising someone’s expertise or their worth.

We all need each other The fact that you respect them and like them, love them. So yeah, ask for help. And we’ll all need it. Everybody will need it. There’s no person that’s ever existed that hasn’t needed help. In fact, really, when you think about that, we need it every day. When we have our dinner, somebody has grown it, packed it, put it on a truck, got it to the shop, sorted it in the shelves, you know, that you could see that as help. Initially, I found asking for help really difficult. I don’t know. I’ve stopped trying to be Hercules.

We are all being helped all the time Chloe Brotheridge: I love that image of recognising how we are being helped all the time and helping other people in what we do every day without even really realising it. And that reminder of how connected we are and how much we need each other.

Bernadette: We really do. It’s great actually, because it takes the weight off you sort of circling back to this whole thing about trying to make positive change in the world. I think certainly when I began my journey. It’s the superhero complex. If you feel like I’ve got to fix everything, I’ve got to do everything. I can’t ask for help. And I have to change the world on my own.

An ecosystem of humanity That’s ridiculous and also overwhelming when you realise that you are part of an ecosystem. We’re just part of an ecosystem of humanity. Connecting and each doing our job. It’s a real relief. Because you’re not carrying such a heavy burden. You’re just carrying a little bit. That’s hopeful.

Chloe Brotheridge: My granny has a saying, I don’t know if it’s her saying. She says, Don’t deny people the joy of helping.

Bernadette: I love that. Absolutely.

Bernadette: Bravo to your granny. I think that sums it up, doesn’t it?

Activism Chloe Brotheridge: You mentioned that about trying to be a superhero. I know activism is important to you. I’ve noticed before a couple of years ago, people didn’t add activisism in their Instagram profile. But now so many more people are kind of stepping into this role and speaking up about things that are important to them. I imagine people want to help more and want to step up in a bigger way. Can you talk about your experience of that and how you how you handle that?

Bernadette: Yes, definitely. I would like to mention a dear friend of mine, Sarah Corbett, who runs an organisation called the Craftivist Collective, who’s been a massively beneficial positive influence on me. And also talks about this really brilliantly. So I’d still recommend connecting with her. We’ve had lots of conversations about it. I’m more hopeful.

Activism doesn’t have to feel cynical I’m really excited by the fact that people are identifying as activists because actually, you can be cynical about that. But as people say, I want to be in the space, I want to be part of positive change. I think it’s really super important to not try and imagine that you will single-handedly, like Superman, you know, travel three times around the world at lightning speed and stop the comet. You won’t. And also it’s super important in my experience to find an engagement, a way of engaging with positive change, doing something you will enjoy.

You need to find the joy in it because then you’re much more able to keep it up. Why shouldn’t you enjoy it? It can be joyful. Find out the people that share your joy. So that’s another nice little tribe and another connection. You don’t have to be at it all the time, you need to let it go sometimes. I can’t go and plant a forest today because I’m really tired. I think finding pleasure in change is really important. Let’s be honest about it, there’s lots to be done.

Skill-set + what you love We’re playing whack a mole at the moment putting out fires all over the place. There’s lots of troubles, in a way there always has been. So it’s saying, actually, with my skillset and the things that I love, where could I best be part of this ecosystem of change? For example, for me, I’ve got various different entry points, but I’ve been doing a lot of tree planting recently, which I love because I think it’s kind of creates community cohesion as well as you kind of plant a pop-up forest in a couple of hours, which is extraordinary.

What do you enjoy? Other people engage in different ways, but I think it’s really hard. To say, I really like this because I love meeting loads of different Londoners. And I really like being outside planting trees. So it’s been easier for me to sustain that because there’s lots of joy and pleasure. And I’ve connected with other people. Be honest with yourself about where you fit, and what skills you could bring to the table.

You should feel good about doing it. It’s okay to feel good and to feel joy and pleasure. It’s not just okay, it’s essential, because then you’re more likely to be able to keep it up. Whereas if you do something that’s makes you sad, or isn’t a good fit for you. I think you’re much likely to give it up and be less hopeful.

Chloe Brotheridge: That makes so much sense. Thank you for sharing. It’s going to be different for everyone, isn’t it and it’s about finding what you enjoy.

What am I good at? Bernadette: I have a friend of mine who’s a retired teacher, really lovely. She was like, I really want to do something but it’s so overwhelming. She was a teacher for 40 years. So she then joined a refugee organisation, and sort of helping refugee children with improving their English. Of course, they absolutely adore her. She’s hilarious. She’s a really good teacher. It’s a beautiful win win situation. So I think that’s a good lesson as well. It’s like, what am I good at? What do I love? Where can I go to contribute?

Chloe Brotheridge:
I really wanted to ask you this before we finish the podcast. What is your favourite practical tool for being more hopeful?

Practical tools for being more hopeful Bernadette: I’ve got two things that I do. One long term and one’s a daily practice. I have a little hope collection. Which I literally keep in a box, like a sort of positive Pandora’s box if you like. I put all sorts of things in ti. Sometimes it’s pictures or little scraps of paper.

All the things that make me hopeful. That might be people, it might be a little column from a magazine, it might be a photograph of something that’s made me feel hopeful. When I feel everything’s so hard, I just have a little peek in my positive Pandora’s box. I’d really recommend keeping a hope collection. Because things can slip from our minds, you can forget, especially if you go into a sort of sad place. Having a collection of really good things. You might decide to make a collage or keep a journal, but I think a hope collection is really good.

Look for hopeful stories Secondly, as a daily practice, every single day, I look for a hopeful story. And interestingly, some days that’s harder than others. But it is never impossible. There will be something astonishing that’s just absolutely boggling amazing.

A big tip in terms of looking out for positive stories as a daily practice. If something’s been troubling you, for example you hate so much plastic waste. If you look there is always a positive and hopeful story about a solution.

A hopeful world The world is fueled by hope and it’s run on love. And that’s the truth. If you let yourself see that, you see it everywhere, and every moment. Then you can stop having those uncomfortable exchanges with people having arguments with danger on Twitter and live in the beauty of the world and a hope of the world.

Chloe Brotheridge: I feel so much better just talking to you. I’m going to go after this and do some positive news research. Spend a bit of time doing that.

Bernadette: At the end of the book, there’s a list

Where you can find Bernadette Chloe Brotheridge: Thank you so much for everything you’ve said. It’s been wonderful and uplifting. Where can people find out more about you? Where can they buy your book and that sort of thing.

Bernadette: My book How to be Hopeful is out on the 10th of September. We can pre order it now from all the usual suspects, and it’s published by anyting Thompson. My website is bernadetterussell.com I’m on Twitter, @betterrussell. Instagram, Bernadette Russell, Facebook, Bernadette Russell.

Get in touch with Bernadette I really like to hear from people. So if anyone wants to challenge me on any of that, or discuss any of that, or just say, help me, that’s absolutely fine. So be really nice here. Probably my website’s easiest because it’s got all the other things.

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, and the book is called How to be Hopeful.

Bernadette: The books called How to be Hopeful and it is out on the 10th of September. There is also a podcast with the same name.

Chloe Brotheridge: So good to speak to you. You have been listening to the Calmer You podcast with me Chloe Brotheridge. Don’t forget you can download loads of freebies for anxiety and competence at my website calmer-you.com. You can find out more about me and my one on one sessions.

Where you can find me Please do subscribe to this podcast in the Apple Podcast App. And if you have enjoyed it or found it helpful, please leave me a review. It makes a massive difference to helping the podcast get discovered by other people and come on over and find me on Instagram. I’m hanging out there every day you can find me at Chloe Brotheridge let me know what you thought of this episode. And please share it with anyone who might need to hear this today. So I’m sending you lots of love and I hope you have a brilliant week ahead

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Welcome to the Calmer You podcast This week on the Calmer You podcast, Bernadette Russell joins me for a welcome, insightful and hopeful episode. Bernadette is an expert on hope and kindness, as well as a writer, performer and activist who plants a lot of trees – and helps others do the same. She is […]

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In this episode I’m talking about:

-The thing that makes me saddest about our lack of confidence

-Why everyone benefits when you’re your most confident self

-How to know that you’re enough

-Shift your mindset to beat fear of failure and give things a try

To find out more about my group coaching programme Brave New You visit https://calmer-you.com/confidence-course

The post Ep 120. Knowing you are enough appeared first on Calmer you.

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In this episode I’m talking about: -The thing that makes me saddest about our lack of confidence -Why everyone benefits when you’re your most confident self -How to know that you’re enough -Shift your mindset to beat fear of failure and give things a try To find out more about my group coaching programme Brave […]

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Feel more confident in meetings In this video, I’m going to be sharing my top strategies for feeling more confident on zoom, or in any kind of meeting where you just want to feel better about yourself and your abilities. You can download the FREE confidence affirmations here The nervous af to feeling confident in […]

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Feel more confident in meetings In this video, I’m going to be sharing my top strategies for feeling more confident on zoom, or in any kind of meeting where you just want to feel better about yourself and your abilities.

You can download the FREE confidence affirmations here

The nervous af to feeling confident in meetings I don’t know if you’re anything like me, but in the past, I would get extremely nervous. In meetings, when there was that moment where you’re going around the room, everyone is taking it in turns to introduce themselves and say a bit about themselves. And I would just sit there, my heart felt like it was going to explode out of my chest, I would be nervously wringing my hands under the table and just worried that when the time came for me to actually speak, I wasn’t sure you know what was going to come out if anything at all. So I have 100% been there and these days, thankfully, I’m way more confident. I jump on Zoom and talk to hundreds of people at a time. I’ve got a podcast that’s listened to by thousands of people every single week, and I’m way more trusting of myself and my abilities and confidence in so many situations.

Confidence on Zoom Some people find that in person meetings are more nerve wracking – but Zoom can be just as anxiety-inducing. Especially when you can see a load of faces staring back at you – including your own! All of these techniques work whether you want to feel more confident in meetings that are face to face of whether it’s your confidence on Zoom that needs a boost.

Oh hey! So if we don’t know each other, I’m Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a hypnotherapist and a coach. I’ve written two best-selling books, and I’m the host of The Calmer You podcast. So the first strategy I’m going to suggest for you is to change your attitude and start to reframe the feelings of nervousness that you might be feeling about speaking up or sharing an idea as excitement because nerves and excitement are very similar emotions. It’s the butterflies in the stomach. It’s that extra adrenaline, that extra energy.

Get excited There was quite a famous study at Harvard Business School where they got two groups of people and they told them basically you have to go on stage and sing, ‘Don’t Stop Believin’‘ by Journey, (massive tune!) and understandably these students were kind of nervous about having to get up on stage and sing in front of their peers. In one group they told them to tell themselves I’m excited. And the other group, they asked them to try to calm themselves down. And guess what? The group that were telling themselves ‘I’m excited’, felt better, felt more confident, felt better about their performances and the people that tried to calm themselves down. So instead of trying to calm yourself down in a meeting, tell yourself I’m excited. In what ways is it exciting to share your ideas, to connect with people to have your voice be heard, telling yourself that can really start to shift this in your mind into something much more positive or constructive rather than something frightening. Reframe anxiety as excitement to feel more confident in meetings, on Zoom, or in presentations.

How are you speaking to yourself? To Feel more confident in meetings we need to change the way we speak to ourselves. Number two is all about the way that you speak to yourself. Now we all have a voice in our heads. And very often that voice is not very kind, or very constructive. We’re beating ourselves up, we’re going to the worst case scenario. So, if you’ve been doing that your whole life, it probably hasn’t been working for you. And so maybe it’s time to try something different. And so I’m really going to suggest that to you to start to change your self talk, start telling yourself more positive things.

My favourite affirmation One of my favourite things to feel more confident in meetings is to say affirmations beforehand. My fave affirmation is ‘I am confident person’. ‘I am a confident person’ – saying that to yourself over and over again, have a little note on the mirror that says this so that you can remind yourself of this. And there have been so many reports about affirmations and how it can really help us to change our inner dialogue and our self talk. And I actually have a free mp3 download that you can grab. It’s an affirmations mp3 to really change your self talk, you can grab that here. Thirdly, imagine what could go right. Now if you’re anything like I have been in the past, your mind can go to the worst case scenario you’ll be imagining this meeting imagining going bright red or losing your train of thought or not being able to express yourself in the way that you want.

Imagine what could go right Instead of that, what we really want to be doing is imagining what could go right, imagining how we want to be different, how we want to feel in that meeting. So imagining yourself, standing tall or sitting tall, looking directly into the camera, speaking slowly and clearly breathing deeply, and feeling this confident energy. And if you get into the habit of imagining this positive version of yourself, you’re going to send that message to your subconscious mind and it’s going to make it so much easier for you to feel confident in those scenarios.

Feel those feelings And then lastly, I just want to remind you that it’s okay to feel a bit nervous. It’s okay to feel that sense of your heart racing. It’s not a sign that you should keep your ideas to yourself or not speak up. It’s actually a sign that your heart is telling you this is important to you. It’s so normal to feel nervous. Even the most confident speakers will tell you that they can feel nervous before every single speech. These feelings of nervousness show that you’re human, they show that you care. And that’s a beautiful thing.

Don’t fight it So instead of fighting against a racing heart or feelings of nervousness, can you instead, just welcome those feelings and allow them to be there and know that actually, you can still speak up, say what you want to say and get your ideas out there. Even though your heart might be racing. If you fight it ends up strengthening those nervous feelings. If we can embrace it and welcome it, the natural response is that we end up calming down. So which of these strategies are you going to be giving a try? Let me know in the comments below. And if you want to grab that free confidence, affirmations mp3, click here.

Confidence in meetings or Confidence on Zoom is something that can be achieved with a bit of attention and focus on this issue. Confidence is a skill we can develop and it grows through experience, so take any chance you can get to speaking in meetings, because experience is THE best thing to grow confidence. Thank you so much for reading. Sending you lots of love.

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It’s a pleasure to introduce you to Emma Gunavardhana. Emma joins me on the Calmer You podcast. She is an experienced beauty, health and lifestyle writer, presenter and brand consultant and host of the popular The Emma Guns Show.

We chat about: * Her feel good habits (and the deeper self work she’s doing that makes the biggest difference) * The story of how she finally got help for her anxiety and depression * Getting out of victim mode and learning that you CAN change * Why confidence is not always what it seems

Transcript Chloe Brotheridge: Hello and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach and hypnotherapist and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution and Brave New Girl. And this podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest, happiest and most confident self.

Emma Guns Thank you so much for listening today. Welcome. Thanks for being here. If you’re joining me here for the first time on the podcast, I am speaking to the very lovely Emma Guns. Famous for the Emma Guns Show, her brilliant podcast.

She’s also a journalist and we actually met several years ago when I was on her podcast. It was when the Anxiety Solution had just come out and I think it was one of the first podcasts I’d ever done.

She was just really lovely and has said some lovely things about my books in the past. It was so nice to get to be the one asking her the questions this time.

We chat about… I love this conversation. We really get into Emma’s story of her experience of anxiety and depression, what it took for her to finally get help. We talk about how to get out of victim mode. And honestly, this is something that I recognise in myself. Emma talks about this as well, it’s not a very nice thing to admit to but actually it can happen all too often that we can get ourselves into this mindset of being a victim. This doesn’t really serve us and we talk about this and how to get out of it.

We discuss why confidence is not always what it seems. Don’t be fooled people, lots of people that seem very confident, actually peel back the layers and we discover that just as riddled in self-doubt and insecurity as we are and we talk about her feel good habits and also the deeper self-work that she’s been doing, it makes the biggest difference.

So I think you’re gonna love this episode. I really think it’s good to have these honest conversations about mental health where we just realise underneath it all, we’re all the same. We all struggle with things we all doubt ourselves, we all find it hard to ask for help at times. And, you know, it really does help us to feel connected I think within our common humanity when we remind ourselves of these things.

Freebies I’ve got some exciting things coming up in the next few weeks. And if you want to get involved, I would encourage you to sign up for my newsletter. I send out a newsletter every week talking about the podcast and sharing freebies and tools, sharing the courses and the events that I have coming up.

I’ve got some exciting announcement announcements coming soon. So I’d love for you to head on over to my website www.calmer-you.com and you can enter your email address there to sign up for my freebies. I’ll give you all the details about the things I’ve got coming up that you can get involved in.

Let’s welcome Emma Guns to the show Chloe Brotheridge: Hello, Emma, thank you so much for joining me today. How you doing?

Emma G: Hi Chloe, thank you for having me. I am really well.

Chloe Brotheridge: I’m very excited to speak to you as I’ve also been on your podcast. You’re amazing and your podcast is very popular. And I’m very excited to get to be asking the questions this time. Can you just let the people listening know what it is that you do and a little bit about how you got to where you are today.

How Emma got started Emma G: Yeah, cool. So I’d be delighted to share that. Currently, my main job is that I am a podcast host of the Emma Guns Show. But I guess you could say my journey towards this started when I began my career in journalism nearly 20 years ago. I started out on local newspapers. I really just wanted to be where all the cool people were.

Chloe Brotheridge: Why not? Why not.

Emma G: When I was a kid, I used to watch things like the Big Breakfast, I would always wait as any of you did this. When they did the news, like 10 to the hour, there would be an entertainment section, and they would cover things like the L style awards, or the MTV awards, and I just wanted to reach through the screen and be there. And it felt like journalism was the easiest way to do that without any discernible musical or modelling talent.

I began my career in magazines as a beauty editor. And I was on magazines for 10 years and I’ve been freelance for eight. In that time, I have gone to all those awards. And I have been there and I have had a really interesting and varied career. I’ve written for lots of people and TV presenting.

So it all kind of culminated nearly five years that there’s something else I want to be saying. Magazine articles and YouTube are not really the place where I could say it. I was listening to podcasts and so the Emma Guns Show was really born out of really feeling like I wanted to showcase conversations with people who didn’t really get heard.

Mental health and depression I was struggling with my mental health and I was depressed and I had anxiety which was undiagnosed at that point. But I kind of very selfishly started the podcast as a way of putting myself in a room with successful people, and trying to get them to share with me how they have overcome hardships, so that I could use those techniques and maybe help myself and the wider audience obviously.

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, brilliant, brilliant. And has it had something like 8 million downloads?

The podcast Emma G: Nine? Well, yeah, roughly on an estimate, because you know what it’s like with these things. But yeah, I mean, over 7 million downloads, which is incredible. And every time I think about that, I just think, well, that can’t all be me and my family. It has been a really incredible personal and professional journey.

Chloe Brotheridge: We were talking just before we started recording about your experience of life in lockdown, and whether you might be making changes in your life as a result of that. Are there things that you’ve kind of learned through this experience?

Lockdown life Emma G: I felt quite safe within the confines of the lockdown regulations because it was all very clear. And so I found it quite easy to work around that and to adapt my every day and to transfer my work to working from home. And it made me realise that I didn’t have to be constantly out doing things, networking, speaking to people spinning all these plates in order for my professional life to maintain its momentum.

My frame of reference is really only the media and I feel like sometimes it’s about who you know and what you know, in the currency of what industry gossip you might know before other people. It was very nice in lockdown to just focus on research. Guess reaching out to people and saying I’d really like to chat with you on the show. It was much slower, but no less efficient and no less effective. I really enjoyed it.

Life after lockdown Life has picked up the pace again, and as we are easing out of lockdown, the conversation is about how do I take what I’ve learned from that lockdown experience and implement it moving forward. Not just rush to go back to how things were before just for the sense of normalcy. That’s where I am at the moment. I don’t know if you feel the same way but I’m very much in that place. I know I’m going to go back to certain things but what am I not going to go back to? What don’t I want to invite back into my world?

Chloe Brotheridg: I love that. I love hearing people’s different experiences and interpretations and I’ve had a lot of people with anxiety saying, you know, I’ve been more calm than ever during lockdown because actually, you know, things have slowed down and I haven’t had to go out and be so on all the time. Well, moving to the countryside. I think a lot of people are thinking about if house prices in London are going to go down because no one’s gonna live in London anymore or move into the countryside. So there’s that.

The great pause Emma G: I can believe it. I can really believe it. I was speaking to a friend the other day, and they referred to it as the great pause. And when can you think where you actually get in history a time where you get to actually just sort of pause and reassess. And I guess it’s how you look at lockdown whether you see it as an inconvenience or you see it as an opportunity. From the very beginning I thought right, okay, this is an opportunity. What am I going to get out of this?

Chloe Brotheridge: I love that you’re just thinking about what do I not want to go back to.

Emma’s experience with depression You touched on earlier about your own kind of experiences of anxiety and depression and how, you know, for a while it wasn’t diagnosed. Can you share a bit about what was your experience with that? And how did you then sort of get it diagnosed or go and get some help for that? What was your journey with that?

Emma G: I think looking back now, I have been affected by it my whole life, especially anxiety. And I even remember things like going to go and set a school exam at the age of six, and just hiding, being really scared of the headmaster and hiding behind my mother. And those things weren’t necessarily looked out for or identified. That was definitely running underneath the whole time, my whole life, there was always an undercurrent of anxiety. Looking back as well, I think it was also depression.

The lens of depression When I look back, I can see where it was spiking and when it wasn’t affecting me so much. And I think what essentially happened is, when you are navigating life through the lens of depression or anxiety and your head is in that space, whatever that might look like for the individual, you’re not presenting the best version of yourself. You’re not necessarily enjoying anything that is happening. That was certainly my experience.

I constantly had this state of Red Alert where I thought people were trying to get one up on me or people were talking poorly about me or people just didn’t like me. It was very much almost like a victim mentality, which I dislike intensely about myself.

Getting called out I’m not sure, working in a competitive media job was necessarily the best soil for me to spend many of my formative years. But essentially what happened was, about five years ago, I went on holiday with a couple of friends. And I was so tightly wound. I was going through a lot personally at the time. Looking back now I definitely ruined that holiday just by being uptight, just by being moody by not really being that engaged.

I was sharing a room with my friend Casey and she said something to me which sort of at the time felt quite cruel, but actually, it was definitely something I needed to hear. She said Emma I’ve never known anyone who just doesn’t have coping mechanisms in the way that you make everything out to be such a big deal to you. It did come from a place of love and she is that kind of a friend and didn’t mean it negatively.

Realising something wasn’t right But I was crying in bed, sobbing just unable to really function and ruining a perfectly nice holiday. Thank you very much. And that was also the holiday or I remember waking up in the morning going into the bathroom and I didn’t recognise myself in the mirror. I thought something’s definitely not quite right here.

She said, I think you need help. I’d always seen people saying you need help as them trying to brush you off because they didn’t want to deal with you because you were annoying them.

Therapy I started seeing a therapist, counsellor and had talking therapy. And there were a mixture of disciplines in there. Sometimes I would be like, Oh, yeah, that was a bit of CBT other times it wasn’t, you know, and that we did that for 18 months. And that was utterly transformative for me. It was really, really incredibly helpful. That’s why now I feel like I’m able to talk about it. It no longer has control over me.

I sometimes feel like people can sometimes take a mental health diagnosis like depression or anxiety and it almost becomes an identity. I was affected by it, it has shaped me. But I don’t want to identify as somebody who has anxiety and depression because I feel like then I’m giving it roots.

It doesn’t have to define you Having said that, I’m very aware that it takes a lot of work to keep it at bay. But I know the colour and the shape of it and the feel of it. And so if that familiar feeling comes into my mind or even my physicality, I grab my tools.

Chloe Brotheridge: That’s such an interesting point. Don’t let it define you. It might be something that you may experience but it doesn’t have to be for a lifetime. Sometimes when we get caught up in a cycle of depression or anxiety we can feel as though we’re going to be like that forever. And we’re never going to change. Actually, I think part of those issues is that kind of little voice that says, you’re never gonna change, you’re gonna be something like this forever. Knowing that there is a way out and there are things that you can do when you notice it is creeping in.

Moving out of the victim role It’s also really interesting what you said about the kind of the victim role that we can get ourselves into and about blaming other people or saying why does this always happen to me? We can kind of almost recreate our problems by staying in that mindset and it’s horrible to hear that no one wants to hear that. That kind of staying in that victim mode is kind of you’re perpetuating it, but it can can be a bit like that. And if we can step outside of it and ask for help, you know, having the courage to ask for help. You know, that’s such a big thing in itself sometimes knowing that it’s okay to get help and going down that path is something that we can do for ourselves.

Emma G: It’s a kindness.

Chloe Brotheridge:
You mentioned when you notice feelings kind of creeping in you and that you have tools. What are those things you turn to?

How am I feeling today? Emma G: I’ve tried to make them quite simple and free. I might ask myself how am I feeling today? I’m not a big fan of the word triggered, but it is appropriate here. But if I’m feeling triggered by something, right, what do I need? Do I need to be around people as a form of distraction? Do I need to bring a good friend or do I need to go meet up with a good friend? You know, lockdown permitting, or do I need to just be a bit quiet and a bit still and read or just go for a walk?

I think we can sometimes get too caught up in knee jerk reactions. And it’s rare that one makes a great decision in a knee jerk reaction. And so I try really hard when I feel like something’s getting at me, sometimes you don’t even know necessarily what it is. I can sit at my desk somedays and think I’m not breathing properly. Or my lower back’s hurting, which for me is like my adrenals are on fire. So then it’s like, right, stand up, have a stretch, what’s on your nerves?

The closer you get to it the smaller it becomes I had a great guest on the podcast a little while ago called Jeff Thompson. And we had a very long conversation on tape but off tape we were talking about things that trigger you. He gave me a great piece of advice, which is if something gets to you in that way, run at it and confront it. The closer you get to it, the smaller it becomes trust me.

It was a very useful piece of advice because it could be that I know there’s an email that I’ve got to respond to. I don’t really want to because I’m a bit worried about what the person might say in reply. Or it may be that I have a deadline looming, and I’ve been putting it off and it’s a bit tedious. So just put them on my desk and do them straight away and it lifts immediately.

Triggers Chloe Brotheridge: That’s such a powerful idea of running towards the things that are triggering you. For people listening, I don’t know how many people sort of understand this idea of triggering but it’s like when something comes up in your life and it kind of taps into something within you that very often will link back to an old wound from the past. The temptation can really be in those moments to sort of blame the other person or say the world is against you. But if we can see that trigger as a sign to look at ourselves and think, right, what is this that needs to be worked through and healed? And as you say, kind of running towards it. That’s how we can. That’s how we can overcome it.

Emma G: I mean, if you think about Twitter, for example, how many times do you see on a social media platform, somebody say, I wish people wouldn’t do x or when someone’s going through x, the worst thing you can say is x. I hate it when people say x. And I just look at that and think, for me, that is a tweet that tells me that you need to learn how to cope with when people say x, not that you need to tell the world via social media that you would prefer it that people stopped doing it. That thing because that’s unlikely to happen. The only thing you can control and potentially change is how you react to it.

We can’t change what other people think Chloe Brotheridge: I love that. It’s a good reminder to us all. Let’s remember we can’t change other people or what other people think. We can just change ourselves, we can look at ourselves, what’s triggering us? What is it that needs to be worked through within ourselves?

Emma G: Yeah, and sometimes that can be uncomfortable and sometimes that can get a bit messy, but ultimately, it will lead to for you. I think for the individual, it will lead to a place that is calmer, kinder and quieter and less triggered.

Chloe Brotheridge: You went and had 18 months of therapy. How about other things that you tried. I know that you’ve got a series on your podcast all about feel-good habits.

Insomnia Emma G: They were brilliant. They were so so good. I’ve talked about insomnia on my podcast, I’m sure you’ve covered it too. And I think somebody can say to you, oh, there’s a great pillow spray. I just sort of think, okay, a pillow spray might work. But actually, what you need for a pillow spray to work is to have your sleep hygiene. So maybe that’s a routine maybe that’s not using your device for an hour before you go to bed. There’s lots of little things in place. So I feel the same about mental health.

I feel that therapy is one thing, it’s a really solid foundation upon which you can build. And so within that, I was meditating for a while. Exercising is really helpful for me. Reading is really helpful. I do breathwork. All of these little things that sit on a very solid foundation of having actually confronted a lot of the big stuff with a mental health professional. That when it comes time for a feel good habit, it can be something, it can be something like, I don’t know, just listening to a beautiful song or just slowing down or doing a bit of that breathwork.

Feel good habits I used to look very much for external validation for people to tell me, you’re doing okay. In actual fact, if I’m really honest, it took an external opinion for me to actually address my own mental health issues. Rather than me saying, I need help. It took somebody else to say it for me. And so one of the things I try to do as a feel-good habit is to ask what do you need right now? What can you do for you right now that will make you feel good?

Sometimes it’s listening to One Direction. Other times, it’s lying on an acupressure mat. Another time it might be honestly just zoning out in a book. I try to ask myself, What do you need? Do you need to go into London and be amongst things, be with a load of your friends who you literally can’t keep up with? Or do you need the polar opposite? And then try to plot my path towards that thing?

Chloe Brotheridge: That’s such a good question for people to be asking themselves, you know, when maybe on a daily basis, you know, asking yourself what is it you need that day

The essence of therapy Emma G:
That’s such a good question. I think the best way I can describe therapy and I’d be really interested to get your thoughts on this as well is imagine that every time a thought or a feeling enters the brain, and like a machine spits out a ticket or a piece of paper like a printer.

I felt as though my entire life these tickets and bits of paper and spitting out of this machine, and just flying all over the place. And what therapy did is it was like going in with an organiser and we sorted out the papers. We put them into bundles. We put some in folders, we put some in the bin. Shredded some of the stuff. We ranked them in order of importance and we organise them in a way where they were linear and I could understand them.

Now it’s not a room full of random bits of paper that have just been splashed everywhere. It’s a really nicely organised library of thoughts and feelings that I feel like I understand. That’s what I feel that therapy does.

Organising our thoughts When anything else happens, you can very quickly go to your internal Dewey Decimal System and find what you need in order to handle that particular thing that might be happening to you at that moment. I envy anybody who was able to just live their life and be able to do that naturally. I do feel as though that kind of process is something you need someone to hold your hand whether it is a hypnotherapist or therapist. Everybody’s going to be drawn to somebody different. That’s ultimately what it was able to help me to organise my thoughts, but also help me understand who I am.

Chloe Brotheridge: I love that analogy of just tidying and organising. It’s such a silly idea to have in society that we’re supposed to just be able to sort ourselves out and do it on our own when the human mind is the most complicated thing in the universe. Yet, we’re supposed to be able to just handle it and deal with this mystery that is life on our own. And of course, I think most of us are going to need help with that at some point or another.

I have a friend who just compartmentalizes things. She’s probably the only person I know that doesn’t need therapy.

Emma G: I’ve definitely always been attracted to friends who seem like they’ve got it sorted.

Consider therapy Chloe Brotheridge: It sounds like for you, it’s kind of organising and processing things, making sense of it, getting to know yourself. I mean, there’s so many things that can come out with therapy. It’s probably different for everyone. For me, a big part of it was getting rid of the shame. And I had things that were not even that bad. I just thought if I said it out loud, I would die or if someone knew what I was really feeling, they would be just horrified and honestly, there’s nothing that bad. At the time it really felt like that. I just needed someone to say, Chloe, you’re actually normal. You’re okay. I think that was massive for me. So we’re basically just telling everyone to go to therapy, I think.

Emma G: Yeah, I mean, you wouldn’t think twice about going to a diet club if you wanted to lose weight, or you wouldn’t think twice about going to a personal trainer. If you wanted to build muscle or burn fat. You wouldn’t think about all of the people that we outsource stuff to and yet where we’re still in the shame mindset about outsourcing our mental health. The brain is an incredibly complicated organ. Hmm.

Confidence Chloe Brotheridge: I wanted to ask you as well about confidence. From what you do, you kind of need to have quite a lot of confidence. How did that get happen throughout your experiences with anxiety? And are there other things that you’ve kind of learned about confidence, you know, through what you do?

Emma G: It’s such an interesting question. I remember saying to somebody a little while ago, I am riddled with insecurity, even now, and yet, that’s not how I appear. There is a massive disconnect between how people see me and how I see myself. So if I walk into a room and I give a presentation, or I host an event, you can bet that I am absolutely wracked and riddled with nerves. But something allows me to do it. And I just assume it’s adrenaline.

Nerves can support us I used to do live TV. Those nerves really get you through it. I remember somebody saying to me if you don’t have nerves, you shouldn’t be doing this because they’re what make people come alive on air. And so with confidence, I think, I honestly think I felt so overlooked as a kid because I went to a school where you had to be either intellectually very bright or sporty, but preferably both, and I was neither. So I was loud in order to get noticed and then just became incredibly annoying. And so, my confidence has always been phantom confidence.

Confidence on the outside vs inside Chloe Brotheridge: It’s amazing how many people will say the same. In fact, almost everyone that you speak to, you know, when you get below the surface there are these insecurities and nerves and self-doubt and the inner critic . Maybe that’s just normal, a normal part of being human rather than thing we are not enough. Actually, maybe it’s just normal when you’re putting yourself out there to feel that extra kind of energy or to when you’re expanding and growing to have this sense of self-doubt because you’re doing something new or you’re doing something that’s expansive for you. We can be confident on the outside actually say, you know what, I sometimes struggle with this as well.

Mimicry and confidence Emma G: I went to an all-girls school growing up and there would be these girls and I’d think if I could just be like them, I’d be super competent and pretty and everyone would like me. So I think a lot of that comes out of mimicry.

Breast reduction Chloe Brotheridge: I wanted to ask you about one of the videos that you did on your IGTV recently where you’re sharing about the breast reduction surgery that you had. What you were sharing was so relatable. Obviously, a lot of people wouldn’t have had that specific surgery, but I think so many of us can relate to what you were sharing. Could you share a bit about that?

Emma G: Of course, yeah. So, this time last year, I had breast reduction surgery. And it very much was a surgery. I just want to say that I had a great surgeon. I was a really good candidate for it because I had disproportionately large heavy cumbersome boobs, and I didn’t want to have those anymore. But in and amongst my depression, anxiety, I would say that food had become a comfort and therefore had become somewhat toxic in my life. Someone said to me years ago, that basically what you eat in private, you were in public. That was quite a shock. It really sort of hit home.

Comfort eating I know that the topic of weight can be very triggering for people and I’m certainly not casting any judgement. But for me personally, I felt very uncomfortable in my skin because I knew that the excess weight I was carrying, and have done for most of my life was as a result of a self-sabotaging behaviour. Relying on food for more than just sustenance and staying alive. I was relying on it for comfort.

Shame There was no limit of greediness. I had a lot of shame about that. Always dressing in camouflage myself to hide. And if I had my picture taken, I would honestly scream from the neck up at people because I just was so embarrassed.

I’m 42 and this has gone on for years, and I just didn’t want to continue living like that. And when I had the breast reduction, I genuinely thought that would change my body and that suddenly I would look the way I wanted to look. It was a massive anticlimax and an incredible wake up call.

Mental health is an inside job Because doing something that drastic and again, I don’t regret it. It was a great surgery. I’m very happy with the results. But it was a real wake up call about mental health. This is an inside job. If you want to fix this, you have to run towards it and address it head-on.

I mentioned in the video called Brain over Binge by Katherine Hansen. It allowed me to see my relationship and my behaviour around food from a distance. And it was like a software update. I read it in a day and woke up the next morning, and since then my relationship with food has been completely different. Not perfect. There are still days when I have to think, you know, the family pack of crisps needs to last you a weekend. Don’t go and get another bag. I can see it for what it is. Whereas before I didn’t, and I would have given in to all of those impulses. It was overeating essentially.

Chloe Brotheridge: I really took from your story that no matter what we do on the outside it isn’t as effective as what we do on the inside.

Self-sabatoge Emma G: I assumed that people who were smaller than me were living a better life than I was. So I’d imprisoned myself within this mental and physical prison of Yeah, you can’t live your best life because you’re not worthy. There was a lot of attacking coming from within. That was a huge amount of self-sabotage.

What was brilliant about the surgery was that is was a wake up call. It was not cheap. There was six weeks of recovery. It’s obviously general anaesthetic. It’s a major procedure. It threw the situation into clarity. That was then I was able to move forward and address it, which was really helpful. I’m very grateful for it for that reason.

Inside work is a lifetime job Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, definitely. And, yeah, just wanted to say I just noticed something that I was saying. That I’m almost making it sound like you can just heal yourself. But it is such a process of continuing to be really kind to yourself, learning about yourself, becoming aware of your triggers. It’s a lifetime job. I didn’t want to make it seem like it was like, super easy.

It’s a life’s work Emma G: It’s a life’s work. But I think when you do, I mean, I certainly am not a completed project. And I would never say that I am. But I think once you start addressing the internal stuff, and once you start to get to know yourself, you do feel the difference and life does feel better for it. So I know what you’re saying. But I do think your point is completely valid.

Change is possible Chloe Brotheridge: Change is possible that’s quite motivating. Know that it is possible to change.

Emma G: Yeah, we’re very, we’re very malleable. We’re not concrete we can be moulded. And so, you know, if you are currently, as I was, like really emotional and not able to cope with anything, that can be changed. And those coping mechanisms are within your grasp.

Chloe Brotheridge: I want people to write that down on a post it and just have it on the mirror.

How you can stay in touch with Emma Chloe Brotheridge: I’m just looking at the time. I don’t want to keep you too long. Where can people find out more about you and what you’re up to?

Emma G: Emma Guns Show is available on all good podcast platforms, probably not too far away from Chloe’s podcast. My surname was too long for Instagram so I’m at Emma Guns. There’s a great Facebook forum for listeners of the show, but Instagram is probably where you see the most of me.

The podcast saved my life and I sort of half joke because as I said earlier, when I was in a really bad way, I was able to surround myself with really positive inspiring people. I don’t think I don’t think it’s any mistake or accident that the the way I am now is a combination of those conversations, as well as my own therapy and other things that I’ve done. The Emma Guns show is on Apple and Spotify, wherever you get your podcast.

In closing… Chloe Brotheridge: Head on over. I’ll put the links in the in the show notes for everyone as well. Thank you, Emma, thank you so much for speaking to me. I’ve loved everything you said. And I hope people will get a lot from it. And yeah, thank you so much.

Emma G: Always a pleasure to speak to you Chloe, thank you so much. Your podcast is fab, so it’s such an honour.

Calmer-you Chloe Brotheridge: You have been listening to the Calmer You podcast with me, Chloe Brotheridge. Don’t forget you can download loads of freebies for anxiety and confidence at my website, Calmer-you.com. You can also find out about my app and my one on one sessions. Please do Subscribe to this podcast in the apple podcast app. And if you have enjoyed it or found it helpful, please leave me a review. It makes a massive difference to helping the podcast get discovered by other people.

Come on over and find me on Instagram. I’m hanging out there every day you can find me at Chloe Brotheridge. Let me know what you thought of this episode. And please share it with anyone who might need to hear this today. So I’m sending you lots of love and I hope you have a brilliant week ahead.

The post Ep 119. Asking for help + why happiness is an inside job with Emma Gunavardhana appeared first on Calmer you.

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It’s a pleasure to introduce you to Emma Gunavardhana. Emma joins me on the Calmer You podcast. She is an experienced beauty, health and lifestyle writer, presenter and brand consultant and host of the popular The Emma Guns Show. We chat about: Her feel good habits (and the deeper self work she’s doing that makes the […]

The post Ep 119. Asking for help + why happiness is an inside job with Emma Gunavardhana appeared first on Calmer you.

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Today on the Calmer You Podcast I’m speaking with Pandora Sykes about FOMOG, failure and doing it right. Pandora is a journalist, writer and podcaster of The High Low. She has just released a new book that I read and highly recommend, How Do We Know We are Doing it Right We chat about: How […]

The post Ep 118. FOMOG, failure and doing it right with Pandora Sykes appeared first on Calmer you.

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Today on the Calmer You Podcast I’m speaking with Pandora Sykes about FOMOG, failure and doing it right. Pandora is a journalist, writer and podcaster of The High Low. She has just released a new book that I read and highly recommend, How Do We Know We are Doing it Right

We chat about: * How do we know we’re doing it right? * FOMOG and the need to be productive all the time * Is self-care still valid or is it another industry profiting from our misery! * Why so many of us feel like a failure

Transcript Chloe Brotheridge: Hello and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach and hypnotherapist and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution and Brave New Girl. This podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest happiest and most confident self.

Hello, and welcome to this episode. Thank you so much for listening today. I get to speak to Pandora Sykes today who is journalist, a writer, and a podcaster.

You have probably heard of her from the incredibly wonderful and successful podcast, The High Low and she also has a new series, which is supporting her new book. The podcast series is called Doing It Right. At the time of recording, it was actually at the top of the podcast chart. I feel very privileged and lucky to get to speak to her.

How do we know we are doing it right? Her book is called How Do We Know We’re Doing It Right and I absolutely loved it. It’s such a good read. I’m so impressed by Pandora’s scope of knowledge and understanding and ability to tie ideas together. I think you’re gonna love it. We talk about the idea of how do we know we’re doing it right? We talk about FOMO. And we talk about the need to be productive all the time. We get into the topic of self care, and whether it really works? Or is it actually just another industry that is profiting from our misery? We also talk about why so many of us feel like a failure.

Anxiety Solution App Before we get into the episode, I just want to tell you about my app, the Anxiety Solution App, have you checked it out? yet? The reviews are, frankly, amazing. We’ve been really blown away by the response that we’ve had to this app and how much it’s helping people.

Here’s a review from Veronica. She says, I started using this app just over a week ago. I was spending hours scrolling Instagram feeling unmotivated, unproductive, exhausted, and feelings that I’m not good enough at work. My friend group is drinking too much coffee and generally unwell. I started using the Anxiety Solution out of curiosity. I really liked Chloe’s podcast Carma You and follow her on Instagram. The app really works. Only a couple of days in I can see tangible results. I feel energetic motivated, hardly go on any social media, don’t scroll at all. And generally, I’m feeling great, best money spent. Now I paid for a year subscription to change my daily routine and look forward to the day ahead. So thank you so much, Veronica for that review.

Firstly, you can check out the anxiety solution app, you’ll find the link on my website, Calmer-you.com. You can find it in the app store as well. And there’s a free trial so you can try it out and see if you like it. So please do check that out.

Let’s welcome Pandora Let’s get into the episode with Pandora Sykes. So welcome Pandora. Thank you so much for joining me today. How are you today? How are you doing?

Pandora: I’m really good. Thank you so much for having me on.

Handling lockdown Chloe Brotheridge: How are you handling everything in terms of lockdown?

Pandora: I’m used to spending loads of time at home because I work at home, and I’ve got young kids. I’m really lucky home is my safe place, not just physically but mentally as well. There hasn’t been an enormous change in terms of how I would spend the bulk of my time. It’s just been very surreal because even if you spend a lot of time in your home, you still know that everyone else is out and about. And it’s not weird that I’m in my home for me. It’s weird that everyone else is in their homes as well.

I’ve been so fortunate during the lockdown. Me and my husband are still working and our children are healthy. So I mean, you know, what more could you ask for right now to be honest?

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, definitely. I wonder if when you write books, it’s quite good training for this sort of situation. Are writers are made for a lockdown?

Pandora: Yeah, I was on a very tight deadline as well. So I was just at my desk for like, 12 hour days for two months, pretty much and then I had a baby in December. I’m well trained for it. Yeah.

Chloe Brotheridge: Congratulations on your new book, How Do We Know We’re Doing It Right. It’s absolutely brilliant. Really funny, incredibly relatable. Can you share a bit about what it is about?

Pandora: It’s a pretty long title. It basically started from a bunch of essays that I wanted to write about modern life. At the beginning, I didn’t really think there was any overarching theme between them. Then as soon as I started kind of holding the ideas, together with one another, it became quite apparent that there were certain things that were really coming through that really interested me.

Too much choice? This idea of choice being a bind as much as a blessing that in a culture of endless choice, you don’t necessarily always feel liberated you sometimes feel addled. And I don’t mean in terms of like basic fundamental freedoms, you know, everyone needs a level of societal choice and to not have that is important, but above that above the necessary choice. There are lots of ridiculously small choices that now exist. I think we’ve just been flooded.

The age of overload We’ve been flooded with online stores, books, home apps and information, a torrent of information, you know, the age of overload. We’ve been flooded with everyone else’s opinions all the time. You know, we’re sort of drowning in it in a sea of other people’s opinions. So I suppose that was what kind of brought me to that at the beginning was the Paradox of Choice. Then I wanted to look at things some serious some more silly that I thought there was a larger story.

I find my phone incredibly anxiety making and have a phobia of being with my phone. So then I wanted to learn more about what that says about the way we communicate. And like most of the things that I was looking at in the book, it turns out that that’s not a new thing. We’ve always been one step behind communication. It’s never quite serving as cognitively it’s always pushing us a little bit further.

I was very keen to write about these things. Not just about the problems that millennial women have. But ultimately, look at the fact that all of these issues are generational. It’s the responsibility of each generation to sift through them and to look at what serves us and what doesn’t.

The need to be productive Chloe Brotheridge: It’s fascinating because it summarises all these complexities that we’re dealing with. So many people will be dealing with these complicated things in life and just to have them kind of, have it sort of spoken and talked about is really powerful.

You talk a lot about burnout and the pressure to always be busy. This need to be productive. I that part of modern life, and anxiety-provoking in itself? It’s like, of course, we’re feeling anxious because of all these things that are going on.

There is always a trade-off Pandora: I think quite possibly, yeah. We’re at a real kind of crunch point in terms of something that I find really interesting. And probably is a bit similar to how this idea that choices not only good is this idea that progress is only good. But in order to gain certain things, we have to lose other things. And I think we’ve forgotten that there’s always that trade-off in life. That we just expect things to get better and quicker and cheaper and seamless and shiny, including ourselves without realising there’s a price to pay.

I’m so pleased to hear you say that it made you feel less alone because that that was something I really wanted to try and get to the heart of. Not to try and be relatable to everyone because I don’t think anything can be relatable to everyone, but definitely to bring together lots of strands that might be making people feel alone and to kind of find that commonality.

Burnout But yes, I mean, we know that more people are feeling anxious than ever. 264 million people worldwide suffer from an anxiety disorder. And I have intense periods of anxiety, myself with burnout. That one, maybe it will be controversial. But I wanted to slightly dig a little bit deeper because I felt like we were talking about burnout a lot quite, quite casually.

Purpose It’s not the same as being really tired or really stressed. It’s a kind of combination of being very stressed and very overworked and feeling without purpose. So believing that the work you do holds no value. And that’s when I personally realised that I didn’t have burnout because I never got to the point where I thought that the job I did had no purpose and that I had no value. I was very tired, and I was very stressed. But I didn’t lose purpose.

Burnout I wanted to really sort of disentangle these particular types of stress, because I do worry that the conversations we have become very flattening, you know, to talk about every sort of work stressors, burnout, or to talk about every concern or moment of self-awareness or self-doubt, as anxiety.

Chloe Brotheridge: Burnout can mean so many different things, because when I think of burnout I think of Adrenal Fatigue. Where someone can get out of bed in the morning and there are two people not be able to get out of bed for, you know, several years because they’re so burned out. So yeah, it’s good to have different kinds of distinctions and what that is. There are lots of books about burnout coming out in the next year or so. It’s definitely something on people’s radars more and more.

There is a difference Pandora: Helen Peterson who wrote the piece for BuzzFeed about burnout that kind of started this conversation. I think she’s got one coming out. So that will be there. We need to be careful about term suffering from overextension. And I’ve worried sometimes as well that we’ve seen that happen with depression. So people who don’t suffer from depression will say, Oh, I’m so depressed today, rather than I’m so sad. And I worry that with words like depression, anxiety and burnout, that we’ll rid them of their meaning and of their impact. That’s not to dismiss the people that do have anxiety or do have burnout or do have depression. But when we chuck these words around so much, they become a bit like the boy who cried wolf. We’re going to miss the instances where we really need to be paying attention.

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, that’s so true. That definitely happens with anxiety. I hear from a lot of people saying anxieties become fashionable or something which I don’t think is very helpful.

Don’t confuse when we really need to pay attention Pandora: I think that’s really dangerous, because that has seen some people not seek help, because they’ve been told by the sort of current dialogue that everyone’s anxious and it’s normal. And that’s, you know, let people get into states, I think, where they have just assumed that everyone feels like this because they’re being told that everyone does.

Chloe Brotheridge: That can be dangerous, I think. Yeah, I guess it just comes down to what we caught up and do as human beings try and make things all or nothing or kind of generalise or put people into boxes and labels next to life.

Pandora: I can see why that happens. It’s much easier to talk about things or to understand things when they’re categorizable. I mean, I wrote a whole essay about how kind of womanhood has been divided into categorizable sort of flippable role acts of pop culture stereotypes. We were not going to get anywhere as long as we try and do that. It has a really damaging impact on the people who are categorised as well.

Is wellness unwell? Chloe Brotheridge: I really wanted to talk to you about the concept of wellness. Your book starts off talking about wellness. And I have to say, I think I might be one of those people that would fit in quite well with the crystals.

From the way you describe it in the book, it makes a lot of sense to me. Almost seems like wellness is actually quite unwell. What is that your take on it?

Wellness as industry Pandora: I think where I was really keen to try and draw distinctions is I don’t want anyone to feel ashamed. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with believing in the kind of various tenants of wellness. Where I think wellness is dangerous as an industry. It quite literally exists and trades off insecurity. And it is doing a lot of rebranding of ancient things like diet culture. The idea that a woman has to present a certain way she has to be whole and pure and clean.

These things are historic. They’re not anything new. Some people who get very invested in wellness aren’t well because I think it can turn into orthorexia, which is obviously an obsession with healthy eating, or it can psychologically become quite controlling.

Wellness is a class issue The other issue I already have with wellness is that it’s a class issue. It’s an economic issue because a lot of the things that are extolled as the benefits of wellness are really expensive. This means and I quote a writer called Amanda Moll, the wealthiest among us are the ones that have access to wellness. And so in that sense, there isn’t anything inherently wrong with wellness. But when it’s used as a way to somehow improve the lives of society at large, then No, I don’t think it’s appropriate at all. I don’t see how it can address systemic social issues.

Wellness is not going to save obesity for example, because obesity is much more of a multifactorial social issue. It’s got much more in common with poverty than it does with turmeric lattes. How do you say the word I still don’t even know if it’s tumeric or turmeric which is American?

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, I think there is that sense that if we buy a crystal or do a gong bath somehow our problems will magically go away. I suppose if you’re saying that to to a working mom who’s got kids, has two jobs and you suggest take a bath and that’s not going to be accessible for her and yeah, I think there needs to be a wider discussion about what that is.

Self-care vs self-respect Pandora: I think self-care is a brilliant thing when you are doing small things to make you feel sane. I think when self-care becomes a sort of distraction or an indulgence that allows us to avoid more serious conversations or to consider other people. This whole sort of invocation of I’m doing it for my self-care. That’s great, but what’s the self-care of the rest of society like and that’s why I kind of fell in love a bit with something Joan Didion said. She wrote that what we actually need is self-respect. And that, to me is a much more rounded and wholehearted way to look at how we look after ourselves.

That we have respect for our minds and our bodies, and also the minds and bodies of other people. Rather than it just being something that turns inward. I think it has to be something that we turn outward.

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, I think so many of our problems are kind of societal issues. It can’t be fixed by having a bath in some Epsom salts. What does self-respect mean to you?

What does self-respect mean Pandora: I’m still working on it. But I think it’s a combination of a few different things. I think it’s being in tune with yourself. What you need but also what you can give. And I think it’s operating from a place of conviction and quiet confidence and contentment. I don’t think we should be striving for a fully optimised life or a technicolour instagrammable perfect, seamless friction-free life. I think we should be aiming for contentment, and calm and conviction and self-respect.

Those are hard things to attain at the moment because I think it’s very difficult to have total conviction in yourself when we are exposed through a torrent of information through social media to what everyone else thinks all the time. So even if you don’t realise that you are subconsciously absorbing what everyone else thinks, what everyone else is doing 24/seven. And so then it becomes very hard, I think, to have conviction and go to have self-respect.

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, that idea of self-optimization and the huge amount of pressure we are putting on ourselves. One quote I really liked from the book was, we think that having a bad day is our failure to harness something.

Being good enough Pandora: It’s something I’ve seen in others and I see in myself. I have to remind myself all the time that there doesn’t always have to be like a visible product for how I spend my time. And not everything has to be. I mean, kind of a mantra that I repeat throughout the book, which comes from Derek Winnicott is this idea of the good enough that something I think, probably we’d all be a lot happier if we just tried to be good enough at something rather than the best.

I’m real perfectionist and pretty hectic. I move quite frantically through through life. So it’s a real reminder to me to not try and optimise everything. Don’t try and make Something the best it can be. I mean, that’s not to say I think that you should kind of half-assed it. But I think maybe sometimes a bit more half-assing would would be good for us.

Chloe Brotheridge: What I hear from a lot of people is that they won’t give things a try because they think they have to be perfect or because it’s difficult to. At first, we kind of have this sense that we need to be somehow good at dancing before we go to a dance class or something like that.

There is a process Pandora: I think that’s because the stakes are much higher, though. We don’t really see much in the way of process we just see the finished result. And, and I think that’s okay, I don’t think we should have to see the making of everything in order to know that hard work has gone into it. But that also means that I think people have become obsessed with the processes of others, you know, well, how are they doing that in order to make that work?

Cancel culture Perhaps if I can do that, then I can make that work. And also trying something new becomes so much scarier because everything is now preserved on the internet, you know, we are seeing a vast amount of kind of cancellations happening at the moment or attempted cancellations. I’m not even sure if I totally believe in canceled culture a lot of the time. But certainly like the idea of the takedown is very seductive. At the moment, you know that every single day on Twitter, I see that someone else has been taken down or bids to cancel someone else.

So I think even if you know you don’t have a platform online, you’re still existing within a space where trying new things is really risky. And failure is something that will be preserved will have posterity. Which is a real shame because failures are really important. You know, look, I mean, Elizabeth day’s brilliant podcast how to fail failures. As important as successes.

Chloe Brotheridge: I’m really curious about your take on cancel culture. And when you say you’re not sure what had happened, whether you’re not sure it exists or something, can you share a bit more about that?

Does it last? Pandora: I think it I think it exists anecdotally. So I think people trying to cancel someone is real. And I think what that feels like is devastating. You know, I use the example of Taylor Swift in the book because there was a lot of, you know, hashtags calling to cancel Taylor Swift or Taylor Swift is over party and that that lasted a good year or two after she had this very public Fallout with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.

But it wasn’t enforced economically, or physically. Taylor Swift was still allowed to exist within a public and private space. She didn’t have her friends or family taken away from her. And didn’t have her career taken away from her. She still brought out an album.

I think we need to be quite careful with cancel culture in that it’s very rarely something that actually affects the way that we move through the world. And I’m sure the effects of it are devastating. I would be devastated to be cancelled. But the only kind of real examples of full cancellation, I think we’ve seen are with people like Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby. And that’s because they’re criminals and cancel culture should exist in that.

How can there be progress? I think it’s something we do more in rhetoric, and I don’t agree with it. It’s incredibly flattening and binary. And if we just cancel everyone we don’t agree with then no progress can be made, and no one will be left. I interviewed Alain de Botton recently for my new podcast Doing it Right. And he said that he can see the possibility that one day we’ll just have an island where everyone who is being cancelled can just go. And I think that’s preferable. Maybe that’s better than this absolutely mad scenario we see happening online now.

FOMOG Chloe Brotheridge: I think disengagement is a good thing. Whether or not you’re being cancelled. I’d leave Twitter anyway. It’s turning into quite a savage place. One thing I really wanted to ask you about was foam.org. Funding mark. Can you say what that is? But we’ve heard a FOMO but FOMO?

Pandora: I didn’t come up with FOMOG. I think I got it from So I wrote a piece for Sunday Times style pocket two years ago. I’ve come across this acronym that I think had been created around a conversation that a young model called Loni Anderson was having, where she was in her early 20s.

What’s wrong with #goals She said that she felt like she was missing out on her goals, that she had these very ambitious goals for herself by the age of 25. And so this acronym kind of was created, which was FOMOG fear of missing out on goals. I sort of used that acronym to interrogate certain feelings I had been having about success or accomplishment in the wake of having my daughter.

We’ve seen with this sort of dreadful #goals,. When I was growing up goals was just something that like UCAS advisors talked about. It wasn’t this kind of cultural collective aspiration that we saw become something really on social media.

Tick box theory I think that goals can be quite damaging when we just look at them as the finished product. It’s what I was saying, really about forgetting that things have process, but also that, as Shakespeare says, you know, Joy is in the doing goals makes us look at just the end goal. It’s we don’t take any pleasure or fulfilment in the journey. I was falling foul of something that I called tick box theory. Where a goal or an achievement was just something to tick rather than the process of getting there being something as important as the as the end result.

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, I imagine it’s something that’s quite personal right now and that a lot of goals that people might have had, whether that ginding a partner or getting married or having kids or going on holiday or doing certain things have just all been postponed because of lockdown. And I think a lot of people might be resonating that they feel like they’re missing out on achieving the things they wanted to achieve or, you know,

It shouldn’t be about the tick box Pandora: Ambitions are really important. Hope is really important. But I think we have to look at why we’re wanting to achieve what we want to achieve. And be careful but it’s not just in order to tick it off. There’s something a bit more holistic in it than that. And we’re not jumping straight to the end point always and then wondering why we don’t feel fabulous. It’s just, I mean, like most things in modern life, I think it’s just about slowing down and checking in having like checkpoints along that journey.

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, slowing down, not not taking things off a list not doing things for the sake of them. Enjoying the journey a bit more. Yeah,

Another another thing you mentioned in the book was the cognitive load that women will quite often take on board. We juggle so much that tend to fall on the women shoulders, can you can you explain a bit more about that?

Work in the home Pandora: I wanted to really look at the concept of work as a whole. So not just work in the economic sense, but the work of the home as well. And that can become quite political when you consider that most of the work of the home is still done by women. So even though the gap between working mothers and working fathers is closer than it’s ever been 75% of women currently work versus 91% of men.

The gap in terms of the work of the home is still quite large. Women do on average, 70 minutes more a day. Now as the mother to young children, I looked at that mostly through the lens of being a parent, but I think it exists whether or not you do have children. Obviously children add a large part of the load but there is still the cognitive load. The executive functioning as one psychologists call it a household.

Emotional labour I wanted to look at how that kind of broke down through the term emotional labour, which has been kind of misunderstood and also become an umbrella term for quite a few different things. So I think that there are three categories to how to work the homebrew side. There’s the physical work. Ffor example, in my marriage, we have a 50/50 physical breakdown of childcare. Then there’s the allostatic load, which is the wear and tear and the stress on the body. And then there’s the cognitive work.

Why was I feeling mentally more frazzled? I came across some really interesting research by a Canadian psychologist called Darby Saxby about the cognitive work and the allostatic load and I found that really freeing and enlightening for me because I was confused that we were doing 50 things 50 of the physical work So why was I feeling physically way more stressed? Why was I feeling mentally more frazzled?

And she said, it might be that at the end of the day, you’re still thinking about, well, do the children need more new school shoes? When have I put into the diary, a date with our parents? What about the present for my daughter’s stocking? I was doing all of that. And from talking to a lot of other people, it seemed like that was still a gendered thing. Now, that’s absolutely not to criticise my husband because the thing is, is I take that on voluntarily.

Sharing cognitive load Neuroscientist, Pat Levitt, said which I think about all the time where he said, women have bought into the idea that they are better at it. And that’s the thing. It’s not that women are better. It’s not like we’re born being better at that. We are socialised to think that we are and so it becomes easier to do it rather than to not. This was just something that I looked at through quite a personal lens. But what I do now is instead of remembering everything, I give some of the cognitive load to my husband.

So I say, Oh, we’ve run out of lightbulbs, could you get some more? Or we need to buy something for the children could you sort that. It frees up space in your brain because there’s only so many things you’ve got space for in your brain. And if your brain is totally full, with the executive functioning of a household, you haven’t got room for anything else, like things that feel good or that might teach you something

Chloe Brotheridge: That’s a good strategy to try. I find that sometimes it’s easier for me to do it than have to ask my boyfriend five times to do something.

Gender roles have changed while gender patterns have not Pandora: It’s easiest short term. But is it easier? Or rather is it healthier? Long term? Because then you get into patterns? Yeah. Which is very much something I see in my parents. My parents have very traditional gender roles. But I think I think it was something that I wanted to sort of think about because we are two full time working parents. So it no longer makes sense. I mean, I don’t think even if you’re a stay at home mom, you should do all the executive planning of a household. I mean, you’re already doing the work of full-time childcare, which that is work. It might not be paid work, probably should be but it’s still work.

Doing it Right Podcast Chloe Brotheridge: No one should take on all of the wear and tear or the or the thinking. Such an interesting topic. Can you say a bit about your podcast. I saw that it is riding high on the charts standing on the shoulders of Louis Theroux currently. So massive congratulations about that.

Pandora: I mean, a pleasure to be on the shoulders of Louis. If only it was in real life, not just in the charts. That would be very exciting. And, yeah, so I decided to do a solo podcast series, When we realised we wouldn’t be able to do a book tour. And I just really wanted the opportunity to have conversations with people. It was primarily a communication tool to look at, quite loosely.

Themes and myths around modern life It’s not like I’ve taken a chapter and then done a podcast episode on it, but just to look at some of the themes and myths around modern Life. So it’s an eight part interview series. My first one went out yesterday, Monday, the sixth of July with Joe Lycett. And it’s a mix of experts in their field. I suppose celebrities, but the celebrities are also experts in their fields like Joe Lai, citizen, expert comedian in his comedy field. And it looks at what I am most interested in, which is the little things and the big things, you know, the trivial things and the serious things because life is made up of both. And it was just an opportunity really, for me to interview some of the people that I admire the most or have learned the most from.

Ask lots of questions Pandora: It’s called Doing it Right. And yes, the subtext is there is no way to do it right. There are many ways to do things. There is no answer.

I just asked lots of questions, whether it’s in the book or in the podcast, I want to encourage us to ask questions about our lives, rather than always trying to answer them.

There are no right or wrong answers Chloe Brotheridge: That’s such a reassuring message. And definitely something I took away from your book. We have this tendency to think of things as binary, it’s either right or wrong, it’s perfect or it’s a disaster. Actually, the truth is, it’s complicated. Everyone’s struggling with something and that’s okay.

Pandora: That’s okay. And also we have to have the competence to sit on the fence a bit. I think. What we’re seeing now is that it’s kind of gone out of fashion to be equivocal, and that is really dangerous. I mean, I see it now even doing the High Low.

You know, people asked me to have conclusive views on things that I don’t have conclusive views on and I feel pushed to have a conclusive view. I don’t want to. I don’t have opinions on everything. I’m still learning about so many things. And if we come out and stay in opinion early on in that process, then we don’t bother to go away and do more learning.

We don’t have to be so sure Chloe Brotheridge: It can be quite dangerous. I think what we’re seeing now with all the conspiracies and anti-vaxxers and people putting their stake in the sand, is that another analogy. And then once you’ve once you’ve formed really decisive opinions it may be difficult to go back on it when you have new information. So maybe let’s be quite careful.

Pandora: A lot of those opinions are made within our particular context. So like, anti-vaxxers, that’s often from a very privileged Western point of view. But what about where, if you don’t have vaccinations, you will die. It’s as simple as that. And so, anti vaccine makes me frustrated because it comes from quite a privileged space where a vaccination is not a matter of life or death.

Chloe Brotheridge: Definitely recommend getting vaccines. Anyway, thank you so much for everything that you’ve shared. I think you’re brilliant. Please, can you tell us where people can find out more about you and buy your book and that sort of thing.

How to connect with Pandora Pandora: You can buy my book from any good retailer and you can find Doing it Right on your preferred podcast platform. And you can follow me on Twitter. It’s an egg. It’s got zero followers. Don’t get me started. And I’m on Instagram. I’m not very interesting on Instagram. I’m on Instagram at Pandora Sykes got I’m not very good at that.

Pandora: Thank you so much for having me.

Chloe Brotheridge: Thank you. Yes, brilliant. Thank you so much.

Thanks for listening You have been listening to the Calmer You podcast with me, Chloe Brotheridge. Don’t forget you can download loads of freebies for anxiety and confidence at my website, Calmer-you.com. You can also find out about my app and my one on one sessions. Please do Subscribe to this podcast in the apple podcast app. And if you have enjoyed it or found it helpful, please leave me a review. It makes a massive difference to helping the podcast get discovered by other people.

Come on over and find me on Instagram. I’m hanging out there every day you can find me at Chloe Brotheridge. Let me know what you thought of this episode. And please share it with anyone who might need to hear this today. So I’m sending you lots of love and I hope you have a brilliant week ahead.

The post Ep 118. FOMOG, failure and doing it right with Pandora Sykes appeared first on Calmer you.

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If you’re someone who feels the need to be ‘productive’ every day in order to feel worthy or you’re close to burning out because you’re always over-working and so ‘crazy busy’, this episode is for you.

In this solo episode I speak about:

• Why you don’t have to earn your time off
• Where our addiction to busyness comes from
• How to make the most of your time working
• Why the 9-5 way of working is outdated and just plain wrong

Transcript Hello, and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach and hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of the Anxiety Solution, and Brave New Girl. This podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest, happiest and most confident self.

Close to my heart Hello, and welcome to this week’s episode. Thank you so much for listening. Today, I’m going to be talking about a topic which is not only something that is close to my heart. I’ve struggled with a lot myself, but I would say it’s a very common thing that I see when I’m working with people one on one. It also comes up when speaking with friends and on social media. It comes up a lot.

Do we need to earn our rest? It’s this idea that we need to earn our rest. That we have to be productive all the time. Even just reading a book alone at the end of a long day, that is somehow not okay. There’s this internal pressure that we put on ourselves. Also pressure from society, from other people, from social media that we have to be producing, doing something, quote-unquote worthwhile nearly all the time.

Breaking free from over-working So if you relate to this, if this is ringing some bells or recognition in your mind, then stay tuned to this episode because I’m going to be exploring this topic. Also, offering practical tips that you can do to break free from over-working.

If you haven’t already checked out my website, www.calmer-you.com, you can head over there. I’ve got loads of freebies for you. Those are things for you to get involved with. Whether you’re looking to calm your mind, feel more confident, grow your self-belief, there’s tonnes over there. So do head over and grab those freebies.

Work with me I just want to let you know that I see a select number of one to one clients. At the moment I have a few slots available. I see everyone online. So I use a programme called zoom, it works incredibly well. And I do a powerful combination of hypnotherapy and coaching. If you want to check it out, you can head to my website.

9 to 5 is outdated The first topic that I wanted to get into is this idea around nine to five and working five days a week. We’ve kind of taken it for granted that this is like the best way people do it all over the world. This way of working is really out-dated. It was actually brought in by Henry Ford in 1926. For factory workers, Henry Ford is thinking about how can we squeeze as much work out of these factory workers without our without killing them basically.

Obviously nowadays, we work in such a different way. We are using our minds more than our bodies, we’re working creatively, we’re sitting down at a desk, we’re not working in factories. It is completely illogical to assume that working nine to five, or more realistically working eight till six or eight till 10 o’clock at night sometimes. This way of working does not suit the type of work that we do.

Over-working in this way doesn’t support our productivity It doesn’t suit the human brain and the human body and doesn’t suit our happiness. It doesn’t suit our productivity. And they’re doing more and more studies into things like a four day week or a six hour working day. Studies are looking at how this can actually increase people’s happiness at work and productivity. Also, increase their ability to be creative and nuture positive relationships with other people at work.

Firstly let’s not assume for a minute that this is the best way of doing things. And I’ve spoken to a lot of other creative people. I’ve spoken to a lot of authors in particular, and time after time, people will say, there’s no way that I do any more than about four or five hours of writing a day. It’s literally impossible for me to do that.

There is a different way of working You know, when you think about it like that, four or five hours of focused work rather than eight hours of going and surfing Facebook, or going and chatting to someone by the watercooler. You know, maybe there is a different way of working, that doesn’t involve sitting at our desk and over-working. Then maybe beating ourselves up because we’re not being so productive within those eight hours. It’s because it doesn’t really suit us to work that way.

The wrong messages The next thing I wanted to mention was how much our mindset around work has been influenced by capitalism and our consumerist culture that we live in. The sense that over-working and how much money you make defines how successful you are. All these messages are kind of drummed into us from an early age from watching TV shows about people that have lots of money and amazing clothes and handbags and how that can lead to happiness. Or this glamorous kind of lifestyle that we’ve been sold.

How much do we need to be happy Yet, let’s be real, we know in fact, they’ve done studies into this, if you are earning over 50,000 pounds a year, that does not contribute to more happiness. So more money does not equal more happiness people. Yes, we need money in order to meet our needs to be comfortable and not worry. And, yes, 50,000 pounds is over the national average. But if we’re striving and pushing ourselves to make more and more money because we think it will make us happier, studies show that isn’t true.

Busy porn Striving and pushing and putting pressure on ourselves and over-working and burning out is actually leading to us not being happy, then, what is the actual point? Then to throw into the mix, this idea that busy is a badge of honour. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the term busy porn. This basically means people bragging or maybe humble bragging about how busy they are and that they haven’t even got time to breathe, or have time to go to the toilet. They certainly don’t have time to meditate. Far too busy for that. And actually, there’s this glamorization of over-working.

If over-working doesn’t feel good that’s not success If busy doesn’t feel good for you, it certainly doesn’t feel good for me, then that’s not successful. Perhaps, when you look back at your life, you can see that your mom was someone that was always on the go, she wasn’t working, she was cleaning, or she was studying or she was doing something else. Or maybe your dad, you know, had very high standards or he was a workaholic and over-working, or there was a sense that you know, no matter what you do, it’s never quite good enough.

Where does this need to over-work come from? I invite you to look back in your life and see if you can pinpoint where This attitude of needing to work all the time or needing to be busy all the time actually come from. More than likely you’re going to find it somewhere in your past and it is this subconscious programme that we take on board and that can stay with us.

To-do lists We all live by our to do less. I don’t know where we’d be without it, honestly. I have so many to do lists, it’s ridiculous. But we often labour under this assumption that we will one day be done with our to do list that one day we will take everything off our to do list everything will get done. And then we can relax then we’ve earned our rest. Then we know that we can fully enjoy a book or finally get into that box at knowing that we’ve done everything that needs to get done.

Being ok with an undone to-do list But guess what? Your to-do list is never done. There will always be a constant stream of more things to do. Let’s let go of the idea that we’re suddenly gonna get everything done. That day never comes. Life is constantly changing. There’s constantly new things to be doing. We’ve got new ideas, new projects, new requests, new demands on our time. Let’s just let go of the idea that we can ever be done. And actually be okay with having an undone to-do list and be okay with whatever we got done that day. actually be okay with whatever we have done that day.

Focus on what you have gotten done Instead of thinking about all the things that we haven’t done because there’s gonna be a million of them every single day, let’s focus on what we have gotten done.

Rest is productive Put rest on your to-do list. We cannot have productivity without rest. We cannot have creative or meaningful quality work without recharging ourselves.

Repeat: I need to rest to be my best So I like to say the cheesy phrase: I need rest to be at my best. It feels good to say.

Focus on what you have achieved each day. Give yourself credit for that, even if it’s a tiny thing, even if you just managed to have a shower and take the bins out today, it’s absolutely fine. Be proud of yourself.

Focus on the good things When you have such a critical mind or you’re on the anxious side, your mind is always going to go to the worst-case scenario, the problems, the criticisms, the imperfections. We need to train our minds to focus on the good things and focus on the things that we are doing instead. Over-working isn’t one of them.

Another interesting thing about rest, when your brain is in fight or flight, racing heart, sweaty palms, that’s not supportive. It’s that inner tension or maybe feeling in your stomach, maybe you get a bit fuzzy headed, and can’t focus that easily when you’re in fight or flight. Our brains are not that well equipped to doing office work or creative work. When we’re in fight or flight, it difficult to write a blog post or spreadsheets or you know proofreading an email. It is not ideal because a lot of blood flow goes away from the frontal cortex, the part of your brain that is rational that is clear thinking that helps you to make rational decisions.

How to prioritise what you need for productive work We are not in a good state to do good work when we’re in fight or flight. When we are over-working. And that’s another reason why it’s so important to prioritise rest, taking breaks, taking care of yourself, having time off. Turn your phone off at the end of the day. Try having no work emails on a Sunday rule, because it’s actually going to mean that you are more able to do better work.

What do you want people to remember about you? Relationships improve when we’re calmer. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this I certainly have. Irritability is a massive symptom of stress and anxiety. So another really strong reason to take care of yourself more and take a step back from things and I invite you to really think about what is important to you in your life. What are your top priorities because think about it this way, you know, when it gets to your funeral one day when you die, by the way, we’re going to die one day, sorry to break it.

At your funeral people are not going to be saying, you know, Sandra was amazing at getting spreadsheets done on time. Or, you know, I never saw Lisa have a spelling mistake in an email or she had the most amazing collection of handbags. That is definitely not what people are gonna be saying at your funeral.

Focus on what really matters Let’s Get Real. Let’s focus on the things that really matter to us, the things that are most important, because life is so precious. A book written by an Australian end of life nurse, addresses the top five regrets of the dying. Number two on that list is I wish I hadn’t been over-working. I don’t want you to be one of those people. That is on your deathbed.

Hopefully many years from now, you are not regretting over-working or not spending enough time with loved ones or not following that creative pursuit, not taking the time to read novels and enjoy them or watch boxsets or switch off on holiday.

What is most important to you Think about what really matters to you and what is most important to you in your life. How can you incorporate more of that into your life? How can you remind yourself of what really matters to you and what is most important, so that when you find yourself getting caught into that spiral of dizziness or over-work or getting close to burning out, you can come back to what matters to you most. Life is not a race. If you are racing through your life, over-working, you are racing towards your death. It’s cheesy but we do need to slow down in order to smell the roses or the coffee or whatever it is that you want to be smelling.

Over-working and being productive is not the rent that you pay to exist, you are worthy, you are deserving of just existing. You don’t need to be productive and over-working all the time in order to earn your oxygen.

As human beings, we are so incredible. We have the most complex bodies and minds of any known creature in the universe. We’ve been evolving out of stardust for billions of years. And we are connected to nature. We are not machines designed to produce and make things at the expense of our own well being.

What are we here for? I really believe that we’re all here to be happy. We’re all here to learn and grow and enjoy our lives. So let’s focus on that more and more.

Just to summarise all of that for you. Remember what is important to you? How can you prioritise that more? Know the importance of rest and taking breaks, remembering that actually maybe a four day week or a six hour work day, or just making sure that you’re not answering emails outside of work hours, making sure that you actually booked that holiday off, is going to help you to be more productive. It’s going to improve your relationships. Also, help your brain to be more creative and better at making decisions.

Natural rhythms And my final point, think about how your body is in terms of your natural rhythms and cycles. So are you somebody that is a real morning person and you know that your mornings are more productive, more energetic or maybe you’re a night owl and actually, you work best at 10pm at night when everyone else is going to bed? Can you work around this? Can you find a way to work at the times that are most productive for you? And then choose to rest and take time off and take care of yourself at those times when you’re not so productive.

This also applies to the menstrual cycle. If you notice that on certain days of the month, you might try to sit down at your desk and work and put pressure on yourself and end up procrastinating. I know that I can do this on days, like 21 to 24. Actually no work gets done and it’s not worthbeating myself up about that. On these days, I manage that and schedule in either less taxing work or take more time off and more breaks.

If you have a hormonal cycle, and you have a period, then your body works in cycles, so it’s really silly to expect us to be as productive and hard working and energetic on every single day of the month because that’s just not how our bodies work. So let’s rethink over-working.

What do you think Thank you so much for listening. I’d love to know what you think about this. Come on over to my Instagram at Chloe Brotheridge. Let me know what of these ideas you’re going to be carrying forwards. Please do share any other thoughts or ideas you have a next you have any tips on how to break free of the tyranny of productivity, and over-working.

Maybe you have an example you’d like to share. Come and find me on Instagram. I’d love to hear from you.

Thank you so much for listening and I’ll catch you later You have been listening to the Calmer You podcast with me Chloe Brotheridge. Don’t forget you can download the freebies for anxiety and confidence at my website calmer-you.com. You can also find out about my one on one sessions.

Please do subscribe to this podcast in the apple podcast. And if you have enjoyed it or found it helpful, please leave me a review. It makes a massive difference to helping the podcast get discovered by other people and come on over and find me on Instagram. I’m hanging out there every day you can find me at Chloe Brotheridge let me know what you thought of this episode and please share it with anyone who might need to hear this today.

I’m sending you lots of love and I hope you have a brilliant week ahead

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If you’re someone who feels the need to be ‘productive’ every day in order to feel worthy or you’re close to burning out because you’re always over-working and so ‘crazy busy’, this episode is for you. In this solo episode I speak about: Why you don’t have to earn your time off Where our addiction […]

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If you want to live calmer and happier as I know most of my community does, then this episode of the Calmer You podcast with author of the Mind Medic, Dr. Sarah Vohra, is for you.

Dr Vohra is a Consultant Psychiatrist, Bestselling Author, Public Speaker and Women’s Health UK Magazine Columnist. She is on a mission to educate everyone on how to improve their mental health as well as supporting the mental wellbeing of those around them.

On this episode we chat about: * Dealing with comparison * A powerful technique to deal with worries * Using the senses to calm anxiety * How to say ‘no’ more

Transcript Chloe Brotheridge: Hello and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach and hypnotherapist and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution and Brave New Girl. And this podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest happiest and most confident self.

Today’s guest Welcome to today’s episode, I am joined by Dr. Sarah Vohra, consultant psychiatrist. She is the perfect person to speak to about all things mental health and mental well-being. She’s got a new book out called The Mind Medic. She’s also called @themindmedic on Instagram. You might have heard of The Five Senses Guidelines for a calmer, happier life. I think it’s a brilliant book for anyone that wants to be calmer and happier.

Topics We get into topics such as saying no. I love the example that Sarah shares to help us to think about saying something in a different way. We also talked about dealing with comparison, particularly around lockdown. Most of us have been on our devices and social media more than ever. It’s more of a problem than ever, unfortunately. But Sarah has so much good advice on this one.

We talked about a really powerful technique to deal with worries. And we talked about how to use your senses to calm anxiety.

Free Resorces If you would like some free resources to help you to be more confident ditch the imposter syndrome, quiet the inner critic, you can head over to my website, Calmer-you.com/confidence and download my free affirmations for confidence.

If you’ve been telling yourself negative things about yourself, it’s time to turn that around and start to say some positive encouraging things to yourself instead. Get the freebie now for support.

Let’s get into the interview with Dr. Sarah Vorha.

Chloe Brotheridge: I am so excited about your new book, which is out on the 16th of July. We’ll talk about that in a moment. Could you tell us a bit about what you do and what your day to day job involves and the sort of people that you help.

Meet Sarah Sarah: My name is Sarah Vorha. I am a consultant psychiatrist. So day to day, I see patients who struggle with a whole host of mental health difficulties. From things like depression, anxiety, OCD, eating disorders, grief, so a whole host of conditions. On the side, I’ve kind of carved out this alternative career online. A few years ago, I was finding I was getting really frustrated with the amount of misinformation online, especially something as sensitive as mental health.

Resources from an expert It’s so important that the right information is out there, and that it’s delivered by expert sources. I started @themindmedic three or four years ago, and decided it was just going to be my way of debunking mental health myths, giving people practical tips and tools that they can incorporate into their everyday.

On the one hand, the day job, I’m seeing people every day and helping, assess and treat. Treatment can be anything from psychological therapies to family therapies, to, in severe cases, medication.

I’ve carved out this other career around kind of public education, thinking about ways that people can feel empowered to make those small changes at home.

Chloe Brotheridge: Sounds amazing. I’m really curious, you mentioned about the myths that you wanted to debunk. Can you share a couple of the myths that you have seen?

Debunking the myths Sarah: I suppose one of the common myths around is that a psychiatrist just gets you into a room lays you on a couch and then it’s very good to prescribe medication. That’s not the case at all, because there’s lots of different avenues that we go down before we even consider medication. That was one of the myths that I was really keen to debunk was around how quick psychiatrists are to prescribe medication.

Degrees of anxiety The other thing was around if you feel down, if you feel anxious, then you must be depressed or you must have an anxiety disorder. Every day, we may experience moments when we feel sad, or we feel worried or anxious. And I suppose it’s the degree to which that impacts your every day life. By the time someone comes to see me in clinic, it may be affecting areas such as schooling, it might be affecting their job, it might be affecting their friendships and relationships.

I really want to make clear the difference between feeling low and down. And then what would constitute a depressive or an anxiety disorder, which might need the support of a psychiatrist. People should go and get diagnosed, I suppose properly by a doctor to see whether it is just as kind of normal everyday worry or clinical anxiety or clinical depression.

When to seek advise from a doctor I suppose what I would be interested in knowing, as a doctor, is how much those difficulties are impacting your everyday. So if you are feeling down or if you are feeling worried, is it getting in the way of how you function. Does it impact getting up, getting dressed, showered, and getting in the way of family life and work. Then I would say keep an eye on it. The moment it does change things, then I would probably seek advice from a doctor.

An exercise to try One of the exercises that I do is something called a day in the life of. I always use the example of my five-year-old to demonstrate this because people think what does a five year old got to worry about. It just demonstrates beautifully that you can pick up really subtle signs that things aren’t right for you or for someone else. So for instance, she bounced into my bedroom at nearly six o’clock in the morning. She’s generally really, really content. She wants to get changed there and then she wants to go downstairs have breakfast watch her favourite cartoon.

Now, I’ve given you a snapshot of what her morning routines normally like but if I was noticing that she wasn’t bouncing into my bedroom until eight o’clock in the morning, that she seemed down or low or a little bit worried. Maybe it was a real struggle to get dressed, maybe she was off her food and didn’t really fancy watching her favourite TV programme.

There’s something there that indicates that something’s going on for her whether it’s with her physical or mental health. I ask people to think about their baseline. What is the norm for them from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep

Noticing any changes in routine? If you’re noticing that you’re someone that used to be really motivated a lot with get up and go in the morning, but you’re finding, it’s a real struggle. Or maybe you’re someone who never used to make mistakes at work and you’re finding you’re constantly being pulled up on mistakes that you’re making, and or maybe your boss has expressed concern for you. Maybe you’re someone that used to be able to fall asleep relatively easy but finding that you’re, you’re struggling a little bit more. So already, you’ve generated a list of things that may indicate that something’s not quite right and maybe worth seeking further support for.

Chloe Brotheridge: That’s really fascinating, I think, looking for those clues in terms of your life on the outside how it’s affecting your life day to day. Do you think it’s true that people can almost not realise that it’s happening?

Taking stock Sarah: It certainly can be something that creeps up on them. It might be that they do notice some subtle signs, but they’re quick to dismiss them because they get wrapped up in the fast pace of life. Maybe some of what they’re feeling gets lost in that. I find it really interesting over the last 10 weeks that a lot of the time people have been forced to take stock of how they’re feeling.

You know, this is the first time in a long while where people aren’t facing sort of the rat race of everyday life. They’re forced to kind of sit with how they’re feeling for the first time. That can be frightening and overwhelming. It may be that a family member notices that you’re not quite right.

Put a spotlight on any changes It’s really important to shine a spotlight on what’s changed, what’s different, what are you struggling with. Also to be mindful of what’s going on around you as well. It may be that someone else shares that they’re a bit worried about you or that they’ve noticed something’s changed, and that may force you to take action. As lockdown is easing, it is hard to compare your life, your normal life with locked-down life because it is so different.

Postives of lockdown Chloe Brotheridge: Absolutely. We often are reflecting a lot on the negatives, but a lot of people will gain quite a lot of positives from being in lockdown. Actually, it may have forced them to re-evaluate what’s important to them. What relationships are important to them or is commuting to work worth the payoff. It may be that actually for the first time they’ve been able to incorporate some regular exercise and movement into that day because normally it’s a toss-up between the commute or, you know, having a really good workout to set them up for the day.

I think often we are hearing these more positive stories coming out of lockdown. It’s allowed people to consider what’s important to them and to those around them.

The Mind Medic Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, absolutely, I think, yeah, let’s try and focus on to the positive things that are coming out of it. And I loved your book, by the way and your five senses guide to leading a calmer, happier life. It’s not only a really beautiful book, beautiful colours and illustrations. But it’s extremely relatable. I love some of the case studies that you share that are so relatable and interesting, and the practical nature of it, where you’re really taking people through, you know, different areas of their lives and giving them strategies to help them. Can you tell us a bit about your book.

Sarah: Thank you so much for that feedback. First of all, I think for me it was really important to pull people in with personal stories because I could sit there and share lots of practical tips and tools that I think would be helpful. But actually, unless you can relate to some of the difficulties that are being described, it’s really hard for you necessarily to implement them. So I think actually having the book of the case studies is really important. It demonstrates actually how useful these strategies can be and the payoff in the long run.

Why do I feel this way? The five senses really came about because I was getting a lot of people coming into clinic that were saying, I’m feeling down, I’m feeling anxious, but I can’t quite place my finger on why I’m feeling the way I do. I thought of a strategy that would mean that they would be able to pinpoint life stressors that could have a role to play in why they’re feeling the way they do.

Five senses guide I would ask them, is there anything that you’ve seen, heard, felt smelled or tasted that could explain why you’re feeling the way you do? They were able to very easily list a couple of things that were going on for them. For instance, the sense of sight chapter covers areas such as social media, screen use, the people that you see, body image. All the things that we come into contact with every day of our lives that we probably take for granted or have become normalised. The sense of hearing covers listening to our selves, the sense of feeling is feeling imperfect or feeling under confident. Your sense of smell covers areas such as self-care.

The sense of taste looks at areas such as our relationship with food, and also things like caffeine. And finally, taste in the hypothetical sense. So thinking about revenge, sweet revenge. And why anger often does get a bit of a bad rap, but anger is actually a means of communicating an underlying emotion.

The book really delves deep into all those areas. I mean, that’s just a snapshot of some of the areas that I cover. I also include ‘Ask Yourself’ sections. Really look at what might not be working for you. The five senses challenge is about linking the two once you recognise that something is a difficult for you. It ncourages you to incorporate a small change into your life every day.

Measuring progress The way we measure the progress is through my well-being thermometer. I have a well-being thermometer dotted around the book, and I give the readers the opportunity to measure their well-being temperature.

I hope it’s going to be a book that’s going to be really practical, lots of tips and tools. And it’s not a cookie-cutter plan. It’s not the case that I’m presenting one plan for every individual. It really empowers the reader to generate a plan that’s bespoke and individual to them.

Screen time Chloe Brotheridge: Amazing. Yeah, I definitely recommend this to our listeners. Check that out. It’s out on the 16th of July. I think it’d be perfect for the Calmer You listeners. You mentioned screen time. I have found that it’s one of those things a bit like, maybe a bit like alcohol and smoking where if you suggest to someone they maybe are using their screen too much. It’s kind of like you’re taking their coffee away from them.

And I notice it in myself being like, I don’t even want to admit that that’s a problem. So we’re in denial somehow. At the moment, we probably are using our screens more than ever. You mentioned comparison there. Do you have any sort of advice for people who maybe are starting to recognise that their screen time is kind of getting out of control or for people who are getting themselves into that social comparison that you mentioned?

Before you look at your screen Sarah: I always have a rule first thing in the morning I do not look at my phone until I’m fully showered dressed, had my breakfast done what I need to do. You can imagine what might have come via email and messages overnight. You then decide to scroll through your social media. And you’re immediately met with someone’s sweaty post workout selfie, or someone’s divined smoothie bowl or the fact that someone’s actually already on their way to the office or fired up their computer and sent 100 emails and you’re sat there in your pyjamas you know, instantly that comparison is set up the moment you wake up. So what I always ask people to do is actually get yourself sorted ready on a morning before you even reach for that phone. So allow that hour literally just to be for yourself.

Screen use: nonnegotiable I also would have asked people what is it that you’re using your screen use for. In the chapter on screen use, I look at screen use in three different ways. So there’s screen use that is a nonnegotiable. The things that you absolutely have to do. It might be that you have to send a work email, or that you have to send a text to a friend, because you’re going to be meeting up later. Those are the things that you can’t negotiate, you do need to use your screens to use that.

Screen use: like to do Then there’s the things called like to do. For me, I love nothing more than sitting down on an evening and watching a box set. Or I love firing up an audiobook or a podcast on my way to work. Those are the things that I really enjoy, and I get real pleasure from.

Screen use: not entirely necessary Finally, there’s the not entirely necessary. Often we’ll just reach for our phone out of boredom or insecurity. Before you’ve know it, you’ve wasted 20-30 minutes of just mindless scrolling mindless consumption.

Think about your screen use Think about your screen use in those three categories. Every time you reach for your phone ask yourself, is this something that’s a nonnegotiable? Is this something I like to do? Or am I going down the route of something that’s not entirely necessary that may well not serve me.

It creates this discipline around screen use. A lot of people might think they don’t have a problem with screen use. You might find you’re pulled into social comparisons, you feel more anxious, maybe you’re struggling with sleep because you’re not turning off your screens until last thing or night and then you’re trying to hit your head to the pillow and trying to force yourself to sleep.

Remember the well-beingthermometer So again, within the book, I talk about the well-being thermometer and getting people used to think about their screen use and how problematic it is and then encouraging those small, practical solutions to see whether or not that makes a difference to how they’re feeling. It’s such a vulnerable time in the morning when we first wake up. I don’t want to be putting anything negative or stressful into my mind for the first few minutes, particularly because I’ve had times where I’ve, you know, read my emails and suddenly been full of adrenaline at 6am. Feeling like I had to get on with things. Then that I can’t meditate.

When you’re checking your emails, first of all in the morning, it creates a sense of urgency, but you have to act on it straightaway before you’ve done everything else to kind of make you feel half normal. It’s absolutely for that reason that you don’t want to offset the meditation that’s really important to you or having a really nice luxurious shower.

Chloe Brotheridge: Such an important thing to remember. I love those questions to prompt yourself to question whether it is a nonnegotiable. Yesterday I became aware that my computer was loading slightly slowly and I literally couldn’t wait like the two seconds my computer to load so I picked up my phone. I made a promise to myself if my computer’s being slow that I’m just gonna sit with it. Slowing down.

Saying no Another topic that I really wanted to ask you about, and that you include in your book is the topic of saying no. This is something that is very close to my heart and also something that I struggle with from time to time. What is your take on saying no what as what sort of ideas and advice do you have around that?

Sarah: I have really struggled with this because I think saying no conjures up the idea that I’m being selfish and unhelpful. And that can be a really difficult thing to sit with. But actually, when we say yes to something, when we really mean no, we can end up taking on more than perhaps we can handle. We may risk burnout, we may actually end up resenting the person that’s got us to say yes, in the first place.

Practice for saying no The way I look at saying no, so I kind of give this analogy within the book, which is around going on holiday. Imagine for a second that I’ve agreed that we’re going to go on holiday, and we’ve picked the destination, we decided we’re gonna go to nice sunny beach. And so we go back, we pack everything that we need, got our tickets, ready, go to the airport, checked our bags in and then we’re on our way to the gate. And then someone stops us in tracks and says, Sarah, you don’t want to be going here, you want to be going to this destination instead? So what would you say in that situation?

An alternative scenario is I want to go on holiday, I’m not really sure. Let’s just pack for every eventuality, and we’ll meet each other at the airport. Then look at the departures board, and we’ll decide what takes our fancy. We get to the departure board, and we’re just pondering over the options that are there. And the same person comes up to us and says, Oh, you want to check this place out? What would we say in that scenario? Well, I guess we might be more likely to say yes, I don’t make a decision. We don’t know what we want.

What’s important to you? What is the difference in those two scenarios. With the first scenario we were very clear about what our intentions were that what we wanted We were prepared for this sunny holiday and therefore we packed accordingly. That someone presented an opportunity to us that went against everything that was important to us, made it easier for us to say no. However, when someone catches us off guard when perhaps we’re not really clear about what our intentions are or what we want, we’ve kind of come half prepared. Actually, it’s much easier to be swayed into saying yes. So the exercise within the book on saying no really forces you to evaluate what’s important to you personally.

Ask yourself… What’s important to you in terms of your social life, what’s important to you in thinking about things like work and educational opportunities. It makes you consider actually, if someone presents an opportunity that goes against everything that’s important to you? What’s the pressure in saying yes to that individual? And so I think what’s really important for people to bear in mind is actually saying no is really more about self-preservation. Especially when saying yes is not going to serve you in the long run as well.

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, I hate that feeling of having agreed to do something and then the day rolls around where that thing has come along. And I’m just feeling like, ah, why did I say yes, I got so many other things that I need to do or some things that I’d rather do. And these days, I’m trying just to have almost have no as being my policy answer to most things to do with work. If it’s a really good opportunity, I’ll say yes to it. I’ll consider it but I have to, for my own well-being have a sort of blanket no to most things. And then yeah, occasionally saying yes, but it’s such a tricky one. I think, especially for women, where, where we’re raised to be good girls.

I relate to what you said about feeling like it’s selfish. Also what’s going through my mind is, oh, she’s going to think I’m too big for my boots. Who does she think she is?

You have a choice Sarah: The other thing to bear in mind is by someone asking you whether you want to be involved in something, whether you want to come to an event, they are effectively giving you a choice. So it shouldn’t come to a surprise that actually part of that choice might be someone saying, No, you know, it’s not like they’re saying You must come to this event, and you’re turning around saying no, actually, they’re giving you a choice in the matter. And I think that’s the thing that’s really important to bear in mind.

Often people will say yes to situations because it will serve them in the long run. For instance, I would say yes to working extra shifts, because I knew that I had a wedding to save up for. As much as I would love to have said no, I know that saying yes is going to serve me in the long run. It means that the thing that’s important to me is having a lovely wedding. So in that situation, I had to say yes. When maybe I did want to say no. Consider when saying yes may actually influence something that’s important to you a bit further down the line.

Chloe Brotheridge: It comes back to recognising what’s important and really thinking about what you want in the first instance. That can guide your decisions on what you’re saying yes to and why you’re saying it?

Worry dump method Can you share about the worry dump method? I know that people listening, worrying, is it likely to be a big issue? Same thoughts day after day. Can you share a bit about that method for us?

Sarah: Worring is such a common emotion even more so at the moment. And, again, what I was finding is that worry doesn’t necessarily serve us. It can be all-consuming of our time and energy. It doesn’t have to eat into their day, or consume any more of their time and energy.

An example, I’m worried that my zoom might play up or the code hasn’t sent me a link. I can turn that worry into problem that I can solve by emailing you and saying, oh, what’s the link for our charts? How do I need to be prepared? Do you have a list of questions that you can send to me? So immediately rather than allow that worry to consume anything, I’m not sure what code is going to ask me? Am I going to be any good?

Worry curfew I have this set time in the evening called a worry curfew. In the evening, list any worries that would not serve me immediately that I can’t readily turn into a problem. Every time a worry crops up I ask myself if this a worry that I can turn to a problem that I can solve? If it is great, just solve the problem there. And then if it’s not, just label it this might not be a worry. Jot the list down in a phone or journal.

By the end of the day, look at the list of worries that might not have even happened. Immediately you feel empowered, the fact that you didn’t allow that worry to run away with you.

This allows you to identify what serves you and what doesn’t. It can be a really empowering feeling.

Chloe Brotheridge: I really like that idea. That sounds quite cathartic in itself. It helps knowing that we can do something about some of those worries. That’s very empowering. As you say, we don’t have to just ruminate over and over again. I think that’s a really powerful tool.

Well-being tips I was really curious to know how you take care of your own mental well-being. Are there certain practices and things that you incorporate into your own life. For me, exercise is number one. Any form of movement in the day. Lockdown has helped me be better about that. Usually I would be commuting to a clinic and then I’d be quite sedentary most of the day because I’d be sat on my desk and then I’d be seeing patients.

During my lunch hour, I’d be one of those people that would have lunch at my desk, you know, there was not much movement. But actually over the last 10 weeks, I’ve been really disciplined about getting outside and just moving. I’ve been looking forward to family walks, and my husband and my daughter really relishing those opportunities. It’s so important.

Exercising Exercise is also good for the mental health benefits. Particularly if I do it first thing in the morning, it just sets me up for the day. It gives me more energy. My mood improves my focus, and I think definitely helps my sleep later on as well.

Exercise definitely and time with my daughter as well. I do enjoy those kind of things like baking and not feeling so rushed as well. And so that’s really important to me.

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, I love how lockdown has shown us how important the simple things in life are. They don’t have to cost anything. It’s just spending time with each other or being outside in nature. I think it’s helping us to connect all those things. So it’s only a good thing. Absolutely.

Is there anything that you’re struggling with at the moment? And how are you handling it.

Delegating Sarah: Pre lockdown, I worked full time and oftened called on my mother in law for support. She lives down the road to help out with child care. And because she’s in the vulnerable group, we’ve not been able to utilise that. I’m getting used to not being afraid to delegate to my husband. It sounds ridiculous, but he works really long hours. And he’s very busy. But often what we’re finding is the pattern of me doing the drop-offs and pickups.

I’d fallen into the habit of letting his mom to do it instead. Asking him to muck in and help out a bit more, has been really empowering. It’s been great for him because actually he really enjoys doing the drop offs and pickups.

By his own admission, he’s got a bit lazy thinking, Oh, well, my mom really likes to do it. And actually that’s Grandma granddaughter time, which is lovely.

Partnering And so for me, I think not being afraid to delegate. So you need to kind of pull your weight and do this as well. He’s not doing what one and two, but how is that situation going to improve unless we communicate about it?

In the book I focus on how we deal with pressure. Many of us feeling the need to do everything ourselves. We think we’ll do it better. Actually letting go of some of that to help us in the long run. And so that’s something that I’ve definitely benefited from.

Chloe Brotheridge: I know that my my partner has gotten better at tidying and cleaning. It was not something he was that familiar with before, but I think he is learning. We’re learning things about our partners and ourselves.

Thank you so much for everything that you shared today. It’s been so, so helpful. Where can people find out more about you buy your book, anything else you’re up to at the moment.

Where to find Sarah I’m mostly on Instagram, my handles @mindmedic. I post lots of tips and tools on most days, and any events I’m doing. And you can buy my book. It’s available on pre order at Amazon, WH Smith, Waterstones and all good book shops as well. Amazing. Yeah. So thank you so much for speaking to me today. Oh, you’re welcome. Thank you for having me.

Where you can find me Chloe Brotheridge:
You’ve been listening to the Calmer You podcast. With me, Chloe Brotheridge. Don’t forget you can download loads of freebies for anxiety and confidence at my website calmer-you.com.

You can also find out about my app and my one on one sessions. Please do subscribe to this podcast in the apple podcast app. If you have enjoyed it or found it helpful, please leave me a review. It makes a massive difference to helping the podcast get discovered by other people. And come on over and find me on Instagram. And please share it with anyone who might need to hear this today. So I’m sending you lots of love and hope you have a brilliant week ahead.

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If you want to live calmer and happier as I know most of my community does, then this episode of the Calmer You podcast with author of the Mind Medic, Dr. Sarah Vohra, is for you.  Dr Vohra is a Consultant Psychiatrist, Bestselling Author, Public Speaker and Women’s Health UK Magazine Columnist. She is on […]

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This week on the Calmer You Podcast I shared an intimate conversation with Ella Mills, British food writer and entrepreneur under the brand Deliciously Ella, about wellness, anxiety and dealing with criticism. She’s been through it all and shares much wisdom so many of us can connect with.

We chat about: * What wellness means to her and why it gets a bad rap * Her experiences of anxiety around her business and motherhood * Dealing with criticism * Ella’s advice for those thinking of starting a business

Transcript Chloe Brotheridge: Hello and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution and Brave New Girl. And this podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest, happiest and most confident self.

Today’s guest Thank you so much for joining me today I am joined on the podcast by the completely lovely Ella Mills aka Deliciously Ella. I’ve been following her since the very early days in her career back when I was making sweet potato brownies while having weird autoimmune issues. That was a massive help to me. I’ve been a big fan ever since.

We chat about what wellness means in this day and age, why it gets a bad rap, and how we can make the most of it without it becoming something negative in our lives. We talk about her experiences of anxiety. She has experienced anxiety twice in her life and she shares her stories around that. She also shares about how she deals with criticism and how we can start to recognise what we can use as constructive criticism and what we can just let go of. We also talk about Ella’s advice for those thinking of starting a business. This is incredibly helpful and insightful.

Brand new website! I’d love to invite you to come on over to my website. It’s got a brand new look, and is looking pretty good if I do say so myself. You’re going to find details about my app and loads of free downloads for anxiety and confidence. Also covering topics about the inner critic. You’ll also find things like the show notes for this podcast.

If you like to watch videos instead of listening to things or you’ve got a friend who does I have been recording all my podcasts as YouTube videos. You can head over there if you want to watch on your lunch break or when you need support to keep calm.

Let’s welcome Ella to the podcast Let’s get into the episode with Ella. Welcome Ella. Thank you so much. How are you? I’m very excited to speak to you. I have been following you since I think 2013 or 2014. I was making your sweet potato brownies when I was really struggling with weird health symptoms that no doctor could really explain. Finding you and what you were doing was such a massive help. It really helped with the weird symptoms that I was having. And I felt so much less alone knowing that there were other people who had to have diets that were a little bit out of the ordinary. Yeah. So thank you so much for everything that you do.

Can you say a bit about how you are the moment. How are things with everything that’s going on in the world? Are you working from home and how’s all of that going?

Ella: Yes, since the middle of March we’ve been working differently. Do you know what I feel like? It depends what day you asked me. I’m an emotional person anyway so I’m definitely an up and down kind of person but I feel like some days I literally couldn’t think working from home was better and I’m loving it. I’m loving the quietness of not commuting into Central London. Other days I miss it so much. I miss getting dressed and being with lots of people and the kind of buzz and energy you get from that.

Pregnant and working from home It really depends, but I have to say I was pregnant last summer as well. I’m pregnant this summer is a theme at the moment and I have to stay working from home. It’s very nice when you’re pregnant. A lot more comfortable. Waddling down Oxford Street when it was like 30 degrees last year was not the best few minutes of my life.

Chloe Brotheridge: It’s kind of up and down at the moment. We’re not the same every day. I guess that’s life normally, but maybe it’s intensified during lockdown because things are just more intense.

Plant-based cooking made easy I’m very excited about your new book Quick and Easy. And I follow a plant-based diet myself. Things being quick and easy is just basically what we’re all looking for right now. Do you have any kind of key tips that you have for having a plant-based diet and doing it in a quick and easy way?

Ella: I think with anything in life, your diet, the way you look after your mental health, your exercise, relationships, everything it has to feel sustainable with long term doable options. Sometimes that’s what goes wrong. People think they have to go all out and eat lettuce with grated carrots and cucumber and tomatoes. And I mean, it’s just so boring.

It’s unbelievable. It’s gonna last like two minutes. Yeah, and for me, they’re like, the most important thing is that things taste good because then you want to keep coming back to them. Obviously, you know, the focus on mental health, like it’s so important to feel satisfied. And it’s so important to feel like you’re doing something that feels good and positive. And I think that’s key.

Lockdown: 21 meals a week Equally, that’s great, but it only actually works in your lifestyle. If it is doable in the sense that it’s like, actually manageable. For most people, that has to be quick. I don’t know about you guys, but I am not used to making 21 meals a week. Normally if you’re in the office, we do team lunch in the office every day anyway. We’d go out maybe every now and again or just grab something on the way home. Now it’s just so different. We’re sitting at home and so we’re having three meals a day, seven days a week at home. That’s been really different. I have appreciated batch cooking and things like now more than ever.

Chloe Brotheridge: I can’t imagine if you’ve got lots of kids. Having an approach of not making it too complicated and keeping it simple. During lockdown I started cooking then it waned. Now I feel like I’ve got a second wind. I’m getting back into cooking again.

Ella: Like you said, some days you’re really loving the time gained from less commuting and new opportunities to have hobbies. On other days you just cannot be bothered with anything anymore.

What does wellness mean to you? Chloe Brotheridge: I really wanted to talk to you about wellness. It’s a term that we hear so much about these days. We’ve kind of lost our connection with what that is, or it’s become quite an overwhelming thing. There’s been a sort of a backlash, I suppose, in some ways to the term or to the sort of approaches. What does wellness mean to you?

Ella: It’s a great question. It’s so nuanced and has so many layers to it. It triggers different things in different people. I’m really aware of that. Equally, I’m not sure what’s a better word. I think it’s just become so confusing for people because we all know that we need to eat a few more vegetables. What does wellness mean to our mental health? The fact that our brain and our gut are directly linked to the gut-brain access. My favourite food is fibre. There’s a reason we need a certain amount of fibre in our day. And the vast majority of us, again, are not meeting that by almost 50%. There’s a real disconnect there.

30 different plant-based food in a week Researchers are now saying you should have 30 different plant-based foods every single week. Perhaps to get that much in your diet you are going to have to do and buy all these weird and wacky things that won’t be available in your local Tesco.I think that that is a slight problem. And if people want to do anything extra on the top, you know, it’s like, add the fairy dust, try it, whatever works for you. I don’t have any criticism of any of it.

I do think taking care of ourselves a bit more, whether that is trying to make something for lunch that’s fresh, whether that is you know, trying to go on a walk every day or do even just like a 10-minute online yoga video, whatever it is that you enjoy. Trying to turn your phone off for an hour just trying to maybe try a meditation app for five minutes. Nothing complicated. Just five minutes here, five minutes there. Sometimes we’ve become quite divorced from that in amongst the confusion of all the weird and wacky messaging.

What does that look like? Chloe Brotheridge: So lentils and carrots, it could be as simple as, you know, more vegetables. I hadn’t heard that and about 30 different plant-based foods a week. How would you visualise that across the day?

Ella: It’s quite easy. Sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds both count as two. If you like, total some of those and put those in the salad. That would be two, and you know, oats count as one and rice counts as another and so on and so forth.

Chloe Brotheridge: Good to know. I was curious about whether there were any weird and wonderful wellness concepts that you were interested in or that you’d find helpful. Other things that you do or things that you’ve tried that that do really work for you.

Trying new wellness opportunities Ella: I’m really open-minded. I think some of it’s so interesting. But it can be a barrier. I’m fascinated by this space and what’s going on. One of the most amazing experiences I’ve had is for example at Crystal Sound TV. They’re playing the kind of gong along with a guided meditation. I never felt such relaxation in my life. Some of my friends and family think oh my goodness, you know when you start going into that territory. I’ve had some really amazing experiences with practices like that. Hmm.

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, me too. I definitely am up for trying any of those sorts of things. Quite often things can surprise you. You might get dragged along to a gong bath or a sound healing or trying something like CBD oil because someone recommends it to you. Then actually you get surprised that it does work for you. If it works, I think we should be open to trying different things.

Ella: Totally. I think there is, you know, on the flip side of what we’re saying, I think there is a lack of open-mindedness that we see just too much. If something works for you, and there’s no kind of evident negative repercussions of it, then why not? Who cares? You know, if the placebo effect is the only reason why it works, who cares? It doesn’t matter. It works. We are quite quick to judge and we are quick to dismantle what really works for people. If it supports your wellness then who else is to judge. Who cares why it works, if it works, it works and that’s all that actually matters.

Placebo effect Chloe Brotheridge: I think we should be maximising the placebo effect as much as possible. In some studies, it’s comparable to medication. Even with antidepressants, placebos perform pretty well instead of anti-depressants. You should definitely be trying to use those obviously in a safe way.

I was interested to know whether you have experienced anxiety in your life and what was that experience like for you and other ways that you deal with it personally?

Anxiety Ella: Yeah, I’ve had it. The most recent time was after Skye, my daughter, was born last year. I felt so terrified by the responsibility. And I just found myself overthinking everything like did I turn off every appliance in the kitchen? Is she still breathing. There’s no reason logically to think for some reason today I’m going to fall down the stairs.

Motherhood and anxiety It may have been a combination of exhaustion and hormones wrapped up with this new level of responsibility which you’re not prepared for in any shape or form. I was breastfeeding, and I am literally keeping this child alive in like every sense of the word. Am I doing it right? And I’m sure that’s a very normal experience for people with early motherhood, but I did find it for the first like couple of months overwhelming. That sense of responsibility in shaping someone else’s life impacted my wellness.

I had a lot of anxiety about and would just worry about absolutely everything. Pregnancy wasn’t like that. And in fact, I found that quite crippling. That was after our first book came out and everything just changed overnight and it grew so fast. Suddenly people are talking about you rather than to you and suddenly people have all kinds of different opinions. I found that that sense of vulnerability overwhelming and paralyzing.

Dealing with criticism Chloe Brotheridge: or anyone that’s such a massive thing to suddenly be exposed to all these opinions. Criticism make us not want to make a mistake. That can be on a massive scale with so many opinions coming in. It can be really difficult.

How do you deal with criticism and that sort of thing? Because I guess it’s a like a numbers game, the more people you have kind of following you, the more likely you’re going to have people with unhelpful kind of ideas. messaging you. Do you have any kind of how do you deal with that?

Ella: It’s been a real learning curve for me. I definitely had a moment where, it made me consider getting out and starting a different career. If you want to do this, you’re gonna have to figure this out because this isn’t just today, this is going to be part and parcel of the career.

Two types of criticism I found for me, criticism had gone into two buckets. The first was constructive criticism. And actually, you know, it’s one of those things, sometimes it’s not always delivered in the most constructive way, but it is genuinely constructive criticism.

We can all do better and be better. That criticism is genuinely helpful, and I think has helped me and us as a business also learn and develop and grow. Some criticism can be genuinely constructive and it’s not personal, which I think is, is the most important part.

The second is personal criticism, like when someone says I absolutely hate your voice or you’ve put on weight or you’ve lost weight or you know, you’re terrible mother. I get that probably because we do is food. At a certain point for my own wellness, I just had to say okay, some people are always gonna think that about you and you just can’t make everyone happy.

Tip for dealing with criticism Chloe Brotheridge: It’s exhausting if we’re trying to please everyone. I was talking to a friend who was on the podcast recently and she’s she looks at the reviews of her favourite books and films. There will be terrible reviews. That’s evidence that we can’t keep everyone happy no matter how brilliant you are.

Ella: I don’t read my reviews or interviews. I won’t read it. I never read it. You know, because it could take me to the comment section. For me, that’s the only way to do it. It’s too negative to deal with.

Chloe Brotheridge: The comments section of the Daily Mail definitely! I made that mistake of reading some comments or something that I wrote.

Ella: It’s really damaging, I think. It’s really important to take constructive criticism on board. But that kind of personal criticism isn’t constructive criticism or good for your wellness. That’s just like, more brutal keyboard warriors most of the time.

Your boss or colleagues may offer criticism of you and you don’t like it, but it is genuinely probably constructive in some ways, and it’s going to help you in the long term.

Starting a new career Chloe Brotheridge: Right now many people are faced with furlough or considering what they want to do with their lives. Would you have any advice for people who are thinking about working for themselves or starting a business or launching a blog or anything like that?

Ella: That’s a great question. Part of me is like, do it. It’s the best thing ever. And the other part of me is like, don’t do it. It’s the worst thing. It’s much harder than it looks. There are massive upsides and there are massive downsides.

I think there’s a real glamorization of starting a business at the moment like female entrepreneurship and hashtag girl boss. That’s amazing and empowering. And feeling like there’s opportunity. That’s only a positive thing. That being said, it’s really hard. It’s particularly hard in a pandemic, especially on your wellnes. It’s full on and it’s super fun. If you run your own business, you are answerable seven days a week, 365 days a year, Christmas Day does not mean a day off. It really doesn’t. It hasn’t for us since we properly launched the business.

I think it’s really important to acknowledge that. That being said, you really get to see and experience the growth and the learning and the excitement of doing something you care about every single day. We’ve got 20 people that work for us, we’ve got a lot of overheads, we’ve got a big commitment. I don’t really feel like a work myself anymore. That being said, I still get to make big decisions, and I still get to do something that I love every single day.

Entreprenuership and stress The impact on your mental health of running your own business is not talked about enough. Especially in the startup phase. For the first two years or so, we really worked full-on seven days a week. We saw no friends, we canceled five attempts at a holiday in two years. Our first wedding anniversary to go away for the night and we cancelled it that morning to sit find my samples for Tescos.

It’s not to say poor us like God, no. Even a couple of weekends ago, it was Matt’s first Father’s Day. We had this really boring long story, but basically lost our domain name and were locked out of every single company email, so we have no way of replying. We have a huge supply chain. We’re in 7000 stores with almost 30 products. When we had no communication with our supply chain. None of our delivery partners could communicate with us. None of our manufacturing partners, you know, none of our accounts. It was stressful. I can’t explain the stress.

We spent Friday night on the phone until one o’clock in the morning to America. We canceled all our Father’s Day plans and this carried on for four days.

It is the biggest privilege to do something which you feel has purpose and that you have passion for and that you wake up excited to do and that you feel independence in. I wouldn’t change that for the world. But I do think that that part of it has to be acknowledged because you don’t get to turn off.

Glamorisation of Entreprenuership Ella: I think that’s partly why in some senses as a kind of glamorization of it, because there is something so exciting about it. There really is like, it is so exciting. There’s a buzz about it, that I wouldn’t change anything in the world. But I think it’s with anything in life, it is full of ups and downs. If you’re the kind of person that enjoys that, because it keeps it interesting, which I am as well my husband and business partner, then it’s the best thing in the world that you can possibly do. But if you don’t enjoy it perhaps the right thing to do is stay away for your own wellness.

Chloe Brotheridge: I’m sure there are people listening that are breathing a sigh of relief. Thinking, I don’t need to do that. You just let me off the hook. Take the pressure off. You don’t have to have a side hustle or be a girl boss and have an Instagram business on the side or something.

Ella: I agree with you. There is a pressure for that. If you don’t enjoy that, like spend that time with your friends.

The commitment is huge Chloe Brotheridge: I’ve heard quite a few people say if you’re thinking of starting a podcast don’t unless you’re committed to do it every single week for at least two years. It takes that long to get any traction. It just shows the level of commitment that you need to have to keep something going.

Ella: It’s disheartening, but it’s it’s reality. Sometimes our level of expectations are so high. Then part of the reason that we struggle is we feel disheartened and disappointed that things don’t happen the way we expect them to happen. That can impact our wellness.

Chloe Brotheridge: I just want to ask you about your podcast. Congratulations on how amazing it’s done. What have you learned from it, either from the guests that you’ve spoken with, or from the actual process itself of putting that out there?

Ella’s podcast Ella: It’s definitely been one of my favourite things that we’ve ever done. I’ve really enjoyed it and I love that opportunity to learn from people and fields. You know, I’m so interested in health and wellness and our kind of well being in general and so any opportunity to learn more, I appreciate that.

Every guest has been fascinating. And we’ve covered so many topics from relationships to sleep and all manners of mental health. I think there is a huge amount to be learned from that.

Remain in the moment

With Coronavirus, we do not know what’s going to happen tomorrow. None of us have got a clue. I’ve been really listening to that advice more than ever. All you have is today. Just try and appreciate that and make the most of that. I do totally subscribe to that idea and I’m much happier living that way. There is nothing you can do about what happened yesterday, and you haven’t got a clue what’s going to happen next week. So other than like, obviously the practical elements of like, planning meetings, you know, just let the headspace event go for better wellness.

Stay present Chloe Brotheridge: I love that. It’s so simple and we often think that our happiness is going to have to be some kind of 10 step plan and getting this job and moving to this place. Actually, none of that stuff matters if we’re constantly in the past or the future unless we’re present and I think that’s such a wonderful reminder for us.

I wonder if we are definitely learning that more in lockdown. Especially as a lot of the things that maybe would have made us happy before been taken away from us like holidays and going out for nice meals. We’re having to find happiness and wellness in different ways.

What is most important to you right now?

Family Ella: Family by a million miles. I think there have been loads of lessons from Coronavirus, to be honest. You’ve got to find such joy and happiness in just your every single day and for me like time with Matt and our daughter. It genuinely makes me so happy and just I don’t really need anything else other than a nice cup of coffee. Just being at home with them is genuinely such a massive source of happiness.

Chloe Brotheridge: My two sisters moved 10 minutes up the road from me and Hackney. It was amazing, but they were just so close and I couldn’t see them for three months or so. And I saw them yesterday and we all had a little cry, being able to be reunited again. I’m definitely thinking a lot about getting a dog moving to the countryside, changing a lot of different things. Let me get a dog.

Dog lovers Ella: Dogs are honestly is the best.

Chloe Brotheridge: Everyone says that who has a dog.

Ella: Two things, one dogs always make the like house so warm, they don’t have bad moods Not really. There’s just this kind of happiness that they exude that I think brings a lot to a room. I love that it makes me get out every day. I really appreciate that so much. We go on a walk first thing every morning. For us, a dog definitely makes the biggest difference on mental health and wellnes.

Chloe Brotheridge: My dog broodiness is like getting a bit out of control. I’ll need to speak to the landlord again or maybe just move house. Thank you so much for everything that you shared. It’s been amazing. When is your new book out? And where can people find out more about you? And yeah, what else you’re offering?

Where to find Ella Ella:
My new book is called Quick and Easy. It has over 100 plant-based recipes and it’s out this Thursday. It’s currently half price on Amazon and Watson which is very nice.

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Chloe Brotheridge: I have had a little advanced look at your book and it looks amazing.

Freebies Chloe Brotheridge: Thank you so much for speaking to me. Thanks for having me today. You have been listening to the Calmer You podcast with me Chloe Brotheridge.

Don’t forget you can download loads of freebies for wellness, anxiety and confidence at my website Calmer-you.com. You can also find out about my app and my one on one sessions.

Please do subscribe to this podcast in the apple podcast app. If you have enjoyed it or found it helpful, please leave me a review. It makes a massive difference to helping the podcast get discovered by other people.

Come on over and find me on Instagram. I’m hanging out there every day. You can find me at Chloe Brotheridge. Let me know what you thought of this episode. Please share it with anyone who might need to hear this today. I’m sending you loads of love and I hope you have a brilliant week ahead.

The post Ep 115. Wellness, anxiety and dealing with criticism with Ella Mills appeared first on Calmer you.

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This week on the Calmer You Podcast I shared an intimate conversation with Ella Mills, British food writer and entrepreneur under the brand Deliciously Ella, about wellness, anxiety and dealing with criticism. She’s been through it all and shares much wisdom so many of us can connect with. We chat about: What wellness means to […]

The post Ep 115. Wellness, anxiety and dealing with criticism with Ella Mills appeared first on Calmer you.

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Welcome to this week’s episode. I’m going to be talking about making new friends as an adult. I talk about: Why there’s nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to wanting more friends My favourite strategy for talking to anyone  How to deal with ‘rejection’ or worrying that you’re ‘boring’ Plus – I share experiences […]

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Welcome to this week’s episode. I’m going to be talking about making new friends as an adult.

I talk about: * Why there’s nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to wanting more friends * My favourite strategy for talking to anyone * How to deal with ‘rejection’ or worrying that you’re ‘boring’ * Plus – I share experiences from friends on how they made friends as an adult

Featuring advice from Toral Shah, Poorna Bell and Shahroo Izadi.

Transcript Chloe Brotheridge: Hello and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution and Brave New Girl. And this podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest, happiest and most confident self.

Let’s talk about making new friends Welcome to this week’s episode, I’m going to be talking about making new friends as an adult. I was pretty surprised I have to be honest by the response that I got a few episodes back. It was on an episode about procrastination where I asked you guys whether you’d be interested in a podcast about making new friends as an adult.

Lot’s of interest in this I had a lot of DMS a lot of emails with people saying they were interested in this, which kind of surprised me. It’s so easy to think, and I’m sure you guys can relate to this, that everyone else has their friendships sorted. Everyone else has their best friend and they’re not really looking for new friends. This is something that affects the tonnes of people. So you are definitely not alone in this.

This episode includes I just want to start off by saying that so over the course of this episode, I’m going to talk about some of the reasons why we might be wanting to make more friends. I’m going to talk about my own experiences in this area. I also spoke to some friends and people that I know online for their advice and tips. I’m going to be weaving those in as well. And of course, I’m gonna be sharing different practical steps that you can take and ideas on shifting your mindset around making new friends. So hope you enjoy this episode.

How I can help If this is something that you are looking to work on, for example, if you experience social anxiety, if you’d like to be more confident in social situations, for example, it is something I work with people on one on one. So please do get in touch over at Calmer-you.com if you feel like you want to take this further. If you head on over to my website, you can also find loads of freebies on there for helping you to be calmer and happier.

It’s not like making friends as a kid So making friends as an adult is a different thing to making friends as a kid. When you’re a child, we can just point at someone’s toy dinosaur in the school playground. Or maybe we’re friends with kids of our parent’s friends. It’s all so easy and we might even just come out and say, do you want to be friends. There’s nothing wrong with saying that.

Reasons we may be looking for friends It’s a very different thing it seems when we’re in adulthood. In adulthood, it might be that you are out of touch with people that you grew up with. It might be that you’ve had a change in your life, for example. In my own experience, stopping drinking. Or either you’ve had children or you’re one of the people in your old friendship group that hasn’t had children and you feel as if your lifestyles are so different now that you’ve drifted apart. Maybe after a breakup, you lost friends after that. The friends were friends of your partner, for example. Or you’re working for yourself.

There can be so many reasons why you might be looking for more friends as an adult. One thing I really wanted to say was that there can be shame around this. And I know from my own experience that I’ve had shame about this in the past.

Childhood friends I’ll just share a bit of a personal story about my experiences of making friends and having friends and social anxiety. I grew up in a very tight-knit community, everyone knew each other. My friends from childhood are almost like family to me. They’re almost like cousins or sisters, in some cases. We grew up very close. We were always round at each other’s houses, and we went to college together.

I went with a group of these friends from primary school, basically, to university and so in some ways, I never really had the chance to go out and make new friends for myself. I’d always had this very secure small group of friends growing up. For me that in combination with anxiety and social anxiety meant that at university I kind of struggled to make friends and meet people.

I did make friends, but a lot of them were whilst drinking or, you know, I needed to have a lot of alcohol in me in order to feel confident and comfortable with new people. And I tended to stick with this group of friends that I’d grown up with.

Struggling to speak to people In 2009. I quit my job, I kind of got fired, that’s a story for another time. I decided to go travelling on my own. Only problem was that I really did struggle to speak to people and was quite lonely on that trip. I spent a lot of time on my own and feeling ashamed that I couldn’t just strike up a conversation with someone. It seemed like a lot of other travellers were able to do it. I had a lot of shame and this sense that there was something wrong with me.

Am I somehow deficient or not good enough and that’s why I can’t make friends. Are people are not gonna like me. Maybe I’m boring. All those sorts of things I would tell myself.

There is nothing to be ashamed of I just want to say that there’s nothing to be ashamed about in wanting more friends. Wanting to make new friends and have social interaction is a human need. We are social creatures. It is intrinsic to our survival to be in community and to be with other people.

So please don’t ever make yourself wrong for wanting friends or think that it’s something to be ashamed of. And I can guarantee that it is not the case that you are not good enough. We are all good enough, have something to offer another person and have unique things about us that make us special. You absolutely have something to offer.

Breaking up with friends Another aspect of this is around needing to break up with a friend. Or a friendship group. Now something that I’ve seen quite often is that when people start to work on their self-esteem and they start to feel more confident or work on their anxiety, your boundaries start to change. Maybe you’ve leveled up or you realise that they are not treating you the way that you want to be treated. Are really into gossiping or going clubbing and actually, that’s something that you are wanting to leave behind.

Loneliness isn’t good for our health It’s really important to have people in our lives. Loneliness is actually bad for your health. They have shown this scientifically that it compares to obesity and smoking in terms of being a risk factor for your physical and mental health.

Quality over quantity It is super important to work on this area of our lives. It can make a massive difference to our mental health and our happiness. It’s not to say that you need to have dozens and dozens of different friends in order to feel happy and satisfied and fulfilled and have your social needs met. It really is much more about the quality of those friendships rather than the quantity.

One question that came in around this was, how can we get over the limiting belief that people don’t like you or that you’re boring. This is something that I hear so much. It’s definitely something that I have worried about in the past.

It’s really important to remember is that no one is judging you as harshly as you judge yourself. We are always our own worst judge. People are not thinking about you. Having thoughts like this, people don’t like me, or I’m boring. We really need to just question these thoughts because they’re very sweeping statements.

CBT view If anyone has looked into CBT Cognitive Behavioural Therapy you might have learned about this. Saying people don’t like me – which people, every person you’ve ever met hasn’t liked you? Is it impossible for a person to like you really? Question those sorts of limiting beliefs that you might find yourself having. Because once we question then we realise that saying something like people might not like me is just not a valid statement.

Human beings are not boring It’s just a numbers game. It’s impossible that everyone is going to think that you’re boring. And also, boring is a label that just does not apply to a human being. Human beings are infinitely fascinating. We are all interesting or interesting parts of us. That doesn’t mean that you’re going to be able to be good friends with everyone. Of course, you need to have things in common and you need to have a personality that somehow gels together with, but to label yourself as boring is just very unfair on yourself.

Tips We need to remember that there’s always going to be people we can connect with. I’m going to share some practical tips and some tips and advice from some of my friends and people that I have asked about this topic.

Socialising around our interests So the first one comes from Poorna Bell. You might remember her from a podcast that we did about six months ago. She’s an author, and a journalist. In order to make friends, she says, it’s about connecting with your own interests. Very often we can be passive about it. We do what our other mates want to do, which is fine, but that might be catching up in a restaurant or a bar. We don’t tend to socialise around our particular interests. She says it’s about tapping into new hobbies and activities and connecting with different communities.

Poorna has met a lot of people through her interest in powerlifting. If we’re constantly doing the same things that we’ve always done with our old friends, so whether that is going to the pub or a restaurant, or going to Farmers Markets together, we’re not going to necessarily expose ourselves to other communities.

Find a hobby buddy I also asked my friend Shahroo, the author of the Last Diet and the Kindness Method and she said, find a common interest and become hobby buddies. It can make it feel less awkward early on, if you’re experiencing or learning about something that interests you. It can be a perfect opportunity to take a friendship to the next level or to meet new people by really engaging with something that interests you. Whether that is fitness, whether that is some kind of event that you’re interested in, whether that is connecting in the comment section of someone on Instagram or on social media that you follow, whether that’s connecting with someone in a Facebook group that you’re in.

Friendship dates I found when it comes to making friends as an adult you need to be the one to make the first move and ask someone out on a date, ask someone out on a friendship date. It can seem awkward or forward at first, but being passive probably isn’t going to cut it. We have to be the one that is taking action and asking someone out and making that first move. Yes, it can feel scary and risky. There is a chance that they will say no, that they will ignore your request, or that you’ll go along and you won’t click as much as you had hoped. But if we can be brave, and if we can feel the fear and still take action anyway, take a bit of a risk, then it can pay off big time.

I also wanted to share some insights from my friend tole Shah who is a nutritional and functional medicine specialist. She’s also a friend of mine, and she sent me a voicemail note on this topic. I think you’ll like her tips too.

We do need to make new friends as we go through life, particularly when we’re going through life’s big transitions and our old friends maybe don’t understand what we’re going through. Two of those pressure points for me have been when I’ve had breast cancer. Some of my closest friends didn’t really understand what it’s like and be there for me. I think other people have had some sort of health concerns have been better, but my really close friends just couldn’t, particularly some of the ones who are going through their own transitions at the same time, like getting married or having a baby. My friendships with those people have actually grown apart in that time.

Shared interests For me, interests are really, really important. Having something that you’re really passionate about together and sharing that. So for me, one of those things is self-development. I’ve made quite a lot of friends through doing some self-development courses. Some have been quite intense and you’re together for quite a long period of time and some of those friendships have stayed forever, and others go by the wayside.

Shared values Sharing common values is also really important. So sometimes it’s not always about having the same interest but having similar values. Other times, it’s about having similar interests or doing the same thing at the same time. One of those examples could be when I’ve had breast cancer, and I’ve been going through treatment, or I’ve made friends through Instagram having a similar experience. That’s been really supportive. That doesn’t mean they’re there for all parts of my life. And vice versa. I’m probably not there for all parts of their life. But it is something that we can identify, that maybe our other friends can’t.

Also, I’m really passionate about food and travel, so finding people who really want to share those experiences. They may be friends that you don’t see all the time, but you share these amazing experiences and recently. I’ve definitely made a lot more new friends because so many of my friends got married and had children and therefore have less availability. I’ve had quite high expectations of those ventures, but they’re not able to. Particularly during lockdown its been about finding local friends I can do things with. And that’s been so important. Two of the girls I spend the most time with and probably talk to the most I only met last year at about age 41 And they have become really close to me because they live locally and we share a lot of the same passions.

Just ask So if you have someone through work, for example, or if you know someone on social media or a friend of a friend, who you know has a similar interest in something ask them to go on a friendship date with you. Go to a workshop or see that exhibition, whatever it is, can just help to take the friendship to the next level.

Our friendship circles or long-time friends may not share common interests. There is always someone looking for a hobby buddy.

It’s ok if it doesn’t materialise I have definitely had experiences of wanting to connect with somebody and kind of thinking to myself, yeah, I’d like to be friends with that person. I can think of one person in particular. There was some back and forth and we spoke a lot about meeting up, but it never quite materialised in that situation.

You know, I can’t know exactly what was going on with this other person. It might be that they thought I was boring, it might be that they are just pretty flaky and not really good at replying to messages, it might be that they already have a really busy life and don’t have time for someone else in their lives. I can’t know what that person is thinking, I’m not gonna try and read their mind and read into it. I’m just going to accept that they are not into me and that is okay.

Did anyone read the book He’ Just Not That Into You. It really stuck with me as being quite a relief really that it is okay to say that person isn’t that into me. And we don’t need to really know all the details of why that is. We can just accept they’re not that into me and move on. That’s totally okay and not a reflection on you. It’s impossible for everyone to like you and for you to be every type of person.

You are a certain flavour person and some people are gonna like that flavour and other people are gonna be not so keen and that’s totally okay.

It’s scary but do it anyway It’s okay to feel nervous, it’s okay to feel scared and it’s okay to feel shy at first. You’re a human being. These are normal human emotions. There is something a bit scary and vulnerable about going on friendship dates or any kind of date for that matter. Or asking someone if they want to hang out or reaching out to somebody or being vulnerable. It is kind of a scary thing sometimes. And it’s totally okay to feel whatever you feel is normal. Don’t let that feeling stop you because it’ll get easier the more that you do it.

Be brave My advice to you is to be brave, perhaps make a list of different things that you’re interested in and thinking about where people hang out and doing the things that you are interested in. Where are they hanging out. It might be that they go to events and they find them on Eventbrite or meetup.

You could try and find sharing circles, online or in-person all over the world. Women circles, men circles, mixed sharing circles. You can look at Facebook groups. There are millions of Facebook groups you get involved in about entrepreneurship, about different hobbies, fitness, ways of eating, you name it. There’s a Facebook group for it, or maybe Facebook groups about the area that you live.

Try social media Think about the people that you really enjoy following on social media. Are there people that are hanging out in the comment section there that may have really similar interests as you that you could just send a DM to reach out to you get to know a little bit and take it from there.

You’ll be surprised about how many other people are really open to new friendships, new experiences, new hobbies, having a partner to go to different things with or to discuss interests with. If you get rejected, it’s totally okay. It’s normal, it’s not a reflection on you. Just keep trying. Keep putting yourself out there because you will find someone to connect with.

We aren’t mind readers If you get quote unquote, rejected, it’s never really a rejection because underneath it all, I think we all love each other and we just have forgotten in this lifetime. But if you find yourself rejected, please don’t read into it too much. There could be so many reasons why they say no, why they don’t get your message, why they don’t see it, why they are too busy. Most of those reasons are not the fact that you are a bad person, that you’re boring or not good enough. There could be so many other reasons. Don’t try to be a mind reader. Just accept that

Introduce yourself And so my final tip is something that I shared in my book, Brave New Girl, which is something that my partner Aiden taught me. He works in sales and is a coach.

Aiden worked in sales, and I was super anxious about the prospect of going to networking events and meeting new people. He said, well, you just walk up to someone, stick out your hand and say, hello, my name is Chloe. And that is the beginning of so many friendships. It has certainly been the beginning of a lot of friendships for me.

Once you have been brave enough, just make the first move to introduce yourself conversations can flow from there. If you can get over that initial hurdle of just being able to walk up to a person or a group of people and introduce yourself, the rest is so much easier.

I’d love to hear from you I’d love to hear from you guys. What are you going to be trying to make new friends? Are you going to be implementing any of these tips or any of this advice? Come and let me know on Instagram? Find me at Chloe Brotheridge Tell me about it I’d love to hear.

Just a reminder that if you want to find out about one to one sessions with me or about my app and all the freebies I have it’s all over my website Calmer-you.com.

You have been listening to the Calmer You podcast with me Chloe Brotheridge. If you have enjoyed it or found it helpful, please leave me a review. It makes a massive difference to helping the podcast get discovered by other people

You can find me on Instagram. I’m hanging out there every day you can find me at Chloe Brotheridge let me know what you thought of this episode. Pease share it with anyone who might need to hear this today. I’m sending you lots of love and I hope you have a brilliant week ahead.

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Now seems like as good of a time as any to think about the work we do and if it’s right for us or time for a change. Happiness coach and author of Love It or Leave it, Samantha Clarke, joins me on the Calmer You podcast. We get into topics such as: Leaving your […]

The post Ep 113. Find happiness at work (or leave!) with Samantha Clarke appeared first on Calmer you.

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Now seems like as good of a time as any to think about the work we do and if it’s right for us or time for a change.

Happiness coach and author of Love It or Leave it, Samantha Clarke, joins me on the Calmer You podcast.

We get into topics such as:

• Leaving your work and trying something new
• How to figure out what you want to do and what you’re good at
• The job market and moving jobs in a time of COVID-19
• How to handle the inner critic

Download your FREE Calmer You Toolkit

Transcript Chloe Brotheridge: Hello, and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution, and Brave New Girl. And this podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest, happiest and most confident self.

Today’s guest Welcome to this week’s episode. Today, I’m talking to Samantha Clark, who is a happiness consultant and a coach. She’s the author of the brilliant new book, Love it or leave It. It’s all about either learning to love the work that you’re in or leaving it and figuring out what you do want to and go do it.

This is such a pertinent topic right now in the time of COVID when lots of us may be questioning our work and our lifestyles. Maybe you have been made redundant or furloughed, and it’s forcing you to reconsider things.

What we talk about So I thought this topic was coming at a perfect time. We get into topics such as leaving your work and trying something new; how to figure that out; how to figure out what you want to do; and what you’re good at. We do talk about work, the job market and moving jobs in a time of COVID-19. And we discuss how to handle the inner critic. You know, I love this topic, the inner critic is going to come up when we are trying something new. When we’re doing something for the first time or we’re going outside of our comfort zone. Samantha shares her strategy for handling the inner critic, which I love.

Actions speak louder than words We talk about priorities and why your actions speak louder than words. This really gave me pause for thought and has caused me to evaluate a few things in my life. I loved what she had to say about this. We talked about how to fall in love with your work again.

New website Chloe Brotheridge: I have a new website and as a result I have kind of a headache if I’m honest. Squinting at the screen, checking all the buttons work, etc. I did have some technical help. But to be honest, it was a lot of me doing it and trying to figure stuff out for myself.

If you want to check out the website, it’s still the same address Calmeryou.com. You’re going to find every single podcast. The last 20 or 30 includes the full transcript. If you or if one of your loved ones is not much of a podcast listener, but actually they would prefer to read it.

Videos and transcripts also available You can also watch the YouTube video of me and the guests talking. I’ve got lots of videos on there. Not everyone, not the people I did in person. But lately, I’ve been doing it all online. So I’ve uploaded the videos. So perhaps you would prefer to watch us or read us having this conversation or a friend or family member would prefer that.

Freebies Chloe Brotheridge: I’ve got loads of freebies on therel. Freebies for confidence, anxiety. I’ve also got some new things coming as well in the next couple of weeks. Free resources for you to get involved in. So do head over there and check it out. Let me know what you think. Hopefully you won’t find any typos on the buttons that take you to a 404 page. Fingers crossed.

1 2 1 You’ll also find on my website how to work with me one on one if you want to. I have a couple of slots at the moment for one on one clients. I help people who put a lot of pressure on themselves to find more work-life balance, to quiet the inner critic, and to move forward with confidence. If you think that might be you, I’d love to hear from you. You can contact me by my website.

Alright, let’s get into the episode with Samantha.

Meet Samantha Chloe Brotheridge: I kind of don’t want lockedown to end. I know, that’s terrible. I wonder if lots of people are feeling the same. We’ve got this cozy little bubbles and it’s like now we have to go out into the world.

Samantha: It’s a funny one. When I was having a conversation with a friend and she said, you know, now I feel like I need to set different boundaries around what I will or won’t attend. I think a lot of people have really enjoyed this time inside to reset. Almost like a little mini-retreat from life.

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, totally. And realising what things you really want to do and what you don’t. Also thinking about what people you want to see and what people you don’t really want to see.

Chloe Brotheridge: Can you please share for people that maybe don’t know who you are and what you do, what it is that you do and how you got to where you are today?

Happiness consultant Samantha: I’m a happiness consultant and the author of Love It or Leave It, how to be happy at work. I’ve been on a journey to really figure out how to create more happiness at work. So I guess I’ve come a long way from my days in advertising and branding and moving into footwear design. Now I’m doing a mixture of style coaching and personal branding.

What to do after redundancy The conversations I was having with people who’d just been made redundant or were thinking about switching was all around work and I just love it. So I fell down that rabbit hole and retrained as a coach. I got my break thinking about happiness consultancy at a tech company. They were growing very quickly and not really sure how to scale people and culture. So I proposed setting up a culture of happiness at work.

Head of Happiness I became their head of happiness for two years and then I branched out on my own. So I’ve been doing my own thing now since 2015. I work with companies helping them to think about cultures that really support employees to be their best.

And I’m driven as well to give the employees and individuals that agency around their career. Love It or Leave It is really about empowering you to decide. Are you going to find ways to love what you do? Or to create other opportunities on the fringes of your work to bring more joy and more happiness? More fulfilment and contentment? Or if not, are you going to leave and what does leaving look like? How do you destroy and rebuild your career and reinvent yourself?

Is now the time to review your work? Chloe Brotheridge: I love that job title Head of Happiness. Your book is fantastic. I just read it and think it’s really practical. The fact that you can just be learning so much about yourself. It’s so timely for right now. I imagine a lot of people are thinking about reviewing their lives and their work and thinking about what they really want.

What do you think in terms of the current climate with everything that’s going on in terms of people’s jobs and revealing their happiness?

What does your company stand for? Samantha: There are a lot of people who are feeling or questioning their professional and personal values and the values of the company that they work for. They are looking to leadership and their managers to really showcase what the company is about.

We’ve had a lot of movements in addition to the pandemic. We’ve also had, Black Lives Matter. Individuals are really scrutinizing their workplace and thinking is this a place where I can flourish and be happy? I think the pandemic has given us the space to breathe and to stop from the commute and the general running from one place to another and realising that I’m enjoying having breakfast with my partner. I’m enjoying putting my kids to bed, you know.

Reflecting on your work Could there be a different way of working for me? And then we’ve also got to be realistic. There are people who’ve been furloughed or made redundant. That’s a massive setback or jolt to how you were working. You know, at the beginning of the year, you were probably very happy in your work and all of a sudden, you’re not working in it. You don’t know what the health of the company is, and so it can be unsettling.

I really want people to use this time to reflect. There’s lots of exercises in the book that are about that deep self-reflection and self-knowledge to figure out what is it I actually want to do? How do I want to spend my working days moving forwards? Because we spend a lot of time working. It is very intertwined with who we are and our identity and how we show up in the world. I think we can make some right moves and now is the time.

Chloe Brotheridge: It’s the perfect time to reflect. We spend so much time working. It’s one of the biggest stressors I would say from the people that I speak to. It can be one of the most stressful things or the thing that gives the most happiness. It’s important to spend time looking into it. One of the things that you talk about in your book is about work.

You are so much more than a title Samantha: For a while we’ve been maybe hemmed in by particular titles. They’ve kept us a bit small. I want people to realise that there’s so much more than that. I’m very driven to help people embrace the term or to find their purpose umbrella. To really think what sits under the remit of who I am and what I want to share with the world. That can take so many different routes.

You could be the graphic designer who’s also really interested in PR, and maybe sells cakes. You could have a really fantastic career in law and be using your time also to educate startup entrepreneurs on legal issues. I want people to be able to think: who am I; who do I want to be; who do I want to become? What am I meant to do on this earth?

Chloe Brotheridge: Are you seeing that there’s more of this type if work being created?

Mixing skills Samantha: I think there’s a mix. There are people who want a portfolio career and they want to be able to embrace lots of different sites, very right and left-brained. They want to do both, or maybe they want to do something that is physical and away from the laptop. I’ve worked with an individual that is a programmer, but also as an amazing oil painter. And so, from that perspective, then there are people who just have a great genre of work.

Are you a serial specialist For me happiness at work, you know, I’m a coach, I’m a consultant, I have a podcast, there’s so many different ways that I’m doing this umbrella of work. So I think lots of people are investigating what work looks like for them. It’s okay to also be a serial specialist.

Chloe Brotheridge: It’s good to have those options. I was talking to my cousin recently who is 17. He’s just deciding on what he’s going to study at university. We don’t have to just go down one specific path.

New Ways Samantha: We have to be open to giving ourselves permission to do that, too. The younger generation definitely are so much more empowered now to use the internet and different platforms to start things in new ways. And it’d be okay to change. I think maybe as we get older, we get into certain responsibilities, or we’ve given so much to our training or the money we’ve spent educating ourselves. We suddenly think, oh, no, I can’t change because I’ve invested so much, but I think I want to make it open for people to really trial some experiments and to see what another version of yourself could be.

Questions to ask yourself In the book, I proposed lots of different ways for you to start experimenting and stress testing different strands of your portfolio. So you know, looking at you know, where where are the areas where I feel like I want to have a bit more fun? How do I interrogate people that I might know in that area? What skills would I like to learn and grow into and set yourself different challenges?

Experiment A good example of this is, I’m really interested in photography. I feel like, I’m going to become a photographer, and I said, Well, what do you know about photography? And it’s like, well, you know, I’m really interested and passionate about these types of photographs. Have a journey of experimenting and thinking, you know, do I want to take the photos? Do I want to teach people to take photos? Curate exhibitions? Study the work of famous photographers and you know, write about them, or just podcasts?

I said, you know, try lots of these different things. Give yourself a period of time, maybe two months, three months, you know, and at the end of that, quarter, what do you say to yourself? What have I learned; what did I enjoy? Where do I think I could make some money from this particular area? It’s an experiment and then you try something else and then you make a decision. Or you look at the results and analyse what’s best to move on from that. But I think if we don’t try, we’ll never know.

Making it as an artist Chloe Brotheridge: I like that idea of kind of road testing ideas and giving things a try. Just thinking about my sister who had an office job for years. She studied illustration at university and was really very arty. She was trying to do this office job for a few years. Everyone told her you’re never going to be an illustrator.

Even my dad, it was horrible. He told her she should get like a real job. She did stick with it. She has finally created a good successful career for herself. I think it is difficult if you’re wanting to go down a route of something more creative or unless say you want to be a singer or an actress or an artist. The odds may be stacked against you, and how do you decide what to pursue and how to give up?

Determination Samantha: The key thing that you said about that, which I found interesting was when our family or friends also don’t believe it can happen. Should I really stick with this? I think there’s always a way to do anything that you want. It’s just about perseverance and determination.

Go for it If you are driven and you believe in yourself enough, I think it comes from that self belief to know actually. At the end of the day, I’m going to go home and I’m going to illustrate. I’m going to do 30 amazing drawings over the course of the week.

That is me building my portfolio and so the job kind of helps me get there. I also don’t think that you should rest on that I think you should find your own power to feel and drive your experience. She’s done it. Had she allowed herself to crumble under everyone else’s weight or it doesn’t work. I don’t think it’s possible like she would still be stuck. We do have to find that inner courage to go for what we want if we really believe in it.

Chloe Brotheridge: That sense of self belief and just sticking with it. I remember her saying to my Dad, I’m gonna die trying to be an illustrator. I’m literally notgoing to give up. You need that kind of attitude sometimes.

Give your inner critic a job Samantha: Disney is my internal voice that creeps up whenever I’m trying to do something new or improved. She sometimes pops up and will test me. Why are you doing that? Does anybody really want to hear from you like all of these tokens statements? And, you know, I think it’s important for us to give our inner critic like a job role or to really name what it is trying to do.

We are naturally wired to be drawn towards a negativity bias. Our brain is then helping us to preserve ourselves and to be safe. This relates way back and we have to kind of keep overwriting that behaviour and keep pushing ourselves to find the positivity and so I question you know, okay, why, why do I feel this? Where is this sensation coming from? What are you trying to tell me? Is it because maybe I’m underprepared in a certain area and I do need to do a bit more research or I do need to ground myself a bit more knowledge. Should I just give it a go and take the plunge and on what’s the worst that could happen? Okay, it doesn’t work out, move on.

Listen to how you speak to yourself I will sit and have a conversation with myself and speak it in to voicenotes. I might sometimes share that voice note with a friend or talk to a friend about it. They can also see the other side of the problem or the issue. But I think it’s important for us to really know that it’s a daily battle between our internal critic, our ego, and us finding our own voice, our own intuition.

It’s being aware of that voice when it comes up and how loud it wants to be. Also knowing that you have the power to quieten it. We really need to monitor how we speak to ourselves and the things that we say. But I think that they show up as and when I need it..

Name your inner voice Chloe Brotheridge: I love the idea of giving it a name. We all have that inner critic. I think just hearing you sharing that reminds everyone listening that we all have that. It doesn’t matter how successful you are. I think some of the most successful people have the loudest inner critics.

Samantha: I feel like it’s part of the journey. I think if I didn’t have any of those like, I’m then I know I’m not stretching myself. You know, I feel like I want to keep growing. I want to keep building on it, keep pushing. And every time growth is a stretch, though it’s painful. It’s like birth and death. It’s always painful destruction, giving birth to anything. And so if I wasn’t feeling it, I’d be a bit off.

A sign you are moving forward Chloe Brotheridge: The inner critic actually is a sign that you’re moving forward and you’re doing something.

Samantha: I think there’s two things: it’s knowing that you’re feeling it and you’re doing something new but when you feel it, what will you do with it? We will let it crush you or will you let it propel

Chloe Brotheridge: I like that you share the voice note with a friend. That’s a really good idea. I was having a conversation with a friend recently about what my inner critic was saying, and it was really nice to get her outside perspective of Chloe. That sort of thing can be helpful to you to step into that kind of perspective.

Can we fall in love with our work? Chloe Brotheridge: Can we fall in love with our work? Again, if there are people listening? I don’t know if they’re in a rut, you know? Or they’re just questioning everything since, you know, all that is going on in the world. And is it possible to do things to make ourselves be happier at work and what are some of those things that you recommend?

Happier at work Samantha: When it comes to work, I think there are six different pillars that we really need to engage with. And we need to understand, you know, is it an internal thing that I am struggling with in that, maybe I need to do some work on my own? You know, my own mindset, maybe I need to really think about how I am looking after my mind, my well being and maybe, you know, lack of sleep or stress. Whatever is impacting my day job. What is causing me the biggest amount of pain at work?

Ask yourself this? Is it the relationships that I’m in? The actual role itself? Is it the sector or the job and it’s like, how do I start to make those tweaks if I want a pay rise? Like how do I set myself in motion to make that happen? If I am really unhappy with the way that my manager is speaking to me, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to go and say something start the conversation?

Start where you are at We need to know that there is something that we can do at every stage. It’s just, you know, how bold are we prepared to be? Also knowing that perhaps work serves a different purpose, you know, is it just the job for now, that enables you to do the other things on the fringes? Is it your calling? You may realise this work isn’t your calling. Maybe it’s a step towards it, but actually now you need to find your calling, and you need to kind of move in that direction.

We can love our work in different ways We can love it in different ways. If we are just willing to do the reflection on on what it is that isn’t working, is it an inside job? Or is it things externally that need fixing, and then take it from there? I think in the book, I definitely give you lots of different insights from the internal perspective but also from the external to practically about what to do.

Taking ownership Chloe Brotheridge: I really like that idea of looking at in terms of pillars and sections and figuring out what is it about our work? What steps can you take to tackle it there? Because so often we make things about outside of ourselves, don’t we? We blame other people. We blame situations, but actually, we have the most control over ourselves and our own responses to things and how can we work on that?

Samantha: It is taking ownership. Whilst everything is easy to point the finger at there are six different avenues for us to think about mindset and our leadership. Thinking about whether or not it’s actually on brand for our purpose, thinking about if the way that we’re working and how we’re working is actually the right fit for us. Understanding the people in the place and looking at what systems and structures you have in place that allow you to be in workflow that really play to your strengths. And if you don’t have all of this you’ve got to do the work to fix it.

Speak with your actions not your words Chloe Brotheridge: It’s such an important thing to do. So I really hope people are gonna buy the book and do this inquiry into how they can love it or leave it. I was really drawn something you posted on Instagram. If someone could see my actions and not hear my words. What would they say my priorities are? That really struck a chord with me.

Samantha: I’ve been having a lot of quite a lot of conversations around actions and habits and what we can do to really push ourselves in Britain. I love thinking about the future. There are so many different books that I read about behaviour. And I question when we say we want change or we really want to move in a direction.

Reflect on what was in your diary Look across your past week or the past month in your diary. Can you see where you made the time, the space, or put the energy towards this thing that you say you want. If you reflect back, can you show me your actions. Where was the time that you put in the 10 minutes or the 20 minutes to just write down what you’re visualising for your career or to send that LinkedIn message or to reach out to somebody on Instagram? The same with exercise. Look at your diary to where you made time for the yoga class, the gym, the quick walk with a friend.

Are we acting or just talking? We want lots of things. And we say we want to make that a priority. But what are we doing today, this minute, step by step habit. It just takes one action to change this whole kind of cycle of behaviour. If we are falling into a rut where we’re doing the same routines again, that aren’t bringing us the changes that we want, it’s like Einstein says: It’s madness. So we’ve got to reset the actions that lead up to the goals that we want to achieve.

Chloe Brotheridge: I’ve got myself in periods of time where taking the action almost seems impossible. You don’t believe you can ever change or break free of the pattern. What your saying is that I can then prove to myself that I can change and it makes other actions a lot easier.

Habit change Samantha: Check out James Clear’s book Atomic Action. He’s awesome when it comes to thinking about habit change. I think we just monitor it. At some point during the day ask yourself What have I done today? And one of the things that I’m really proud of, where did I invest the time? Are any of these things actually moving you towards the goal? You’ll see at the end of the week as you do your order, and you’ve either filled it with fluff or you know, the mission that you have instead.

Holding ourselves to accountabilioty There’s no one else that we can blame apart from ourselves. Find someone to hold you accountable. If you’re struggling and thinking actually I’m struggling with maintaining that promise to myself about change, find somebody to help you. Reach out to a friend and say I’m struggling to make this a priority. Can you check in with me even if it’s a WhatsApp message and set reminders on your phone.

Chloe Brotheridge: There’s something very powerful about announcing it to someone and just knowing they’re going to be asking you about it. That definitely helps.

Let’s all give this a try Thank you for sharing that. That’s really something that I’m going to be thinking about and reviewing over the next week. What am I spending my time on and does it match up with what I’m saying is important to do.

Is there anything that you’re struggling with right now? What are the some of the things that you do to help yourself and to care of your own mental well-being.

Samantha: At the beginning of COVID I felt vulnerable because of sickle cell, so it was very clear that I had to shield. A friend of mine, who was aware of what’s happening said you’re going to be indoors for at least a minimum of 12 weeks. In 12 weeks I had a book coming out. And she said, No.

I think I was definitely struggling with not being able to go anywhere. The guidelines have been a bit wavy. Maybe we’ll pull shielding the first of August, we don’t know. That limit of freedom was a big thing I was struggling with. I also like to know that I can go out and see people. Then I decided to really just lean into myself. Lean into my practices and do it for the first time. I like going to the studio but I had to start a home practice of movement .

Using my senses Getting structured around my workout routine has definitely helped. The movement has helped me mentally. I’ve learnt to use smells and senses to start my day. Grapefruits and invigorating fresh fragrances and then to draw a line on where the work is and move into my my evening fragrances. That gives me a nice separation of the day and it’s helped me to kind of like zone my spaces differently. That has definitely been helpful for me to find my peace in all of this and surrender to whatever is happening.

I’ve also leaned into my business a lot mor. It’s never been a better time for me to be still and really listen to my clients. Not that I wasn’t listening before but now there’s a different level of pain for different people. There are nuanced messages and ways that they’re talking about things differently.

Chloe Brotheridge: I love the idea of listening without all that external noise. Perhaps we can listen to ourselves and listen to each other in a different way. What sort of smells to use in the evening?

Diffuser Samantha: I have a diffuser. In the evening it’s more lavender verbena and sandalwood. I’ve also got some great candles. My favourite is Mojo candles. The smell is almost like being in a cake factory. It’s sumptuous. I like more of the citrus in the morning. Fresh fragrance like Eucalyptus and tea tree and orange.

Chloe Brotheridge: I’m obsessed with smells as well. Incense, candles anything. Thanks for the recommendation..

Samantha: Definitely there’s one that I love at the moment which is white sage. It’s beautiful

Chloe Brotheridge: Thank you so much for speaking to me. It’s been really helpful. I think it’s time for people to start thinking about their work and perhaps doing something different.

Where can people find out more about you and where can they buy your book Love It or Leave It?

Find out more about Samantha Samantha: You can pre-order the book from my website. You can buy the book which is available in all good bookstores online. I also run my ongoing coaching programme which is really about helping people to take action. My signature 12-week programme is called Building Your Work Portfolio. You can find me on Instagram at Love It or Leave It

Check out Career Reinvention Bootcamp which people can join on this link
https://loveitleaveit.co/career-reinvention-bootcamp-thank-you

Her new Work Happiness club is called the LILI LIFE which people can join from July 12th
https://loveitleaveit.co/coaching

Buy the book 🙂 https://loveitleaveit.co/book

Chloe Brotheridge: Thank you so much for speaking to me. It’s been really great.

Get in touch and visit the new website You have been listening to the Calmer You podcast with me Chloe Brotheridge. Don’t forget you can download loads of freebies for anxiety and confidence at my website Calmer-you.com. There you can also find out about my app and my one on one sessions.

Please do subscribe to this podcast in the apple podcast app. And if you have enjoyed it or found it helpful, please leave me a review. It makes a massive difference to helping the podcast get discovered by other people. Come on over and find me on Instagram. I’m hanging out there every day you can find me at Chloe Brotheridge. Let me know what you thought of this episode. And please share it with anyone who might need to hear this today. So I’m sending you lots of love and I hope you have a brilliant week.

The post Ep 113. Find happiness at work (or leave!) with Samantha Clarke appeared first on Calmer you.

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As you may already know I always enjoy having doctor’s on the podcast. I think you are going to enjoy this as much as I did speaking with him. Also a Sunday Times bestselling author, Dr. Rupy had two cookbooks published by Harper Collins – “The Doctor’s Kitchen” and “Eat to Beat Illness” and often appears […]

The post Ep 112. Can our diet make us happier? With Dr Rupy Aujla appeared first on Calmer you.

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As you may already know I always enjoy having doctor’s on the podcast. I think you are going to enjoy this as much as I did speaking with him.

Also a Sunday Times bestselling author, Dr. Rupy had two cookbooks published by Harper Collins – “The Doctor’s Kitchen” and “Eat to Beat Illness” and often appears on BBC and ITV and is an accomplished TEDx speaker – you can view Dr Rupy’s talk here.

In addition, he is the founding director of Culinary Medicine, a non-profit organisation which aims to teach doctors and medical students the foundations of nutrition, as well as teaching them how to cook.
In his role as clinical adviser to the Royal College of GP’s and more recently being accepted as a fellow on the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme, Dr Rupy has big aspirations to bring this concept to the profession globally

We chat about: * The controversial aspects of talking about diet and illness (and one topic that makes Rupy angry!) * Can what we eat really make us happier? * Rupy shares how he looks after his mental health and what he’s struggling with right now

Dr Rupy Aujla, MBBS,BSc, MRCGP, is an NHS GP working in Emergency Medicine and completing a Masters in Nutritional Medicine. He is the founder of ‘The Doctor’s Kitchen’, which strives to inspire and educate everybody about the beauty of food, diet and medicinal effects of eating well. Can our diet make us happier?

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Transcript Chloe Brotheridge Hello, and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution, and Brave New Girl. And this podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest, happiest and most confident self.

On today’s episode Thank you so much for joining me. Today I am joined by the wonderful Dr. Rupy Aujla, AKA the Doctor’s Kitchen. We get into a lot of different topics in this conversation. We start off talking about the controversial aspects of talking about diet and illness. I have really noticed a lot of Twitter arguments going on about what you can and can’t say.

What is diet misinformation, what is truth when it comes to how much of our diet affects our health, our mental health, and our physical health? We just dig into this and it’s something that you can tell Rupy’s really passionate about.

We talk about whether what we eat can actually make us happier. I felt really inspired after what Rupy shared. I love hearing about the scientific side of things. There are different studies that have been done in this area. It really did inspire me to look at my own diet and make some changes.

He also shares about how he looks after his own mental health and the things that he is struggling with right now and how he’s overcoming those.

Free resources If you love this episode, let me know on Instagram come on over and find me at Chloe Brotheridge I also just want to invite you if you haven’t already to come and visit me at my website www.calmer-youcom/free. I’ve got loads of free resources for you. Hypnotherapy recordings, affirmations, worksheets. Things to set you on a path for becoming your Calmest Self.

Welcome Dr. Rupy Let’s get into the interview with Dr. Rupy of the Doctors Kitchen. Thank you so much for joining me today. I can’t wait to hear what you have to say today. Can you hare a bit about you, what you do, and how you got to where you are today?

Rupy Sure. Thank you so much for inviting me along. We’ve met a couple of times before and it’s good to be able to have a full-on conversation with you. I’m a medical doctor for about 11 years now. A General Practitioner but I tend to work in A&E. I started The Doctor’s Kitchen about five years ago. Where I create recipes and talk about the clinical benefits of diet, food and ingredients.

Atrial fibrillation Expect an evidence-based approach to eating well and feeling better in yourself. My story sort of started over 10 years ago, when I became a doctor. I got ill myself. So I used to suffer from something called atrial fibrillation, where your heartbeats exceptionally fast and irregularly. What I thought was going to be a one-off episode that occurred to me whilst I was working on a shift, actually was the start of continual episodes. My heart would go up to 200 beats per minute to three times a week and be there anywhere between 12 and 36 hours. That was the start of my patient journey as well as my clinical profession.

Deep dive into nutrition Over the next couple of years, I saw multiple cardiologists, I saw lots of medical colleagues, I got loads of advice. I was going to have a procedure called ablation which is where you put a wire into the heart and you’ve got an area to stop the misfire. It was my mum and my family suggested, that I need to look at my diet, my lifestyle. It was otherwise fine, you know, just eating a normal ‘diet’ with sandwiches in the canteen and cereal for breakfast or whatever. And it was me taking a methodical approach to healthy eating. I actually did a deep dive into the literature that actually led me to understand a lot more about nutrition and ultimately overcome my condition as well.

Since then, I’ve just been having more open honest conversations with patients. That led to the idea of The Doctor’s Kitchen. I didn’t muster the confidence or the courage to talk about food as medicine until a lot later.

Culinary Medicine I’ve written a couple of books, run a podcast like yourself and I started a nonprofit called Culinary Medicine. That is where we teach medical students the foundations of nutrition as well as how to cook. We’re at Bristol and UCL medical schools at the moment with a view to getting this as part of everyone’s compulsory medical curricula.

I’m also in the process of developing a digital platform that helps you do your shopping with online grocers delivering the goods to your door and allowing you to cook doctor’s kitchen meals every day, every week with a view to supporting specific health conditions as well.

The value of nutritional medicine Chloe Brotheridge That sounds amazing. I notice a lot of people on Twitter having polarised discussions with people saying you cannot recommend someone to eat a certain way or diet that’s gonna protect their immune system, or you cannot say this or that. What are your thoughts on that? And how did you find the courage to speak about these things?

Rupy Yeah, I think it’s a mixture of my anecdotal experience, as well as my anecdotes from clinical experience. Supported with decades of research that really demonstrate the value of nutritional medicine and diet. I think people like to be angry for being angry sake. There’s a lot of rage across social media. I think we’ve become this highly politicised community that don’t really appreciate other people’s views and take their own views or what they’ve heard as gospel.

Food as medicine When I talk about food and diet as medicine, my understanding and my belief in this and it’s not really a belief, I think it’s just, it’s what it is. Medicine is the use of substances and interventions to prevent and treat ill health. If you were to regard medicine as just the prescription of medications and the performance of surgical interventions. It’s a hugely naive and simplistic way of looking at what I do and what my colleagues do up and down the country every day.

You know, the simple act of me having a conversation is medicine, the simple act of me, encouraging someone to go for a walk every single day is medicine. And the simple act of me suggesting that someone should improve their diet is medicine because you’re changing the very foundations of our complex biochemistry that promote health and prevent illness. Every aspect of my books have really tried to not overuse and sensationalise food as medicine. But really bring attention to a clinical tool that has largely been ignored. across my profession for decades.

Don’t find out the hard way I had to find out the hard way, and I think a lot of other people have had to find out the hard way. What I believe we need to do is democratise this information and give people a lot more control and empower them to make these diet decisions themselves.

Chloe Brotheridge I studied nutrition at university. And we were often told, you know, doctors or doctors are only given 20 minutes of nutritional diet information in their training. Even when I was training, I did a module about food and cancer. That was quite a kind of controversial thing, I think. And we were often talking about healthy eating advice. There’s still things like oh, swap a normal coke for a diet coke and that sort of thing. Does that miss out a lot of this scope that there is this work do you think?

Rupy I think it’s basic. And it’s under the pretence that we shouldn’t give people false hope. Otherwise we might upset them. I think that’s wholly patronising. I think it’s rude. You know, someone said to me, you might improve, if you improve your diet, your symptoms might go away, but I don’t really have much evidence for that.

But if you want to try it, go for it. I’d be a lot happier with that than saying, well, I’m going to protect this person’s psychology by not recommending something that may have an impact. I have the autonomy to do so. I think that’s the right thing to do, and I think that’s really paternalistic.

Why was I not taught this You can tell from my voice it, there’s not very many things that anger me, but that really does. I just find it so so patronising. I’m currently completing a Master’s in Nutritional Medicine. COVID has put a spanner in the works for my project. I’m mixing it with everything I do in the Doctor’s Kitchen. But everything I learned about during my Master’s Course, and is split across different modules, looking at brain health, diet, and gut health, there ware even topics on pediatric nutrition, etc. Why was I not taught this?

Making it mainstream It’s just not fair to not have the basics taught to people that. I will see 10s of thousands of patients. And this is why I think you know, it’s less about me and everyone else giving information but it’s about encouraging a culture that encourages people to take proactive measures about their diet. To look out for unhealthy eating food and every other tool that we have. All the other lifestyle features and just make it the norm. So when I talk about food as medicine or nutritional medicine or whatever the vernacular you want to use, it’s really about making it a mainstream, recognisable concept. That distinguishes itself from the overt and central sensationalised charlatans out there that have used similar terminology to sell an alkaline pill or, you know, a green powder or whatever, you know, insert substance that will radically improve your health.

The patient’s experience I think you know, we need to talk about this a lot in a lot more sort of open fashion. I’ll be honest, like we in the UK are really far behind this, like the Americans have got diet and calorie medicine as part of almost 50% of their medical education. Sorry, 50% of medical schools have a chronic medicine programme. And a lot of the research coming out there is really looking at how we can use food as an adjunct tool as well, alongside a treatment so it’s not either or, it’s and. I think people who are outraged by whatever it might be, just need to have a little bit of a wider perspective and, and really look toward the patient experience rather than what their interpretation of patients experiences might be.

Chloe Brotheridge That’s so interesting. I think we need to distinguish between the evidence-based advice and the kind of snake oil related to our diet. Like turmeric gummy that’s gonna cure your cancer, whatever it is. But I’ve been reading a lot about when we’re anxious or scared or stressed, our brains are much more likely to think in terms of black and white, because we need to be able to make quick decisions. Yet if we’re thinking in black and white, that’s not very helpful for life because everything is nuanced and more complicated than just kind of these two binaries. If we are calmer when we’re considering these things, then we can be more rational about them anyway.

Rethinking a diagnosis Rupy Yeah, I think we have a propensity towards binary opinions and binary behaviours. And I try and, you know, rationalise, even myself, you know, the objective and the characteristic of a good scientist As someone who comes up with a hypothesis and tries to disprove it themselves. So constantly I’m encouraging myself to instead of looking at, let’s say, inflammatory bowel disease instead of looking at an autoimmune protocol.

Pragmatic approach Maybe that can have some benefit to a patient. A hypothesis should be an autoimmune protocol diet improves IBD symptoms over a 12 week period. Let’s disprove that. Unfortunately, because of a number of issues within which are distinct to the nutritional world, there isn’t enough evidence to refute or prove. There is a difference in ideology and how people choose different sides. That leaves to sort of like idealistic views of what we should be saying to patients and what we should be initially referring.

I like to take a pragmatic approach. Proving a diet is most likely going to lead to benefits as proved across different scenarios. So even if it doesn’t improve that particular aspect of your conditions or your symptoms, you’re most likely gonna be looking after lots of other things simultaneously. Yeah, so there are a lot of nuances to nutrition. As I’ve discovered over the last five years, it’s one of those tricky scientific topics to navigate particularly publicly.

Chloe Brotheridge What advice do you give people? What other interesting things do make a difference, you know, in your opinion to our health?

Principles Rupy I try and simplify it into principles rather than giving people dogmatic dietary advice. That isn’t to say that a low carb diet, a vegan diet, paleo diet, ketogenic diet might be appropriate and might be effective in a therapeutic way for some people. But majority of us just need to think about principles of healthy eating, and as eating colours, quality fats, lots of fibre, mostly plants.

This is what I’m trying to do with the next book. I think you know, I love talking about diet, genetics and the microbiota and you know, polyphenols and phytonutrients, and all these different things that have an incredible impact on multiple different pathways, not in our human physiology.

Making healthy eating something that we all do I think people need more advice about how to make that habit stick, and actually how to make healthy eating just something that we all do. That the next book I’m writing at moment is called Three Two One. It’s three portions of fruit and vegetables per person, two servings per recipe using one pan. It’s streamlining recipes to make it just something that we’re able to do every single day. Three portions is really what we need to aim for in our diet.

Three Two One When people initially heard about the Imperial College research that came out that stated we need about 800 grams of different fruits and vegetables every single day for optimal health. It sounds wholly unrealistic. That that is 10 portions of fruit vegetables per day. That’s why I thought, well, let’s break it down into different meals and how you’re actually able to do this. It can be quite simple.

Add one more fruit or veg at mealtime If you put in place a structure that can make it easier for people to do on a daily basis. If there was one thing I would say to people, it’s don’t worry about calories or macronutrient proportions. Just think about adding fruits and vegetables to your plate. And, and the TED talk that I did for beginners says to add one more every mealtime, just one more fruit, vegetable nuts or seeds every mealtime. That over the long term, the combination of all those different habit changes and those additions to your diet can be super game-changing for a lot of people. It’s certainly the way I took it. When I think back to it 10 years ago when I started eating better, I started to add inn things to my diet, rather than just focusing rather than restricting myself.

Chloe Brotheridge I think that’s such a healthier mindset. To think about what we can add rather than taking away and having principles rather than dogma.

Opportunity and costs Rupy Exactly. I like thinking of things in terms of opportunity and cost. What is the opportunity/cost of having a load of fries, which I indulge in every now and then. I try to promote that across my social media because it just gives a layer of normality to know everyone’s eating habits. But you know, if you’re going to be having that all the time, then the opportunity costs. Well, you’re not going to want to have your variety of different colours and vegetables and the rest of it. And so, you know, just thinking about it in that way. I’m gonna have a lot of this stuff and I can have less of the other stuff. Or maybe I won’t even feel like having the fries or the donuts or whatever.

I think we’ve put too much emphasis traditionally, historically on restriction and low fat this and low carb that. We just need to pick the fruit and veg to eat more of that will naturally replace the other stuff.

Chloe Brotheridge Do you think that what we eat can help us to be happier?

Happier by healthy food

Rupy Yes, I do. Happiness as it pertains to mood as it pertains to the spectrum of different mental health issues that we have. I want to say we all have mental health issues. Some days we feel low. Sometimes we feel happy or sometimes we undulate between those different emotions. The degree and the spectrum by which people experience those different things is very, very wide.

Food and mental health On one end of the scale it is subclinical, where I feel low, I feel tired, I feel fatigued, I feel apathetic. But it doesn’t disrupt my daily ability to go out and engage. On the other end of the scale, the more extreme end of the scale, there requires pharmaceuticals, hospitalisation, psychotherapy, you know, a whole bunch of different issues that we need.

We are all along that spectrum. What’s going on right now with a pandemic. We’re all in this together. We all experienced this and we can in some ways, change ourselves along that spectrum. I think discussing eating for mental health issues has the same complexity. And I take it with the same trepidation as talking about food in the ecology field, because it’s highly emotive. It can spark reactions.

Underlying everything that I put in is an evidence-base and underlying it. I really want people to be aware of potential tools that can help them. It will serve us better as a as a community. To answer your question, can we eat to be happy or improve our mood? Absolutely, yes, we can. That isn’t to say that’s a silver bullet and it’s, you know, negating all the other interventions that we have like psychotherapy. engaging with people or uplifting and trying to heal past traumas, you know by by having more long form conversations without distractions, improving sleep, etc.

Improving our microbiota Food is particularly unique in that it changes so many different variables for us. So the way I look about food, and I had to preface everything I say, because I don’t want to just say, Oh, just, you know, eat some beans and you’ll feel better. So, food can can impact our microbiota, this population of microbes that live in your own body, and improving that population leads to benefits in a number of ways.

Plants, fibre, colour The way you improve it is, like I said, principles of healthy eating lots of plants, lots of different fibres, colour, variety, etc. Quality fats. By improving that microbiota, they perform their function a lot better. And their function are as immune modulators as bonuses of inflammation. Also as producers of different types of amino acids and neurotransmitters that can impact the brain and direct and indirect mechanisms.

Our brains are not alone Inflammation modulation, we used to think of our brains as completely distinct from the rest of our body. We now know that that’s not entirely true. Inflammation particles can cross the blood-brain barrier and cause localised inflammation that can lead to brain defects and mood disturbances.

We know that our immune system is potently modulated by our gut microbiota that can be supported with all the different foods that I mentioned. Also, there’s this stat and swings between 60% and 90%, depending on which article you’re reading, about the amount of serotonin that’s produced in your gut. The serotonin in your gut that’s produced along with a whole bunch of other neurotransmitters can directly impact your brain and there are potential mechanisms behind.

Vagus Nerve Rupy: Also indirectly by the autonomic nervous system. Your vagus nerve that communicates with your brain by saying everything in your gut is absolutely fine don’t worry about it. That leads to calming sensations in your brain as well that can ease mental anxiety and ease depression. There’s been some small scale research looking at the impact of diet where they actually put a small number of patients on dietary changes for about 12 weeks.

Exploring diet Rupy: In some cases, people actually came off medications, but the vast majority of them a significant proportion of them actually reduced their mental health symptoms, which is, for me, absolutely incredible. You look at the suite of different pharmaceuticals that we have. And the efficacy of those is actually quite low. It isn’t to say that we shouldn’t be introducing them or people should be taking them. But if there are things that could potentially help, even in a small way, we need to explore that.

This whole umbrella term of nutritional psychiatry is definitely garnering a lot of interest amongst conventional traditionally trained psychiatrists. They are really spearheading this. Food as medicine movement in the US as well, which is very, very encouraging to hear about.

We all eat poorly from time to time I think so. I think most people even if they don’t have a diagnosis of anything, or they don’t feel like they have a mental issue, will appreciate that. If you eat poorly for a few days on the trot, you’re not gonna feel great in yourself, either. And I think, you know, we’ve all done that. I do that every now and then.

Chloe Brotheridge I’m so glad you said that and feel very motivated now to really improve what I’m doing. Aat the beginning of lockdown, I got well into cooking and I was cooking different things every day.

Motivating! We all just want to be happy really at the end of the day and knowing that by improving our diets, we can potentially you know, improve our mental state, I think that’s the most motivating thing.

Getting confident in the kitchen Lockdown led to this huge flourish of people baking stuff, which is great because I think the first thing people need to learn, it’s not necessarily like healthy eating. It’s not necessarily like if they cook in a certain way, it’s just learning how to cook and becoming a lot more kitchen confident because you can utilise those new skills and apply it to whatever way of eating that you want.

Obviously, I’d want to encourage people to eat well, but you know, I actually love seeing people making banana bread and sourdough and all this stuff is great. It’s great to see and hopefully coming out of this lockdown period, we can encourage a more productive population or more in tune with self-care, family connection and food. And it’s, it’s it’s happiness. It’s just the joy of being with people.

Chloe Brotheridge

Yeah, absolutely. It is so much about confidence when it comes to cooking, just believing that you can. Sometimes I find myself doing this. I feel like I don’t believe I’ll be able to follow a recipe or something. And then I do it. And I’m like, yes, actually, I can. I can need to remember this. Yeah, I was really interested to hear about what you do personally to support your own mental health.

Mental health and pets Rupy

I’ve got a puppy now. Which is the best thing ever. Yeah, he’s fallen asleep right next to me. She’s so cute. Apart from eating well. I think I have a super healthy diet generally like I’m that person that will, you know, go to a restaurant and purposely order a couple of the sides of asparagus or spinach or whatever just to supplement my meal because I always crave quality greens.

Caffeine free days A couple of things I do to improve my mental health, I have some coffee-free days, because I know excess coffee actually makes me a bit anxious. I’m quite sensitive to caffeine. He says as he drinks a coffee and so I have caffeine-free days that improve the tolerability and actually mitigate against poor sleep. So definitely do that.

Tracking our sleep The other thing I do, definitely making more of an effort with is my sleep. I’m tracking my sleep and I have done that for the last couple of years now. It’s incredible insights. It can give you wearables not for everyone because I think it can, again, almost on par with calorie counting, it can get a little bit overwhelming for people. And for me, I find it exceptionally motivating.

It’s that gamification of my sleep that’s actually kept me on the straight and narrow. So I try and improve my sleep using tracking technology.

Breathwork The other thing I do is breathwork and meditation and I don’t do it enough. I was meant to do it this morning and I got distracted with the puppy and had this podcast to do.

Social media and news diet / fast And the fourth thing and the wildcard is on social media fasting. Try not to look at the news. Try not to follow toxic people. I’m very good at not engaging in debates online. I generally, you know, even if someone says a snarky comment or anything like that, I thank them. I appreciate them. And I let it go. I think that whole process of letting go even in a simple way is not replying to a comment or replying in a very civilised, overly kind way, is something that hopefully trickles down into my general life and how I react. Yeah, I think I’ve definitely become a little bit calmer in that respect in terms of my reaction to things that annoyed me.

Chloe Brotheridge That’s such a good thing to do. An emotional response can actually just make you feel worse or it can escalate things. And actually, the best thing to do is just take the higher ground and reply really nicely, and then just let it go. Best for everyone involved, I think,

Letting go Rupy I think you should be doing that. You’re right. It’s part of like that meditation practice. It’s like recognising how you feel in that moment. And accepting it and then letting it go. And it sounds very simple to do and reality is exceptionally hard. Particularly when it’s happened a number of different occasions where someone insults or questions, your professional authority, someone questions, your life’s work, essentially someone questions, something you’ve been practising day in, day out for 15 years. Your core has been antagonised or criticised, it’s very obvious and very acceptable and understandable to feel some anger, some rage, feel hurt, feel vulnerable, embarrassed, etc.

The practice that I’m trying to entertain on a daily basis is understand that and you’re allowed to feel that. That’s absolutely fine. It’s okay to feel that. But then just let it go. Recognise the rage, recognise the anger and then let it go as far as you can. Hopefully that comes out in you know, social interactions thereafter, or in any context.

Chloe Brotheridge Yeah, and I’m sure that’s relevant for people listening as well. I think particularly now. My Facebook feed is obviously different from others but mine is extremely polarised with all sorts of things about conspiracies and vaccine vegans and nonvegans. It’s like quite an overwhelming place. If you have a certain view, then there’s going to be people that disagree with you. So try not to get kind of caught up in it and trying to be kind and the way that you’re responding rather than unkind.

Don’t engage with toxicity Rupy Totally I mean, social media is designed to reflect the weaknesses. I think where you choose to spend that will dictate the landscape and the virtual environment, but also your physical environment going forward. And so what I like to remind people of is the toxicity that you engage in, whether it’s the president of a particular country, or whether it’s someone you disagree with, because of your idea about what people should be eating fuels, a negative landscape that I think we should be more aware of, and we should take more control. We should be dictating to people what they should be doing. It’s up to them at the end of the day.

I mean, if I went on a rant, let’s say, if I was to go on my social media and I was to rant about the conspiracies about pandemic or anti-vaxers need to get off their high horse or anything like this, I’m sure it would generate so many comments, both positive and negative, so many nights over.

If I’m that person that needs to get more and more followers because, again, that’s been sold to us. Fortunately, I feel like I’ve got a little bit more insight. I’ve been on this platform for so long, I know not to engage in that kind of behavior. It’s not good for anyone and the whole purpose and the whole reason why I started this project is to help people live healthier, happier lives.

Don’t give power to the unkind Chloe Brotheridge Katie Hopkins is not a very nice person to put it mildly. But I suppose she is deliberately being divisive because that’s why she has a job.

Rupy I don’t particularly like anything she puts out nor do I don’t follow, comment or ‘like’ her. The people who play the game properly, are now in positions of power. And we sit around asking ourselves, how and why that was allowed to happen. Because you engaged in it, and you added fire to that you added fuel to the fire. It’s helpful to go on a social media diet.

Attention is currency The reason why there are certain people who are on pedestals like the person you mentioned, like presidents of certain countries, etc, is because we’ve spent our currency on them, and that currency is our attention. It’s our comments. Hopefully, we can exercise some restraint, because that’s essentially what is going on. In today’s day and age, we have to wake up and realise that our reality is, you know, it’s a lot more fragile and it’s a lot more moldable with our engagements.

Chloe Brotheridge I think we do need to be careful where we put our attention.

Rupy I love that where you put your mind you put your energy,

Chloe Brotheridge I think it might actually be where the mind goes energy follows where the mind goes energy follows.

Rupy It reminds me of a Bruce Lee quote, he must have got it from some of those ancient teachings as well. About you know, your energy flows.

External factors can’t change your reality I was having a conversation with someone the other day. He is a sports psychologist. He’s worked with Premiership footballers and all the rest of it. And he told me, you know, one of the most important things people need to realise is that external factors can’t change your psychology. External factors can’t change your psychology, you change your psychology, you change your mindset. So many ways to do this including diet.

If something angers you, you have the choice to let it anger you or not let it anger you and you are that filtration you are that barrier right there. The more control we have over our internal reactions, we shape our external environment. AIt’s easy a lot easier said than done, but I think that’s quite eye opening. And it’s definitely been eye opening for me. It’s definitely been something that I’ve tried to put into practice. A social media diet is helpful.

Chloe Brotheridge Yeah, so interesting. AIs there anything that you are struggling with at the moment? How you do you handle it?

Lockdown Rupy I’m struggling with my puppy at the moment, but I’ve never looked after a baby. She definitely needs a lot of attention. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been a lot more irritable with the lockdown situation. I’ve actually realised that I’m quite introverted. In a weird sadistic way I quite like lockdown. The reason why is because I tend not to go out on the weekends anymore. I tend to like being inside and working on my computer, and yada yada and the knowledge that no one else is doing anything.

FOMO I found that quite excessively. But I think that speaks to one of the things that I am struggling with. And it’s working too much. Pre lockdown, I have a general guide with myself not to work after 6pm and forget about work afterwards. But because of my increased clinical pressures and writing a third book at the same time as finishing off my Masters as trying to start this digital product, a lot of things were getting on top of me, and I thought the way out of that was to work my way through it. That has led to you know, disagreements with people I love. Also issues like attention, all that kind of stuff.

It comes down to self-discipline. So I think that’s definitely something I’ve been struggling with over the past couple of months. I’ve struggled with mindset motivation, and I generally keep to a healthy lifestyle. So I think it’s that deeper psychology stuff. Whereas I guess for a lot of other people, you know, it’s habit formation. It’s making sure that they’re keeping their physical bodies and diet well, within an idea of, you know, getting down to the root of how their psychology improves, as well. So, yeah, I think those are the things that I’m struggling with at the moment.

Overworking in lockdown Chloe Brotheridge Thank you for sharing that. I think a lot of people can relate to that in terms of introverts being kind of glad that they don’t have to go out.

I suppose most everyone is working at home. Then there’s no off point, you don’t kind of have a 5:30pm or 6pm kind of go home. The day it’s much more fluid so work can just continue off into the evening. Often our body shows us when we’re overworking.

Rupy I’m also struggling with the thought that for many people things are pretty shit right now and appreciate that not everyone can have that eternal optimism that I seem to have. I practice gratitude. I’m a very positive minded person anyway with a healthy diet. That’s just because of my upbringing because of my position in work. Though, things can be worse for other people.

But I think sometimes, if you constantly portray a positive image on what is a less than desirable situation, you risk trying to cloud it and sugarcoat your situation for the sake of being positive. That’s something I need to work on going forward as well. That isn’t to say that, you know, we shouldn’t have a positive mindset, I think, you know, there’s a balance to strike there. I mean, everything was coming down to balance and homeostasis and equilibrium.

The middle way This is why I’m fascinated by those ancient concepts of, you know, just the middle way, the middle path, not being happy, not being sad. Just being in an ebb and flow. Accepting that everything changes, happy moments change to sad moments, moments change to have a purpose, etc. Everything ebbs and flows with the transition of life.

Chloe Brotheridge Yeah, I think I suppose accepting the the quote unquote negative feelings helps us to process them. I know from lots of people that I speak to that there can be this pressure to be positive. Subsequently, everything is a positive meme on Instagram and you know, hashtag positive vibes and we don’t allow ourselves to feel things or we stay so busy that way we block out the negative feelings. A healthy option is giving permission to feel them and let them move through means that a better experience overall because that stuff will come up to bite us if we suppress it.

Rupy Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You’re right. It’s like that. I don’t feel like I suppress things if I’m honest. By constantly portraying a positive perspective on things, I’m at risk of suppressing true feelings.

Chloe Brotheridge The answer to everything is it’s complicated. It’s always shades of grey and nuance.

Where to find Dr Rupy Thank you so much for everything you’ve said. I’ve loved this conversation. Many of us are very interested in our diet.And where can people find out more about you? When is your new book out? And yeah, what else are you offering?

Rupy The new book is not out for a while. You can pre order it on Amazon, but it’s not available until January 2021. The book is called the 321 diet portions of fruit vegetables proportion, two servings per recipe using one pan. It helps to make healthy eating a habit and just something that we do every day.

The Doctors Kichen is really where people can find out about my books and I publish two new recipes on the newsletter every single week. The podcast is is where we interview people talking largely about nutrition and nutritional medicines and discipline.

The Doctor’s Kitchen Website

Book: The Doctor’s Kitchen

Book: Eat to Beat Illness

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

YouTube

Chloe Brotheridge You have been listening to the Calmer You podcast with me Chloe Brotheridge.

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Jasmine Hemsley is a three-time best-selling author, the Founder of Hemsley + Hemsley and East by West. She’s also a TV presenter with a show broadcasted in over 25 countries. A specialist in Ayurveda, chef, food and health writer, restauranteur and nutrition & wellness expert. With a passion for eating well to feel happier, healthier […]

The post Ep 111. Ayurveda and Wellbeing with Jasmine Hemsley appeared first on Calmer you.

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Jasmine Hemsley is a three-time best-selling author, the Founder of Hemsley + Hemsley and East by West. She’s also a TV presenter with a show broadcasted in over 25 countries. A specialist in Ayurveda, chef, food and health writer, restauranteur and nutrition & wellness expert.

With a passion for eating well to feel happier, healthier and more energised, Jasmine believes in conscious, healthy and joyful living, drawing from the depth of Eastern wisdom, Ayurveda and holistic philosophies of health, and marrying that with the latest cutting-edge technology and developments in Western wellbeing.

We chat about: * How to make Ayurveda work for you and your mental wellbeing * Jasmine shares about her intriguing and mysterious tongue tingler * Why the time of day that you do things is so important

Transcript Chloe Brotheridge

Hello, and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution, and Brave New Girl. This podcast is all about helping you to become your happiest and most confident self.

On today’s podcast Welcome to this week’s episode. I am chatting with the lovely Jasmine Hensley. Jasmine is just a full of knowledge about all things wellbeing basically. She specialises in helping people with Ayurveda. We get into how to make Ayurveda work for you and your mental well being and the practical things that you can be incorporating into your life.

She shares about her intriguing and mysterious Tongue Tingler and guys. Trust me you want one of these. We also talked about why Ayurveda believes the time of day that you do things is super important for how you feel.

Freebies If you’ve been enjoying these episodes, I would love it if you would subscribe to the podcast if you’re listening on the Apple podcast app in particular. And if you’ve got a friend who needs this podcast, could you do me a massive favour and just pass along the news about this podcast to someone. I am just trying to spread the word to more and more about this free resource.

Also, I don’t know if you know, but you can get lots of freebies at my website. I’ve got a confidence affirmations mp3 for anyone who wants to boost confidence in themselves and their abilities. Maybe you’ve been beating yourself up or maybe you’ve been telling yourself some negative affirmations and it’s dragging you down. Actually if you want to change that then you can download my confidence affirmations at Calmer-you.com/confidence.

Let’s just get right into it and chat with Jasmine Hemsley. Hope you enjoy this. Welcome Jasmine. Thanks so much for joining me today. How are you?

Jasmine I’m very well thank you Chloe. I’m very well. How are you?

Chloe Brotheridge Yeah, I’m good.I’m slightly melting today. I thought yesterday was supposed to be the hot day but today I feel better.

Jasmine I was practically naked yesterday it was so hot. I didn’t think we could sleep in our bedroom because our upstairs gets so so hot. But I just got rid of the duvet and took a sheet and that’s quite, a big deal for me. I like the weight of a duvet, but actually I slept really well.

About Jasmine Chloe Brotheridge Could you just share a bit about what you do and how you got to where you are today and a bit about Ayurveda? I’m sure everyone does know who you are, but just a bit of your story and what you do.

Jasmine I’m still finding out who I am. My main work is a well-being expert and a champion of Ayurveda. The ancient philosophy of living from India, and I’m also a restauranteur. I do a lot of consulting and a lot of my work comes through food. That’s how I kind of got into everything I’m doing in well-being more or less.

I’m always sharing wonderful recipes and talking about digestion and eating in the rhythms of life and Ayurveda. Like tuning into the energies etc. It’s a more a holistic way. Food is such a wonderful way into well-being. And, You realise that well-being is about so much more. You have to take the 360 view.

Chloe Brotheridge I’m really curious about how did you get into well being? Is it something that you were brought up with? Or was it something you discovered through your different experiences?

Food culture growing up Jasmine I certainly didn’t know about Ayurveda until much later. I’m a half Filipino and I’ve got an English army dad. I grew up on home cooking. And both my parents worked. It was very busy. We ate home-cooked food. Mostly because it’s what we knew. In the early 80s apart from cereal, there wasn’t that much pre-packaged food. As time went on, it became about the microwave and the ready meals and eateries popping up all over town. You no longer had to pack your lunch anymore. Anyone could just pop out and buy something. Then it is suddenly University and there was no one cooking for me. I had to cook for myself within a budget. Bread fit the budget but it didn’t suit my bowels at all.

Then I went on to studying financial products and Science at university. And then modelling full time for the next 10-12 years. Modelling makes you become very aware of your skin, your mood, your energy levels, your figure.

Discovering Ayurveda I’ve been cooking since nine years old so I kind of connected the dots between home cooking and easy to digest food. Food that’s not necessarily touted as healthy kind of feels better in my body. And that just got me onto a whole load of research. Ayurveda popped up a couple of times in those early years. Ayurveda answered a couple of questions that I couldn’t find anywhere else.

I still thought Ayurveda was an ancient philosophy. I didn’t really understand half the words they’re using. It seemed very esoteric at the time and I didn’t know anybody else talking about it.

Then as yoga came onto the scene and I thought oh, I like yoga, and also meditation. It lead me to a different perspective on looking at life.

Doshas I’m a Vata Pitta type in Ayurveda. This type of person can be in their head, overly creative and prone to anxiety and worrying. The Pitta side of this hot headed, wanting to get in there and do it and do it well etc.

I can be quite up there and out there and I need the Ayurveda Kapha dosha to concentrate on more grounding elements, things that kind of bring me back down to earth.

My interest in yoga went from kind of the hard core to the really sitting with yourself yoga that’s quite tough in a totally different way. That’s kind of been my roundabout journey where food has been such a part of it. That opened up the idea that it’s not just what you eat, it’s is when and how you eat.

Bringing balance back to your life It’s also about how you start your day and how you wind down to get your night’s sleep. Everything’s interconnected and interlinked. That might make it sound more complicated, but actually, I find it makes it more intuitive and romantic. Ayurveda as a system of health gives you so many tools. You can’t control everything especially outside of yourself. The only constant is change.

What you need to do is learn to surf it and ride it and use wisdom and tools like Ayurveda to bring balance back for yourself.

Chloe Brotheridge I have a kind of a whole holistic approach to health with all these different factors coming in.

The science of life Jasmine It loosely translates as the science of life or the knowledge of life. The manual to know nature. We live in this natural world and we are nature. The environment affects us, the people we hang out with affects us. We grew up with these kinds of sayings, a gut feeling or I didn’t like the energy in the room or I loved her energy.

Energy and vibrations Everything is this vibration, everything is sound, and you can’t destroy it. You want to harness it and make it work for you. That’s Ayurveda says waking, working, exercising, eating and sleeping at a certain time of day can be beneficial if the environment supports that.

Chloe Brotheridge Can you give an example of that?

Best time of day to wake-up Jasmine

According to Ayurveda the best time of day to wake up is just before sunrise. I think the earliest I’ve woken up so far this year is five and it was already bright, and the birds are singing. These are the time when the energy and the sun is coming in. It’s a new day dawning. That’s why the cockerel crows. That’s why the animals are up unless they’re nocturnal animals. They are cashing in on that rise of energy.

You’ll find a lot of people, meditators, holy people and writers find that time of day incredible. It’s a brilliant time to meditate. And hopefully, that is before the kids wake up before your other half maybe wakes up or he or she is doing their own thing and before the emails and headlines come in. Ayurveda introduced this to me.

Morning time Imagine waking up naturally satisfied, you’ve had the right amount of sleep, you’ve got hours until you’re needed and you can just potter and be with yourself. It’s the most connected to ourselves we can be before the energies of the day affect us.

Then you’re just better equipped to decide what energy comes into your life and what energy you want to leave your life. If you just wake up with a rush and alarm, the stress levels are up and you’re off. So many reasons for waking up early. Ayurveda helps inform if this is best for you.

Starting the day right Cashing in on that time of day is is wonderful for creativity, for centering, for grounding, for meditation for doing a morning routine that sets you up whatever that routine is. For me, it’s showering and then a bit of yoga just to feel a bit of connection to myself. Iit might be some writing, it’s probably the time when I can be a bit more proactive about my day rather than reactive to emails because nobody’s on the email yet, hopefully.

Writing in the morning I can write down what am I thinking. What I want to achieve in this day and get done this week. Or what do I want in the long term, rather than wake up, hit the emails and you’re totally distracted by whatever other news has come in. Ayurveda helps to be mindful with how you want to feel.

The end of the day Many of us backload the end of the day. We eat our heaviest meal at the end of the day. Some people claim to do some of their best work at the end of the day because it’s the first time we’ve got time to ourselves. We also exercise at the end of the day, which is when your body is trying to wind down for a nice sleep, you’re taking it back up again. So you might fall asleep exhausted into bed, but the mind is still on. You know the energy is still kind of in the body and that’s why we get these interrupted night’s sleep.

Chloe Brotheridge I’m feeling like I’m gonna try and get up at 5am

Jasmine Eight hours. That’s a really nice sleep. Most people get six. So if you go to bed at nine, and you can get up at five you go to bed at 10 you get up at six I’m roughly the 10 10:10pm bedtime 6am wake up. But the other trick is if you had to go to bed late for whatever reason, you couldn’t fall asleep and you wake up at five 6am meditation. They said 20 minutes of meditation is like three hours of rest. So if you can meditate, that’s an active form of rest. You are going to make up for the sleep and be processing out that stuff that you just no longer need

I can’t always stick to that schedule. For example, I was teaching a workshop last night at 8pm because it was in the US, which was noon there. I finished that and nine and took the dogs out for a walk, watered my garden and then I didn’t get to bed until 11pm. I can use meditation the next morning to catch up a bit.

Being a morning person Chloe Brotheridge It sounds good to me. I’m thinking because I’m actually naturally not a morning person. I don’t think there is such a thing as a natural morning person. But for me getting up at five is not an impossible idea. But if I think about, for example, my sister who is quite the opposite, she’ll happily work all night. I could never work past 7pm. By then I’m done with the day. But she gets her energy at like 11pm at night when she’s most creative. Yes. And for her or someone like that, who’s more of a night owl the idea of getting up early is hard.

Elements of Ayurveda Jasmine There are studies that talk about the lark, which is the early morning riser and the night owl, and which one has the most energy in the day. Ah, from an Ayurvedic perspective, it’s about the elements for each person. If you’ve got space, air, fire, water, those five elements make up everything they make up you Chloe, they make up me. You and I would have roughly the same ratio of those five elements compared to a tree or a table or a bowl of cornflakes.

The doshas Ayurveda says that between us however there would be a difference in the ratios of the of those elements. We divide those five elements into three doshas. So people might have heard of that Vata, Pitta Kapha. I’m more Vata Pita with a bit of Kapha and therefore I need to bring more Kapha lifestyle choices and foods into my life. It’s the opposites that bring balance. If I’m a Vata, Pitta and I drink too much coffee, watch too much TV, listen to hectic music, I’m going to become wired, anxious, irritable.

I’m grounded if I listen to soothing sounds. A very Catholic person who’s very grounded and loving down to earth and laid back, I could do with the occasional coffee, some kind of hectic music to get me going. You can see how opposites work there. Now, because the Kapha time of day is the same time of day for everybody the better time of days in terms of everybody and the Vatta because that’s just the rhythm that’s the sun and the moon. Ayurveda helps.

We have them Vata, Pitta Kapha into effect twice in the 24 hour clock. And if we look at the evening 6pm is when Kapha the grounding dosha comes in 6pm till 10pm.

I would suggest to anyone, just try Ayurveda just to see how it is for you. It’s obviously not going to be such a smooth transition. Maybe just try bringing bedtime earlier bringing dinner earlier, making dinner lighter.

If you can’t sleep, just winding down in bed, I’ve got tonnes of techniques for that. Some people can make that change instantly and some people need to do it slowly increment by increment.

Humming Chloe Brotheridge Can you tell what the humming is? What do you mean?

Jasmine Behind me I’ve got some singing bowls. We are all vibration, we can have vibrations that make us feel like we’re in homeostasis and balance. We can also have vibrations that don’t feel nice in the body for example a car screeching you know, a mile away or whatever. If I can pick that up, it’s going to create this tension in my body, even though it’s physically not touching me, you know? Or if you hear your nails down a blackboard, all those things that make us go, oh, even if it’s not you doing it. The honk of a horn is so disruptive. Sounds and vibrations can either resonate or create dissonance in the body.

Crystal bowls These are crystal gemstone precious metal bowls. And they’ve got different properties to them. It’s the sound of nature, so it’s very soothing. Some will be more soothing for you than others, just because of which chakra they’re working on. Soothing tones are super important. That’s why we have lullabies for babies. That’s why we say when we rock a baby, the fact of the sound of the ocean can have an effect on the body.

I did humming last night after watering the garden. It was about 11:30pm. I’m lying in bed my brain is still working from the workshop. What I do is I lie in bed and I start to hum. It looks like this. Hhhmmm. That’s the first one right because I’m still jaggedy in the mind, my breaths all caught up. Second one feels a bit better. So on and so

Humming creates space between you and your thoughts. You can feel that vibration in your head and it really helps to kind of create space between you and your thoughts. You know, that’s what meditation is. It’s creating space and awareness about our thoughts. It’s remembering that we are not our thoughts. Our thoughts are just a toolkit to help us to understand what’s going on in life. If we believe we are our thoughts, we’re going to get caught up in every negative thought or every overly positive thought and not see reality. They’re not us. Humming kind of gives us space. Just hearing the humming in my head I can get some great support from that. That and Ayurveda support me a lot.

The vagus nerve Chloe Brotheridge I hope people are going to try this. I also heard once that humming vibrates the vagus nerve.

Jasmine Yes, that’s part of what helps you to relax.

Humming, you can feel the physicality of it. When you think it or feel it, you think it would be much more subtle or it wouldn’t work, it works even more powerfully. That’s how we realise that the mind is so powerful and how and our intentions are so powerful.

Practicing in your mind There was a study where they trained the two basketball teams. One trained physically, and the other trained mentally. A similar study was also done with playing the piano. The results are astonishing. The pianists we’re taught to imagine it and the basketball players trained using their mind. The ones training in their mind were as good if not better than those physically doing it.

You can see now that just the intention of I am fine, I am safe, I’m gonna hum, I’m gonna remember that. Hum. You know, this could just be words in your head, because you’re sleeping next to someone you don’t wanna wake somebody up. They’re very, very effective. They might not be immediate, but the more your body feels safer and trusts those words, the more they’ll work.

Qigong Chloe Brotheridge I’m so glad you mentioned that that study. In addition to Ayurveda, you mentioned Qigong earlier.

Jasmine I’ve been doing Qigong for last couple of years. Sometimes I don’t do it physically, I just do it in my mind, and I’m doing the movements. I’m convinced it’s helped my immune system. I haven’t had a cough or a cold since I started doing it. I’m about to do Vedic meditation. We’re taught something called rounding. It’s a yoga series. We start off kind of massaging the body in the head. Then we do what looks like rolie polie Yoga. It’s very soft. It’s kind of just rolling around. This really calms the nervous system.

Meditation We could do that before we have a meditation. If you can’t do it, because say you’re on the bus going to work, you can think it and feel it. And by the way, meditation doesn’t take you out of this world. It makes you present in reality. You are so centred and so aware of what’s going on around us. If you’re in the past, and you’re just stuck in all that baggage, it’s nice to meditate. Sometimes when those past memories come up, those ones that you kind of cringe, curl your toes out, don’t get angry, let them come up. Be aware of them, notice them, acknowledge them and then let them move away. No longer needed. I see and hear you. The mind is super powerful. And if we get to learn how to use the mind, wow, we’ve got the most incredible tool. If the mind is controlling us, it ain’t fun.

Chloe Brotheridge What would you say for someone who’s struggling with anxiety right now? Are there certain Ayurveda tips that you would recommend for somebody?

Anxiety and Ayurveda Jasmine When we are in our head we call it the mind even though the mind is actually something that’s in the whole body. We think of it as in our head because we can feel our brain hurting. We can feel and see the images behind our eyes when we shut our eyes at night. In Ayurveda we call it the Vata dosha. Because it’s it’s in the mind, it’s the stimulus. It’s the air moving around so we want to do the opposite.

So we talked about Ayurveda Pitta being the warmth and down to earth. So keeping yourself warm when you’re feeling anxious is really important. If you go out in a cold windy day when your anxious you’re just tightening up the nerves further irritating yourself.

Chanting If we want to have warmth, think about how you see a baby, that’s what you want to do to yourself. We also want to ground down so keeping yourself warm and sitting on the floor, very good. Listening to chanting because of the sounds. Ayurveda helps identify what works for each individual.

Meditation, and it’s also part of human nature. Meditation has been in use for thousands and thousands of years. So that means the human mind was also going out of control back then. That’s why everything that you’ll see now in self-care is about going back to the self. Filling up your own cup. You cannot help others until your cup is filled. If you pour all your energy into outward projects, it’s almost like you’re trying to gain love by helping others because you get a reward from people. Oh, she’s so nice. She did this and she helped me and she dropped everything to do that.

Self-approval

All amazing. But if you’re not feeding yourself too, you’re literally looking for other people to give you approval and to give you love, and that is where it’s all going to go wrong because then we are relying on external validation. We’re just setting ourselves up for failure.

The minute we start taking care of ourselves, so when we’re anxious, we have to kind of take a breath and go right where am I? Okay, I am safe right now or this is a challenge but that’s okay. Find my calm, come back to the centre. I can do this. I’m equipped. The human is super creative. You just get into that calm space. Maybe think of somebody that you find very calming in your life and ask what would they do. See yourself as an actor in your life.

Create a rhythm in your life Give yourself the advice you’d give a close friend. Drinking warm drinks, eating warm food. This is very grounding. Some soups and stews. Eating at the right times of the day. You want to have a lovely rhythm. Don’t hold on to that rhythm tightly and create anxiety around that. An Ayurveda approach.

I cannot stress how important meditation is for the anxious mind. You immediately transcend the mind and come back to you. That’s what the meditation is for. Also remember how transient life can be. Can you even remember what caused upset in the past?

If a family member fell over and an another family member was there, and they were in control, I will probably be the one freaking out. But if I was the other family member, I’d say Okay, calm down everybody, let’s do this. Does that make sense?

Yin Yang There is life, there is death, there was joy, there is suffering, there is love and there is hatred. In Chinese medicine, you call it Yin Yang. You can’t have one without the other. If we were all wrapped up in cotton, wool and coddled, and given everything that we ever wanted, we feel ill, we’d literally feel ill because we’d been numb to it. That would not be enough, we’d want the next level and then the next level.

The challenges are what gives us an opportunity to get to know ourselves. To be there for ourselves and therefore be there for other people in the wider society.

We can rise to the challenge Chloe Brotheridge Thank you for saying that. Oh, my gosh, that’s really struck a chord in me what you said about how when there is a challenge, we often do rise to the challenge. They’ve done studies into people with anxiety and found that something like 85% of the time the things that we worry about end up having positive outcomes. Or we end up handling it better than we thought we would. Yeah. I’m hearing from lots of people now with their Coronavirus situation that people are quite anxious. I’m actually surprised that they’re dealing with it so well.

Balance Jasmine Ayurveda and in life, it’s about the balance. So if you are very in your head and suffering from anxiety and worry, take a break from the TV and the screens. Also take a break from hit workouts and intense music. Call up a friend to get into a more grounded position. Watch the TV programmes that are a little bit more soothing or listen to podcasts or music and just bring it down a level. It doesn’t mean you stay there the whole time or that you change your personality. You bring balance to your personality. You’ll feel lighter.

Chloe Brotheridge Slightly changing the topic from the study and Ayurveda. But I wanted to hear more about the tongue scraping. I am a convert, you can explain.

Tongue scraping Jasmine This is the first Vedic physical tool I brought into my life, when I learned to meditate over 10 years ago with my meditation teacher Gary Gorrow. We’re in Sydney in Australia and he pulls out this contraption. It’s just a very simple device that you pass down your tongue first thing in the morning and this coating comes off. Right? I’m into the tongue now. I see people in the day walk around with this yellow coating on their tongue.

You can imagine what a healthy tongue looks like. Pink and healthy like a child. Not too swollen, not too thin. Every single tongue is unique but in general, there is a quality about it. Overnight when the body is restoring it’s getting rid of the stuff that’s not not needed anymore. As a result there’s a toxic metabolic waste, both emotionally and physically. That waste looks like we and poo and sweats and snots. There’s mucus on your tongue.

Oral health The reason we wake up in the morning having brushed and flossed our teeth after our last meal, that we have bad breath. It’s why we need to shower. We brush our teeth, clean between our teeth, but we don’t pull out what’s on the tongue. The tongue is massive, right? Do it first thing in the morning.

If I’ve been drinking alcohol or had some very rich food and I ate late, there’s a different kind of substance on my tongue. If I’m sick, it’s different again. You know, when I’m stressed and rundown, I’ll get a tiny little spot. I can see a little bit of blood there. If I’m angry or something is wrong with my liver, maybe there’s like a red tip. If I’m, you know, inflamed, my tongue will be scalloped. You’ll see the teeth marks where the tongue has tried to fit into your mouth. Super interesting.

Do what you know supports you You don’t need to know what everything means. You just need to give yourself a bit of love and self-care. Bringing this together with Ayurveda, I’m going to start getting ready for bed at nine tonight and drink a nice glass of hot water to kind of rehydrate and flush through this armour, this metabolic waste. Have a light supper of soup tonight. Those are the things we can immediately do.

I highly recommend the tongue scraper. it removes 80-90% of the bacteria that cause bad breath. Nick and I would rather forget our toothbrush than forget to do this. Dentists have tongue scrapers. They’re usually plastic and I don’t find them as effective. Mine is a natural metal of copper and is antibacterial.

Covid guilt Chloe: I’m a convert. Is there anything that you are struggling with at the moment? How are you handling it?

Jasmine I’ve got two things. I’ve got guilt. At this time, I’m seeing the haves and have nots. There are people who are bored or who are trying to take care of a number of children in a small space. I’m actually having quite an ideal situation. I have to admit this lockdown actually suits me. I am not running from meeting to meeting. It’s summer which is so good for me because I need the warm and the daylight. I find it very good on my mood.

I’ve been able to grow and watch my garden come to life. I’ve got my dogs which take me to the park. But I know for other people it’s very challenging. One of my friends sons is loving it because he loves to do his schoolwork and he doesn’t have the interruptions. For others, they are finding it hard. So the guilt with that is something that I had to kind of work with.

Not hiding if you’re thriving I’ve come to this place of, you know what, it’s not about hiding that you are thriving. It’s about if you are thriving, do your meditation. Be there for other people and share that love and that light.

The unknown The second thing that I am feeling as well as this this the unknown. What is life going to be like after this? How is it going to impact the hospitality industry? This has wiped out thousands and thousands of jobs.

I’m also seeing some very positive things like farms being connected directly to the customer. Smallholdings and farms are able to communicate their message much more directly to the consumer. Whereas before we just go to the supermarket or we just go into a thing and press whatever’s on the menu and get that. So there is something lovely happening there. But obviously, it’s going to be a massive upheaval, and it already has been for a lot of people.

What can I do to help? What can I do to help? So? Yeah, those are the two things that I struggle but they’re also as we’ve talked about earlier, that is where you, you step up and you rise up to the challenge.

Chloe Brotheridge Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. I think a lot of people relate to the guilt. It’s important to acknowledge that people are in different situations and having different experiences. I’m really hoping that we can rebuild the world better than it is now.

Covid changes Jasmine it’s made us think about food shortages or toilet paper running out. It was a massive eye-opener that this is happening around the world on a daily basis. In comparison, someone else you’ve got less than to compare someone else you’ve got more, it’s always going to be like that. Unless you’re at the very top of the chain or the very bottom of the chain. There’s always someone that has less, and there’s always someone that has more. So gratitude for what you have. Compassion for wanting to share with others. That’s, that’s where we need to live.

Chloe Brotheridge Such a good thing to think about. Oh, thank you so much for everything that you shared.

Jasmine It’s lovely talking to you. I hope that was helpful.

Chloe Brotheridge Thank you so much. Yeah. And where can people find out more about you and what projects you’re working on at the moment?

Where you can find Jasmine Jasmine I’m on at Jasmine Hemsley, I’m mostly on Instagram. I do post to Facebook by Nima. Check it out. I share recipds and I do newsletter once a week where I share what’s inspiring me and usually a recipe. I’m trying to show that Ayurveda is very common and in the same place as yoga. If you’re not into yoga, you might think Ayurveda. It’s such a vast wealth of knowledge that even using one tip or one idea is going to ease life for you. It’s taking life and health as the whole package, mentally, physically, spiritually.

I play sound baths now and again. You can find them on my Igtv and I do a workshop called Wellness Wednesday where I speak to friends or acquaintances like yourself. On Sunday Slow is where I usually talk about meditation and the spiritual stuff. Just short, fun and enjoyable ways of utilising this technology to reach more people and more like-minded people and to share.

Chloe Brotheridge Thank you so much.

Jasmine Chloe, It’s been amazing. I have had a lovely time. I really enjoy sharing about Ayurveda.

Freebies Chloe Brotheridge You have been listening to the Calmer You podcast with me Chloe Brotheridge. Don’t forget you can download loads of freebies for anxiety and confidence at my website Calmer-you.com. You can also find out about my app and my one on one sessions.

Please do subscribe to this podcast in the Apple podcast app. If you have enjoyed it or found it helpful, please leave me a review. It makes a massive difference to help the podcast get discovered by other people. Come on over and find me on Instagram. I’m hanging out there every day. Let me know what you thought of this episode, and please share it with anyone who might need to hear this today. So I’m sending you lots of love and I hope you have a brilliant week ahead

The post Ep 111. Ayurveda and Wellbeing with Jasmine Hemsley appeared first on Calmer you.

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Clinical Psychologist and Yoga Teacher Dr. Sophie Mort joins me on the podcast this week. Taking psychology out of the therapy room, she wants to help you overcome your insecurities, experience self-love and live the life you deserve. We discuss: One of the most helpful approaches to self-love I’ve ever heard The incredibly common struggles […]

The post Ep 110. Self-love, Imposter Syndrome, Therapy and the F word (failure!) with Dr. Soph appeared first on Calmer you.

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Clinical Psychologist and Yoga Teacher Dr. Sophie Mort joins me on the podcast this week. Taking psychology out of the therapy room, she wants to help you overcome your insecurities, experience self-love and live the life you deserve.

We discuss:

• One of the most helpful approaches to self-love I’ve ever heard
• The incredibly common struggles that you probably believe only affect you
• Imposter syndrome and how to stop it from holding you back
• Creating distance from negative self-talk

Download your FREE Calmer You Toolkit

Transcript Chloe Brotheridge: Hello, and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution, and Brave New Girl. This podcast is all about helping you to become your happiest and most confident self.

Today’s guest Today I’m talking to the really very lovely and smart and wonderful psychotherapist, Dr. Sophie Mort. Basically, I would like to be her friend. I think you’ll agree.

In this podcast We discuss basically one of the most helpful approaches to self-love that I have ever heard. Also, we get into the incredibly common struggles that you probably believe only affects you. She shares her experience of imposter syndrome and how to stop it from actually holding you back. And we talked about creating distance from negative self-talk and therapy. This is a really juicy and relevant episode. I think you’re gonna love it.

Free resources Just to remind you about the free resources that I have for confidence over on my website. You can head over to Calmer-you.com/confidence and get loads of freebies over there. I’ll also tell you about my latest podcasts and courses as well as my 121 sessions and my app. So check all of that out at Calmer-you.com. So let’s get into the interview with Dr. Soph.

Welcome, Dr. Soph. How are you? Thanks for joining me. Please share with everyone listening what it is that you do, the therapy you practice and how you got to where you are today?

Introduction Dr Soph: Hi, I’m a clinical psychologist and I try and get therapy or psychology out of the therapy room and into people’s lives in ways that make sense to them. That means I share psychological information in written form. On a blog on Instagram.

I’m doing all sorts of other things I can’t tell you about right now. But that will involve disseminating all the psychological information that people need, and can’t necessarily access because there are so many barriers to getting therapy. I also have a private clinic where I see a few people every day in online therapy.

Background My whole life was basically studying and that’s probably the short answer. I did an undergraduate in psychology, a master’s in neuroscience and a doctorate in clinical psychology working in the NHS that whole time. Up until two years ago, I worked in Hampton Hospital.

The same questions The NHS, I think, is probably the most important thing that we have as British people. But, I needed to be doing something else. People are on waiting lists for a really long time. Often what’s happening is they get to the top of the waiting list, they’d get that one seat in front of me. And irrespective of what service I was working on in therapy, they were coming with the same issues, which was, for example, why do I feel this way? Why am I panicking, feeling distressed? Does it mean I’m crazy if I’m experiencing emotions, struggles, anxiety? What are the most basic skills I need to know now?

Often after that first therapy session of giving people what I call psychology 101 people didn’t necessarily need support anymore. Now that’s not the same for everyone. I decided if I could find a way to give everyone this basic information before they need it, then maybe we wouldn’t have people’s distress escalating, as much as it often does. Maybe that would take away some of the burden on waiting lists and help everyone to understand themselves a little bit more. So that’s what I set out on my own. And it’s just gone from there.

Panic attacks Chloe Brotheridge: Amazing. Yeah. I love what you do and the information that you share. How you share it is really inspiring and useful. It’s such an interesting thing that you mentioned there about people thinking that they’re crazy in therapy. For feeling anxious, or maybe they’re having panic attacks. And, you know, I’ve had panic attacks myself, and you do feel like you’re gonna go crazy.

Dr Soph: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve had panic attacks, and I genuinely thought it was the end of the world.

Chloe Brotheridge: So sometimes it’s enough. It sounds like you’re saying it’s normal to feel this way. It doesn’t mean you’re gonna lose your mind.

Panic attacks Dr Soph: I remember many of my panic attacks because they are the reason I became a psychologist and practice therapy. From the age of 18, I started having panic attacks. And no one could tell me what was going on for me. When I went to the doctors, they told me I was depressed, which I wasn’t. I was having panic attacks and didn’t know what’s going on. I just needed some help.

When I first had those experiences of panic. My mind went to what could this be? The only reference I had was, well, it feels like I’m losing my mind. Anytime someone talks about mental health in movies, the news and my social circle, what’s been talked about is that a person’s losing their mind. They’re crazy. I must be going crazy.

Do you think you are going crazy? The first sensation of panic that I wrote in my body quickly escalated to panic attacks because like, Oh my god, I’m going crazy. If I’d had that experience and known, anytime your brain detects something dangerous, or that it thinks is dangerous or stressful in your environment, it only has one way of being and purpose. Keeping you safe. It’s to prepare you to run or fight for your life, your heart will race, your palms will sweat, your mind will race. All of these things will happen. And it’s totally normal.

We call that anxiety leading up to a panic attack. If someone had told me in therapy, it’s totally normal, okay, that would have helped. And if someone had told me the way that you cope was doing x, y, and Zed, I would have done those things.

Those first few panic attacks would have been interpreted in a very different way than me as an 18 year old thinking I was losing my mind and having nowhere to turn. The first moment when people start to struggle is a real opportunity to help because it’s the difference between someone going away and thinking there’s something wrong with me and I need to hide that and I feel ashamed of it.

Online therapy Chloe Brotheridge: It’s such a simple but powerful thing to be aware of. I was curious about what your opinion is about online therapy accounts or therapists on Instagram or people who have set up accounts where they’re talking about mental health. They’re talking about giving their advice. Do you feel like that is helpful or can it be counterproductive or can it be overwhelming? What’s your opinion on that?

Dr Soph: Well, I always think there’s never one answer, and it’s almost always all at once. I think therapists setting up accounts on Instagram has been a cultural phenomenon. There are already more people than we’ll ever know.

What I mean by that is psychology and therapy based information is normally kept behind closed doors behind waiting lists kept in universities and dusty old textbooks. It’s deeply inaccessible.

Therapists setting up spaces where they’re making therapy information widely available and accessible, I mean that people anywhere in the world can now learn about themselves. That is a social justice issue, right? People should be able to learn about themselves, and now people can.

Where the advise is coming from Yes, it’s deeply overwhelming. Because suddenly you have thousands of people offering advice and not just therapists. We have people without any kind of clinical qualification with lived experience offering advice. Fantastic. We have therapists offering advice, and we don’t know where to turn. You could read one post on Instagram, for example, that tells you to do x and then you read another one says don’t do x do y. Then another one saying no. It’s really overwhelming. We don’t know who to trust. Especially when therapy is happening online.

Social media can be detrimental to people’s health We don’t actually know the people in real life who are giving the information out. And yeah, sometimes it’s risky. It’s true. You know, Instagram, for example, isn’t a private platform. If you put a comment up, anyone can read it. There’s no proper guidelines yet in the UK, for example, on how therapists should exist in the online space. So I think it’s a game changer.

The reality is social media is detrimental to people’s health. 1 billion people now use Instagram, for example, therapy I think, have the responsibility to meet people where they’re at and overcome barriers that get in the way of people understanding themselves. But we need to be really careful. You’d have a good answer to this. What do you think about that as you are based in the online space?

Therapists DM policy Chloe Brotheridge: Personally, I sometimes feel a bit torn because I get a lot of people dming me wanting therapy advice. It’s very difficult to do that. And obviously not a good idea to do that when they’re not your clients. So very problematic.

Dr Soph: A strong dm policy. That really changed it for me, you know. I’m afraid I cannot answer any personal question. Is that what you’ve had to do?

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, So trying to explain to people that without knowing their history and not being their therapist, I can’t give people advice.

Dr Soph: It just kept getting dangerous.

Chloe Brotheridge: That was my main thought on it. But yeah, I think it’s complicated as the answer. It’s complicated.

Personalised support isn’t best via social media

Dr Soph: I think as long as you’re really clear. I have a really strong policy on how I use Instagram. There are lots of disclaimers that this is generalist information. This isn’t about anyone in specific. This is the kind of stuff that you could find in a book on a shelf. If you DM me, I will have to politely decline or I might not even see the message because we get so many messages, right? We cannot give people personalised information and online therapy. But there are crisis lines we could, for example, already have on our page to share.

Common issues Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, definitely. And in terms of the sorts of issues that you tend to see, or the things that you come across again, and again, can you describe, obviously, it’s helpful for people to feel a bit less alone? And just hearing about how common some of these things are? Can you describe a little bit about the sorts of issues that you help people with and come across a lot?

Not feeling like I’m good enough Dr Soph: I’d say as a rule, I’m a generalist. I’m not a therapist who has a specific model that they work in a specific client group or diagnosis. Generally what I’m coming across is an extreme feeling of failure and extreme concern. We are not enough as we are. The consequences of that often being, for example, perfectionism, people-pleasing, really strong, negative inner critic, an constant comparison of the self to others.

Mainly I work with women in their 20s and 30s, who, for example, on paper might look like they’re killing it, but on the inside are really struggling.

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, and it’s, it’s interesting how common those things are. Yet when you are experiencing that deep sense that you’re a failure, that you’re not good enough, you’re bad, you feel like you’re the only one in the world who has ever felt like that?

The system sets us up for failure Dr Soph: Yes, it’s so alienating. It’s a very smart system that’s been set up to keep us in this feeling of vulnerability, this feeling of failure, which means we’re really susceptible, for example, to marketing or to anything that people can sell us to fix us. You know, at the most simple level, part of the reason we all feel like we’re failing is because we’re constantly surrounded by images in magazines, TV movies, of these people who are deemed to be worthy and lovable and they look a certain way they laugh a certain way. They act a certain way and have everything. We’re taught these people are what we should aspire to. We’re never really told that those people don’t even really exist either. They’ve been created as characters. And are also in therapy.

The myth of perfection We’re rarely exposed to people with flaws and vulnerabilities or who are struggling. So our brain basically learns, those people are good. And because none of us can kind of reach perfect level, we’ve also been assaulted, perfectionism is possible. And the moment we look in the mirror, the moment we start trying to do anything, pretty much our whole existence is I’m falling short of that person. I’m falling short of this idea I’ve been sold. My worth is based on my productivity and how I come across in the world. So yeah, people aren’t failing. They’re just unable to ever become this perfect idea that we’ve been sold on.

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, totally. I think even though we’ve had the body positivity movement we haven’t yet embraced that it’s okay to just be how you are and embrace how you look. Then we’ve got a culture where someone made a mistake 10 years ago, and they get completely attacked. It’s a sense that you’re not allowed to ever make a mistake, because that’s terrible. I was thinking this week about how I’m less interested in the mistakes people made and more interested in how they overcame them. Whether in therapy or not.

Cancelled culture Dr Soph: I was thinking this week about how I’m less interested in the mistakes people made and more interested in how they recover from the mistake and how how they learn from it. Did they apologise for it. And cancelled culture is something that doesn’t allow for growth. It’s interesting because that creates more problems inside us. It perpetuates this idea of I need to be perfect on the finished product immediately, because if I make a mistake, I will be destroyed. We literally see that happening in the media all the time.

It’s not just an idea we have in our heads. It’s a reality we’ve seen if I mess up, I’ll be abandoned, which is pretty much all over biggest fears, I think.

Body positivity made me think of a couple of things, which is, what we often do as humans is, we kind of get these new ideas such as body positivity, the idea that we can love ourselves, whatever size we’re at, but they often end up being co-opted by these by people who say, well, you can love yourself, up to a point.

Body neutrality And the second thing I was thinking is body neutrality. That is more interesting. I’ve been following and researching the people who talk about it, because body positivity still has this message of we need to be beautiful to be worthy. Yes, you can be beautiful at any size, but you must be beautiful. Whereas body neutrality, if I understand it, right suggests It just doesn’t matter what your body is. Just doesn’t matter who you are, your worth isn’t based on that whatsoever. We want to be neutral about how we show up. That means we can be more positive about who we are. We don’t need therapy for that.

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, that makes so much sense. Not thinking about your body and just being in the moment and being yourself and not having to not having to try to think you’re beautiful. It doesn’t matter.

Dr Soph: Often what happens in those situations is you just think no matter what I do, I can’t find myself beautiful. So I’m failing at body positivity even though I believe it’s a really great idea. Body neutrality, I suppose isn’t saying, like, whatever body whatever it’s like okay, no body. You are part of me. I will look after you. But my emotions towards you don’t have to be based around whether I think that you’re beautiful or not.

Chloe Brotheridge: Such a good thing to remember. I saw one of your posts on Instagram about self-love being an action. Can you explain what you mean when you share about that?

Self-love Dr Soph: We need to love ourselves because we spend all our time with our thoughts. We spend all our time with ourselves. And actually, when we don’t feel good about ourselves, it makes everything else harder. The only thing is that me and a lot of people I spoke to were thinking was that I don’t have the warm and fuzzies about myself all the time. As I said, it’s almost impossible if you grew up in this capitalist society to believe that you’re enough the way you are. So I was thinking, Okay, what does this even mean? And have you read the book All About Love by Bell Hooks?

Yeah, it’s just extraordinary. Actually, a lot of us don’t truly know what love means. That what I hear in therapy. We’ve all been raised by different people and we all internalise love to be either what we see in the movies as deeply romantic and often sexual. For example, you might be told as a little woman, you love your family, no matter what, even if they’re nasty to you. You might be taught love is pain, he might be taught love is doing what you are told. So we often have these quite conflicting messages about what love is.

Love is an action M. Scott Peck has this quote, which is Love is an action and it’s the idea that you extend yourself for the nurturing of your own or another person’s soul. I don’t think he means as I think it’s a soul a spirit of faith. If you think about that, in terms of self-love, you don’t have to have this warm and fuzzy feeling about yourself. What you’re doing is you’re choosing to act. You’re choosing to ask yourself, okay, how are you? What do you feel? What do you need right now in this moment? How do I extend myself to meet your needs, basically. And suddenly, that means that it doesn’t matter how you feel, you can constantly be choosing to show yourself self-love. You don’t need therapy for that.

Chloe Brotheridge: I love that and, you know, when you’re feeling really Rubbish or you’re experiencing depression or your self-esteem is on the floor to try to love yourself can be like this impossible fair away thing. Another thing that you’ve got to try and do and fail at.

Dr Soph: Oh, I know, relentless, the list of things that we need to do? Self-love is choosing to show up to yourself, I think over and over and sometimes realising that means you can’t show up to yourself. What you need in that moment is to be okay with the fact that you can’t show up to yourself.

Chloe Brotheridge: I saw you suggest somewhere that maybe all these podcasts and self-help books could be an avoidance strategy. Can you share what you meant by that.

Avoidance strategy Dr Soph: Okay, so I love podcasts. And I love books. We need more and more access to information that can help us understand ourselves. At the same time, it can become an avoidance strategy. For example, you notice that you are worried about something or you want to learn more about yourself or you have a certain emotional feeling. So what you do is you buy a self-help book or you line up the next podcast for therapy, and suddenly because you’ve done something you feel better. Then suddenly, the feeling comes back. Dammit, I’ll line up the next podcast or get the next self-help book.

You never actually read it or do it. I know a lot of people myself included that have had whole bookcases of self-help and whole podcast lists to listen to. But just the act of lining them up has made me feel better. I want to grow, understand myself, and feel better. So I consume as much information as I possibly can podcast after podcast book after book, never actually taking time for example, to reflect past the point of discomfort or engage in a really honest, painful dialogue about what it means to engage in the exercises that I recommended.

Distraction by self-help books and podcasts The moment you finish one book or podcast, you line up the neck straight away. So you’re constantly consuming staying in your head and in your logic, but at a very superficial level without ever really bringing it into your body. So, ideally, what we do is, we learn about ourselves. We pause, we ask what that means to us. When the urge to avoid or move on comes up, we sit with it, we do the exercises that are recommended. After that, if we feel we need more information, we move on to the next one.

Chloe Brotheridge: I’ve definitely done that as well. Reading through of self-help book with every intention of doing the exercises, but because it’s a bit hard, and actually, it’s causing me to actually have to reflect on things that might be painful, I just avoid them. But actually, we’re going to get so much more from it if we can properly engage with it and stay with it, even if it’s uncomfortable. Rather than trying to get our next fix with the next thing. Therapy takes work.

Knowledge isn’t enough Dr Soph: It’s funny because I absolutely do what you’re saying. And often I think, I’ll come back to it. I’ll come back and do that. In the moment I really believe that. And then I wonder why it’s uncomfortable. Most of us think that knowledge is power. Don’t get me wrong. Knowledge is power. But most of us think knowledge is enough. Most of the healing we need to engage in actually involves our body and our emotions and moving through things.

Chloe Brotheridge: It’s not quite enough just to read a self help book. We need to engage with it.

Dr Soph: Do the work. Learning about yourself often really sucks. You may find out things you don’t like. We would avoid that. So a little bit of self-kindness, a little bit of that self-love. I have reached a point in this book where I’m just really overwhelmed. So what do I need to do? I need to take a break. But my next act of self-love is making sure I come back to the action.

Chloe Brotheridge: Thank you for saying that because I think there can be this idea that it just should be positive.

The downside of self-help books Dr Soph: Once you reach that point where you feel really safe in therapy, and you’re able to really look at the things that you really struggle with and you look into the darkest corners of your mind. Yeah, it can be horrifying and without someone there who makes you feel safe enough to talk about it, or safe enough to know that they’re not going to judge you on top of how much you’re going to judge yourself.

It can be almost impossible to do that. Self-help books may not be enough for everyone. You might actually need to teach someone but at the same time, self-help books can be a real dream, because there’s no one looking at you whilst you’re doing the exercises. You can return a deeply personal way where you know you’re not being judged by anyone else.

Chloe Brotheridge: That’s an important point. You need a therapist that you can trust. One you can really open up to because it can be very confronting to go into all the things that you’re ashamed of.

Chloe Brotheridge: Is there anything that you’re struggling with at the moment? And how are you managing it right now?

Imposter syndrome Dr Soph: I think most people going through what we’ve been going through in this country under lockdown is a new challenge. I was writing an article for someone and then speaking to you, and I’ve noticed that this week, there’s been a lot of imposter syndrome. So really, unplanned performance anxiety, yay. This really strong sense that why me It should be someone else.

I’m a fraud, am I the right person? Am I good enough or gonna mess this up? That’s definitely the nicer version of the way that the thoughts going but much more brutal than that. So lots of imposter syndrome. I suppose it really helps being a therapist who works with these kind of strong feelings of failure, anxiety, performance anxiety, anyway. So how do I show up for myself on that?

Performance anxiety Firstly, I’m honest about it. I surround myself with people who make it possible to talk about these things. I know that imposter syndrome and performance anxiety are totally natural things that happen to everyone. You know, our brain is almost totally negatively skewed. As a species, our brain is constantly scanning the environment for everything that could go wrong. Which means that the moment I sit down to do work, my brain is not only using social comparison theory to make me feel terrible comparing me to everyone else. But it’s also then using this kind of negative skew to look for anything that could go wrong. This comes up in therapy.

I remind myself of the science and I ground myself with some breathing exercises. When I’m stressed I’ll wear a fluffy tactile sweater, being able to touch things that are soft or hold things bring me back into the present moment. I have lots of little tricks like that that really helped us bring me back into the room.

Just about everyone Chloe Brotheridge: Thank you for sharing that. I think imposter syndrome depending on which survey or study look at effects between 50 and 100% of all humans at some stage or another. It’s just almost a universal thing that at times we’re going to feel like we’re not good enough or that you know, who am I to do this? It was just luck I got here. So that’s common.

Dr Soph: I want to do a story on Instagram about Harry Potter. I love Harry Potter.

In the movies, he’s just got to Hogwarts and they like put the hat on, which will decide which house he is going to be in. And that is the most beautiful description of imposter syndrome. He thinks they’re gonna realise I’m not meant to be here. I grew up with Harry Potter. He’s a hero of mine. I’m never gonna be a magic wizard. So

Chloe Brotheridge: You’re in good company. What other things do you do for your own mental health and well being that that helps you.

Morning pages Dr Soph: I do this thing called morning pages, created by Julia Cameron. It’s a form of journaling. Have you heard of it? I get up in the morning and free-write for 3 pages. And just get it all out. It’s an unstructured form of journalism. It allows me to make sense of what going on in my mind. It allows everything in my mind to tumble out onto paper. So that’s integral to me. When I run, I feel amazing. So, actually, yeah, so those three things and surrounding myself with people who aren’t afraid to say that they’re flawed and talk about their vulnerabilities.

Chloe Brotheridge: I’ve spoken to a lot of people recently who, who run that say they hate it, but they do it.

Dr Soph: I just feel so good when I’m running. If I don’t run, I struggle.

Favourite tools Chloe Brotheridge: Could you share some tools or some of your favourite tools that people can perhaps start to do at home? Anything for feeling calmer, or happier or more confident?

Acceptance and commitment therapy Dr Soph: One of the reasons that we often feel not great is that we have this hugely negative skewed brain and it’s constantly chipping away at us. Making statements about us that are often very untrue. One of my favourite things to do comes from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

Observe your thoughts multiple times across the day. Notice what’s happening in your mind. I did this documentary the other day. The two guys I was doing it with said they both said the feel like an idiot was the thought that popped up in their mind. So notice the thought was, I feel like an idiot. And you say, I notice I’m having the thought that I feel like an idiot. And you practice this multiple times.

I’m having the thought that… By adding that sentence to the beginning, you’re creating some psychological distance between your thought and you. Suddenly, you can observe it, it’s almost like moving away from it. That’s the first thing.

Now the next bit and this is my absolute favourite bit. It often takes a long time in therapy to reach a point for someone to say, yeah, I’ll get on board with this idea. It sounds great. Start singing that sentence to a tune that you enjoy.

Singing therapy It takes time in therapy to get to this point. Our thoughts can be deeply distressing and deeply personal. When we add the song to it, all we’re doing is creating more distance between you and that thought.

I notice I’m having the thought that I’m an idiot, for example. You could do that to the tune of Jingle Bells. The idea isn’t to make you laugh. The idea is just to give you this tool that can make you look at your thought in a different way. It’s something that you can move away from and that will be replaced by something else ultimately when you practice this loads of times

Chloe Brotheridge: Definitely gonna be singing some some of my worries later on.

Thank you so much. That has been so helpful. I’ve loved everything you’ve shared. And I love your work and what you’re putting out there. I can’t wait to see what other projects you have in the pipeline. Can you share about how people can find out more about you and what you’re up to.

Dr Soph: Instagram

Outro Chloe Brotheridge

Amazing. Thank you so much for talking to me today. I loved it.

You have been listening to the Calmer You podcast with me Chloe Brotheridge Don’t forget you can download loads of freebies for anxiety and confidence at my website where you can also find out about my app and my one on one sessions. Please do subscribe to this podcast in the Apple podcast app. And if you have enjoyed it or found it helpful, please leave me a review. It makes a massive difference to helping the podcast get discovered by other people and come on over and find me on Instagram. I’m hanging out there every day you can find me at Chloe Brotheridge let me know what you thought of this episode. And please share it with anyone who might need to hear this today. So I’m sending you lots of love and I hope you have a brilliant week ahead

The post Ep 110. Self-love, Imposter Syndrome, Therapy and the F word (failure!) with Dr. Soph appeared first on Calmer you.

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If you lack confidence at work, take solace in the fact that you are not alone. Low confidence in the workplace is more common than you might think. Even the most confident and efficient person in your office might secretly be battling low confidence and have opted for a fake it till you make it […]

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If you lack confidence at work, take solace in the fact that you are not alone. Low confidence in the workplace is more common than you might think. Even the most confident and efficient person in your office might secretly be battling low confidence and have opted for a fake it till you make it approach.

Low confidence is something everybody struggles with at some point or another. It might appear in the form of niggling self-doubt or intrusive thoughts that keep you awake at night. You may feel inexperienced, or like you’re not doing your best at work. It’s awful when you feel like you are working hard but not achieving anything.

Here are some ways to boost your confidence at work:

1. Recognise imposter syndrome and counter it Imposter syndrome is surprisingly common. If there’s a little voice in your head telling you your rubbish at your job and you don’t deserve it, you probably have imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome happens even though your boss has just congratulated you on a job well done, and you just won that industry award. It happens even when you should be feeling your best.

Imposter syndrome is the self-doubt that leaves you questioning how good you are at your job. It might keep you awake at night, worrying that you’re going to lose your job. Do not listen to that poisonous voice in your head. Don’t let it drag you down.

You are a capable and efficient worker. Your boss is lucky to have you, and your colleagues are glad to have you on the team. You are a hard worker, and you’re doing a good job. Keep a mental list of your achievements to focus on whenever you need to silence your inner critic. Whenever somebody pays you a compliment or thanks you for a job well done, write it down and keep it in a safe place.

2. Keep a ta-da list You probably use a to-do list to keep track of tasks you need to do. One problem with to-do lists is that they only ever grow bigger and more intimidating. It can be disheartening to work hard all day only to look down at a full to-do list at home time. Realistically, you probably can’t get rid of the to-do list altogether. Now is not the time to be missing deadlines and forgetting about tasks, so you’ll need to keep a to-do list.

A ta-da list is a list of jobs you have completed. A ta-da list is a mini-celebration and track record of everything you have achieved. It’s a way of keeping track of how you spend your time at work. On those days when you feel like you’ve been chasing your tail, seeing a list of all you’ve achieved can lift your mood and remind you of your achievements.

3. Celebrate your wins Make a big deal out of your work achievements. If you give an excellent presentation, get that delivery out on time and manage to keep a difficult client happy against all the odds, take a moment to celebrate a job well done. We’re so busy at work that we often rush from one task to the next without stopping to reflect on how we’ve done. Make it a habit that you will celebrate each work win. Keep a note of every time you feel good about yourself at work. This list will be useful to look back on next time imposter syndrome comes calling.

4. Speak up in meetings Fake it till you make it, it’s cliche, but it works. You might not ooze confidence out of every pore, but forcing yourself to speak up in meetings will do wonders for your self-confidence. It’s not always easy to know what to say, especially if you’re worried about looking like a fool.

The important thing here is to say something; it doesn’t have to be perfect. Join in with the discussions and put your views forwards. It doesn’t matter if you get things wrong or make mistakes – every single person in the world gets things wrong and makes mistakes. Speaking up will help you to feel more involved in work, and this will help to build your confidence.

It might feel like a big deal to speak up in a meeting, but after a couple of months, it will be second nature and the butterflies in your tummy will have gone.

5. Be realistic about your weaknesses and strive to improve them You’re not perfect; nobody is. You can be amazing at your job and still have areas that require improvement. You probably know what they are, but if not, ask your boss in your next one-to-one. Find out where they would like you to improve and see if they have any suggestions about what you could do better.

If that sounds intimidating, you might be surprised at the relief you feel once you’ve done it. Having a clear idea of where you can improve is much better than continually second-guessing yourself. Whatever your weaknesses are, you can work to improve them. There’s nothing wrong with having weaknesses; even top CEOs know what their limitations are.

6. Be direct We all want to be liked and accepted by our peers. We want those around us to have a favourable impression of us. We are all guilty of people-pleasing from time-to-time. It means we start our emails with the word “sorry” and regularly talk ourselves down. Instead of telling colleagues that we need things, we tentatively ask whether they might be able to help us.

This is something you can stop doing today, though it will take time for it to become second nature. Before clicking send on an email, quickly proofread it and get rid of any apologies that don’t need to be there.

This little tweak to how you interact with colleagues could help you to feel confident. If you’re asking for something to be done, make sure you are acting confidently and directly instead of asking their permission. By being direct, you will not only feel more confident, but you will seem more confident to your coworkers.

7. Know when to say no If you are missing deadlines and working late every night, it’s no wonder you feel like you’re not doing a good job. While it’s easy to blame yourself for these things, if you have an unrealistic workload, then you’re never going to get it all done.

If you know you have an excessive amount of work, it’s important to address this with your line manager. And, even more importantly, you need to learn how to say no to additional work. If people are always lumping new tasks on you, you need to figure out how to say no. Turning down new work will help you to manage your existing workload more efficiently, and this, in turn, will increase your confidence.

Saying no may not come naturally, but with practice, you’ll get it down to a fine art. Next time somebody asks you to do something you don’t have time for, politely tell them you’re too busy to help out at the moment. If it’s your boss and you’re worried about saying no, tell them you have a full to-do list and ask them for help deciding which task to drop. This will help them to understand how much you are already working on, which they may not know.

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We can all learn a lot about self-kindness from Shahroo Izadi. Shahroo is an author of The Kindness Method and The Last Diet. She offers simple motivational tools designed to help create new habits.

We chat about:

• An amazing technique for shifting your attention from what your body looks like to what it allows you to do
• The links between how we eat and anxiety
• Shahroo shares about how she handles anxiety and takes care of her mental health
• Why we find it so hard to be kind to ourselves and how we can remember to do it

If you would like free resources to help you to feel calmer and self-assured – visit calmer-you.com/confidence .

You can also find out about my app and my 121 sessions of hypnotherapy and coaching at www.calmer-you.com.

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Download your FREE Calmer You Toolkit

Transcript Chloe Brotheridge Hello, and welcome to the Calmer You Podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of the Anxiety Solution and Brave New Girl.

In today’s podcast This podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest, happiest and most confident self. So today I have the pleasure and privilege of sharing with you this conversation that I had with Shahroo Izadi.

Shahroo was on my podcast about a year and a half ago and following that podcast we struck up a beautiful friendship and now we’re really quite good friends. We recorded this unfortunately not in person since we are in lockdown

Shahroo is all about self-kindness and is the author of The Kindness Method. Her latest book is called The Last Diet. She shares with us an amazing technique for shifting your attention from what your body looks like to what it allows you to do. We talked about the links between anxiety and how we eat. Also, she shares about how she handles anxiety and how she takes care of her own mental health.

We get into this topic which I quite often ask people: Why is it that we find it so hard to be kind to ourselves, and Shahroo is literally the queen of kindness and self-kindness.

Free resources If you would like to be a calmer, happier and more confident person, I have a lot of free resources for you. I’d love to share these with you to help you to feel more in control and to take another step towards being your calmest self.

If you want to get those freebies, you can head over to my website, Calmer-you.com/free and enter your email address. I will send you all of those goodies straight into your inbox.

You can also find out about my app and my one on one sessions of hypnotherapy and coaching at calmer-you.com

Chloe Brotheridge You are one of the only guests to be on this podcast twice. I’m very excited to talk to you. The first time we spoke and met was for this podcast a couple of years ago.

We first met online, then at a dinner and the rest is history. Now we are friends IRL.

Chloe Brotheridge: Can you can you tell everyone your story, what it is that you do and how you got to where you are today?

Meet Shahroo Shahroo: I’m a behavioural change specialist. So I help people to change their habits, unwanted habits, learn self-kindness and help them gain insight into why they’re finding it hard to change habits.

I write books, self-help, self-kindess and offer tools so that people can change their own habits without needing to talk to people like me. Before this I worked in addiction. I learned so much about motivation, self-awareness, resilience and self-compassion. And many other themes that help people enormously when it comes to changing habits and making those changes last.

Now what I do really is adapt tools and approaches that help addicts stay in long term recovery. I also find ways for people to integrate those approaches into their daily lives so that they can better manage their own habits and experience self-kindness.

Shahroo’s books Chloe Brotheridge: For people that don’t know, Shahroo’s books are called The Kindness Method and The Last Diet.

Shahroo: Professionally a lot has changed a lot for me. When my first book came out, I was sort of wondering what I even did before that to be perfectly honest with you. I had a private practice where I was seeing clients, learning from their feedback what was working and people found useful. The first book is now out all around the world and the second one about kindness and self-kindness just came out in the states. So that’s very exciting.

The Kindness Method The Kindness Method did so well. It resonated with so many people. I think because not being kind to ourselves is so prevalent. It’s hard to find anyone who is genuinely kind to themselves. I think all of us have this tendency to beat ourselves up or, you know, be overly self-critical. Do you know why we are so hard on ourselves? What your take on it?

Self-kindness Shahroo: Well, I know you know, from work on anxiety, etc, that we are more highly attuned to our deficits and the things we should be protecting ourselves from and our threats. But I think when it comes to my work in particular, it comes down to the definition of kindness and self-kindness.

If you’re trying to define self-kindness, define it as doing for yourself as you would for a loved one. It doesn’t mean making the decision that gives you a short term fix. It means making the more difficult decision that has your long term goals in mind, as opposed to your short term relief.

It involves taking the same sort of common sense, sensible advice that you would give someone else. Also, not treating a blip as a catastrophe. So in the context of habit change, it’s understandable that people would find it hard to change their habits because frankly, self-kindness is the harder choice sometimes.

Self-kindness needs self reminders Chloe Brotheridge: I found talking to people, that self-kindness is something that we need constant reminders about. I tell people to be kind to themselves a lot. And I still need to remind myself as well. It’s something that I tend to keep coming back to. It’s not necessarily that we just think it once and it’s it sticks. We need to keep reinforcing it. How do you remember to be kind to yourself

Shahroo: If I’m experiencing some emotional discomfort, even if it’s just procrastinating or boredom or whatever else, I try and notice that and practice speaking to myself the way I would speak to a loved one. That’s usually in an encouraging way. And usually that means that I uncover the kind of advice that helps make that process easier for myself.

When you feel discomfort I find discomfort is one thing that really turns up the volume on the way that I’m speaking to myself and I can get some insight into whether it’s helpful or not. Am I practicing self-kindness?Where possible, I try to give myself the same messages that I want other others to give me. I often ask myself what are you hoping they’re going to say to you? Usually the messages are things like this isn’t that big a deal? This is okay. You’re going to be okay. Don’t beat yourself up about it. When I am in discomfort it’s an opportunity to speak more kindly to myself.

Chloe Brotheridge: When you talk about discomfort, can you describe what you mean by that? Are you talking about a specific kind of feeling?

Shahroo: Yeah, any kind of state we’re trying to change. At the moment, I’d say a lot of us are feeling bored, stressed, anxious, worried. That’s a good opportunity to listen in on the way you’re speaking to yourself and look at how you might be able to debate with it and make what you’re hearing more useful, and considering self-kindness.

Chloe Brotheridge: I don’t know if this is the same in addictions or this is just the same for everyone but feeling uncomfortable, trying to find a way to make yourself feel better. The thing that makes you feel better might not be the healthiest choice. The next time you feel uncomfortable, you don’t want to feel that feeling. In those moments of discomfort, should we just practice self-kindness? Thinking about what our friend might say to us to support us or encourage us in that moment.

Solutions-focused habits Shahroo: And just being curious about it, as opposed to beating yourself up about it. A lot of the time, people come to me in my work, especially when it comes to things like comfort eating. The ask me why I continue to do something if it doesn’t even make me feel better. I think if we replace the word better with different it can help us to gain a little bit more insight into the state that we’re trying to change. It helps to frame a new habit as a solution, not a problem. When you understand that it’s solving a problem in itself, you can start to have more compassion for yourself. Then gain a little bit more insight into why you’re finding it so difficult to change.

Chloe Brotheridge: For example, If I am feeling anxious I might eat a whole tray of brownies. That’s the solution that you found in that moment. So it’s about finding another solution to help yourself with those anxious feelings.

Shahroo: Yes, focus on diversifying your coping strategies, not just telling yourself about them and saying no brownies ever. How about we find five other things that do the job that brownies do and we practice doing them as well throughout the week? How do I not have brownies in sight? Because they’re the problem. They’re not the problem. They’re the solution.

Chloe Brotheridge: That’s such a different way of thinking about and makes so much sense.

Can you tell us a bit about your latest book, The Last Diet?

The Last Diet Shahroo: The Last Diet is much like The Kindness Method. It hands over tools. You can do written exercises by yourself and try and gain some insights. But this one’s specifically about eating habits, and much more personal. In the first book, I do talk about my personal experience, but I largely draw from my work in addiction treatment.

In the second book, I talk about my upbringing. I developed this all or nothing dieting mentality around food. A very mean, unfair and unkind dialogue about myself and my body. I associated self-worth and my weight and how I came to unlearn so many of these things.

Through the exercises, again, that I learned through addiction treatment. It was also informed by the feedback I’ve had from the first book. The things that really resonated with people, especially when it came to changing their eating habits. The second one really is about saying no more diets, essentially.

We are all on a diet A lot of us who are used to being on diets from a young age for a range of different reasons, never find a way of eating that helps us manage our weight. The word diet gets a bad rap, but frankly, we’re all on a diet.

It’s just some of them are designed to help you lose weight, but we’re all eating. I think a lot of people think it would be helpful to sit down and really plan how they like to eat on purpose. My main focus in the book is making sure that the way that people go about weight management is realistic. It’s about practising self-kindness and what you’re going to do to keep off weight as opposed to focus on weight loss.

Take the focus off weight loss Many people I speak to are so focused on weight loss. And for me, it wasn’t actually until I took the focus off the weight loss process and put the focus on managing my weight long term in a way that made me feel strong and positive and calm, that actually any unwanted weight naturally came off.

Chloe Brotheridge: Can you explain what the distinction between that’s more long term rather than a quick fix?

Shahroo: It has your whole life in mind. It would be impossible for a human to carry on doing certain forms of diets over the long-term. People should feel empowered around food and actually enjoy it.

Focus on weight management We’re so used to this quick fix fast results going on holiday getting married kind of view of weight loss. Bear in mind, my unwanted weight gain was due largely to binge eating, restricting and abusing myself with food. You know what I have to admit, I need to get better at remembering that the people I speak to already have a very specific problem with this very specific thing. Because sometimes I’ll do some press or an article or something, I’ll see the feedback. There’s so many people out there who don’t struggle with these habits in this way and never have.

My story has been about abusing myself with food and not understanding why I have an abusive relationship with food, and then not liking the byproduct of that abuse. The by-product is unwanted weight. So that particular formula is one that most people I speak to completely relate to.

Think about the incredible things your body can do I think that there are times when we’re trying to make changes, whether it’s trying to deal with a craving in a way that we’re happy with or trying to do anything difficult, where we forget how capable we are. In that moment, a lot of us have grown used to putting ourselves down and remembering all the things we can’t do and all the things we haven’t managed to do. I think it’s really helpful to write down in one place all the incredible things that your body is capable of doing.

Don’t think I can’t do this, or I can’t do that. That can be a very powerful tool when we want to push through a craving or an urge and treat it as an alert from our bodies as opposed to a command that we need to follow.

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, because I guess we’re so focused in our society on the way we look. And we lose that appreciation for the things that our bodies can do and the amazing things that our bodies are doing day and night. It’s refreshing, positive and empowering way of thinking about it.

It’s not all or nothing Shahroo: Thank you, I think a lot of people had the experience I’ve had. That all or nothing thinking around food also came in all or nothing thinking around self-care and self-kindness. I used to think when I’m a certain size, then I’ll be the sort of person who cares about that stretching, or buying a new outfit or having a blow-out for my hair.

Chloe Brotheridge: I really hope people will give that a try and put that into practice. Can we talk about the link between anxiety and food? There’s that famous meme of food being the most prevalent anti-anxiety medication or something?

Anxiety and food I know for me, certainly as a teenager in my early 20s, I definitely used foods, carbohydrates, in particular, to try and make myself feel calmer and more grounded and more comforted. What would you say the link is there for people?

I think comfort eating does help in the short term. It can help a lot of people to soothe anxiety or stress. For example, initially they may think it’s completely harmless and that they will never have a problem with comfort eating. That’s fine. It’s in their toolkit, along with meditation and lots of other things. And when you take the judgment out of the tools in your toolkit, it’s just one of those coping strategies.

Afterwards, having eaten whatever they’ve wanted did they feel better or worse over time?

That’s a different story. In my case, I certainly noticed that at times when I was anxious, I would reach for food more often. It had a numbing grounding effect on me. And sometimes it made me feel so debilitated actually. I wasn’t eating apples. It left my body feeling gross. I’d have acid reflux throughout the night, and I wouldn’t do any exercise, and I’d wake up and not drink enough water. I was just like a spiral.

Coping skills In the end on balance, it didn’t turn out being an effective long term coping strategy for me at all. Whereas for a lot of people I know it is. We all have these coping skills and tools on rotation. When we take the judgement out of them, we’re reaching for the ones that are effective and accessible at the time, and I think when it comes to the short term, at least food is both of those things. So it’s understandable that it would be one of the comforts that people are turning to most frequently. There isn’t as much stigma around it as there is with some of the other substances.

Don’t turn it into a problem Chloe Brotheridge: Don’t turn it into problem if it’s not a problem for you. If you do comfort eat, don’t then beat yourself up about it and turn it into a problem. It actually might not even be a problem.

Shahroo: I think that we are on high alert for the world telling us that we need fixing. We didn’t even know what’s wrong with us. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to be aware of health advice. It’s good to be aware. Sometimes people will get really panicked about something. Don’t let one programme you watched make you hate yourself about something you did, like drinking milk.

I’m learning constantly and changing my habits constantly as I learn more. But I think a lot of the time people will think that something should be a problem for them, but it’s actually not. Maybe the byproduct is weight gain. That doesn’t mean that they’re unfit or not happy. It doesn’t mean they’re not beautiful. Maybe it isn’t a problem for them. It just so happens that the weight I was gaining was as a result of treating myself badly. I was barely tasting food the way I was using it.

What’s hidden behind your actions? Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah, that’s such an interesting distinction. Let’s get back to what you said a moment ago about using food to numb. Normally, I suppose you might hideaway. When I would eat massive bowls of pasta as a teenager and feel really full I’d stay in my room and not talk to anyone. It’s a way of keeping us safe.

I’ve been doing a lot of NLP with clients and a lot of it’s about working on what is the hidden benefit behind what you’re doing. If I keep myself safe by not going out and not living my life to the full, the hidden benefit is that I won’t risk getting rejected. I won’t risk making a mistake or that sort of thing.

Shahroo: It gives us compassion. We think that’s why I’m doing it. There is a reason you continue to do something, the byproduct of which you’re not necessarily happy with. That’s okay.

Chloe Brotheridge: What would you say about good vs bad foods?

What is good or bad? Shahroo: I think a lot of the time, the good and bad food thing comes as a result of depriving themselves with the bad foods when they’re being good. Then once they get their hands on the bad foods, or they feel the chink in their armour, then they just have all the bad foods they can get their hands on. Until it’s time for good foods again. That usually comes as a result of some sort of experience of deprivation or some idea that got in there that says at some point, I’m not going to be able to eat this food again. So I’m going to eat as much of it as I can now because it’s a bad food.

From my experience, that’s obviously mainly restrictive diets. In our conversations, it’s become clear that some of that comes from when they were younger. For a various range of reasons, there were certain foods that were limited or not available to them. That is where this notion of some foods are good and others are bad comes from. As a result, they haven’t learned to genuinely enjoy those types of foods and moderate quantities. They’ve only ever associated them with falling off the wagon then eating it.

I think a lot of the time, people say things like, I’m bad. I’m being bad today. I’m being naughty. Oh, I’m so naughty.

We’re going to have access to desserts forever. So enjoy it.

Don’t make it all or nothing Chloe Brotheridge: I think just generally having any kind of binary is of good or bad or all or nothing or no black or white. These binaries that we impose on things in the physical world which don’t actually exist. Like good or bad or all or nothing.

Shahroo: That’s the other problem a lot of my clients have why I wrote The Last Diet. There is so much information out there about what’s good or bad, t’s just overwhelming. And I think a lot of people like me found themselves in a place where they were like, everything is conflicting and contradictory at this stage. Everything in some context is bad. There is no self-kindness in that.

I got to the stage where I thought bananas were bad, but whipped cream was good.

Chloe Brotheridge: Can we talk a bit about mental health then more generally? I’d love to know from you what do you do to take care of your own mental health? How do you what do you do in terms of self-care? Have you found yourself you know, struggling with things like anxiety yourself in the past?

Daily anxiety Shahroo: In the past, certainly, anxiety used to be a really a big problem for me. Daily anxiety, you know, up all night palpitations. Writing letters of apology to pretty much everyone I’ve met for just existing. Second guessing every single thing I did.

I’ve put lots of things in place over the years that have helped me manage that better and I’m glad to say that for now, it’s been quite a while. I don’t realise how long anxiety has been away for me until it comes back. I used to worry about what’s going to happen with money, for example, becomming self-employed about 6 years ago.

Tech-free time One of the tools that helps me tech-free mornings and evenings. It’s using my well-being phone that’s got an alarm clock, music, meditation, stuff like that on it. Not looking at emails or social media or text messages or What’s App until I’ve had an hour or so, to do everything else I want to do. Usually that’s just sit in silence and do a bit of writing or have a coffee

A well-being device I upgraded from the one I had and rather than getting an alarm clock radio, etc., it’s all in one phone that doesn’t have the other distracting bits.

It does have YouTube links for stretches and yoga and things I like doing in the morning depending on how much time I have. like five-minute meditation or 20-minute meditation. One for anxiety, another for self-kindness, whatever.

Digitial minimalism It is it’s just my sort of go to place for wellness at the click of a button. I also don’t spend much time on Instagram and actually I learned from you about Instagram. I could see this new career of mine sending me down the wrong path with my anxiety. There’s so much new fodder from the reviews to the external validation to people who don’t like you. All these things that are like your worst fears.

I also have a stammer. I’m quite comfortable with you. But actually over the past few days has been really difficult. Other people have noticed who’ve never noticed it before. I’m really struggling to get words out. So again, public speaking, etc, all of these things have meant that I have had to ramp up my self-care and self-kindness in order to be braver.

I have to say, sometimes it’s just little things. I’ve got a boring task to do, I’m going to try and put it off. But I’ve noticed it really does make a difference to me to have the room look nice with music and a candle. And all these little things, I guess, just remind me that my experience of the day matters. It’s a form of self-kindness. I do a lot of meditation and breath work on the weekends. I listen to my hypnotherapy recording.

Chloe Brotheridge: Guys, you need to follow Shahroo on Instagram because you’re extremely funny.

Chloe Brotheridge: You were talking about a kind of a negative review that you’d received but you’d actually reframed it in quite an interesting way. Does self-kindness play a role? Can you share that?

Dealing with criticism Shahroo: In the beginning I had some bad reviews and criticism that really did bother me. In fact, I remember doing this little emoji chart for myself that I kept on my phone for months and months. I took a screenshot of it and had it on my background. It was like 500 thumbs up emojis, and then like three angry face emojis. I was trying to remind myself not to spend all my time on the angry face emojis

Little exercises like that I find really helpful. The one I read yesterday said that my audiobook was a waste of digital. Sometimes I find insults quite funny. I guess I’m in a luxurious position where I can laugh about it because the vast majority are good. And I’ve got on board with all the tools, including self-kindness, that helped me remember that. So I think it’s really important to laugh at things if you can.

Chloe Brotheridge: Sometimes they even celebrate getting trolled or celebrate getting bad reviews. It’s a sign that you’ve reached a certain point where enough people are aware of you that some people are going to get pissed off by what you’re doing.

Reframe the situation Shahroo: That’s an interesting one, because I try and reframe it. The thing that has helped me enormously is that one day, I want to be the sort of person who takes criticism really well. Then I think to myself, well, the only way I’m going to become that person is finding opportunities to demonstrate I can engage in the behaviours that sort of person engages in. When someone hasn’t liked something that I’ve done, I try where possible to reframe it as an opportunity to practice responding differently. That’s the only way I’m gonna get good at it.

Handling criticism Chloe Brotheridge: I like reading how other people, people that I admire, respond to criticism. I’m thinking of particularly my mentor, Nisha Moodly, who just has this amazing way of completely staying in integrity when she’s replying to people who are just being unreasonable.

She has this way of just completely remaining in her heart and being kind but also standing up for herself and also holding her own. Sometimes I like to remind myself how other people deal with things and really try and emulate that. Almost like having a role model for how you can respond. Offering self-kindness

Shahroo: You know what also helps, go to the best book you’ve ever read. Go on Amazon reviews, and you’ll see someone who doesn’t like it. I’ve found that really helpful.

Like Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow. That’s probably one of the best books I’ve ever read. I remember seeing a review for it that was bad. And I was like, Oh, no, I wildly disagree with you.

Questions to ask yourself I got so used to assuming that when there was a problem brought to me that it was my fault, that I’d done something wrong. I didn’t spend a second thinking hold on before I decide to take this on myself. Do I want to sit and think about this reasonably before I start apologising to myself and adapting what I do? Do I even want to give some thought to whether I agree with this person? Why does my opinion of myself come into the mix?

That was a real revelation to me. If I wanted some opinions on something I was doing, and say, I wanted four opinions, I didn’t realise that that meant three people plus me my opinion, and that was a real learning curve for me. It has helped enormously with the criticism thing, too, because sometimes I agree. You know, sometimes a person will say something like this, this would have been better if she’d done this, and I think you’re smart. I will next time. Thank you. Self-kindness helps too.

Chloe Brotheridge: I think it can be really helpful if you can gain something from that criticism and use it to help you to get better.

Chloe Brotheridge: I quite often ask people if there’s anything that you’re struggling with at the moment, and how are you overcoming it?

What’s tricky now Shahroo: I really miss my mom? The way I’m overcoming it to be honest with you as I speak to her so often throughout the day, but by the time it’s like 8pm, frankly, I need a break. What was the lesson that evening? I miss my mom. I feel like it’s bothering me that my parents are vulnerable right now. That’s it. My overriding thing that’s kind of on my mind isn’t really about me. I’m doing fine and what I need to do. I do my volunteering, it gives me perspective, all of that stuff, meditating, exercising, self-kindess.

I know how important it is for my parent’s mental health to be outside and to see their friends and stay connected. Gratitude and trying to pass that on in every conversation I have. It’s difficult, isn’t it? I really acknowledge how much extraordinary pressure people are under and also, let’s count our blessings at the same time. It’s a difficult one to manage.

Coping in lockdown Chloe Brotheridge: I’m hearing that a lot from people about trying to use gratitude as much as possible and to stay positive. And self-kindness. I know a lot of people even saying that this situation is almost causing them to feel more grateful. Maybe if we feel like we’ve lost something, or we might lose something, it makes us more grateful for the things we have. I don’t know if that even works that way. But I think it seems like a lot of people are saying they’re feeling very grateful at the moment, or trying to focus on that as a way of dealing with this situation.

Shahroo: There are some people I’m speaking to whether they’re working in health care or their income has been cut, it’s impacting them already in a very obvious way.

These are things that I can’t say are impacting my family in the same way. If that’s the worst you’re dealing with right now, then you’re incredibly, incredibly lucky. That’s self-kindness talking too. Then that does make you feel calmer and gives me more energy to reach out to others. I practice self-kindness.

Chloe Brotheridge: I know that doing some kind of volunteering can be really beneficial for our mental health, helping others connecting ourselves to something bigger than ourselves. Having a sense of perspective, I think could be helpful. Do you? Do you think that volunteering can be good for mental health? How has it helped you?

Volunteering and mental health Shahroo: I think it depends on how you’re feeling about your mental health at the time and picking an area to volunteer that may or may not find triggering. Check-in with yourself about before you do it. I find it enormously important for me to do things without expecting anything in return. That feeling I get when I have done that and not needing any kind of acknowledgment. It almost feels selfish. It’s so grounding and calming. This reminds me of why we’re all here and gives me perspective. Also, helping me zoom out so much. A form of self-kindness.

I want to work with people It also reminds me that ultimately, I want to work with people. Yes, it’s scarier, there are more risks, you know, than if you were working with spreadsheets and things like that. But it’s when I volunteer, it’s when I speak to people who are truly in need, and that I realise that I’m on the right track working with humans.

Chloe Brotheridge: I really enjoy our chats always. I’m glad to get to share more of your your insights and your wisdom today. Can you tell everyone listening where they can find out more about you and what you’re up to what sort of things you offer and that sort of thing?

How to reach Shahroo I’m on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, got a website, I’ve got a newsletter you can sign up to, if you go on my website, which has like a monthly newsletter where I look at all the questions and requests that I’ve got in that month. I draw a theme out and provide a video and an article around that theme. I also give out free exercise every month. So that comes out at the end of the month. Also, I give all sorts of talks, workshop sessions, all of those things, but it’s all on my website and Instagram.

Chloe Brotheridge: Yes, definitely check out her Instagram. And just in terms of your one on one sessions, what sort of issues do you help people with?

1 to 1 work Shahroo: I tend to see people wants for an intensive session, which is just under two hours. We establish why they feel they’re not able to make changes by themselves. I help them to formalise a proper action plan that they go away and implement themselves. It’s all in the spirit of me handing things over to people, as opposed to people becoming, feeling that they need me in any way. AIt’s certainly not a traditional talking therapy. I’m not a counsellor. It’s essentially saying, if I’ve written these books, I’ve read these books, and I’ve done this training, and I’ve had all this personal experience. I’ve put it all together, and now I have this huge bank of resources and different exercises and approaches.

A personal self-help book I ask them questions through things like motivational interviewing approaches like that asset-based working. How is their self-kindness. I draw out the self-knowledge that they need to create a plan that’s truly bespoke. A plan that really doesn’t need me to be part of it anymore. I send it to them within a couple of days, like a little personalised section of a self-help book.

You Thank you, Chloe. Lovely to chat and I’ll talk to you soon.

Chloe Brotheridge: Thank you so much for listening. I really hope that you gained a lot from this episode. Come on over to Instagram and let me know what are you taking from this episode. Find me at Chloe Brotheridge.

I would love it if you would leave me a review in the podcast app on iTunes, subscribe to the podcast, leave me a rating. If there someone in your life that would really benefit from this podcast, you can let them know by sharing this podcast. I’d be so so grateful. So I’m just wishing you a wonderful week ahead, sending love.

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We can all learn a lot about self-kindness from Shahroo Izadi. Shahroo is an author of The Kindness Method and The Last Diet. She offers simple motivational tools designed to help create new habits. We chat about: An amazing technique for shifting your attention from what your body looks like to what it allows you to […]

The post Ep 109 Anxiety and food and self-kindness with Shahroo Izadi appeared first on Calmer you.

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In this solo episode I’m sharing about a topic very close to my heart, procrastination.

I discuss:

• Why we procrastinate (hint: it’s not because you’re lazy)
• My own procrastination struggle
• My most powerful tips for getting stuff done

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Thanks so much for listening!

Transcript Hello and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution and Brave New Girl. This podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest happiest and most confident self.

Fellow procrastinator Hello and welcome fellow procrastinator. Well done you have chosen to listen to this episode. You’ve not put it off. It’s a great start. Procrastination is an area that is very close to my heart. Something that I have struggled with a lot of, you know, in the past. On occasions I still do. It’s just the most frustrating thing. We can really get ourselves into cycles of beating ourselves up because we’re procrastinating. Then basically that means that you procrastinate more. Beating yourself up really saps your motivation.

There is a way out of this If you’re struggling with this, which obviously you are, because you wouldn’t be listening to this, my heart’s really going out to you. I want to say that there is a way out of this.

In this episode, I’m going to be talking about why we procrastinate. Also, I’m going to be sharing my own experiences. And, some of the things that we can do to get ourselves out of this cycle and make a change.

Free resources If you would like to get some free resources to help you to be calmer and happier, you can head over to calmer-you.com/free, and download my free resources there. And please do make sure you are a subscriber to this podcast. To listen on your iPhone, please subscribe in the apple podcast app and do send this along to a fellow procrastinator who might just need to hear this message today.

Procrastination and anxiety Anxiety and procrastination are linked. I hear it very often from people that I’m working one on one with that this is an issue for them. I think part of it is due to the fact that if you’re anxious or stressed or worried, it is hard to focus. It can be hard to sit still even sometimes. As well as focusing, concentrating, doing something that might be challenging. Mentally taxing it is going to be so much harder when you are feeling anxious. It can also be linked to self-esteem.

Self-esteem If we’re not feeling good about ourselves, if we’re beating ourselves up, if we’re lacking in self-belief, then it’s going to be a lot harder to do the things that we want to do. Especially things that are outside of our comfort zone. For example, there’s also something about fear of failure and procrastination.

The root of procrastination At the root of our procrastination is a fear of failure because we’re putting off this task because we’re scared. Whether that is starting an essay, preparing for a presentation that you’ve got or starting a business or taking some steps, they’re outside of your comfort zone, in your work or in your personal life.

If we’re fearing failure, then we are much less likely to take action because it seems safer to do nothing. It seems safer to delay it for another day. And yet, we all know that not doing something equals instant failure. So we’re kind of sabotaging ourselves in that way.

A cycle of anxiety We are actually creating the result that we’re trying to avoid. Let’s also not forget that procrastination creates more anxiety. It creates this cycle when we feel bad about ourselves when we put something off. If the deadline gets closer, it creates more anxiety, which makes it harder to focus and concentrate and do the hard thing that we might need to do. It really is a vicious cycle.

I know the feeling of procrastination all too well. That sweet relief, we get when we decide to do it tomorrow. It’s kind of a momentary sense of relief that probably doesn’t last that long because guilt and anxiety can set in. It’s the temporary freedom from having to do something that’s different. Or boring or scary.

Setting myself up for failure In the past, I would start the day with big plans. I’d have goals a to-do list and all the actions I wanted to take. For example, by the end of the day, I would have a sparkling clean house. And then the to-do list would be decidedly undone. When the evening would arrive, I’d just have this horrible feeling of worthlessness and guilt and frustration. Beating myself up about the fact that I hadn’t gotten on with all the things that I ‘should have been doing’.

I don’t know if anyone can relate getting caught up in busywork. When the thing that we really need to be doing gets kind of pushed aside. We preoccupy ourselves with doing unimportant admin when there’s this really important thing that we need to be getting on with.

Remember several years ago when I was launching my online course. It was a big deal for me to create something and put it into the world. I was constantly putting it off and letting a fear of failure hold me back. I was thinking, what if I get it wrong? What if no one joins the course? What if people laugh at the fact that I’ve created this. All these kind of fears and doubts in my mind.

Fear of success Looking back, I realised that there was not only a fear of failure, but also a fear of success. That almost sounds like that can’t be a real thing. Fear of success is 100% a real thing. It’s that fear that if we are successful if we do the presentation, or if we do launch the business, or if we do get the promotion at work, then there’s going to be more expectation on us and more pressure. We’re going to fall from a greater height.

If we do fail at some point what are the people going to think if we’re successful? Are they gonna think we’re getting too big for our boots or are they going to want us to help them with things? Will it be too much? Or will they start asking us to borrow money or something like that? So all these fears of success can also come into it.

Name the fear When we are procrastinating, I think it’s really important to recognise these fears first, and name them. So is this a fear of failure? Is it a fear of success? Is it that actually the task is just something that you don’t really want to do? You know, this can come into it as well.

Maybe you are in a career that really doesn’t fulfil you. You may have agreed to do something and actually realise that you regret agreeing to it. That’s why you’re putting it off because it’s just that you don’t want to do it.

Should we do it? I’m not saying that, we should always give up on the things that we do. Of course, sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do. Do you indeed need to continue down that path whether a different career is the right thing for you. You need to be really mindful of the things that you agree to do, and check-in with yourself.

Your Calmest Self starting soon First, spend more time asking yourself, is this something I really want to do before agreeing to it. Thankfully, I did create and launch the online course. I’m actually running it live again. At the moment, this week it closes on the eighth of June 2020. It’s called Your Calmest Self.

I first launched it about five years ago and I’ve updated it since then. It gives you the tools to manage your anxiety in 12 weeks or less. And if you want to check that out, you can head to calmer-you.com/programme.

Eat That Frog I have found when it comes to procrastination, what we need to be doing if we want to start the day procrastination free is we have to Eat That Frog. There is a book called Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy. What he means by this is that we need to do the most difficult or annoying task first.

When we’ve done the most challenging, annoying or important task first thing in the morning, the rest of the day has this infusion of momentum We feel better about ourselves and give ourselves a boost in terms of our self-esteem. This increases our motivation.

Tip 1 – do the hardest task first thing in the morning It means that doing other things that we might need to do during the day are just so much easier because we’ve done that difficult, challenging, annoying task first. That’s my first tip for procrastination.

Tip 2 – Make your bed Tim Ferriss suggests that we do the simple task of making our bed in the morning. It’s a small achievement that can lead to bigger achievements throughout the day. Make your bed and then eat that from and you’re going to set yourself up for a better day.

Social media and emails Social media and emails are something that we need to be looking at if we want to procrastinate less. These are the ultimate distractors. They can also provoke anxiety as well. So if we want ourselves to be in a calm state so that we can get things done, then avoiding social media and emails first thing can massively help.

I do my best to not check emails and social media for at least an hour after I wake up. I very often quite like to get up and do some tasks really early in the morning. When I was writing my books, I would get up at 6am to meditate and by 7am, I’d be writing my book. I’m not suggesting everyone needs to do that. I prefer to work early on in the morning and then finish early in the afternoon. I don’t work for 12 hours a day.

This really worked for me to actually get up really early and just start working and not checking emails and not checking social media first thing. Now we all know that Instagram is addictive for our brains. Checking social media is kind of like a drug. Daniel Goleman discusses this in his book Focus. Take some steps to minimise the impact of email and social media.

For example, I delete Instagram every single day and I install it again. I do my stories, spend about half an hour to my answer and bits and bobs and then I delete it again. That sounds extreme but it works a charm because now we only spend half an hour a day.

I also use an app called Productive, you know. It honestly has paid for itself 70 times over because it blocks certain news websites for me and certain social media sites. It means that I’m much less likely to absent-mindedly click on the Guardian or whatever it is

Visualisation How can you start to prepare for the day ahead is by using some positive visualisation. I like to do this when I have a day that I really need to get in my flow. Maybe be creative. I imagine how I want the day to go, I see myself looking relaxed at my desk and focused. I have this sense of imagining myself being in flow, positive and focused. When we imagine something vividly, the same parts of our brain are being used as if it’s happening for real.

We really can create a blueprint for how we want our day to go by visualising how we want things to go.

Tip: Start before you are ready The next suggestion I have for you is to start before you’re ready. I think this is a Richard Branson. He says say yes to an opportunity, and then figure out how you’re going to do it afterwards. So often we make excuses about not being ready or not being good enough.

I know that I’ve done this in the past. So maybe you’re telling yourself you’re not ready to give that talk. You’re not good enough to start going on dates or to begin yoga, for example. Remember that everyone has to start somewhere. Everyone was a beginner once.

You have to start somewhere It is totally possible for us to say yes to things and trust that we’re going to learn as we go along. When I first trained as a hypnotherapist nine years ago, it wasn’t until I had worked with hundreds of clients that I felt like a hypnotherapist. You’re not going to know everything. Well, I didn’t know at all, I certainly didn’t feel ready. I had to just start and learn on the job and learn as I went along. Getting started is the most important thing, allowing yourself to be a beginner, allowing yourself to be a bit crap.

When you begin, I think we have this we need to be perfect before we can do something. Unless you’re a brain surgeon, then it probably doesn’t matter too much if you make a few mistakes along the way. Start before you’re ready.

Take tiny steps The next thing I’m going to suggest to you is to take tiny little steps. This comes from the author of Getting Things Done, David Allen. He suggests that one of the reasons that we procrastinate is because we try and take on too much at once. Maybe you’ve got this plan of starting your own blog, for example. That may actually be a big intimidating task. We might not know where to begin. It’s just too big and unmanageable.

Instead, how can you break that into tiny little steps. Maybe that’s just spending half an hour researching possible blog titles, or making a list of 10 blog posts that you could start with. Just taking that little step, even if it’s just research, even if it’s just for half an hour, it’s going to create the momentum and the forward propulsion to get you started. You’re going to feel better about yourself once you make a little start, and it’ll help you to overcome that procrastination.

Final tip And so for my final tip on procrastination, I want to share about the Pomodoro Technique. Do you remember those egg timers that look like tomatoes? You might remember if your same age as me, basically, the Pomodoro technique involves setting a timer. It doesn’t need to be an egg timer, it could be just a timer on your phone and setting it for 25 minutes. For the duration of those 25 minutes you say to yourself, right, I’m gonna do some solid, uninterrupted work. Do not open emails, do not open Instagram, just really focusing during that time.

When the timer goes off, spending five minutes or 10 minutes, having a break, getting up and having a stretch, look at the Daily Mail if you want. Then the set the timer and get back to work for another 25 minutes.

This is something I did when I was writing my books. It massively helped me to stay on track and stay focused. It also gave me that structure for having breaks which are so important as well.

What works for you? Which of these are you going to be trying? Let me know. Send me a message on Instagram. You’ll find me at Chloe Brotheridge and if you have any tips for me on procrastination that you want to share, come on over and let me know those as well.

Your Calmest Self If you’re interested in my 12 week programme for anxiety that gives you the tools to become your Calmest Self. You can head to calmer-you.com/programme

You have been listening to the Calmer You podcast with me Chloe Brotheridge. Don’t forget you can download loads of freebies for anxiety and confidence at my website Calmer-you.com . You can also find out about my app and my one on one sessions there too.

Please do subscribe to this podcast in the apple podcast app. And if you have enjoyed it or found it helpful, please leave me a review. It makes a massive difference to helping the podcast get discovered by other people.

Come on over and find me on Instagram. Let me know what you thought of this episode. And please do share it with anyone who might need to hear this today. So I’m sending you loads of love and I hope you have a brilliant week ahead

The post Ep 108. Procrastination (don’t listen to this later!) appeared first on Calmer you.

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In this solo episode I’m sharing about a topic very close to my heart, procrastination.  I discuss: Why we procrastinate (hint: it’s not because you’re lazy) My own procrastination struggle My most powerful tips for getting stuff done Check out my 12-week anxiety programme at www.calmer-you.com/programme Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting tool kit […]

The post Ep 108. Procrastination (don’t listen to this later!) appeared first on Calmer you.

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Ali Roff Farrar has written and spoken about mindfulness and inner wisdom and is Wellness Director at Psychologies magazine, where she has interviewed world-renowned spiritual gurus, psychologists, doctors, and wise women and men including Deepak Chopra, Gabrielle Bernstein, Byron Katie, Jon Kabat Zinn and Mastin Kipp.

In this week’s podcast we chat about: * Ali shares her experience of anxiety and panic attacks and how she handles it. * Why mindfulness is so much more than just ‘being in the moment’ * How we’re replacing our inner wisdom (and how to get it back)

If you would like free resources to help you to feel calmer and self-assured – visit calmer-you.com/confidence .

You can also find out about my app and my 121 sessions of hypnotherapy and coaching at www.calmer-you.com.

Get free resources from me to help you to regain control and become your calmest self, head to www.calmer-you.com/free

Download your FREE Calmer You Toolkit

Transcript Hello and

Chloe Brotheridge 00:02: Hello, and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution and Brave New Girl. This podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest, happiest and most confident self.

Today’s guest I’m talking to the really incredibly lovely Ali Roff Farrar, who is Wellness Director at Psychologies Magazine. She has interviewed world-renowned spiritual gurus, psychologists, doctors and wise women and men including Deepak Chopra, Gabrielle Bernstein, Byron Katie, Jon Kabat Zinn, and Mastin Kip.

Topics we discuss I absolutely love this conversation with Ali. She taught me so much. She really helped me to think about mindfulness in a different way. So one of the things we talked about is why mindfulness is so much more than being in the moment. This really shifted things for me. She also shares her experience of anxiety and panic attacks and how she handles it. And we talk about how we are potentially replacing our inner wisdom and how we can get it back. I think you’re gonna love this episode.

Free resources If you would like to be a calmer, happier and more confident person, I have a lot of free resources for you. I’d love to share these with you to help you to feel more in control and to take another step towards being your calmest self.

If you want to get those freebies, you can head over to my website, Calmer-you.com/free and enter your email address. I will send you all of those goodies straight into your inbox.

You can also find out about my app and my one on one sessions of hypnotherapy and coaching at calmer-you.com

More about Ali Welcome, Ali, thank you so much for joining me How are you today?

Chloe Brotheridge 02:27: Can you share with listeners what it is that you do. Also, can you share a bit about your story of how you got to where you are today?

Ali: Yeah, so I’ve got my finger in a lot of pies actually. My main role is as the Wellness Director at Psychologies Magazine. That involves doing lots of research and writing about all of the new kinds of wellness trends out there.

My background really is in psychology. That’s what my degree is in. I’m really fascinated about modern science and psychology and seeing how they align so amazingly, with ancient philosophy.

I’m a yoga teacher and also a mindfulness expert. I’ve done two years plus of training in mindfulness training under some amazing people, including Jon Kabat Zinn.

My job allows me to write about all of that stuff. Last year, I just wrote my first book this year, which came out this year.

I also run yoga and mindfulness retreats with my husband. It’s quite exciting to have a few different things going on and, and just seeing where life takes me.

Psychologies Magazine It all began really with Psychologies Magazine. Before that I was working at GQ, mainly writing about fashion. Then this job at Psychologies Magazine came up. It is so different to all of the other magazines out there. Jam-packed full of interesting things to read. It’s to the point where most of our readers say, Well, I haven’t even finished this month’s issue and the new ones out.

I’ve never read a magazine like that before usually you just like flick through them and then you are done with them in a couple of hours. Whereas Psychology is something that people hold on to for years and everything’s so relevant. You can pick one up from a few years ago and still find things that will help you.

I just loved how positive it was and how it was bringing modern science and psychology and all these studies to life.

Deepak Chopra Interviewing people like Deepak Chopra really sent me on my path to enlightenment, inner wisdom and going on retreats. I feel very grateful to Psychologies Magazine setting me on this path.

Psychologies Magazine is for anyone who is, looking to understand themselves better. There are so many avenues to explore like hypnotherapy and Reiki, yoga and heavy psychology.

Chloe Brotheridge 07:11: I was reading Psychologies Magazine and it really did stand out to me as being so much more positive, empowering, and smart. Not superficial. There’s nothing wrong with the occasional bit of superficiality, but it was a lot deeper than a lot of other magazines.

I’m really curious about what Deepak said to you. What was that like? What did he say that made you go on that path to wanting to learn more about mindfulness?

Ali: That is a special episode. I have to delete some of the interviews because they take up some much memory, but for some reason I just can’t get rid of that one. I need to listen to it again actually. It was only 20 minutes. I remember coming off the call and saying to my husband that I’d just had the most amazing experience.

Deepak was telling us to be a child and see see the world through a child’s eyes. It was just so lovely. Such an extraordinary man learning from his grandson. He was so open and there was no ego. And obviously, otherwise he wouldn’t be who he is. He’s just got a really amazing way of of speaking and being very inspiring and profound. He is definitely tapped into his inner wisdom. There is loads of free content out with him talking. Interviewing Megan Markel was the highlight of my career.

What is mindfulness Chloe Brotheridge 10:00: What does mindfulness mean to you and how has mindfulness helped you in your life?

Ali: 10:08: I tried mindfulness for a few years and then I realised that there’s more to it than what we learn through the media. It’s so much more than being in the moment. That can only give us so much.

It allows me to stop worrying about the future, to stop regretting the past or fretting over what’s happened in the past and, and just be here. That does give us a certain amount of benefits. Just being in the moment can be kind of limiting. There are so many types that can be taught. They can be about the positive, loving-kindness and meditations. They can help us connect with everyone in the world and cultivate compassion.

Be here now To be here and now without feelings, that’s really what mindfulness is. Learning to be here and now with our feelings, whether they’re good feelings or bad feelings, and just being with them in a non-judgmental compassionate way. Listening to your inner wisdom.

That allows us to begin to accept where we are and how we feel. For example, right now there is a lot of anxiety and bad things that are happening. I’m sure lots of people will be experiencing negative emotions. They’re really difficult to be with and our natural kind of way of dealing with that is to push them away.

Mindfulness is about acceptance That doesn’t mean that that negative emotion goes away. It often just screams louder at us. That can be a really difficult place to live. Many of us will be living our lives like that on a daily basis for our whole lives. So for me, the revelation was that yes, this negative emotion is here, but also there’s some positive emotions. If I can just allow them and notice them with mindful awareness, they stop screaming so loud. That’s when the inner wisdom can speak.

If I can hold them in a kind of container of awareness, then I can begin to accept that they’re there and that’s how we find peace. Accepting that bad things are happening but it’s ok.

I’m feeling anxious. I’ve just had a 25% pay cut, which has happened to a lot of people. I can’t do anything to change that. So beating myself up more. Putting layers and layers of catastrophizing on top of that one problem isn’t going to make me feel any better. But if I can look at that, and go, yep, that’s rubbish. And it’s there and just allow it to be there, then it almost begins to shrink.

Mindfulness also helps us realise that one day we feel good one day we feel bad one day. The sun is shining one day it’s raining another. Life is always in transition between one day an another.

I’m very passionate about it, but in a nutshell, mindfulness really is about acceptance and acceptance leads to peace.

Chloe Brotheridge 15:12: That is so powerful. It’s really given me a different perspective on mindfulness. That’s such a good reminder

The Wellfulness Project Your new book is called The Wellfulness Project. It’s such a lovely book. Really practical with loads of inspiring stories. I also love the fact that in the Kindle version, it has illustrations in it and pictures, which is quite rare for a Kindle.

Ali: The tools in the book are best as visuals. I had so much fun recording it for Audible. Going to the studio was really fun.

Chloe Brotheridge 16:48: What is wellfulness? How would you describe what that is?

What is wellfulness? Ali: I made up the word. It’s basically applying mindful awareness to the wellness practices that we follow. When we think about wellness, it’s often quite easy to think it’s about diet and exercise. For me, wellness is holistic.

It encompasses our diet and the way you move, but also the way we think about our bodies. So body image, and then space. Those spaces that we spend our time in. Obviously, we’re spending a lot of time at home at the moment, and perhaps becoming more aware of how spaces make us feel, and missing spaces that we used to spend time in.

Impact of spaces on how we feel I love to work in cafes. If I’m feeling a certain way, I can get a real energy from working in a cafe. Being mindful and noticing how different spaces make us feel.

Impact of people on how we feel Equally how people make us feel. The people that we either have to be around or choose to be around.

Routines and rituals Routines and the rituals that we follow. How we go to bed, for example, can become, for many of us some kind of mindless routine that we’ve just kind of appeared out of habit, rather than paying conscious awareness to that routine. We can think about how it makes us feel and how it serves us. We can listen to our inner wisdom.

How our thoughts make us feel It can be our thoughts that make us feel a certain way. We we are not our minds. If we just allow them to run the show, then, you know, we could end up thinking about things in a way that doesn’t really serve us. Our mind should nourish who we want to be and achieve.

Do what makes you feel good Wellfulness is applying mindful awareness, noticing how the things we do make us feel and from there, we gain power. We can either choose to keep something in our life and there’s a reason for it being there. For example, a yoga practice. It works for me and I’m going to keep it in my life. But, I don’t really enjoy running. It doesn’t make my heart sing and it makes me really bored as well. So what am I doing that I can I replace that with. Can I replace it with something that does serve me on a holistic level?

It’s empowering ourselves to look at our lives and consider through mindful awareness whether we have things in place that are there because we want them and we chosen them, or if they’re just because they’re kind of appeared because someone else is doing it. Why am I wasting my time?

Chloe Brotheridge 20:00: That makes so much sense. It’s like going through different parts of your life and auditing them and just saying, why is this working for me? How can I bring more awareness to this area? What can I change?

I know that you’ve spoken about your own experiences with anxiety, can you talk a little bit about that and how you manage that yourself? What advice you would give other people who are experiencing anxiety?

Working with anxiety Ali: In the past, I’ve had low-level anxiety, especially in terms of not feeling good enough. Also, negative thought patterns going on in my head. A critical narrative going on there. It’s only really in the past year that I have experienced anxiety that has been crippling and has actually profoundly affected my life.

It began to appear as panic attacks. That was really difficult for me for someone who had done so much work on myself, practicing and teaching yoga and writing about wellness everyday. and you know, does yoga and teaches yoga, who writes about wellness and practices mindfulness every day. To suddenly have this anxiety which almost felt like it appeared from nowhere and is showing up in this really physical way.

It was really scary. For a long time, I didn’t understand how I was feeling. I actually just felt numb. I wasn’t feeling happy or sad or excited. That was a warning flag. That lead me to wanting to be home a lot and just be quiet.

My first panic attack was in the car with my husband singing along to the radio. It was the noise. I don’t even think my husband really realised that I was having one. It was scary. That’s when I realised I think that something was really seriously wrong.

The guilt and shame I put a lot of guilt and shame on myself. As someone who had been there for other people in the past dealing with anxiety and mental health issues, and now I was having a mental health issue and dealing with anxiety at a big level. I couldn’t hear my inner wisdom.

That was really difficult for me to honestly to admit to myself and to other people. I felt like a bit of a fraud, to be honest. The panic attacks lasted for a few months, quite severely. One night I had three in a row. Just relentless and they’re exhausting. I really found it actually very difficult to meditate at that time. Being with those intense thoughts is very hard to do.

I found myself moving away from those things that I’ve done in the past to support myself – yoga, mindfulness and meditation. I just wanted to lose myself in the day to day tasks. I needed to practice compassion and not put so much pressure on myself.

I did go to counselling One thing I did start, which I’ve never done before, was going to counselling. That really helped me. She helped me realise that I was putting a lot of pressure on myself in every area of life. We’re all striving for success and greatness . Striving to lead extraordinary lives and that can also lead to putting a lot of pressure on ourselves. And then one thing she taught me that has stayed with me is that it’s not a demand, it’s a strong preference. That really helped me start to navigate through life and take some of the pressures off and listen to my inner wisdom.

The gift in the anxiety Gradually week by week I started to feel a bit better and understand myself on a deeper level and where my anxiety was coming from. After a few weeks of therapy, I was able to get back into yoga a bit and get back into meditation. Honestly, I feel like my anxiety and those panic attacks were one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever been given. It allowed me to fully understand how severe anxiety can be in terms of a physical reaction and how it can manifest. I know bring that into my teaching and my understanding and empathy.

It’s also allowed me to understand myself and it’s given me resilience. That has prepared me for the Coronavirus pandemic, which is extremely anxiety-provoking for many of us. I’ve got the tools to deal with it.

I did have a panic attack when this all started again. I had to tell myelf that this is completely normal. It’s okay that this is coming up again for me.

I now have first hand experience coming through it and speaking to so many people that have come through anxiety. I’m still living with it. I think most of us are still living with it. Hopefully it’s reduced a bit.

Anxiety can make us stronger Anxiety can empower us and can make us stronger. It can serve us in a strange way. I’m actually very grateful for it. If anything, it’s just enhanced my compassion, inner wisdom and so much more.

Chloe Brotheridge 28:39: Thank you so much for sharing that. I think lots of people listening can relate to that. I can relate to how often we beat ourselves up about how we’re feeling and make ourselves wrong. It’s important to have compassion for yourself. If you’re feeling anxious is not your fault. Life can be challenging. We are here to learn. It can teach us about ourselves and come out stronger on the other side.

Ali 29:35: Anxiety is actually our superpower?

Anxiety can be our superpower Chloe Brotheridge 29:41: I love that idea. I’ll go with that.

I wanted to ask you about something that I read in your book. You wrote that we replacing our inner wisdom.

Ali 30:12: I feel quite passionately about this.

Where does our inner wisdom come from in the modern world? We are replacing our inner wisdom with the wisdom in our pocket. And by that, I mean, our phones. It’s not just our phones, but if we have a question, we consult our phone. For example, Why am I always so thirsty? The natural thing for us to do nowadays is Google it. Why do I keep feeling thirsty? And, you know, we’re just bombarded with information. There’s so much out there.

Is too much information a distraction to inner wisdom? There’s so much information out there. Even passive information, let alone the information that we’re seeking. Say for example, I want to boost my immunity. I can go online and I can find anything for free and to help me learn about what I can do to put to boost my immunity. All of that information can be very valuable.

Inner wisdom We’re losing touch with the information inside of us. Information attained from the outside world is knowledge, whereas the information inside of us is wisdom. We so rarely consult that wisdom.

What I can do is start to take that information and consult with myself and ask myself, okay, well, what, what does my body say about that? For example, I’m coming up to my mid 30s. And I’ve got really dark hair. Six months ago I noticed that I had a couple of Gray’s coming through the front. I thought, Oh, my God, I don’t want to go grey. There’s nothing wrong with going grain. However, that was my immediate kind of reaction.

It was a reaction. It wasn’t a response. Using a mindfulness technique. I thought, well, okay, what are we going to do about this? I Googled ways to deal with gray hair. Google suggested copper tablets so I ordered them. The pills made me sick. My body and inner wisdom was saying, nope, this copper tablet is not for you. It took me two days to figure that out.

This was a very physical reaction and I just had such empathy for my body in that moment because it tried to tell me. This doesn’t feel that great. I didn’t listen to my inner wisdom.

Consulting with ourselves I would love to see us start to consult ourselves as much as we do our phones. If we can combine the two, then that gives us so much power. Remember, one size doesn’t fit all. It’s not that easy.

I live in Greenwich in an area where the London marathon passes through. Afterwards my friends and I say we are going to run it next year. But I don’t enjoy running and I don’t see results from it since it isn’t enjoyable to me. The point is we need to do what works for us, not what might work for somebody else.

Does it make your heart sing? Does it make my heart sing? If we can find things that support our body and our mind then we’ve got a much greater chance of building a life full of things that are going to be easy for us to follow. We can only do that by looking within and consulting that inner wisdom and asking ourselves. It’s applying mindful awareness to the things that we do and deciding whether they work for us.

Chloe Brotheridge 37:07 That is so important. Many of my clients will always be asking other people’s opinions about things. Looking outside of themselves for the answers. The best answers can come from tuning into ourselves and mindfulness.

Ali: We’ve been conditioned to think that is something doesn’t feel right we need to go to the doctor. When we start to look within, we also start to give ourselves permission to say what we do or don’t want to do. In 10 years time, I might love running, and that’s okay as well. So, to constantly listen to ourselves and allow ourselves to change and give ourselves the permission to do that, I think is a very loving thing.

Success anxiety Chloe Brotheridge 39:00: Yeah, it’s very empowering. Like I like that a lot. I wanted to ask you about success anxiety. Not many people know it’s a thing. It’s definitely a thing.

Ali: I’ve done quite a lot of research into generations around success anxiety as well. It’s really fascinating.

My generation is very much crippled by it. Simon Sinek is a really great person to kind of look into this idea. It’s almost crippling this idea of needing to be successful. The thing is the goal, yet the goalposts always moving. Before we achieve one goal we are planning the next one. That’s very much the opposite of mindfulness because it’s constantly doing and striving and never actually allowing ourselves to be here now and just enjoy what’s happening in our lives at the moment.

I think it’s very easy to look to the future a lot and have a goal in sight. And of course, that’s such a big part of life. It helps us. It has given me so much happiness and got me to where I am today. It can also be crippling because where does it end? It’ a ladder there is never any end to.

I think that through our generation, people in their 20s to early 30s feel exhausted. I do have friends who have quite their jobs and are doing work that allows them more time. Their goals are on hold but they are happy. They’ve learned that all this striving doesn’t bring them as much happiness as they thought it would.

Looking within It all comes back to looking within and asking yourself what do I need? And what are my values? What’s serving me and my body, mind and heart. That might mean a change. It’s okay to change your mind. Especially when you tap into your inner wisdom.

There was a time where I wanted to be a magazine editor and now I know that that’s probably not where life is taking me. It’s something that I’ll probably keep asking myself over time. It’s important to check in with through mindful awareness. What’s happening inside. Mindfulness is important. What is my heart telling me? We don’t always need to do what our friends are doing. It’s no always what is right for me.

Chloe Brotheridge 44:30: Totally. Yeah, going back to what you said about success anxiety. I think there are some who believe you can do anything, like be a pop star or a millionaire. It’s amazing to, to give ourselves permission to do that and to go after what we want to do. If you don’t achieve that then you can be left with a real sense of failure because you’ve been told that it’s possible. It obviously can’t be possible for everyone to be a millionaire and everyone to be a pop star. It’s about finding that balance between going for your dreams, while knowing you’re valuable. No matter what.

Success anxiety There is more to life than promotions and book deals, although that’s brought me so much happiness. I’m sure you felt the same when your book came out. This dream of having my name on a book was like a bucket list. I will be forever grateful for the opportunity. It also came with a lot of success anxiety because what if it? What if it crashes? What if no one buys it?

I’d love to write another book. But not if I ruin it for myself by making it about success. I want it to express what’s inside of me so people can apply it in their lives

Doing it with love I went to India earlier this year and one thing that I learned over there is that they do everything with love. During the massage, they put all of their love and energy into it. Not because they want to be a famous masseuse or get rich from it. That’s their ethos. Do everything with love and shift the focus away from success. Every success that comes from doing everything with Love is a bonus. It comes back to mindfulness and inner wisdom.

Chloe Brotheridge 48:04: That’s such a beautiful idea. I really appreciate that. There is truly something to enjoying the journey. Having a book out might be nice, but if you hate writing it and it ruins your life for nine months maybe that’s not best. It could be worth it, but you need to ask yourself. We need to enjoy the ride and make sure it isn’t just about the goal.

Chloe Brotheridge 48:58: You’ve shared so much I can’t wait to listen back to this episode when I’m editing it. Can you share a little bit about where people can find out more about you and where they can buy your book.

How to reach Ali Ali: The book is about mindfulness and is called The Wellfullness Project. And it’s out now so it’s on Amazon, Waterstones and when all the shops open, it will be available in the shops again. My website is https://www.aliroff.com/wellfulness-podcast You can find my writings in Psychologies Magazine, which is out every month. So yeah, and still in the shops and stuff at the moment and can buy that online as well.

Chloe Brotheridge 49:51: Amazing. Thank you so much for talking to me,

Ali: 49:55 Thank you for having me.

Chloe Brotheridge 49:58: Thank you so much for listening. I really hope that you gained a lot from this episode. Come on over to Instagram and let me know what are you taking from this episode. Find me at Chloe Brotheridge.

I would love it if you would leave me a review in the podcast app on iTunes, subscribe to the podcast, leave me a rating. If there someone in your life that would really benefit from this podcast, you can let them know by sharing this podcast. I’d be so so grateful. So I’m just wishing you a wonderful week ahead, sending love.

The post Ep 107. Mindfulness, inner wisdom and success anxiety with Ali Roff Farrar appeared first on Calmer you.

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Ali Roff Farrar has written and spoken about mindfulness and inner wisdom and is Wellness Director at Psychologies magazine, where she has interviewed world-renowned spiritual gurus, psychologists, doctors, and wise women and men including Deepak Chopra, Gabrielle Bernstein, Byron Katie, Jon Kabat Zinn and Mastin Kipp. In this week’s podcast we chat about: Ali shares her experience of anxiety […]

The post Ep 107. Mindfulness, inner wisdom and success anxiety with Ali Roff Farrar appeared first on Calmer you.

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This week on the podcast I’m talking about the number one issue I see in my clients. The inner critic. It’s big. Huge. It’s that fault finding, nit-picking, brain-niggling, mean-ass inner critic. AKA ‘The shitty committee’. The inner mean girl (or boy). Judgey McJudgerson. You get the picture. It’s the internal monologue that’s pissing on your parade. […]

The post Ep. 106 How to handle the inner critic appeared first on Calmer you.

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This week on the podcast I’m talking about the number one issue I see in my clients. The inner critic.

It’s big. Huge.

It’s that fault finding, nit-picking, brain-niggling, mean-ass inner critic.

AKA ‘The shitty committee’.

The inner mean girl (or boy).

Judgey McJudgerson.

You get the picture.

It’s the internal monologue that’s pissing on your parade.

Present every time you speak up in your family, try something new with your hair or attempt to write your bio on a dating app. There every time you fire up Zoom for a work meeting and have to stare at your own face for 50 minutes.

And when things aren’t going to plan, the inner critic can get louder and arsier than ever.

When you get iffy feedback from the work project you gave your all to.

When you hear crickets after an audition or interview.

Or when you miss your pre-paid yoga class because you hit snooze once too many.

Queue an internal rant of Biblical proportions. Not even your ex who cheated on you got this much heat.

Can you relate?

Wouldn’t it be better to just try your best without all the internal chatter holding you back.

In this solo episode of The Calmer You Podcast I’m sharing my top tips for handling the inner critic and moving forwards with more confidence in life.

Don’t forget to grab your FREE confidence affirmations for kinder self-talk at www.calmer-you.com/confidence and you’ll also be the first to hear about the latest news, freebies and podcasts.

Please subscribe to ‘The Calmer you Podcast’ in the podcast app or in iTunes to get the latest episodes and please leave me a review 🙂

Thanks so much for listening!

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Transcript Hello, and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist, and the author of The Anxiety Solution, and Brave New Girl. This podcast is all about helping you to become your happiest and most confident self.

Today I’m talking about an extremely common issue. I would say it is probably the number one thing that I hear people struggling with when I’m working with people one to one.

It was the top thing that gets in the way, holds people back and causes people to feel rubbish.

Free confidence affirmations I just want to let you know that I have some free confidence affirmations on my website if you want to improve your self-talk. These affirmations are going to help to programme your mind to speak to yourself in a more positive loving and encouraging way.

You can head over to Calmer You to download those free affirmations.

The inner critic So the inner critic is huge. It can ruin our peace of mind and stop us from living a full life. The inner critic can get in the way of our work and our relationships.

That voice in our heads Guess what, we all have a voice in our heads. This is something that I always ask my one to one clients: How do you speak to yourself? Quite often people look at me slightly confused, as though I am accusing them of having a voice in their head. We all have an inner voice in our heads. Even the most confident people that you meet are still going to have this inner critic.

If our thoughts create our feelings, negative thoughts about ourselves can create feelings of not feeling good enough. This can then lead to anxiety, low self-worth, depression, and all those sorts of things. The way that we speak to ourselves is like the cornerstone of all of this stuff.

Working on our self-talk It’s so important to be working on our self-talk and speaking to ourselves in a different way. The inner critic can hold us back. It could be huge in terms of how you feel in your life day to day. I don’t know how much awareness you actually have of your inner critic. One thing that can happen is that we are so used to having this inner chatter that we almost don’t realise it’s happening.

It’s just going on in the background of our mind where we maybe beating ourselves up. That inner voice is commenting, unkindly or negatively on everything that we do or say. We say there’s some kind of inner dialogue going on about that.

Gaining awareness suppose the first step is to just gain some awareness of this inner voice and shine a light on it. If it is going on and on in the background unchecked, then it can be holding us back and getting in the way without us really being aware of it. We need to be aware of something before we can start to change it.

I really want to invite you to shine a light on this. That might even mean writing down how you’re speaking to yourself today and making a note of it. Bringing in that awareness, you might start to realise how horrible your inner voice can be. You might start to realise that some of the things that it says are pretty stupid and ridiculous.

Writing it down Sometimes we can have that insight when we write it down. It is helpful as well to think about who would we be without this critical voice that is holding us back? What would your life be like if you were free to do what you wanted to do? Say what you wanted to say? Be who you want to be without negatively commenting on yourself without and beating yourself up or holding yourself back? Does the inner critic stop you from speaking up?

Would you be more vocal in your relationship, in your friendships, in meetings at work in your career, if you were less beholden to the inner critic? Does it stop you from being present in the moment?

If that inner chatter is constantly going on, it can be hard to enjoy the present moment with your partner, your kids, or when you’re working. It can distract us and bring us out of the present moment. It perhaps can stop you from pursuing the sort of career that you want or going for promotions or job interviews or asking someone out or asking someone if they want to be your friend or speaking your truth on social media. Maybe even keeps you awake at night? S

Ask yourself this One question I want to invite you to ask yourself is: Is this critical voice helping you? Very often the intention of the inner critic is to help us be better, or try harder and not make mistakes. Yet, if we’re really honest with ourselves, is this inner critic doing its job? Is it actually helping you? many people will probably find that when they investigate it, it is actually holding you back.

Because guess what, beating yourself up doesn’t actually motivate you. And we all know this instinctively. When we are encouraging and supporting someone else, that’s actually what helps to bring out the best in someone. Bringing them down or calling them names doesn’t help.

Being critical isn’t helpful When we’re speaking to ourselves, I think we really need to bear that in mind Being critical isn’t helpful. Actually using that recognition to remind ourselves to change it. That’s key about the inner critic and the things that we say to ourselves when we’re beating ourselves up.

It’s to remember that just because we have a thought, it doesn’t make it true. Our thoughts are not facts. I once had it described as being like a mental reflex of the mind. They are merely events in the mind. That’s another way of describing events in the mind. It’s not a statement of truth. So if your inner critic has been saying to you, you know, Elisa, you’re never going to be good enough,

Events of the inner mind These sorts of things are just thoughts. It doesn’t mean they’re true or based on fact. We give too much power to our thoughts. We get to choose which thoughts we are going to pay attention to which and which ones we’re going to let go of. Which ones we’re going to believe and which ones we’re going to question.

We can choose to notice the inner critic and take action anyway, speak up and move forward with what we want to do.

How did your parents speak to you? It can be really interesting to reflect on how your parents spoke to themselves. Also how they spoke to you because a lot of this stuff to do with our internal dialogue is stuff that we’ve taken on board early in our lives. It’s often said that how parents speak to us when we’re young is how we speak to ourselves.

Maybe you had a critical parent, or maybe you had a parent that was hard on themselves or they were really loving parents. Yet, it was never quite good enough. Maybe they both paretns or just one had really high standards

Unlearning the negative inner critic I think scientists are beginning to recognized that our inner critic comes from our childhood. That can help us to recognise that it’s not a permanent part of us. It’s something that we learned and can unlearn.

This is something I’m often helping my one to one clients to reprogram the way that they speak to themselves. Say, thanks for sharing. And just recognize that the inner critic is trying to help. It’s kind of gone rogue. It thinks that by beating you up you’re gonna somehow get better.

Kindness is always the best way forward The truth is that kindness is always the way forward is always the way to bring out the best in ourselves. Acknowledge the inner critic. Say thanks for sharing and then know that you don’t need to believe it. You don’t need to take action or dwell on it.

One thing that I also really like to do and I have been recommending to people recently is to get a picture of yourself as a child and have that somewhere, maybe on your desk, maybe it’s on your phone, and refer back to it. Remind yourself that once you were an innocent little child. Seeing ourselves in that way can really help us to be more compassionate to ourselves. Remember that we all were innocent children once and worthy of love, compassion and kindness. We’re always learning.

To summarise Just to summarise, remember that everyone has a voice in their head. You get to decide whether you listen to it or not. Remember that your thoughts are not facts. Say to the inner critic, thanks for sharing. Be kind to yourself because were all innocent children once.

Don’t forget, you can grab my free confidence affirmations Calmer-you.com/confidence. They’ll help you to programme your mind for more confidence and self-kindness.

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please leave me a review on the podcast app and make sure you subscribe so you get all the new episodes to your phone. Please come over to Instagram and let me know what you think of this episode.

I’m sending you loads of love. Remember to be kind to yourself and hope you have a brilliant day ahead.

The post Ep. 106 How to handle the inner critic appeared first on Calmer you.

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Michael is a leading voice in the global movement for modern mindfulness, a community activist, yoga and meditation teacher, speaker and author. We discuss: How to overcome the challenges we have with meditation The importance of community Men and mental health Practical things you can do at home to help your mental health Podcast sponsor […]

The post Ep 105. Meditation, Community and The Quiet Life with Micheal James Wong appeared first on Calmer you.

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Michael is a leading voice in the global movement for modern mindfulness, a community activist, yoga and meditation teacher, speaker and author.

We discuss: * How to overcome the challenges we have with meditation * The importance of community * Men and mental health * Practical things you can do at home to help your mental health

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Podcast sponsor Sweaty Betty – Head to Sweaty Betty Get 20% off online purchases with the code calmeryou.

Discover the ways in which Sweaty Betty is working to make the planet a better place and our promises for 2020.

Get free resources from me to help you to regain control and become your calmest self, head to www.calmer-you.com/free

Transcript Chloe Brotheridge: Hello, and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution and Brave New Girl. This podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest, happiest and most confident self.

Introduction Hello, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you’re doing well. Today I’m talking to Michael James Wong. Michael is a leading voice in the global movement for modern mindfulness. He’s a community activist, a yoga and meditation teacher, a speaker, and author.

We get into a really interesting conversation about how to overcome the challenges that we have with meditation. I know as much as anyone how challenging meditation can be. Michael really is an expert in this area.

Topics include We talked about the importance of community. Michael has built an incredible community. He shares how he did that and why it’s so important to him. We talk about men and mental health and we get into his practical advice and tools for things that we can do at home to help our mental health.

Free resources If you would like to be a calmer, happier and more confident person, I have a lot of free resources for you. I’d love to share these with you to help you to feel more in control and to take another step towards being your calmest self.

If you want to get those freebies, you can head over to my website, Calmer-you.com/free and enter your email address. I will send you all of those goodies straight into your inbox.

Sponsor This episode is sponsored by my favourite activewear brand Sweaty Betty. They’re all-female design team. They use the best technical fabrics which means that products perform under the toughest conditions and feel amazing on your skin. The products are also trialed by female staff to ensure they perform and flattering Fit the female body. If the staff doesn’t love it, it doesn’t get made.

There are so many activewear brands to shop around but Sweaty Betty is special because all the products from run and yoga to swim and ski are engineered to last. This is not fast fashion it’s high quality. And I have several pieces from Sweaty Betty that I’ve had for years and continue to wear and love.

Discount code Sweaty Betty now has a host of sustainable products including the super sculpt leggings made from post-consumer plastic bottles. The Italian fleece has been replaced with a recycled cotten blend alternative and they are reducing the amount of consumer packaging sent to customers.

Sweaty Betty are offering listeners 20% off when you enter the promo code Calmer You on their website. I think you’re gonna love it.

How is Michael today? Chloe Brotheridge: Welcome Michael. I’m really looking forward to speaking to you.

Michael James Wong 03:08: I’m good in all sense of the word. As good as we can be. I’m at home right now, having a bit of quiet time. In other words, I’m riding the waves of ups and downs, some days are busier, some days are quieter. Taking it one day at a time right now.

Chloe Brotheridge 03:32: Yeah, I think that’s something that a lot of people are saying. For people listening, we’re recording this just to the end of March. This is going to come out in a few weeks time. It’s all just adjusting right now to this new kind of way of being at home. While you are with us, can you share a little bit about what you do and how you got to where you are today?

Background Michael James Wong 03:54: Sure. I’m from many places I was originally born in New Zealand and I grew up in Los Angeles. I’ve now lived in the UK for the last eight or nine years. For me a lot of the work that I do, and a lot of the communities I sit within are really about having a chance to celebrate quieter practices.

I came from the fast and busy world of LA, which seemingly is is far crazier than most other places in the world, especially to grow up. I had always grown up around in a culture about being busy, successful, and winning. It was always a place where I was always judged by my output. Over the last 10 to 15 years was about learning what actually was important to me, rather than what I was told was important.

These days, I spent a lot more time on well being. My work is focused around teaching mindfulness meditation. I also do lot of writing and sharing. It’s really ultimately about building communities and giving people a sense of connection. Most of these practices can be implemented into our everyday lives.

Why meditation Chloe Brotheridge 05:24: How do we even do meditation in our fast-paced world? I really wanted to ask you a bit more about meditation. Why meditation? Why did you start teaching it and what are some of the benefits for meditation?

Michael James Wong 05:52: Meditation as a practice for me was not something that came naturally. I didn’t grow up in a household of meditating kids. I actually grew up in a very normal LA lifestyle. You go to school, play sports, and do what other kids do.

Over the years of growing up, I felt how busy life can be and how swept up we can be. We can easily experience a disconnection with the world or the people around us because we’re really busy and lost in our heads.

Slowing down We’re always on a timeline and deadline. I found meditation in my early 20s, It was an opportunity to try anything that was going to help my current state of chaos that I was living in. My life was very fast.

I found meditation as an opportunity to see if there was something else that worked. I was very lucky to live in Los Angeles at a time where the communities were quite strong with yoga and meditation. It just gave me a sense of space. In other words, meditation was difficult when I started.

Meditation isn’t easy at first Chloe Brotheridge 07:35: It’s good to mention that Meditation isn’t easy at first. We’re not going to be amazing at it. You said that you weren’t a natural meditator. It wasn’t something that you’d grown up with. In fact, I heard someone say just today, actually, that meditation just feels like a chore and another item on the to do list.

What do you say to people who know that it would be helpful to get that space and quietness?

Michael James Wong 08:30: I think most people now realise and appreciate that meditation is valuable and can be beneficial for our lives. The challenge is actually doing it or sitting down to make time for it or seeing the value in the practice. What’s really unique about meditation, which is counterintuitive to Western society, is that the sense of accomplishment is actually the most challenging part of meditation. Western psychology says, if I’m doing something, I need be good at it.

What is meditation? The practice of meditation is the ability in which we can move away from the thinking mind to process and from a sense of accomplishment or action. Meditation can be really tricky to start for some people. First you have to break the pattern of needing to achieve something. It’s helpful just to trust the benefit in trying.

Chloe Brotheridge 10:20: That’s really interesting, isn’t it? I remember when I started meditating, and it didn’t click for me, until I really started to notice the benefits of it working. I think after several weeks of practising every day, I kind of knew on a theoretical level that it was good. Once I realised the effect it had on my life, then it became much more motivating to keep going. I wonder if some people need to have that taste of the benefits so they can really stick to it.

It’s like brushing your teeth Michael James Wong 10:48: A lot of the challenge, especially with this kind of Western intellect, is that we think by understanding it intellectually we can make these shifts. It’s when you first experience it and begin to value the time put it to it, hen the shifts happen, right? It’s like brushing your teeth. In addition, it wasn’t the most profound thing when you first started. When you do it with a bit of regularity, you begin to see the value and appreciate how it makes you feel. The light bulb switches and you realise it’s quite a valuable thing for my life.

Chloe Brotheridge 11:28: That’s a really good point. I’ve noticed that myself. It’s fine if I miss it every now and again. Howerver, if I miss it for a week, then things start to not go quite as well.

Michael James Wong 11:39: Go brush your teeth for a week.

Chloe Brotheridge 11:41: Do you think it becomes a habit that naturally becomes part of your life the more regularly you do it. The same way as brushing my teeth?

Positive routines Michael James Wong 11:56: I am a big believer of creating positive routines. Habits sometimes can have a negative connotation of a chore that needs to be done and you do it enough, then by default. Like taking the rubbish out. If we create positive routines or create a sense of ritualization to it, it actually creates a sense of positivity. I think it is really important to look at practices that start to establish a long term well being.

Chloe Brotheridge 12:39: Can you share a bit about your practice? Is there something that you suggest for people who are getting started with meditation

What type of meditation Michael James Wong 12:51: Meditation as a whole is quite a large conversation. Like dance, for example, there isn’t just one style. There are many different styles and types of meditation. I’m a big advocate of what we would call stillness. This is similar to Vedic meditation, or Transcendental Meditation.

I’m a Vedic meditation practitioner. It’s about cultivating a sense of space and cultivating a sense of feeling and allowing an effortless of a technique. We use a mantra to help narrow the mind into something a bit quieter.

As a teacher, translating meditation into the real world and starting to pull away the things that maybe aren’t as necessary to help amplify the points of conversation that helps you really see the value. We want to make it relevant to the new world.

How does meditation work The meditation I practice and teach is about keeping it short, powerful and effective. 20 minutes is all you really need twice a day. Once in the morning, once in the afternoon. When you think you need coffee, that’s when you do meditation.

Chloe Brotheridge 14:48: I love that. I think it’s quite nice to start and end the day with that because maybe at the end of the day you can be switching off from your work. You can be Changing mode. With so many of us working from home right now, meditation can be a good way right now to delineate between the day and the evening is quite a nice thing to do.

Michael James Wong 15:13; Practicing now can offer value and a lifestyle switch.

Meditation events Chloe Brotheridge 15:24: I really wanted to ask you about your events. Just briefly, can you share a bit about what that’s about? What’s been your experience of running that and what you’ve learned from that?

Michael James Wong 15:38: I started an organisation a few years ago focused on building community. Primarily, it’s about building community through events. Whether they’re small events or large events We’ve been able to create intimate gatherings. Bridging culture and community, with mindfulness at the core of it. That looks like a large mass meditation in public iconic places around the country and he world. We bring 500,000 people together to have an evening of quiet community and connection.

Sense of community at scale We’ve hosted them at the British Museum and the top of the shard. We’ve created opportunities around the world, including New York, Stockholm, Berlin and Australia. The events create moments where people feel like they’re together and a sense of community at scale. Also in a really mindful and intimate way.

They’re really special events. They include music, art, dance, spoken word and small community conversations so people can start to see what meditation mindfulness is. It can be experienced with people that you might hang out with. People come straight from their offices. It’s a cross section of everyday life coming together with an appreciation to do less.

1000 meditators Chloe Brotheridge 17:32: I imagine the energy in the room meditating with 1000 people must be quite a thing. Can you feel the collective consciousness of bringing a group of people together to meditate? Can you feel like the good vibes?

Michael James Wong 17:52: Yeah, absolutely. You feel the good vibes. There’s this sense of collective consciousness. It’s about quieting down. When you have 500 or 1000 people getting quiet together special and really, really powerful.

Community Chloe Brotheridge 18:46: You mentioned the community aspect of those gatherings. I’m hearing so much about community now. This is something that we need as human beings and that actually it’s so beneficial for our mental health. What have you learned about community through the work that you do?

Michael James Wong 19:10: I absolutely agree. Community is at the essence of our humanity, our health and well being. It’s a big aspect of our mental health and keeping that well. It gives us a feeling like we belong to something that’s bigger than ourselves, and a sense of being a part of something where we are appreciated for who we are not just what we do. That can be the definition of community.

It’s not a new topic. It goes back for as long as human existence. The need for tribes, families, sports teams. Places where people feel like they belong and they feel like they’re seen. Community is at the very core of the wellness revolution.

Chloe Brotheridge 20:38: Yeah, so it’s so true, isn’t it? And whenever I hear about Yeah, wellness events, or even online groups that I run, so often people will say that the community aspect of it is the most important thing. You know, being able to connect with people and I love what you shared about being accepted for who you are and not what you do. I think that So important in our times when so much of things can be on the superficial level and actually we all need we all need that kind of level of acceptance.

Men and mental health I really wanted to ask you about men and mental health. That’s an aspect of your work. Do you think things are changing in terms of how men are asking for help? Have you seen more men coming to your meditation groups?

Michael James Wong 21:35: I always start the conversation around mental health and first appreciating that everyone is uniquely themselves. It’s really easy to first have a conversation about the gender divide and men’s approach to mindfulness, wellness and mental health.

Stereotypes The men are very in touch with their emotions, their feelings, their vulnerabilities. That being said, there has always been traditionally a resistance to having an emotional conversation for men. There’s been resistance.

There is a stereotype of how men should be. They should be strong and swallow emotions. I think now more than ever, the conversation has drastically shifted. It will continue to shift with the support of both men and women appreciating the fact that we don’t need to uphold stereotypes.

We don’t need to assume or expect anything. We can celebrate our sense of intimacy and connection across gender and generational barriers. Mental health may be passed down generationally as opposed to passing across the gender line of our parents and our grandparents. We are starting to break away from the conversations of 50 years ago.

Men meditate too I see a lot more men who are stepping into these spaces. I’m lucky because I’ve seen the shift. At our monthly meditations or big community gatherings you’re still going to see 30 to 50% men there. We also try to cultivate the space that is not about making it segregated purely by men or women.

Nobody wants to be told what to do in their development or growth. We just want to embody the practices with ourselves and inspire other people to see the value that we get. For me, it’s about just trying to be as open and as vulnerable and conversational as I can be. Hopefully when people feel welcome in the space it also begins to break down these barriers for men to feel open to come as they are.

Are men opening up to the wellness space? Chloe Brotheridge 24:54: That’s really interesting that you found that a lot of men go to your events. I’m really glad to hear that. I’ve quite often noticed that a lot of events or workshops will have far fewer men in the space. Why is that?

Michael James Wong 25:21: For a lot of men, if they are interested in these topics they’ll step into these spaces. Sometimes I’ll find one or two guys in a room of 50 people. Yes, they’re gonna find themselves as the minority. I generally don’t think that’s a bad place to be. The guy stepping into that space has an opportunity to step outside his comfort zone and move in to a direction of interest.

Help men feel part of the conversation One of the nicest things to do if you are a female in a room is say hi and make the man feel like he belongs. As opposed to there’s a guy here. Good job. Make them part of the conversation. The evolution is really about just the continued conversations.

I tend to say that all the work that’s being done in wellness is beneficial for everyone. It’s just about people finding the value in themselves to step into a room and really take the value as opposed to take the judgement.

Michael’s routine Chloe Brotheridge 27:00: Love that. Do you have any particular routines or practices that helped you with your mental health?

Michael James Wong 27:15:: What works for me might not work for others. I have my own practices like meditation, yoga, and getting outside and a really strong practice of releasing the expectations of others. I was lucky to be raised in a family where it was valued to focus on what makes you happy and works for you.

Dedicated practice One of my most dedicated practices is spending some time by myself and figuring out myself. My opinions, my point of view and what’s important, rather than stepping out into the world and waiting for it to be given to me.

For example, I’m gonna gather all my friends, we’re gonna have a brainstorm. Then all of a sudden, you go into this brainstorm with five of your friends and then everyone has a different opinion. Everyone thinks they’re right. And you come out with no good idea other than a mixed bag of ideas and everyone kind of thinking there’s is right and your’s is wrong.

Have an opinion or a point of view. Put yourself in a certain direction and it will evolve and change. It’s important to have your own principles, your own compass that takes you through.That’s a really important practice for my own mental health. It’s easy to feel the influence of lots of other people. That can take me off course quite regularly if I don’t have my own purpose or my own kind of direction.

Trusting ourselves Chloe Brotheridge 29:32: I’ve also experienced this and I’m sure people listening have too. We often don’t trust ourselves and then seek reassurance or validation from other people and then you find yourself on their path.

That is not where you want to be going in your life. Where you’re saying yes to things that you don’t want to do or not taking opportunities because you’re worried about what people are going to think. We need to take time to connect with ourselves and understanding what we want.

The Quiet Life I wanted to ask you about your new podcast series, The Quiet Life. It’s all about home practices. Is there anything else that has come out of that or that you recommend people do in terms of home practices?

Michael James Wong: When the Covid crisis happened people went indoors. There was no grand design for this podcast, and it was really about responding to the need to support. There are many people who have lots to offer during times of uncertainty by nature of the work that we do.

The podcast is really about what the wellness community can do to offer more support to more people at home. The whole, the whole essence of the podcast is very simple. Have a simple and easy conversation with someone who has something valuable to share, whether that’s educational, inspirational, a different perspective, or a sense of purpose.

It’s about something that actually gives people a sense of connection. It’s a conversation about things that we can do at home that simply give ourselves a sense of well being.

Home practices The guests come from across a wide range of industries and perspectives, Fundamentally, it’s about how do we take all of this complexity in the world and simplify it down to simple home practices? Hopefully with this podcast, we can offer daily support and inspiration. Along with education and perspective about how people can incorporate into their homes and into their lives right now simple and effective ways for their own mind and mental health.

Emotional fitness Chloe Brotheridge 33:41: Are there any things that you’ve heard recently that are some of your favourites in terms of practical home practices?

Michael James Wong 33:51: I was having a conversation with a personal trainer and a fitness person Mr. PMA Feisal , whom a lot of people know. He was talking about the need not just have physical fitness and movement while we’re kind of stuck at home, but also to check in on our emotional fitness. To understand how our emotions are keeping well. How resilient are we right now under the stress.

Are you spending time talking about how you feel and asking each other? Of course, it’s an opportunity to just appreciate the fact that right now it’s natural to have an up and a down and have days where you feel like you’re not productive or days when you’re really productive.

Chloe Brotheridge 35:46: That’s pretty powerful. Thank you for sharing that. It’s interesting to hear your perspective on things. Your approach is really fascinating to me. Where can people find out more about you and what you’re up to??

Getting in touch with Michael Michael James Wong 36:07: You can find me on Instagram under Michael James Wong and on my website MichaelJamesWong.com. Firstly, you can also check out our organisation for mindfulness in the real world, which focuses on big events. There aren’t any live events now but a lot of online resources. So that’s just breathe so you can follow at just breathe on Instagram. And the website is at just breed, project calm. We’ve got lots of online content and videos. There’s we have a free meditation app, which is which is available for everyone to use at home and home practices. And finally, we’ve got the new podcast now which is out and running, which is really celebrating his home practices, as well as kind of a whole lot of other podcasts that we Put out across different conversations in the wellbeing space.

Chloe Brotheridge 37:04

Amazing. I’ll put those links in the show notes for everyone as well. In conclusion, thank you so much for talking to me. That was brilliant.

Outro Chloe Brotheridge 37:12 Thank you so much for listening. I really hope that you gained a lot from this episode. Come on over to Instagram and let me know what are you taking from this episode. Find me at Chloe Brotheridge.

I would love it if you would leave me a review in the podcast app on iTunes, subscribe to the podcast, leave me a rating. If there someone in your life that would really benefit from this podcast, you can let them know by sharing this podcast. I’d be so so grateful. So I’m just wishing you a wonderful week ahead, sendin

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Are we all snowflakes? Or is life just more complex and pressurised? In this episode I’m giving advice for feeling calmer and in control, handling challenges and feeling more resourceful. How to bend, don’t break and be more reslient.

Check out my online course for resilience at www.calmer-you.com/benddontbreak

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Transcript Hello, and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution, and Brave New Girl.

This podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest, happiest and most confident. So welcome to this episode where I’m going to be sharing about how to bend and not break.

Becoming resilient I suppose this episode is about being resilient. I don’t think resilience is a very sexy word. I think I’m on the hunt for a better word for it. It’s kind of a complicated word as well, which I will discuss a little bit in this episode.

Snowflake generation Because we, as a generation, I’m kind of talking about the millennial generation and younger. We often get called snowflakes. There’s a sense that even older generations think that we are not resilient, that we are not as strong as older generations, and that we need to toughen up. I actually don’t think that is the case.

01:00

We aren’t sensitive enough You know, if you are struggling right now, of course, it makes sense to try to learn tools to feel more flexible, to be able to handle changes more easily, to be able to calm yourself down and deal with the challenges in your life more easily. So that’s really what I’m going to be talking about.

On the snowflake topic, I really think that most of the world’s problems are caused by us not being sensitive enough. We have a lack of sensitive people in this world, not a epidemic of sensitive people. If more of us could be more sensitive to each other, to those less fortunate to us and to the planet, the world would definitely be a better place.

Are we lacking resilience So please know that your sensitivity is a wonderful thing. I think a question we need to be asking is, are we lacking resilience, or is the world just harder and we are facing more pressure than older generations. In lots of ways life is challenging for younger people now in ways that older generations might not necessarily have experience.

I personally cannot afford to buy a house in London, my grandma bought a house in London for 6000 pounds. Obviously I appreciate that was a different amount of money back then, but it wasn’t a big deal to buy a house in those days. For so many younger people, buying a house now can seem like a completely impossible dream.

New pressures You know, university used to be free. Now students are getting saddled with debt before they’ve even got their first job. There seems to be a lot of stress and pressure on all of us. Whether that’s the stress of the pace of life, pressures from social media, the fact that we live in a very materialistic culture, or exam pressure. Plus we’re heading into our second once in a lifetime recession at a time when many young people are just getting started in their careers.

There might also be other issues at play. We are getting better at asking for help and having more conversations about mental health. During our parents’ or grandparents’ generations, people did not ask for help as much because it was so much more taboo. People just kept things to themselves.

It’s a different world I don’t know that we can say that we are snow snowflakes, basically. So it was a very different world and a very different situation. I don’t think we should compare ourselves to other generations.

I want to let you know that if you are feeling like you lack resilience, then it’s not your fault. Life is stressful, perhaps more so than ever, knowing that it’s not your fault. At the same time, it is up to us to ask for help to become more resourceful.

How we can help ourselves I’m going to share in this podcast some of the things that we can be doing to help ourselves. So some of the signs that you might be lacking.

Resilience could be that you really struggle with change, and uncertainty can seem almost unbearable for you. You might be finding it hard to focus or having lots of arguments with loved ones. You might be struggling with anxiety or depression or finding yourself bursting into tears a lot, or really struggling with criticism or fear of failure.

I want to reiterate that this is not a weakness, but it just means that you might need more support tools right now. So all the research that has been done into resilience has indicated that resilience is not something that we are either born with or not. It’s something that we can learn, we can develop in ourselves, we can grow and we can become more able to handle changes to adapt and to be flexible in challenges.

Online course: Bend don’t break Before I get into my tips for learning how to bend not break, I want to let you know that I have a short online course available on my website. It’s called Bend Don’t Break. There is a hypnotherapy session, affirmations mp3 and worksheets. There’s a video workshop well as tools and resources and an EFT tapping video.

You can find that on my website at calmer-you.com/benddon’tbreak.

Community One of the things that is absolutely crucial for us feeling stronger and more resilient and more resourceful is community. Brene Brown is famous for saying, we were never meant to do this alone. Unfortunately, in our culture, there really is the sense that if you are struggling, it’s kind of your fault, and it’s your responsibility to sort yourself out and try to fix yourself.

It completely ignores the fact that we, as human beings evolved in tribes, where we were with people 24/7. I had the privileged experience of getting to live with a tribe for two weeks in the Amazon jungle in January. They were together constantly.

There is so much social support so much social time. They live in a tribe in small groups of about 150. Everyone knows each other. If someone’s struggling, the whole tribe knows about it, and they can support each other. In our culture, it’s really common for people who are struggling to isolate themselves and to not want to be a burden on other people or to feel like they can’t face other people. Unfortunately, this ends up creating more problems.

Asking for help is a strength That means that we can spiral into feeling worse and worse because we’re not getting the community that we need. I just want to remind you that being able to ask for help is a massive strength is not a weakness.

If you are feeling like you need more community in your life. I really want to encourage you, even if you are isolating now because of COVID to make it a priority to focus on social connections. Be brave and reach out to people. It’s amazing how open people can be to offering help.

I am personally delighted when my friends asked me for help and say that they just want someone to listen because it honestly doesn’t happen enough. That might look like joining groups, joining online workshops, connecting with communities on Facebook, or keeping in touch with old friends reaching out to people asking them for a coffee.

Making friends If you’d like a podcast on making friends as an adult, please let me know if that’ll be an interesting podcast. I have personally struggled to make friends in the past and I have made a lot more friends in the last three or four years than I did in the previous 10 years. So let me know if that’s an interesting topic for you.

Calming your nervous system I think it is super important to know how to calm our nervous system down. We are so much more resourceful when we are in a calmer state. Having some tools that you know help you when you’re feeling scared or nervous to calm your nervous system down is going to mean that you can think so much more clearly. You can communicate more easily and be more in your body rather than in your head.

That might be doing a body scan, where you relax different parts of your body, taking deep belly breath, moving your body, being with your dog or whatever ways you can find to calm your nervous system down.

Self-believe The next thing that is really important, I believe, is self-belief. I know it’s easier said than done. But self-belief really plays into our ability to know that we can handle things to be able to trust ourselves.

If we can trust ourselves and know that no matter what happens, we’ll handle it, can make such a difference in how resourceful and how capable and how strong we’re able to feel in the face of challenges. That reminds me of an affirmation which was one of my favourites from Susan Jeffers author of Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway. She says, no matter what happens, I’ll handle it. No matter what happens, I’ll handle it.

Make that your affirmation. Write it on a post-it and say it to yourself repeatedly You will then start to absorb that sense of trust in yourself that you can handle challenges.

Be kind to yourself It’s also incredibly important to be kind to yourself. Sorry if I sound like a broken record talking about being kind to yourself, but honestly, I don’t think it can be said enough. Beating yourself up does not help you to feel more motivated. It actually saps your motivation. When you’re kind to yourself, it cushions you against failure. You’ll know that you can try things and if it doesn’t go to plan, you’ll make it and its no the end of the world. Be kind to yourself and give it another try.

Being kind to yourself is really, really important if you want to feel more resilient, stronger in yourself, or more confident. It’s the secret sauce.

Change your perspective on change Basically, another thing to do is to change our perspective on change. I hear this all the time from people: I don’t like change. But nothing good happens if things don’t change.

All of the evolution and positive things that have happened in your life have occurred through change and change leads to evolution, it leads to growth and opportunities. Try to remember that change can be a good thing. Even negative changes or less desirable changes that at the time might seem rubbish can turn out to be positive things in our lives with the benefit of hindsight.

Don’t necessarily assume an undesirable change is going to be that way forever. You don’t know how a breakup could lead to you meeting the love of your life or getting made redundant can lead to a new career. Have an open mind.

It’s ok to fail Lastly, something around reframing, criticism and failure. So I shared recently to one of my groups, stories about some of the failures I’ve experienced. I think it’s so important to talk about failures because when we’re in them, when we’re experiencing them ourselves, we can feel like we are the only one who has ever failed and we will never do anything right again.

The first event I did one person came and the first online course I ran, only about four people joined in. I’m rejected several times a day when I reach out to people for the podcast collaborations. It’s so so normal. I’ve learned through enough experience of failing, quote, unquote, failing. I know it’s not really failing.

There is no such thing as failure I actually don’t believe that anything is really failure because there is always another day there’s always another opportunity. It’s never a final resting place. I think it’s helpful to know that other people have quote, unquote, failures and get rejected. It’s completely normal. It’s not a reflection on you. Try to remember that we all get criticised, we all fail and we are all imperfect. It doesn’t make you any less. Having this understanding and realisation will help you handle the bumps.

You can handle the setbacks in life with more kindness for yourself and knowing that it’s normal. You can always give it another try. I’d love to know from you what helps you to feel more resourceful and resilient.

And finally… Come on over to Instagram and let me know. I’m at Chloe Brotheridge. If you’d like to check out my short online course called Bend Don’t Break, where you’ll get a hypnotherapy session and loads of other resources for helping you to feel resilient stronger, calmer, and more able to handle challenges in your life, you can head to calmer-you.com/benddontbreak.

If this episode was helpful, please do leave me a review on the Apple podcast app. Please send it to a friend, if you think they might need to hear this today.

Thank you so much for listening and wishing you a brilliant day, whatever you’re doing and sending it over love.

The post Ep 104. Bend, don’t break (how to be more resilient) appeared first on Calmer you.

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Are we all snowflakes? Or is life just more complex and pressurised? In this episode I’m giving advice for feeling calmer and in control, handling challenges and feeling more resourceful. How to bend, don’t break and be more reslient. Check out my online course for resilience at www.calmer-you.com/benddontbreak Don’t forget to grab your FREE anxiety-busting […]

The post Ep 104. Bend, don’t break (how to be more resilient) appeared first on Calmer you.

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David has a PhD in organic chemistry and spent 4 years in the pharmaceutical industry, developing drugs for cardiovascular disease and cancer. Inspired by the placebo effect, he left the industry to write books (my favourite’s about kindness and self-love) and educate people in how they can harness their mind and emotions to improve their […]

The post Ep 103. Kindness, self-love and healing the body with the mind with David Hamilton PhD appeared first on Calmer you.

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David has a PhD in organic chemistry and spent 4 years in the pharmaceutical industry, developing drugs for cardiovascular disease and cancer. Inspired by the placebo effect, he left the industry to write books (my favourite’s about kindness and self-love) and educate people in how they can harness their mind and emotions to improve their health.

He is now author of 10 books, including, ‘The Little Book of Kindness’, ‘How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body’, ‘I Heart Me’ and the Amazon bestseller, ‘The Five Side Effects of Kindness’.

We chat about: * How the mind can heal the body * The power of beliefs * David shares his journey from low self-esteem to more to self love * Why kindness is so powerful (hint: it has powerful effects beyond just making us feel good) * How kindness is contagious

Podcast sponsor Sweaty Betty – Pop into one of their stores with your old leggings to grab that voucher towards a new pair. Head to Sweaty Betty Get 20% off online purchases with the code calmeryou.

Discover the ways in which Sweaty Betty is working to make the planet a better place and our promises for 2020.

Download your FREE Calmer You Toolkit

Transcript Chloe Brotheridge: Hello, and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution and Brave New Girl. This podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest happiest and most confident.

Thanks so much for listening today. I am super excited for today’s guest. David Hamilton PhD, is someone that I have admired for ages. I have been to his workshops and read his books. He is definitely someone that I massively look up to and find really inspiring.

Placebo effect David has a PhD in organic chemistry and spent four years in the pharmaceutical industry developing drugs for cardiovascular disease and cancer.

David then left the industry to start writing books about the placebo effect and how they can harness the mind and emotions to improve health. He comes at it from a scientific point of view. I think when we often hear about this we think that it isn’t very scientific. But actually, it really is. It’s so interesting how powerful our mind is.

I love his books He’s now the author of 10 books, including The Little Book of Kindness, How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body, and I Heart Me and the Amazon bestseller the Five Side Effects of Kindness.

What else we talk about We get into how the mind can heal the body. This is so interesting to me as a hypnotherapist. I think you’re really gonna enjoy hearing about this. We also talked about the power of beliefs. Our beliefs are so important and powerful. They really do shape our thoughts and feelings. And we talk about why kindness is so powerful. Just as a hint, it has really powerful effects.

Aside from just making us feel good, David shares his own journey from low self-esteem to more self-love. I think he’s just one of the best storytellers out there. We talked about how kindness is actually contagious. I really hope you enjoy this episode with David Hamilton PhD.

Free resources I would love to send you some free resources if you’d like to take another step towards becoming just that little bit calmer and more confident and happier Please head over to calmer-you.com/free, pop your email address in there, and I’ll send you some free resources.

As always, I’d love to see you on Instagram. You can find me at Chloe Brotheridge. Let me know what you thought about this episode. Please do share it with anyone that you think might need it as well.

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Introduction I’m so looking forward to speaking to you and sharing your brilliance with all the listeners. I came to see you speak about four years ago in London. You were talking about your book, I Heart Me, and it was the best workshop I’ve ever been to. I’ve been to a lot of workshops and seen a lot of personal development teachers and yours was my absolute favourite.

Can you share with the listeners a bit about what you do and how you got to where you are today?

Legos and organic chemistry David Hamilton: Sure. I mostly read on topics from the science of kindness, the mind-body connection, and self-esteem. I got into it in a roundabout way. My PhD is in organic chemistry. It has nothing to do with organic foods. It’s like playing Lego. Instead of taking Lego blocks of different shapes and sizes and colours, to assemble ships, you take atoms. Atoms are my building blocks, but the concept of stacking Lego blocks together is the same.

I would build a variety of shapes, but the shapes that I built would end up as pharmaceutical drugs. Working at one of the largest pharmaceutical companies, the drugs I was helping to build and develop were for cardiovascular disease and cancer. The drug testing process was the most interesting thing for me because it taught me about the placebo effect.

Mind-body connections There were examples of so many people making improvements off of a placebo. While I worked as a scientist to do my proper science job, I did a lot of research through the medical journals about the mind-body connection. After 40 years, I decided to resign from the industry, because I really wanted to write and teach. That’s pretty much what I do know – write and teach.

Chloe Brotheridge: I really wanted to ask you about the placebo affect and what’s actually happening.

The placebo David Hamilton 06:31: When I was a scientist, I asked some of my senior colleagues at the time about it. Isn’t this amazing? Look how many people are improving on the placebo? They would say, oh, it’s all in the mind, but they’re not really getting better. They just think they’re getting better. I would look at the actual analysis and say, well, they’re not just thinking they’re getting better. Something is actually physically happening in the body. That’s when I started believing.

For example, someone may be given a placebo to reduce some pain. Then they’re given a placebo, but they think it’s an actual drug. Because they think or they believe it’s an actual drug, the brain produces its own natural painkillers. The brains natural painkillers actually reduce the pain.

So it’s not just that you think you’re feeling better, or you just imagine the pain is going away. The pain really does go away, because your brain has produced natural painkillers. The reason why your brain has produced natural painkillers is that you believe that this drug here is a real drug. Belief generates biochemistry. That, in turn, has an effect on what we believe is supposed to happen.

How your mind can heal your body Chloe Brotheridge 07:54: That’s incredible. I read your book, How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body. I recall reading that our beliefs activate that internal pharmacy within our bodies.

David Hamilton: I first read about that in the book the Genie in Your Genes by Dawson Church and that’s what I first heard that is a stocked pharmacy. It has thousands of substances. When you believe something, some part of your brain acts as a pharmacist and says to that part of yourself to expect to feel better.

The brain has its own version of morphine that can go into the bloodstream. Belief stimulates that pharmacist in the brain to deliver the result that you’re expecting to happen.

The mind-body connection Chloe Brotheridge 09:24: Our minds can be so powerful in that way. Can you share a little bit about your book and how the mind can heal. I’m a hypnotherapist and I also practice something called Chi Gong, which is a bit like Tai Chi. You cover a lot of themes in your book that can potentially boost the immune system to heal faster. Can you talk a little bit about that?

David Hamilton 10:02: In the book, I’d say the first third is describing the signs of the mind-body connection and explains how and why does belief or even imagination work. If you visualise something, exactly how and why does that have a physical effect? For example, if you were imagining your immune system destroying a cancer cell. How and why does that work?

The reason for that section of the book, is to give people faith in themselves. One thing I’ve noticed over the years of working with people and teaching and writing is that if someone believes in themselves or believes in a technique, then the technique or whatever they’re doing, can be enhanced.

The power of a visualisation practice The book includes a section which is a collection of stories from people I’d been in contact with over the years. They demonstrated the use of visualisation practices to help themselves to facilitate healing from injury, illness or disease.

Then I’ve got an A to Z list in the book based on visualisations I’ve collected over the years for a large number of conditions. For example, a visualisation people use for a sore knee, asthma, or viruses, you name it. I look at the consequence of what I imagine, think, feel or believe, and what does that actually do in the body?

The power of our beliefs Chloe Brotheridge 12:19: Our beliefs are so important. I know in the book, you’re very careful to say, don’t necessarily stop having chemotherapy, don’t stop having your treatments. You offer a way you can help yourself and offer extra support using the power of your mind.

David Hamilton: 12:40: Sometimes I get a little bit worried when I talk about the mind that people will then just do that instead of taking medical advice. Thanks, thanks for bringing that up. It’s very, very important, I think.

Self-love Chloe Brotheridge 13:25: I wanted to ask you about self-love. Why do you think it’s so important what drew you to this area?

David Hamilton 14:00: I never in a million years would have imagined that I would write a book on self-love. Throughout my life, I have struggled periodically with anxiety with the low self-esteem.

Struggling with confidence I’ve always struggled with confidence. Some of the struggles I have gone through and even still go through. I was at a big international conference and I was about to follow Dr. Wayne Dyer. He was coming off the stage to a standing ovation. I was next on. I experienced an anxiety or panic attack while standing at the side of the stage. It wasn’t because I was lacking confidence. I felt really small in comparison with all the other speakers.

I’d always felt like this and I’d always bluffed my way through things. I didn’t reveal to people how I was really feeling because then I would feel like a fraud. How can I write these self-help books? My own challenges were building up especially with how I was feeling on the inside, and it came to a head say to the stage and I felt like crying.

Childhood memory I had a flashback from childhood when I was singled out by my teacher. All the other kids had brought in money for a school trip and I hadn’t. The reason why I hadn’t is that my mom and dad were really poor, and really struggling financially. I didn’t want to ask my mom because I’d seen my mom a few nights earlier being really upset about money. The teacher singled me out and made me stand in the corner. The rest of the class got a yellow badge for bringing in the money. All I remember from that was the devastation of feeling like everyone else got a yellow badge and I didn’t.

I got bullied a lot at high school, partly because I was always bragging and showing off. I needed them to know that I was just as special as they were.

That was the day when I realised I needed to address self-esteem and self-love. I had no idea what self-love was. Nor did I know of any strategies. I just knew in my heart that I absolutely had to dive headfirst into the subject. The book was just the side effect of the two-year process that I went through.

Chloe Brotheridge 19:06: That’s such a moving story about remembering being a child and having that experience. I’ve got memories similar to that. Looking back as an adult, you might think, how could that have been such a big deal. Actually, when we’re young, it really can have that impression on us. We can take on board these beliefs that just stay with us and can hold us back as adults.

Wiring self-love into the brain I think it’s really good to identify some of those things and start to understand them a little bit more. Being a therapist and seeing so many clients, self-esteem is at the root of almost everything, if not everything. Self-love and self-esteem are the root of so many of our issues. You talk about wiring in self-love into the brain can you can you describe what you mean by that?

David Hamilton: I was really passionate about learning and writing about self-love. I told my publisher I’d write it in 5 months. After I turned it in, I met my publisher for coffee and she said: You know, we all love you in the office, but I can’t publish this book. I can’t accept this book. If we were to publish this it will be damaging to your career. The book was so weak and badly written because I had tried to tackle the subject academically. It needed practical value.

I hadn’t really gained anything or changed in five months. All I’d done is absorb all the Accademia about self-love, but that hadn’t shifted anything in me at all. My publisher said why don’t you take as long as you’d like to write this book. Then come back to me at some point when you feel you’re ready to deliver. That’s when things began to change.

The importance of posture Another therapist at a conference pointed me in the direction of research about hope and posture and holding your body in a way that says you know what, I’ve got this. I have an inner sense of worthiness and value. You get this by the way you breathe, straighten your spine up, smile, or relaxing your facial muscles. I started to put it into practice every single day.

Wiring an inner sense of worthiness I realised that I could actually wire-in an inner sense of worthiness with my version of self-love through repetition. If you do something over and over again, it begins to grow in the neural patterns in the brain.

If I can repetitively adjust my posture to experience a sense of worthiness then I could wire that into the brain. For me, it was life-changing. Within about two to three months, I was beginning to an inner feeling that I didn’t know existed. Previously, I hadn’t actually felt an inner sense of worthiness and value. That was completely alien. I started to feel that and within about two or three months from doing nothing else other than relentlessly correcting my posture throughout the day.

Become aware of your body language I taught myself to become aware of my body language, especially in a fearful or stressful situation. I trained myself to stand up, shoulders back, lengthen my spine and breathe. Doing it so often, it literally re-wired into the circuits of the knee because anything you do repetitively wires into the brain through neuroplasticity.

The old patterns, the old pathways in the brain also begin to shrink if you don’t feed them. So to the degree that I was feeding the, I’ve got this, I have an inner sense of worthiness in value posture. I was shrinking down the patterns for feeling afraid or worried. I was building up positive stuff and shrinking negative stuff simultaneously, and it led to a tipping point after a couple of months..

Wearing an inner sense of worthiness and value Chloe Brotheridge 25:55: That’s so so helpful and I love how tangible and particlae that is. It also works at a physical level and in your brain. Sometimes self-love can be a bit fluffy, for example, like just have a bubble bath. Your approach is, completely different than that, and I think a lot more effective.

David Hamilton 26:32: What I came up with was, I have an inner sense of worthiness and value. That became my working definition of self-love. To hold that in my body, I would say I have an inner sense of worthiness and value. Tthat was my definition. I had to teach myself how that would feel in my face? How does it feel on my shoulders? Do I breathe as if I had an inner sense of worthines? How does it feel in my lower back? I just really taught myself how to feel it and hold that in my body.

Chloe Brotheridge 27:39: I really like that. It’s almost as though you’re defining for yourself what self-love could feel like.

Two types of self-love David Hamilton 27:54: I think it was helpful also that I’d never read any books and self-love, because it wasn’t a subject that I do. It also hadn’t occurred to me that self-love was something I was severely lacking. There are two types of self-love. The external, which is what most people think of as self-love, when you derive your sense of worthiness and value from successes and achievements in life and people having a positive perception of you. That’s where you derive your sense of worthiness. If further down the line something goes wrong, it’s earth shattering. That is an internal sense of where your self-love comes from. I had none at all of the healthy stuff on the inside

I’m kind of glad that I did it that way. Not reading about self-love before I started the book. Then I wasn’t lead by other people’s ideas. It can be quite easy to be in love with the way an author puts something across, that you then forget your own idea or take on it.

Book recommendation I read other books along the way, like Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. That was a huge influence on me when I was writing that book. I read a few others in the process of writing my book. But really, I’m glad that I came to the subject completely fresh, because then I had to approach it using how I approach any subject, which is just my way of thinking my way of doing science.

Chloe Brotheridge: I think I heard someone talking external validation on the podcast about something Russell Brand said. Celebrities are very often the most unhappy or troubled because they get all this external validation and one day that gets taken away. They haven’t built up that inner sense of worthiness and acceptance for themselves.

Kindness I wanted to talk to you about kindness. What made you so interested in kindness and why do you think that so beneficial?

David Hamilton 31:31: When I’m writing a book I often find other research that I would love to put in the book, but it doesn’t fit. When I was writing one of my books I came across a group of people practicing a Tibetan Buddhist loving kindness meditation. That had produced an anti-inflammatory effect in the body. That intrigued me.

I followed a lot of research and realised that feelings of compassion and kindness towards others, stimulates a portion of the nervous system of the parasympathetic nervous system called the vagus nerve, and that controls immediate anti-inflammatory path in the body called the inflammatory reflex. A thought this is absolutely amazing, but it just didn’t fit in that book at the time.

The opposite of stress is kindness I just pulled all of the medical journals and the sociology journals, the psychology journals, and bundled them all together into what has now become three books on kindness on. Kindness is physiologically the opposite of stress. Most people if you see what’s the opposite of stress, most people will say it’s peaceful, it’s common, it’s relaxation. Those things are the absence of stress, they’re not the opposite.

Physiologically speaking, the opposite of stress is kindness. Stress is a feeling and so the physical effects of stress are a consequence of you feeling stressed. Kindness is physiologically the opposite of stress and that underpins half of all the information I’ve gathered on the physical effects of being nice. It reduces blood pressure, for example. It’s good for your heart, good for your blood flow, and anti-inflammatory. There is an immune-stimulating effect of kindness. Basically, anything you know that stress does, you can rest assured that kindness has the opposite effect. And there’s some research out there that shows exactly why that is.

Kindness during Covid Chloe Brotheridge 34:39: I suppose kindness has never been more important. You know, not only for being kind to each other, but being kind to ourselves. It’s so fascinating that it has more than the obvious benefits of us feeling nice about being kind that there’s changes in the body that can be healing for us or be, you know, beneficial for our health. That’s so fascinating.

Kindness is contagious I saw on your website, you’d written a blog post about how kindness can actually be contagious. What do you mean by that?

David Hamilton 35:27: Kindness is actually one of the most contagious things. About five minutes before we began this chat, there’s a family that lives across the road from me. I live in a little town called Dublin and central Scotland. There are three young kids. And one of the kids I think, must be about three or four. It was a little boy’s birthday. The boy opened the window, and they were yelling Happy birthday. Lots of the neighbours looked out the window as I opened the door. It was just the most beautiful demonstration of kindness, and community spirit.

Hope What I’m seeing right now is people pooling together in a way I’ve never seen before on a scale that I’ve never seen before. It’s absolutely beautiful to watch. It made me feel quite emotional and overwhelmed with joy, having witnessed that.

Kindness is contagious because of how it makes you feel. You probably find people listening to this right now that have a similar memory of something else happening in their community. They will likley be kind to more people throughout the course of the rest of that day. That’s how kindness is contagious.

The ripple effect of kindness Scientists at Harvard and Yale, tracked it. If when you do something Kind for someone, if you were to follow that person around you would probably find that them being kind to probably four or five other people over the course of the next day, for no reason other than because of how you made them feel.

Whether that’s gratitude or inspiration or a feeling of warmth or connection or elevation, but somehow because you’ve been kind to that person, they will feel different. That feeling is like a wave. It’s like dropping a pebble in a pond. It would ripple across many more people, building exponentially. Kindness has a ripple effect.

The scientists have actually worked out and tracked it and seeing how it actually works. So every single thing that you do, can have an effect.

More contagious is the human spirit The blog that I wrote was to point out that we’re all fearful right now about contagion of Coronavirus, but more contagious is the human spirit. More contagious is kindness and that has more of a rippling effect on us. And if we pay attention to that, we might just see some magic taking place in the world.

Chloe Brotheridge 39:56: That’s such a beautiful idea and definitely what we need right now. It’s amazing that we could do something small which actually multiplies positively and more people pay it forward. What we do can make a difference. Even small things. That’s a really empowering and hopeful idea. Yeah. Yeah. Love that. Is there anything else that’s really important to you right now that you can share about?

David Hamilton: It’s a spirit of kindness. I write and speak a lot about kindness. It doesn’t necessarily sell books and it doesn’t get me a huge number of followers. In comparison, if I write a post on self-esteem or a post on mind-body connection, relatively speaking, I get far more interaction.

Helping each other I think it’s so important that we help each other. Not just right now at this period of time where there’s a global pandemic, but all the other times. Kindness is what will actually be the final decider on which direction the human race goes and how we survive challenging times.

If no one helps each other out, then the human race has very little chance. One of the things we could probably do more in our lives, is doing things because it’s the right thing to do, rather than what we think people will like, or what makes us the most money. If we practice doing what feels like the right thing to do, I think all of us will be better off in the long run.

Chloe Brotheridge 42:30: Thank you so much for speaking to me. I’ve absolutely loved this conversation. I can’t wait for people to hear it.

Where to find David David Hamilton 42:45: Sure. My links to all my social media handles is on my website. I write regular blogs, send out a newsletter, offer online courses and have a monthly patient Development clubs. So basically everything is on my website.

Chloe Brotheridge 43:16: Brilliant. Thank you so much for talking to me today.

David Hamilton 43:21: It’s been my pleasure. It’s been such a good chat.

Outro Chloe Brotheridge 43:23: Thank you so much for listening. I really hope that you gained a lot from this episode, come on over to Instagram and let me know.

What are you taking from this episode? Find me at Chloe Brotheridge. And I would love it if you would leave me a review in the podcast app on iTunes, subscribe to the podcast, leave me a rating. If there is someone in your life that would really benefit from this podcast, you can let them know by sharing this podcast. I’d be so so grateful. I’m just wishing you a wonderful week ahead, sending you loads of love.

Hopefully you’ll tune in again and I’ll see you soon.

The post Ep 103. Kindness, self-love and healing the body with the mind with David Hamilton PhD appeared first on Calmer you.

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Today is a solo episode where I’m sharing about when you feel like you’re never doing enough.

Whether you procrastinate, beat yourself up or just never feel good enough, I hope this episode helps. I’m sharing how to unhook yourself from FOMO, comparison and giving yourself a hard time. Instead, you can get into flow, appreciate all that you do, feel happier and more satisfied with yourself each day.

Thanks so much for listening!

The post Ep 102. When you feel like you’re never doing enough appeared first on Calmer you.

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Today is a solo episode where I’m sharing about when you feel like you’re never doing enough. Whether you procrastinate, beat yourself up or just never feel good enough, I hope this episode helps. I’m sharing how to unhook yourself from FOMO, comparison and giving yourself a hard time. Instead, you can get into flow, […]

The post Ep 102. When you feel like you’re never doing enough appeared first on Calmer you.

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It was such a pleasure to have a GP on the Podcast talking about stress and anxiety at work. Dr. Ellie Cannon joined me for such an informative conversation. We chat about: Just how common it is for GP’s to see patients with stress and anxiety  At what point you should see your GP if […]

The post Ep 101. Stress and anxiety at work with Dr Ellie Cannon appeared first on Calmer you.

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It was such a pleasure to have a GP on the Podcast talking about stress and anxiety at work. Dr. Ellie Cannon joined me for such an informative conversation.

We chat about: * Just how common it is for GP’s to see patients with stress and anxiety * At what point you should see your GP if you’re struggling mentally * Taking medication for anxiety * How to talk to your manager about how you’re feeling * Medication for anxiety and depression

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Transcript Ep 101. Stress and Anxiety at Work with Dr Ellie Cannon

Chloe Brotheridge 00:01: Hello and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of the Anxiety Solution and Brave New girl. This podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest happiest and most confident self.

If you are interested in working with me 1-2-1 I just want to let you know that I see a select number of one on one clients at the moment and have a few slots available online using a programme called zoom. It works incredibly well. It’s a powerful combination of hypnotherapy and coaching. If you want to check it out, you can head to my website, Calmer-you.com/workwithme.

Free resources You can find a load of free resources on my website to help you to become your calmest self. Head on over to calmer-you.com/free to grab those freebies now.

Meet Dr. Ellie Today on the Calmer You podcast, I’m talking to Dr. Ellie Cannon. We met on a panel we did together and I loved everything that she was sharing. She’s not only a GP, she’s also an author. Her latest book is all about work, health and the effects that our jobs can have on our mental health. It’s called, Is Your Job Making you Ill?

She’s also columnist for The Mail on Sunday. I love her Twitter feed and approach. She’s very no-nonsense and calls all sorts of things out. I’m not a doctor so I love taking this opportunity to speak with a GP. There are lots of things that I really wanted to get her perspective on.

In this episode We talked about how common it is for GPS to see patients with stress and anxiety. Hint, it’s an incredibly high number.

We talked about at what point we should go and see our GP if we’re struggling mentally. This has to be one of the most common questions that I get asked. People ask me, what is a normal amount of everyday worries and stress? Also, when is it something that I need to go to the doctors about? When is it a mental health condition? She really clarifies this.

We get into the topic of taking medication for anxiety, we talk about the stigma around that. She also gives us her professional opinion and her experience.

We also talked about how to talk to your manager about how you’re feeling in terms of your mental health. This is something that again, I hear a lot of people asking. Many people want guidance on this and she is the perfect person to talk about this.

She also shares just loads of other insights into work stress and how we can manage our mental health at work.

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Let’s get into the interview with Dr. Ellie Cannon. Chloe Brotheridge 04:23: Welcome Dr. Ellie Cannon, thank you so much for joining me. Could you tell the listeners what it is that you do and how you got to where you are today?

Dr. Ellie Cannon 04:29: I’m a GP, doing really normal things in clinic that everybody would be familiar with seeing kids seeing, adults seeing, the elderly.

In general practice nowadays, we see a lot of mental health. And obviously I do a lot of writing and broadcasting. A couple of years ago when I was asked to write another book, they particularly wanted to see what sort of things I see in practice. I had a few ideas about weight loss and exercise and chronic health.

Job stress I also mentioned and that I think anybody would be quite surprised by the amount of job stress that I see or people who are really ill as a result of their job, either with anxiety or depression or stress that is caused by the job. People who’ve got chronic illness, like arthritis or they’ve already got a chronic mental health problem and it’s made worse by the job.

My publisher was really, really interested in that. I had the opportunity to write a book all about how you talk to yourself if you are unwell, and mentally really more so than physically as a result of your job. I focused on stress and anxiety and depression, how we should look after ourselves and how you can help yourself. That’s how I ended up talking so much about this.

Speaking to your doctor about mental health Chloe Brotheridge 06:19: Amazing. Thank you and I really loved your book. It’s so kind and informative and helpful. It must help a lot of people. One thing that I hear all the time from people is that they feel nervous about going to their GP to talk about their mental health. I’ve heard from a few doctors that I’ve spoken to, I think people don’t realise just how common it is for GP to have patients talk about their mental health.

What would you say to someone that is feeling nervous about speaking to their doctor and how common is it for you to see patients for things like depression and anxiety?

Dr. Ellie Cannon 07:01: Without looking at official figures or statistics, I would say as an anecdote, probably 50% of the patients who walk through my door are going to be talking about something to do with mental health. They may actually be coming in to talk about their eczema, which is very bad at the moment because of stress. So it might not be the first thing that they come in with, but often it is.

I would say to anybody, your GP is absolutely the right place to talk about your mental health.

Dr. Ellie

Men, come visit your GP I agree with your experience that a lot of people do seem to be reluctant or nervous and worried about having that on their record, worried about sort of the stigma or even within a private GP clinic group talking about that. It’s very, very normal to start off with talking to a GP. I would particularly encourage men to come to the GP to talk about it. Not enough men come to the doctor, particularly between the ages of about 20 to 50. We know that men of that age suffer from mental health with depression and their risk of suicide is higher compared to other groups. It’s really important that people feel able to come to a GP to talk.

Chloe Brotheridge 08:26: That can be quite reassuring for people to know that actually 50% of the patients their doctor sees might be having a similar experience. They’re not the only one. Their GP is not going to be shocked by what they say or if you burst into tears. That’s quite normal, I imagine. So don’t worry too much about that.

What patients may really be coming in for Dr. Ellie Cannon 08:47: Yeah, absolutely. It’s very, very normal, if you can’t find the words, and very normal to cry. The patient’s sort of test us out. Sometimes a patient will come in with something really minor. They might come in to talk about their back, or something really, really small. And it’s totally fine to do that. It’s totally fine to see if that’s the GP for you. GPs are not all the same with very, very different ages, interests, and personalities. So it might be that the GP who you go to to talk about your blood pressure is actually not the one who you visit to talk about your anxiety. Test it out, take someone with you if it’s better for you. There are definitely ways you can make yourself feel more comfortable.

Work anxiety Chloe Brotheridge 09:50: That’s such good advice. What are the common things around anxiety that you see people come for and how much do you think work is an aspect of people’s anxiety.

Dr. Ellie Cannon 10:07: It’s important to point out that anxiety obviously is a normal symptom. If you have a job interview, to feel anxious that morning, it might be a normal part of anxiety, that you feel a bit sick. You don’t feel like eating but you rush to the toilet. And that sort of normal anxiety becomes a health problem and becomes an anxiety disorder when it’s really the overriding symptom that you feel all the time.

Even on days when you don’t have a job interview, you feel sick and you feel anxious and you’ve got some overriding anxiety all the time. I think because of the way we work and the pressure on deadlines, the pressure of presenteeism, the pressure of sort of having to be doing so many things all at once and targets and hustling for work and all of this, it is hard to separate what is normal or real anxiety.

I suppose the way to test that out on yourself is to see if you can switch off on a Saturday. Can you turn your phone off? or go for a run and actually relax and calm down? Or is it still there? And I think if it’s still there, you know, then that is a concern. Can you relax? Can you make a plan with your favourite person doing your favourite thing and enjoy that without feeling nervous? If you can, it’s probably just normal stresses and strains of life. If you can not, then it could be that you have some anxiety.

When to see your doctor for anxiety Chloe Brotheridge 11:53: A common question that I hear is at what point do I go to my Doctor. For example, if I’m feeling anxious every day is that enough to go to the doctor. How bad does it need to get? How do I know whether it’s bad enough? What do you say to people about that?

Dr. Ellie Cannon 12:15: Whether it’s mental health or whether it’s potential symptoms of cancer, it’s always best to get in there early. It might be that you go to a doctor and your doctor says to you, I think that’s normal and it is the stresses and strains of life. In order to diagnose anxiety, we do look at a lot of specific traits and situations. Can you enjoy going out with friends, how is your sleep, or do you panic? We will go through a questionnaire and a series of questions to try and unpack whether or not you do have anxiety? I would say the minute you’re asking yourself that question, should I go to the GP? That’s the right time to go to the GP.

Chloe Brotheridge 13:19: f you if you’re worried about it, that’s a sign that it probably is something to get some help for. It’s better to get help sooner rather than wait and let it get worse, potentially, maybe if it’s left untreated.

Workplace relationships Chloe Brotheridge 13:52: In your book, you talk about workplace relationships as being a big factor in what can make us sick at work. You mentioned toxic colleagues and bosses that are not so nice. That’s such a tough one for people to deal with, because it’s almost as if there can be no escape. Sometimes you’ve got a colleague that is an absolute nightmare. If you don’t get on with your boss, it’s that inescapable kind of stress. What do you suggest to people about that sort of thing?

Dr. Ellie Cannon 14:30: I think that we all really underestimate the importance of relationships, both in terms of our personal life and our personal mental health and also our mental health at work. When I researched the book, and I looked at what was the biggest causes of mental health problems at work, the workload was the biggest cause and then the second biggest cause was relationships at work.

What we also see is that those relationships can also be what protects you at work, and what saves you at work. I think we mustn’t sort of lose sight of that. So the really simple act of having lunch every day with a colleague where both of you put your phone away for 15 minutes, so you’re actually talking and interacting. It might be that your boss is very difficult to deal with or one of your colleagues are difficult to deal with. If you’ve got strong relationships with everybody else around you, then that gives you the resilience to be able to cope with that one relationship.

Focus on the good relationships for resiliance It’s worth building up what seems like those trivial relationships with the person you say hello to you on the door or the person who works in the next-door office. Those sorts of interactions give us the resilience to cope with what is difficult.

Now, obviously, of course, there are situations where people cannot get on with a colleague. That makes work very difficult. I’ve seen in practice, it can lead to people leaving their job and all sorts of trauma and grievances. Anything we can do to build up our resilience is going to protect us a little bit from that. It is key to focus on those good relationships at work.

Workplace relationship practices Something simple we do at my GP surgery is have a 10-minute coffee break every morning in the middle of surgery. We didn’t used to do that, but being a GP can be quite isolating because you’re there you’re seeing patients and you’re not seeing your colleagues. We just sit down for 10 minutes. Sometimes we’re talking about what was on TV last night or a patient. We talk about all sorts of different things, it’s just that sort of human contact, it’s really brought us together. You know, you can have a laugh or let off steam, it just gives you that little boost for the rest of the day.

Chloe Brotheridge 17:29: Those relationships that we have are so important. I was talking to on the podcast with Julia Samuel, who’s a psychotherapist. She talks a lot about how our relationships are the most important things in our lives. We can get so caught up in all the other things that we have to do that we can neglect them or not make time for those things. Sometimes that can mean we isolate ourselves then there can be a bit of a vicious cycle of anxiety in depression because we’re not able to spend time with people. It’s so important. I love the idea of just having a, tea break with your colleagues arranging something, or going for lunch. It’s really the simple things that can just give you that resilience for your relationships.

The current way we work Dr. Ellie Cannon 18:16: Unfortunately, it’s the current way we work that has, unwittingly, reduced those opportunities for those relationships. If you imagine as a workplace in the 1950s, or 60s, lunch was a very set time, everybody would have had lunch at one o’clock on their shift pattern. They’ve all sat there with their packed lunch.

It wasn’t everybody walking out to get a sandwich by themselves, checking their phone doing this doing that. Whereas now we tend to work a bit more flexibly in some ways. There may not be some where you can all sit at work. I think of those things have changed, which is why we almost have to almost artificially bring them back into our lives. When I first started working as a GP 15 years ago, it was in the clinic. The receptionist or colleague stopped at 11 o’clock and made us tea and coffee. Very sort of old fashioned really, but actually that meant that we all stopped and connected. Obviously nobody would expect that now but we need to think about how to bring back the opportunity that provided.

Chloe Brotheridge 20:09: I work for myself and quite often spend time at home. I don’t have colleagues to socialise with but I’ve got other friends who do similar work to me and sometimes we’ll go to a co-working space together. We didn’t actually get much work done. We did though get out of the routine, get away from our desk and be around other people, which is so important.

Talking to people at work about stress and anxiety I wanted to ask you about talking to people at work about stress or anxiety This is a such a big topic and I hear this question asked a lot about how to broach the topic with managers. You mentioned a lot of different resources in your book for that. What do you suggest to your patients when they come to you about their work stress?

Dr. Ellie Cannon 21:15: I think you have to start off with a safe person or a safe group to test the water. It might be that person is a family member might be that they’re definitely not a family member because they wouldn’t understand. It might be that a friend or somebody in an online community.

Once you’ve started having that conversation with your GP, I think you then have to have a safe conversation with somebody else. Someone outside of work to see how it sounds, to test it out.

A lot of questions could come up: who do you need to talk to? Do you need to talk to somebody because you need time off? Do you need workplace adaptations? It has to be with people who you can trust and who you will not look back years later and think did that affect my career. It’s not the sort of thing you blurt out in the middle of a work meeting.

You have to remember, the person you’re speaking to. Make sure it is measured, make sure it’s planned. It might be difficult conversation for them as well. There are lots of different factors that can come into it. But it does have to be very, very planned.

A two-step process Chloe Brotheridge 24:11: I love the idea of sending them an email beforehand and letting them know what it is that you want to discuss with them. That’s kind of a two-step process that kind of takes the pressure off. Rather than surprising them it offers a chance to prepare and think about how they can respond in a helpful way.

Dr. Ellie Cannon 24:35: I see patients every 10 minutes. Sometimes we have an idea of why people are coming in and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we think we know why somebody is coming in. As a GP, that’s what I’m trying to deal with. Talk about somebody’s headache and then the next minute talk about a baby’s nappy rash and the next thing to talk about depression. It can be quite difficult sometimes to switch into that mode and that’s even as a trained professional.

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Eczema You touched on something earlier about eczema and the kind of the psychological things that might be at the root of that. You talk in your book about the link between stress and physical issues. What is the link there? Because some people might think, Oh, is it all in my head? You know, have I created this issue?

Dr. Ellie Cannon 27:10: No, it’s not. I think it’s really difficult for people to understand even myself as a doctor, that psychological or emotional things can cause physical symptoms. The way to think about it and to understand it is sort of like the example I gave before of a job interview.

Before a job interview, sure you feel nervous and you may feel nervous or scared or whatever you feel. You also do experience physical symptoms which might be rushing to the loo, you might feel sick, you don’t have an appetite, or like when you’re a child and you know that your mom or dad is going to tell you off and you start to get butterflies in your tummy and you feel like a tummy ache. We’ve all experienced physical symptoms from something psychological, but still, we all find it very, very hard to understand that link.

It’s probably hormonal or to do with cortisol and adrenaline. All of these different things which are triggered by the psychological side of things and then gives us physical symptoms. Definitely there’s a link and people are not imagining it. The main issue I see in the clinic is the sort of phenomenon of people who come in and say, I’m in all the time. There must be something wrong with my immune system.

Skin conditions linked with psychological conditions I mentioned eczema, particularly because skin conditions are very closely related to psychological conditions and anybody with eczema or psoriasis, will tell you that in times of stress, their eczema is worse now because of the stress itself, but also because people don’t necessarily look after themselves when they’re stressed out or feeling unwell. Those types of conditions take a lot of personal management. Just being stressed itself makes the condition bad.

Many conditions are worse when people are psychologically stressed. Also,we know that if your pain is bad, that will make your mood worse. So it’s a backwards and forwards pattern between physical and mental health.

IBS Chloe Brotheridge 30:52: The thing that comes to mind for me when I think about stress and physical illnesses, certainly from the clients that I see is IBS and and the link between anxiety and IBS. Is that something you see a lot of?

Dr. Ellie Cannon 31:29: Like I said your psychology is very related to our skin. It’s also very related to our tummies and our guts and everything else. People with IBS will often experience a flare-up when they are stressed out, and their toilet habits will change their tummy pain will change and increase very, very closely. That trigger could be simply stress. It’s also what you do when you are stressed or anxious or unwell. You may not be eating properly and not reaching for the right foods. If you’re not taking the time to look after yourself, and not taking the time to make yourself a lunch with foods that are not going to trigger your symptoms. All of those things can also worsen symptoms at a time of feeling unwell.

Chloe Brotheridge 32:57: It’s a bit of a vicious cycle. You have IBS because maybe you’re anxious. Having IBS can also make you anxious. It can create a bit of a vicious cycle for people. I suppose in terms of what people can do about IBS is it speak to your doctor first.

IBS – treating the condition Dr. Ellie Cannon 33:27: With IBS we have very specific treatments that don’t treat the condition itself, they merely treat the symptoms. We have medications for bloating that are known to work quite well. Obviously, we have antispasmodic pain medication that can sort of calm down those tummy pains that people have with IBS, but we don’t have any treatment per se.

It’s part of guidelines now that we recommend for IBS that people try a probiotic supplement to increase your gut-friendly bacteria to improve your general symptoms. That can help. If you’re going to try that, then you need to use the same brand every day for a month to see if that’s having an effect on you. If IBS is something that people are suffering with, definitely do the probiotic idea but also do a food diary and get to know what your triggers are.

That’s really going to be the mainstay of your treatment. The stuff that a GP is going to give you is going to be treating the symptoms. It’s almost better if you can to try and work out what those triggers are. They might be the obvious triggers, like dairy or specific types of fruits and vegetables which can be very sort of gassy and give a lot of the bloating and the tummy pains. It might also be something that is very specific to you.

What helps a busy GP Chloe Brotheridge 35:11: Thank you. That’s, that’s very helpful. I really wanted to ask you how you stay calm because you obviously are a GP, you know, with a busy practice, you write books, you write for the mail. What are the things that help you in your life?

Dr. Ellie Cannon 35:34: The honest answer is that I don’t really stay that calm. It’s fair to say that I definitely have anxiety and I have been through episodes in my life where I’ve needed help for that anxiety, either in medicine form or also therapy. Doctors like anybody else suffer from conditions, whether their mental health problems or physical health problems.

Relationships support my mental health The protective factor for me is twofold. Definitely people. I’m a people person. That’s obviously why I became a doctor and became a GP. I have certain relationships that are incredibly positive in incredibly different ways. They offer pure joy and sort of love and happiness that comes from having a relationship with my kids, or my husband, but also very supportive relationships with people who are colleagues and not just friends.

I’m not a natural exercise though not a naturally sporty person. Walking and swimming or attending an exercise class help. That is definitely good for my mental health and keeps me calm. Also, I need a lot of sleep. I know that I need lots of sleep. If I do feel unwell or do feel particularly bad actually, I can look back and see that is related to a poor night’s sleep.

Chloe Brotheridge 37:52: Sleep is so important. If I’m not feeling well or feeling stressed, I’ll go to bed at 8.30pm and get about 10 hours of sleep

What’s really important to a GP I wanted to ask you as well, because I follow you on Twitter and I love the things that you post. They are often myth-busting or holding people to account for some of the medical mistruths that go around. What can you share that you’re really passionate about at the moment in terms of what you’ve been writing about? Or what’s really important to you?

Dr. Ellie Cannon 38:31: I don’t like the notion of antidepressants being called happy pills and being shamed in any way. Unlike blood pressure tablets or diabetes medication, they seem a very easy target for headline writers and for people to think they’re unnecessary. There are all sorts of mistruths that come out about antidepressants. I find that really distasteful.

I have patients who are alive as a result of taking antidepressants. That doesn’t mean that they work for everybody. That doesn’t mean that they don’t have side effects. They do. But they are medication like a blood pressure medication and they can be essential.

They don’t make people happy. They treat depression and anxiety pretty well in a lot of cases. I don’t really like that whole narrative around medication. Celebrities who’ve had mental health problems have said they didn’t need an antidepressant they went to music classes or they took up gardening. They were drawing attention to their strength because they didn’t need that. That’s very very stigmatising for anybody else who’s needed medication.

Are we diluting true mental health issues? I think we have to be careful. We talk about mental health so much we are in danger, very slightly of, of diluting it, to watering it down and actually not giving the voice to the people who are really suffering with their mental health. Anxiety and depressions can get so diluted by so much noise when everybody claims to have had it. We can’t check people’s claims, can we when they talk about it, and I wonder if all of this noise has made it a fashion to disclose a mental health problem. We’re in danger, a little bit of belittling what people who are really gripped by mental health problems are going through.

The privilege of celebrity who has access to treatments and access to all different things compared to people with very significant mental health problems.

Anxiety dilution Chloe Brotheridge 42:02: That’s such an important point. I hear this a lot as well about the term anxiety. A bit of discomfort isn’t really comparable to the type of anxiety where someone can’t leave their house and they’re having panic attacks every day.

Maybe we need like a new word for different types of levels of anxiety. I really liked what you said about medication and privilege. If you’re privileged enough to spend thousands of pounds having different therapies then maybe you don’t need to go on the medication route. But if you don’t have access to that, you’ll be on a waiting list for therapy.

Chloe Brotheridge 43:21

Can you share with us where people can find out more about you and your work and buy your book and that sort of thing?

Dr. Ellie Cannon 43:28: My book is Is Your Job Making You Ill? The best place to find me is probably on social media where I’m pretty active.

Twitter

Instagram

Chloe Brotheridge 44:18: Brilliant. Thank you so much for talking to me. It’s been really, really helpful. Thank you.

Wrapping up Chloe Brotheridge 44:26: Thank you so much for listening. I really hope that you gained a lot from this episode, come on over to Instagram and let me know, what are you taking from this episode? Find me at Chloe Brotheridge.

I would love it if you would leave me a review in the podcast app on iTunes, subscribe to the podcast and leave me a rating. Is there someone in your life that would really benefit from this podcast, you can let them know by sharing this podcast. I’d be so so grateful.

So I’m just wishing you a wonderful week ahead, sending you loads of love. Hopefully you’ll tune in again and I’ll see you soon.

The post Ep 101. Stress and anxiety at work with Dr Ellie Cannon appeared first on Calmer you.

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I’m welcoming you to the hundredth episode of this podcast! In this episode, I finally get around to talking about my experience that I had a few months ago, where I went on two different retreats to experience Ayahuasca medicine in South America.

I can’t quite believe I’ve carried on for so long. It’s been an amazing experience for me to do this podcast. I started this podcast because it was actually a bit of a mission for me to overcome those last little bits of social anxiety and fears about speaking to people. Especially people I really look up to.

I share about: * Why I went to the Amazon jungle and what it was like (spoiler: it was intense!) * What I learned from the plant medicine and what you can learn from it too * The risks involved and how I overcame my fears

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Transcript Hello, and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is Chloe Brotheridge your host. I’m a coach, hypnotherapist and author of the Anxiety Solution and Brave New Girl. And I’m welcoming you to the hundredth episode of this podcast. I can’t quite believe I’ve carried on for so long. It’s been an amazing experience for me to do this podcast. I started this podcast because it was actually a bit of a mission for me to overcome those last little bits of social anxiety and fears about speaking to people. Especially people I really look up to.

What it’s meant doing this podcast It’s been such a great learning experience for that. Not only do I get to speak to people that I really admire and look up to, but, I’m also growing my own confidence by putting myself out there. It’s been really valuable on so many levels. Thank you so much.

Whether you’re joining and listening to my podcast for the first time, or whether you’ve listened since day one, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate all of your messages and all the times that you let me know that you’re listening that it’s that it’s helped you. It really makes a difference to me. So thank you for that.

Yes, it was a powerful experience So in this episode, I’m finally getting around to talking about my experience that I had back in December and January of 2019/20. Where I went on two different retreats to experience Ayahuasca medicine from South America.

I have to say I’ve been putting this conversation off. I am feeling a certain amount of trepidation to even be talking about it because of the fact that it is not legal in the UK. It is legal in a lot of South American countries. There is definitely an aspect to it, which is pretty scary, a bit dangerous. And yet, it was such a powerful experience for me, and really did help me in lots of interesting ways.

What you can expect from this episode I’m going to describe a lot of things about the experience from why I decided to do it, what it was like being in the jungle, the things that I was afraid of, and the insights that I gained.

Disclaimer I also want to share a disclaimer that I’m not suggesting that anyone else go out and have this experience. There are risks involved. If you’re considering this, please do a lot of research. You hear horror stories about people who go to Peru and find someone at the airport to take them to a shaman to take Ayahuasca. Those are the sorts of situations where we could be getting ourselves into really unpleasant or dangerous experiences. So please do your own research.

Before me and Aiden went on the retreats Aiden conducted research for about nine months. He was in a lot of Facebook groups and getting recommendations from people. He also talked to people that we knew also doing a lot of research into this. We feel really happy with the people that we chose to do the retreat with. I’ll share that in a moment.

Do your research Please do your research. Don’t commit to the first person that you find on Google. If someone comes up to you in the street in Lima, Peru and offers you something, it’s probably not going to be the best situation. Unfortunately, you do hear about people who experience, particularly women, sexual assaults at the hands of shamans who are not on the right path. You also hear about people that are just doing it for the money and it’s really not well run or not well organised or out of integrity in some other way. So yeah, it’s really important to do research. I’m not encouraging anyone to do this. I’m just sharing my experience.

Why did I chose to do this? So why did I choose to have this experience? So I would say I am a consciousness Explorer. I have for many years been interested in things like meditation, yoga, breathwork, different practices that help us to explore what’s possible for us to experience in terms of our consciousness or what we can feel in our bodies. That’s something that’s been really interesting for me for a long time.

Over the course of about a week of my life, I heard from three different people, three totally separate conversations with three different people about Ayahuasca. It’s often said that when it’s your time to partake in this experience that you will experience serendipity or coincidences. I just thought that it was a really big coincidence that three different people have brought it up in conversations without me bringing it up. I took it as a sign.

Cross-over between Ayahuasca and hypnotherapy I’m also really interested in healing and healing past trauma. There seems to be quite a lot of crossover between Ayahuasca and hypnotherapy.

A lot of what I’m doing with my clients is helping them to heal things from the past and get to the root of their issues and heal the traumas that they’ve taken on board in their lives. I’d also heard the thing that is often said about Ayahuasca, which is, it’s like 10 years of therapy in one night. That was somewhat intriguing to me as someone that has had a lot of therapy.

The experience is different for everyone I was really interested in how that would work and if it was true. I would say probably, that’s kind of an exaggeration for lots of people. There are certainly people that I’ve met who have had incredibly life changing experiences after drinking it. From my own experience, it has been a little bit more subtle and not necessarily like 10 years of therapy in one night, but still really valuable.

A lot of insights, a lot of growth, a lot of learning. However, I would say don’t get too carried away by this idea that it’s gonna fix all your problems or cure you overnight. Like anything, there’s usually a little bit more work involved and a lot of the shamans and people that know a lot about this will tell you that when we take it.

Integration The most important aspect of it is actually the integration, you know, how do we put what we’ve learned into practice? How do we then integrate that into our lives. I have to also say that I wasn’t in a bad place when I went. It seems as though it attracts a lot of people who are experiencing depression, anxiety, lots of other, you know, negative states. They will often be drawn to having this experience. For me. I was in a really good place. I’m always looking to deepen my experience and take it to the next level.

Psychedelics It’s classed as a psychedelic substance. It’s referred to as a drug in the UK. However, in South America, it has been used as a medicine for thousands of years in the Amazon. That’s where it originated. They refer to it as a medicine. It is legal. It is something that has been taken in tribes for years and years and years. They really don’t think of it as a drug in their culture. There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence that it can help us to be more mindful, healing past trauma, calming anxiety, freeing us from depression.

In the last decade, a number of research groups in Europe and the Americas have conducted studies into the safety and effectiveness of psychedelics for conditions such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. A small number of studies have found them to be effective, and they are doing more and more research into this area. We’re going to be, I believe, hearing a lot more about psychedelics and their potential to help us with psychological issues in the coming years.

Research There was a study in the early 2000s at John Hopkins University in the US, and they found that psilocybin, which is the active compound in magic mushrooms, reduced depression in 80% of patients with life-threatening cancer. Separately, they were much more effective at getting people to quit smoking than current treatments when combined with cognitive behavioural therapy. Please, obviously do your own research into it.

It does seem as though particularly a lot of studies are centred around people with terminal illnesses where they are experiencing anxiety about dying. Basically, they are finding that psychedelic drugs or medicines are able to really make an impact on how they feel and how they feel about facing their death. I just think this has got to be one of the most important things that we can be giving to people, you know, to be able to have less anxiety about death. That is huge.

Death and anxiety You can think about how much anxiety we have about death, even when we’re not dying. A lot of our anxiety to deal with uncertainty is actually, I believe, a fear of death because death is the ultimate uncertainty. We don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s gonna be really interesting to see in the coming years if psychedelics become legal in the UK to treat people for things like anxiety and depression. We’ll have to wait and see what happens. In the UK, as we speak, research is centred around this.

Clinical studies do not suggest that psychedelics cause long term mental health problems. I think that is something that people quite often worry about. They worry about losing their minds or going mad when they take psychedelics.

Do your research And yet, the evidence is that they are safe in this regard. There are definitely contraindications. Again, please do your research. If you have experienced schizophrenia, or you have bipolar disorder, it’s generally not recommended for you to go and take psychedelics. It’s also quite dangerous if you are on antidepressant medication, serotonin reuptake inhibitors. That’s because some compounds in Ayahuasca interacts with your serotonin levels and so it can cause your serotonin levels to go too high and be dangerous.

Another thing that made me want to try this is gonna sound a bit weird. I’ve been doing quite a lot of breathwork classes lately. And you might remember I did an episode with Rebecca Dennis all about transformational breath, and in breathwork.

Breathwork Well, I’ll leave that for another episode. But in breathwork, you quite often get insights and answers. You can almost hear your inner wisdom giving you a message. In a breathwork class I had this message that I had to go to the jungle had to do something that was outside of my comfort zone.

That was going to be a really good thing for me. Of course last year, my book Brave New Girl came out. Writing the book was a time when I was focused on doing things that are a little bit scary but probably going to be good for me. And even if it feels uncomfortable, trying to walk towards that instead of hiding away or running away from that.

The retreat All of this led up to me and my partner Aiden, heading to Peru in November 2019. We flew to Lima, and then travelled to a part of Peru in the Amazon jungle called a key toss. The place that we chose to do the retreat is called Aya Healing Retreats and the person running it is called Elio. He’s a lovely Italian guy. Ann assisted as well. They were so kind and caring. That made such a difference. The person who’s facilitating your workshop, whatever kind of workshop that is, makes a massive difference. Elio and Anna were so kind and so patient. We all had so many questions that came up over the course of the 12 days.

The shaman who was facilitating the retreat was called Maestra Juanita. I think she must have in her 60s. She’s a tiny amazing woman and incredibly powerful. She was leading the Ayahuasca ceremonies and administering the medicine. She was also singing echoes. Echoes are the songs that they sing in the Shipibo tradition. The songs themselves are very healing, They hold a certain intention with their song and are sang during the ceremony. They’re really singing the song into you with an intention of helping you to heal.

The ceremonies were really quite something. The singing could go on for seven hours straight and all through the night. The ceremonies took place at night, which is an interesting experience in itself.

The jungle

I was scared about being in the jungle. We had to walk for about an hour and a half with our rucksacks into the jungle to get to the retreat centre. It really felt like we were in the middle nowhere. There was no phone reception. There were just trees, as far as the eye can see.

I had the sense that if something goes wrong, you can’t really escape. That is not entirely true. I think if something had gone wrong, that they would have been able to support us or get us out of there. It just kind of feels like that when you’re in the middle of the jungle. We were staying in a Tambo, a wooden hut with no windows to keep the mosquitoes out. It was amazingly beautiful. We were showering in a stream.

Sounds and sights There were these giant blue butterflies, floating around everywhere. Now and again you’d hear some kind of rustling in the bushes and wonder what it was. Sometimes we heard the sound of a tree crashing to the ground in the forest. In my experience that was pretty terrifying not knowing where it was going to fall. That was pretty scary. Every night they shot a gun to ward away the jag heroes. I’m pretty sure they do stay away from humans because they know that they might get shot basically, so they steer clear.

We’re also taught about what to do if you see a snake. Apparently, if anyone sees a snake on their daily walk or run, what you’re supposed to do is actually take off your T-shirt and throw it at the snake. The snake will think that it’s being attacked. It will stay with the T shirt and you can run away. This is a little top tip for anyone that happens to encounter a snake.

I have to say the whole experience of being in the jungle was pretty challenging for me.

Diet We also had to go on a very strict diet beforehand. This is typical for when you take Ayahuasca. The shamans recommend that you cut out sugar, dairy, meat, anything with Salt. You are also not allowed to have sex for a couple of weeks beforehand, either.

I mean, most of it’s okay, the hardest bit is not eating salt. It’s very hard to find food that doesn’t have salt in our modern world. We were told was that you are making a sacrifice and an offering to the spirit of Ayahuasca. It is considered a female spirit in shamanic traditions. You are showing your commitment, your willingness and your readiness to take part in this experience.

The first night On the night of the first retreat, we got settled in our spaces. We were all in what is called a moloca. A wooden structure with a roof and mesh for windows. We’re also in a circle in complete darkness. Everyone has a little red light they use to get around but otherwise it’s completely dark.

In turns, we talk about our intentions. That’s something that’s very important. It’s really important to think about that in advance. I think that’s just a good practice for everyday life. Set an intention before we go into an experience. I had put in a lot of thought about what I wanted to get out of it. I wanted to heal things from the past things about overcoming resistance and letting go of control. Those were some of the intentions that I had.

Then you drink a small shot glass of the medicine. The medicine itself is a combination of two plants mixed together. When you mix these plants together that akuna bush contains something called an enzyme inhibitor, which inhibits an enzyme that we have in our stomachs.

The recipe If we were to just have the Ayahuasca on its own, we would digest the DMT, which is the active psychedelic component, and it wouldn’t have any effect on us. So somehow they figured out without knowing anything about organic chemistry, that mixing this mind with this leaf caused the enzyme to be inhibited, and so that we can absorb the DMT. And it can have an impact. And I think it’s quite amazing when you think about how they would have known that considering the Amazon contains more plants than anywhere else in the world.

The medicine There are hundreds of thousands of different plant species found in the Amazon and they somehow knew how to mix these two plants together. That’s quite incredible. It shows their connection to nature and wisdom. You drink a shot of this medicine. It’s not delicious, and it’s usually just a good idea to get it down as fast as possible. Then you wait. It usually takes about 45 minutes to an hour to take effect. During that time, Maestra Juanita was singing her Ikaros and we focused on our intentions.

There are so many different experiences that a person can have Ayahuasa. It can be different every single time. Something that is very common is that you are sick. A lot of people, myself included, do not enjoy being sick. This is a part of the experience. The shamans say that when the medicine makes us purge, it’s a way of helping us to process and get rid of negative energies in the body things from the past traumas. It really can feel like that. I’ve had experiences where I’ve been being sick and it almost seems as though I am expelling a certain negative emotion or a belief.

Purging and healing During one experience I felt like I was getting rid of my disgust for myself. It sounds kind of weird, but as I was being sick, I felt like this. A lot of stuff, a lot of programming about not being good enough a lot of stuff about being critical of the way I look or critical of my body. I felt a lot of that stuff was coming out as I was purging. I think this is a common experience and the purging is part of the process.

It seems very surreal at first being sick in a room full of people. You can hear other people being sick. It sounds really weird, but it’s amazing how soon it just starts to feel quite normal once you’ve done it for a while. It’s actually quite liberating. Once you get over your fear of being sick, it can almost feel quite good because you know that you’re getting rid of something. Another experience I had is called a ‘process’ where I felt huge amounts of energy moving in my body. I almost lost touch with what was happening.

The experience I almost didn’t know where I was or what was going on. I just had this sense of this energy moving through me, though I can’t really describe it. It’s almost like I was lifting really heavy items on my back or, you know, carrying something really heavy and kind of pushing it off me in a sense. It was really quite unpleasant and very, very hard. I would say it’s almost one of the hardest things I’ve experienced. I mean, I haven’t given birth to a baby, or anything like that, and I almost imagine it might be slightly like that, that sense of exhaustion and difficulty.

Every now and again, I’d get the sense of, oh my god, I can’t do this, I can’t do this. Then moments later, I would have the sense that my ancestors or something, were giving me strength and energy as I was processing all this stuff. And it’s often said that we can be processing stuff for our ancestor’s. All the trauma, all the negative energy that can get stuck in our lineage, that can get stuck in our bodies or even our DNA.

How I felt That’s really what it felt like for me, it was really hard, really unpleasant, but I felt afterwards as if something had really shifted. I’d let go of a lot of stuff, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what that stuff was. I also had other experiences where I felt like I was in a dream and all of my worst fears were coming true.

Obviously, that was really, really scary. It was very visual, like the most real dream I’ve ever had. It seemed to go on for hours and hours. I was exhausted at the end of it. I had this sense afterward that I had this strength within me to be able to get through hard experiences. That’s what the medicine can quite often do. It can show us our fears, it can show us the parts of ourselves that we’ve been suppressing or keeping inside and we don’t want to look at and it brings all of that stuff up to the surface.

It brings it to the light and shines a light on it. Suddenly when we shine a light on these things, they start to dissolve and they start to not be such a problem for us anymore. In essence, it was a good experience. It brought stuff up to the surface to be healed, to have that light shone on it, so that it’s no longer holding you back anymore.

It wasn’t all scary There were other times when I had incredibly beautiful experiences seeing amazing colours and geometric shapes and had wonderful feelings of love for everything. During one experience, I felt like I exploded, and my consciousness was everywhere, in every atom in the whole of the universe, and every star, my consciousness was there. That’s as hard to imagine, outside of that experience.

It’s interesting because sometimes just saying it now it can seem a bit odd. I don’t know if that even makes sense to anyone or means anything. When you’re in the medicine you have these very meaningful, visceral experiences. It’s as though you can have a concept of knowing that you’re loved and knowing that you’re lovable and worthy, but to actually truly know it, and feel it and believe it in every cell of your body.

Greater awareness That is quite a different experience. I think that’s what the medicine can give us. A very visceral realisation of ourselves or patterns and where things come from and what we need to do in life. Looking back on this experience, I can really notice that I have become more connected to my body more accepting of myself. I’ve noticed that I’ve got a greater awareness of thought patterns. I 100% feel more connected to nature to animals. I feel like my love for animals has just gone off the charts.

It’s quite scary. Being in the jungle, taking a psychedelic and going into the unknown. There’s this strength in me that is reminding me that I have been able to do something that scares me.

Answers It has given mre more confidence. I’ve also learned, I think, to feel my feelings a lot more. The experience of the medicine going deeper and deeper into feelings from the past about my childhood and allowing it to unfold. I could see how I avoid discomfort. I don’t want to feel uncomfortable feelings so I stay busy or I change the subject or I think about something else.

Ayahuasca forces you to go into the feelings. When we put our attention on the emotion and the feelings, we allow that energy to move through the nerves and move through our nervous system and flow. We’re actually able to feel those feelings and let them flow through and be processed.

The second part of the trip The second part of this trip was a trip to visit a tribe called the x, who live in at Cray in Brazil. That was another long journey of travelling through the jungle. We had to get on a little plane and fly into that village. There were no roads leading into a lot of these tribal villages. You cannot just drive out. You have to get a plane then a boat from the airport to the village. It really is incredibly remote.

Living with a remote tribe There are miles and miles and nothing but trees. That was quite incredible to see. It felt kind of scary to somewhat trapped or completely cut off. Certainly no internet connection. No doctors apart from the shamans. We had the incredible privilege of getting to live with this tribe for two weeks.

There were about 12 Westerners, and maybe 100 members of the tribe in this village. And they were constantly singing, playing music dancing. One of their festivals is called sugar shack away, which means eternal life, apparently. We were invited to join them for their festival.

Natural living This experience was even more remote. The first one was in a retreat centre. This one was literally in a village, we were sleeping in hammocks, we were going to the toilet in holes in the ground, there was very intermittent running water, it would run out very, very frequently.

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate running water since having this experience. It’s a totally amazing experience. There was, however, a lot about it that made me really massively appreciate our Western lifestyle. Running toilets and running water was definitely high up on that list.

Learning to let go I think for me, a lot of this experience was, was teaching me to try to learn to let go. I thought going into this experience that I was pretty chilled. This just took it to another level. I was really quite challenged at certain points. They had these giant ants called bullet ants which about as long as half a finger length. If you get bitten by one of these ants it’s one of the most painful insect bites that there is. All of the glands in your body swell up. It’s incredibly painful. Thankfully, no one got bitten by a bullet ant over there.

You know, when you’re imbibing in a psychedelic, and you are feeling at times quite out of control, and not in touch with reality and then there are a lot of bugs and ants. We saw tarantulas. There was seven-inch spider in our room that Aiden had to get rid of. Those added challenges.

What I’m saying is, there were definitely challenges and although this is an incredible experience, I think one needs to be prepared for the jungle. The jungle is alive in every sense, and the jungle comes more and more alive when you take Ayahuasca. It can sometimes feel as though the trees are breached.

The jungle felt alive We had to walk to the toilet which was down a jungle path. On the first night, we were told we weren’t allowed to speak to each other in the ceremony. So I was going to the toilet on my own, walking through the jungle for maybe, I don’t know, three or four minutes, and it just felt like the whole jungle was alive. The floor was moving. The trees are reaching out to me. I saw what seemed like jungle beings everywhere.

Me and Aiden stuck together like glue and went to the toilet together. Every single time and I tell you what, we’ve been together 10 years but there’s nothing quite so bonding as being each other’s toilet buddy. It was very, very bonding.

What else I learned Suffice to say, I think one of the things that this really taught me and certainly what the medicine taught me was that there is a part of me inside that just wants to be in control of things. The medicine put a magnifying glass up to this. I could see all the ways that I try to be in control. I noticed all the tiny ways I do this without even being conscious of it and in very subtle ways.

That’s happening all the time. I was hearing someone drumming and I noticed my thought going into Oh, I hope they’re okay drumming. That was on some level my way of trying to control something that is completely none of my business. It really showed me all the ways that I’m doing this all the time. I had this sense of really trying to relax that part of myself that was trying to take control. When trying to relax those controlling parts, I felt that I could start to connect to something that was bigger than me.

Not sure if you would call it God or the universe or life but I had this sense that there is this force that is taking care of things that actually I don’t need to try and micromanage. That was a relaxing awareness to realise. I’m not going to die.

The ego This is something that is often talked about in different religious teachings or spiritual teachings about the ego part of us. The part that’s trying to keep us safe, the part that is trying to control things, and the ego is really scared that if it lets go, that it’s going to die, and it’s going to be obliterated, or that we won’t be safe. I just noticed this experience of inviting this sense of control to relax and try to let go. And that was just another kind of insight I had, that I want to share with you.

Yeah, how much better would our lives be if we could let go and trust that the universe has our back. That there is a force of life that is taking care of things. We don’t have to always be in control, we can trust that things are taking care of themselves.

Finally, I shared my experience That is quite a long episode, but also quite a condensed version of the experience that I had. There are so many things I could have spoken about. I just wanted to share with you the ups and downs of it.

It definitely wasn’t an easy experience, but it was incredibly valuable. I learned a lot about myself. I faced a lot of fears and feel like a stronger person on the other side of it.

Obviously, if you’re considering doing something like this, please do your own research. I wish he loads of luck in your journey and at whatever you’re pursuing and whatever ways you’re looking to heal or grow. There are lots of different things we can do to help ourselves that don’t involve taking psychedelics like breathwork or hypnotherapy.

You don’t have to go to Peru There are lots of different shamanic workshops available that don’t involve taking something that is not legal in this country. If you google different shamanic workshops, whether that’s a drum journey, whether that’s a happy face, there are many. Whether that’s even singing circles, all these sorts of things can give us similar experiences and insights without having to go off to Peru.

I’d love to know what you think about this episode. I’m really curious, please do let me know. Send me a message on Instagram.

I’m at Chloe Brotheridge. And if you think there’s anyone in your life that might benefit from hearing this experience and the insights that I gained, please do share it with them as well. So I’m just sending you loads of love, and you’re taking care of yourself. Thank you so much for listening.

The post Ep 100. Ayahuasca and the jungle appeared first on Calmer you.

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I’m welcoming you to the hundredth episode of this podcast! In this episode, I finally get around to talking about my experience that I had a few months ago, where I went on two different retreats to experience Ayahuasca medicine in South America. I can’t quite believe I’ve carried on for so long. It’s been […]

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Zoe Blaskey of Motherkind joins me on the Calmer You podcast. Her message: knowing you’re enough.

We chat about: * Not feeling good enough – why it happens and how we can overcome it * Zoe’s experience of perfectionism and how she’s not letting it hold her back anymore * Healing intergenerational trauma – healing the past for ourselves and our kids

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Transcript Chloe Brotheridge 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Calmer You podcast.

This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of the Anxiety Solution and Brave New Girl. And this podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest, happies and most confident self.

Have a load of free resources on my website to help you to become your Calmest self. Head on over to Calmer-you.com/free to grab those freebies

Now, today’s guest is the wonderful Zoe Blaskey who is the founder of Motherkind. She is a host of the Motherkind Podcast. It’s for coaches and mothers of all backgrounds, from global CEOs to full-time moms on how to navigate the huge challenges of modern motherhood.

Who’s this episode for – everyone This episode is for you if you are a parent and 100% applies to anyone else who doesn’t have kids yet or doesn’t want kids.

Her work has helped me a lot. These themes are so universal. We get into all sorts of topics. We talk about not feeling good enough. I can relate personally to so much of what Zoe shares in her story and her experiences. I feel like we’ve been on quite a similar path in many ways.

We talk about perfectionism, and Zoe shares about how she’s not letting that hold her back anymore.

I asked her this question, how are you really and she’s really open and honest about that. We even get into the incredibly juicy topic of healing intergenerational trauma, which I am just fascinated by this whole topic.

We learn about how not to pass on our stuff to our kids, but also ensuring that we can be the happiest and best versions of ourselves. I hope you love this episode.

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I think you’re gonna love it. Welcome, Zoe,

How are you doing?

Zoe 3:21
I’m okay. Thanks for having me.

Chloe 3:34
It feels really good to get to speak again, and learn how things have changed for you since we last spoke. One thing I quite often like to start my interviews off with is asking: How are you really?

Zoe 3:53
In this moment, I feel really tired. I’ve got a three-month-old at home. I decided that I would carry on with just my podcast and being a guest on other’s. It feels manageable. Some days, it’s totally fine with the lack of sleep. I feel actually really good and energised on other days. It’s one of those days today where it isn’t enough and and I feel quite tired.

Feeling tired I tried to meditate in the taxi on the way here to help revive me. I feel slightly concerned that my brain isn’t going to be able to pull out and articulate what I’m trying to say. It can’t get the words I need.

How sleep impacts our well-being Zoe 5:25
Before having kids I could catch up the next night if I had an off-night of sleep. You don’t get to catch up on sleep. I think it’s the relentless nature of it like night after night, having broken sleep.

If my husband used to wake me up before we had kids, I’d just go into the spare room. My sleep is totally dependent on someone else. It’s hard. I was sharing it on Instagram the other day. I needed to remind myself how the lack of sleep really affects my emotions.

As a result of being tired, it makes me feel really overwhelmed a lot more quickly than I would do normally. I just have to keep reminding myself of that in the moment and anyone else I’m with. I noticed that my anxiety kicks in a lot quicker and louder. My inner critic is harder to respond to in a kind way. Everything just feels a bit harder on the inside.

Zoe 6:46
The amygdala is the part of the brain responsible for our emotional control centre. Basically, we’re loads more emotional when we are tired. So if I cry during this podcast, you’ll know why.

Chloe 7:48
How do you manage those feelings? How do you take care of yourself on those days and when you haven’t slept well?

Tips for managing sleep deprivation Zoe 7:56
Yes, a good question. The first thing I do is to remember the science as to why. I try to remember that because that makes me much, much kinder to myself.

When I feel out of sorts, I just think it’s okay, it’s because I’m tired. It’s not because I’m a bad mom or because I can’t control my anxiety or my critic is right that I am rubbish. There’s a reason as to why I feel so tired.

Stay hydrated It’s important to stay hydrated, because hydration really helps me and there’s some science behind that as well. Also slowing down. So before recording this today, I haven’t done anything else. I actually went back to bed when my little girl took a nap at about 9am. Keeping it really simple helps.

When I’m tired I try to take things out of the diary that doesn’t need to be there. With email sometimes it doesn’t matter if I reply in a few days. I just try to be kinder to myself. When I’m tired, I find that really helps.

Chloe 9:17
That’s such an important thing to remember too. It can seem as if everything else is so important, but actually your mental state effects everything. Tools for keeping calm are really helpful. Taking the nap or a night off or going to bed early or whatever it is you need to do. I think that has to come first naturally.

Zoe 9:41
Even after all of these years of recovery and healing I still find it really hard. I don’t know about you, but I still find it really hard to actually prioritise sleep and rest. Sometimes I’ll need to cancel something and risk upsetting someone. It’s still a muscle that I have to keep working on.

I know enough now to override that feeling and take the right action. We don’t have to listen to that first thought and can replace it with a more helpful second thought and then take a positive first action. That’s a little practice I do.

Chloe 10:39
Can you share a bit more about your journey and how you got to where you are today? This wasn’t always the case for you, that you’re able to look after yourself and to make that positive choice.

Feeling good enough Zoe 10:53
It was typical for me to be deeply unkind to myself and always feel like I wasn’t good enough.

Being bullied at school, I internalised a lot of those messages and made them my truth. My family has lots of unresolved trauma, which I didn’t know anything about. It’s only through years of therapy that I started to unpick all of that and work out its impact on me.

That meant along the way I picked up some interesting life tools, which actually were quite helpful when I was younger and trying to get through and muddle things out into adulthood. It was unhelpful to not feel my feelings. I would put how things looked over how things felt for me. I’d get all my validation from outside of myself. I was really bad at saying no. I didn’t know who I was and was quite a mess.

How do you numb your problems? In order to cope with my internal life and how miserable that was, I would use things like alcohol to numb and partying and dating a lot. Working really hard in academia was another way to numb.

Though I didn’t feel lucky at the time, I was lucky because I had a big breakdown when I was 22 though I didn’t feel lucky at the time. What was lucky about it is that I used that experience to get the help that I’m so grateful.

From that point I radically changed. Learning about trauma and what it is and how to look after myself. I basically turned myself inside out and upside down and started living from a completely different roadmap. I started doing some trainings in coaching and meditation and goingto workshops.

Working in the city, I never told anyone what I was doing as if I was living a double life. I’d go on meditation or a Kundalini yoga retreats and not tell anyone what I did over the weekend.

Transitioning to motherhood When I had my daughter four years ago, a couple of things happened. I found myself on a Kundalini teacher training and that changed my life. Then I had my daughter, and I couldn’t believe how hard it was being a mom. All of the tools, techniques and practices I’d been using until that point, went out the window because they didn’t fit.

I looked for conversations about parenting online. I looked for a podcast, I looked for forums, I look for meetups and there was nothing about the transition into motherhood, and what that can do for how we feel about ourselves.

A lot of past stuff was coming up for me that I hadn’t come up before. One of our mutual friends Lucy Sheridan, who’s known as the comparison coach, she said to me, I think you need to create this thing that you need. I said no way like, I don’t want to do that, that’s not me. She said if you need it there’s going to be other people that need it. That became Motherkind. I just did it for me. It turns out other people did feel the same.

Chloe 15:16
I was stalking you on Instagram, as I said earlier, and just the comments from people and the massive response that you receive on Motherkind are so positive

Integrating positive messages Zoe 15:28
Every day I get messages from people saying that it’s changed their life.

Sometimes I don’t take enough time to really integrate that message into my reality because I’m quite an achiever. I’m a recovering achiever and a recovering workaholic. So for me, it’s really hard to not think about how to reach more people.

How do I make it bigger? I’m so grateful. I get a lot of those really amazing things, I actually want to start getting much better at sitting with it and almost taking that message into my heart and slowing down. I am really ambitious. And that’s a good thing. I think I’ve got an important message to share. But equally, I need to get better at integrating the impact that it’s having on my life.

What is enough? Chloe 16:22
The need to do more seems to be a common theme of modern life. It’s never enough and the need to keep wanting more. More money, more success, more fame, more belongings, you know, whatever.

Zoe 16:39
If someone would have said to me, you’d have this podcast and working with all of these amazing brands and impacting all of these people, I would have thought that was an absolute dream. Yet here I am living that dream. And I’m incredibly grateful for it. But as you say, we live in a society which perpetually tells us we need something more than we’ve got to be okay. I call it the When-Then Game, like when I get this, then I’ll feel happy.

When I get that promotion, then I’ll feel happy. When I get that bigger house, then I’ll feel happy. For me, it’s a daily thing I just keep having to remind myself. You could have a million followers on Instagram and a number one podcast and I don’t think I’d actually feel any different. You know, if I can’t appreciate it as I’ve got it, I’m not gonna appreciate it then. I have to keep reminding myself this.

Chloe 17:34
A lot of what you are saying is not feeling good enough. This is really at the root of so many of our issues. I have found it from my own life, and from the majority of my clients, I would say, if not every client. Every person I meet will have this sense of not feeling good enough in some area of their lives. It causes so much damage and yet it seems to be universal.

The adapted child idea Zoe 18:02
It’s like an epidemic, isn’t it? It’s the same with the people I work with. After a few sessions I peel it back, and they always get to that felling of not being good enough. That was my experience. I didn’t feel safe. I just didn’t feel enough being me.

That’s when we have this adapted child idea. It’s a therapeutic idea, but I use it in coaching, which is when we don’t feel good enough, we then adapt in some way in order to get that feeling of being good enough. For me, it really played out in workaholism and achievement. There’s a myriad of ways that we can adapt in order to get that love. Like people-pleasing.

Chloe 18:51
I was just thinking about my own life. I was thinking, being good and being nice and not being too much trouble. We all have different adaptations.

Zoe 19:02
I really abandoned myself because I didn’t feel good enough. I would have friendships that people basically bullied me and I’d stay friends with them. It’s really sad.

Going back into my childhood, I really have to speak to that small girl who was eight or nine, who kept going back to the people that were bullying me because I was just so desperate for that love and validation. I didn’t feel enough on my own. I really see this everywhere I go. Most people are running some sort of adaptation. That’s what my journey has been about. Peeling back the layers of those coping tools and those adaptations to who I am really.

I’m ok with that. Just as I am, without having to say yes all the time. I don’t need to be afraid that there’s not going to be anymore work if I don’t take that job or call.

Zoe 20:17
We have to ask ourselves where does it all come from.

Epidemic of modern society? Feeling good enough Chloe 20:28
Is it the human condition? Is it a spiritual reason that we don’t feel good enough or is it modern society that is creating this?

Unconscious parenting Zoe 20:38
I’ve come to be incredibly interested and passionate about how unconscious parenting, not bad parenting, unconscious parenting. The impact that has on the child who then if they don’t grow conscious, they then unconsciously parent and you get this cycle. I’ve tracked it back in my family about seven generations. Having no awareness of this, the behaviour that we’re doing in order to get the love that we need.

My family has lots of addiction because there’s lots of trauma. It leads to not feeling good enough. Not that it all comes from parents, but I think a big part of it comes from how we’re parented. I know it’s totally unconscious. I had amazing parents, but they really valued achievement. I’d be really praised when I did well, so I got the message, subconsciously that I’m loved when I’m doing well. I can’t do well all the time because I’m human. I must not be okay. The other thing that’s really fascinating about children is that up to the age of about seven, they operate on a different brainwave. Do you know this?

Chloe 22:16
Yeah, through hypnotherapy you kind of try and get back into that brainwave state, it’s almost like a dance.

Zoe 22:23
Children operate in the same brainwave that you’re getting people into when you work with them until they’re seven. Those beliefs basically get locked into our brains. The great news is, we have neuroplastic brains, we can change them. If we’re not aware, that we’re running those unconscious beliefs we can never challenge our own behavior or realise that we are good enough. I think is fascinating and I’m sure it has an impact on this and knowing you’re enough.

Intergenerational healing Chloe 23:20
Intergenerational healing has become a big focus of my own work on myself and my clients as well. Not feeling good enough get handed down. I can see my granny gave it to my mom, my mom gave it to me, my great grandma gave it to my grandma.

Zoe 23:48
Basically a fancy name for a family tree, but instead of mapping, it’s from family therapy.

I’ve got it on one sheet of paper. I can see all the trauma and pain and dysfunction that’s been running across my family from my dad’s side and my mom’s side for generations. It’s very powerful because really what that gives me is a huge sense of compassion for myself. That’s where it started for me. I thought, why am I this way?

Being more forgiving of our parents When I look at it, I couldn’t have been any other way really. So I don’t need to beat myself up. It gives me huge compassion for my parents. They were doing such an amazing job given they were carrying all that trauma and they didn’t have the opportunity to do the healing work that I have.

My mom did amazingly knowing how she felt on the inside. Now I know a bit more about how she felt on the inside. You know, it was a miracle. It’s an instant way to remove that blame and that resentment and that anger. It really worked for me. Bathing in all that compassion and realising this isn’t really anyone’s fault. It helps knowing you’re enough

There’s a lot of pain here. I’ve been into it personally for a few years now. People started asking me about it more professionally. I think it’s going to be something that I’m going to do a lot more on.

Sponsors Chloe 25:44
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Responsibility without blame Chloe e 26:52
It’s not about blaming people. It can be about recognising there’s responsibility without blame. There can be so much compassion that can arise from realising that the way your are is not your fault.

Zoe 27:15
I always say it’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility. It’s not my fault that I got given a set circumstances which meant that I had some pain to deal with. I created a lot of that pain myself and it’s my responsibility to look at it. It’s really easy way to avoid taking responsibility by blaming others. The easiest way that we get to not work on ourselves is to point the finger outwards.

Chloe 27:47
For example, not blaming our parents for how we are.

Zoe 27:50
You are not taking any responsibility. So it’s not your fault that you might be anxious, but it’s really important that we think, Okay, what am I going to do about it now that I’ve got a choice. I believe it is really brave to take that first step rather than carry on blaming others.

Chloe 28:24
I love the idea of remembering that we have a choice because it’s so much more empowering.

Blaming our partners Zoe 28:48
I always remember that for myself. You know, sometimes I sort of really enjoy it. Enjoy the resentment and a bit of blame. I’ll say okay, you go there, that’s cool. But know that nothing good can come of this and then it doesn’t feel as good anymore. The alternative is knowing how to get out of it.

Often we blame our partners. You know, they don’t do this. They don’t do that. Alternatively, we need to think about what that that person is triggering in me. It’s hard to do. But, as you say, it’s the most empowering thing. Then we’re not a victim of our circumstances, not a victim of what someone else is doing to me. We actually get to say, Okay, well, that really triggered me. What is it in me that’s triggered and that’s how we start doing this sort of the healing work. A lot of those triggers will come from our experience of childhood.

Triggered? Chloe 30:03
That makes much sense to me . My partner just trained in NLP neuro linguistic programming. He’ll ask me, why are you choosing to be angry?

We can learn so much from being triggered and what is causing it.

I’ve got fears about passing my bullshit onto my kids. And actually, your work gives me a lot of hope. I do feel very encouraged by the message and knowing you’re enough

Zoe 32:39
So well, I nearly didn’t have kids because of that. We went to see this amazing couples therapist because my husband was desperate for children. He’s been broody since he was 12. He is the best dad. I have to say he is incredible. When we got married he said let’s have children. I honestly wasn’t expecting this of myself and the freakout was monumental.

We went into couples therapy to talk about it and I said to this therapist I’m not healed enough. I’m still so codependent. There is still so much trauma that I still haven’t addressed and she said to me: if you wait until you feel perfectly healed to have children, you’ll never have them. We all area work in progress.

Being open with our kids I teach my child that all the time: Mommy’s going to Al-anon which is a 12 step group that I go to. Mommy’s going to therapy, Mommy’s going to yoga, it’s good for her mind. Mommy’s doing this mommy’s doing that. I talk about imposter syndrome and my inner critic. I talk openly to her about all this stuff. So that when inevitably, you know, she has hardships or she develops a tricky relationship with herself, hopefully, she will be able to put some words to the experience.

I’d never heard the word anxiety before. My parents just didn’t talk about anything to do with mental health. So I had no idea of what these thoughts and feelings were that I was having. I’ll talk about the trauma in our family at an age-appropriate time. When we get there, whereas for me it was all hidden under the carpet.

Chloe 35:08
I definitely relate to a lot of what you’re saying there. If I’d been able to have more open conversations with my parents growing up instead of things getting swept under the carpet, I think things would have been different. Having that conversation with your kids from an early age must be so helpful.

Sweeping it under the carpet Zoe 35:31
I have so much compassion for you now, because I hear that things were just swept under the carpet a lot. I totally get why my parents just swept it under the rug. They didn’t have the language and had not done the work on themselves.

They were a bit disconnected from that feeling. It would have been a big stretch for them to be able to hold space for me for their issues. We can’t give what we don’t have. I think the best thing parents and nonparents can do is to look after ourselves. Do this inquiry work to break the chain.

Perfectionism Chloe 36:37
I’ve seen perfectionism be such a massive part of people’s anxiety. What’s been your experience of that in your own life and also with people that you

Zoe 36:56
I was a massive perfectionist. That was one of my coping tools for masking the fact that I wasn’t feeling enough. Because when we don’t feel enough, we have to compensate in some way.

Some people go the other way, actually and become totally under responsible and rebellious. I went the other way and decided I’m just gonna try and be perfect. I’m just going to try and wear a mask and smile all the time and not let anyone know my true feelings. I’m going to just be a good girl.

Good girl adaptation Good good girl adaptation is very, very, very prevalent amongst our generation of women. I just didn’t feel good enough. So I felt this need to seem perfect. I was incredibly hard on myself. I would beat myself up I made a mistake.

The volume has really turned down since I’ve been doing this work. I’ve got a really kind voice that comes in first now. Before nothing I did was good enough. And the problem of living like that is it’s sort of like living on a hamster wheel and there’s no break. I never let myself celebrate any achievements ever. It was always on to the next and then the next.

This doesn’t work One of the one key ideas that I got from my childhood was that if you can get things on the outside, like a good degree and a good job, a nice husband and a good house, then that’s gonna make you feel good on the inside.

Chloe 40:18
So it’s so interesting to have that realisation to, to achieve a goal and actually think, oh, it’s not how I expected it to be. It’s not delivering on the promise.

I oftenwonder why so many famous people, when they reach the height of fame, they seem to unravel. I can only equate that to the desire of feeling good enough. But I got it and it did not make me feel okay.

Criticism Zoe 41:05
I was listening to a podcast with Russell Brand talking about how famous people depend on the praise of others people. The flip side of that is that when you get criticism, your self esteem is hung on the praise and criticism of other people and you kind of let that get to you too much. Talk about knowing you’re enough

Chloe 42:39
If you’re at peace with yourself inside it doesn’t matter what’s going on outside you’ll still be peaceful.

Depression and feeling good enough There is so much depression that is present in our society. For so many people, the depression comes from not feeling good enough or feeling like a failure. Is it the way our society is structured? I don’t mean to blame society. Advertising, for example, about how we need to buy stuff or have stuff to be okay. That is so damaging to our mental. Maybe thousands of years ago when we all had nothing we were probably a lot happier. It’s just interesting to think about the pressures that were we are under.

Comparison Zoe 44:06
I believe every individual is totally different. Some children might hit that speaking milestone way earlier or way later, but we are already in the system of comparison. I was constantly comparing myself because my esteem was so low. When I had Jessie, one of the first things they did was map her weight and height on this chart. A form of comparing her against all other babies. I just thought wow, this stuff starts it’s really insidiously.

Then we go to school and we are all expected to learn the same stuff in the same way even though we know people learn differently and have different talents. we measure everyone on this academic performance through our school system. Then we wonder why people have to go into therapy and coaching and see people like you and I peeling back all this stuff to work out who we really are and knowing you’re enough

Chloe 46:14
Can you Offer any other any kind of practical tools that people can be doing, or practising at home?

Tools for feeling good enough Zoe 46:27
The first thing is always awareness because we can’t change what we’re not aware of. Notice when you are doing something that feels out of alignment with what you really want to do. When you notice it, jot it down in a journal and write about it because I think that’s super felt powerful because you’re starting to create some distance.

The second thing is to become aware of your inner critic. Think about what you’d say to a good friend in the same situation.

And then my third tip would probably be about journaling which I know you’re a huge fan of as well. I think it’s just so powerful. It’s liberating.

Conclusion Chloe 49:00
This has been such a cool conversation and thank you so much for everything you’ve clearly brought you’ve shared. Can you tell us a little bit about where people can find out more about you and what you do

Where you can find Zoe Zoe 49:23
If you are a non mom check it out anyway. And then if you don’t like it, that’s fine. But check it out. My website is motherkind.com and everything is on there about me and yeah, Instagram. I love Instagram. @motherkind_zoe

Chloe 49:51
Amazing, and yeah, definitely check out these podcasts. I am not a mom, but I find it really helpful. Thank you so much for all the work you’re doing and keep going.

Thanks very much, guys.

The post Ep 99. Knowing you’re enough with Zoe Blaskey appeared first on Calmer you.

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Zoe Blaskey of Motherkind joins me on the Calmer You podcast. Her message: knowing you’re enough. We chat about: Not feeling good enough – why it happens and how we can overcome it Zoe’s experience of perfectionism and how she’s not letting it hold her back anymore  Healing intergenerational trauma – healing the past for […]

The post Ep 99. Knowing you’re enough with Zoe Blaskey appeared first on Calmer you.

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Jody Shield is a performance coach, author of best-selling self-help book “Self-Care For The Soul”, inspirational speaker, TEDx speaker and host of the “Be Electric” podcast. She likes to talk about money.

I hope you can be inspired by Jody’s infectious positivity and confidence.

We chat about: * What it means to be ‘in flow’ * Why we’re so scared to talk about money and how to face your money demons * Consciousness hacking (this is fascinating!) * Jody’s experience of plant medicine

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Transcript Intro: Hello, and welcome to the calmer you podcast. This is your host Chloe Brotheridge, I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution, and Brave New Girl. And this podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest, happiest, and most confident self. In this episode, I am so excited to get to speak to Jody Shield. She is a performance coach, she’s the author of the best selling self-help book “Self-care for the soul,” she’s an inspirational speaker on Ted x speaker and she’s the host of the “Be Electric podcast.” And I hope you will be as inspired as I was by Jody’s infectious positivity and confidence. And we get into interesting topics such as what it means to be in flow.

Being in flow And maybe you’ve heard of this term you know “being in flow,” it’s really the state of mind that we want to be in. And we talk about how to cultivate this more and more in our lives, we get into the topic of money and how to talk about money which still in 2020 is such a taboo topic, but it’s a real passion of Jody’s to speak about this and to help us to face our money demons and cultivate more abundance in our lives.

We also talk about consciousness hacking, and this is completely fascinating to me, I think you’re going to be so intrigued by this topic, I’ll leave it to Jody to explain what that is but it’s something we can all do. She’s sharing the ways that she’s consciousness hacking, and things that we can all do ourselves. And finally Jody shares her experience, a very transformational experience of that of plant medicine.

So if you want more tools and resources to become your calmest happiest and most confident self, I’ve got less a freebies on my website, you can head over to calmeryou.com/free, enter your e-mail address there and I will send you right away worksheets, audio downloads and podcast updates. So head over to calmeryou.com/free to get that. So let’s get into the interview with Jody Shield.

Chloe: Alright, let’s do it.

Jody: Let’s do it.

Chloe: Welcome Jody, thanks so much for joining me. How are you?

Jody: Thank you so much, I am feeling really good today actually and I was… yeah it’s Valentine’s Day and self-love day I suppose. So yeah I’ve booked a lovely rose quartz crystal for the alter.

Chloe: Lovely. Thank you, beautiful. Can you share with us, maybe for people that don’t know your work, what it is that you do and how you got to where you are today?

Performance and business coach Jody: Totally, so my journey has evolved enormously over the past 6 and a half years. And I know that you and I have been in business a similar amount of time actually, and so we’ve both really evolved of this been amazing to watch. So now I’m a performance and business coach.

I love because I’m from a family of entrepreneurs myself and I worked for 10 years in the ad industry as a business director handling massive clients, and big budgets, and you know I love supporting people to expand and grow that business and identify new opportunities. It’s what really lights me up but I never ever thought I’d say that because my journey has evolved so much over the 6 years, and I worked on love and relationship topics, on money, on mindset, on lots of different things but for me business is my sweet spot now.

And I think what I bring to the conversation around business coaching which is different is consciousness. How can weigh built these really successful businesses that are very financially rewarding as well and do it in a really conscious mindful way where we feel in alignment with ourselves and we are tuned in to our deepest sense of mission and purpose, and what we’re supposed to be doing here on the earth. Just let’s dive into the who straight away. How can we feel really good in the process, because you know I think many of you who are listening probably still work in corporate career and other people’s businesses and there’s this work hard, strive hard mentality.

I’m sure you probably come across with your clients so often, that you have belief that we have to work really really hard to be successful. Many people in the corporate world have that belief system and are driving their success from that place, and actually then when you pause and start your own career often you transfer those belief systems to this new business and it’s certainly what I did. And I was burning myself out after 2 years, just like in the same situation as I used to burn up in the corporate world.

How do you run your business? So for me the primary I suppose objective of running a business now, is how can we be turned into ourselves as I said, conscious about our behaviors, the way that we’re showing up in our businesses, the way that we’re managing people, the way that we’re leading. So how can we be authentic, how can we operate in a state of alignment, so everything feels like effortless effort, that was my big intention for 2019 was how can my career and life feel effortless, like how can it be effortless effort? So yeah, so that’s what I’m doing now and I work with people in a one to wall and I work with high profile C.E.O.’s and leaders, and talent, and then I was with small business owners, entrepreneurs, and creative in small or intimate group coaching environments, and then I have to online courses.

So it’s bizarre and I think we’ve probably been on a similar journey, it’s like we start off being practitioners and refining our skills and getting these incredible tool boxes together, full of amazing tools, like hypnotherapy and meditation and mindfulness, and then we end up being marketers in a digital marketing era and we’re scaling and we’re recruiting people into are amazing experiences. So yeah in a long winded way that’s who I am now.

Chloe: Amazing, I love the idea of effortless effort. And I think everyone can relate to that sense of life feeling more pressure than before, going a greater speed than ever before and so much of the business advice you hear is about hustling and pushing yourself and you know how to survive a four hour sleep.

Jody: Yeah.

Chloe: And so to bring in the consciousness of the heart I think is such an important part of it.

Secrets of a millionaire mind Jody: You just touched on something really powerful, and I’d love to give an example to people who are listening, have you read the book the Secrets of a Millionaire Mind.

Chloe: No,

Jody: Ok, if you haven’t it’s a really good book it’s by T Harv Eke, you can get it on audible, and it is you know I’m really into talk about money and helping people enhanced their relationship with talk about money. It’s a great book and the some amazing insights in there, but throughout the book he’s constantly telling people to work harder for this money.

You know if you have an intention around turning over a 1000000 pounds then you just got to go for it, you got to work 12 hour days, 14 hour a days and it’s really interesting because his book was written I think in the ninety’s or like that it must’ve been the ninety’s you know when the hustle energy was still around. So I think yeah and that still exists as you say like how can we survive especially in the digital marketing arena, right? Even in the world of coaching and wellness, there are lots of coaches out there who really go for it. They hustle, yeah.

Chloe: Interesting, Absolutely yeah, definitely need to see a lot of that but it’s nice to hear about how they can be a different way of being. I suppose that leads me on to my next question which is about flow because I know this is something you talk a lot about and I remember, it might have been 4 years ago when you first introduced me to this idea of flow and being in flow. And at the time I thought this is just I can’t understand this, this is not my way of operating and I’ve now come to understand and see that it’s the way to me but can you explain what that means to people?

Jody: Of course I will but 1st of all I just want to say to everyone listening, you know Chloe is just someone I admire so much because I’ve just seen you transform so much on this amazing journey. And to be this powerful business leader who you are now is just amazing, because I was reflecting on when we first met. We were like super early in the wellness scene, there weren’t that many other people around like wanting to have this conversation about wellbeing and we met, it was like this really cool connection, and I just really watched you grow so I’m just really proud of you I just wanted to say that.

Chloe: Thank you.

Jody: Flow State, Yes, is this a hippy dippy term or is this actually something real, Ok. I’ll give you guys another book recommendation, and for you Chloe if you haven’t read this yet it is a really super good book, the book is called Stealing Fire, and it’s basically about how maverick scientists Silicon Valley C.E.O.’s and Navy SEALs revolutionize the way that we live and work, and it’s got references to Google in there and it’s got references to some really amazing companies who talk about this flow state, there are two authors of the book, Jamie Wheal and Steven Kotler, their aim is to demystify this. What is the flow state? Like what is it what does it mean?

The importance of alignment And in essence to me, I’m a very kind of I suppose spiritual person and I believe in energy and I believe in alignment, I probably said the word alignment about 10 times already, but it’s like being your flow state is when like there this sense of effortlessness, spaciousness, and no mind. So the absence of thought, and infinite possibilities are available to us, so you could say it’s the present moment, right? You know that feeling when you’re in such a present place where you just you glimpse this feeling that everything’s possible.

Chloe: That’s my favorite feeling.

Jody: You just come out the jungle, so you know what that feels like right, it’s like for a minute you’re in the cosmos and you’ve just got access to everything, everything is possible. That for me epitomizes the flow state and Jamie and Steven are trying to put science behind this because it is this… I suppose it is a place of presence where you’re tapped into this sense of infinite intelligence and, what I call kind of divergent thinking. So in meditation, we talk a lot about the science of meditation and how it promotes divergent thinking, which is in effect, like a new original creative thought.

So you know the idea that Elizabeth Gilbert talks about a lot in her books about how there is never a new idea, we’re just rehashing ideas constantly. Totally, but also you’ll have me and you could have the same idea but it will be totally different, because it’s delivered through your personality and your amazing radiance, and if I had the same idea, it would be completely different as well.

Tuning in to creative thoughts I do feel like there’s this place that we can tap into that is all about original creative thoughts. Quick example when I did my 1st digital course launch, a proper one like the ones before were just a mess but this one, I was like I didn’t have a clue about Facebook advertising, or how to build an audience or anything, and I meditated for an hour and I really asked my highest self, so you guys might refer to this as like you wise self and whatever you want to… whatever you want to call, but I tune into my highest self that is highest sense of wisdom and I was like How do I launch this program, tell me?

And the message I got was like you… like it was so prescriptive, you know I just won a competition to win a coaching program with me, you revisit that list of like 1500 people, and you email everyone, and you say hey I’m organizing a free Call, I’m going to talk about you having a successful business this year, are you in?

Tuning in I got like 50 e-mails back I got those people on calls, and I did this like mad like organic successful launch the 1st time around and I would not have done that not been tuned into my alignment and flow state and my wisdom, because I just freaked out. I would have gone is where I was probably bombarding my Instagram audience with far too many messages at the time, I would have like freaked out but this time I was like No, I’m just going to slow down, tune in and I’m going to see what insight wants to come through on a marketing level, why not, let’s see. And yeah it’s really interesting when you tune in.

Chloe: That’s amazing, I think that’s what people don’t necessarily know about meditation. They think it’s about relaxation and they think it’s about you know trying to be less stressed but there’s this other dimension of actually becoming more intuitive, listening to your… yeah if we can I call it inner wisdom or something, listening to your inner wisdom and you get on says and clarity from things like that meditation. Yeah so I love that story, exactly inspiring. I suppose is meditation a way to get in flow then about other things people would suggest to people that want to have more of an expansive like anything’s possible mindset?

Meditation Jody: Yeah. I’m an avid meditation practitioner as a you, we’ve been doing it a long time. I’ve been meditating… I was saying to someone yesterday probably wants at least once or twice a day every day for the past you know half years and absolutely that is like my meditation practice is as evolved over the years.

So much that you know obviously I don’t need guided meditations now, I’m just very tuned into myself.

Getting into flow So yeah absolutely meditation is a primary way you can get into the flow state, it takes practice like you probably tell your clients every day meditation is not something you can master overnight sadly, we live in a quick fix consumer society, so everyone just wants a quick fix but it’s something that you have to practice so yeah that’s one thing. I feel like I was hiking Table Mountain you know a few weeks ago and I was like… and I just got to this ledge on the mountain of the mountain where you could just see cape town, it just was so amazing I was just one of those moments where you’re like I’m alive. You’ve got loads of those in the jungle, like I’m alive, like how lucky am I to be alive on this planet at this time, and that put me instantly in a flow state you know.

That was insane and amazing, and very very cool. Something else just popped in, so I guess more practical which will help people. You know we spend so much of our day being out of our alignment, and out of this inner wisdom connection that you just said. We’re so often in the mind, I would say even me I’m probably 65 to 70 percent in my spiritual connection to is the day and then the rest I’m just in my head wearing all stressing so when I get in my head and I start wearing all stressing my go to tool is to know 1st of all to notice what’s going on, and then I go into Ok I accept that my mind is active right now I just accept it.

Chloe: That’s cool.

Acceptance Chloe: I accept that my mind’s active right now, because you’re not trying to change anything you are literally being aware and accepting that oh yeah my mind’s going mad and it’s activated and lots of programs and thoughts are coming on, I accept. And then for those of you listening who find that a bit too much of an ask because that in that moment your mindset might say to you but how can you accept it. I then almost like counter balance that with.

I accept what I can accept about this as well. And when you go into acceptance you know you go right back into the flow state straight away. And if that doesn’t work, a tool that my friend taught me a few days ago is like self approval, so it’s like if you’re if you’re noticing the minds getting really active and pulling you out of your alignment, and your creativity, and your manifestation powers and all of that. You notice that that’s happening again and you go into a sense of approval, that I approve that this is what’s happening, I approve of this.

So I’ve given you 3 tools there, it really depends what word works for you because the word approval might trigger you, like it did for me for ages or the word acceptance might trigger you. So like with everything, find what resonates and then leave or leave what does not resonate.

Chloe: So yeah it sounds like what you’re saying is there’s a sense of noticing what’s happening, and also not resisting or fighting it but kind of bringing in some acceptance and love a supposed to that. And I’m always saying to people what we resist ,persists. I’m sure Karl Young said that. And if we resist and push it away it just makes it 10 times worse and a lot of our suffering is caused by us resisting stuff.

Jody: I totally agree.

Chloe: So I love that talk. Thank You, can we talk about money?

Jody: Definitely I love to talk about money.

Chloe: Because it’s almost like I mean even in 2020 it is still to talk about money, it is still something that is a bit awkward to talk about money even with our friends.

Jody: Totally.

Chloe: And it’s the biggest thing we argue about with our partners, it is the biggest thing that we worry about, and yet we don’t worry about it, we don’t talk about it, we don’t get thought about it at school, can you tell us a bit about your approach and your thoughts on this topic.

Let’s talk about money Jody: Of course, of course, of course, first of all, I love talking about money, it’s taken me a few years to say that, I’ll be honest you know I like everyone listening had a certain childhood experience with money, and parents worrying about money, and stressing about money even though we had money as a family. So fast forward to now and the way that you interacted with your family around money has impacted you in this moment, and has created this, I call it a blueprint, so a blueprint basically is a pattern of behaviors and belief systems that you then operate from in the moment. And money like you said it’s one of the biggest topics and I think from all my experience, and I’ve been where I’ve been running…

Magnificent money I was thinking about this the other day, I’ve been running workshops on money for I think 4 years. And 2 years ago or maybe 18 months ago was the fast time I put all of my learning and tools and teachings into an online cool school “magnificent money,” which we as a team and as a business launch once a year and yeah it’s amazing, the appetite for it is huge.

Like so many people want to enroll in this program, but the interesting thing is you know it brings all of your stuff up to the surface, like I’m not going to say it doesn’t, it’s one of those programs that I had an intention and I supposed the clues and the name. How can we be magnificent around money? So of course when you as a teacher have the intention to launch a course that is called Magnificent money, someone enrolls and what shows up immediately is everything is in the way between where they are now and their sense of magnificence around money basically.

So I end up taking people through this program, that is that really powerful and very transformational and around unit 3 every time, there’s like 10 units or 12 units, around units 3 every time is like the toughest week for people and I don’t know if you’ve run many online courses but it’s really interesting because everybody starts going Jody, this isn’t working. Oh my God, and I’m like hold tight. Unit 3, this always happens and without fail the next week they’ve moved through it and they’re in this new space, and they feel more positive about it.

Why Jody loves talking about money So yes I love talking about money, I think there’s no reason why we shouldn’t in our society, we need to, it’s like the conversation around sex and around intimacy and around guilt and shame associated with that. Like it’s the conversation between so many conversation that we need to have a money is definitely one of them and I was reflecting on this yesterday because I’m recruiting for my intimate group coaching programs and I’ve got loads of people about that.

You probably witnessed this but like you know it’s a great cool and then at the end, we have the money chat. And for me I really like going into the discomfort of like I probably a bit… I probably freak people out because I was like in a happy place so when we come to that chat at the end of the call.

I offer to talk about the practicalities of this program and the investment actually. To work with me consistently in this program, it’s a 6-month program you get 24 hours of coaching with me which is a lot, you get a lot of you know one to one intimate time with me in the group and it’s this amount of money.

Getting comfortable with discomfort Take a nice deep breath in and I just stop talking. “Can you tell me what just came up for you then because that was interesting?” Then I give them permission to go into the discomfort and My favourite part of the call is to talk about money because we need to and you know it’s amazing Chloe, and I’m sure you’ve experienced this, when you get someone in a transactional conversation when you’re talking about money, it’s such a massive experience for growth because it just brings all your stuff to the surface straightaway.

And if you don’t have those transactional conversations, you don’t get the opportunity to heal and transform all of the barriers that are in the way of you investing in your business in this case, and your career on your own self development and you as a business owner and everyone who’s listening who are either in a career or business owners we need to be investing into ourselves to expand and grow especially business owners, because if you’re not investing in yourself to expand and grow then you’re not able to build your platform, and you’re not able to really do this amazing work on a mass scale that we’re supposed to be doing.

So yeah, so it’s about going into these experiences that help you with money and what… you know here’s the thing my business is grown really in an interesting way, and for me you know I’m not a social media influencer and that’s never where I was meant to be but I am a business owner and entrepreneur, and I’ve watched myself scale financially over the years, and I’ve taken some really really big jumps financially speaking and I’ve been able to unlock those financial opportunities in my audience, and that’s all well and good but you have to do work on your current mindset and current thinking to be able to get you to that next level. Because if you have an intention of being a millionaire and I know that what might trigger some of you on the call, who are listening but for me it’s just a tangible goal right?

So yes, Ok a 1000000 pounds. To me it’s not about having the 1000000 pounds in the bank actually, it’s about who you are as a millionaire, who you are as a powerful entrepreneur with way more resources to then give back to the world invest in courses you’re a passion about, in Amazonian courses, whatever it is, and be a really powerful conscious leader with much more availability and resources to do good stuff basically.

So for me it’s like as a millionaire, who are you, what are the decisions that you make, how are you showing up in the world how confident do you feel what are your thoughts? And we’re on this journey as human beings of expansion, we’re born for expansion, some of us get really stuck in the I suppose the worry and the faer, and it takes us a little bit longer to kind of get out of that to get onto a path of expansion, some of us expand through the fear and the pain, that’s cool but it’s like you know as an expansive person, our spiritual sense, our inner wisdom is on a mission to grow and expand as a powerful person so money helps you do that, yeah.

Chloe: And yet it’s something that so many people have a kind of dirty association with. I hear from people all the time I wish money just didn’t exist. Or a lot of fellow kind of therapists will say I hate charging money, I feel like I should be giving us away for free. And you know we hear all the time about how difficult it is for women to stick in the initial negotiation at a new job to ask the enough money and that sets them back throughout their whole career potentially because they’re not getting paid the what amount in the initial negotiation. And so it is something that holds us back, it is about expansion as you say rather than something dirty but we do get a message than even it is.

Jody: I totally agree and I think as a business leader, you and I both have this responsibility to get really comfortable with all value and self-worth, and confident in that space because when we are the people that come and work with us will feel that and they’ll be I spoke more excited by the idea of investing in themselves to grow. And like we have to keep doing that to grow, like we can’t… if you said yes to clients to come work with you for free, you feel super drained, the client wouldn’t be able to receive the amazing work that you’re offering because you know on a subconscious level or on a mental level we need to have this transactional component where you know money was invented for a transaction.

So it’s like I’m coming to see you for a therapy session on a coaching session you’re going to help me transform but if I don’t give you the money for that and I’m not going to fully be able to receive the work that you’ve given me. So I will go away and I’ll see a friend how is that session? I would be like yeah it was all right, first if I’ve given you a certain amount of money for your experience I’ll treasure that, like I’ll invest into that, I’ll treasure that and so what I’ll get back will be like a reciprocation of my energy,. does that make sense?

Chloe: That is a… I think a very common phenomenon and I’ve kind of friends of mine have thought of doing coaching or something, I said be careful about giving people free sessions, like friends of friends, that sort of things because they don’t… they’re not so committed and invested, they’re more likely to not show up there, and less likely to get results. And it is about that exchange of energy that is powerful I think.

Jody: Totally, you know what I’ve noticed which is really interesting and this is probably going to trigger a lot of people but this is good, we need to be you know asking people to go out of that comfort zone with this conversation.

So on a one to one level I work with high profile people, a small amount of them because I really want to help them drive themselves forward and their businesses forward, and it’s a 6 month program, it’s a big investment to work with me for 6 months.

Some people pay up front and it’s like this chunk of money comes in which is amazing but the transformation they then have a week later is miraculous, and actually I’ll give you an example, I worked with this amazing award winning t.v. producer who’s now set up a coaching business as well, so she’s doing both.

And she paid me up front at the end of last year, and she left me a voice messageabout week later and she said “wow Jody I’ve just pitched myself in as a creative consultant, I’ve doubled my rates, and I can’t imagine what the rate was. I just double my rate because I’m like why not, I’ve got nothing to lose, they’ve signed it off, so I’ve literally made use of my investment that I’ve made in you in like 2 months you know, so it was… or even a month’s time I can’t remember what she said, I think is about a month. So it’s like it’s mad something happens when you make a big investment, these opportunities are inspirational… Like these doors just open for you and suddenly you can see ways of making the money back.

Chloe: That’s such an interesting one isn’t it. I wonder if it kind links into a kind of identity, like I’m someone that invests in this amazing person that’s going to take me to the next level and suddenly you’re the person does that exactly, what other doors open up for you.

Jody: That’s perfect, that’s exactly it, yeah. You shift on a being level I would say, you shift, you go up. Danielle Laporte talks about this actually, Danielle is a really powerful coach as well guys, if you haven’t heard of a look her up, she’s really sassy and sexy, I like that. And so she says this a lot, as soon as you make that investment your energy shifts up to the next level. So like you say you then create opportunities that align with that high vibration I’d say.

Chloe: I love it, is there anything for people who are listening to this who are thinking they want to have a better relationship with money is there like a 1st step that you would recommend people today to start to look at that?

A better relationship with money Jody: Yes yes yes yes yes, couple of things. Do a little honest money audit and what that means, what that looks like? Is get out your journal and describe what your current money reality is. So like for example I remember when I was 18…19… I was in a lot of credit card debt and I was just overspending a lot, and I hid from that for so many years because I was just in denial that was what was going on. So doing a money audit helps you get really conscious about what your money behaviors are, because you can see very plainly what you’re currently creating in relation to money, which then tells you what your belief systems are.

You know you can then take good guesses as to what you are believing about yourself and money, because whatever you are believing about yourself or money is creating these money situations. So for example if you are… like you said these are example if people are fearful of asking for a pay rise off if full of asking for a certain salary that you you’re worthy of receiving, you know you might describe that you’re journal like Right, you know when I ask for a salary I’m really afraid, I’m really anxious.

You then might have a good guess and say I believe I’m not deserving of earning this money, I don’t feel I’m worthy of earning this money, I don’t feel I’m worthy in the world or whatever it is. So just you know in general just describing what you’re currently creating is a really really great first step. Once a year I run this money program, and you know you can join the challenge that I’ll be running I don’t know when this is going to be, it’s probably going to be later on in the ex who just finished the program and it was amazing, but you can go to my website and sign up to a tool kit I’ve got the moment which is all about running a conscious business in 2020. And there are elements of financial management, and an new financial mindset work in that toolkit. So you can go and that’s a really good place to start as well as the order that you can just do today.

Chloe: Perfect, and I put that link in, to show to people as well. You mentioned just in past a moment but getting triggered and I think this is… I think as human beings if we can get better at noticing our triggers, noticing what’s really going on, that is such an important key to our healing and so often we get triggered and we think oh what are they talking about, you know I don’t like that confidence about talking about money or whatever we’re talking about. People get triggered by sex, money, almost anything..

Jody: People, all of us, we get triggered by people all the time. [laughs]

Chloe: Can you get into that a little bit about triggers and how to just watch out for that and what to do about that?

Jody: Totally. So you know it’s so easy to start judging, I’m going to use people as an example because I mean yes topics like you say, but people, because I think so many people can relate to people triggering you especially at Instagram, let’s say in the world that we are in at the moment. So when you get triggered by someone, it’s not about them even though we want to make it about them, we want to project on to them, we want them to know that they’re operating in a certain way or acting in a certain way that isn’t cool or whatever. Whatever it is, but it’s really not about them, it’s really not about them it’s about you and what that person is triggering in you is this result topic or unresolved aspect of yourself that you haven’t integrated in yourself.

Personal fulfillment Like the goal of a human being is fulfillment, let’s say it’s whole being whole and we go through childhood, we go through experiences, we go through trauma and every time we experience something we kind of pop out of ourselves in a way, so like come to the present moment. Now a kind of we’re here but we’re not fully here which is why we can’t all be 100 percent present all the time. So we’re really good at attracting people in the right time to trigger us, to show us like a mirror these parts of ourselves that we haven’t looked at yet that are unresolved, so for me in that moment I listen, I am not a pro at this by any means.

I still encounter people who triggered me, and yet I’m getting better and better recovery so like if someone’s triggering me, I’ll take a step back, take a nice deep breath. And even if my in a teenage self is like who did they think they are, that that that.

I’ll be like calm down, like it’s not about them, and I’d be like What is it about them that triggers me? Oh they are showing off, and like this isn’t… they’re not even showing off but this is what I think is going on, they’re showing off. I’m connecting to the part of me that is the show off, and I’ll be like Ok, you know there is a part of you that’s a show off, so let’s just impact that a little bit right.

You know I’m always so grateful for people triggering me, it might take me a couple of days to get to that place but I’m like wow I’m so grateful that this person is triggering me right? Now I’m so grateful that I’ve created this experience where we can face each other this is amazing. And as you know gratitude really is powerful, that’s enough to shift it now if the person is a conscious person, spiritual person, is open to hearing about it because spiritual people are not always open to facing this.

But I’ve had it if you times where I’ve actually just called out with the person, and I have had a few times when I’ve tried to go out with the person, and I’m just not having any of it because I’m triggering them that much. And I trigger so many people, I’m so aware I triggered people enormously because I’m constantly inviting people to step off their comforts zone. So sometimes I’ll have a call with people that I can tell they just want to slap my face, and I’ll be like you just want to slap me right now, don’t you? and they’re like yeah how did you know? Because I can tell by your body language, but it’s cool. Like I’ll say to them “Look, I’m here as a mirror for you,” and it’s fine if you want to slap me, overcome that emotion very quickly they just feel part fight or flight wanting to defend yourself basically.

Anyway to digress slightly but my point is if I was connecting with you, and you were triggering me. First of all I know it’s not you, say hey you know there is something coming up in me right now, I know it’s not your stuff, I know it’s my stuff but I want to vocalize, it is that Ok? And a lot of the time they will be like yeah, because they’ll feel it’s something as well from me, and we just have a 10 minute conversation and it’s cleared. And sometimes that’s all it takes, but you know listen you it’s not easy to kind of ring people up and say can we meet and have an open hearted conversation about you’re triggering me right now, like people don’t want to face it, but I think the more we have these kind of conversations hopefully the more people will be willing to face that stuff a bit more.

Chloe: Love it, and I think how powerful to be able to face stuff and to be open, because otherwise it just gets shoved underground where it continues to fester and hold us back and how many friendships get ruined by the fact that we don’t have the courage to be able to actually tell people what is going on.

Jody: It takes courage, doesn’t it Chloe? And it’s like I don’t know about you I find it harder to do with friends actually. If I come across people that’s quite fine but sometimes friendships especially if they’re old historical friendships, a part of you doesn’t want to like lose this person, so you’re like oh my God if I have it out with this person, are they going to run the other direction and I don’t want you say it takes a lot of courage.

Chloe: Such a g.c. topic, thank you for sharing about that. So yeah, just inviting people listening to really notice you know I going to go buy something and kind of explore what’s going on for you, what are you suppressing in yourself that you’re perhaps actually just projecting onto the other person. I wanted to ask you about consciousness hacking, because I listen to your latest podcast, I was extremely interested in what you were sharing. What is consciousness hacking?

Consciousness hacking Jody: Ok, so. It’s fairly new term especially in the u.k. and in Europe and I am literally beginning to open up conversations about this, I’m not the expert in consciousness hacking but I do recognize that I’ve been a consciousness hacker for the last 8 years, like you Chloe. It’s like we understand that where human beings and we’ve got stuff going on that we need to work through, need to face and to clear out of the way so that we can be like a channel for our message let’s say. And we’re on this quest to find new innovative ways to do that so. Earlier this year I relaunched my podcast, it’s called “be electric,” and I got a download in a plant medicine ceremony about this, just so that you know. And it was very much about this conversation about high performance and human performance needs to be out there more.

So how can you be the channel for that work? And it was really interesting because at the time I was really all about women, like female entrepreneurs and all of that. And I’m a member of the Albright club in London which is an all women’s club, and I was championing that but it wasn’t lighting up my soul. You know it was exciting, but as soon as I started to feel into this conversation about expansion and doing lots of things in your life to hack consciousness or open yourself up more as a spiritual being, as a healthy clean version of yourself. That really excited my soul, I think this is part of me that’s just like listen I’m a bit of a pioneer, I think I was having these kind of spiritual root conversations about 8 years ago when people in London were not ready to hear it.

And I was trying to be the translator from like the Spiritual a theory scene, being I’m talking to more of a mainstream audience. Obviously now everyone’s into it in some way shape or form or at least meditation but there’s still this educational need to inspire people to do things like bulletproof coffee, and intermittent fasting, and bio-hacking.

Biohacking I’m actually interviewing a doctor… a scientist on bio-hacking on Monday, and plant medicine and psychedelic research, and all these amazing things that are going on on the global level to help with the transformation of mental health conditions. And you know it’s a very innovative field, and there’s a lot of science to back it up. So when I was thinking about consciousness hacking and flow state and bio-hacking, all these like high performing things that get talked about in that book Stealing Fire that’s why I mentioned it.

You know it’s all about how can we perform all highest in our lives, in our businesses. And Silicon Valley C.E.O.’s who all very innovative that coming up with really cool new tech platforms, left, right and center and all of that.

They’ve been doing consciousness hacking and bio-hacking and anti-aging techniques and you know brain wave like they do meditation in a very scientific wave where they hook you up to machine and they do like different kind of brain wave programs to get you like that consciousness all the time. And when I was in LA 2 years ago, I kept seating across the table from people, I talk to everyone as you can imagine, and people kept coming and sitting next to me and they kept saying to me, have you heard about micro dosing?

I asked “No, What is that?” They said using a small amount of some kind of medicine or psychedelic to hack into this subconscious part that we can always access. Doesn’t meditation do that? Yeah but this is different, and Ok, so I started like… it piqued my interest a little bit. So yes, I started being really interested in all of this.

Consciousness hacking I’ve been consciousness Hacking in some way, shape or form for the whole 8 year period since I drunk Ayahuasca in the jungle. It was like I was… my soul was like constantly trying to find out whether it’s a crystal, whether it’s bullet proof coffee, whether it is you know micro dosing, whether it is that tree hugging, and then you know jumping out of a plane, I don’t know what it is but I was constantly on this quest to like figure out ways to expand my mind.

And not even just that, but like I just did a skydive a few weeks ago, it was the most interesting experience I’ve ever done on a mental level, because I wasn’t afraid which was quite bizarre I got in the plane with a guy, we jumped out of the plane and we free fell for 47 seconds and it’s like you’re completely out of control, there’s nothing to grab on to, right?

We were just tumbling for 45 seconds, my mind was freaking out because it was like well, I’ve got no way of protecting Jody, what’s going on, we’re going to die. You know like… and what happened I feel… and I haven’t talked to a neuro scientist about this yet but I want to. It scrambled my brain,. it’s scrambled the programming, I promise you when I landed my body was like pumped full of adrenaline, I went to bed the next morning. I’m still afraid in certain situations, and I’m still triggered obviously, I feel bold. It was like this shift, so… If what I’m saying appeals, maybe go and do sky diving.

Chloe: My hand are sweating slightly, it’s just the thought of jumping out of plane, maybe that’s a sign I need to it [laughs]. That’s so interesting, there is such… there is something about doing something that’s so kind of scary that everything else just seems fine, I mean when I started singing in public, public speaking became fine because singing is very much more nerve raking.

Jody: That’s amazing, I don’t think I could do that.

Chloe: Yeah-yeah, I’ve got into Karaoke of late. But I love it, so Ok, so the bullet proof coffee.

Jody: Yeah.

Cold exposure therapy Chloe: I know you’ve taken some cold baths.

Jody: Oh yeah yeah, totally. This is a really interesting story basically. 2 years ago, my friend Perry who’s a very successful entrepreneur in his own right in the hairdressing industry and he is an extremist, like almost like the male version of me but more of an extremist than I am. Like he just pushes boundaries every day, 2 years ago got into this guy called Wim Hoff who is a pioneer and he’s got 21 world records for swimming under ice and the sitting in cold baths and he’s been injected with bacterial infections and hooked up in science laboratories and he’s proven that his techniques can boost immune system and fight off diseases and illnesses, it’s quite amazing.

And anyway, Perry was talking about Wim Hof and how he was having cold showers and how he was actually going to build this ice tank up on his roof that you could you know like to submerge in.

Tony Robbins has got one, but you could submerge yourself in and then it was like cold water therapy. I was not interested whatsoever but it was like for me the fare this thing from my mind, I was like I mean I’m not just interested in having a cold shower, that’s awful, why would you do that.

Breathwork There’s a breathing technique that goes with that so he was telling us about how he could hold his breath for like 10 minutes or something mad and do 20 sit ups at the same time. Like I was that’s crazy, anyway forgot about that conversation. And then in October last year I’m working with this indigenous tribe doing plant medicine ceremony, and this old friend of mine runs over to me, she’s like oh my god Jody is so nice to see you, and I was like cool, like what are you doing now?

She’s like well I’m doing transformational breathing now actually, but not only that I’ve trained in Wim Hof and I’m taking my clients through ice therapy, and she’s like they all have an ice bath, we go on retreat and they all have an ice therapy, that’s part of the program, I’m like that’s cool, interesting, forgot about the conversation, then I got in the downloads in the plant medicines about to relaunch the podcast, it’s all about human performances.

Ok cool, 2 weeks after the plant medicine ceremony Wim Hof team emailed me, Hi Jody Wim Hof in town, do you want to interview him? And I was like Yes, I didn’t think about that. Yes of course, sent it to my team, get in touch with his p.r, like we’re doing this. So on the Friday I was there interviewing Wim Hof.

Interviewing Wim Hof He’s friends with all these Hollywood actors is he’s a powerful energy, so I meditated and asked how do I show up to this interview because I imagine people who are interviewing him just got like a list of questions and they want to you know ask him and it’s all mental.

I was like no I’m going to I’m going to show up in my being so I’m going to show biz is equal actually on being level. so I mean that is like I’m in my power right, so we did that and we connected in this really high powerful, he got me, he felt me straight away and it was a really powerful exchange and even though the interview is pretty crazy because he’s a mad Dutch scientist type. It was amazing, so I was like the bar is raised now, like this is amazing.

So after that interview, after we recorded it like towards the end of last year October, it was more the end of October, I just thought of having cold showers, because I think I started having it before we had the in 2 weeks I wanted to like talk a little bit about it. And sat down in cold showers and it became a thing and it’s really weird I never thought I would be that person who has cold showers. Now I’m in there for 10 minutes, I wash my hair in cold water, I don’t often have hot showers anymore. And it’s adding an ice bath as well, when I was living in Cape town early this year, and that was quite crazy, I mean I want to explore that further.

That’s really hard actually I’m not going to say even though I’ve been doing the breathing and having cold showers, actually submerging yourself in an ice bath, it really takes your breath away. So you know you’ve really got to find that inner space in yourself when you’re in that place.

Cold shower challenge So yeah I’d really encourage anyone is listening and I actually just ran it 20 day cold shower challenge on my Facebook groups and that was really cool, and loads of people are taking cold shower now because of that. I mean it boost your immune system you know, especially weirdly in the winter because you just lie on the cusp of having a cold a lot of the time, it must shock your immune system somehow but it boosts your immune system. So your immune system becomes powerful and I mean there is loads of scientific research on what else it does, it’s good for anti-aging as well and it wakes you up.

So I’ll do that in the morning, I come out and I make my bulletproof coffee and yeah it’s just the combination of the 2 is like….

Chloe: Ok, I’m going to try this, I did go through a phase of trying it and then I start to think why am I doing this to myself but you’ve inspired me to.

Jody: Breathing is key, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have the breathing technique down just take some deep breaths, regular breath, because the moment you stop as you know you’re like slapping the cold water on you yeah.

Healthy risks Chloe: Yeah, and I think aside from the immune system stuff, I’ve heard that doing something is a form of healthy risk where you’re doing something a bit challenging, you’re doing something outside of your comfort zone, you’re doing something that’s going to make the rest of your day easier, and gives you the motivation to do other things because you’ve done something so tough.

Getting out of your comfort zone Jody: That’s what my intention is, you just completely summed up in the most perfect way. That’s my intention this year, how can I inspire people to go out of their comfort zone. And Ok yes, they’re not going to want to jump out of a plane, they’re not necessarily going to… you know you guys listening are not going to want to go to the jungle and do plant medicine, you’re not necessarily going to want to go and you jump out of a plane, but what’s your version of that because like you just said so perfectly, it’s like if we can do one thing every day that sets the tone for the day and it’s like it kind of like pushes us everything else is like easy, yeah.

Chloe: Ok, so get on the cold showers everyone. We’re going to run out of time but I did really want to ask you about Plant medicine because I know that you’ve been… you talk about this in your book. You’ve been open about you know it played an important role in you know your spiritual awakening if you will. Can you speak a little bit about that and your experience with it?

Jody: Totally, so that you guys know, I’m sharing my story and you know you must feel whether it’s right for you to ever go and take it and I hate to say, I have rehearse this so many times, because of spoken about it so many times, you know I’m not taking any responsibility for you guys, feeling inspired and then going having it having an experience in the jungle it’s your experience to have.

Trying Ayahuasca However, I’m very very cool sharing my story, like it’s important. So yeah, I’m going to be brief because this is a story but you know 8 and a half years ago, I was traveling around South America and a friend told me about plant medicine and I ended up just kind of feeling very guided to just because book a place on this retreat and I was in Peru at the time, I went to this retreat, there was an amazing mix of people doing it with me and I didn’t know why I was doing it, I did no research which is typical me but I jumped into this experience feet 1st and I drank Ayahuasca 7 times in a 12 day period.

Now it’s a powerful psychoactive brew and Chloe knows a lot about this as well but it’s like it’s something that Indigenous people have been using for hundreds of years. And it’s a sacred way of transformation and healing, and it has the ability to open up your subconscious and make you face stuff that you haven’t faced yet in your life.

Struggling with addictions At the time I was struggling with Bulimia me, like it was really affecting me but I was going in complete denial and I have many other many other addictions going on as well and so I needed this experience, like I needed it but it wasn’t only to heal my addictions it was actually to show me that there was another way of having a career in doing great work in the world that wasn’t selling an ad campaigns to people.

After that experience, it completely changed my life and it took me years to fully understand that. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t complete and didn’t even meditate when I went to the jungle. I went from 0 to like a 100 in 12 days.

It was a complete slap around the face and a radical awakening and I was definitely not the same person when I came out by any means but it took me a few years to understand the experience, and changed my whole life, like no question. And what’s interesting about that is that I drank plant medicine again for the 1st time since I drank it the 1st time 8 and the half years ago now and I drank it last year. From what everyone shares this plant medicine gives you what you need.

Because you’ve just come out of a very powerful and intense experience as well, like it’s intense. I’m not going to sit here and say it’s amazing, it’s so easy, it’s a walk in the park, oh my gosh, all your visions are realized you know.

Chloe: It’s very intense. The jungle is alive in every sense of the experience, it very visceral really.

Ayahuasca experience Jody: Totally, like the 1st day I arrived in Peru in my experience I was walking along the jungle path, so went don’t move and a poisonous black fairy Caterpillar had landed on the back of my shirt, they had to go over to get like special things to get it off, they said if that would have stung you a bit in you’d probably be in like some kind of crazy shock. So it’s a dangerous place.

Chloe: Yeah, so yeah it’s not easy experience to go through, but listen, I’ve just interviewed one of the world expert on plant medicine, he is a psychologist doctor, who does a lot of research in psychedelics and he’s in the states, and he is tuned into plant medicine experimentation in science and medical studies at the moment. So there’s a lot of studying go on with the plant medicine and with Ayahuasca and with Iboga and other plant medicines that are available, there’s a lot of research going on at the moment and it’s really powerful, there are new laws being passed in the States, there is you know it’s going to be available to us but the thing that we need to understand is that you know it’s a limited resource, plant medicine is a limited resource.

It’s a plant but if people start wanting to do it, a lot of it and it will just be harvested, over harvested just like we’re seeing in the oceans with all the fish at the moment, so it will be over harvested. So what scientists are doing are recreating a synthetic version of it, and using it in scientific studies. So there’s a lot of really interesting research going on at the moment. So that excites me, it excites me to be able to connect with highly intuitive, highly wise shamanic indigenous people, in that way we are very privileged to be able to do that, because you know they don’t need to come and interact with us really. They’ve got a lot of good stuff going on the jungle but they’re coming out to help us to wake up to be more conscious. And I’m so grateful for that movement, it’s really powerful.

And yeah it’s still obviously very underground scene in the UK, and you know yeah it’s an interesting topic of conversation but I yeah I’m excited by it… I’m excited by it because of the ways it can be applied to combating mental health and helping war veterans you know, 30 to 40 war veterans in the States commit suicide every day because they’re not getting the help that they need. The opioids phenomen, there’s a documentary on Netflix right now called the Pharmacist, it’s very very interesting, there’s a huge huge problem in the States at the moment with opioids especially Oxycontin and Xanax and people are hooked on these narcotic painkillers, and they are overdosing left, right and center.

And the statistics of the amount of people, teenagers and young adults overdosing on this drug, I know it’s a legal drug but it’s a drug at the moment which is ridiculous. I don’t know what the statistics are in the UK but it’s crazy and certain kinds of plant medicine can help you get off that level of narcotic especially Iboga which I haven’t worked with, but it’s for me fascinating that these 2 worlds are coming together and with the intention of doing really good work. And I really hope that as a society globally we become conscious enough to allow these plant medicines more into our society. So that it can… they can continue to do the really really good work that they’re intended to do on the planet.

Chloe: Thank you so much for sharing that, it is such a fascinating topic. And yeah just really agree that I hope it becomes more and more available legally in a safe way with therapists. They are doing studies even in London which comes from mushrooms on depression and found they really can shift things to people, but yeah obviously I’m not saying go out and find some mushrooms.

Jody: Plant Medicine has to be administered very carefully. I mean Chloe and I talk about you know for the purposes of scientific research and medical studies.

Chloe: We could talk about extensively, but I’d love to put a wrap up and just ask you to share how people can find out more about you and what you’re working on at the moment and where they can get involved with what you’re doing?

Jody: Thank you so much, yes so my new positive daily habit is expansion. So I’m doing everything I can to adhere to that habit. And the podcast “be electric” is absolutely perfectly designed to support that and give you guys the knowledge to get involved in ways that hack your consciousness and help you expand more on an energetic level without the wo you know. And so the be electric podcast is out now. And I started this kind of thing is going to end up being a movement, it’s called fearless Friday and we started to invest a lot of energy and time into it as a team. So every Friday on the You Tube channel which we’re starting to build up and certainly Instagram, and to my database, every Friday I’m doing something that is sometimes a bit crazy and out there, but sometimes super normal and something that you guys could do, ways to push of a comfort zone.

So how can you be fearless and do things that expand your mind, so this fearless Friday, you can follow me on Instagram at Jody Shields, and you can head to the website Jodyshield.com.uk. And yeah we talked a lot about money in this podcast, so you can sign up to the toolkit for conscious business as I mentioned and you can get into understanding more about how I as a coach and yeah and that’s it. I’ve had such a great time with you today, thank you.

Chloe: Thank you. I feel really inspired, and thank you for everything you have shared.

Jody: You too.

Outro: Thank you so much for listening, I really hope that you gained a lot from this episode. Come on over to Instagram and let me know what are you taking from this episode, find me at Chloebrotheridge, and I would love it if you would leave me a review in the podcast app or on i-Tune, subscribe to the podcast, leave me a rating.

And is there someone in your life that will benefit from this podcast, you can let them know by sharing this podcast, I’ll be so so grateful. so I’m just wishing you a wonderful week ahead, sending you loads of love, hopefully you’ll tune in again, and I’ll see you soon.

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Jody Shield is a performance coach, author of best-selling self-help book “Self-Care For The Soul”, inspirational speaker, TEDx speaker and host of the “Be Electric” podcast. She likes to talk about money. I hope you can be inspired by Jody’s infectious positivity and confidence. We chat about: What it means to be ‘in flow’ Why […]

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In these uncertain times, many people are finding themselves working from home for the first time. If you’re not used to remote working, you may be finding it challenging to stay focused on your work.

Working from home doesn’t come naturally to everyone. If you thrive off being in a busy workplace or work best when you can bounce ideas off your coworkers, working from home may leave you feeling flat. Don’t worry; the simple tips shared in this blog will help you to become a whizz at remote working.

You might expect yourself to be more productive away from the daily interruptions of office life, but sadly, it doesn’t always work out that way. You may even find you’re interrupted more often thanks to emails, instant messaging and mobile phones. While it’s great technology makes remote working possible, there are downsides to this ease of contact.

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Here are some tips to help you stay focused and calm while working from home:

Stick to a routine Routine is important, and it will help you to stay productive during your working day. Yes, you could sleep till noon and make up the lost hours in the evening, but that will very quickly leave you feeling burnt out. Be sure to set your alarm and stick to your regular working hours.

If you’re finding this difficult, try arranging a meeting via video link for first thing in the morning. You’ll have to be dressed (at least you top half) and at your desk for the call, and then you’ll be ready for the rest of the day.

Set up a work zone Maybe you’re lucky enough to have a fully kitted out home office at the end of your garden, so you can shut yourself off from home life when it’s time work. Or, maybe you’re like millions of other people and are trying to work from a chaotic corner of your bedroom. Whatever your circumstances, it is possible to create a functional work zone where you will be able to work productively.

Your workplace needs to be comfortable and practical. If you’re not used to working from home, you may not have access to an office chair or a suitable desk, so you may need to get creative. An ironing board is an excellent alternative to a standing desk. Choose a spot where you will be comfortable and able to spread out your things. Yes, most work happens online now, but you will likely still have a to-do list and other bits of paper lying around.

Spend time setting up your work area and making sure you have everything you need handy. Ideally, you will have a workspace you can leave in place each night, though this may not always be possible. If you’re working at your family dining table, for example, you’ll probably need to tidy away your work things at the end of each day. There will likely be compromises ahead if your workspace is also your living space.

Make the most of your commute time Now that you’re working from home, you should have an extra chunk of time each day that you would previously have spent commuting. It might only be half an hour, or it could be a great deal more than that. Resist the temptation to work those extra hours each week, and instead take the time for yourself.

Exercise is a great way to lift your mood and focus your mind. Starting the day with a run or walk in the fresh air, or even a home workout in front of the TV can help set you up for a productive day ahead. You don’t need to get up any earlier than usual, claim your commute time as your exercise time. If your commute was previously your exercise time, you will quickly miss your daily cycle or walk, so be sure to keep it in your daily routine.

Take regular breaks Many people find that they take less frequent breaks when working from home. This can make you less productive because you aren’t getting the time away from your desk. Each time you finish a big task or feel your concentration waning, take five minutes away from your desk. Stretch your legs, make yourself a drink or spend five minutes soaking up the sun in your garden.

Be strict with yourself, so these breaks don’t become too frequent or too long but do prioritise breaks when you feel you need them. Taking your mind off work for five minutes can help you to refocus with a clearer mind when you sit back down at your desk (or ironing board).

Eat well This doesn’t sound relevant, but what you eat can impact how you feel about yourself and how productive you are. Working alone at home is the perfect cover for eating full packets of biscuits away from public scrutiny. However, this will leave you feeling pretty rubbish later in the day. It’s much wiser to take a proper lunch break and make yourself something healthy and nutritious to eat.

If you usually grab a takeout lunch near the office, then you may find it annoying to have to prepare your food. Take the stress out of this by planning in advance what you’re going to eat and making sure you have all the right ingredients. A nutritious lunch will give you the energy you need for a productive afternoon. Taking care of yourself is crucial, especially in the current climate. Take the time to prepare a decent lunch for yourself lovingly – you won’t regret it.

Stay social If your colleagues or more like friends than coworkers, you’re probably missing those daily chats around the watercooler. Working from home doesn’t have to be a solitary activity; there are plenty of ways to engage with your colleagues online as you work from home. Google Hangouts is an excellent tool for instant messaging and, of course, there’s always email. Video conferencing software, like Zoom, lets you see your coworkers while you chat, which is a great way to beat those isolation blues.

Be careful not to let these apps distract you from your work, however. Set aside a couple of minutes each hour for checking in with your coworkers. You could even set yourself social rewards when you meet your targets. For example, each time you tick something off your to-do list, you can reward yourself by sending an email to a friend. Most of us aren’t used to being home so much, so it’s important to connect with your friends to stave off loneliness.

Make the most of your evenings You started the day on time, so it’s vital to finish the day on time, too. Don’t get sucked into working right through until bedtime. Your evening is your time, and you deserve to enjoy it. Finish work on time and pack up your work stuff for the day. Then, the evening is all yours. Spend time with your loved ones, watch a movie or make something fancy for dinner. Do something you enjoy in your free time. Be sure to get an early night so you can wake up bright and early ready for another productive day tomorrow.

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The post 7 Ways to Stay Focused and Calm While Working from Home appeared first on Calmer you.

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In these uncertain times, many people are finding themselves working from home for the first time. If you’re not used to remote working, you may be finding it challenging to stay focused on your work. Working from home doesn’t come naturally to everyone. If you thrive off being in a busy workplace or work best […]

The post 7 Ways to Stay Focused and Calm While Working from Home appeared first on Calmer you.

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Nova Reid is an advocate for equality and was recently nominated as a Positive Role Model for race equality at the National Diversity Awards for the third year running.

She is a certified NLP Life Coach, with an extensive professional background in mental well-being and is a frequent mentor at the Women of the World Festival London. She is regularly invited to provide expert media commentary for BBC and Sky News on race and diversity matters.

I am taking her Anti-racism course and I highly recommend it.

We chat about: * Being the change you want to see in the world * Her anti-racism work * What are micro-aggressions * How our unconscious biases can cause harm, Nova Reid gets the courage to do the work she does and to be an ally

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Transcript Intro: Hello, and welcome to the Calmer-You podcast. This is your host Chloe Brotheridge, I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist and the author of “the anxiety solution, and brave new girl.” And this podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest, happiest, and most confident self. So in today’s episode, I am speaking to Nova Reid, she is an inspirational speaker, a diversity campaigner, and mentor. She’s an advocate for equality, I was recently nominated as a positive role model for race equality at the National diversity awards for the 3rd year running. She’s also a certified n.l.p. life coach, she has an extensive professional background in mental wellbeing, and she’s a frequent mentor at the women of the World Festival in London.

She’s also regularly invited to speak on BBC and Sky News on race and diversity matters, I have been learning so much from Nova, I am taking her anti-racism course, and I highly recommend that you check that out if you are inspired by this episode and want to learn more. I think she’s doing incredible work in the world and we can see topics such as how we can be the change that we want to see in the world.

We talk about her anti-racism work, and we get into what micro aggressions are, and why they can be so harmful. We talk about our own unconscious biases which we all have by the way and how we need to start to examine them so that we can overcome them.

And I ask Nova how she gets the courage to do the work that she does because she really is putting herself out there, doing incredibly brave work. We also get into how to be an ally and what exactly that is. So if you want to get some free resources to help you to become your calmest, happiest and most confident self, you can head over to my website, Calmeryou.com/free, into your e-mail address in there and I’ll send those resources straight away, so let’s get into the interview with Nova Reid.

Chloe: Welcome Nova, thanks so much for joining me today. How are you doing?

Nova Reid: I’m good, thank you for having me.

Chloe: I’m really looking forward to this conversation, can you just explain to people who maybe haven’t seen your work before, what it is you do and how you got to where you are today?

Be the change you want to see in the world

Nova Reid: I do so many things, I sometimes struggle to answer this question, but essentially I help people be the change that they want to see in the world and I do that through Anti-racism education, speaking, training organizations, and also a writer as well. So it’s a bit of a mixed bag but ultimately to help people be the change of that.

Chloe: Yeah because so many of us I think want to do that, but don’t really know how or don’t know how to get started, or it’s a very kind of inspiring idea to want to be that change.

So I came across your work because I was looking for somebody that teaches what you teach, and I was part of a mastermind with a group of American women who were very forward thinking and talking a lot about things like anti-racism work and white supremacy, and a lot of the people that they were referring to were American people and I was really looking for a super British person who I could learn about this topic from.

And then I saw you speak on the project love podcast, and I knew that you were the perfect person to learn about this from. Can you talk a bit more about your anti-racism work and what that is that maybe people who don’t really know much about that topic?

Nova Reid: Yes, so I am a woman who is black and I grew up in what was quite rural Hartfordshire, it’s changed now, I grew up in the eighty’s, so it’s a very different place and I realized from a really young age that I was different and I didn’t fit in but I didn’t know why until I was about 7 years old, and I became aware that I was black and became aware that I was different to the majority of people around me, including the characters I saw in books. the people on t.v, and so I guess that was the start of my story in this anti-racism journey.

Because feeling like I didn’t fit in, I felt like I didn’t belong, I experienced sort of covert racism and also been told to go back to my own country, having England flags waved at me, monkey chants, so much. And I struggled hugely with my self-esteem as a result of that and I had already learned at the age of 7 that my value as a human being somehow wasn’t the same as my white peers. And so that was kind of a threat that was present and every single life event became reoccurring.

So when I couldn’t find hairdressers who worked with afro hair, when I couldn’t… when I went to the acting industry and there was no makeup foundation for my skin type, and when I was older into my acting journey and doing dances well when we had a teacher, I would always remember his name Bill Drysdale, he used to dance with the Gene Kelly’s of this world saying credible but he wanted us to wear nude tights and we were about to do a performance a few days later and he said right I need you all in nude tight, flesh colored tights.

I remember being with my peers on stage, and I had to put my hand up to this man I found very intimidating anyway, and say there are no nude tights for my skin tone, and he fundamentally just didn’t get it. And he ends up shouting at me, and I remember being really embarrassed and humiliated and on the day of the show had to turn up and I wore black tights and so the same thing happened again, why are you wearing black tights – because there’s no nude tights, it was just these tiny little things.

These every day experiences of not being included that reinforce that my value as a black woman was not the same. And I think it was my wedding engagement that really spurred me on, it was the same thing I wanted make up inspiration I wanted hair inspiration I wanted to see what these beautiful wedding dresses would look like on my skin. And there was nothing, there was just this dark silence and at that point I was 30 years old and much more confident in myself not tolerating this anymore.

So I started a wedding blog initially, they just talked about that and my story resonated with other women and couples, and then that spiral to me sort of doing a diversity consultancy and then becoming the voice of inclusion in an industry that was very homogenous, that then led me to being invited to attend the royal wedding with Harry and Megan, and it just culminated in that really just having very honest and open conversations about race. And before that I worked in mental health, so I’ve always been an advocate for the underdog.

Chloe: And can we touch on the Harry and Meghan thing, I suppose that’s something that’s happening in the media recently.

Nova Reid: Oh yes.

Chloe: And I know on Instagram you talked about that, there are some posted videos about this. Can you share about what you’ve noticed about the response has been?

Nova Reid: I mean there’s so much, what in particular.

Chloe: Well I suppose a lot of people saying it’s it seems that Meghan has been on the receiving end of racism by the press, and a lot of other people saying no that’s not true and then kind of debate about this topic.

Racism is a form of trauma Nova: Yeah, so a lot of the work I do is about helping people to understand that racism is not an opinion. Racism is a form of trauma. So I then reframe it in other circumstances of trauma, do we find ourselves debating whether somebody has experienced trauma or not? And the answer is mostly probably not. But for me, it was evidence in the fact that when Harry and Meghan 1st started dating they were receiving racism and racial undertones from the press. Harry initiated a statement asking, calling for it to stop.

So the evidence is there. We forget is that racial discrimination and racism is learned behavior. It’s not something we’re born with. It’s a byproduct of existing and operating in a country that legalized slavery and oppression for over 400 years. That’s going to leave a residue on us.

Whether we don’t consciously think we are racist, we will have inherent racist programming and racial biases within us.

But that suppressed prejudice, that learned behavior hasn’t just gone away, it’s still there. It comes out in the behavior and it could be seen in some of the press articles, the comparisons of Meghan doing Comparative things to Kate and receiving abuse from it where Kate received praise. So these undertones that people are talking about that are harder to spot than ever.

Chloe: You know I think that’s one of the things I really took… I think it was in your Ted Talk were you actually talking about it’s not the Klu Klux Klan type racists are causing the most harm, it’s actually the micro questions in the smaller things that add up to a big difference, and actually that has a big effect on people’s mental health. Can you talk a little bit about that kind of?

Why I don’t do anti-racism work Nova Reid: Yeah, so it’s why I do anti-racism work because I think we’ve become accustomed to only as satiating racism with a single over that intentional and conscious act of hate. So when we start talking about racism now in modern… while I say modern terms, they are not modern, in wider terms People think that if it wasn’t conscious or intentional, that it’s not racism but actually racism exists as a system of oppression and so if we look at the definition of systemic racism, you will have a better understanding of what

I’m talking about so it’s the everyday discrimination, it’s the racial stereotypes it’s the assumptions that we make about people. Whether they’re successful or not, whether they might cause harm or not, whether they might be a criminal, when we think of knife crime, what’s the 1st image that comes to mind of a person holding a knife, what do they look like, what’s their race?

And it’s I’m picking those biases and seeking out whether they are truthful or not, or whether you’re just perpetuating a narrative that holds people back. So microaggression, is a form of every day discrimination and they mostly happen on a subconscious level but sometimes they’re also conscious.

And they are a way of making us… they’re a way of showcasing that somebody doesn’t quite fit in or somebody is… I’m from Britain, now where are you really from? Those types of things are micro aggression, wanting to touch somebody’s hair, they’ve got afro hair, can I touch your hair? Or just touching it, that’s micro aggression.

Chloe: So it’s those things that people are maybe unconsciously not even realizing that they’re causing harm?

Nova Reid: Yeah.

Chloe: And the fact… and you said you know you teach a lot about how the fact that we don’t examine our biases is perpetuating this.

Nova Reid: Yes.

Chloe: And I don’t know if it was you that said or I don’t know this is a so common saying that as white people we don’t recognize it because we just have grown up in this culture where that is this unconscious biases, you know we think of ourselves as good people. And we may well be good people but it means that we don’t then examine our unconscious biases.

Being part of the solution Nova Reid: Then nothing changes and I think that’s where we’ve got stuck. If we get stuck in one definition of racism which was 1st founded in 1902 or on the horrible people in the Ku Klux Klan, all these horrible far right groups, they’re bad people someone like me even remotely suggesting that we all have some form of racist programming within us as an unavoidable byproduct of being born into a system that legalized oppression.

We want to reject it, Well I’m not like that, no I’m going to reject that, I’m going to not listen to what you say. And it’s the not listening, it’s the defensiveness and it’s taking offense from that that prevents us from actually seeking to like oh my gosh, how am I… how can I help be part of the solution, I had no idea.

Right, now I know, what can I do to help? And the defensiveness and the denial in the offense gets in the way that she helping be part of change. And I think what makes micro aggressions so dangerous is… those tiny examples…

The reason why they are so damaging is because of the frequency, the consistency and the fact that they’re not addressed. They just keep happening over and over again every single day by well-meaning people who don’t generally know that they are contributing.

Chloe: Yeah, so it’s just someone or people constantly sending us messages that you don’t belong or something you know and it kind of cause a big difference. And then one of the things you mention in your course which I’m a member of is… and it is brilliant, thank you so much for making it. The Harvard implicit bias test.

Nova Reid: Yes.

Chloe: And you know can you explain what that is?

Nova Reid: I don’t want to give too much away.

Chloe: Yeah sure.

The Harvard implicit bias test Nova Reid: But I mean I can’t actually remember when The Harvard Implicit Bias test came out, it’s been around for years but it is a test that Harvard… it’s the most extensive test to explore what our abilities are and they are everything from exploring your racial biases right through to gender, class, and it’s an invitation for you to explore where your unknown biases might be.

There’s a series of tests you need to do and at the end of it, it gives you more information about where your biases might be. Bringing in your unconscious bias to the conscious means that you can actually do something to change it. If you have negative associations with people who are black as a result of doing this bias test, or people of a lower class than you, then that is an invitation that you need to reframe those negative programming you have with positive right?

Go and spend your time seeking out authors, seeking out experts who are from a lower class who are doing incredible things, who are elevating, who are… You know going to seek out doctors who are black, whatever it is, so that you start reprogramming that negative association with something that’s positive so then you’re not perpetuating these stereotypes, because it comes out in our behavior. I think that’s the thing, we think it doesn’t, but it does. Everything from who we want to work with, who want to promote who we fear, who we automatically trust who we undermine. Its effects every day communication.

Chloe: It’s reminding me of the work of Cullum Young, that says when we summarize things it comes out another way and we need to bring everything to the surface, to realize what we’re dealing with and then we can heal and then we can you know clean up our behavior on what we’re doing.

Nova Reid: Completely.

Chloe: But you know it is an interesting test. I’ve done it and it’s not a nice thing to admit that you have biases, and I know that a lot of people that start to look into this often kind of horrified when they realize that they have these racist thoughts, and it’s quite uncomfortable.

Nova Reid: Well, I would say yes, that means you’re listening. Also as a black woman, as somebody who is in the black and brown community it’s equally uncomfortable trying to navigate day to day life dealing with you being of it and you say you know it’s necessary for change, it’s necessary. We are not going to make change in our comfort zones, it’s just not possible.

Chloe: Yeah, absolutely yeah. And I think we need to be a brave enough to look at ourselves basically and do it because there was a quote, I’ve heard a quote, I don’t have if it’s your quote but your liberation is bound up with mine.

We all want the same thing Nova Reid: That one wasn’t mine but that’s a good one and you know. So yeah absolutely. The argument is ultimately we all want the same thing, we want peace, we want good health, we want happiness and joy in our lives. I mean we just want to be able to live in peace and in it if there is a group of people who are not able to do that, then that has a knock on effect because if I use it in terms of work if somebody is in a minority identity, so they are black or LGBTQ, and they are not given access to the same opportunities, they are the recipient of daily micro aggression, they are of ordered, they are made to feel like they don’t belong every single day.

That impacts what you bring to the table, that impacts your confidence, yourself esteem, creativity, innovation. And if that is stifled, then that has a knock on effect with the work, with your community, with how you engage with relationships. So if everybody is able to shine and be themselves and thrive. Ripple effect, I think the social climate is a great example of that. We’re not thriving right now and it has a knock on effect on the economy.

Chloe: That’s so interesting, I’m reading a book “a moment called The Spirit Level,” I can’t remember who it’s by, but it’s all about kind of inequality and talking about how when there’s more equality in a society, the whole society does better. The places with less equality don’t do well, so we need to all rise up together. How do you find the courage to do the work that you do because you know I’ve seen you put yourself out there, you know I imagine you come up against a lot of difficult opinions and that sort of thing.

Nova Reid: I do it, because I want to answer this in two part, I do it because I got so sick of being at the effect of race discrimination every day, either in micro aggression. I thought it is so intolerable for me, I need to be part of the change in some way. So I consciously chose to do something about it.

Before I started working for myself while I had quite eclectic career, I used to be an actress and singer which I think helps with the public speaking and having courage to stand and be visible. But after that I worked in mental health as a wellbeing caregiver for just under 10 years, and I was working… I also working in disability during that time and the 2 intersected obviously.

And during that time I had to go for a lot of self-interrogation and a lot of personal development to be able to do that role, to be able to hold space for people who were having suicidal thoughts, who are clinically depressed, or have bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, whatever it may be.

I was working with some very very vulnerable human beings, and so in order for me to support them and help them learn to manage and overcome periods of extreme illness I need to go through my own therapy. I needed to have clinical supervision every fortnight. And I was just like a sponge, I was just taking in a lot of stuff, and so part of the beginnings of psychotherapy training is a lot around boundaries. Managing your professional boundaries, making sure that you know if someone bring something up I’m not projecting my own stuff on to them.

Self-awareness So it’s a lot around self-awareness, and so I already did that work which I think gave me the foundation to hold difficult spaces, and also be present in difficult spaces. On the flip side of that I have regular breaks for self-care, I’m very self-aware.

So if I’m becoming fatigued I know I need to step back I have boundaries with my contact hours, and equally I have learned from learning the hard way, I have to be very selective with who I show up to do this work for. So it’s not for people that want to debate whether racism exists or not, I’m doing the work for those who already know that it exists and they know that they are complicit by silent default and actually what can I do to help.

Doing this work for those people who are in that space is an absolute joy, it also means the work is more effective and it’s like a ripple effect. You can see it working and how then having conversation with their peers, colleagues, family, partners, it has a knock-on effect.

Chloe: Yeah, wow and that is an interesting topic about having conversations with people. I’ve noticed it myself recently, it’s funny it’s like suddenly feels like a light, like a penny drop, something like I’m seeing things everywhere.

Nova Reid: Yes.

Chloe: And noticing… like I was talking to someone the other day about this and they were like oh doesn’t everyone experience that and I was like that’s exactly the thing. I mean you can probably explain this better, like I is this something that happens whereby people kind of minimize people’s experiences basically and just because of as white people we haven’t experienced it, so we think.

Nova: It doesn’t, because you haven’t… generalizing, because you haven’t experienced it yourself that it doesn’t exist and while because you haven’t experienced it doesn’t mean that it’s rife in this is a real issue and there are so many stats, data studies, race disparity, audit quality that we’ve got all of this data that’s been collected for years, and nothing’s changed because what happens when we try to bring up incidences of racism is that it’s minimized.

Your gasless, you may to believe that you’re being oversensitive that it’s all in your head. When actually we’ve already got the data that shows the impact of not resolving this, and there was a study I think I mentioned in my ted talk that came out I think a week before my ted talk, I was like alright great this is going in the talk by The American Academy of Pediatrics I think, and they were talking about…

So there were lots of studies at beginning of this year actually and also it was the end of last year showing how racism in primary schools is increasing. Problematic, we’re teaching our behavior to our children. And that actually if we care about a world where our children are healthy and happy we actually need to intentionally take steps to address racism when it is brought up rather than minimizing it, explaining in a way when it wasn’t racism, it was this it with everything else but racism because it’s easier for it to be everything else it’s less painful for it to be everything else and meanwhile it just continues.

Chloe: And so does that happen because we don’t want to admit that we have these biases and so we suppress that, and they can’t be that or is that what happens?

‘White fragility’ Nova Reid: I don’t know how in depth you want go, there is a concept called “White fragility,” by a sociologist and author called Dr. Robin D’Angelo, and she’s a white lady and she was a diversity and inclusion trainer for over 25 years. And she started noticing when she was going into organizations, and teaching about equality and teaching about racism, that she would receive the same defensive responses from the white people who were in the room. So much so she could start to predict patterns of behavior, so she went away and did research and studies on this. And so it’s an element of defensiveness, there is… we’ve never… we don’t…

So I say I as a black person who was raised to talk about race comfortably, I can say the word black, brown, white without any attachment to it, and just use them as descriptive words. So many of my white peers were taught not to even see color so that’s coming from 2 different starting points, so if you were taught not to even see color that means by default you’re not recognizing the way that discrimination exists and the way that it’s impacted by it.

One, is because it’s not your lived experience but 2 because you’re choosing not to see it because you’ve been taught that by seeing it and by focusing on it is a bad thing when actually it’s very necessary like with any condition, like with gender inequality, and with trying to find a cure for cancer, we don’t solve the problem by not shining a spotlight on it. In fact that’s what we need to do 1st before we can really do understand what we’re dealing with and we don’t do that with race, we don’t talk about it.

Chloe: So if we’re… if people are thinking that it’s a good thing to say I don’t see color but actually, there are these unconscious things or you know suppressed biases and thoughts and beliefs then things is going to continue as they are?

Nova Reid: Yes, and also it’s untruthful, of course you see color. Even there was a study done on people who were blind and even they hold racism, it’s fascinating. So it fundamentally doesn’t make sense but yeah it’s a common way for some white peers to have been raised.

Chloe: You know it’s very interesting, if people are thinking that they want to learn more about this and educate themselves more or be the change are there things that you tend to suggest people do 1st?

White supremacy challenge Nova Reid: Not prescriptively. Generally speaking people who find my work have already had some kind of awakening, they’ve read Reni Edge Lottie’s book, “why I’m no longer talking about race,”. Some people found to doing Lala Saeed’s with me and my white supremacy challenge which has just come out as a book. Other people are just curious because they want to raise socially conscious children. Whether they’re raising white children or mixed heritage children, or black children, I don’t want them repeating the same generational cycles that we have continued to repeat for centuries.

And so how do I stop it? I don’t want to pass things that I’ve not dare to uncover on to my children. So how can I raise them to be a kind-hearted human being?

So I often find that a lot of the people who comes to my work are mostly women, mothers but not exclusively, who want to raise socially conscious children who are open and kind hearted and can help be great allies for people who are in minority identities.

Chloe: Ok.

Nova Reid: Yeah, so that is often a motivator as well. But generally speaking, they would have come either by following somebody on Instagram and having conversations or reading, they would have done a little bit of reading before they come to me.

Chloe: And you mentioned being an ally there. Can you explain what it means to be an ally if you haven’t heard that even before, what would you describe that as?

Nova Reid: I might flip that around. Can I ask you that question?

Chloe: So I would say it was someone that is educating themselves, looking at themselves, and then being alert to how they can play a role in starting to change things.

Priviledge Nova Reid: Yeah it supporting, it’s being… it’s just waking up, it’s being aware of how our lives are compounding our difference because of the society to privileges that some groups of people will have based purely on who they are and how they were born and there’s no blame there.

It’s just facts. White privilege is a term that was founded on a 40-year study by somebody who Theodore Allen. He as an academic and also an activist in civil rights movement. He did this huge in-depth research that found out that it was originally white skin privilege, that people who were white were getting more societal access and more society a privilege under the same social economic circumstances than people who are people of colour.

And that was done over 40 years ago. It’s recognizing that as a result of having white skin and living in a white majority country, you’re not compounded by, you’re not impacted by racism, you’re impacted by systemic discrimination because the color of your skin or your name.

The same way as an able bodied person I have automatic have privileges because I can travel freely without having to worry about whether my Wheel chair can literally physically fit through a door because there are so many buildings that are not wheel chair accessible.

Also those are the kinds of things that I talk about when I talk about privilege. Being an ally is recognizing that those things exist. In order for a group of people to be continuously systemically oppressed and disadvantaged, it means a group of people have to be advantaged and that’s the component we don’t look at.

And an ally is aware of what the advantages are and also see the disadvantages, so they can help communicate and be part of change, and help in helping other people understand.

Chloe: Yeah, I suppose it’s something that when you’re white you don’t think about. You just take it for granted. It’s so many things that we take for granted. You mentioned before the hair dressers and people not questioning where you’re from and that sort of thing.

And then when you start to learn about it more you realize what other people have to deal with. Makes you realize… I suppose people can get defensive about that, can’t they? I think they might say that I’m white but I grew up on a council estate home, I’m privileged. And that’s a separate thing, isn’t it?

Privilege Nova Reid: It’s a separate thing, so the word privilege is quite loaded. I also think we’ve got huge issues with class in the UK that have not been addressed either. You hear the Word privilege and you automatically think wealth or greed.

You can be somebody who lives on a council estate in a working class background who is white and receives discrimination because of that, but you won’t see racism on top of it. That’s what we’re talking about and what the studies are showing

Chloe: You know I’m wondering about this is if it’s something we need to get better as human beings in general, but being Ok with kind of being criticized or being afraid of being wrong without taking it so personally in a way, instead of looking at the thing in itself and being able to work through it and kind of listen to that rather than becoming offend defensively and going on an attack.

Are you listening? Nova Reid: I think it’s key and I talk about it a lot. And there is sort of anti-racism where there are… The quickest form of defense is to go on the attack, so then we’re just attacking, no one’s listening.

We’ve not been able to hold conversations, interracial conversations. So I can talk about this stuff with my black and brown colleagues till the cows come home.

I’ve only started really talking to my white friends about this stuff in the past 18 months to 2 years. Because then we get to a point where we can start hearing somebody’s pain or trauma and validating that experience. That is a key components healing, I think all of this generally is about mass healing. We need it desperately. And that starts with a desire to be comfortable and then deeply deeply listen.

Chloe: Yes, it’s interesting what you said about a friends because I was hearing from someone, a black woman, he said that she could never really connect with a white friend and there was always this thing that they… and it felt weird to her, she wanted to connect more but she felt like she couldn’t completely kind of be herself, as opposed to little things that were going on for her.

Loosing my fear Nova Reid: It’s really common. It’s meant that some relationships have not survived. Especially as I’ve leaned more into anti-racism work. I’m now being myself and not feeling frightened about having these conversations as I did before. It makes some people extremely uncomfortable. If I can’t be myself around you then that’s not good for my mental health.

It’s very much about being able to be who you are. For so many ways the black community in the UK had been taught to assimilate as a form of survival. Keep your head down and don’t say anything, be grateful.

Chloe: Is there anything else that you think is important for people to know that you want to share as like a final point about your work and what people can do maybe to start their journey into this? Maybe you can share about your courses and things like that.

Nova Reid: Well, I think as a society are on the cusp of change. We’re all feeling the discomfort of an uncertain political climate.

We need people to help bridge the gap to understand more and to help us because racism is a form of trauma, and I think if anyone is consciously aware of that. I strongly urge that they engage in anti-racism work, it’s not about being a good or bad person it’s about being someone who wants to be part of a very very powerful and necessarily solution.

Tedx Talk So yeah I have a have a Tedx talk about what might be a good starting point, not all superhero heroes wear capes and have a listen to that, have a look at that. And I also have a online anti-racism course which you’re doing Chloe where we can just go deep and wide with understanding who we are self interrogation, self exploration, and also understanding more of the context about why this stuff is happening now and what we can do you because I often think people feel like ending racism is this big thing that is too overwhelming.

Actually there are tiny things we can do on every day that don’t have to be confrontational, that can be really really helpful and healing and strategic if we just have a desire.

So it’s an online anti-racism course, and I’ve just launched a courageous courage, which is for people who are starting their journeys being an ally but feel really uncomfortable about having conversations, calling people in, having conversations with family and so it’s figuring out how to do that without triggering some kind of anxiety attack, so that you can be effective in your allyship as well because it does take courage this work, absolutely takes courage. Yes.

Chloe: I think that’s so relevant for myself and probably people listening. A lot of people that do listen to this who are kind of people pleasers and are scared of… so scared of saying the wrong thing, but also want to help but would let that fear hold them back and I think knowing, you know educating yourself is it’s kind of the 1st step in listening.

Nova Reid: It’s key, and I know fear feels huge and it can feel like it’s all consuming. But your fear is not bigger than being a part of the solution to end racism and trauma.

It’s temporary, it will dissipate and the more you do this the more you understand the easier it becomes, because when you come up with a challenge, you have the data, you have the stats you have the facts, and that can back up all humans and then it feels less like a confrontation and more like a conversation and for me that’s where change happens where you’re not blaming or attacking anyone for their views you’re just helping them why did their understanding which generally changes their behavior.

How to reach Nova Chloe: And yeah just to reiterate that people should watch your ted talk. It’s really moving and inspiring. Your course is really interesting, and lots of videos where you’re talking about the history, case studies and experiences. It really gives you this kind of an understanding of the whole situation I guess and how we can start to change things.

Nova Reid: Thank you, and thank you for being part of it as well because that in itself takes courage. So I knowledge that, yeah, we need more allies.

Chloe: And in your Instagram is that your name?

Nova Reid: Yes, my Instagram is Nova Reid official R-E-I-D, and I’m mostly on there. My website is novareid.com as well to see a full range of some of the services I offer.

Chloe: Amazing, thank you so much for speaking to me, and thanks for everything that you do.

Nova Reid: A pleasure, thank you for having me.

Outro Thank you so much for listening, I really hope that you gained a lot from this episode. Come on over to Instagram and let me know what are you taking from this episode, find me at Chloebrotheridge, and I would love it if you would leave me a review in the podcast app or on i-Tune, subscribe to the podcast, leave me a rating.

And is there someone in your life that will benefit from this podcast, you can let them know by sharing this podcast, I’ll be so so grateful. so I’m just wishing you a wonderful week ahead, sending you loads of love, hopefully you’ll tune in again, and I’ll see you soon.

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Nova Reid is an advocate for equality and was recently nominated as a Positive Role Model for race equality at the National Diversity Awards for the third year running. She is a certified NLP Life Coach, with an extensive professional background in mental well-being and is a frequent mentor at the Women of the World […]

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Tony Riddle, otherwise known as the natural lifestylist, joined me on the Calmer You Podcast for a very in-depth and inspiring conversation. I think you are going to really find this episode quite fascinating and mind-blowing.

We chat about: * The link between being disconnected from nature and depression and anxiety. * Re-wilding ourselves – what can we do at work, home and on daily life to re-wild. * Practical tips on everything from the plants to have in your house to clean the air to how to sleep better.

Tony Riddle offers Natural Lifestyle Coaching – find out more here.

• Tunes: https://apple.co/2mhhwoG
• Spotify:https://spoti.fi/2nIETYt
• Website: https://bit.ly/2HuaZAk

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Transcript Hello and welcome to the Calmer You Podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution and Brave New Girl. And this podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest, happiest and most confident self.

Chloe Brotheridge: Today, I’m speaking to the incredibly interesting Tony Riddell, a.k.a. The Naturallife Stylist. Tony is a natural lifestyle coach and he’s spent the last 18 years developing and refining a robust way of life based on the principles of a natural lifestyle. Central to his continuing exploration is the question, “What makes the human animal successful in the modern world?”

We have a really interesting discussion all about the links between our disconnection from nature and the levels of depression and anxiety that we experience.

Tony teaches us how we can re-wild ourselves, what we can do at work, at home and in our daily lives to connect back to nature and gain all the health and mental well-being benefits of doing that.

In this episode And he shares loads of practical tips on everything from the plants that you need to have in your house to clean the air, to how to sleep better, to how to squat better and so much more.

I think you are going to really find this episode quite fascinating and mind-blowing. So, let’s get into the interview with Tony Riddle.

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Welcome Tony Riddle Chloe: Welcome, Tony. Thank you so much for joining me. How are you today?

Tony Riddle: I’ve been great. Thanks for inviting me in. Brilliant, I’m going to have a great day, actually. It been lots of nature today. So, I just literally arrived from Hampstead Ponds now; down cold deep in the icy water. Yeah.

Chloe: Sounds energizing.

Tony Riddle: Yeah, epic stuff.

Chloe: I’d love to hear from you, and for people who don’t know who you are, what you do. What is it that you do and how do you help people and what’s been your journey to get to where you are today?

Meet Tony Riddle Tony: Wow, it’s a big one, isn’t it? Hi, my name is Tony Riddle. I’m also known as a.k.a the Natural Life Stylist. What does that mean? Well, before that, it’s essentially just re-wilding humans; introducing them to ways of living that are more in sync with human biology. And then bringing that forward into everyday environments to enable us to thrive, not just survive.

And what I mean by that is most of us are just surviving; we don’t even realize it. What we’ve normalized; the anxiety, myriads of different diseases, 100 different autoimmune diseases, it’s just become normalized. How do we get through that and how do we see through it? And for me, it’s always been looking at nature to have the answers. Well, nature’s the cure, I’d say.

And the more and more I went deeper, I went into that, the more you can see that these natural beings of the world just don’t have, sometimes, even words for what we have. Like insomnia, there’s no word for it in some of the tribes that I’ve visited. They have no connection to it.

Finding connection For me, it was always about, yeah, how do I find that connection? It wasn’t really resonating with people; they couldn’t really relate to it. It’s partly because we were using language like “zoo humans” and “wild humans”; it sounds great, romantic, but people didn’t really relate to the wild human. And they also didn’t like the fact thy were to be called a zoo human, let’s say.

So, somewhere in the mix, I was approached by an editor from the style magazine, Sunday Times Star Magazine. And she was writing a piece on six best coaches. So, my ego’s like, “Ooh, six best coaches. Yeah, I’d love to do that.”

And so, we sit down, we start chatting and then she says, “Okay, I was expecting it to be really about movement” because she could see that there was an influence through natural movement with me and a lot of my clients.

Finding a natural lifestyle And then as I start to expand on the whole philosophy, it was not just about finding natural ways of moving, it was finding natural ways of sleeping, natural ways of digesting, natural ways of eating, natural ways of breathing. And then the social community and the spiritual context; what it was to be a natural being.

I was like, “Okay, this is much bigger. How about we do a full feature on it? This could be two pages.” And then that became like the naturalized stylist; it was obvious for me after that.

And then, all of a sudden, it was like waking up the next day and things just exploding because it’s suddenly relatable, I guess.

So, that’s kind of where it is at now and that’s kind of where I am this part of the journey. I mean, leading up to that, yeah, it’s been huge. It’s been a huge journey; it’s the unravelling of Tony, I guess. Allow me to sit here as Tony 2.0, I call him, you know.

Tony 1.0 I had an upbringing in a village that was kind of a concrete existence, so let’s say. And punctuated in amongst that, there was a little piece of nature that us kids went to. And maybe an hour or so a week, but it was a moment to express kind of our physicality and connect to something deeper, I guess. You know, partly we could just kick our shoes off and climb trees and play in the streams and then suddenly it was back into the concrete existence like everyone else’s experience, as in overnight.

And TV and sitting in front of the box, just having that kind of social experience at the very beginning, that was kind of the template. ADHD, yeah, dyslexia, you could throw a lot into the mix, really. And it’s really just this craving for being outside. I’d sit in a classroom, like tapping, looking out the window with really, this huge desire to need to move.

And then had such a terrible education; it was like one of the worst, I think. And then found myself in the army later on, partly to avoid the drugs and the alcohol and the crime that was basically just normalised within my social group and it was a form of escapism.

Military life

I found myself in the military and I spent three and a half years, really. Again, I guess going back to that one hour, expressing my physicality as a young boy out in nature that punctuated in amongst my week, I now had that in the army; I could really express that.

But then eventually, it just got to a point where I just found myself a bit lost, even in the military. And then unfortunately, found myself dropping back into the same social patterns as what I’ve been trying to escape.

Help arrived And then someone saved me. They said, “Well, have you thought about personal training? Maybe I can set you up.”

So, that was the next step for me. And it kind of already I could feel, “Ah, this is for me.” So, already, I was exploring that. And then I had a position in a personal training, which was my first person training position.

Fortunately, I walked into a place that didn’t have gym equipment, no resistance machines; it was just a studio. So, you had to really learn your craft. And the people that were in there were mainly 40-something women. Their husbands were commuting into the city in the and they had absolutely no interest in what the current paradigm, probably a personal training was, which is a little bit sabotaged by bodybuilding and fitness models.

And so, it became about more course stability. It was just the new language I was learning and I discovered Pilates. And then from Pilates, I then, skipping forward a few years, found myself in my own Pilate studio, one-on-ones and just joint sessions.

Growing the practice And then I took on a bigger practice. I had like six practitioners working for me; all equipment based, loved the original philosophy. It made perfect sense to me. And there’s images of Joseph Pilates. He’s a middleweight professional boxer, lost an eye in a fight, gymnast, circus performer; stuff that people didn’t really know about him. Even his cold immersion images, images of him in his pant standing in the snow, you know.

So, there was something really — I was intrigued by it, you know. So, I started to look deeper into that. And I found his original system that was called Controlology. There was crawling patterns and more about body weight and understanding where weight should be, even when you’re standing. And it was a very different terminologies, a very different language at that point.

Then I was involved with a company called Wild Fitness. They were taking zoo humans and turning them into wild humans, except they were still teaching the current paradigm of personal training, but just in nature.

Mentors At that point, another great mentor of mine, Nicholas Romanov, walked in and he helped me understand a specific posture that everyone walks into; when they’re running, when you’re climbing, any particular movement pattern, you could observe it through his method called The Pose, which was — there’s a skill and it has a technique in mind and a physiology to it.

Lifestyle symptoms And suddenly, I looked at my Pilates practice with that filter and I was like, “Oh, my God. People are just coming in with symptoms from a lifestyle. I’m just giving them symptom relief, not going to the cause. YI’m teaching them to lie down and move around on a piece of equipment, unravel the tension and their compromised body from their everyday lifestyle. What creates that?”

And it was like, “Wow. Okay, the obvious things are their footwear was one and then it was the chair. Okay, sitting; sedentary lifestyle.” So, then if it was all about the money, I could’ve just kept inviting them in and just dealing with the same situation; oh, it’s just hips and it’s just feet and it’s something that you can just correct their posture.

But I started to look at there must be more natural system or natural way of moving. And so, another mentor, Irwin Nicole, he has a system called Move Nat, which is about observing certain movement patterns that we all carry out in nature. It’s based on George {indistinct 12:57} work.

Studying movement patterns George {indistinct 12:58} was like a French Marine officer in the 1800s and studied all indigenous populations and realised that they had these incredible physicality; ability to move. And just compared to his own Marines, could just outperform, let’s say. And what is it they’re doing differently?

That’s kind of where the military assault course came from that; that’s the origins of it. They’re observing they all could balance, run, lift, carry, throw, defend, swim, jump. There was just the whole protocol to it.

So, Irwin’s work was very much like that. But I could then apply Nicholas’ pose method to that. So, then I could see the appropriate pose and what was needed.

So, what was happening was instead of taking what wild fitness would have called zoo humans and putting them through this exercise program and expecting a natural outcome, I had to take them back, so they understood the appropriate postures and techniques within those disciplines first, and then their physiology would start to adapt to it.

Opening a pilate studio And from there I opened up a gym. I closed my Pilate studio. It felt very much like being a fraud, having that. Again, you could carry on, on that path, and just give people symptoms really.

So, we used to joke and it was like we called it movement therapy, but it was more like movement and therapy, where people would come down, they’d lie on the reformer and they were doing a series of exercises, but they’d also be telling you about their problems, you’d see.

“Okay, it’s still lifestyle. There’s something in there. What is it there? What are the symptoms and what’s the cause?” that’s going into the cause?

I started with movement; that was the very first layer that really. Really just honing a movement practice that was natural to people in a gym facility. Three of us opened that practice with different influences.

Barefoot running kind of came through with a book called Born to Run. That blew things up for us. And we got involved with the barefoot brand who are now what we called Viva Barefoot. That meant I could then look at the way the feet were behaving, have them performed naturally, but in an urban environment. They had some kind of protection. And then we understood there were particular postures and protocols that we could get people to just become more efficient as movers.

Wild Fitness Retreat Then eventually, the philosophy started to open up and I piloted the first Wild Fitness Retreat out of the Isle of Wight. That was an opportunity to bring more in; more of this natural movement, rather than a modern day exercise into a natural habitat. There was more availability around sleep, more discussions around sleep and then the core philosophy.

Two other people I set that business up, jumped ship. They moved out of the gym facility. And then something made me stay. I think it was the ego. And also, I had my father’s influence; he had a business and I watched him literally, just everything went in the business and we very rarely saw him. He’s home on like Sundays, if we were lucky.

The turning point And we just watched it unravel; pretty much lost everything in that process, I guess, including him a little. And something inside me; I felt like I was playing out the same pattern. And I’d stayed in the business far too long, trying to support it with my own means in the end, because we’d lost to other directors in the sense.

And then I was holding a big workshop, and this is the turning point for me. And people have come over from all over, standing in a room, and I’m there preaching about a philosophy about zoo humans and wild humans and living naturally.

Imposter syndrome And a tube train kind of went past the building and in that moment it, just shook the doors of the building. And I was like, “Oh, my God.” I was like, “Again, that message on the fraud; I’m standing here teaching people about how to live a natural lifestyle in an urban setting.

Yet, I’ve just worked 16 hours yesterday. I’ve had no sleep. My diet’s a mess. My skin’s a mess. I’m completely fatigued and on the borderline of adrenal fatigue, not happy and probably depressed at this point.”

And it was just the moment. And I’d gone bankrupt to live through a week after that whole thing. Just let it go. And so, everything I’d figured, I’d managed to just unravel within a week. The fear of, “Oh, what if I lose the business”, the fear of what people would think, the shame, the guilt.

Tony 2.0 And out of that adversity, suddenly, Tony 2.0, and it was just — I think that was the adversity I needed at that time was the closure of a business that I’ve been deeply holding on to.

I then went off on a bit of a journey and it was how do you rebuild yourself? Luckily, I had a very supportive wife and kids at that stage that were just, “Take as much time as you do.”

Protocols Breath work came in for me first; meditation. And then, of course, I had all the information, I had all the knowledge; it was just now I had to experience and put it into practice. Instead of just standing there in front of an audience, telling them how they should be using these protocols, it was like, “Ah, I’m the man in the audience and this is what I need to be doing.”

I guess I had to experience it and then out of that, of course, you can have the wisdom, you have the knowledge and then you have to really experience it. And I think unless you’ve gone through real anxiety and if you’ve gone through depression, as you’ve gone through break downs and then you see them as breakthroughs. For me, that was the real turning point. And I guess people could relate to that.

Again, it was like, “I’ve been there. I know it feels rubbish. But I also know you have everything inside of you.” To turn it around and be the change and then be an example to others.

Running barefoot And then more recently, I undertook an event where I decided I wanted to show human potential and human physicality. And so, I chose to run from Land’s End to John Groves, which I did barefoot.

Why barefoot? Well, because it kind of, you know, people can’t relate to it. They start with a , “Wow.” But it gets that initial “Wow. That’s sounds fascinating. I’m just going to go and run the length for the UK, but I’m going to do it barefoot.”

So, really raise that socially extreme eyebrow and created a platform. And with that platform, it meant I could raise awareness for a bigger picture. My whole theme is around living a natural lifestyle and reconnecting people to nature and this was the real opportunity for that.

Well, here’s what we can do. We can run barefoot; that’s natural. We should be able to get up and run each day; that’s also natural. But where’s the stage for this? Well, it’s nature. How do we do that? It was then an opportunity to raise funds for six organizations and then interview sustainability experts along the route.

That was the plan with this idea that we — I mean, there’s so much around the environment and sustainability now, isn’t there? Lots of people even striking in the streets. But it’s how many of those people are actually out in nature and connecting to it and really understanding what it is they’re trying to save? Because I can’t relate to and I can’t connect to it, what chance do I have of saving something if I’m not immersed in it?

Becomming nature From that kind of experience, it meant that even towards the end of the run, I felt I’d literally just become nature at one point. I was out there for so long in this meditation state of running, which I then called the pilgrimage.

For me, it was like an opportunity to come back with, “Wow, this is incredible. If we’re really out there for that long, you understand how precise it all is. And it’s all happening for you.” There were just people that would appear on the route exactly when I need them, when I felt most broken or someone that had to open a road for me, it just happens this guy was there, “By the way, just to let you know, I’ve opened the road up for you.”

But usually, we’re so cluttered up with information or I have to be at this meeting or this appointment at this time. We miss those cues, those subtle nudges. But this on this adventures, I had an opportunity to really tune into it.

And then I faced adversity even on that; I had a bad injury towards the end of it. I’d managed to sprain an ankle, leaping over something in a stream, and I couldn’t even load my left foot at that stage; it was completely swollen. Really just brutal, brutal injury to get, right at the end, when you’ve got three days left to complete 30 miles a day for 30 days. That was the timeframe I’d given myself.

Pain cave I then went through all the protocols I’d learn again. For me, it was another adversity. Now, I have this kind of cave; I call it the pain cave. You’re much stronger than I am and can choose to go out into the light or stay in the darkness at the back of the cave; out in that light or back in the cave. I can only see the back of the cave. So, what are you going to choose?”

And in that moment, I was just, “It’s enough for me.” And it flipped a switch that enabled me to get my thoughts from being a victim, “Oh, no. I’m not going to be able to run. I would not be able to complete this thing” to “I’m healing.”

And it’s in instances like that the adversity begin; you realize that it’s all perception. It’s just literally perception; it’s the perception of a moment and we are just the vessel.

And the mind is incredible, really, if you really want to go in there and unravel it and just see what’s available. Human potential is way beyond what I’d expected and my expectation going into the run. Again, that was really about the physical self, but it came out as, “Oh my God, the mind is — we’re just incredible beings”, if we really let it go. So, that’s a bit of a waffle.

Chloe: No, that’s so interesting. So, this pain cave, was that something that spontaneously came to you? Is that a practice that you returned back to or what was that?

The cave Tony Riddle: It’s something I go back to. In training sometimes, if I was pushing it in training, of course, you get to the point where you feel like you’re completely fatigued. And that’s the cave. You know, you have to basically somehow get yourself out of there to face the next session.

But again, I look at that through stuff I’ve had in the past when it’s been right down depression, anxiety, anything that was flagged up in the past. It’s the same thing; it’s just a matter of I have to go into the cave.

And most of us are just fearful of going there. And I think you have to go there; that’s where the deepest lessons are. We’re so fearful of anxiety. We’re so fearful of depression. But at times, that’s where the most valuable lessons are. And we come out of a much stronger being. But it’s having the tools and the skills to get out of the cave. That’s what I’ve learned now. You know, because we’ll go in there.

Again, like I was talking about the ponds, that’s a mini hit of adversity for me. And I take a lot of people through that process or into the cold or into ice. And when they first arrive, you can see they’re really, really anxious. That’s the pain cave for them; about to go into the cave.

How to down-regulate And so, one of the tools we can be using to be able to enter that and to down regulate and to see the adversity differently; that it’s a challenge that it might create. We very rarely have real adversity. Some of it is myself manufactured in a way. I’ve got a few emails on here that I know I have to deal with today. I can already feel I’m a little bit up-regulated going into them. What do I do about that? Do I mean, do I stay up-regulated or do I use methods to down regulate, so I see it differently?

What I mean about seeing it differently? You know, we revert back to our earliest traumas, the moment where stressed out. It’s like the stuff that’s happened in the first early years, let’s say, is what plays out for the rest of our life; it’s like the templates. Up until the age of seven, let’s say, those recordings that have occurred in those earliest years are what we play out for the rest of our lives. They’re out templates that we’ve inherited through our tribes of influence or whoever.

Subconscious patterns And the moment we’re really up-regulated, we start to go back into, say, the 3-year old or the 4-year old or the 6-year old. It comes up. We don’t know that, because it’s just what we operate at. It’s like a subconscious pattern that comes up.

So, do I want to answer my email in that mind-set or do I want to get rid of the imposter and start to become the authentic self again? That’s what I learn within it; within the practices like breath work is an incredible modality, just for flipping that switch of perception to get you out of the cave immediately so you can become the authentic self again, answering the email rather than the imposter stressed out urbanite who is up-regulated in a sense, that might not be giving the right response.

And we can all relate to that; that’s an email. That can even be a phone call. And as a parent, it’s like, if you’ve got chaos going on around the home and you maybe need to get an email done and the kids are going crazy. Is it the kids are going crazy or is it just your perception of the kids going crazy?

And the moment you step back from that and again, you go and have a chat with the bear and he gives you some advice on, “Well, here’s some breathing technique can be doing” or “At least stare at some nature” and these amazing studies of what can happen just by immersing in nature for 20 minutes.

Forest bathing So, in Japan, it’s like they took 260 individuals, study them in 24 areas. And within 20 minutes, each one of those individuals has a 13.4 percent drop in their cortisol; their blood pressure and heart rate dropped and they’d return back to their parasympathetic rest-and-digest. So, away from their sympathetic fight-and-flight; that’s every one of those participants. So, if we think of that, that’s dropping them into that authentic self again.

But we can’t all do that in the office or say in this environment now, I might be really up-regulated. What do we do before we started? I’ve just come off the tube. We certainly breathe for 3 minutes before you start and it’s just would define you within the chaos again.

So, that’s the cave for me really. Yeah, it’s always with us. And it’s just finding ways; how can I get myself out with that experience?

Chloe: And when you talk about breath work, what does that mean to you and others and are there certain practises that people can be trying today to help themselves?

Breathwork Tony Riddle: Yeah, there’s really simple techniques. It depends on where you are in the day. There’s breath gurus out there. I’ll make it really simple and I maybe put a few of them in here.

A guy, I work with. He’s an amazing breath coach. Alan Dolan, he’s known as the breath guru. They work with some systems like Transformational Breath. Some work with Hoff’s work and down regulating breath.

And then there’s really simple access, which is someone that we worked with, which is Eddie Stern’s app. And it’s just a breathing app you can download. And with that, rather than you having to count about breath, it just has a sound in the background. And you follow the sound with your breath and you can just go off. It’s like the entry into meditation, you can find through that; just the simple breathing app.

Down regulating the breath So, down regulating breath means that you’re dropping yourself into parasympathetic, which is rest-and-digest. It’s a more restful state, heart rate, blood pressure drop, saliva will come up because your rest-and-digest digestion.

And then we have kind of up regulating breath, which is about becoming more alert. If it’s says, 3 o’clock, 3:30, usually for me, I might feel like, “Just a little bit, I’m dropping a bit here. What can I do? I could go smash the caffeine or I could up regulate my breath.”

Then I choose more of a charging breath; it’s more of a {deep breath}. 10 cycles is enough just to make you alert; just that. As simple as that. And then just expand on that, if you only do 30 breaths or whatever. It can feel a little bit tingly from that sometimes, just because you’re playing with oxygen, carbon dioxide levels.

We also use things like breath hold, which has become quite popular, with Wim Hoff’s method is like the Ice Man. And then so, on the final out breath of that, you then hold your breath and it would just help balance that system again.

Parasympathetic nervous system Back to parasympathetic. It’s such an important tool, this. I mean, I coach a lot of people in breath, just purely. Again, going back to parenting. So, I could use this as an example coming in here. I get onto the tube, tube is chaos. Sometimes, just getting out of the tube can be chaos, let alone getting onto it. It’s an alien environment. The air is not great. The lighting is terrible. So, we’ve just normalized it, but on a subconscious level, it’s just not very natural environments; you’re never really going to get a natural outcome. It’s very difficult to become very restful in that environment.

Then everyone else has the same experience. So, you’re now surrounded by the energy of all of that, which can feel quite anxious. And then so, I’m going to be up regulated; little bit anxious. And then I arrive home to my door and my kids have been waiting for papa, probably for 8 hours. And they wanted this amazing guy to come in the house, who’s their image of what papa is and what their expectations are. Yeah, I have this craziness around me and I’m up.

Breathwork exercise So, I will stop at the door and I’ll just do a very simple workout. It’s like a 4-second inhale from my nose and then a 6-second {exhale} and I just do 10 cycles. And then I walk in the door and then it’s a very different experience I’m coming in with. It’s almost like I’ve left it at the doorstep and I can walk in like Tony 2.0, not Tony Imposter again.

So, it’s just work in a different breath modalities. And I think you can explore with that. There’s so many like box breathing, people talk about, which might mean 3seconds in, then you hold for seconds, 3 seconds out and then you hold for 3 seconds.

When is the best time for different breath techniques? Again, if you’re up regulated, down regulate. If it’s before bedtime, definitely just go to the long exhale. It could be 3 seconds in, 4 seconds in, longer exhale. And then just 5 minutes of that and you’ll be away and it just drops you into the rest-and-digest, rather than maybe a little bit up regulated or you might’ve seen something or heard something just before bedtime.

Meal time Meal time is another classic. So, meal time, if you want to assist digestion, you want to down regulate. If again, you’re up regulates and you’re trying to eat, then a lion walks into this room right now growling {roar} and the lion kicks off. We have an option; we can fight/flight, we can freeze and we do and then we can — That’s it, right? That’s an acute response. It’s not chronic responses and cute response.

And in that acute response, we have a regulatory system. Our digestive system will cut off. There’s no point in digesting a meal. And also, it’s hugely costly to digest food. That energy is best spent to fight, flight or freeze or whatever we’re going to do because there’s a line in the room right now.

My digestion gets shut off; that means stomach acid, enzymes, all of that, gone. The next one is my immune system; no point fighting off a cold. I’d rather give it to the lion, you know? The immune system goes out. The final one is hormonal system; no point producing Bam-Bam. If there’s a lion in the room, that shuts down.

Three issues What are the three things we mainly see are digestive issues, hormonal issues, immune system. It’s simplifying it somewhat, but it’s the best thing.

And so, with the digestive system, that’s an acute response. I don’t want that to be chronic. If it’s chronic, there’s no absorption. So, you and I could be sitting in here. We might have the most incredible diet, but because you’re up regulated, your digestive system is out, what are you absorbing? I might have a crappy diet right now, but be really down regulated and an amazing digestive system, I can’t absorb more. So, you’ll be overfed and undernourished? And so, we think we’re doing the right thing around food groups, but often, it can be digestion.

Breath I find that breath is a great opportunity, just to down regulate. You know when you already feel your salivary glands coming and it’s a great practice anyway. It’s like saying grace or something and just preparing yourself for the food, I think is really powerful.

So, again, breathing for sleep, breathing for stress, breathing for digestion and breathing, if you’re feeling low. That is an incredible practice, if we really start to understand it and honour it. And I think if there’s anyone with anxiety out there or even depression, breathing is the go-to; it’s one of the best practices that will help you get out the cave.

Using breath as a pause Chloe: I love the idea of kind of using it as kind of a pause and also like a bookend. Before you go from work to see your kid, you stop and pause and take some breaths, before you eat, before you go to sleep, to actually shift your state to be. Because often, we’re just going from one thing to the other and absorbing things as we go.

Tony Riddle: Absolutely.

Chloe: And it’s so interesting what you’re saying about and it being on the tube and around everyone and the lighting and the — And so often, we’re not even — we’re so, as you said, so used to that that it just seems normal and we’re not even aware there is a problem.

I just got back from staying with a tribe in the Amazon for two weeks.

Tony: Beautiful.

Chloe: And I came back into London. I met my boyfriend at a co-working space. And I felt like I didn’t know how to exist in the city. I was like not sure how to use like, I don’t know, the thing to get in the door. And it took me a while to get back into it because I’ve been so just on a different kind of level of existing.

Tony Riddle: Frequency, isn’t it? Just a completely different frequency.

Chloe: Yeah. Yeah. I’m so interested to hear more about, you know –

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Chloe: I often think — I’ve had a theory and I think you’re going to prove that theory that a lot of anxiety is caused because we’re so disconnected from our natural state.

Tony Riddle: Yeah.

Connecting with our natural state Chloe: And we don’t actually know how good we could feel, a lot of the time. We have no idea because it’s become so normalized for us to be in cities.

Are there other things that you would suggest for people to be doing that can help them to connect back to that?

Ways to connect back with nature Tony Riddle: Absolutely. I think it’s really worth highlighting that disconnection. I’ve been lucky enough to train, I mean, some incredible beings. They could be from teenagers through to the elderly; some 80-year old clients, from students through to billionaires. Get flown around by private jet, amazing lifestyles; I’ve been witness to it all.

But you know what? If their fundamental physical, social, spiritual needs aren’t met, as in what’s aligned with nature, you know, finding those natural ways of performing, they’re still pretty unhappy.

And the good news is, the more of nature I kind of introduced to their lifestyles, the happier they become, the more successful they become; not talking the modern day monetary ladder of success, I’m talking of successful as human beings; that’s the thing.

We are amazing And we very rarely understand how amazing we are. We are literally awe inspiring, if you really understand where we’ve traversed, where we’ve come from. We’re talking like 100 thousand years of the most incredible sapiens species to get here today. And so, imagine just the environments we would have existed in, compared to where we are today. Imagine the adversity we would have faced.

I think it’s firstly just important to just kind of get a handle on that. Just understand that it’s inside all of us is this innately wild, connected, empowered being. That’s in our DNA; it’s in us. Until something happens along the way that pulls us off the path of divinity, let’s say.

How cells behave I have my discussions around schooling and stuff like that. But I think it’s like a petri dish that we’ve been cultured into, lets say, what’s been normalized in this petri dish. And Bruce Lipton‘s works really great for this because it helps you understand perception as a signal, it helps you understand how cells behave. For me, he is like the granddaddy of epigenetics in a way.

Chloe: Is he the author of Spontaneous Evolution

Tony Riddle: And also The Biology of Belief.

Chloe: Oh, Biology of Belief. Yeah, yeah. That’s the one.

Tony Riddle: Biology of Belief.

Chloe: Yeah.

Tony Riddle: So, the fantastic thing is it could be a petri dish and inside the petri dish is a number of cells. And we are a petri dish of say 47 trillion cells in that dish. And what he’s established is what one cell will behave, the others will behave the same way. Also, that if you take those cells and create three more petri dishes and culture, those identical cells into these petri dishes, they will be cultured into whatever that environment is. So, whatever your environment is today, your 47 trillion cells will adapt to it.

Adaptation And this is where we have a choice and we have to choose whether we want them to adapt to; good or bad. Because the ultimate human experience is adaptation and we will literally adapt to good or bad. But first, it’s understanding what’s good and what’s bad. And for me, it’s always, “Well, what do I put in my petri dish?”

What they notice through his experience and the experiment is if you put toxic information or toxins into the petri dish, the cells go into protection, which is a bit like the sympathetic system I was talking about earlier, like fight and flight. The system will shut down and go into protection mechanism. And we want growth to be able to understand how to thrive. That’s survival, protection.

And then if you put it nourishing or nutrients into the petri dish or nourishing information into the petri dish, the cells that go into a pattern of growth. Then they’re in parasympathetic or growth promoting state.

What is growth promoting We need to say, “Okay. What is growth promoting?” And for me, it’s understanding what exists in nature again. So, we could talk about, let’s say, “What food would we want to introduce into a petri dish?” So, we want to think processed foods that we have no connection to. They are maybe mono cropped, destroying an environment, they are covered in glysophates pesticides, they maybe in packaging that was also destroying the environment. Do we want that in our petri dish?

Or do you want to think, “Well, I want to have food that’s in nature, which is organic, which hasn’t gone through a heavy process, that I know is then growth promoting; it’s full of nutrient because exactly where it came from is the earth. I am part of the earth, the plants, the rocks and the animals. I need nature to go in. Not something that’s abnormal, created in a laboratory.” One will have one experience; one of the other.

Water Water; let’s look at water. What kind of water would I want to put in my petri dish? Do I want municipal water that maybe has some chemicals in it; maybe oestrogen, maybe chlorine in there, because we need chlorine in there to clean, because it’s such an old system? Every now and then you’ve got the whiff of chlorine that will come for your taps. Do I want that in my petri dish or do I want to think about springwater or water systems that can purify?

Natural movement Then we could go movement. “Okay. What kind of movement do I want in my petri dish?” This is tricky for us, because we are a sedentary culture. I don’t have any chairs in my house. And I don’t live in chairs in there for a reason is because when you observe people in the natural petri dish; in that environment, they don’t have chairs. But they have this amazing physique.

Now, we all see them on the front cover of Nature magazine; these amazing beings that have beautiful postures, beautiful physiology. And what is they’re doing differently because, the don’t still sit for nine hours a day. It’s just they don’t sit in chairs; they’re on the ground.

And then you observe there’s like around 100 different rest positions that can be performed on the ground. And each one of those rest positions is a micro element of the macro skill of standing up and being upright and then performing, walking, running, lifting, carrying; all those things. In the roots of that, is a movement system that just exists on the ground.

Posture And we have one chair. So, the chair goes into me into the more protection mechanism in that petri dish, because it, unfortunately, creates a compromised posture, gets us locked in the hips. We create a C-shaped spine, core stability goes out, glutes switch off, hamstrings get tight, we get locked in the ankle. And then when I go to stand up, I’m now walking from a completely different physiological and anatomical system from what I should be. Therefore, it’s compromising me.

Then I go to a class, like I used to have a Pilates studio to go and unravel it somehow. Actually, if I didn’t put the information in in the first place, or I at least had a practice in like chair care, or I called it chair sitting offsetting now. So, it’s like where I sit for this amount of hours. Let’s get back to the ground and help unravel it. It doesn’t mean yoga. It doesn’t mean Pilates, it just means adopting natural sitting positions. That’s what we can be doing in the petri dish.

So, if you are Netflix bingeing at home, go on the ground and just play with different rest positions like squatting, kneeling, shin boxing, getting yoga poses or long sits or straddle sits. There’s multiple sitting positions that you can choose, which will just help your overall mobility and posture and create a stronger physical self. Which then is much more powerful to go out into the world; you can absorb more in a way if your physical body is actually stronger. So, that’s movement, that’s water, food.

Sleep So, we can look at sleep, right? So, sleeps a huge one, isn’t it? So, we all think we have a good handle on sleep. And yet, if I start a workshop around this petri dish model, how many hours would I need? How many hours sleep do we need? And it can be probably 8 hours, 7 hours; we kind of lost sight of how many hours we need individually for a start, because they’re all different. But also we’ve lost sight of what actually happens in nature compared to what happens in the urban environment. The urban environment isn’t natural, so we don’t get a natural outcome.

So, how do we understand what natural sleep is without going into nature and observing what happens there? Most of the sleep studies in the books I’ve read are pretty much around what happens in the laboratory experiment. So, they’re in sleep experiments.

Sleep experiment Is a laboratory sleep experiment going to give you a natural outcome? I’m not so sure. Yet there’s Professor Siegel, from the University of California, went to study three different tribes, different geographic locations. And they discovered that not one of those tribespeople are sleeping for 8 hours. So, 99 members, 33 members in each tribe, studied for 1,165 days. No, not one of them sleeping for 8 hours. It’s between 5.7 and 7 hours. That’s it.

What they do notice; the difference is the environment again. So, the difference is in that petri dish environment. It is there where the toxins and the growth will come in. They don’t have the ability to create sunrise at sunset. So, there’s no sunlight; ability to switch a light on. In other words, and create light. So, they managed to down regulate their system.

Temperature And through that, the air temperature is cooler at night. Of course, they have a fire. So, they always get up to tend to the fire and they’re never asleep for the whole stretch. They wake and sleep, they wake and sleep, they wake and sleep. So, they look out the fire, look after the young, they fix tools, they smoke and they party.

They don’t have a word for insomnia and they don’t have the chronic disease we are led to believe we would receive from a sleep debt or not achieving 8 hours.

And that’s for me was game changing because most of the successful people I have coming in don’t have the opportunity to be sleeping for 8 hours. They’re quite on it because really they’re getting more and more stressed. And you could see that then you would create more inflammation and more disease just from the stress of not getting the 8 hours. It’s like how do we alleviate that? Okay, look at this, guys. Not one of these people to sleeping for 8 hours. They are in amazing shape, they’re incredible beings.

But let’s have a look underneath it, what is happening. And we know that around that fire, they’re not absorbing crazy information at night. No one is saying around that fire, “The village next door is going to come in here and rob us and stab us and shoot us.”

Triggers So, that’s the movie influence that we use; the TV or the screen is the fire. So, we want to make sure of what information am I absorbing at night? I want the romantic firelight conversations that have been passed down for generation to generation to generation and the wisdom that comes with it, rather than toxic information that’s going to trigger something within me before I go into a sleep cycle.

And regardless whether you have a breathing approach or breath approach to down regulate, that can’t go unseen, it’s been seen. So, your subconscious sees that as something you’re entering sleep with.

Air quality The other one is temperature and the next one is air quality. So, I’ve now been sleeping in the same room; we’ve been in this apartment for a year. So, I’ve been sleeping in the same room, the same since sensory experience, the same straight lines, linear approaches, for a year. And if I get the sleep studies right, then I should be in there for 8 hours. So, I’m going to be breathing in and out, the same materials and the same material experience, for 8 hours a day, for a year.

So, really it’s about — That’s where we need to be looking at, “Do I want neurotoxins in the air itself?” That’s being kicked out from the paints, the mastics, the glues and the materials in your room. So, it’s like, “How do I work with that?” And it can be plants that create some nature in so we can bring more nature in that help stimulate our ancestral eye. We know that taking people out into nature, they get dropping cortisol.

Nature scenes The same thing happens if you show someone a flick book of nature. Here is a nature scene and they go, “Ah” and they down regulate. Here’s an urban setting and they up regulate. So, you can go nature scenes in that environment that will help down regulate.

Plants, help them purify the air. There’s a huge NASA study on 10 recommended plants for air purification that will deal with formaldehyde, benzene, xylene, main neurotoxins. The best ones I found we’re like Peace Lilies, because you could go away for two weeks and you don’t have to worry about them. They were so robust. Even if they droop and you come back, just give them a little bit of water. So, you don’t have to have that anxiety about, “Oh, my plants can be okay.” They’re just really robust. They can cope. That’s air purity.

Lighting And then there’s lighting. So, the lighting is probably the most important, really, in the sleep realm. Because, again, it goes back to their ability in nature not to be able to turn the lights on.

And what lighting can do is it can suppress melatonin, which we know as a sleep hormone. Many people will understand that one as a sleep hormone. It’s kind of not doing it justice by just calling it a sleep hormone.

So, melatonin has two main processes in digestion. One, it’s is the regulatory system for ghrelin and lepton; two hormones. So, ghrelin’s process would be if ghrelin is up, then I need to eat. The idea is you want ghrelin now and then lepton, as lepton comes up, it says, “I’m satiated. I’ve had enough food.” So, imagine they’re like that; ghrelin to drop and lepton to come up.

Melatonin’s role is ghrelin and lepton; that’s its key role. So, if you don’t have melatonin in your system in the evening, then you face, “Oh, I’m really hungry right now.” And the other voice of, “I haven’t had enough food yet.”

Role of melatonin And basically, by 10:00 PM at night, melatonin should be at its peak. It should be peaking at 10 PM. So, imagine if it was around the circadian rhythm or lighting experience. The sun goes down and then by 10:00 PM, those hormones are coming into play. So, melatonin being one of them. That’s one of its roles.

And then apoptosis, which is transforming unhealthy cells into healthy cells, that process is also driven by melatonin; it’s one of its key roles.

And so, we start to see cellular issues coming in. There’s lots of studies around cancer, even now with melatonin and nightshift workers versus day shift workers.

And so, they show, with nightshift workers, like 35 percent higher rates of breast cancer and prostate cancer versus dayshift. Then you look at the NHS study that if look at blind people. So, blind people aren’t exposed to the blue and green spectrums that would suppress melatonin. And yet they have something like 11 hours of melatonin in their system.

Blue blocking glasses So, we know, really, the peak would be 11 hours, if we could get to that. And if that’s not enough, really for the listener, they show three chambers. So, there’s a dark chamber, which is the sleep experiment in the laboratory. Then they show the simulated nightshift worker. They’re in a brightly lit environment. And then they show the same nightshift worker in a brightly lit environment, but wearing blue blocking glasses, which we’re hearing about a lot now.

So, then when they study their urine test for melatonin in the morning, the experiment where they’re in darkness, pure darkness, the laboratory, they have high melatonin. The ones that are in the simulated work experience with the bright lights have no melatonin. And the group that wearing the blue blockers have the same levels of melatonin as the dark sleep experiment.

Chloe: Wow.

Tony Riddle: Exactly. It’s a game changer, because then you know that you’re going to sort out the digestive system. You know that you don’t have to be panicking about receiving 8 hours of sleep because you’re basically functioning pretty much like the hunter gatherer that will sleep, wake, sleep, wake, sleep, wake throughout the night.

So, for me, as a parent with four kids; a 10-year old, an 8-year old, a 3 1/2 year old and a baby nearly three months now. I’d probably be dead by now if I listen to the science. Because we’re up throughout the night. You know, it happens. We co-sleep as well. And Beau is probably one of most nosiest eaters I’ve ever heard right now. And I wake with it.

Setting ourselves up for growth So, I wake, but I know that my environment, my petri dish, is set up for growth. So, we have clean air in there. We don’t have any toxic lighting, toxic materials or toxic information around us at night, and therefore I wake up in the morning and I get on with my day.

I’m up at 5:00 AM. I hit the mat do some abilities and breath work. I’m on it and also not stressed about not hitting the magic number of 8. It’s all about the habit and the environment. So, always think about that, and going back to the petri dish again, think about your environment and what it is I can put in that petri dish to make it growth-promoting.

Working from your desk That could be a simple thing like your desk. We’re at a desk right now. Okay. So, how do I turn my desk from being a compromising desk into a growth promoting desk?

Firstly, if you have natural light in there, bring something natural in. If there is no natural light, bring a nature scene in; something you can look at, but also that you’re familiar with. Maybe it’s a favourite walk that you go on in nature. So, your mind is already familiar with the setting and you can you can relate positivity to it.

Visualisations So, it could be a favourite tree even that you sit under and you take a breath or a moment or you read under. Like this morning, I walked to the ponds. I love that. There’s a beautiful setting there as the sun comes up over the ponds; that perfect setting. And you just have that on your desk.

Again, going back to the flipbook, already studies show that that’s enough to down regulate your system and connect to something natural again. And the more we connect to nature, the more we see who the authentic self is in a way.

Sitting; chair care. Some HR departments are fine with standing desks, others hate it. So, again, you can slide your chair away. If you have the standing desk hate campaign, you just slide the chair away, hold the desk, do a few squats and then have a little walk around. Come back to your chair.

So, every 25 minutes, {ding}, Tommy goes off. Go off, come back to your seat again. It will help creative flow, rather than just blood stagnating in the hips from sitting. And the key is movement here; just try and get movement back into that cellular experience.

Blue blocking glasses Nature scenes; if you work late, blue blocking glasses. There’s so many varieties out there at the moment you can really play with. I can send you some links to some stuff for your listeners. There’s some that make you look a bit more like Bono, because they’re quite amber. And those you might get in the way of home or I’ve got one guy who has a band. So, he started wearing those; they’re quite cool. Or they have regular ones that are like reading glasses. People say, “Ah, I didn’t know you needed glasses.” “No, no. They’re just my blue blockers.”

Bringing in as much nature as you can So, that’s simple. As much nature as you can bring into that environment again. And then if you can, you know, I did a talk in Santander. We looked at the air quality in there; it was terrible on their whole floor. So, it’s like, “Okay. Who’s responsibility? Is it like the head of their team? Okay. It’s your responsibility is to clean up the air.”

See, given, it’s like those guys might be in there for 10 hours and you could really smell the rubber, the glues and everything within the building. It just they’d normalized it. So, people that have been working in there for a while, they’re just ignorant to it. I walk in and I was like, “Wow, this is really strong in here”; headache by the end of the day.

So, yeah, I did simple things like that. Again, it’s about emotional wellbeing again, isn’t it? The closer you can get to get those needs met, you start to remove the suffering and the symptom of the environment and the experience of it.

Emotional wellbeing But there’s also perception, isn’t there? So, part of that petri dish, I think, were Bruce’s work. What they notice is also the signal that gets introduced to the Petri dish would also dictate what the reaction, whether it is protection or growth.

So, don’t go out there freaking out, “The air quality. I can’t move. I can’t do this” because ultimately, it comes down to perception and knowing that you have a choice. Don’t have to just sit there for 8 hours a day. We do have a choice. We can move the chair back or do squats or go for a walk. Like the bear at the back of the cave, you’re stronger than I am. You get to choose. So, it really is a choice. You can literally change your perception in a breath of how we’re feeling. That’s how powerful we are. We just lose sight of how much power we hold, I guess. Yeah.

Chloe: So, fascinating. And I wonder, in the coming years, if governments and the employers are going to have to take note of these things and design environments. Otherwise, people are going to be too sick to sort of function. I hope that that gets out there. Yeah.

Burnout Tony: All the sickness that we are seeing now, we were seeing the symptoms of it. And it’s almost getting younger and younger. I don’t know about you. Because of my coach. So, I see it. Originally, I’d see like 40s going into 50s burn out in the city; 20 years ago, maybe when I first started coaching in city. And then now, I start seeing the 40s and the 30s and I’ve just had 20s or so; 20s in burn out. I mean, that’s seriously something showing.

Now, what is it? What’s happening here? And I think partly, we walk around the permanent office in our hands, you know, permanent distraction. So, if I go back to there’s a gen that’s called — Peter has called generational environmental amnesia. It’s kind of like we forget. And this is the new norm.

New norm So, my son, Beau, has been born. Animal populations, human populations and the way the globe is right now, that’s his new norm. That wasn’t my new norm when I was born and my parents’ new norm and my grandparents’ new norm.

So, we know that already it’s do. Well, it’s going to be more now, isn’t it, because we lost like a billion animals in Australia, right? So, we could have said previously 60 percent of wildlife has been wiped out on the planet.

But we’ve also lost sight of what it is to be wild and how do we view what’s natural? Because we’re losing even the natural beings of the world, like the wild beings of the world. And the ones that are there, we’re not going for advice and wisdom.

Indigenous wisdom I posted about something Australia the other day and it’s probably a bit too soon, but it was just felt like, what, if we actually spoke to the indigenous populations of the world to find out what it is that environment needs. Because say Australia, for instance, Aborigines have been there for 60 thousand years. But yet, we’re flying in environmental and regenerative experts from different continents to look at that environment when we could be inviting them in to the table.

That’s the almost like the amnesia part of it where we’re forgetting that these people have been around for thousands of years with an ecosystem, so much so that they are still the ecosystem; they’re not separate from it.

Our environment So, I’m sure they have some amazing wisdom to impart there. Even just understanding what we can probably access in ourselves, not just how we can save an environment that we inhabit today. It’s just, I guess, dropping the ego somewhat and reconnecting with what would be the ecosystem, as they have or as they do.

So, going back to — So, Beau’s interpretation of the world is very, very different. So, for him, who knows what he’s going to have in his hand. So, I know there’s a mobile phone here and I know that, “Okay, I’m going to pick you up at some point and I’m going to look at it.” But I think Apple’s original intention was this would be an extension of you. So, this actually would become an extension of you over time.

The change of pace The danger, again, that if I speak to a lawyer, let’s say he’s named Lawrence Middleweek; he’s a client of mine. He’s like 70. How old is Lawrence? He’s like 75, maybe. Sorry, Lawrence if I go that wrong. And he said, “When I started out, Tony, as a lawyer, I would write a letter to someone and I would have a week to respond. I’d have a letter, a letter would come in, I’d look at it. I’m going to do diligence and find out every little detail and I’d make sure it’s all in that one letter, because I know it would take a week to come back and off it went. And then a week later, we’d get the response again.”

Anxiety Where are you putting your attention You do have a choice to put your attention back on your breath. If you’re even on Instagram, staring at stuff, that you can feel you’re up regulating and anxious. Don’t choose to do it; choose to pull away from it. Even delete accounts that you find are up regulating you. Why even have them in there? Just separate from it. And just take it upon yourself to manage yourself.

Again, it’s your petri dish, not someone else’s. And your interpretation or perception of the world is entirely yours. How we interpret something is uniquely ours.

Chloe: I’m often thinking things at the moment to do with the climate crisis and people’s anxiety around that and whether this will almost be our way out of the fast pace of life and disconnection. My hope is that we can learn to connect more in nature and slow us down. The economy can’t continue to grow and grow. That might cause us to slow down or we might connect more with each other and communities more.

We have to save ourselves Tony: Absolutely. I always take it back. I think there’s an element of we have to save ourselves as well. Just be the change, I think, is the most important. No one likes to be told what to do, really. “You got to do this. You got to do that.” It’s really just be a great example of a human being.

And don’t just do it for you. You know, I mean, I have kids. It was like, “I have kids. I mean, how do I want to be performing as a human being? I want to be the best example of a masculine as I can for my kids.” I had three daughters before Beau came into the world.

Natural parenting And I was like, “Well, how do I become a mature masculine?” And part of that has to be this interaction with nature. I have to understand that I need them to understand nature. And the more I can have them connect to nature, the more they understand they are nature and the more chance we have of them saving nature. It’s about the next generations, as Greta Thunberg is, quite frankly, pointing out.

Raising kids My kids are outside all of the time. I want them to just feel that they are a bit like the indigenous populations again. Peter Gray asks, “How does childhood look like?” and he’d ask 10 leading anthropologists. And it’s like, “Well, it looks a bit like this. They just play all day, from infancy through to the age of 16. No adult intervention. No one teaches them anything. They just instinctively know what to do and they just move into it. They’ve learned to track, make fire, build shelter. They’ve learned everything about the environment to become an adult species.”

What is your relationship with the planet If you really care about your kids, we must examine our toxic relationship with each other and the planet.“How do I be the best example of that?”

And again, just look to nature, look to the more natural ways of being.

Choices So, if I’m stressed out to the eyeballs, I have a choice; I go out and get drunk or I can do breath work, going to immerse myself in nature or have a community and speak to people and sit around and communicate with others or go and do different practices. Or I could smoke or I could do this. It’s just understanding, again, about the petri dish, isn’t it? And the petri dishes nature.

Again, I think it’s very important for us to see that it’s not really about us. It’s about the generations that are observing us that home. It sounds cliché, that whole, “Be the change that you want to see in the world.” It’s really being the change that you want them to see in the world.

And if you go really into the early layers of it, those first six years is Bruce Lipton’s work again. The first six years are the tapes you play out for the rest of your life. They’re your observations. What do we want them to observe to play out for the rest of our lives? What do we want them to normalize?

Being nature I’m having to rewind, reconnect and become empowered. They are innately wild, connected and empowered. I have to go on retreats, workshops, go to the Amazon, drink ayahuasca, smoke tovan and take mushrooms; do what I do to unravel and unravel and unravel. Whereas, they’re just innately nature; that’s all they are.

What’s most important So, that’s our responsibility, I feel, is that’s probably more important is the understanding that this is why we need to reconnect to nature. It’s for the next generations to inherit something to hand over that stewardship, if you like, of the planet.

Chloe: Thank you so much for sharing all of that. I must say you’re fascinating. I hope that people listening can take some things and practical things away and just get a bit more inspired. And now, I’ve got lots of ideas now for things that I want to be changing; more plants is definitely one of them.

Tony Riddle: Ah, they’re so easy as well, aren’t they? I love them.

Chloe: Yeah.

Tony Riddle: I mean, nature scenes and plants. I mean, it’s such an easy thing to bring in materials, right? They’re materials; just think of that. You can a look at simple things up Bio Philip design. Just research a bit about Bio Philip Design, then you’d understand it’s about Bio Philip; bringing nature in.

Living in urban environments 83 percent of the UK live in urban environments. And we spend a whopping 90 percent of our time indoors; for some it’s more. So, give an idea; 10 percent outdoors would mean 2 hours, 24 minutes outdoors. And that doesn’t mean in the shops, on the public transport, shopping, because it’s still an indoor experience. It means actually outdoors.

And so, what I often ask people to do is set the timer for 2 hours 24 and try and get those gains in. Weekends are a great opportunity for that. But I actually tried to get to nature, try and really just immerse in nature, have that experience. I mean, that’s so important for us. But it’s just understanding that we have this extraordinary amount of time spent indoors.

Bringing nature inside So, that’s one way of doing is to go outside to {indistinct 1:12:14} or we flip it and we just bring nature in. So, just bring as much of nature into your experience as you can. And this comes down to multiple layers. It’s like a sensory system and then it’s like your microbiome.

So, your sensory system is we could say that if we just go from the same linear experience like we’re in now, this box, and this is your commute to get to here, and then you walk along the corridor with the same linear corridor and you go down in the same lift and then you go to the same mode of transport and then you arrive home into the same dimensions and linear experiences as you’ve been doing for maybe 20 years, some people, where’s the new information? How are you expecting to, from a neuroplasticity perspective, rewiring and wire your brain. So, it’s how do you find new experiences?

And so, try and change your environment is one. Getting out into nature is another. But bring more nature in, because nature is forever changing. It’s like it’s forever changing cycles. So, that will give you a new stimulus.

Microbiome And then there’s also the microbiome. So, we have microbiome on this biosis; there’s an imbalance. That doesn’t just mean in your gut, it means everywhere. So, we’re literally inhaling microbiome right now in this environment.

And so, I can keep that in the linear Gray experience of the urban environment or I could go into nature and breathe nature and be in that biome, which would then create more of a symbiotic relationship because I’m back immersed into my natural habitat. There you go.

Chloe: That’s going to stay with me; that image of –

Tony Riddle: So, that’s like an indoor-outdoor.

Chloe: Yeah.

Tony Riddle: And I understand that’s who we are. And whereas, in nature, again, it would’ve been, like with these tribes we’re talking about, it’s probably the flip; 90 percent outdoors, 10 percent indoors. So, how do we balance that?

And then have a play; how much time you can spend outside. If you’ve got kids, hand it over to them. It’s their experience. They can draw maps on where they want to take you and hand it over to them at weekends; where you want to go? Where can we go in nature?” and have them set the time those. And also, there’s no such thing as bad weather. It’s just poor clothing choices.

How to be human Yeah, again, just play it. Nature’s the best way to access what it is to be human, I think. The best way that you can really identify what your authentic self is once you get away from the chaos of the urban setting.

Chloe: This has been so helpful. Thank you. Where can people find out more about you and what you’re doing, what you offer?

What Tony is doing next Tony Riddle: Mainly on Instagram, actually. I’m known as The Natural Lifestylist; @thenaturallifestylist on Instagram. So, my website is tonyriddle.com, I guess, isn’t it? I forgot my own website; tonyriddle.com. And I also have some tutorials on there. So, go and buy chair care and stuff like that.

I have a squat tutorial on there, which teaches people how to get to a flat footed squat and other rest positions that you can be choosing on the ground. So, we can put a link in there to that as well.

And then coming up, there be a fair bit of press, I think, coming up, because I’m going to be running — I’m doing the three peaks. You know the Three Peaks?

Chloe: Yeah.

Running the 3 peaks Tony Riddle: So, I’m going to do 485 running, including the Three Peaks and I’m going to turn it around in 9 days. Yeah. So, three is completion and 9 is transformation. So, that’s the next sight.

Chloe: When is that happening?

Tony Riddle: That’s not till May.

Chloe: Okay.

Tony Riddle: I’m looking to finish at the top on my 45th birthday. So, I’m super pumped about that. I’m really looking forward to that. And again, I’m going put it back around into sustainability. The environment is the correct platform for the bigger picture, which is our environment that we should all be putting our attention on right now, I believe.

Chloe: Brilliant.

Tony Riddle: That’s me.

Chloe: I look forward to following your journey with that. Thank you so much,

Tony Riddle: Thank you.

Outro Thank you so much for listening. I really hope that you gained a lot from this episode. Come on over to Instagram and let me know what are you taking from this episode. Find me @chloebrotheridge.

And I would love it if he would leave me a review in the podcast app on iTunes. Subscribe to the podcast, leave me a rating.

And is there someone in your life that would really benefit from this podcasts? You can let them know by sharing this podcast; I’d be so, so grateful.

So, I’m just wishing you a wonderful week ahead, sending you loads of love. Hopefully, you’ll tune in again and I’ll see you soon.

The post Ep 96. Creating a Natural Lifestyle with Tony Riddle appeared first on Calmer you.

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Tony Riddle, otherwise known as the natural lifestylist, joined me on the Calmer You Podcast for a very in-depth and inspiring conversation. I think you are going to really find this episode quite fascinating and mind-blowing. We chat about: The link between being disconnected from nature and depression and anxiety. Re-wilding ourselves – what can […]

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How you feel about your body has probably changed considerably over your lifetime. Young children tend to view their bodies as strong and fast and powerful. Oh, to have the body confidence of youth. Teenagers tend to be more critical of their bodies, judging them on how they look rather than what they can do. […]

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How you feel about your body has probably changed considerably over your lifetime. Young children tend to view their bodies as strong and fast and powerful. Oh, to have the body confidence of youth. Teenagers tend to be more critical of their bodies, judging them on how they look rather than what they can do.

Then come the gossip magazines, airbrushed celebrity photos and the soul-destroying habit of comparing our worst bits to somebody else’s showreel. The media portrayal of women’s bodies becomes our inner voice, and before long, we are criticising even the smallest imperfections.

A lot of us have a complicated relationship with our bodies. It is not as simple as the Marmite love/hate divide. Perhaps you love some parts of your body but hate others. Or maybe you’re not crazy about how it looks, but will always respect it for carrying your children or overcoming cancer. There’s no right or wrong way to feel about your body. A lot of your feelings are probably unconscious, you may not even be aware of them, but they are there, influencing your daily life.

Do I have low body confidence?

You may not even realise how negative your self-image is, especially if the thoughts have become second nature to you. If you want to test how you feel about your body, try this little task. Write ten words that describe your body on a piece of paper. Take a look at them. Have you used mostly positive or negative words? Have you focused on how your body looks or what it can achieve? This simple tool can help you to explore your feelings around your body. If you think it’s highlighted a problem, now is the time to fix that.

Some people seem to have buckets of body confidence, but how do they do it? And, most importantly, how can you get some of it? Firstly, you won’t change how you feel about your body overnight. It will take time and effort to change how you think about your body. However, it is possible, and the sooner you get started, the sooner you will reap the rewards.

Here are 7 easy ways to improve your body confidence: 1. Curate your social media feed

This is easy to do, and you can start right now. You might be surprised how much of a difference it makes to your inner voice. Firstly, every time you see a post that makes you feel bad about your body, hit the unfollow button. If it’s somebody you know in real life and feel unable to unfollow, hide their posts instead. Getting rid of body negativity will help you to hush your inner critic.

Once you’ve got rid of all the influencers making you feel rubbish about yourself, seek out some people who can do the opposite. There are lots of fantastic campaigners using their Instagram squares to promote body positivity. Seek out these influencers and give them a follow. Those daily reminders that you are more than your body will help to reprogramme your self-view.

1. Focus on what your body does We tend to focus on how our body looks and not what it can do. Forget what it looks like; spend some time focusing on the amazing things it can do. Think about its speed, strength and power. When you exercise, don’t think about how many calories your burned, instead celebrate how hard your body worked and what it achieved during your work out. Stop listing the things your body can’t do, and instead think about the things it can. After a few weeks of doing this, you may find you have a newfound respect for your amazing body.

3. Find out who you are You are not your body. You are a person, a great person, who happens to have a baby. Grab a pen and paper and write a list of things you are. Are you a good friend, a caring mother, a maths whizz or do you make people laugh? Write a list of 10 things you love about yourself and stick it up somewhere you will see it every day. The more you read this list of things to like, the more positively you’ll feel about yourself. You are a wonderful person and the sooner you admit that, the better.

4. Don’t look at the number on the scales

Yes, it’s good to be healthy, but your mental health is important too. If the numbers on the scales are making you feel awful about yourself, stop looking at them. You are more than those numbers, so much more. If you want to improve your health, you can do this without the help of those scales. You can run and walk and dance. You can move in ways that feel good, without ever looking at the numbers that make you feel bad.

5. Take care of your body One way to influence how you feel about your body is to take care of it. Stop mistreating it or forgetting about it altogether. Treat your body like it is one of your best friends. Don’t say anything unkind about it. Lift it with words and praise. Take it for a spa day, treat it to a massage, or simply run it a nice, warm bubble bath at the end of a hard day. Start being kind to yourself each and every day.

6. Dress to impress It’s all too easy to hide a body you don’t love in drab clothes. Throw open your wardrobe doors and pick out your most colourful, fun items of clothing. Your body is beautiful, and it deserves to wear clothes that shimmer and glitter and light up rooms. It might sound silly, but the way you dress can impact on your general mood. If you dress confident, you may just find that you feel more confident. This isn’t about looking sexy; it’s about having fun. Wear bright colours and loud prints, whatever makes you smile when you see your reflection in the mirror.

7. Strike a pose

Yes, it’s time to get in front of the camera. I know you hate photographs. You haven’t got any makeup on, and you’re wearing rubbish clothes, and you don’t look your best. It doesn’t matter. Get in front of the camera and smile. Get in the group shots on nights out. Make sure you’re in all the family photos. If you hate photographs, don’t look at them. Hide them away in a box high on your wardrobe where they can’t bother you. Then one day, in the future, when you are old and grey, you can look back at them and remember how young and strong and healthy your body once was. You won’t regret being in those photographs, but you might regret not being.

If you are working on your body confidence, share some tips in the comments!

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In this episode I am joined by Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence, we discuss: Why social distancing is so important  Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence shares her COVID-19 anxiety tips  Busting some myths  The good things that can come out of this crisis  Listen at: iTunes: https://apple.co/2mhhwoG Spotify:https://spoti.fi/2nIETYt Website: https://bit.ly/2HuaZAk Podcast sponsors Sweaty Betty – Pop into one of their stores […]

The post Ep 95. Busting myths and calming anxiety around COVID-19 with Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence appeared first on Calmer you.

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In this episode I am joined by Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence, we discuss:

• Why social distancing is so important
• Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence shares her COVID-19 anxiety tips
• Busting some myths
• The good things that can come out of this crisis

Listen at: * iTunes: https://apple.co/2mhhwoG * Spotify:https://spoti.fi/2nIETYt * Website: https://bit.ly/2HuaZAk

Podcast sponsors

Sweaty Betty – Pop into one of their stores with your old leggings to grab that voucher towards a new pair. Head to https://www.sweatybetty.com/sustainability to find out more. Get 20% off online purchases with the code calmeryou.

Betterhelp – Online counselling service. Special offer for calmer you listeners get 10% off your first month at trybetterhelp.com/calmeryou

Transcript Hello and welcome to the Calmer You Podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution and Brave New Girl. And this podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest, happiest and most confident self.

Chloe Brotheridge: So, welcome to this episode. This is a COVID-19 themed episode. Today, after this week, I’m going to be going back to my pre-recorded episodes that I planned, obviously, before this whole situation kicked off. So, perhaps that will be a bit of distraction, a bit more normality to get back to. So, hopefully I’ll look forward to that.

Today’s guest But this week, I’m talking to the wonderful Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence, who is a GP, and she has been sharing a lot about the facts around COVID-19, and busting a lot of myths and helping people to feel calmer and less anxious by spreading helpful information. So, I really wanted to speak to her about this topic.

So, she shares about how she’s handling it, how her job has changed as a result of this crisis. We talk about the importance of physical distancing. She busts some of the most common myths that she hears and she shares her tips for feeling calm in the face of the situation.

I also want to let you know that I’ve created a new tool kit which is designed to help you to feel calm and resilient in uncertain times. You can check out on my website at calmer-you.com/benddontbreak. So, that’s calmer-you.com/benddontbreak. So, let’s get into the interview with Dr. Frankie.

Sponsor – Sweaty Betty This episode is sponsored by my favourite active wear brand, Sweaty Betty. They’re all-female design team. So, it’s the best technical fabrics, which means our products perform under the toughest conditions and feel amazing on your skin.

All products are also wearer trialed by female staff to ensure they perform and flatter and fit the female body. If the staff don’t love it, it doesn’t get made.

There are so many active wear brands to shop from, but Sweaty Betty is special because all their products from run and yoga to swim and ski are engineered to last. This is not fast fashion, it’s high quality. And I have several pieces from Sweaty Betty that I’ve had for years and I continue to wear and love.

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Sweaty Betty are offering listeners 20 percent off when you enter the promo CALMERYOU on their website. You’ll also find the link in the show notes. So, 20 percent off for Sweaty Betty when you enter the code CALMERYOU. That’s (C-A-L-M-E-R-Y-O-U). Check out their stuff. I think you’re going to love it.

Chloe: Welcome, Dr. Frankie. Thank you so much for joining me today. How are you?

Frankie Jackson-Spence: I’m good, thank you. Thanks for having me on.

Chloe: I, like many people, have been watching a lot of your Instagram stories over the past couple of weeks and they’ve been so, so helpful. So, I really wanted to get you on to talk about everything that’s going on at the moment and your professional opinion on things. Can you share a little bit about your work and what kind of doctor you are and how you help people?

Introduction to Dr. Frankie Jackson Spence Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: Yes. So, my name is Dr. Frankie Jackson Spence. I’m an NHS junior doctor. So, I’m a foundation year-2 doctor, and I’m currently working in general practice. So, that’s where I am at the moment, which has massively seen some changes with this pandemic, which we can talk about. But yes, I’m not in a hospital actually on the general practice frontline, I guess.

Chloe: Okay. So, that’s obviously you’re a GP. People are coming in with their day-to-day kind of issues. And how has that changed then recently in terms of what kind of people you’re seeing and speaking to?

Typical day Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: So, a typical day of a GP would be seeing a patient, sort of every 10 to 15 minutes, face to face. And a couple of weeks ago, when this all started to get pretty serious, we had to make some overnight changes, basically where we shut the doors and we basically turned everything to telephone consultations and e-consultations. So, we’re really trying to avoid the footfall in surgery, because obviously anyone could be carrying this virus. And a lot of the vulnerable group of people have to come to the GP regularly.

So, it’s been a very big change really, going from seeing people face to face all the time to actually seeing them, over the phone or even by video chat.

Chloe: Wow. That’s so interesting. How do you think that affects things? Do you find it? It’s as effective, doing it on the phone or online.

Online vs in person Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: So, in some ways, I think it’s good because it means you can see a lot more patients per hour. So, a phone conversation or an e-consultation will take me about half the time as a face-to-face consultation, because you think about the little old lady that needs to come in and take a coat off and things. It is all time that’s not really spent doing medicine.

So, in one way, that’s good. In one way that’s not so good, because obviously that’s a risk for burn out for doctors, if they’re many more patients. Usually in a typical day, I might see 30 patients. And now I could be getting 50 plus. So, that is one big change.

Phone treatment can work well for some cases The second thing is that it is a positive because a lot of people come to the GP with things that we really can deal with over the phone. You know, if someone comes in and they just need a repeat prescription or they need some contraception or they might have something simple, like a viral cough, not quite the COVID cough, but the general viral coughs. We don’t actually need to see them to treat that.

So, in some ways people now are learning that many trivial things they can treat themselves at home. And I think that going forward, if people can remember that during this crisis they managed to treat that fungal nail infection at home, it will really reduce pressures on the NHS going forward.

Learning new ways of working Chloe: That’s such an interesting one, isn’t it? And good to remember that there were some positive things coming out of this crisis that actually we’re adapting and we’re learning new ways of working and being and is opening up possibilities and kind of forcing us to change in a way that’s really positive.

**Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: Yeah, absolutely. And in the NHS, anyone that’s listening that works in healthcare will know that anything it takes months to process. If a practice comes up with a new idea, it takes three or four months for that to be put in place. We’re making these kind of changes overnight now.

So, in terms of efficiency at a managerial level of the NHS, we can really sort of be more fast paced and forward thinking, going forward, because we know we can make these changes much quicker than previously done.

Chloe: That’s so fascinating and good. I used to work for the NHS, many years ago, as a nutritionist and I remember how hard it was to make changes because everything’s got to be done through this massive system. So, it does take a long time. And that’s fascinating as they’re taking things so more easily.

**Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: Yeah.

Advice for COVID-19 Chloe: Can we talk about some other advice that you’ve been giving to people? Because I think it seems like your Instagram page has become such a source of credible advice to people. There’s lots of people with anxious questions that they’re asking and you’re putting their minds at ease so much.

Can you talk about the whole thing about staying home and why that’s so important and why you’re really recommending and everyone’s recommending that now?

**Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: Well, first of all, anyone could be carrying the virus. There’s lots of people who are young, fit and healthy who can be tested positive for the virus, but actually show no symptoms. So, if they go out, even to the supermarket, and they touch something in the supermarket or they get within two meters of anyone else, they could pass that virus off without realizing. So, it’s not just people who are symptomatic that need to be following this social distancing advice; it’s everyone.

Clearing the virus And the virus can’t pass on your front door. If you stay home and you’re a carrier for the virus, you’ll clear that virus in one to two weeks and therefore you then can’t pass it on.

So, essentially, models have shown that social distancing can reduce the spread by sort of 70/80 percent. So, it really does work scientifically. But only if people adhere to it.

And it seems like such a simple thing. If everyone in the world stayed home for two weeks, the virus would essentially go. It’s crazy.

Chloe: Yes. Yeah. I wonder how many people are adhering to it. Are there any? Do you know about that?

Lockdown **Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: I really think people are struggling to adhere to it, because I feel like my question and answer session on my Instagram stories has been really effective for easing anxieties. But also, some of the questions I receive kind of concerning because people will say, “I’ve been advised only to leave the house once a day for exercise. Can I walk the dog is one and go for a run as one?”

And people seem to be trying to ask me to sort of give them permission to make loopholes in this guidance. You know, it’s just, “Stay at home. No, you can’t go out twice a day. You’ve been advised to go once.” So, I do think people will struggle with that.

I also think people really will struggle with not seeing friends and family. It seems almost an alien concept that your elderly grandparents, who are vulnerable, for example, need you more than ever during this time and yet the one thing you’ve been told to do is stay as far away from them as you can.

We are all struggling So, I think people are struggling. And even myself, I’m struggling. I’m a really busy person. I love nipping out. I tend to be one of those people that shops daily, rather than weekly. So, I’ll just nip to the shops to see what I fancy each day. And now, I’m really hoping to kind of change my entire way of living and plan for one or two weeks in advance. Yeah, I think people are struggling.

Chloe: Do you think it’s that — I suppose this whole situation is kind of so overwhelming for people and then it’s moving so quickly, the advice seems to be changing or has in the last couple of weeks.

Do you think there’s just confusion around that or it’s almost as though we’re trying to find a loophole? We’re kind of saying to ourselves, “Oh, surely, I can just do this or do that.”

The Numbers **Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: I think if you have no symptoms, you feel completely well and you haven’t been personally affected by this virus, in terms of you don’t really know anyone that’s been hospitalized with it, it’s easy to think, “Oh, it’s not that bad. It’s just like a flu.” But the government building a 4 thousand-bed military hospital at the Excel Centre in London.

If that doesn’t scare people, I don’t know what will. Because that shows that we’ve not hit a peak yet. We’re expecting 4 thousand more people to be hospitalized. And we know that only about 4 percent of people who get the virus need hospital. That’s quite scary numbers.

So, I think that until it hits a bit closer to home for people, people really will struggle because it’s so easy to think, “Oh, I don’t have any symptoms, I’ll just pop out.”

Chloe: Yes. Yeah. That’s such a good reminder. And yeah, that really hits home; that image, I think, just to remind ourselves of how important that is.

Social distancing vs physical distancing One thing that I saw; I think the World Health Organization, I don’t know if they’ve changed that advice from calling it social distancing to physical distancing to remind us that we can still — I don’t know, is that to remind us that we can still be sociable, but obviously not in in physical presence with each other? It’s kind of a nicer term maybe.

**Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: Yeah. So, social distancing and social isolation, if you have symptoms; they’re different things. It doesn’t have to mean loneliness. I don’t know about you, but I actually feel more connected than ever to my friends because we’re video calling all the time and there’s lots of apps popping up where you can have multiple video calls with lots of friends at one time and people really seem to be connected online now.

Video vs in person So, I think, yeah, is it really that different going to meet for a coffee or sitting for 40 minutes on video call? I’m not sure. Is that different? Really?

Chloe: That’s so true. That’s so true. Yeah, I think one of the apps is called House Party.

**Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: Yeah.

Chloe: Someone told me about that today. And Zoom, obviously, we’re speaking on Zoom now. Yeah. So, 0074here’s lots of ways to connect. And yeah. So, many people seem to be saying that that they are more connected to people than ever before because we’re checking in with each other more, I guess.

Have you checked in on people? **Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: Exactly. And it’s really shown us that what matters right now, you know, the things that we used to think mattered, like, “Have I eaten in the new restaurant that’s just opened up in London” or “Have I been to this, from my industry, fitness and wellness event this week.” And actually, now what’s important is, “Have I checked up on the people I care about?” “Is the person I know that’s self-isolating on their own for a few weeks, are they okay?” And it’s really kind of made people more grounded, I feel.

Chloe: Yeah, totally. Getting back to what matters most. And I suppose our lives have been simplified in a way. I’m hearing of a lot of people cooking and they never cook and gardening.

Chloe: Yeah. Have you been cooking? What have you been making?

**Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: Everything. I poached eggs nearly every day. And that used to be a weekend luxury.

Chloe: Yes.

Cooking during Covid **Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: I’ve made a lot of things. We normally buy like a premade sauce to make a curry or something; I’ve now been making it from scratch. I definitely find a lot more free time.

Chloe: That’s so good. So, good. Well, first, I wanted to know how you personally handling it as someone that’s working in the NHS. And also, how do you think, if you’ve got other friends who are working maybe in intensive care and that sort of thing, how are they handling everything?

**Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: So, for me personally, it is a lot busier at work. As I mentioned, everything that’s the norm. The way that I’ve been trained to work is completely different. I’ve been trained to be a doctor, face to face, to physically put my hands on patients, examine them, listen to their chest, for example.

And now, I do feel like there’s a barrier between me and the patient because it’s via video call or a telephone consult, you don’t quite get the same social cues. So, in some ways, it makes work more difficult.

Sense of teamwork But actually, there’s a real sense of teamwork and togetherness in the NHS. General practice is actually quite an isolating specialty. You all sit in your individual rooms within the clinic and you don’t really communicate with other doctors that much.

So, now there’s a lot more team huddles. You’re metres apart, of course. But actually, checking everyone is adjusting okay, coping okay. And also, a lot of people at work have been personally affected by the virus, either them or a family member. So, there’s a lot of checking up on each other.

So, in terms of going to work, actually, it’s quite pleasant. It is actually quite an exciting time to be a doctor, because now, more than ever, people are realizing how important the NHS is. And even last night, when there was the big talks with the carers, that was quite an emotional moment.

So, from my perspective, yes, I’m busier. But this is what it is to be a doctor and it’s like everyone’s time to come forward is kind of happening. So, that’s good.

General practice I do feel quite privileged to be working in general practice at the moment. I was actually due to start in the emergency department at a big hospital, the Royal London Hospital, next week, actually. But the seniors have decided that it’s too dangerous to switch trainees over. So, obviously training a new trainee up is a time where they might be under skilled and we don’t have the resources to do that.

So, a lot of my friends that have been working in intensive care or the emergency departments are now continuing to work there. And I think their stories are quite different. You know, the intensive care is a full. They’re having to create other wards for the confirmed COVID patients.

What is happening to elective surgeries? A lot of elective surgeries are being cancelled and the actual theatre rooms where we’d normally do operations are now being extended intensive care. So, actually, I think that hospital staff have got a lot worse than general practice.

And of course, I speak to some of my friends who are physically treating these patients. Getting up close and personal, and a lot of them all struggling mentally with the fact that they have to go home to their families.

Chloe: Yeah, that’s really tough. That’s really tough. I’m really hoping that this situation can help us to fund the NHS better. And I really appreciate the NHS and all the staff. And I hope the government are going to take better care of the NHS.

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COVID-19 Myths Chloe: Are there any myths that you can bust? Because I, for one, had loads of these copy and paste messages on WhatsApp or Facebook saying, “Drink hot drinks” and “Lie under the full moon” or whatever it is; these things you’ve got to do. Are there certain myths that you’ve come across that you can bust for us.

**Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: Yeah, absolutely. I think people always come up with these myths because they’re kind of sexy and it’s exciting and it gives people hope, but actually, they’re all a whole load of rubbish.

I’ve heard some like, yeah, drinking hot drinks is better than drinking cold drinks because the virus can’t survive in hot temperatures.

Does heat kill the virus? So, that’s not true. The virus will be killed in extremely hot temperatures, but not the heat of a hot drink. And certainly, having a sip of a hot tea isn’t going to kill the virus if you’re carrying it. So, that’s a myth. You can drink all the ice coffees you want right now.

I’ve heard some that gargling salt water will kill the virus. I feel like people always turn to the kitchen cupboard for these natural methods of medicine. People are saying that garlic bites the virus or garlic tablets or gargling salt water when actually these things aren’t doing anything.

If you’ve got a sore throat gargling, some salt water might make you feel a little bit better, but it’s not going to do anything for the virus.

Who are you getting your information from? Chloe: Yeah, I think it’s so good to just to recognize that we need to make sure where we’re getting our information from. So, from a doctor, from the NHS, from the World Health Organization and just being aware that I suppose there are all going to be companies that are trying to profit from there.

**Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: Absolutely.

Chloe: Immune boosting elixirs and we shouldn’t waste our money or put too much hope on that. Yeah.

How a healthy diet helps **Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: Whilst a — you know, this as a nutritionist, but a diet that’s very balanced, focusing on good nutrition, puts you in better stead to fight off any cold and flu. But no one food group is immune boosting. A healthy diet in general might support a well-functioning immune system, but there isn’t any particular food, any food that claims to be an antioxidant, that actually helps you fight a virus off more effectively.

So, people just need to really question everything they read. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And if it was as simple as gaggling hot water, then the ICUs wouldn’t be filled with people that are requiring assisted ventilation.

Chloe: Totally. Do you have any specific advice for people that are pregnant or that maybe have more compromised immune systems? Is there specific advice for those people who might be especially anxious right now?

COVID and pregnancy **Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: So, pregnant women and people who either have an immune suppressive condition or on immune suppressive medications, for example, inflammatory bowel disease or arthritis, those people are considered in the high-risk population.

So, if you are considered high risk, the NHS will have written to these people this week a letter advising them to be particularly stringent with the social distancing guidelines for the next 12 weeks. So, this doesn’t mean you necessarily have to be housebound 12 weeks, but it means being particularly cautious.

For pregnant women, I feel like it must be so much more anxiety feeling for them because they’re trying to grow a baby, they’re worrying about the kind of world bringing a baby into you right now. I just want to reiterate that the guidance for pregnant women is actually precautionary.

So, we know that other viruses, such as chicken pox, for example, or rubella, affects pregnant women more seriously than non-pregnant women. And we also know that having a fever during pregnancy isn’t preferable as that can sometimes interfere with things. However, we don’t have any actual evidence from this virus (So, the corona virus) that it has any adverse effects on pregnancy.

Guidance for pregnant women So, I just want to reassure pregnant women that whilst it’s still an area that lacks evidence and lacks literature, at the moment, the guidance is precautionary. They’re not saying that these pregnant women are more risk of either catching the virus or having a more severe illness.

So, the current guidance from the Royal College of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians, which is the governing body for that department, are still advising pregnant women to go to all the antenatal screening, for example. I know a lot of women are scared about going to have a checks because they don’t want to go to hospital. But the guidance is still to go.

Chloe: Okay. Yeah, that’s good to know, I think, for people. I suppose I mean, what I’m hearing from loads of people is that this is one of the most anxiety provoking things that’s ever happened.

*Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence*: Yeah.

Chloe: And it’s happening on such a big scale as almost everyone in the world is probably affected by this to some extent. And I think our anxiety levels are just, you know, whether people have anxiety already, this is probably just pushing it off or even people who are normally on the calmer side, this is a very stressful event.

*Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence*: Yes.

Dealing with anxiety around COVID-19 Chloe: What can you say to those sorts of people? What do you advise in terms of that?

*Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence*: Well, I think that, as you mentioned, people who have pre-existing anxiety, and there are lots of people with health anxiety seats specifically, who we find in this {indistinct 23:56}. And the people who haven’t actually suffered from anxiety before will be having these new feelings. And they’re not quite sure how to deal with them.

I think some tips for dealing with anxiety is to try and create a new normal. So, some of this is coming from uncertainty. The fact that every time we log onto the news at 5:00 p.m., we don’t know what we’re going to be faced with.

So, in some ways, my tips would be to create a normal routine; a new normal routine. So, if you’re someone who enjoys getting out house to go to work and you have your little routine, try and create a new one at home. Having some structure to the day definitely helps you get through the day on a day-by-day basis.

I think that keeping up with some physical activity will help ease anxiety because we know that exercise releases endorphins which are happy hormones and that more of a mood boost.

Being mindful of your news consumption I think, being mindful of how much news you’re consuming. So, if you know that every time you watch the news and you’re faced with the numbers rising and the death toll and horrific scenes of what’s happening in hospitals, don’t put that to yourselves. Go on, find the guidance. So, you make sure you’re managing a self safely. But really, you choose how much you consume.

I think another thing is to stay socially connected with other people. Talk about how you’re feeling. I think lots of people are feeling anxiety and actually, sharing that feeling with someone else makes you think, “Okay, at least it’s not just me. We are all in this together.” And even people that you think are really brave and strong might tell you, yeah, they’re feeling really vulnerable at the moment, too. And that actually can be quite comforting.

And lastly, of course, everything else that we used to see in general practice, for example, anxiety, depression, heart attacks, strokes, those things are still important.

Seek support for mental health So, if you feel like your thoughts that you’re having and your mental well-being is suffering, then please still seek support from general practice. We can direct you to the appropriate support; whether that be talking therapies, medication or even local support services. I think that you don’t have to think you can’t come to the doctor about something just because of COVID. We can still help you.

Chloe: I think that’s such an important point, actually, because it almost seems as though this situation has just hijacked everything. It has taken over. No one’s thinking about Brexit anymore. That’s like, “Oh, last year.”

And yet, people are still going to be having their day-to-day health issues and depression and anxiety. And it’s good to know that they can still go and speak to their GP, even if it’s on the phone or video link or still be seeking support because your experience is still valid, even though there’s is other stuff going on as well.

*Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence*: Exactly.

Chloe: Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing those tips.

*Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence*: It’s okay.

Chloe: Are there any other common questions that you found yourself getting asked that you can answer and share with us?

*Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence*: I’ve had a lot of questions about people with asthma. Asthma is a really common lung condition that a lot of the population have. Asthma has been grouped into the vulnerable population.

And what I think is important in that people with any chronic condition, whether that be asthma or any other disease they might see the doctor about, is to go on to specialist websites for advice. So, for example, the government website might tell you that asthma is considered vulnerable. But if you go on the Asthma UK website, it will tell you exactly which group of asthma ticks would be considered vulnerable.

Educate yourself And actually, educating yourself a bit about the condition you have and how it might be affected will make you feel a lot better. You know, asthma is a spectrum of disease. Some people have really mild asthma and only use an inhaler when they exercise and other people have really severe asthma. What we call brittle asthma. And those people might have admissions to hospital with their breathing. So, COVID will affect those two patients differently, even though they both got the same asthma label.

So, basically my advice there is anyone with a chronic condition, don’t just take the surface level guidance you’re getting from the government as gospel. Educate yourself. Go to the specialist sources and that will definitely give you more guidance.

Chloe: Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I guess it could be so easy. I think that the definition of anxiety is where we imagine the future and imagine the worst. And our imagination goes into overdrive, actually, really arming yourself with the facts and not necessarily going to the worst-case scenario in your mind.

*Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence*: Yes. I think a lot of the anxiety is coming from the fear of the unknown, and that’s a complete normal human instinct. So, actually educating ourselves within reason is definitely a good thing to do.

Chloe: Yes. Yeah. I really liked — I think you shared something on your Instagram, which was a clip of this morning. And Felix Scofield is reading out this letter from a Chinese teacher, I think.

Make the best of what we can’t control And it was just a really quite positive letter all about how can we, as much as possible, accept this situation for what it is and kind of embrace the fact that we’re home and make the best of it and try not to control things.

Because I suppose a lot of a lot of anxiety, again, is about trying to control things and feeling unsafe because we’re outside of control. And perhaps I’ll post a link in the show notes of this episode to that letter if people want to read it. I really liked that.

*Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence*: It was a great clip. It was basically a lady who’s been going through this in China and saying, “You know, we’re coming out the other side”, it becomes less scary. It becomes more normal.

You know, if you worry about something before it even happens, you basically put yourself through it twice.

Final tips All people need to do is stay at home, don’t go out very much. If they do, keep to small groups, like maximum one other person; keep two meters apart. Go to the supermarket when it’s not busy.

And actually, this will pass. This is temporary. I think that’s the way that I keep waking up in the morning and I think we’re one step closer, one day closer to this all being over.

Chloe: That’s a good thought; remembering that this, too, shall pass. And we’ll all come out on the other side of this.

*Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence*: Yeah. And I think people should use this time that they have to do everything on that list that they want to do, that they never get time to do it. For example, I’d just read on my website because I’ve been putting that off the whole year. So, far I’ve had more time to do it because in the evenings I don’t have socializing and I don’t have events to go to.

So, they use this free time to invest in yourself so that when you come out of this period, you really can get off to a good start.

Chloe: Definitely, and I think it’s important to remember that there are some positives coming out of this. That we are learning things about ourselves, we’re connecting in different ways.

Are there any other positives that you’ve noticed or that you imagine there might be?

*Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence*: So, I think that we’d become a really technology-driven society. If you went out to a restaurant, you’d see so many people on their phones, not really talking to each other. And I think it’s really going to make us appreciate that going out with dinner is actually a treat.

I remember when I was growing up, we didn’t go out for a meal when it was someone’s birthday. And now, I live in London and probably go out every week, if not twice a week and out of convenience. And I think it will really make us appreciate the little luxuries that we have in life, rather than just considering them normal.

I think a lot of people have become more connected with their families, being at home more rather than always being out and being busy. We’ve realized how important exercise is to us in the outdoors. I don’t know about you, but I really value that one trip outdoors to exercise now.

Chloe: Oh, my gosh. Yes. Yes.

*Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence*: Whereas, why was I ever going to sit inside when now I’m dying to go on a run every day.

Chloe: Yeah. I like watching people’s exercise setups at home. People usually make tins of beans or different things that they fashion to try and exercise.

*Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence*: It’s just kind of making us go back to a more simple life, isn’t it?

Chloe: Yeah.

*Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence*: Even in terms of other things like dating life and things. I feel like people now are rarely going back to a conversation and do you actually get along with that person or was it going to a nice fancy restaurant or a nice holiday that you liked? It’s actually, “Do you like the person you’re with?”

Chloe: It’s fascinating. Yeah. That’s going to be a really interesting thing to see what people do. What people do for dating. Is it all going to be –

Frankie: Yeah.

Chloe: I don’t know, a lit about sex?

Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: Are we going to go back to face-to-face dating or are we going to move away from dating apps and go back to talking in real life? It’s all interesting, isn’t it?

Chloe: Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So, I definitely think — I try to focus on some of the good things, accept the situation that we’re in, be in the present moment, connect with people. All those things are so important to remember right now.

Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: Yeah.

Chloe: Amazing. Thank you so much for everything that you shared. I hope it’s going to be really helpful for people. Where can people find out more about you and follow you online, on your website and that sort of thing.

Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: So, my Instagram and Twitter handles are @drfrankiejs and my website is www.drfrankiejs.com.

Chloe: Amazing. And I’ll post all those links in the show notes as well for people. Thank you so much for speaking to me, Frankie. It’s really, really interesting.

Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence: Thanks for having me on. I hope that just by hearing from someone that’s on the front line that we’ll get through it. I will ease some anxieties.

Chloe: Amazing.

Frankie: Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening. I really hope that you gained a lot from this episode. Come on over to Instagram and let me know what are you taking from this episode. Find me @chloebrotheridge.

And I would love it if he would leave me a review in the podcast app on iTunes. Subscribe to the podcast, leave me a rating.

And is there someone in your life that would really benefit from this podcast? You can let them know by sharing this podcast; I’d be so, so grateful.

So, I’m just wishing you a wonderful week ahead, sending you loads of love. Hopefully, you’ll tune in again and I’ll see you soon.

The post Ep 95. Busting myths and calming anxiety around COVID-19 with Dr. Frankie Jackson-Spence appeared first on Calmer you.

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If you are prone to anxiety, like me, you may have an active imagination. An imagination that can feed fears about what is going on in the world at this time. It’s really important to take extra care of yourself right now. I hope these tips for Corona virus anxiety can help. They have helped me.

Don’t feed the fear If you are prone to anxiety, like me, you may have an active imagination. An imagination, that sends our minds to the worse possible scenario. Don’t feed the fear. For me, that means limiting visits to social media or taking breaks from it or watching the latest corona virus news.

Focus on helping others One way to help ourselves feel better and distract ourselves from the anxiety is to help others. Your concerns may be valid, but how can you distract yourself from those thoughts. Maybe try reaching out to friends and family, offering to help neighbours or it might just mean helping a local business.

Come back to the present moment Do what you can now to come back to the present moment. All we can really control is the here and now. Take deep breaths, take a walk in nature, cook a lovely meal. Remember, that right now, we are safe – water in the taps, air to breathe, a roof over your head.

I hope this helps. Sending you lots of love.

The post 3 Simple Tips for Corona Virus Anxiety appeared first on Calmer you.

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If you are prone to anxiety, like me, you may have an active imagination. An imagination that can feed fears about what is going on in the world at this time. It’s really important to take extra care of yourself right now. I hope these tips for Corona virus anxiety can help. They have helped […]

The post 3 Simple Tips for Corona Virus Anxiety appeared first on Calmer you.

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Anxious about working from home? Partner driving you to despair because you’re together 24/7? In this episode of The Calmer You Podcast I chat with journalist and Shelf Help Bookclub founder Toni Jones about how to handle coronanxiety and thrive at home in a time of Covid-19.

We discuss: * WFH tips for introverts and extroverts * How to still be social (but also not overwhelm yourself with video calls and WhatsApp messages) * The importance of routine * Working at home with your partner or kids * WFH tips for introverts and extroverts * How to still be social (but also not overwhelm yourself with video calls and WhatsApp messages)

Download your FREE Calmer You Toolkit

Working From Home-with-kids resource from Blaire Palmer of http://www.thatpeoplething.com/Download Transcript Hello and welcome to the Calmer You Podcast. This is your host, Chloe Brotheridge. I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution and Brave New Girl. And this podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest, happiest and most confident self.

Chloe Brotheridge: Thank you so much for listening today. Obviously, I’m so aware of what an anxious time this is for so many of you. I’ve been having tons of messages and questions coming through about how to deal with the uncertainty about coronavirus and all the things that we have to deal with from redundancy is to not be able to leave the house to lack of social interaction to fear about our health and the health of our loved ones. There are so many things to consider right now.

And so, what I normally do is record podcasts quite a few weeks in advance and I’ve decided to push back the ones I had scheduled and actually have in place some podcasts that are dealing with the issues that we’re struggling with today.

So, obviously, I know what an anxious time they says and I’m going to be planning some online workshops to help you to feel more resilient and feel more positive in what is, for many people, a really challenging time.

Free offer If you want to hear about that and also download some of the freebies I have on my website, you can go to calmer-you.com/free. I’ve got hypnotherapy mp3 on there, affirmations, worksheets; all designed to help me to be a calmer you. And I’ll also let you know about any events or live workshops I’m doing online.

So, I am chatting on the podcast today to my friend, Toni Jones. She was a guest, maybe a year ago now, on the podcast. She’s the founder of the self-help book club, Shelf Help. And I definitely recommend you check them out. There’s tons for you to get involved in. Even though the in-person meetups aren’t happening for now, she’s doing loads of stuffs online. Definitely check out Shelf Help Club on Facebook and on her website and on Instagram.

I got in touch with Toni because she’d written a fascinating blog post, all about working from home and the challenges that can come up for us when it comes to working from home; from being productive to spending more time with our partners, which can sometimes be quite challenging, though (I’ll tell you from my own experience), to handling the uncertainties and sticking with the routine.

Working from home (WFH) So, we talk about all these different factors; how to stay calm, how to handle working from home, being at home a lot and making the best of this challenging situation. So, let’s get into the interview with Toni Jones from Shelf Help Club.

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Chloe: Welcome, Toni. Thanks so much for joining me. How are you today?

Shelf Help Founder Toni Jones Toni Jones: I’m actually really good. I’m very busy; believe it or not. I should be slowing down, maybe. As I might have mentioned on Instagram a few times, I seem to have lost most of my normal work, but it’s okay because I’m kind of being super productive and actually just getting busy creating content and just doing stuff I actually love, which is really interesting. So, I’m enjoying today. I’m busy. Yeah.

Toni: That’s good. That’s good to hear. I’m really curious to know, as someone that I consider quite a sociable person, we obviously know each other outside of work and hang out. And I know you to be someone that is often out and about, doing things, meeting people. How’s it been for you as such a social person to sort of handle things at the moment?

Staying connected Toni Jones: Well, I’m still being super sociable, actually, just in new ways. I’ve been retesting things. Something I’m calling hurdles for myself and the Shelf Help community, which is bringing different people together.

A lot of my hosts and community members have been helping me test that. So, every day, I’ve had at least two meetings with eight other people, smiley faces, most of whom also don’t really know about how the technology works. So, it’s actually been really funny and brilliant and that’s been a really nice kind of way to check in with people.

I’ve also been doing the same with my family, which has been like chaotic, which is basically like the same kind of chaos as a normal family party at mine.

So, I think at the moment it’s all quite novelty. So, I feel very in touch with everyone. I’ve got too many WhatsApp groups going on. So, I’ve muted a few of those, which we might talk about later, just because they’re so rich; so many different inputs.

Yeah, I still feel very connected to lots of people; I’m making a real effort to do that. So, I’m not feeling the bite of the kind of social distancing just yet. I feel physically distant, obviously, but socially distant, no.

Chloe: Okay. It’s so interesting to hear different people’s experiences and how people are coping with the challenges that are taking place at the moment.

One of the reasons that I wanted to speak to you was because I read a blog post that you’d written that seemed to get shared a lot and have a massive response; all about working from home. Can you share a little bit about that post and why you decided to write it?

Getting used to working from home Toni Jones: Yeah. Well, originally, I decided to write it because I, like you said, I work from home already (I think you said that; sorry). I work from home already for myself, but it’s take me a while to kind of get used to it. Probably about five years. Because I used to work as journalist for 15 years on news floors, which is completely the opposite. It’s kind of like super hectic, filled with people, pressure all day, every day, people shouting at you, which I think I kind of liked.

So, working from home for me was a real learning curve; learning about myself, learning about how to plan your day, your time, how to prioritize, how to be responsible for yourself and motivate yourself.

And I just, as soon as people just don’t get sent home by their companies, I was getting lots of messages from friends saying, “How you do this?” It was like two or three days in and they were just like they were not enjoying it.

How to work from home So, I just thought, “What I might do is just do a piece on how I do it.” And I did a shout out and I got so many responses back from my community and also friends and colleagues that everyone has got a different method and different things work for different people, but now we’re all in this together. I just thought it be interesting to write a piece.

But I feel like the piece needs to be updated already and it is only a few days old. Because I wrote it, how to work from home, from a position of someone is choosing to work from home and is able to change my environment when and if I want, and also working from home by myself.

Working from home with a family And now, obviously, as things are evolving and moving so quickly, a lot of people are working from home with families or with partners, and they’re not able, at the end of the day, to just shake off and go to the gym class or go meet their friends at a restaurant.

So, I think a lot of the strategies that I use, or maybe you and your listeners, for working from home now are going to have to be adapted a little bit. So, I think the response I’m getting now is, “Yeah, great. We love the piece, but how do I do that with the husband and kids?”

So, yeah, I found those good resources actually, which I’ll share as we go through. But yeah, it was a really interesting. I enjoyed writing the piece and I learned a lot. I learned so much from people and I also realized I don’t always take my own advice.

Sticking to a routine So, I think I said to you earlier, “I didn’t realize it was Friday at the moment” because I am sticking to my routine, as in, getting up at the right time and do my work out stuff like that. But yeah, not watching the news so much and kind of keeping myself out of that. So, maybe I need to follow my own advice a bit more.

Chloe: I think we’re all like that; all good at giving advice and then we don’t always take it on ourselves. I think that’s totally normal.

One thing I was really curious to discuss today was how being at home a lot is going to affect introverts and also extroverts. Because when I think about it, I can think there could be benefits and drawbacks to both of these types of people. And I know that probably a lot of people listening are probably — Well, on unofficial polls I’ve done on my Instagram on my followers, the majority of people seem to be introverts and that seems to be associated with anxiety.

Do you have any theories on how this will affect these two types of people, in terms of being at home a lot and working from home?

Introverts – WFH Toni Jones: Yeah, sure. It’s the same actually with the Shelf Help community. I would say not all are a lot of introverts. So, having time to kind of meet people, connect online and ask them how they felt about meeting digitally and all that kind of stuff has been really interesting.

I think some things that have come up for introverts is you can have too much me-time; like this is like it’s kind of enforced me-time, enforced mindfulness, which we can see it as a positive.

But unless, I think, if you’re an introvert, you still have to go to work most the time or you’ll still see your friends in some capacity. But now you’re going to really have to make an effort to consciously do that.

So, I’d say don’t go for too much me-time. Enjoy it, but don’t have too much. And equally, don’t say yes to too much. And this is just kind of like practicing getting used to being online. Some people I’ve spoken to who work online all day are now kind of on video calls all day. And then they say yes to all their kind of social things that their friends are planning and they feel just totally wiped out by the end of it, because it’s just so much input and output.

Getting used to technology Because you’re on video camera every single day in meetings, but then also you’re on the WhatsApp and you’re kind of then agreeing to social hang out and all that kind of stuff.

So, be aware that that is still energy giving out. And for some of us, it’s more energy because we’re not used to the technology; we don’t really know necessarily how it’s going to go.

So, I think, like you would be in the kind of regular life, kind of be careful about where your energy goes and plan that.

Extroverts – WFH With regards to the extroverts, then I would just say social media, use social media in a good way. That’s what it’s for, right? Social media was designed to connect us when we can’t be physically connected. So, there’s so many great things happening now. Lots of live stuff on Instagram, loads of course people are joining, lots of friends.

I’ve got a friend who works in events and they’ve created a VR pub that they all going to go to tonight. So, I think there are ways to kind of stay social and not be physically connected. Yeah, the classes, I’m kind of loving, but I would remember that not everyone’s feeling the same as you. So, I know as, an extrovert, when I’m excited about something, I want everyone to be excited about it. And when you’re in the same room as people, you can see body language and you can read cues more. But sometimes, I think virtually, we don’t have that.

I also interviewed somebody called Dr. Tara Swartz recently. And she’s a neuroscientist. And she was talking to me about being very aware that we’re going to go through a curve. It’s almost like a grief curve, when you lose something or when something massive changes in your life. We all go through this curve and we’ll go through it in different stages.

So, over the next few weeks, we’re all going to be feeling like we need some quiet or we’re feeling sad or we’ll be feeling scared or nervous at different times. And so, for extroverts, and I include myself in that, to remember that the people around us might be going through different things at different times. And so, to be to be aware of that.

Social connection Chloe: That’s so interesting. Yeah, I’m thinking a lot about that, how I know that with my friends and with yourself, we’ve been co-working on Zoom and everyone’s been connecting on WhatsApp and checking on each other. And I just wonder if that will start to wane in the coming weeks and whether people will, particularly introverts, feel themselves starting to retreat more or that the isolation will start to kick in.

So, I think it’s good to be aware that those things can change and to maybe, if you know yourself to be someone who can withdraw, to try to make plans or try to, I don’t know, maybe it’s even about letting other people know, like your friends know, “I have this tendency to withdraw and go inside myself. Can you just check on me or can we keep this going; this regular contact going?” I think is good to have those sorts of conversations.

Regular socialising Toni Jones: Yeah. And I think regular is a really good word here because we can talk about routine, daily routines, and we will, I’m sure. But if you, just the knowledge that you’ve got; a regular Friday lunchtime check in, for instance, or Friday night. And then, if you’ve heard the term quarantine is being kind of bandied around and it’s just friends all meeting at the same time; like bring your own, right?

Virtual check-in It doesn’t need to be booze related, but it’s just like it’s that kind of social. So, every Friday night, if this is kind of we’re going to be in this situation for this foreseeable, then you check-in with your friends.

And the beauty of the virtual check-in is that you don’t need to be there for hours and hours; it is just a check-in. And sometimes, it’s like a virtual hug; you just need to know that there are people out there that are interested in you and care about you.

And you don’t necessarily need to kind of go deep, dive into your problems or challenges. But I think sometimes, yeah, just having that regular plan in the diary is enough to keep most of us kind of going, even before the events happened. Just knowing it’s there is quite motivating, quite uplifting. So, for introverts, especially, I would book that in and ask your friends to book that in.

Chloe: Definitely. I just remembered that I found out the other day that there’s a Netflix setting, I can’t know what it’s called, that allows you to connect with your friends on Netflix and watch a program together and chat about it in a chat box. And I’m disgusted we didn’t have this when we were watching Love is Blind because that would have been brilliant. So, that’s my top tip for anyone.

Toni Jones: That would have been all like over.

Routine is really important

Chloe: Yeah. We touched on the topic of routine. And now, when I obviously speak to people with anxiety all day, every day, the topic of routine comes up a lot as being so important for helping us to be balanced in our mental health. And of course, now things have gotten changed and shaken up and where maybe going to be outside of our normal routines.

What sort of advice or insights do you have about being at home and sticking to a routine? And what have you learned about that in the last couple of weeks?

Toni Jones: So, I would say routine is now more important than ever because there’s so much we can’t control at the moment and this feels a lot of chaos and kind of things are changing all the time. So, what we can control is our days or mornings, kind of how we choose to spend our time and our energy. So, I think routine now; more important than ever.

Make your bed I’ve been recommending a book called Make Your Bed, and it’s by an admiral from the Navy SEALs, who was in the SEALs for, I think, 37 years. And he’s written a book and it’s 10 Rules for Life.

The first one is Make Your Bed. And it sounds super simple. But the idea is that by doing that, you’ve achieved something in the day; kind of you set yourself a task and you’ve done it. So, moving forward, you feel a little bit accomplished and a little bit of pride. Also, it’s a reminder that the small things matter are now more than ever, the small things do matter.

And if we are going to be housebound (Some people might already be) if we’re listening in different countries. If you’re housebound, it’s really important to make that bed because your environment really dictates, for me and for loads of people I know this, your environment will really dictate your mental well-being. So, having a tidy, smart environment is really important.

So, yeah, more important than ever, I think. I mean the morning routine has always been important to me since I started working from home. So, now I’m just in treating myself to an extended morning routine.

I used to dream about, imagine having a whole hour and a half to do whatever I wanted in the morning. Now I kind of can, because it’s the time that I used to spend going to meetings maybe or prepping for different things aren’t happening now. So, yeah, I’m kind of enjoying that.

Zoning But I think my advice here is to zone things. So, we can try to zone our days and our evenings and our weekends. I shall talk about it in a minute. And to zone the house. So, to physically zone different spaces for different things. And also, to his own duties. And this is especially important for people trying to work from home with kids, husband, flatmates, other people, basically.

Because like I said, the original piece I wrote was about me working from home, just considering myself. But actually, it’s turned into a doing everything from home.

Zoning So, I think the zones are really important. And I feel like the routines, it’s great to have kind of treat it like a school day, almost. But for me, what’s going to be really important, as you said, as quite a sociable person, and as someone who really, like really looks — you said look for — Well, I still do — really looks forward to Fridays and the weekends, it’s like, “How are we going to make these blocks of the day different?”

Because we’re all now talking on Zoom, on video conferencing; we’re doing all day for work. So, if we’re doing that for our social life as well, how are we going to make little changes to make that a bit more — turn into fun or turn into the evening?

You’ve got the morning routine, what’s your end of day routine, to say, “Work is now over and I’m going to kind of move into the evening. To some people, it’s kind of just putting your laptop away and hiding it and doing a kind of, “Today is now finished” and kind of saying out loud.

For some people, it’s washing their face, changing their clothes, having a shower, doing a workout, going for a walk, while you still can; maybe that’s what you check in with your friends.

So, I think, yeah, zoning the day and the week and the weekend like that is really important. And that obviously goes back to routine.

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Chloe: I think that’s such an important one about having an end to the working day. Because I know myself that it can just be constant. Unless I have boundaries in place or some kind of plan or routine, I’ll just be answering e-mails at 9:00 PM, sat on the sofa or work encroaching on the weekend.

Bookending And I think especially at this time in the world when we need to look after our mental health more than ever, having a process of switching off and bookending the day with something to help me to calm down or relax. So, I love the idea of taking your makeup off or getting change, having a shower, just to be able to get into that relaxation mode and switch off from the day, I think is so, so important.

Toni Jones: Yeah, totally. I mean, I think FOMO is the only thing that stopped me working sometimes because there was something happening and I was like, “I can’t miss that. So, I’m going to get off the laptop” or as you said, planned a class, I go to frame studios and I’d be like, “I planned the class every lunchtime, because otherwise, I just work through lunch.”

It’s what I did when I worked at a company. Because we were churning out content the whole time, so I got quite used to just head down and get on with it and not having lunch breaks and things. So, it’s bad training from that, but it’s also, if we’re going to be at home a lot, we need to be really extra strict with ourselves on those boundaries.

So, yeah, I mentioned like zoning the house. I’ve seen some funny memes going around about like, “Getting ready to go to the living room tonight. Because it’s like the living room now going to be the place that we kind of like have dinner and drinks and like that’s our social place.”

But it’s like I think it’s quite important, especially if you’re working from home with somebody, like where’s your office space, where’s your desk space, where is the other person’s space?

Co-working tips I have a bad habit. You know, probably this about co-working, but my husband has now realized that I do this a lot. When someone sitting next to me, I just ask them questions all the time; I want to talk to them. And it can be about work, but it’s just anything that comes up. I will just ask. So, Dan now puts his headphones in and that’s a signal for me that he doesn’t want to talk or that he’s trying to work or he’ll let you go in the other room.

So, it’s kind of looking at it space you’ve got and working out how is that best going to work for you and the people in the home? Maybe we’ll talk about families in a minute.

But if you are trying to work from home with kids, it’s like it’s really important for you to almost be out of sight when you’re not on kind of daddy or mommy day-care, because that is your work zone and then this is kid zone. I think that needs to be figured out. So, just kind of some planning around that is probably really useful for people.

WFH with a partner or family Chloe: I think it’d be good to look about that a bit more. I heard that in China, following all the coronavirus outbreaks and people being confined to their homes, the rates of divorce went up quite significantly because most of us are used to, I mean, even though I work at home, my partner, three days a week was going into an office and he work from home a couple of days a week and we got used to that rhythm. But now, we’re together 24/7, literally 24/7.

And I’m sure everyone who has a partner is probably in a similar position. And that’s a completely new experience. If you’re used to having your own time, your own space, or obviously the kids going to school or nursery, then that’s a massive change, isn’t it?

Compromise Toni Jones: Yeah, totally. So, it’s the C-word. It’s compromise, which mostly we’re not generally so good at; all of us. So, it’s basically working out everyone’s needs in this situation, because we’re all going to be at home, working from home; whether that’s doing your schoolwork or as an adult or whatever.

I’m not a parent, but I’ve got lots of nieces and nephews and I’m Aunty Toni to a lot of people. So, I asked a really broad mix and I got two really funny responses to this about how you work from home with kids and a family. And the people who have never done it before said, “Earplugs, wine and a knife for the husband” and the people who were doing it for a while were like, “Routine, shifts.” Shifts is the most important.

Again, so it’s like zoning the time. It’s like you have to decide, at the beginning of the day, who’s going to be in charge, when; who’s going to be looking after the kids and who’s going to be able to do some work.

Because then when there’s a kid meltdown, it has to be the person who’s designated in charge, because otherwise, it usually reverts back to the kind of main caregiver or the person who spends most of time with the kids. But now it’s all it’s all changing; the boundaries are kind of shifting a lot. So, it’s important to kind of get them in place at the beginning, I think.

Supportive boundaries The people who do it well, as well, working from home with children, say, “Do something at beginning of the day that involves a lot of energy.” So, I think Joe Wicks, The Body Coach, is doing a PE class at 9 o’clock every day from next Monday. So, Barry’s Boot Camp, some people have been doing it with their babies, which I think is brilliant, online.

So, it’s just anything that again kind of is good for us because it’s like grownups; it’s going to get your energy going, but it kind of starts the, kids kind of like are not then just fizzing all day, wanting your attention.

So, it’s yeah, kind of looking at that they have needs too; we all do. So, it’s compromising and it’s working out what’s the best way we can all do it and the most fair way.

Planning So, I think the way to do that is, sounds a bit boring, but doing a bit of planning, working out. Some days, I now need to be recording content at home all day. So, my husband’s going to have to find something else to do and vice versa. So, it’s kind of working out the diary in advance and then, yeah, blocking out those times.

And also, I asked my husband about his feedback on this and he said, “We should need to finish the day at the same time, otherwise, it’s silly.” Because it’s like even if someone’s making dinner while someone’s working, if at all possible, if you can both say, “At 6 o’clock, our work day is done.”

And then whatever you do, like we decided we’re going to start looking at recipe books and start cooking properly tonight because it’s Friday date night. So, I’m actually going to shave my legs and get ready for dinner. We’re going to have a drink and have dinner and then go clubbing in the lounge.

So, we kind of like, again, like it’s still novelty. So, ask me next Friday, it might be a bit different. But I think, yeah, that sounds like the zoning of the day is the zoning of the duties, zoning of your kind of space, all important.

Strategies for working together during Covid Chloe: That’s so, so helpful. And I know, just from my own experience with Aden, on our number one argument is when one of us is working, the other one is wanting to chat and connect, maybe at the end of the day or cooking dinner and wants someone to chat to. And we’ll get into stupid arguments about one person not being present because they’re working. Because I literally work on the kitchen table and I’ll never see he’s there the whole time. And it’s just that scope.

And I think that’s such a good point about having that time to switch off or maybe if I’m really focusing or he is, to have headphones in or we’ve been saying to each other, “You know what? I’m having an hour of power now. Please don’t interrupt me for the next hour” or somebody focusing on this. Or if you’ve got different rooms in the house, maybe going and sitting in different rooms.

Toni Jones: Yeah.

Chloe: But yeah, I think that’s something that we all need to be mindful of that divorce rates don’t go up in the next few weeks because we can’t get home at home.

Parenting manifesto Toni Jones: Now, I’ve got to say I love the power hour and I love the kind of, “I’m going to be doing this now.” Brené Brown, she did a podcast with Tim Feris and they were talking about parenting. And she’s quite a mindful parent. I mean, I’m not a parent, but I just love listening to how she brings up her kids.

And she talks about people say marriage is a 50/50 or partnerships. And she said, “They’re not at all hardly ever 50/50. It’s usually 80/20, 70/ 30, 60/ 40. And then, her and her husband have a conversation where they’ll say, “How you doing today?” and one of them would say, “I’m at 20.” So, the other person needs to bring it up to 80. And they have that conversation and that understanding that, “Okay, fine.”

So, like maybe with our busyness levels or maybe with our work levels, if you were kind of saying to Aden or if you’re saying, even to your flatmates or whatever, kind of, “This is what’s going on for me right now. I need this kind of level of space” and so they know they no need to tone it down a bit.

Communicating So, quite like that. It’s kind of like, again, the compromising, but it’s having that chat at the beginning, rather than just passively, aggressively typing really loud like I like to do, or Dan put his headphones in with a dramatic flourish.

So, it’s kind of like, “Yeah, you know that I need to work for a few hours now” and then I will give you time. And like you said, be present, because we do want that. But now, it’s going to be very important that we don’t let everything just bleed into everything.

Chloe: Yeah, totally. And I love the idea of, it sounds like to me, almost asking what you need, asking for support, letting your partner know if you’re having a difficult time with things and you’re then pick up some of the slack or you’re noticing if they’re struggling and you need to be the one that’s going to be taking over for a little bit and having those conversations about that, sounds really important.

I would really love to know — we’re going to need to wrap up this conversation up in a minute, but I’d love to know from you whether any other — I know you spoke to your community, the Shelf Helpers, about their tips and advice. Is there anything else that they mentioned or that came out of that that you found interesting?

Online opportunities Toni Jones: Yeah. It was just taking advantage of all the resources that are out there, really. Because whether you’re introvert or extrovert or however you normally run your days, suddenly, people just sharing so much online.

So, everyone I speak to really seems kind of like recommending things like a resource for — it’s almost like a directory of live events. Because everything I do with Shelf Help is about bringing people together. So, the challenge for me is how do I do that online?

But suddenly, like I said, Joe Wicks, doing his PE class, all the studios in London are kind of doing online classes. And I think the community are really enjoying trying all different things as well. Because you’re kind of anonymous in these classes. So, it’s a good time to try things that you might never have tried and then not worry if you don’t get it quite right.

Live online yoga So, I’m loving live classes because it also makes me actually go to them. Because I’ve always had like online yoga. But it’s I on-demand. Whereas now, I’ve got a favourite yoga teacher, Josephine McGreal, and she’s doing a 7:30 class every day. So, every morning, I do a bit of my morning routine, but at 7:30, I’m on the mat. And it’s so nice to see that some of my other friends names kind of pop into the chat box.

So, what’s happening with my community is that people are sharing a lot of resources like that. So, that we feel like we’re kind of socializing together, but not necessarily just in a hang out when we’ve been online all day already. But we’re socializing, as in, we’re enjoying the same experience and then we’re able to share about it.

Chloe: That’s such a good thing to access. I’m thinking about how it makes it more accessible. So, people that aren’t in London could access a yoga class that maybe they couldn’t in their local area or it’s a bit more affordable, I think, quite often, the yoga classes or the fitness classes or workshops than actually going somewhere. You don’t have to pay for travel. So, it makes it more accessible.

So, there are definitely some interesting or kind of beneficial things to deal with the crisis that we’re experiencing right now. And I’m just trying to focus on the positive things that we can get out of it and how to make the best of what is a bad situation. So, I love that.

Embracing a new way of connection Toni Jones: Yeah. But definitely, there are all those aspects of it; people are really coming together in different ways. Like on our huddles, I’ve been talking to people in LA, in Scotland, in Paris, and we’re all on this and cool. And it’s like, “How amazing is that? We’re all hanging out talking about the same stuff”, which we probably could’ve done anyway, but we haven’t yet. So, it’s forcing us to embrace this way of connecting.

Chloe: Amazing. Thank you so much for talking to me. This has been really, really helpful. Where can people find out more about you and the things that you offer and what you’re up to?

How to connect with Toni Toni Jones: Well, I would love you to come and see us at the shelfhelp.club, which is the website. But at the moment, I’m doing lots of online content through Instagram and also sharing on Facebook, but mostly Instagram, which is selfhelp.club.

So, I’m doing a live reading every morning of a book that I think is good to help keep us kind of grounded and present and positive. And then I’m also doing a kind of, I call it the Keep Calm and Stay Well Series, where I’m interviewing lovely experts like yourself, Chloe, clever experts about kind of how we can best manage these times coming up. So, that’s an evening. So, yeah, loads of online content there.

Chloe: Amazing. Thank you so much for this. It’s been so good.

Toni Jones: Thank you. Nice to see you. See you soon.

Chloe: You too.

Outro Thank you so much for listening. I really hope that you gained a lot from this episode. Come on over to Instagram and let me know what are you taking from this episode. Find me @chloebrotheridge.

And I would love it if he would leave me a review in the podcast app on iTunes. Subscribe to the podcast, leave me a rating.

And is there someone in your life that would really benefit from this podcasts? You can let them know by sharing this podcast; I’d be so, so grateful.

So, I’m just wishing you a wonderful week ahead, sending you loads of love. Hopefully, you’ll tune in again and I’ll see you soon.

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Anxious about working from home? Partner driving you to despair because you’re together 24/7? In this episode of The Calmer You Podcast I chat with journalist and Shelf Help Bookclub founder Toni Jones about how to handle coronanxiety and thrive at home in a time of Covid-19. We discuss: WFH tips for introverts and extroverts  […]

The post Ep 94. Working from Home in a time of Corona Virus with Toni Jones appeared first on Calmer you.

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This week on the Calmer You Podcast I speak with Becki Rabin. She is THE business coach, brand consultant, speaker, presenter and entrepreneur. Wow!

We chat about: * How can we shine more brightly without fears of what people think * Becki shares her own story of transformation * Practical tools for dialing-up your self-worth * How to move outside of your comfort zone

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Transcript Intro: Hello, and welcome to the Calmer You podcast, this is your host Chloe Brotheridge, I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution and Brave New Girl.” And this podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest, happiest, and most confident self. So in the podcast today I get to speak about Becki Rabin, she’s a friend of mine, she is a wonderful business coach, she’s a brand consultant, a speaker, an entrepreneur and she’s all about helping people to get lit. She explains exactly what that means in this episode. She has so many useful ideas on helping us to master our mindset and feel better about who we are and dial-up our self-worth, how we can build a life of our dreams, how to become the happiest version of ourselves and really unlocking our fullest potential.

I think this really comes through in this episode with Becki. She shares a lot about her own transformation and the journey that she’s been on to really shifting her mindset and changing her life in quite dramatic ways. We get into this topic of being lit, being lit up, you know turning a light on, this is something that Becki is really focused on helping people with and why for so many of us we can hold ourselves back from really shining brightly and being confident because we are so scared of what other people are going to think. And so she shares a lot about this and how we can overcome those barriers, so that we can just be our most confident selves. We also talk about anxiety.

Becki shares some of practical tools that she helps her own clients with, and we also get the topic of social media and that pressure, and how we can try to not allow social media to take over our lives.

So I would love to send you some free resources to help you become your calmest and happiest, the most confident self, you can head over the calmeryou.com/free, enter your e-mail address there, then I’m going to send you those free resources, mp3s, worksheets, lots of practical tools, and updates about the podcast, and you can get that calmeryou.com/free. So let’s get into the interview with Becki Rabin.

Chloe: Hey Becki.

Becki Rabin: Hello.

Chloe: Welcome, thank you very much, thank you for being here.

*Becki Rabin*: It’s nice to be here. It’s nice being interviewed–

Chloe: Yes

*Becki Rabin*: –on the other side of the situation.

Chloe: Can you share with us what do you do and how do you help people? What’s been your journey to get to where you are today?

Becki’s mission *Becki Rabin*: Ok. Wow… So what do I do? So I guess firstly I’m like a business coach, I call myself a business mentor and like empowerment coach because it’s not just business focus. So, I guess my biggest mission is to help girls light up, like know that they can have more, that they can have anything they dream of if they just believe in themselves. To turn down the volume on the end of the critic, and step into the light and into their power. So I guess how I do that is I work one to one with predominately wellness coaches or entrepreneurs in the wellness space.

So whether they own a studio, or they are a yoga teacher instructor, or life coach, health coach, nutritionist, p.t. To work with them one to one to help them build their business but also to help them believe that they’re worthy of building their business and confident enough to step into the limelight to make impact and increase their visibility. So I do that one to one and then I also have a group coaching program where I again work with wellness experts to help them build their business but it’s a lot more like their own journey. We give them the resources, they access it.

And then I host events, my own Get Lit Podcast. That’s it really, I’m the founder of an online wellness magazine, which is written by the leading experts in the industry. So it’s kind of all working with entrepreneurs who want to grow their business but also people who just want to have more and are maybe lacking in motivation, kind of the go-getters of the world who might not be shining yet or dreaming of shining, or have a dream that they want to pursue. And then how did I get here. It’s so weird because it kind of all just makes perfect sense but I would never have guessed that this is what I would be doing, like ever in a million years.

I actually started as an advertising manager, working at Hurst magazines. I was managing a department of girls predominately graduates who we were selling adverts into all kinds of magazines.

On the side I’ve always struggled with food intolerances. I was born lactose intolerance and I’ve just been a highly sensitive person, with all these auto-immune issues. I was always researching alternative methods of healing which back then the alternative method was going gluten-free. I was in out of gluten-free but like back then it was all about like gluten free, like the things that I was doing that were helping me get better, you know that weren’t like usual types of medicine, when I was blogging that, as I was always kind of like going along.

And I have always been super sporty my entire life, so I started blogging what I was eating, what I was doing and so that turned into blogging fitness and then I became a personal trainer. So for like 2 years, I was double life in the corporate world and also being a p.t, and blogging, and sharing what I was learning and kind of just getting immersed in the whole wellness fitness thing. And so I did that for about 2 years, which was also probably a massive part of the whole journey too. So I kind of had like my heart was in one business, and I actually did love my corporate career as well, I loved it and I’d always thought that’s what I wanted to do, and I wanted to go on this ladder. But it wasn’t like fulfilling my heart, like it wasn’t like really filling me up.

And so I got really confused because I was like which one do I want to do, like my heart’s over here in fitness but this pays the bills. And also I think it was a lot more because that was all I ever wanted. I always wanted to work at a corporate career in a publishing house, with magazines wearing heels to convey this like successful on the outside woman. That was really confusing for me when I started questioning what I wanted and that wasn’t filling me up and like Hang on a minute, how did the gym and trainers make me so happy. So kind of did that for 2 years and then I couldn’t really take it anymore and actually the universe gave me a little bit of an amazing notch and made my boss redundant and kind of moved the whole department around, which basically meant I had an out to leave. And they kind of… they wanted me to step into his shoes to give me the pay rise kind of all the things that went with it.

So it really made me kind of step into my power and go right I really need to figure out what I want to do here. So I jumped basically and took the leap, went self-employed, I actually set up through the marketing business with a business partner of mine which kind of made me have a regular income for a bit, and learn the wellness industry even more. We kind of got to know all the brands, we got to know all the people and then on the side I got to build my like wellness magazine, which was Alternatively Healthy.” And I’ve actually been through a kind of massive thing with Hurst, where they also need to pitch to them what alternatively healthy was, so that they might launch as a magazine and I was really excited and it made me do this amazing business plan, and obviously working in magazines I saw that there was like this wealth of like the rise of people it’s not about health and there wasn’t as many magazines and obviously there was “women’s health and runners health,” but they were being written by journalists, people with an interest in fitness but not qualified experts.

So I found this like gap in the market and was like I think we need an online wellness magazine, that isn’t just about abs and how to lose weight and shred and burn but actually like how important your mind is to your health and your healing, and alternative methods of healing. So whilst I was doing that business with my business partner, I was able to kind of like follow my passion with both the personal training but not put too much pressure on it being my earning an income.

And then also building the incentive to be a healthy brand. So again meeting loads of experts and getting out there. So we’ve been running that for like 4 or 5 years now and then what just naturally happened is as I grew out of being a personal trainer, I realize that the bit I loved about being a personal trainer was I loved helping girls believe that they were way more than what they thought they were. I attracted all the same goals and they were all just carbon copies of me like, they were going through the same things I’d gone through even to the point where like loads of them had lost a parent and I didn’t have a dad. So it was like I was really attracting just mirrors of me and they were all in amazing shape but couldn’t see it.

And so I was like this isn’t fulfilling me like helping them look a certain way, like we’re so much more than that and I really felt like a year lost my messages the p.t. I was like trying to tell girls that they could get fit and look a certain way but also trying to tell them that it wasn’t about how they looked and they were so much more than that. And I was really… I got really lost and I went away to Australia and I was so uncertain on who I was and I kind of like fell into this hole as well, as I took myself out of my comfort zone, all my issues that I’ve been ignoring kind of came up and I started battling with my own body issues again and food. And I realized I was so routine with my food and so restrictive with my food, but I noticed because it was so routine, I was living my normal life.

So yeah in Australia I got really lost and I kind of came home and just committed that I was going to spend a year working on myself and my own growth, and then it just all fell into place that actually what I started doing was helping one of these experts that were working through the brand, build their brand and kind of consult them. And then I took a risk, a massive risk and I was like I’ve been in this industry 5 years, I don’t know who I am or I’m going to go to a business coach and she was the one that then was like to me, What are you doing? Like you are… you’ve got so much to give, you should be coaching people as a business coach and I was like what? Me, and she was like absolutely, that you’ve run 3 business for the last life 5 years, you’ve got degree in it, you are in advertising and marketing background, you have all the skill sets and you’ve worked as a coach yourself in the industry, you know what the industry looks like and then it just from there fell into place.

Like I did, there was no pushing, there was nothing, it just kind of fell into my lap and then I started business coaching people, getting loads of traction there, and I couldn’t physically take on anymore one on one clients. So I created the community, so it’s funny because I think people think it’s all about just jumping into the unknown, but actually I was doing all of the steps along the way, so yeah every dot kind of connects if I hadn’t done advertising or marketing, I wouldn’t know how to market my business. If I hadn’t of done the p.t. stuff I wouldn’t know what it’s like to be like a p.t. in the industry and the challenges that you face. So yeah that’s how I ended up in kind of a not so short nutshell. [laughs]

Chloe: Ok.

*Becki Rabin*: Yeah.

Chloe: It’s interesting how sometimes we can look back on our careers or lives and just see how things may be kind of circuit to a test, actually everything was teaching us something and pushing us in a certain direction and everything’s kind of happening for a reason.

*Becki Rabin*: 100 percent.

Chloe: How do you think you transformed personally throughout all of this?

*Becki Rabin*: God, I would say like hugely and I’m really honest in anything I do. I really like always draw back to like where I was because I think as coaches sometimes we can like want to be seen to be professional and have all our stuff together and like we haven’t been on a journey but like I believe that most people in this industry aren’t here unless we’ve overcome something. And I literally was talking to a friend yesterday and she was like to me the person that you are now compared to who you were 4 years ago or 5 years ago when we moved in together is like a completely different person, like the words that I use, the things that I used to say, that I used to talk so badly to myself, like I look in the mirror but oh my god you’re gross and like just was so harsh on myself.

I used to literally have this like sign on my forehead that was I don’t talk to me, and it wasn’t that I was rude and didn’t want to talk to people it was just because I was so insecure and I didn’t think I was like worthy of being spoken to, which might you wouldn’t also understand because I was quite like an out there person, like I’ve never been an introvert at all. So I’m confident in like so many ways, but was never confident in myself and I believe that like very different things, I could hold a room, I could you know start in front of a group of people and talk but I just didn’t love myself enough. So I think the transformation I have really like for the last 4 years hugely focused on my growth and I’ve just gone deep and I faced so many like things I was trying to like think that I wasn’t bothered about.

So 1st let me think about this, so before I was born my dad actually died and he died a week before I was born and it kind of set my whole life thinking I was very unaffected by it because I didn’t lose, I didn’t know any different. So I kind of just shut away from it, never asked my mum any questions, and actually what I’ve really would learn since doing all the work on myself is like that really caused so much problems, so many problems for me, like I kind of learn you have to fend for yourself. So you have to always always be on the go and like push and shove your way through life and you have to work super hard to earn money because it doesn’t come easily. And I learned that every man always leaves, and so I learned so many like condition things in my mind at that point from what I had kind of been through. But I had some real demons that I needed to face, a lot of it was just chasing approval from other people because I was desperately seeking my dad approval.

So I was like I wanted to be the most successful in business because I wanted someone to approve of me, and I wanted to have the most amazing body because I wanted someone to approve of me, and I wanted everyone to tell me that they liked me because I didn’t like me. So yes there’s been a huge transformation even in the last year I would say like I really just stepped out of my fear of being seen and out my comfort zone, and have just like been trusting a lot more in the process but yeah if anyone had met me like 3 years ago, I mean you knew me like 3 years ago, it was so different, I just was kind of thought the world was against me and I felt like I wasn’t ever worthy of being successful. So yeah, there has been huge growth.

Chloe: Amazing… Wow… Yeah I think I met you… I remember when I met you and I think you just left your job or you were just about too, it was like you were in the last week of when you were just like taking that leap into the next chapter. That was the scary time, that was a really scary time. I often get asked by people how can I leave my corporate job and do what I love and I kind of I’m like I did it but there was a lot going on behind the scenes for like 2 years before I did it and then in the last 6 months before I did I cried every day. I had this like anxiety inside of me every day, like all the fears were coming out for me but it was I making the right decision, was I going to be supported with money, is this what I want. Am I crazy, in that you have your mom being like have you saved enough money, and I remember meeting you actually and I was like, I was so excited by what the future could hold, I was so petrified. And ultimately I just don’t think I never really believed, it wasn’t… I didn’t believe in my ability to achieve all the things I wanted to believe, it was more that I didn’t think I was worthy of shining and I was so afraid of being the girl that went for it and I kind of think that that’s what so many people struggle with, it’s not that they don’t believe they can do it, it’s that they don’t want to be the girl that steps out and like be who does she think she is. Like how dare she shine her light and that was my biggest.

Chloe: Yeah I mean I can definitely relate to that, that you can feel kind of naked, you know when you’re putting yourself out there and it’s not easy, no. And people, I mean I still feel afraid when I’m going outside my comfort zone. I don’t know if it goes away no matter what you do or how much you push. I think there’s always a new level to get to. So do you think that aspect of… I know you’ve spoken about this before and I heard this a lot from people, you know what are people going to think if I suddenly start my own business and going on Instagram stories and talking about things and you see a lot of things?

*Becki Rabin*: Oh my God. So so much, and also coming from quite a big unique group myself. When I started my blog I can’t tell you how many people took the piss out of me, had something to say about it and they were like who does she think she is, so self-indulgent. And that’s the whole like message behind get lit really is. That I want more women to feel safe to light up and know that it is their birthright to light up and to shine. And that actually they’re not serving only themselves by not, but there are so many people who need their light, there’s so many people who need them to kind of show up and shine and do whatever it is that their purpose is here for and we can become so caught up in what other people think about us and I think I was on like a spiritual tree in Thailand and I was having a healing session and this man said to me, like why do you work the way the you do.

It doesn’t really matter what other people think And I was like because I want to be successful, I wasn’t like I want to help people at that age, it was I want to be successful and he was like but why? And I was like I don’t know and he was like you do know, I was like I don’t. And then he was like when you were working out and you were like so obsessed with how you looked, what was your driving force behind that? And I was like I guess I wanted people to approve of me, and it was so simple he just turned around to me that moment. I was like the only person approval that you need is your own, and like as long as you like your work, you like who you are, it really doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. And it was like it just spoke straight to my heart, it was like exactly what I needed. It sounds so simple but I was like oh and I say that to so many people now, like my events and stuff and even to then they’re like oh, it’s like this.

We’re like waiting for everyone else to tell us that we’re amazing but as long as we love and we know what we’re doing, I always say to people like if you have a mission or purpose it becomes way more important than your insecurities if you genuinely want to help people or genuinely want to do something you tend to they’re not worry as much about what other people think of you. And also the other thing I was they too was like people really only have something to say when that triggered by what you are doing. So I call myself out on that all the time if I ever find myself judging someone on my cat what she doing that is triggering me and I remember there was like a few girls that used to really trigger me in My Space’s coaches, like a couple of years ago and I couldn’t follow them. I realized it was cool because they had absolutely no fear of being seen.

They were just authentically themselves in social media and they were out there, and I was petrified of doing that. For anyone who is ever worrying about what other people might say is really about worrying about being accepted. Firstly there are going to be so many people who are going to say things who are just bitter and jealous because they’re desperate to do it themselves, they might not even know that’s the reason but also just worry about the people who care about you. I’ve done a lot of like surrounding, like a lot of like decontaminating my field of energy in life, as in like hanging around with. Like I really have to separate myself from some people, and I know some people meant well when they were like joking and laughing, and like you know it’s humbling and I love them for it but then some of them I had to be like listen, like this is my work and every time you message me something like that you make me question whether I should do or not.

So yeah, that shows up, I think it is one of people’s biggest, is what other people think about them.

Chloe: Ok, so it’s about remembering that what you think of yourself is the most important thing and also the other people are projecting their own insecurities on to you, it’s not actually about you, it’s kind of their own stance, so don’t get to you personally.

Chloe: And when you say that to someone as well, I always say to someone notes that when you do yourself 1st or notice if you are around a friend and they say something about someone else, just check in and ask yourself if you know that person struggling with whatever is the talking about because I just really believe like comparison and judgment all comes from our own insecurities and I then got clear like every time I was judging someone else, I was like that’s me, I’m doing that, I have a problem that I need to work on that myself.

And also just to know that is what this whole message I want to spread is that like it is safe, it is your duty in life to shine and you have every right to and it just feels amazing when you are if you’re doing it for the right reasons.

Chloe: Totally, what about comfort zones? Can we talk about this? Have you gone out of your comfort zone by any chance?

*Becki Rabin*: Oh my goodness, have I? Comfort zones, I also kind of… this stems into the last topic about being afraid of what people might say, the same is like why we stay safe in our safety zones. I did an episode on this actually in my podcast and I believe that like they’re the excuses we tell ourselves to keep ourselves safe, so that people are going to say something about me or it might not work. I don’t believe that’s what we genuinely believe if I think that they are the things we say and we let our ego think to kind of keep us in that safety zone. So being in a safe design right is like we feel comfortable there, it’s what we know, it is the role we know how to play, whether it’s being in relationships like being in a safety zone where you just keep dating the same guy because that was I did that all the time, and I kept dating the same guy because I knew how to play the role of the girl that always got hurt.

And so anything other than it was like really scary for me. So I kind of believe we stay in these comfort zones particularly with stepping out into like building a business because we’re so afraid of how powerful we can be and how far we might be and how we fall because the top is so amazing and I’m always saying to people wouldn’t you rather see the top for a minute even if it was just for a minute and then fall and won’t you rather feel that feeling of love because you liked jumped and told someone how you felt about this, than not feel it at all. And so when we stay in our safety zones, we kind of… that’s what keeps us stuck, that’s what stops anyone from doing anything that they dream of doing.

And the thing is with getting out of your comfort zone is that’s kind of where the magic happens, that I always say to people if something scars you, do it. I’m at a stage in my life where I’m kind of working along like doing something and I’ve got comfortable and there’s no fear that kind of always that Ok, I need to step up what’s next, where I need to find some kind of fear, I love that feeling where I’m scared if it’s going to do well because I know that us me growing. I think a lot of our need to stay in all our safety zone or comfort zone is our need to control things. A lot of us don’t even realize that we’re doing it but I even notice that with my events, a lot of my events or about stepping out of your comfort zone and being brave, right? That’s the whole theme of them and I’m quite vague with what happens at the events like we’ve done enough events now people have kind of seen all the videos, they’ve seen that… they can see what goes on and they see the feedback but I always get people messaging me saying like I really want book a ticket, like what’s going to happen there, who’s going to be there, what are you going to do?

And I’m always like listen, this is the 1st step, it is going to be about like stepping out of a comfort zone, and the 1st thing is for you to book a ticket, you know it’s going to like, you know it’s going to help you. the voice that’s telling you to find out all the eventuality is the exact ways that keep you safe. So I deliberately keep my like baize for the event, it’s quite vague because I quite often like to just let the events go where they’re meant to go but b because I’m like I want you to take that 1st step of doing something that you can’t control all of the outcomes. And so when we step out of our comfort zone, we kind of lose control of all the possibilities because we’ve never been there before but what I try and say to people is like what if those possibilities are way better than you could have ever imagined or would have controlled and you’re actually blocking that from happening by staying in your comfort zone.

So I think the biggest thing is people get overwhelmed with is needing to be a massive step and I actually always say like the best things come from the smallest steps. Like whatever big picture is take one small step every day that gets you out of your comfort zone, whether it’s going to talk to someone really randomly and saying like hi just so that you can work that muscle and learn that it’s the correct behavior. So that your body learns that it’s a really good… but your condition you mind goes oh that went really well, I’m going to do that again. And I just think the greatest things come from when you step out of that comfort zone and the whole reason we stay there is that same voice that tells you you’re not enough, it is the same voice that tells you you can’t have what you dream of having, that keeps you stuck in that zone where you are. Yeah, I’m a big fan of the front of stepping out of comfort zone.

Control Chloe: Yeah, totally. And I think you’ve really hit on something with that issue of control, and we little human beings you know… one of you know 7500000000 on a tiny planet in a massive universe think we can be in control of everything. Only we’re not in control, and it’s actually Ok to not be in control because somehow the planets keeps you know spinning.

*Becki Rabin*: Yeah.

Chloe: And the world keeps turning and if we can relax and tune into that, like amazing things can happen.

*Becki Rabin*: I’m the worst sometimes, I have to really check myself and go like you’re really trying to control all of the outcomes here, let go and just surrender. It is such a cliche word, but like just go and see what happens and whatever I’m not controlling, a situation is when the magic really happens. So I think the key is just awareness, notice yourself if you’re like scared to step into something, ask yourself why, and then once you notice that it’s actually I’m afraid that I might do really well at it or afraid that I might be seen, you can go actually no, like I’m going to do this and you’ve got to start making friends with that ego voice inside of you and just know that she’s just there to protect you not to hurt you. Protect you and when you know that, you kind of can work that muscle a little bit more .i

Chloe: It’s amazing, isn’t it? How there can be this theory of fear of failing but also fear of doing well. You’re like stuck in between, and are both terrible seemingly.

Fear of success Chloe: Yeah, no I think they’re the same fear as well. They’re just the fear of being yourself, like the fear of success I think out weights of all the clients I’ve worked with and the people I’ve spoken to. I think there’s more people afraid of success than they are of failure. I don’t believe failure exists, like I would say what does failure even mean to you, and if they say to me like all well you know launching an event and only 2 people come on or starting a podcast and only 2 people listening, I’m like well isn’t that amazing that you’ve potentially like changed two people’s lives like we get so caught up in that how many that actually if you can change one person’s life that is such an amazing thing. It’s just what are you defining as failure, as if you’re reading a book this morning it’s actually the Course of Miracles but the made easy version.

And he talks about how he wrote a book and it was called like the Joy is My Compass and it did really badly, like it didn’t sell, they ended up not printing it, it wasn’t the bestselling book. And I kind of question why it was so bad and did I write it wrong or was it not meant to be, and then he said he got a letter from someone once and was like oh she stood up in event, and was like I always dreamed of opening up like an a toss because I was so passionate about helping people but I was stifled by fear, couldn’t do on your book was the sole thing that made me go out there, and go and do it. Thank you so much, and he was like I notice in that moment that even though my book failed technically to the outside world based on measures and achievement, I had to help someone create a space, like that if that was my only purpose with that book, then it was great.

So I think it’s more about redefining what failure means to who, by whose measures because we’re the only people setting that standard.

Chloe: That’s so true, isn’t it? Because everyone think I failed but what number of people have to come to make it, and often in our minds, it can be infinite. There’s no amount of books I could see that would make me feel successful in that mindset.

*Becki Rabin*: And who’s telling you, like who’s telling you it’s right or wrong, yes you can compare like your podcast listeners to someone else’s but it doesn’t… it’s not… that’s not really what you’re here for, you’re here to help people with your podcast and of course the more people it gets to the more people you help but yeah I definitely think the fear of our success and how amazing and like worthy and capable we are is probably one of the biggest things that I see. It’s sad.

Chloe: Yeah.

*Becki Rabin*: Yeah.

Chloe: What does it mean to get lit, how can we get lit?

What does it mean to get lit? *Becki Rabin*: So I always say that like… I always start by telling people what it isn’t. I think we like being someone who’s lit up is essentially someone who is in tune with their intuition, they don’t wait for other people to approve of them, they’re not afraid to step into their power, they are not afraid to shine their light, they are trusting and you know what I do at my events? I ask people to tell me what it means to be lit before I even talk to them. And every single one of them always answers, you know trusting authentically ourselves, shining a light, like choosing love over fear, like they all know the answers but then never asking themselves the actual question or sitting with it. So I had this like vision of creating the get lit message for everyone. I remember saying to like my business coach I keep wanting to do something called Get lit. I don’t know where it’s come from but I just feel like it’s a very today kind of way of telling people to light up. To the people who maybe aren’t reading spiritual books or aren’t on any kind of pathway to like… you know they might believe there’s a little bit more out there or that they’re worthy of more but they don’t know how to start.

And so get lit, like has quite a few different meanings. So obviously with my business coaching clients I’m a lot like this is about you being visible, it’s about you stepping into power and being seen and increasing your impact in the industry but then for like our podcast listeners or the attendees and like the general message it’s like to be yourself and showing exactly who you are and who you want to be. So I always thought by telling people that like being lit isn’t about your like outwardly measures of success or how well you’ve been received by people or achievements or your qualifications or anything like that. It isn’t about what other people think of you, and it also isn’t about the things. I used to think that being lit was like having the best bag, having the best shoes, having the best clothes and all the design and things, that I still love designer things now.

But my self-worth doesn’t depend on it, so I use the kind of believe that if I had all of these things I would be lit, I was trying to be seen by everyone by the clothes I was wearing and I was trying to be seen by like building a business, and I was trying to be seeing but really I was actually hiding who I really was. And so it’s basically about being unapologetically yourself and whatever that means for you, shining that. Some people don’t want to step out and be seen by loads of people and that’s absolutely perfect too. Some people like to be introverted and stay where they are and kind of not be seen by a 100000 people but it’s about being seen as who you are and believing in yourself enough to like surround yourself with people who lit you up.

Do a job that you love, that you deserve. Everybody deserves a job that they love, and be with people that they love and just have a hobby that they love and a passion that they love. So yeah it’s quite a multi-dimensional meaning but it’s just essentially to just shine, whatever that looks like and fill yourself up from the inside. So I always say like you go flip your switch but it’s inside of you and it’s not from all of these outwardly things. So I used to wait for someone to come over and tell me oh you look amazing and it would like turn on my light on for a little bit and then as soon as they walk out the door I’d be looking for my next fix of that little bit of lightness. I also believe to really truly shine, we have to go to our shadows, we have to go to our dark places, like I am only doing my work now because I spent so many years hiding in my fear, not believing I was worthy, hating myself, self-doubting, talking to myself badly and it wasn’t until I looked back at that I realized that actually maybe that’s my purpose to help other people.

Often our purpose and our light kind of sits within those dark places and I don’t think you can really ever find your life without facing the dark, facing what you’re like avoiding and doing the work on yourself. And overcoming anything that’s like been a trauma for you, or hardship for you. So yes that is what get lit is.

Chloe: Amazing, I love that phrase being unapologetically yourself, I just love that, that’s really empowering to me. And I think when it comes to anxiety or you know people with depression, it comes down to their relationship with themselves, not feeling good enough, to not be able to feel that they’re okay, and I think if we can work to that level. So many other things kind of sort themselves out with us and in your professional life or relationships, but it is such an important key thing really.

Who are you? *Becki Rabin*: And I don’t think people know who they are because they spend so much time thinking what they should or what other people are and looking outside of themselves, that they don’t. You know I remember writing down like what do I love doing, what makes me feel good, what writes me up and I didn’t, you know it sounds so cliché to be like you know helping others but I didn’t really know that that was what it was. I’ll never forget like one time where a girl gave me money for my like p.t. sessions and it came from her mom who was really unwell, she was I thought you’d really appreciate this and she gave it to me in an envelope that said like fun money and her mom had given it to her. So she’s like I thought you’d really appreciate me giving it to you from my mom, like she went to me I don’t want you to spend this on anything other than something that makes you feel amazing.

Like she was basically and I was like Ok cool, no worries. And just before I went to Australia I was like I kept trying to find things to spend this money on and I couldn’t, it was like cash, it was like 10 sessions where the p.t. just could not find anything. I was like glasses like I could buy them myself, I was like that doesn’t… and I realized that all those things I would have bought that I was like No, I promised… her mom was so ill, I was like I’m going to stick to this, and I couldn’t spend it and like stayed on my side for like 6 months and then her mom passed away sadly, and she was flying back to Australia and she was like come back for 2 weeks and I want to have one session with you.

You’re such a pivotal part of my growth, when I was in London. I want to have a session with you. So I go into the session with her and I wrote her called her s card, her mum had passed away, so it was I better write her a card just to like share my condolences and say sorry, I had this like over like overwhelming feeling of like oh my God, I know exactly what to do with this money. And I stand up to the session and I… and it was just came from nothing other than I wanted her mom to give her this gift back, and so I gave her the envelope back with all the money in and the note from her mom still and I was like This is from your mom and I just burst into tears, she burst into tears, it was the 1st time I really realized that nothing ever made me feel that good other than giving back to someone else. I was so surface level for so many years thinking that happiness came from all these things that was when I realized that it was about helping other. It was a really big change in my like whole like career at that time, big time.

Chloe: That’s so lovely. Yeah, I think you know as human beings it is almost an innate thing that is within all of us that we get the most meaning from being of service other people and helping other people. And modern life and consumerism and all these things have kind of convinced us that it is these surface things that are important and actually you know it’s getting back to that, and sometimes it takes there’s going through big challenges to get to that point, our own challenges and realizing we can come out on the other side. And that’s why you know as you said before a lot of kind of coaches and things have been through their own crap and come out of the other side and then think I want to help other people because I’ve been there.

*Becki Rabin*: Definitely.

Chloe: Do you have any kind of favorite tools or practices that you can share in terms of what people can be doing you know at home to help themselves with the things we’ve been discussing?

Becki Rabin: You know I like I have so many little tools in my bag but I kind of gal and I think I really have spent 2 years mastering like what works for me. I used to suffer really badly from I couldn’t sleep, like I used to get panic attacks all the time. I changed a lot of like my health and a lot of my daughter as well, unlike things like people who are quite driven or high achievers or people who want to stop business or whatever tend to be quiet like intense or like basically in flight or fight all the time, we’re kind of like go go go go go go go go go and so I so I started like implementing rituals. Really slowly but like I changed my whole morning, so when I was working full time. Now I’m like I don’t I start my day like never really before 10 that’s a choice.

I obviously well for myself, even when I was working full time I basically decided I used to get and run out the door and go to the gym at like 6 am before I then go to or commute to work. And so I switched it and I got up early and I spent an hour at home slowly starting my day. So I would meditate, I got really into meditation but I’m not a big meditator that goes like Deep, I tend to have about 10 minutes, I just breathe, like I think we kind of over complicate it or I just put on some nice music and I just breathe in and out as much as I can and I kind of just sit with it and that really helps me.

So I do that, and I journal quite a lot. I just ask myself how I’m feeling and often with business you know lots of fear comes up particular if you’re stepping out of a comfort zones, so I always say to myself like clients… and I still get myself like what is it that you’re afraid of in this particular moment what is scaring you from stepping out of your comfort zone here or what happened today and why did that happen and how did that make you feel and when I write, that’s kind of where my magic happens I just sometimes write things that I’m like wow when I read it back, I’m like did I write that and I just find it so therapeutic. What other things, do I have? A lot of it is like I talk myself quite a lot in my ahead, sometimes out loud. Some people would pass me by and be like what?

But I think a lot of the work that we talk about is Awareness is key, so you know even when I used to speak in some ways or thinks of things, like when I got clear about what I was doing, I say to people like write down all the things you’re afraid of for example what you call that power into you know what’s been holding you back so I always say life you can’t light up until you know what’s been telling you off like until you know it’s been tripping a fuse and who’s been tripping a fuse you can’t shine your light right. so I always tell people to start with getting aware of what their actions are, what their behaviors are, what their thoughts are. You know sometimes just awareness alone and just going oh I just did I’m going to stop and use again is like the May was the biggest change, you know like I used to my feet and my pinch my body and be like oh my God I must have just gone about 10 stone, and then when I made a conscious decision and a commitment to myself that I was going to change my what I brought awareness to it and I would literally stay to myself “you’re amazing, or you’re beautiful or whatever.”

And it just shifts your whole energy, and I think with business staff or with stepping out into your power, like this time last year I came home and I made myself a commitment, and I call it a lit statement, I wrote myself a commitment statement or lit statement in my phone and I wrote… so I started with what all my fear is and I wrote down all the things I was afraid of and all my limiting beliefs and all the negative words they I used and what I did was I turned into the positives, like created lit statements or lit formations, like the fear based ones and basically turned into like a 3 sentence Power Girl I read out to myself every day and I think that originally last year was like I’m committed to stepping into my power, I’m not afraid to be seen, I know that when I’m alone I light up all others and great things happened to me or something.

It was something along those lines and I read it myself every morning, 1st thing in the morning for 6 months and it was just unbelievable, like the change was just amazing because the more you tell yourself those things, the more you believe it and then you sit into that energy and this year Mine’s a lot more like I’m going to move and trust from a place of peace and clarity and calmness because I’m quite often like go go go. And so it changes, and I think that’s the key is to kind of be aware that we’re always evolving and whatever your like focus might be right now, doesn’t mean that that’s going to be a focus is 6 months time. So yeah I think the biggest thing was a commitment statement to myself and I said it out loud to myself every single day, that change so much for me.

I was just telling myself I was worthy and I was going to be aware, change my words and choose again, like it really helped.

Chloe: That was such a powerful word I think, just the act of having some intention behind what you’re going into the day with and you know saying what you say to yourself is so important. And just knowing the direction that you’re going in, and just remind yourself every day, you know it doesn’t have to take long to do that, but it can so powerful.

*Becki Rabin*: And everyone’s will be different, like some of the girls that like I’ve coached, they do the same and they realize that she they were afraid of being seen too, and so that became theirs. And some are just literally like I choose to show up today with like confidence, and energy, and positivity, and help one person today, like it completely be whatever it would relate back to what your fears are, what’s been holding you back from stepping out and I think that’s the 1st exercise. I would like invite anyone to do is write down what they have been doing that’s been holding them back. What behaviors do they do, how do they self sabotage, like do they judge people a lot? I always say like what’s been keeping your light off? In like events I say to people like behavior is that one of the biggest things as well.

So I noticed I always took the piss out people, always joked about people or joke about myself, because I didn’t want to be taken seriously. That was my way of like hiding or procrastinate, so whenever I know I was on to something good, like whether it be planning at event or when I was thinking of when I was literally planning out what get lit meant, the whole message, my 1st ever event was about that, and I procrastinated so I found everything possible to do that I had wanted to touch. I toured my cupboards, like cleaned out my house, I was like I hate doing this stuff and then I got clear, like it was the awareness Becki you do this every time you’re about to shine your light, you stop yourself, so yeah getting really clear about what’s been holding you back as well is so key.

Chloe: I think you’re so right about the awareness, it is amazing how all these you know patterns can run in the background and we’re not even aware that’s what’s happening or realizing this is a problem and then somebody shine light on it and that’s going to be enough to change, that sometimes it doesn’t need to be so complicated, it’s just spending that time to do that practice that you just described and get clear on what’s holding you back and what your fear are.

*Becki Rabin*: 100 %, so you’re so right, it is sometimes literally shining your light on it, saying it and going oh the work is done. Sometimes you might need to remind yourself resay the words but sometimes that she just drawing attention to it, the work’s done already your mind completely changes and how it wants to behave like if you like this every time you do it.

Chloe: What is your relationship with social media like these days? I’ve been asking a lot of people this question?

Social media *Becki Rabin*: Goodness you know what, I’ve always been really conflicting with this because as someone who has like a degree in social media marketing basically, I think it’s the most incredibly powerful tool for brands, for people, for people with a message, like it’s just so powerful and it’s so wonderful in so many ways like my group coaching community for example, I have seen that grow purely just on social media I wouldn’t be able to do my work if it wasn’t for social media, and I’ve seen people become best of friends through that community, sharing each other’s work on social media, collaborating with one another.

So I think it’s really powerful but my personal relationship with it has really changed, I don’t know whether it’s I’ve got to a certain age and I’ve been part of my life for so long that I’m just a bit exhausted. And I also like when I’m coaching clients particularly when they are new in the industry, I’m like you’ve got to show up, you’ve got to show up, you’ve got to be there. I spent 2 years on Instagram and on the social media world but reaching out, connecting and using it for all it’s positivity, but I think we can get so caught up in being something on social media that we forget to be ourselves outside of it or we forget to live life, or there has been so many experiences that even when I was in that depth in Australia, you know I always say to people, I was at like one of those magical places in the world and what I was thinking about was what photo I was going to get and how that was going to go on Instagram, instead of taking in this incredible experience and I think it’s being mindful with social media. I show up way less on social media now, kind of show up say a podcast has gone Live and then I remove myself again, because I decided at the beginning of this year that I wanted to focus on my community more so people I’m working with wants one to one or any of our clients or anything, I want to be there for them all and every time I think of a caption for 20 minutes as 20 minutes I haven’t been able to be with that person.

But I do think when you kind of driven by purpose again and meaning, social media becomes a much easier place. I kind of removed anyone that was triggering me. Have just built such a healthy relationship with it, that now I go on and I see the beauty and I share what i need to say and then I kind of get off it but I think a lot of people think that to be successful in business you have to have a huge social media following, particularly starting up and I just don’t believe it at all, so I think if you’re doing the right what can you’re showing up in all the way social media is an amazing additional tool rather than the business, I think that’s what a lot of people can kind of get ready confused by.

So I’ve always been in 2 minds with it, love it for so many reasons. And then also I think it can really lead people the wrong way, and focus on the wrong things. So I think it’s being mindful with it, but yeah I use it way less, I don’t know if that’s what other people are saying.

Chloe: Yeah it’s a good position to be. I think it can take over and I was talking to Shane Avachi early this morning and she said there’s an app that she uses to block apps and need to you get the name of that. So you download an app and you can’t go on Instagram, I was you know like I need it, so text after.

*Becki Rabin*: Wow, I remember I had 5 days off it, I do it all the time now, but I think it was the 1st time I decided that I need to spend less time, when it took 5 days off there and I just put it into another. I think I deleted the app from my phone, I can’t tell you how many times I picked up my phone and I was like talking someone I’d like pick up my phone my thumb just went to where it was and I was like oh my god it’s like it’s not even a thought process anymore just a habit. So you know what I don’t do, I don’t really scroll anymore, I kind of show up, see what my friends are doing, what my like peers are doing, support them and then I leave. So I don’t spend hours scrolling anymore, so the screen time tells you that, yeah that’s scary.

Chloe: Because I’ve had a few retreats I’ve been on this year where I’ve had breaks of like one or 2 weeks from no email, no whatsapp or anything, and I’ve learned that life doesn’t end, there were no disasters or things that I need to know about, actually the world carries on turning and I don’t need to be you know checking in on these things quite so often. So that has helped to reset me, I think in some ways it’s quite helpful.

*Becki Rabin*: I think we get caught up when our job is helping people, we worry that if we don’t show up for a bit on the platforms, that our businesses are going to fail, or people are going to think that we’re doing our job, and we kind of almost get rid of I feel like sometimes I have to reply to every single d.m. from someone asking me questions, I think you have to put your boundaries up. I haven’t ever done a week with no e-mails, and no social media. I’ve done no social media I can handle that I find it really hard to not look at one emails and really detached, that something I’m going to challenge myself to this year for sure.

Chloe: I saw recently another coach posting that she was giving up e mails and I’m just going to have teams do all the emails, and asking her questions, I’m like considering that, that’s quite appealing to me. I write the contents for my email.

*Becki Rabin*: For like the newsletter to go out, I wrote them but my team do all the bits around and sometimes now particularly the group coaching community, the girls just know my tone of voice and they write it for me and I’m Ok it. But replying to emails I’ve got way better at no point everyone. Sorry if anyone ever gets annoyed but I really like don’t reply to a lot of emails now unless they’re like what like I have the capacity to. Yeah, because I used to be really like also one of those people that had to reply straight away, otherwise I’d get anxiety if left them there. And so I’ve really tried to like work around that but now I’m desperate, I’m going to… I’m definitely going to do like a complete no work week or 2 maybe, just switch off.

Chloe: Yeah I think we all need that digital detox of some kind. Becki thank you so much for sharing, all that you shared, you’ve been so generous with what you’ve shared with us. Where can people find more about you and what you’re doing what you’re offering at the moment.

*Becki Rabin*: We have the get lit website, so that’s just getlit.co.uk. And then I have my own BeckiRabin.com. And then where can we show up? So we’re hosting an event in March, I’m not sure how long if there will be tickets left when this was out.

Chloe: What date is it?

*Becki Rabin*: 28th of March. Which is all going to be about the focus of the event is going to be like bravery, overcoming fear, stepping out of your comfort zone, you don’t have to have a business or even want to have your own business, it’s just about becoming a more motivated and like lit up self essentially. I have a podcast which is at the moment just solo episode, so I just host this. It is called the get lit with Becki Rabin Podcast, it’s sort of has episodes and I do live coaching calls as well with clients, they can call in and also ask question, and we’re just going to start doing guest episode now, it’s like there is I mean people I want to speak to. And then yeah on social media Becki Rabin, and then yeah if you are someone who is looking to step into the entrepreneurial like realm, particularly in the wellness industry or you already you are a coach, then I have my group coaching community which is good to “get lit click.”

So it’s a business coaching community, membership is $25.00 pounds a month. And in there you kind of get access to a community of like minded people, so there’s like 200 people in there, that have been in the same position as you and everyone’s just like, you know you’re going to message someone and they can go for coffee, like I see them all the time having lunches and branches together, and some of them become like lifelong friends, which is if anything, I’m so glad I set out for that. Yeah you know what is the least important part, not important part but when I sent it up, it was like you’re going to a Facebook group, like I didn’t realize the power of it.

And actually most people when they give us feedback, I’m like I mean it because of the community I don’t even use the resources, and then you also get access to like called the members lounge. So on there is like tons of master classes, workshops, webinars on how to build a business, like find your niche, know your audience, create socially strategy. Literally everything, built like start a podcast, build a membership program, we kind of cover it all. So yeah that’s me, that’s where you can find me.

Chloe: Amazing, thank you so much.

*Becki Rabin*: Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.

Outro: Thank you so much for listening, I really hope that you gained a lot from this episode. Come on over to Instagram and let me know what are you taking from this episode, find me Chloe Brotheridge and I would love it if you would leave me a review in the podcast app or on i-Tunes. Subscribe to the podcast or leave me a rating and is there someone in your life that would really benefit from this podcast, you can let them know by sharing this podcast ,I’ll be so so grateful. So I’m just wishing you a wonderful week ahead, sending loads of love, Hopefully you’ll tune in again and see you soon.

The post Ep 93. Dial-Up Your Self Worth with Becki Rabin appeared first on Calmer you.

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This week on the Calmer You Podcast I speak with Becki Rabin. She is THE business coach, brand consultant, speaker, presenter and entrepreneur. Wow! We chat about: How can we shine more brightly without fears of what people think Becki shares her own story of transformation  Practical tools for dialing-up your self-worth  How to move […]

The post Ep 93. Dial-Up Your Self Worth with Becki Rabin appeared first on Calmer you.

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Nicky Clinch is a Maturation Coach &  Facilitator. Maturation is a process of growing out of who you thought you were into who you were born to be. Her mission in life is for you to break free of the confines of your past traumas, self-defeating patterns and suffering so that you can realise and come […]

The post Ep 92. Healing Trauma with Nicky Clinch appeared first on Calmer you.

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Nicky Clinch is a Maturation Coach & Facilitator. Maturation is a process of growing out of who you thought you were into who you were born to be.

Her mission in life is for you to break free of the confines of your past traumas, self-defeating patterns and suffering so that you can realise and come home to who you truly are.

We chat about: * Nicky shares her tag on anxiety (it’s not your usual perspective and I love it) * How we can heal trauma * Nicky shares her powerful story of transformation through plant medicines * Why she scrapped 50,000 words of her book to start from scratch

Sponsor Sweaty Betty – Pop into one of their stores with your old leggings to grab that voucher towards a new pair. Head to https://www.sweatybetty.com/sustainability to find out more. Get 20% off online purchases with the code calmeryou.

Transcript Introduction Chloe: Hello, and welcome to the Calmer You podcast. This is your host Chloe Brotheridge, I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of “the anxiety solution and brave new girl,” and this podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest, happiest and most confident self. In this episode, I’m talking to the wonderful Nicky Clinch, and Nicky is such a special person, she came over to my house to recall this episode, we actually live quite close to one another in London, in Hackney, East London. And we sat together on the sofa, and I honestly felt like this conversation was so healing for me, and it really came at the right time for me personally and I really hope it helps here as well.

Nicky is a transformational leader and facilitator, she has studied integrative counseling and macrobiotics, she is also a spiritual mentor and it’s her mission in life to help all of us to break free from the confines of our past traumas, ourselves defeating patterns, and our suffering. So that we can realize and come home to who we are. So Nicky and I get into lots different topics, we start off by talking about trauma and how it can be the root of so many of our issues and how we can start to overcome the traumas that held us back. Nicky gives us her take on anxiety and where that comes from and what we can do to start to manage our own anxiety.

And Nicky advice definitely isn’t the standard 3 tips to curing anxiety something that you might read day-to-day, it really does go very very deep and it’s very very powerful. She shares some really moving personal stories about how she’s healed her own trauma, how own experience of plant medicines, her own transformation and how she helps other people to transform. She also shares the incredible story about how she was 50000 words into writing her book, she had publishing deal with Hey house and how she actually scrapped the whole 50000 words and went on a different path and this is incredible for me, as someone who has written a book to let go of 50000 words, that’s just terrifying to me.

So I love this story with Nicky, it was incredibly inspiring. So I would love to send some free resources to help you grow your confidence, boost your self-esteem and calm your anxiety, if you want these freebies you can head over to my website; calmeryou.com/free, put your email address in there and I’ll send you those freebies right away. So let’s get into the interview with Nicky clinch.

Nicky Clinch: So we’re rolling.

Chloe: Ok, welcome Nicki.

Nicky Clinch: Thank you, thank you so much Chloe for having me on here, this is the 2nd time I’ve been on your podcast and I was thinking earlier, how much has changed since when you 1st interviewed me, not just in myself but also what’s happening in the world right now. So I feel really happy to be back, thank you for having me.

Chloe: Amazing. Yeah I obviously follow you online and we’ve had some discussions back and forth on Instagram, and I knew I had to speak to you again. I was so intrigued by the things that you were sharing and we started talking about trauma and anxiety, and where anxiety comes from. Can you speak a little bit about your take on anxiety, and what you see you know as the struggles that people have with that.

Nicky’s take on anxiety Nicky Clinch: Yeah, I think the 1st thing I want to say is that I find it really useful to start naming it for what it really is, because I think anxiety has become this blanket term for this experience that happens inside of us which creates all this tension, and stress, and internal conflict, but really what anxiety is – it’s fear, it’s deeply rooted fear in the body, and that 1st naming it for what it is allows us to really start to see it as an emotion that is happening inside of us that we can start to have a relationship with. Now, what are we fearful about, what is it that is causing so many people to carry so much fear inside.

There are different reasons obviously for everyone on a personal level. But really I think what happens is is that you know 1st I need to say that every single one of us our natural state, our natural essence is wholeness we all our authentic state of being is wholeness. We all are perfectly whole and complete, we are all enough, everybody is enough exactly as you are, that’s your natural state. Now anything else on top of that, any kind of discord, any kind of conflict, any kind of separation is not who you are, these are behaviors and patterns, and habits, and strategies, survival strategies, that we have learned and why do we learn them? We learn them as a result of some kind of trauma so trauma.

What is trauma Trauma can mean many things, it’s not always what we see in the movies where you know you’ve been through some horrible abuse or there’s been some violence. Trauma is not what happens to you, it’s what is happening inside of you. So trauma can be anything from watching your dog get hit by a car or your doll falling out of the pram, and you’re trying to communicate it with your mom but she can’t understand you and she rolls off with the pram and you left the doll behind it can be anything it’s not about what happened it’s about what happens inside of you while what happens now in those moments where some form of original pain or some form of a original shock that happens inside of us. It’s like something starts to split, there’s like a split between the mind and the body, that starts to occur.

And that’s like the original point of separation from this wholeness that we are, the mind becomes really active, and then the body is going through these emotional experiences and there’s this separation between the mind and the body. Now anxiety, in my opinion, is our way of trying to cope with feeling that original pain. And so we experience all this fear and it’s normally fear about worrying about something that we can’t control, worrying about the future that doesn’t exist yet or worrying about something in the past that we can’t change. And so then we get into these perpetual cycles of internal conflict about things that we have no control over. And then it just goes round, and round, and round, and round and round and it’s happening inside the body and the mind.

And we can’t do anything about it because firstly we don’t know what it really is, but also you know we’re focusing on all these things that we can’t change. You know when you wake up and I know a lot of your audience suffer from this and I have too, when you wake up and you just have this incredible tightness in your body and you are just full of panic and fear, you don’t know why. And then you start thinking about what you can’t control, what’s about to happen, what’s going to happen, what’s the worst is going to happen in the future and everything’s going to fall apart or about something from the past.

Feeling the fear Now, if we can slow down enough to start to really be present with what is happening in the body, that’s where the emotional experience is taking place, it’s in the body, not the mind. If we can slow down enough to be present with what’s happening in the body to actually start to feel the fear, call it for what it is. Feel the Fear, not easy but we can do it, and then feel whatever pain is there. When we feel something fully, a 100 percent, it passes and we have the ability to start releasing this tension that we’re carrying, this shock that’s in body. So at the root of anxiety is some form of pain, original pain that we’re not able to feel.

Chloe: So many people were afraid just to feel that anxiety and I had someone describe once that overthinking and worrying is actually a way that we distract ourselves from the feeling, that you’re busy thinking, and it’s our way of trying to control whatever it is we’re feeling to get away from it.

Nicky Clinch: You know as human beings we’re incredibly… we’re actually incredibly smart beings, so you know we will always find ways or strategies to try and cope, because essentially what we’re all trying to do is we’re trying to survive, every single human being is trying to survive because if we don’t we’re not going to be able to be here. So if you think about it, we come up with all these strategies to try and survive and when pain is there, our response is to try and survive because we think if we feel it’s going to kill us or we’re going to die, it’s going to weaken us, we won’t be able to cope, we won’t be able to handle it.

And so we come up with all these survival strategies, like obsessive thinking projecting about things that we can’t control. Completely obsessively focusing on our partner, or on food, or alcohol, or money, or on our bodies, and all of these behaviors and patterns are survival strategies because we’re trying to cope with pain. Now, most of the time we’re getting just caught and stuck in the survival strategy, and we never really ever get to the point where we get to actually start to meet their pain and we get stuck in the strategy, it’s like living on a hamster wheel, you’re just going round and round and round and round and round and then you try and find other strategies to cope with this strategy and then more strategies and it’s literally like going around on a wheel which is why we experience such forms of suffering.

Slowing down You know if we can stop the wheel, get off the wheel and actually start to feel what is at the core of this. It can… that is healing, that’s what healing is, it is when we actually stop and we feel what’s really there now that’s not easy. But everybody is able to do it, if we are held in the right way, if we work with the right people, and if we slow down enough, you notice how everything’s moving faster like we’re now living in a world that it’s almost like even time is going faster. Everything is moving faster than ever before, and there’s never been more addiction, there’s never been more anxiety, there’s never been more problems with mental health, people are moving so fast because the if we keep moving fast then maybe we don’t have to feel what’s really going on inside of us.

If we can slow down, really slow down and start to commit to being with what’s there, rather than in the distraction, that is the beginning of healing, real-real healing.

Chloe: I hear from so many people that they think that life is going so quickly, and it’s not a good feeling to think that life is passing you by and that actually where we’re stuck in patterns that we’re not really working throw and we’re just distracted by being busy or filling our days with lots and lots of things. So I mean if that sounds like slowing down and feeling the anxiety, feeling the feelings is what can start to help us to heal that trauma.

Nicky Clinch: Well, again let’s change the word anxiety with fear, feeling the fear because then it’s a natural feeling word. You know anxiety is not an emotion, it’s a name that has being given to a cool or whole series of patterns that connect together, fear leading to obsessive thinking, leading to tension in the body, like it’s a whole pattern that plays out but if we can actually nail the emotion which is fear then at least we know what we need to come and have a relationship with.

Yeah, and I think what you said about people, we’re just sort of running around in this hamster wheel, we were talking earlier before we started recording about is it possible to feel better. Or are we born with this, you should ask the question.

Chloe: Yes, well I thought we were talking about this in dm online about how much of a role, you know the body that we’re born in has a role on how much fear we experience and are we almost resigned some of us to feeling that way for the rest of our lives because of our genetics or because of certain reasons or is it actually possible to overcome that.

Nicky Clinch: Well, It is possible to overcome it and the reason being is that what we carry in the body and the habits that we have and the behaviors that we have and the beliefs that we have, all of this… and this may be controversial to say but I’m going to say it all of it is inherited, nothing of that is original. We inherit every single bit of ideas, belief systems, stories, every single bit of programming in our mind has been inherited either from our family, or from society, or from teachers, or education, everything has been inherited. Now that is exactly the same thing about our emotional responses and also any kind of trauma that we’re carrying in the body, we inherit it.

Now in a way that’s good news because if we inherit it it’s not who we are and it’s not ours. Now what does that say? That says that that if we’re carrying something that is not ours, then who are we without it, that there is a you and me without all of this that we’ve inherited, which means we can come home to it we can come back to it. But we don’t get reminded enough that who we really are are not these patterns, and beliefs, and ideas, and stories, and pain, and trauma, that we’re all suffering with, they’re what we’re carrying, but they’re not who we are.

Wholeness and healing So yeah, the answer is we can come back, we can come home to a place of wholeness, essentially that is our destiny as human beings is to evolve and come home to who we really are. And that is really what healing is. I’m writing a book at the moment and the very 1st line of the book says the word whole is essentially from the same root as the word heal, or the word heal is from the same root as whole, but until you have healed you only see it as a whole as in like an empty whole but when you have healed you can experience, it as whole as in the wholeness. And when we really really heal what that means is that we come back to a place of wholeness.

What I think is happening is that as human beings, we don’t get reminded of this. So we’ve forgotten it, we don’t know that this is our central state, our authentic state of being, and we get into a cycle of just trying to feel better. We’re in a survival cycle, this is how is, this is who I am, this is what I have to cope with, so let me find as many strategies as I can to try and feel better while I’m coping with it. And the problem with that is that feeling bad is very conditional. We’ll feel better for a moment or a month or maybe 2 months if we’re lucky, but then eventually we always seem to come back to the same place, to the same feeling of unworthiness, the same feeling of fear, or the same feeling of mistrust, or the same original pain.

And so then we try and find another strategy, maybe now if I eat better, maybe now if I find a new man, maybe now if I change my job, and that makes us feel better for a while, and then eventually it starts to wear off, and we find ourselves back in the same. And this is what starts to create the resignation, Oh there’s no way out of this, I can’t, or we just keep being a perpetual search for feeling better. Now, for me, do we really just want to feel better, do we want to heal do we want to feel better or do we want to be free.

I have an amazing story and I think this would be a really good time to share it. My mentor my teacher David Norris, he leads transformational programs or he did anyway, for 50 years all over the world. He’s getting on now and he’s kind of passing everything on to me, but he used to take transformational programs into high correctional prisons in North America.

And so he was walking through the cell block in Jackson State Prison in Michigan, which is one of the most high security prisons in America, literally the most dangerous criminals in that prison and he’s walking through the cellblocks and he’s being shown to the workshop room, as you can imagine just like in movies there’s like cell block cell block cell block like multiple floors of cell got blocks and that’s all there is all around you. And as he’s walking through he stops and he notices one cellblock and he stops in his tracks because he looks in and pasted on every single wall of this cell block is wallpaper that looks like a forest, like being in the forest. You know if you’ve seen it before it’s like green and it’s like you’re in the middle of the forest and it’s pasted on every single wall of the cell.

And the guards tell him that the inmate in that cell, is in for life, like I mean life with no parole, he will be there until he dies. And David carries on walking and he realizes, wow, that inmate is just trying to make it better. He’s doing whatever he can to make it better but he’s not free. And that’s what we’re all doing, we’re trying to feel better, thinking that’s all there is but it’s not all there is because we can be free and that would mean coming home to our wholeness. So the answer is yes we can but we have to change our thinking and change our perception from trying to just feeling bad to actually wanting to heal.

Chloe: I just got Goosebumps there when you said… Wow, it’s interesting isn’t it because almost the idea of healing, of having to go through actually dealing with your stuff almost doesn’t seem appealing, I always think I’ll book an holiday to an island and I feel better after a month and then I can go back to my stressful job or you know the internal stress that keeps bubbling up. And actually to make the decision to be right, I’m probably going to do the harder thing to start to heal.

Nicky Clinch: Well I would say it’s not the easy journey, but actually nowadays I’ve come to realize that the harder journey is to be on the hamster wheel. And I guess because I’m now at the stage where I have experienced the wholeness, so I know what’s on the other side and I promise you that there is light through the other side of this but the only way through is through, there ain’t no other way about it. But you know I think what’s happening on a collective level, if you’ve noticed it we seem to be in a time on our planet where there is also more shadow more troubles more major-major issues starting to show themselves but at the same time there is this huge mass awakening happening of healing consciousness.

Collective healing And I don’t… that’s not a coincidence it’s happening now because it is what is needed for us to really heal as a planet and as a collective species as human beings. You know what’s happening on our planet is also what’s happening in human beings, so you know I think you know everybody I’m speaking to everybody whether they’re in doing the healing work or not is being triggered like crazy right now, or they’re being forced to face things that they couldn’t face before or maybe their health is really being at the worse place than ever before. Everybody is now being challenged to the point now more than ever because it’s time for us to heal as a collective which is why there’s so many more healers stepping up, which is why there’s so many people going into training to become healers because there is a big calling right now for us to do the real work because it’s needed for us as a collective. This turned into a bigger conversation than I thought.

Chloe: It’s big [laughter]

Plant Medicine I wanted to have that discussion with you about medicine retreats because both you and I were discussing this online, I just got back from spending a month on 2 different retreats in South America and, you, I think, have done a couple of those as well. Can you share about what impact that has had on you. Just sum it off in a short sentence.

Nicky Clinch: Like the biggest healing of my life. Well, 10 years ago was the 1st time I went to the jungle to work with plant medicine and it was at a time in my life I had already been clean from my addictions for 10 years and I was feeling better, perfect story. I was feeling better but yet I kept coming back to the same problems, I was in a relationship that was very unloving. I always seem to find myself in situations where I was feeling… where I would end up back feeling unworthy, not enough, unlovable, it didn’t matter what I kept trying to do, I couldn’t ever quite feel worthy or good enough. And so I stumbled upon someone talking to me about ayahuasca retreats and then all of a sudden it was just everywhere, everywhere I went people started to be about ayahuasca and what they say is that when the plants are calling you suddenly just hear about her everywhere. I say her because she’s known to have a female spirit but there’s also a masculine energy in the plant too. So I then booked this trip to go out to the jungle on my own for 5 weeks, really brave went into the jungle and I apprenticed and I worked with a shaman for 5 weeks, and I dieted plants for 5 weeks and I worked with Ayahuasca for 5 weeks, it was… until my recent trip the most intense 5 weeks of my life, hardcore, hardcore.

Spiritual training is what I would say, and healing at the time I did get a big amount of healing but I didn’t quite understand why, it was just a whole load of really difficult ceremonies, really really painful. I didn’t get any of those really beautiful golden light moments, it was just a lot of purging and uncomfortableness. What it gave me is I came home and I left that unloving relationship, and I started to really change real patterns that have been destructive for me in my life and I very quickly found myself working with transformation, which is now what I do in my work, I qualified as a counselor, I started showing up for my life in a way that I used to sabotage everything. So that was 10 years ago, I did then return to the jungle in July last year and to this moment it has been the most profoundly healing time of my life.

Oh what can I say about it, Ayahuasca took me… and this comes back to trauma. Ayahuasca took me to points within me where the original trauma had happened, you know I realized when I was in the jungle that even though I’m successful, my business is doing well and I have everything that I said I wanted, I have the House and the kids and the husband and running my business, and I realized in the jungle that I’m always I’ve always been carrying this kind of energy about survival which always leads me to work and not quite rest enough not quite take care of myself well enough. I’m always putting other people above me I’ll take on more clients than I really can.

And while I was out there, I realized that I’ve always been carrying this kind of perpetual state of anxiety or survival in me and this fear that something bad is going to happen or I’m not going to be taken care of. And came up in one of my 4th ceremonies. So I’d already done quite a lot of work and I asked ayahuasca to show me my calling, show me my soul’s calling. And very very quickly as soon as I drank the medicine, she took me back to what was one of the most scariest experiences I’ve ever had to be in. All I could feel was absolute deep levels of terror, I was so frightened, it was like fear was coming in and out of every pore of my whole body, I was so terrified, it was black, I couldn’t quite speak and I almost shouted out for help for the shaman. What kept going through my head was please don’t let me die, please don’t let me die, please don’t let me die.

And then all of the sudden I realized that I was back in my mother’s womb. And then I realized what was really happening. When my mother was carrying me she went through some really big trauma very very big trauma and she almost died. And what I never realized is when she went through that trauma and I was in her womb I felt everything, and as she was almost dying I almost died. Now ayahuasca took me back to that moment, and when I was saying in my mind please don’t let me die please don’t let me die that was actually what I was feeling in the original moment. And God she made me feel it I had to feel the fear that moved through me I had to feel all the panic all the feeling of out of control, I had no control over what was happening, I was just a little fetus in her womb, and then I had to feel it all until I came out the other side.

And it was so profound when I came out the other side, I just felt so much peace. Like my whole body just felt peace, and I just felt so much energy moved through me and I just felt light and then I started crying and grieving and releasing all this emotion. And I realized, then she said to me this is your calling is to remind people of this of the light, of who they are, of this wholeness of, to take them home back to this place of wholeness and it was just so… it was remarkable, actually it is the first time that I’ve ever talked about it publicly. Now here’s the amazing thing, I came home after that and it was like something I had been carrying inside of me for 40 years and it was gone. And I haven’t felt it since, and when something you have been carrying for 40 years inside of you that has literally colored your whole world, everything became different. Like I came home and I have all these moments and I was like oh my God who chose this life, like who actually chose this marriage, who chose this life, who was this person before this.

And so I then had to go through a real big process of healing with my marriage and my life and making big changes, it led me to change the book that I was writing, it led to all these big changes because I realize so much that the person that I was living as before was the one that was traumatized. And now what is it like to build my life from this place of wholeness and that’s really where I am now. So God the plants have this ability to take you to places. It’s not easy but take you to places of real core original trauma, and heal on every possible level. It’s extremely powerful.

Chloe: That’s amazing-amazing story, I know that before I had drunk ayahuasca I had this cognitive idea of what it meant to kind of feel feelings and sort of understand on a mental level which is not very very deep understanding for this that we need to feel something, that we actually push things away, but actually in the medicine I had this experience of noticing all the moments in my life where I’ve pushed my emotions way. I pushed things down, didn’t feel things. And you do, it’s a very common experience that you get forced to kind of feel everything basically, and you feel it in your body and it’s like the most full bodied emotion that you can have.

Permission to feel 100% Nicky Clinch: Yes, with no escape, like 100 percent feeling. And here’s the thing, we can do that even without plant medicine. If we give ourselves permission to feel an emotion 100 percent, it moves. it passes, that’s why the plants take us there. That’s what happened for me. I felt all the fear that I had been trying to get away from my whole life, and she made me feel it. And now it’s gone, and we can do that in our life now.

You know when this sadness is there, instead of judging the sadness, making it mean that we’re weak or then trying to distract ourselves, what if we actually felt sad and really felt it with real full permission, then we can release it, we don’t need to drink plant medicine to do this, we’re capable of doing this but we don’t get taught how to feel. We think I’m sad or I’m angry but we don’t feel it which has to happen in the body.

Chloe: Absolutely. You touched on changing your book. It’s a different topic, I’m really curious about this now.

Nicky Clinch: Well, actually it’s a great story to tell because any of you who already know me you’ll know that my whole brand was based on this: The warrior woman. I’ve done challenges and I’ve done programs on being your warrior woman finding your most empowered warrior woman and then my book I got signed by Hay House to write a book called warrior woman. And then I went to the freaking jungle, and everything changed and I came home. And I realized that the warrior woman was my way of trying to cope with trauma, I had to become the warrior woman to cope with everything that I had been through in my life.

And that was all about surviving pain, it wasn’t really about my power. And so I was writing this book that Hay House had signed me to write called Warrior Woman which was aligned with my brand and I was 50000 words into the book and it just felt wrong. I was like this doesn’t feel right anymore. I feel emotional talking about it, I feel like I’m bullshitting, I feel like a fake, this isn’t right, it doesn’t feel aligned. And then I sent it to my editor and I said I have to tell you something feels really off but I need you to read it and then I need to meet with you. And she read it and she got her associate to read it and then we met and she said exactly what I knew she was going to say, she said Nicky something’s not right. You’re not dropping to that deep deep place that I know that you can teach from, something isn’t right and I just broke down in tears and I just said this is not the book I meant to write. I’m really sorry it doesn’t feel right anymore, it doesn’t feel authentic anymore.

“I don’t know how to do this” I literally have the most amazing editor on the planet, I’ve manifested the most amazing editor, she just said to me Nicky all I care about is that you write the book you were born to write. You’re clearly going through a huge point of transformation, let’s extend your release date by 6 months and take off all the pressure of what this is meant to look, even takeout the title. All I want is for you to write the book you were born to write. I went home that night and I literally cried all night and I said to my husband I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, I don’t know how to do this. As soon as we allow ourselves to say those words, and this goes for everyone, I don’t know how to do this. Something happens, like a moment of humility, a moment of surrender.

I meditated on it the next morning, and I swear just like that, in my meditation, the book that I was meant to write came to me. I finished the whole outline in one day, I sent it to my editor and she was like holy cow how do you do this in just 24 hours. And so now I’m 20000 words into that book, and every word I write feels right, it’s landing, landing, landing. And it is about walking the reader out of this hamster wheel way of living, to live beyond this story, to live beyond these strategies and really get a sense of all wholeness again, that’s what the book is about.

Chloe: That’s fascinating and it’s so interesting. You’re talking about how you know this warrior woman was your brand, we all have probably until we’re healed a kind of a story of ourselves that we create, whether that’s a brand or whether that’s just the narrative that is kind of infused in our life, that is based on our trauma quite often. You know it’s not actually real, the kind of persona that we put on, although sometimes it might be a kind of victim kind of complex that we have or the ego you know. So it sounds like it almost might be when you heal a bit like disabling because suddenly the whole story that you’ve been telling us our whole life, is not actually really like that. It wasn’t actually true, yeah it’s like who am I right now.

Nicky Clinch: Yeah, and real transformation can only really happen in the moment that we’re willing to ask ourselves “who am I?” Whe we are ready to ask that then we’re really ready to heal because everybody says they want to feel better and everybody says… if I ask anybody do you want to become your most empowered free-self, everybody will say yes immediately, without really knowing what that means without really realizing that to do that we have to then let go of a lot.

Letting go To really heal we have to start letting go, letting go of the strategies that have kept, we’ve coped with our whole life, you know my process has been 20 years of letting go. You know when I came into recovery for addiction, letting go of the survival strategies I used to cope with any feeling or my addictions, and then as I went on letting go of all the protection, and the defenses and the part of me that felt like I had to be strong all the time. And then now letting go of this part that I always had to be superwoman and to survive pain, like all our healing in letting go, and so yeah there is a process of having to release, and it can feel dis-stabling.

But you know through the storm there is the other side there is the light, we have to row so far from the shore in order to find new waters. We have to be willing to do that. We don’t have to, it’s a choice. But I think what I would like to say is the other side is something so remarkably fulfilling and meaningful. I get to see women really come home to themselves again. And it is a coming home. It’s not finding a new version of themselves, it’s like they’ll say to me wow I feel like finally I’m more me than I’ve ever been before. And I’ve always been that. It doesn’t have to be this big treacherous trek through the Sahara, like it can be moments of real authenticity and healing, and with that you start to feel healing in every aspect. You know you feel more connected to people, your partners, your children, your work, to nature, to the world around you and it affects everything.

So you know in macrobiotics which is one part of my training, they have this wonderful phrase where they say with every back there’s a front, and the bigger the back the bigger the front. And you know you do the work that you can imagine, sometimes the bigger the back the bigger the front, you know you do the big work and then poof the rewards that you get afterwards are just bigger than you could even imagine. You get to feel peaceful. For me that’s everything, that’s worth everything.

Helping people come home to themselves Chloe: Can you talk about your process when you’re working with people, how do you help people to come home to themselves?

Nicky Clinch: Yeah, well you know I have quite a unique amalgamations of training, so I’ve trained in Chinese medicine. I’ve worked very much with the energy system in the body and also how emotions are energy, and emotions get stuck in the body as stagnant or stuck or blocked in the body, trauma gets stuck in the body too. And then in my ontological work in transformation it really very much about how our belief systems and our programming and the stories that run through the mind, how much we identify with them. So I bring both the mind and the body work together, and the work that I do when someone comes to work with me in 121 work. It’s always very unique for each human being. We first identify what is the story that is now living this person’s life.

You know that whole story of survival, the whole story of a nobody listens to me, the whole story of goodness isn’t for me, it’ll play out over and over and over again, no matter what you try and change. Now my job is to identify what it is within them and then start to bring awareness with how it’s living every part of their life and then take them back to the point of the original. I suppose that is pain so I work in regression where I take them into the body. The body always knows. If we can shut the mind often enough the body will always take us to where we need to go. That’s why we can process when we’re sleeping, that’s why we might cry or release things in our sleep, because our mind is going to sleep to get out of the way. So when I work with clients, I’ll take them into the body into the original moments of pain and release emotions that get stuck there.

But also the belief system that got planted in that moment: nobody listens to me, I’m not safe, I’m not lovable, I’m not important. The moment that that belief system gets planted, we start to identify with it as who we are and a whole life starts being designed from that place. So when I work with someone we will release the moment of trauma in the body and also the belief system that gets planted in the mind. What then starts to happen is it starts to unravel. And then they get to start to find what is authentic to them, and they start to build a new relationship with themselves in life, learning how to listen to their truth, learning how to listen to their feelings, feel their feelings. Learning how to speak what they really mean. I find remarkable.

And now it’s not surprising as we’re almost 99 percent of the time when people come to work with me they’ll go through these healing processes and almost always all of them will end up realizing what their dreams are or realizing their visions that they didn’t know before and they’ll change their work, and they’ll go back to school and they’ll train and then suddenly they’re following their purpose. Because what’s really happening is when we release those moments of trauma and these stories that we identify with we start to come back into alignment and when we come back into alignment in and in who we are in authenticity everything in our life follows, we start to realize what we love and what we want to do with our work, what we want to do with our life, and the kind of people we want to around us and that that creates healing in every aspect so that’s kind of my process and in retreats work with groups on that level. And I’m just about to launch a very powerful new transformational program which will come out in June which is called “Listening to life.”

Listening to life So learning how to live beyond the story and really listen to life, live in flow with life. So yeah that’s kind of how I work.

Chloe: It sounds so amazing. Yeah listening to life, it’s such a wonderful thing when that starts happening, I used to hear that idea of kind of being people who are kind of hearing messages or intuition or I think yeah, like does that really happen, actually I found… I think as you start to hear yourself you can tap into something that tells you where to go and what to do and you can tap in, you can listen to life, I think I can understand that.

Nicky Clinch: Yes. Well, so when we’re not listening to the mind we can hear life. Normally all we can hear is the mind, when the mind… when we’re no longer stuck in the mind, we can actually really start to hear you know, we can start to be in flow with life, and it becomes… it’s like a beautiful dance. Yeah, it’s like a co creation.

Chloe: Sounds good to me. Can you share about how people can find out more about you and follow you and find you on line and all that sort of things.

How to get in touch with Nicky Nicky Clinch: So my website is Nickyclinch.com, and on there you’ll be able to see what workshops or programs I’m leading or putting out retreats at the moment, I have a retreat coming up in the beginning of March, 6-8th of March. Which is a women’s transformational retreat all about dropping out of the mind into the stillness of heart, and I have a few spaces left for that. I have a new program coming out in June which everybody should listen out for, it’s going to be very very powerful and that we happening it twice a year. You can follow me on Instagram Nicky_clinch, where I don’t share as much as I used to but when I do show I tend to share something that really means something to me or that’s really important for me to share with others.

So those are the main cases, I also have a new You Tube channel out at the moment called Soul surgery, where I release videos every single week where I’ll be talking on a specific topic and then once a month guided visualization and meditation, you can subscribe to that for free. And that’s up now and then I have my book coming out the beginning of next year.

Chloe: Amazing, thank you so much Nicky, this conversation’s been very healing for me personally and I hope people listening… I know people listening well and a lot from it, so thank you so much.

Nicky Clinch: Great thank you for having me.

Outro: Thank you so much for listening, I really hope that you gained a lot from this episode. Come on over to Instagram and let me know what are you taking from this episode, find me @ Chloebrotheridge and I would love it if you would leave me a review in the podcast app or on i-Tunes, Subscribe to the podcast, leave me a rating and is there someone in your life that would really benefit from this podcast you can let them know by sharing this podcast, I’ll be so so grateful. So I’m just wishing you a wonderful week ahead, sending loads of love, hopefully you’ll tune in again and I’ll see you soon.

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Children make friends easily. They run over to an unknown kid at the park, confidently tell them their name and how old they are, ask them whether they like robots and then they’re friends for life. If only adult friendships were that simple. In adulthood, there may not seem to be many opportunities to make […]

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Children make friends easily. They run over to an unknown kid at the park, confidently tell them their name and how old they are, ask them whether they like robots and then they’re friends for life. If only adult friendships were that simple.

In adulthood, there may not seem to be many opportunities to make new friends. If the number of friends you have is dwindling, or if you fancy adding a few extra people to your social circle, keep reading for some tried and tested ways to make new friends as an adult.

Loneliness is bad for your health, both physical and mental. Regular socialising can improve your mood and help you to feel good about yourself. Friendships are an essential part of adult life, though many of us find it increasingly hard to make meaningful connections. What can you do to expand or improve your social circle? Is it possible to overcome your anxiety and unleash your inner social butterfly?

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Quality not quantity

Don’t obsess over how many friends you have, focus instead on how much fulfilment you get from the friendships. Life shouldn’t be about numbers; it should be about happiness. How much enjoyment do you get from your relationships? Does spending time with your friends leave you feeling happier and lighter? These are the things that matter. Don’t set out with the aim of finding as many new friends as possible; instead, find new friends who will enhance your life.

Give yourself a confidence boost Putting yourself out there may feel like a big step, especially if you are anxious around new people. Silence your inner critic and give yourself a much-needed confidence boost by focusing on what you bring to a friendship. Are you loyal? Funny? A good listener? Spend some time thinking about your positive attributes and reminding yourself why anyone would be lucky to have you as a friend.

How to make new friends as an adult You could try telling people your age and asking if they love robots, but it’s probably not going to work quite as well as it did when you were five. Trying to make friends as an adult may seem more complicated, but it’s not impossible. Here are some tips to help you find your tribe:

1. Start a new hobby If you want to make friends, you need to get out there and meet new people. Taking up a new hobby is a great way to see new faces and get to know people. There are so many different things you could do. You could join your local netball team, attend a drawing class or learn a new language. Join a running club, get involved with your neighbourhood book club or take up yoga. Look online to find local groups and activities in your neighbourhood.

2. Get involved with your local community Do you know your neighbours? Many people don’t. The best thing about making local friends is that they’re right on your doorstep so there’s a good chance you’ll casually bump into them and cement that friendship. Getting involved in your local community also improves your local community. Strong community ties make for a friendly place to live.

Look for existing groups that aim to improve your local area. Is there a voluntary group charged with keeping your local park looking great? Or a regular litter pick where people meet to tidy up the streets? Is there a local festival or celebration you could offer to help organise? Don’t be shy; community groups are always looking for more people to get involved. Alternatively, you could start something yourself. This may sound daunting, but it’s such a brilliant way to make friends with likeminded people near where you live.

1. Find a support group If your anxiety is holding you back, a support group for people suffering from anxiety might be the perfect place for you to meet new people. The other attendees will understand your hesitations and should be sympathetic to your struggles, plus, you’ll have some common ground to discuss.

2. Be present when you’re present Turning up isn’t enough; you also need to engage with the people you meet. You need to seem friendly and open to striking up a friendship. Not everybody is socially gifted but do your best. Smile, greet people, ask questions, be chatty and be sure to say goodbye before you leave.

Think about the type of people you are drawn to in social situations, what is it about them that you like? You don’t need to force yourself to be outgoing or the life and soul but perhaps try and harness your inner social butterfly, no matter how timid they might be. Remember though, it’s much more important to be yourself. Let people see the real you.

1. Become a yes person

Do you find yourself turning down invitations because you’re too busy or too tired or you don’t want to deal with the inevitable social anxiety? While all of these are valid reasons to say no, they could be holding you back. It might not feel natural at first, but try saying yes to social invites. Yes to meeting for a coffee, yes to that cinema trip, yes to the bike ride, even if you feel nervous. Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone will help you to challenge yourself. These social invitations are how you get to know people better and take things to the next level, say yes as often as you feel comfortable.

1. Do the asking Exchange numbers or social media handles with the people you meet. It might feel awkward to ask the first few times, but you’ll soon get used to it. Don’t be afraid to be the one inviting others to meet up. You don’t need to make it a high-pressure event, just ask if anybody fancies meeting for a coffee before class next week. Look for opportunities to make plans outside of the group or class and be confident in suggesting meet-ups. You might feel vulnerable doing this, but the likelihood is that other people are attending the class or group for the same reason as you. Social isolation is becoming increasingly common, so don’t think you’re the only adult here looking to make new friends.

2. Manage your confidence issues If you’re forcing yourself out of your comfort zone, it’s important to know your limitations. Have some conversation points planned out before you go if you know you struggle with small talk. If you’re likely to get overwhelmed, give yourself a get-out clause so you can make excuses and leave after an hour without appearing rude. If you’re better in small groups, focus on the person sat next to you and don’t worry about trying to dazzle everyone with your social skills.

3. Accept that not everybody will want to be your friend Many of us avoid reaching out to new people because we are afraid of the possible rejection. Are we missing out on friendships and experiences because of this fear? Quite possibly. Take a risk, and it might just pay off in the form of a new best friend. And if it doesn’t, try not to dwell on it. Brush yourself off and try again with somebody new.

Not everybody is going to want to hang out with you, and that’s fine. Sometimes you won’t gel with people, or they won’t be your kind of people. You might not have anything in common with them. It’s nothing personal; it’s just the way these things go. Try not to take it personally if you find making friends a struggle; it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you, you just haven’t found your tribe yet. When you do, all of the work will be worth it. Don’t let the fear of rejection keep you at home. Now, get out there and find your new friends!

The post How to have the confidence to make new friends as an adult appeared first on Calmer you.

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This week on the Calmer You podcast I speak with voice coach and author of Find Your Voice, Caroline Goyder. She knows a thing or two about how to find your voice and get out of your head.

We chat about: * What is confidence? * Why nerves are good * How to overcome blushing or shaking when you’re speaking * How to improve your confidence when it comes to speaking * Phone phobia * And lots more!

Transcript Introduction Chloe: Hello and welcome to the Calmer You Podcast. This is your host Chloe Brotheridge, I’m a coach, a hypnotherapist and I’m the author of “the anxiety solution, and brave new girl” and this podcast is all about helping you to become your calmest happiest and most confident self. Today on the podcast, I have the pleasure of speaking to Caroline Goyder who is a voice coach, and she’s the author of the new book “Find your voice.” She is also a Ted x. Speaker and her Ted Talk has had 7 and a half million views which is really incredible. In this episode we’re talking all about confidence, particularly confidence when it comes to speaking, whether that’s speaking on a stage, speaking up in a meeting or speaking on the phone.

And this is I hope such a reassuring chat because both Caroline and I have struggled in this area before, we both admitted to having blushed in the past. And so it’s really coming from a place of her having experienced the nervousness and the fear that comes along with speaking, and having learned a lot about herself, made a lot of progress and she actually gets to help other people with that as well. So we talk about Caroline’s definition of confidence, and I think this is really interesting, not what you might be expecting. We talk about why nerves are actually a good thing and why there’s nothing to be ashamed about if you do experience nerves before speaking, it’s actually completely normal and I hope this conversation helped to normalize even more and how to know there’s nothing to be ashamed of.

We talk about how to overcome the specific things that can hold us back from speaking like blushing or shaking or speaking to the fast and Caroline shares lots of tips on growing your confidence in general, when it comes to speaking, phone phobia and people who experience this will know what I’m talking about if you’re scared of being on the phone in front of the people in the office for example or if you’re someone that maybe doesn’t like to answer the phone when people call, if it’s an unknown number for example, I’m one of these people by the way.

And we just got into loads of helpful ideas around the topic of speaking confidence, and finding your voice. So if you want to get some free resources from me on growing your confidence, boosting your self-esteem, calming anxiety, I’ve got loads of freebies on my website for you, if you had over to calmeryou.com/free and to enter your email address there, I’m going to send you mp3’s, worksheet, podcast updates and loads more. So head over to Calmeryou.com/free, so let’s get into the interview with Caroline Goyder.

Chloe: So welcome Caroline, thank you so much for joining me, how are you?

Caroline Goyder: I’m good, pleasure to be here.

Chloe: Please can you tell us what it is you do and how you came to do that you today?

What is a Voice Coach? Caroline Goyder: So I guess you could say I’m a voice coach, which makes people think I’m going to make them sing but I’m not. [laughs]. I teach people how to feel confident when they speak and often that’s in presentations or you know big public speaking moments but it might not be… it might be that they have to do a job interview or that they’re nervous about a pitch or something but I think what links it is a spotlight moment as people in the spotlight. And I came to it because I was in that who found it difficult. So all of the stuff I teach people is stuff that I’ve really had to learn myself, it wasn’t natural when I started.

So I’m really understanding when people say I find this difficult or I get nervous because I felt that too, still do actually.

Chloe: The 1st thing that came to my mind was just remembering the oft quoted saying that “public speaking is our biggest fear, that’s more than death,” is that actually true to think?

Fear of public speaking Caroline Goyder: I mean it’s massive, isn’t it if it is true, I don’t know about the death fear. So I don’t I can’t compare it but I know how many people, you know people who run companies, people who you see on telly, people who seem really confident, people… they all tell me that they’re nervous about these things so I just have this is something which is that everybody is nervous and that’s a really good sign. And there are a few people who don’t get nervous but that’s not a good thing. Actually, it shows that there’s a kind of a lack of empathy for your audience or a lack of awareness as to what could go wrong and actually those things are really good. So I think those are good, I think we should welcome that a bit more.

Chloe: I heard once that only psychopath doesn’t experience fear because that part that drives isn’t developed enough to, actually it’s a good thing to get nervous.

Caroline Goyder: If you feel nervous before public speaking you’re not a psychopath.

Chloe: Well done everyone. I think that’s a really interesting point about just assuming that everyone is nervous because I think we often do the opposite, and I do. I think I’m the only one that experiences this. You know everyone has got that stuff together, you know she looks so confident I definitely have had those thoughts before but actually it’s such a common universal thing to experience that.

Fear of public speaking is universal Caroline Goyder: I think it’s totally universal and is that all just that we judge people’s outsides and we compare ourselves against the outside. And when if you kind of lived in that world for a moment you would discover that they are, they have their own kind of nerves. It’s different for all of us but I truly believe that most people feel nervous in the spotlight, and that they should welcome it.

Chloe: So why is that? That’s probably a big question but what is it about being in the spotlight whether that’s getting up on stage or even when you’re put on a spot in a meeting to answer something or you have to say the name at a workshop. What is it about those things that we get nervous? Why?

Caroline Goyder: So once I hear from people that I experienced it myself, so I can relate to it, is that fear visibility isn’t it because there’s a moment where in that meeting or that presentation everybody turns to look at you and that’s scary, it’s a risk. Now, what I know is that the something you do with that moves in terms of how you breathe before you speak that will make that feel like a good risk, you know like an exciting moment, not terrifying but what most people do because they don’t have a voice, where they the Gasps the breath and then they start to rush because fight or flight is a runaway, punch them hard on the table. And so the whole experience becomes visible in the spotlight of other people’s judgment and also out of control, it’s no wonder people don’t like that because that’s a horrible combination. It is like I don’t know… that ice skating out of control in front of people would be equally horrible.

Chloe: Kind of spiral in a sense because I think well I think can definitely relate to that and suddenly you’re aware that you get hot and you think other people can notice that and that makes you get even hotter.

Caroline Goyder: It is hideous and it is that thing that you’re standing in front of everybody looking at you and I mean to some extent they are judging you but there are ways to play with how we perceive that, because most people want to do that’s the truth, but we don’t sense that when we’re in that horrible spotlight of visibility. It just feels like a threat.

Chloe: So people out there like wishing you tripped over your words or something that… yeah they want you to do well.

Caroline Goyder: It really is and it’s true for most of us, I mean maybe there are moments in the House of Commons, you know there is certain speakers for whom that’s probably not true, that’s pretty rare, most people want you to say something interesting in a relaxed way, and that’s quite useful to remember.

The sound of your voice Chloe: Why do people often hear people saying that they hate the sound of their own voice to the point where they don’t want to hear himself speaking, they don’t want to hear a recording or watch a video. Do you find that people say that, I often hear people say to me that they can’t believe that as a physiotherapist so you hate your own voice, so you hated it? First time, I hated that but I got used to it now and I’m fine with it but why is it that we don’t really like that?

Caroline Goyder: It’s really really normal and I hear it so often people, and I think there’s also science around this which is that the way we process our own sound is as much through the body as much through the air canal. And so when we hear our voice recorded, we’re not getting the same thing when we speak because we’re getting all this vibration that we don’t pick up on including. But I think, there’s also something around the fact that we kind of live in our heads a bit and if I think my voice is just something that sound in my brain and you know in my ears and if I don’t understand that it’s manufactured in the body, you know on the diaphragm, in the lungs, in the larynx, then when I’m speaking I might also be kind of listening to myself as a speech. And when I do that and it’s recorded, it creates a very self-conscious voice and I’m not surprised that people don’t like hearing that.

So what I say to people is if you don’t like your voice, don’t listen to it, when you speak, feel this, feel your voice, feel where it vibrates in your body, feel how the breath comes out to create it, feel what it feels like to shape it in your mouth. So that you get into your kinesthetic sense rather than obsessively judging how you’re sounding moment by moment when you speak because that’s just not way too self-conscious and then it does start to sound of this strange.

Chloe: Ok. And I really like how you talk about the voice is like an instrument and can you talk about the body being the resonator, I love that?

Our amazing voice Caroline Goyder: Yeah, I mean I love the voice. I’d like everybody to love it a bit more because your voice is like a guitar, you have it, you know if you’re listening and you find your throat, if you just put your fingers on your larynx which is just the Adam’s apple that’s the cartilage, houses the vocal chords and behind that you just give it a shake. That houses your vocal folds, and they’re like… I mean really there is [10:26 inaudible] broadly and that when you make sounds they vibrate the folds. And so that’s the string of your guitar and then if you go lower down, if you just find your rib cage, and you just have to imagine where your bra strap is it would be if you’re not wearing a bra strap, I don’t want to gender this too much.

And at that point just below your bra strap is the diaphragm, and if you just go… Just tap that point, you can feel the sound pushes out. And that’s the hitter, the airflow coming out of your lungs, supported by you diaphragm, hits the vocal folds and it vibrates, so you’ve got a string, you’ve got to hitter and then you’ve got the body, which is like the body of the guitar and that vibrates the sound. So we have this super cool instrument within us and the more we understand the more control we have, which is nice.

Chloe: I love that, I have heard people say that if the human voice was an instrument it would be the most advanced instrument in the universe.

Caroline Goyder: It’s incredible and indeed it is an amazing thing.

Speaking up Chloe: Can we talk a bit more about the fears that people have around speaking up and being heard and being seen, I suppose that comes into it as well, it might not be just about who might be about actually having their eyes on you.

Caroline Goyder: I think those are different things, there’s firstly that people will say things like you’re not clear enough, or you’re tripping over your words or we don’t like your ascent which comes up sometimes. Yeah, well I mean I think it’s changing I think that it’s in a way that’s old news but there are still some people who say that. And then there’s like you’re not loud enough, so there’s all this stuff around what we talked about in terms of trusting your voice. But then there’s another piece which is much more psychological which is about saying something that people might disagree with or people judging you or people making a decision about you because of something that you said. And I think there are lots of people who really want to focus on connection when they speak. And the truth is that sometimes when you speak connection is not necessarily the thing that’s going to happen. So if you’re in the meeting and you need to say to someone.. you know we were talking about book titles earlier say you work in publishing and you need to say I think that the title is not right.

You might go against the whole room when you say that, and sometimes in those moments you can have connection and you are going to have to stand out and you are going to have to be different. And I think that can feel very visible and very vulnerable and very scary but there are things that you can do to center yourself, and to be bold, and to be brave. You know as you talk about your work as well.

Advice for that racing heart Chloe: So if someone, for example, has to stand up to someone and then they notice their own racing heart. And then they have that sense of just not wanting to speak, what advice would you have for them in that moment?

Caroline Goyder: I’d say understand that fight or flight is affecting you and it’s a really useful response for survival but probably it’s not helpful here because you know if we were in say that publishing meeting, you might have a different view but they’re not going to hurt you, nobody’s going to hurt you. So then what you have to understand is that you can really just center yourself quite quickly, and just say to your system you’re safe. And years ago I interviewed lots of a-list actors about this and the tips I learned is so fundamentally useful, I’ve used them ever since. And there was a lovely actress called Haley Outwell, who said that before she went on stage she was at the National at the time I interviewed her, she said you stand in the way and you just think I can feel my feet on the floor, I can feel the air on my face, I can feel the clothes on my skin, just coming back to that sensory facts, those facts takes you out of the head that’s going, oh my god they’re all looking at me, they’re really going to hate me, I’ll never work again.

Feet on floor bum on chair And it’s just really come back to the body, and these days I just do off book which is a real mindfulness tool, feat on floor, bum on chair.

Chloe: I love that.

Caroline Goyder: It’s super cool, I think it comes from a mindfulness program in school.

Chloe: Yes. Yeah, good to remember, so coming back to the body and noticing what you’re feeling, your feet on the ground, the air, the clothes on your back, and that will help you to get out of the spiraling and kind of the mental freak out you can get into when we’re in that situation.

Caroline Goyder: And it’s just not helpful, is it.

Past trauma Chloe: It can happen at the worst times, I’ve probably talked about this in the podcast before about I once was giving a presentation, I got up to speak and it went white in front of my eyes, my lungs felt like they were on fire, it was a really the weirdest sensation ever, I thought I was going to die, and when I was speaking, I had the sense that I was watching myself in sealing. So I mean that’s a dissociation where you can only come out of your body basically and somehow I managed to survive that experience and get through it. Don’t know what happened, but after that I was not keen to get up and do that again, and I think I did speak to who have had kind of bad experience with speaking, and then you know even if it is.

I had one client once who when he was 8 years old got up in front of the class and got told off for saying something incorrectly, and he was a CEO of a company and was really struggling with public speaking because of that time. So things can really stay with us I think, those sorts of experiences and kind of traumatized us.

Caroline Goyder: I think there is a trauma for people, and it’s just I think you have to be very gentle with your body, and your voice and just make it understand that an audience can feel safe. I mean my big thing is that if you can chat to 3 people you know over a glass of wine or a cup of tea, and have a relaxed conversation there’s no reason in the world why you can’t do that in front of 3000 people. And I think we just have to get rid of the whole notion of public speaking, because you know we don’t say public dancing or public singing, we just say singing dancing and speaking has kind of got this big… it’s like it’s not a big pedestal but it’s just talking, and we’re all really good at that. And I think when we allow it to feel normal and just to feel like something that we can do from our own center, from a relaxed place. The whole thing becomes more doable that you do have to understand how to set yourself 1st in that spotlight, because your body maybe is going oh scary, for all the reasons that maybe come from your pass.

Blushing Chloe: And it can make such a difference as far as if you can be centered and then learn to enjoy it, it can open up so many opportunities for people and take away so much stress, you can become this, so that’s really worth focusing and learning more about. What you say about the physical aspect, so I have blushed in public before which is not a nice thing, some people talk about shaking and those sorts of things. Do you have only insights into what you can do if they’re worried about that sort of thing happening.

Caroline Goyder: So much so, I mean I guess that the things that people ask about are blushing, and I’m a blusher by the way. So I can say this you know from a place of knowledge there’s the voice shaking, the hands shaking which also happens and there’s the going at hyper speed. Those are all things that people talk about when they have a fight or flight. So the 1st thing I would say is think about speed, because that’s you know the adrenaline coursing through your system and you do really need to get a handle on that. The thing to understand is that all speech is out-breath, certainly in English and so on the in-breath you’re posing. Now not all pauses are created equal, lots of people hold their breath on a pause and that tells the system that this is not particularly safe.

Another people do a kind of… that’s overdoing it but so you can hear, they kind of do it just that gasps on the pause because they’re rushing in their systems going to get this over with some. So I’m Caroline, I’m going to be telling you about speaking with confidence. And I’m kind of overdoing it, but that’s what’s happening and that’s saying to your system, this is unsafe. So 1st rule that you learn at drama school is you walk out on stage you relax your feet because that says to your nervous system you’re save. You breathe out and the audience don’t know what you’re doing, you close your mouth, you wait for a lovely relaxed breath in, like a lovely smell, when you have that breath, that’s when you start. And it’s kind of like stroking your nervous system, it is saying it’s Ok, yeah there’s a bit of adrenaline but you’re going to be fine.

It takes practice And if you can set yourself up from the start, ground feet, breathe out, wave the breath in, lovely smell, of we go. Then you just stop at every full stop and take that relax breath. And the whole thing becomes a conversation, because that’s what we do when we chat. I just close mouth, wait for the breath and say the next thing and that’s how speaking should be. But you do, it is something that is like driving lessons, it doesn’t come immediately, you do have to practice it. So I always say to people put voice note, practice it with those lovely relaxed pauses, and then they’re so surprised because they go that pause felt like hours, and they hear it is nothing.

So once you go that in place and then you find that the voice won’t shake anymore, because the voice is shaking because your system is saying punched it and run away. And if you say to your system, you’re safe, your voice doesn’t shake. With blushing, I mean as I say if I think about blushing, I can blush but the thing that I’ve been taught to me which works for me is if you focus your attention out. So notice what you can see in the room, notice someone smiling at you, as soon as your energy goes off you, you’re not thinking oh my God I’m blushing and they’re looking, and the whole thing will die down because it’s often the story that we’re telling ourselves about blushing that makes us blush more. It’s weird isn’t it?

Chloe: Yeah totally. I just try to accept myself for the fact that happened, and say I’m Ok with that happening, if that happens it’s not a big deal, easier said than done I know. And I have a kind of acceptance I once heard someone said be cool with blushing, like I’m cool with it, I have been some times with it.

Caroline Goyder: It’s nice in a way, it says that you have a sense of shame and a sense of audience, and so I think in some ways we see it as someone is honest.

Pause and pace Chloe: When you were describing the slow breath and the pause, I started to feel calmer just with you describing that. So I think that’s an amazing tip and I think as we’re taking those pauses, does that also put the audience at ease as well, you know and so I’ll create like a positive feedback loop of them feeling calmer because you’re speaking slowly.

Caroline Goyder: So much, and the thing is that you can speak with pace and energy when you speak, it’s just those pauses are always there for you and when an audience are able to breeze with you in a relaxed way. Absolutely, they feel more relaxed too. So if the positive feedback is really real for sure.

Chloe: I want to ask you about confidence, and what’s your definition of confidence.

Caroline Goyder: It’s funny it’s changed. So I think if you don’t ask me that 10 years ago. I might have talked about presence and charisma or and now I just think it’s about someone who’s so kind of centered in themselves and relaxed that they’re open to what’s happening fully, that they’re listening and I think people who I look at are the speakers if people really listen, they’re on stage and they’re really present to the audience. And I think in a world that we’re also distracted, and you know multitasking, I think that that presence and that listening that’s what confidence is for me now. When I see it, I’m like yeah.

What is confident speaking? Chloe: Love it. In your book, that the Latin for confidence comes from confide and that means to trust and I thought I never heard that before and I think a lot about confidence but that sense of trust for yourself I suppose, trust that… I think in my experience of for example doing podcasts I was really nervous at 1st, probably a dozen podcast I recorded and then you learn to trust yourself because you learned that I can survive the situation, you know the words really come out seen as a poor that doesn’t really matter and so you know I love and thinking about in that way that we can develop that trust for ourselves.

Caroline Goyder: Trust is everything because it makes us kind of go quiet in our heads, doesn’t it? And then you know it’s like Roger Federer or something, it’s like when you look at mastery in any field, they’ve got such a sense of trust in what they do, they can just be really present to what’s happening. And of course we’ve got to be gentle with ourselves because you know you’ve become a master at what you do you know over the years and I’ve done a lot of public speaking, so that you kind of you have to be kind to yourself if you’re learning something new. You know so like I’ve been in the choir recently and I don’t have that trust of myself in the choir but I have a trust that if I keep going, if I keep practicing that trust will come. So it’s be kind to yourself 1st, and allow trust to develop and it will come.

Chloe: Because we have that expectation of needing to be good at stuff straightaway, don’t we? And that just so unrealistic.

Caroline Goyder: All of this takes time. And when I started out doing this like you know I really was the student who didn’t get it 20 years ago, and it is so nice, there’s a benefit to getting older in the sense that you do start to learn the things that you thought you couldn’t do but I do think people have to allow it, maybe not 20 years you know with voice if you practice every day for 2 weeks you will get the horses come they’ll be us. That 21 days things.

Chloe: So the key to getting it is practice, listening to recordings of yourself, little and often.

Singing for confidence Caroline Goyder: And I mean a simple thing is just if you sing in the morning, people laugh… but if you just put music and you laugh and just sing along, it’s so good for you, it is great for your confidence, it’s great for your mood, and it will also just warm up your voice. So sing, move, breath, meditate, it’s all of this is fantastic for your voice, because it’s all about the breath.

Chloe: Can I ask you about singing because I use to have a big fear of singing and over the last couple of years have been trying to sing more in front of people and I think I have had an unblocks the big fear I had around it, and I wondered what. One thing I don’t think is once you have sang in public, speaking part is not as bad.

Caroline Goyder: Yeah.

Chloe: Once you’ve done sober Karaoke. Speaking in meetings doesn’t seem like such a big deal.

Caroline Goyder: I think there was something in that. I mean I definitely join the choir because I realized that there I was yapping on about speaking with confidence but I was nervous about singing. There is really cool writer called Frankie Armstrong who is a she’s a singing teacher, and she’s blind, so she comes out from a slightly different very auditory point, and her thing is everybody can sing. You know literally there is no one who can’t sing. And some of us are told that we tone deaf or you know all of that stuff at school, it’s just not true.

And I think if all of us just embrace singing like walking, you know it’s just something that we can do, and we don’t think I walk badly, we just walk. And I think for all of us, it’s good just to sing, just enjoy it I’m not saying you have to get up and do sober karaoke, I think that would be a stretch for me. But you know maybe sing in the morning, maybe join a choir, sing with your kids if you have them just be easy about it.

Chloe: This is good for mental health that I know what the statistics are often here about how being in a choir is so good for our minds and connection and community and that sort of things.

Phone phobia Caroline Goyder: We’re also lost in our screens, aren’t we? You know I was just as anybody else and I think the voice singing takes us beyond that little box. It becomes about vibration and there molecules and residence which is already good for us.

Chloe: Talking of phones, I hear a lot from people about phone phobia, it’s something that affects them and I know you wrote about that, can you share what that is, people that maybe don’t know, do you have any advice for people struggling with that?

Caroline Goyder: I may have a degree of Phone phobia I have to say, because there’s something about when we’ve been hiding you know in our little boxes on screen, so I can you know… I can send a whatsapp message or a text, and I don’t give any emotional content right away really when I’m writing, you know you can read in emotional content but it’s hard to know how I was feeling when I wrote that Truly, whereas with the voice if you pick up the phone to someone, because it’s your breath, your voice is your breath, they can hear it immediately what’s happening inside you. And so that’s a wonderful thing, that’s why we should pick up the phone to people we love more, but is also very vulnerable, and so lots of people will say I hate making phone calls, I hate it when people call me. So if you’re someone who feels like that, there’s a…

I learned this from an answer is well actually, she’s died now she’s called [28:51 inaudible], she was wonderful and she said if I have to make a phone call, 1st of all I get myself really comfortable, and I would say if I’m really nervous I stand up, because that just helps your confidence, and she says then I imagine the face of the person that I’m going to talk to, I picture them and it becomes real. Now, I’ve heard people in call centers say they have a photo of someone they love, you know so that you might actually talk to a picture of someone that relaxes you or you might imagine the person for real, but if you can make it feel humanized and I think also to get yourself in control, so stand, pause, get your voice centered, it will start to feel less like you’re being judged and more like you’re in control of it. It’s a funny thing though.

Chloe: I had some advice, don’t answer the phone from an unknown number because it’s just going to waste your time because it’s more than likely to be a thing. So I am understanding it saves time. I know a lot of people who would not answer numbers that are hidden, so that’s really good advice. I love the idea of having a picture of someone you love there and you pretend to be speaking to them.

Listening for smiles Caroline Goyder: Because they hear that smile, you can hear 6 kinds of smile in a voice which is incredible. I can’t remember where the research was done but if you google 6 guys a smile that research will come up.

Chloe: What are the 6 kind of smile I need to know now, I need to research that.

Caroline Goyder: Because the smile effects the resonance of the voice, so you’re creating a different chamber for sound and we can hear that different resonance. We can also hear when someone is not smiling. So I think that’s the thing is that when you’re on the phone, you know imagine they are in front of you really smile, really engage because they’ll hear it.

Chloe: Good, good tips. Do you ever, is it difficult for you as someone who helps people with this, do you feel like a lot pressure to do things perfectly as a speaker when you’re teaching people to do that?

Caroline Goyder: It’s not funny, I had a book launch last Wednesday, a week ago. And so all these people were coming to celebrate the book launch, and there I was going to have to do 10 minute speech and stand up and talk about speaking with confidence. And so I have to, you know I did do some work on it with someone, because it is something you can’t mess up. So I definitely feel that there is an extra layer of pressure, you know for you there will be around being Calm and managing anxiety. But the way I frame it so myself is that if I’m putting myself under a double pressure, that’s great because I’m helping people who are under pressure and the more I understand what it feels like to be under pressure in that spotlight, the more I can help the person who’s doing the scary speech. So I kind of… I rationalize it for myself like that but yes daunting.

Chloe: I always wonder why people think I’m always calm or never worried about anything and it’s definitely not the case. Ask my boyfriend. And then to think I guess it comes back to that thing of recognizing that it’s such a common thing for human beings to feel. We shouldn’t beat ourselves up about that, and I remember reading about the singer Adele who even though she’s the most Amazing singer in the world potentially, she gets so nervous she sometimes sick before her performances. So if you can be that amazing and still get nervous then you we can all experience that. It’s Ok I think.

Nerves can be a good thing Caroline Goyder: It’s so Ok. nerves are just as such a good thing. And I think the thing that I really truly believe about speaking is that perfect just doesn’t exist. And yes have a plan, yes be as relaxed as you can but then just embrace the fact that yeah it’s going to be imperfect. Great, it’s more interesting.

Chloe: Yes, definitely. And I realized that I had watched your ted talk years ago when I was probably needing some help in public speaking and I was reading a book and I was like oh, I recognize this and then I watch your ted talk which I recommend everyone watched as well as buying your book. And I love how you kind of address the beginning of the talk, the kind awkward moment in the beginning of the talk, we’re just about to speak and I think this what’s powerful about it is just bringing all that stuff to the surface, and just talking about it and acknowledging it, and it makes it seem so much less threatening to kind of just talk about it. So thank you so much for sharing with that. And it is how something like 7500000 views which is incredible.

Caroline Goyder: Splendid.

Chloe: Amazing. Thank you so much for everything that you shared.

Caroline Goyder: Thank you, I love chatting.

Chloe: And please tell us where people can buy your book and find out more about you and your work?

Caroline Goyder: So the book is on Amazon and all good booksellers, you can find out about my work at Carolinegoyder.com and we’re doing a little offer at the moment where if you buy the book and send us a receipt to infogravitasmeta.com then we will send you a set of audio courses on speaking with confidence.

Chloe: Amazing, and the book is called “find your voice.” Amazing. Thank you so much.

Caroline Goyder: Pleasure thank you.

Outro: Thank you so much for listening, I really hope that you gained a lot from this episode. Come on over to Instagram and let me know what are you taking from this episode, find me at Chloebrotheridge, and I would love it if you would leave me a review in the podcast app or on i-Tune, subscribe to the podcast, leave me a rating.

And is there someone in your life that will benefit from this podcast, you can let them know by sharing this podcast, I’ll be so so grateful. so I’m just wishing you a wonderful week ahead, sending you loads of love, hopefully you’ll tune in again, and I’ll see you soon.

The post Ep 91 Find your voice and get out of your head with Caroline Goyder appeared first on Calmer you.

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This week on the Calmer You podcast I speak with voice coach and author of Find Your Voice, Caroline Goyder. She knows a thing or two about how to find your voice and get out of your head. We chat about: What is confidence? Why nerves are good How to overcome blushing or shaking when […]

The post Ep 91 Find your voice and get out of your head with Caroline Goyder appeared first on Calmer you.

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This week on the Calmer You Podcast I speak with Julia Samuel, Author of Grief Works and her new book This Too Shall Pass. We chat about: What is the ‘fertile void’? How busyness stops us from healing  How to handle changes in your life  What to say to someone who is grieving The particular […]

The post Ep. 90 This Too Shall Pass with Julia Samuel appeared first on Calmer you.

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This week on the Calmer You Podcast I speak with Julia Samuel, Author of Grief Works and her new book This Too Shall Pass.

We chat about: * What is the ‘fertile void’? * How busyness stops us from healing * How to handle changes in your life * What to say to someone who is grieving * The particular struggles that millennials face

Transcript Chloe: Hello, and welcome to the Calmer You Podcast. This is your host Chloe Brotheridge. Welcome. I am a coach, a hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of The Anxiety Solution and Brave New Girl.

On today’s Podcast And today, on the podcast, I’ve got the wonderful Julia Samuel, MBE, who is a psychotherapist, and she’s also the author of two books; Grief Works, and her latest book, This Too Shall Pass, which is all about how to navigate changes. And you know, we’re so scared of change, aren’t we? On one hand, we really want change, we want transformation. And on the other hand, how many of us can get stuck keeping things the same because change just feels too scary, and it feels safer to stick with what we know even though it’s uncomfortable.

So, we talked about this whole topic of change. We discussed what’s known as the fertile void, and I love how Julia explains this and how we can cultivate this in our lives, and it can help us to handle changes in our lives. We talked about how business stops us from healing and what we need to do instead. We also get into the topic of grief and what to say to someone who’s grieving and how to handle that yourself about something that’s affecting you at the moment. We also touch on the particular struggles that millennials and those of a similar generation face. So, I want to let you know that I have some free resources for confidence, self-esteem, and anxiety. If you want to grab those freebies, head over to my website, CalmerYou.com/Free, and I’ll send you lots of resources, worksheets, downloads, updates about the podcast. Head over to CalmerYou.com/Free. So, let’s get into the interview with Julia Samuel. Welcome, Julia. Thank you so much for joining me. How are you today?

Julia: Really well. Lovely to meet you, Chloe.

Chloe: Could you please share with us what it is that you do and how you came to do the work that you do today?

More about Julia Samuel Julia: So, I’m a psychotherapist and I’ve been a psychotherapist for 30 years. 25 years I worked in the NHS at a big NHS hospital supporting families when babies died and children died. So, I was the counselor for pediatrics and maternity.

From there, I helped started or established and launched a charity called Child Bereavement UK, which was supporting families when a child died or when a child’s bereaved. From there, I sort of taught a lot and lectured a lot. I’ve gone into private practice in the last few years, about the last five years. And I wrote another book before and this is my second book. So, I’m a seasoned therapist and a new author. So, one is kind of an old hat and the other feels exciting and scary. And I’m not even sure I can call myself an author.

Chloe: Amazing. And I can’t imagine work more, I don’t know, intense than working with people that have lost a child. I think that’s incredible that you’ve done that work. What was that like?

Julia: I loved my job. I mean, I loved being in the NHS, I love being part of something that’s much bigger than me. I love the nurses and doctors and the whole place, and it felt like the mother and father of my professional self. I went in there and I was like, 34 and I left 25 years later. And so it gave me a lot, but of course, the work was very, very intense, and very profound. You know, I felt very, it’s a sort of overused word, but I felt privileged to be with these young families, parents at the most intense, most intensely painful and frightening time of their life. And you know that they let me in and to be able to support them and to try and– you can’t make better what’s been so bad, but you can support them, so they can find ways of living again and loving again, given the terrible thing that’s happened. And that actually is very connected to my new book, which is called This Too Shall Pass. And the sort of premise is the same that life has changed. Some of the changes we have control of and we choose, a lot of the changes we don’t have control of.

So, at the extreme end, you’d have a child die, but at the other extreme end of a living loss you could be sacked or your partner tells you they don’t want to be married to you anymore, and you thought you had a happy marriage. And the process, the adaptation process is allowing ourselves to feel the pain, not blocking the pain, to find ways of expressing it, and adapting and growing through the change. Because it’s the things that we do to resist the change that over time do us harm. So, most of the things that we do to resist change our busyness because we don’t think when we’re busy, we don’t feel– I mean, we think a lot when we’re busy, we don’t feel so much, it cuts us off. Any kind of anesthetic, drink drugs, work obsessions; all of that blocks feeling and to heal, we need to allow ourselves to feel the pain, and then that frees us then to be released. So, it’s the paradox. You know, the more we allow ourselves to know and feel what we don’t want to know and feel, the more likely it is that change will occur, and the more likely it is that we will then grow and thrive.

Chloe: I think that’s such an important message. And I think not many people actually realize how much busyness can stop us from dealing with our feelings, and how often people hear about people losing their selves in their work after something terrible happens. But how many of us say that we’re busy? Maybe 90% of humans in this culture, and so we’re probably not dealing with a lot of our feelings really, because of that.

Dealing with our feelings

Julia: That’s right. I mean, there’s a kind of badge of honor that if you’re busy, you’re so important. But also busyness is an amazing distraction. And I think one of the big messages through the case studies in my book is that if we are to thrive in life, we have to know ourselves. And to know ourselves, we have to kind of allow space for that, to be aware of what’s going on inside us to let feelings come through. And if we’re constantly on our computers, tapping constantly, working and thinking; feelings, that part of our brain doesn’t emerge, because when using the neo frontal cortex, we’re not using our emotional selves. So, we’re cutting off huge intelligence within our bodies and within our whole system that we need to support us, to balance us, to inform us. So, people have this sort of white knuckle push, thinking that if I push forward, if I stay busy, if I get there, then I’ll be happy. And my message is, we need to do both.

Of course, you need to be busy and get your tasks done. But you also need to allow space to kind of allow feelings to emerge, to follow your own instincts to be in touch with yourself. And that then allows you to connect with others because busyness disconnects you from other people. And you know, the thing that I’ve learned in 30 years is that the most important thing in life is our love and connection to others. And in order to do that, we need to slow down. If you think of your emotional self, when you’re very busy, you don’t feel very much. So, if you want to connect to someone else, heart to heart, when you look at each other, you have to kind of breathe and slow down, and then you kind of feel the movement with them, and they feel it with you. And then stuff happens, you feel a real connection.

Chloe: What comes to mind for me when you say that is how we feel so connected to our phones, we feel so connected to other people, but it’s not real connection. It’s this kind of false connection and how many couples are lying in bed together on their phones.

Julia: Swiping.

Chloe: And that sort of thing and not getting that connection, not actually giving themselves the space. Because we’re never bored anymore, really. There’s always something to read, there’s always a game on our phone or a podcast to listen to. We never maybe just have that quiet, quiet time to actually allow ourselves to be or feel or–

The fertile void Julia: And let the fertile void emerge. I mean, I heard, I think it was on a podcast that we touch our phone 2,000 times a day. And it’s the last thing we touch before we get to sleep, it’s the first thing we touch when we wake up. And really, we want to be kissing our partners goodnight, if we’re lucky enough to have one, and we want to be connecting with the world and breathing in the new day before we touch our phones so that we feel alive. So, I mean I’m by no means the only person saying this. Thousand of people are saying this, that there’s a sense of emptiness that people have, and this sort of searching and looking and wanting. And it’s from this drive and digital obsession and connection, that in a way builds that emptiness rather than kind of properly being aware of all your senses, sight, touch, sound, and smell, and that’s how we’re human. You know, we’re not machines and we’re addicted to machines.

Chloe: You mentioned the fertile void and I really wanted to ask you about that because I think that’s such a beautiful sounding phrase.

Julia: Yes.

Chloe: What is that exactly?

Julia: It comes from Fritz Perls who is the founder of Gestalt, so it’s not my phrase, I stole it. And it’s often like with most things, a contradiction that we need space in order to have fertility. And so it’s a fertile void. So, when I talk about it in my book, it’s that when something ends, whether it’s a project, whether it’s a relationship, whether it’s a job, we ourselves, say, “What am I going to do next?” And people say to you, you cannot have a– I mean, you’ve had a baby, someone said to you, you can have another one if you’re going to leave your job. They say where are you going? Are you looking for a new boyfriend? They don’t allow you space between the end of one thing and the start of something else. And what I find with all my clients is that people find the process of change very difficult, uncomfortable at one end, kind of agony at the other and part of that is the not knowing and not knowing themselves and their sense of identity. Who am I now if I’ve lost my job or my partner? And rather than leaping in for fear of that not knowing, really to make the wise decisions, we need to allow space.

Living the loss We need to allow space to feel the living lost, the sort of sadness of what has been and let it kind of come through our body like the weather like a sort of storm. And then that can clear the space, to have new ideas, to have a kind of openness to what is the right decision for us. Because if we do that frantic, I’m just getting out of a job. You know, I’m getting a new boyfriend. We miss out on so much of our own wisdom, and then we may pay the price later. And also we don’t learn from the loss. So, a new experience needs to teach us so that we take that wisdom with us into the next phase of life. And we ignore that wisdom, we don’t change and we don’t adapt. And that means we’ll be hit by the same problems every time they come up against us. And research shows that change, you know, the seven year itch is a thing, it happens every seven to 10 years whether it’s developmentally or from events or from external events. So, we need– each of us needs to find our own pattern and way of changing that supports us and enables us to thrive rather than limits us and shrinks us.

Chloe: So, when you say that the seven-year itch is a thing, it’s not a fact of life or what is that?

Julia: It’s psychology research. So, there’s quite a lot of psychology research really from the States that that came from, that if you look at the patterns of people’s lives, there’s a whole area of research about developmental psychology, about where we are likely to be at a particular stage of our life, what happens to us in different stages of our life. And one of the things they researched was how much we change and when we change. And it’s, of course, individuals or individuals, but it is, if you look at yourself, I wonder if you look back over the last sort of 10 years or seven years, or even five years, because there’s always flexing it, of who you were before, and where you’ve got to now and how much has changed; what has expanded? What has grown? Where do you think you’ve learned? Where do you think you’ve ignored the learning? And what would you like to have kind of reaped from what happened to you?

Chloe: Interesting. So, you mentioned life is change, and you talked about this in This Too Shall Pass. Why do you think we’re so resistant to change or a lot of people say I don’t like change? A lot of the people I work with have anxiety and they don’t like change at all. What’s that about?

Life is change Julia: I mean, I think there’s two sides of it. So, there’s the kind of PR, advertising shiny life side where change is exciting, you know, change your life, change yourself and your book and it could become the perfect version of yourself with the [??? 14:10] had, the dewy skin, and the sort of glowing teeth. So, there’s kind of that side of it, which we kind of think we ought to embrace, but never think we can really ever get there. But the reality of change, I think, for most of us, although some people, you know, we learn about change from what is modeled from our parents. So, if we came from a family system, Mom and Dad and generations of families that have embraced change, were more likely to be able to embrace change. But why most of us don’t like change is because we like the comfort of familiarity because it feels safe. And it may be a horrible place that familiarity, but at least we know it. And there’s that bit of us, I don’t know if this is true of you where even when you kind of know you’ve got to that shitty place in yourself where you’re giving yourself that shitty committee and kind of self-attack; there’s a horrible familiarity that also feels kind of coldly, warmly comforting because you kind of feel no one can hurt me now, because I’m here and down here.

And whereas if you dare to change, you go out of your comfort zone. It’s unfamiliar and it may be incredibly thrilling, but you don’t quite know who you are because your identity changes as you change. You have to then become someone who can in your case, interview in podcast, that’s a sense of identity that’s changed. You may have thought of yourself as someone who was very shy and I’d never be able to do that. And now you have to own this new identity of I’m Chloe and I am a podcaster. And so the beginning that discomfort may want to make you run away, but you dare to embrace it. And then it becomes part of you, and that is the cycle of change for all of us. You know that kind of you move in, you dare, you test, you have a little taste, you withdraw, you go in again and we move in and out of it. It’s not that you flip the switch. It’s a very long answer.

Chloe: No, it’s really interesting to know this. So, it’s something about identity and fear of change. And if you identify someone– [control] or control, that’s such a big one, control.

The illusion of control Julia: Yeah. The other thing I say in my book is that we think if we have control, then everything’s going to be alright. But if you really think about the most important things in life, which is life; who’s going to die and who’s going to live and what people think about us, whether we’re loved or whether we’re not loved by the people around us. Those fundamentals which are the key to the sort of happiness of our life, we have no control over. We can influence them, not get drunk and fall off a wall or not drive drunk. But basically, we have no control. And so this idea of control is a complete– I can’t even think of the word.

Chloe: Illusion, maybe.

Julia: Illusion, that’s the right word. Thanks.

Chloe: Okay, yes. Such a shame isn’t that like I’m so in control of things and then life sends a little reminder like no, life has its own plans. [crosstalk]

The benefits of structure Julia: But you need control, you know, like organizing your day in structure I think really helps you. So, I’ve got eight pillars of strength in my book and one of the pillars is about structure. Because when the winds of change come whistling through your system, if you put some sense of structure in it that you know that you’re going to exercise, you’re going to have breakfast, you’re going to do your work or whatever the order is, you might do that you do it completely the reverse. It helps stabilize you when you’re feeling a lot of turmoil internally. So, I’m not saying don’t have it, it’s just recognize it for its limits.

Chloe: So, having that structure, a lot of people, we talked about their routine and how helpful that is when they’re going through something to keep that routine. It’s good to hear you affirm that. Can you give some examples of the sort of changes that you see people navigating, and how you might help them navigate them? I know in the book, it’s really beautifully written and you have different case studies and stories of people’s lives going through different changes. Can you sort of share an example of something around that?

Love – case study Julia: So, in the section on love, one of the people that came to see me was a woman who’d been married 25 years and she had three daughters. And she was a gardener and she was deciding in this next phase of my life, her children were beginning to grow up, the last one was going to university soon. Do I really want to stay married because I’m not having sex with my husband? You know, we parent fine, we live together fine, but I want a new version of myself. And she was actually at the time having two affairs. So, one with a man who she’s been having a relationship with for a couple of years, and then another, a colleague who she had an affair with for about a year, but then he ended the relationship.

So, she came with a lot of confusion, she was Catholic, so a lot of confusion about what’s wrong with me that I need two affairs. I’m upset that one’s ended, but I’ve still got the other one and also, am I wrong having an affair while I’ve got my husband? So, who am I? What do I believe? What do I want? What’s right for me? Do I believe the old rules about what you know, fidelity in marriage? What is right and what is wrong? And our relationship created, I hope, a safe place for her to unpack all of that. What she’d learned from her parents, what she’d believe herself, what was true for her.

One of the things was that she’d never had a son, and the young man, she had an affair with, actually in some ways with the son she’d never had. So, she began to understand herself. Once she knew what was going on, that she had a real handle on her internal landscape, it helped inform her when she looked at her world and what she was going to do and how she was going to go forward. And actually, she got much closer to her husband, she continued with the affair which the husband knew about, he never wanted to talk about it.

So, whenever she would try and bring up their relationship, this may be familiar to many of your listeners, a husband would say “Why ruin a nice day by talking about stuff like this?” And so she, you know, she was just silenced all the time. But she found a way of being, that she knew that she wanted to be a mom, with a mom and dad and a family that one of her things she was proudest of was the family. She didn’t want to break up the family, she didn’t want the children to be responsible for their dad.

So, she kind of was adventurous and she had a long term affair that she managed while she stayed married while she worked while she was a mom, and kind of came to peace with that. And one of the things she said at the end is that I folded a lot of my past into my heart. So, you never go forward without your past being in you. But you have to kind of fold some of it away in order to free you to step into your new future.

Chloe: So, it sounds like this is really about getting to know where things come from, where you’re coming from, and how that has informed how you’re dealing with the situation now. And I suppose that’s why having therapy or you know, reading a self-help book can be really helpful to help you to get to know yourself in that way.

Making the best decisions for yourself Julia: Yeah. I think we distract ourselves rather than know ourselves. And the more awareness we have, and the more information we have, about what’s going on in us, then we’re better, we’re more likely to make better decisions. But also, I’m not saying be obsessed. You know, get off, get out and have your life and have fun and dance and be busy and work and do all these things. But when it comes to the important times in your life when you’re making important decisions, give yourself the space and the time and the relationship with a friend or a journal to really explore so that you make the best decision for yourself rather than from fear.

Therapy Chloe: Really remembering the times that I’ve had therapy in the past. And when I first started having therapy I’d never talked about myself before and that was excruciating for me. I feel sorry for my therapist. She was very patient but just being able to like hold the space with me kind of like, desperate to jump out of my skin basically, because I find it so awkward. But going through that process and staying with it and examining the things that I’d never really thought about before, never really considered like, where anxiety came from, and all that sort of thing was just so powerful. So, I have a lot of respect for all the therapists who do such an amazing job of helping people when they really are trying to avoid dealing with stuff.

Julia: Yeah. And you were brave going to a therapist when it was so counter to everything that you’ve done and you’d known, took a lot of courage to go and dare to kind of feel that heat and that discomfort and expose yourself in that way. I mean, I more than a therapist, I have my clients who kind of dared move forward and do that for themselves.

Chloe: I think it’s good to have this conversation about therapy because it’s helping to normalize it and I hope you know, yeah, people feel more able to go and seek therapy themselves through having these sorts of conversations. Can you tell us a little bit more about your work with helping people with grief? Because often when I hear from people who’ve lost, I don’t know someone in their lives and found that sometimes people will avoid talking to them and avoid bringing up the topic. They’ll talk about the weather and actually, there’s this huge elephant in the room, this person just lost someone. And I suppose your role has been actually to work with those people to do the thing that a lot of people are so afraid to do. Can you talk a bit more about how you’ve supported people with that in the past?

How to support someone grieving Julia: Certainly one of the things, why we find it so difficult is that people are– So, there is very much a stigma around death. And there’s this kind of magical thinking that if I don’t think about it, and I don’t talk about it, then it’s not going to happen to me, it might happen to everybody else. And then that means that we have very little knowledge about how to talk about it and what to say. So, when a close friend of ours or someone in your family is bereaved, we don’t have a language. And then we’re frightened to getting it wrong and making somebody feel worse. So, we say nothing, or we talk about the weather like you said, and actually what people need most is acknowledgement that you know, you cannot fix this. You know, like with change in This Too Shall Pass, you can’t fix somebody’s life. But by being loving, so the single biggest predictor of good outcomes for people who are bereaved and it will be true, whether it’s a living loss or death, is the love and connection to others. It’s the support you get at the time in following the loss. And that’s what we need most.

And so when people are grieving someone they’ve loved and they’re missing that love, when people step away from them by not talking to them, it makes the bereaved person feel worse than they already do. So, the only thing you have to do is kind of dare to move towards them to acknowledge it, all you have to do is say, “I’m so sorry, that so and so has died.” So, it’s interesting, you use the word lost. And that is often what people use. But also it’s a word that avoids the word death. We use so many metaphors lost, gone to a better place, passed over, passed away. And really, the person has died, they haven’t passed away, we haven’t lost them. They’ve died. So, that you know, we have this incredible discomfort and this desperate need to fix. But we can’t fix people. I mean, I’ve heard many other people on your podcast talk about that, and it doesn’t have to be around death. If we can kind of recognize that by sharing our humanity, by being compassionate, by being willing to sit with someone when they’re distressed, whatever the distress, then that is how people manage their pain is by bearing witness.

Chloe: And you mentioned that living losses. Can you explain what you mean by that?

Living losses Julia: That all of us will have multiple losses. So, I mean, from the moment you have a child, so for those first months, your loss is yourself as an independent parent, that you could just get up and get dressed and get out to work. Now you have a child, you’ve lost that freedom and you are the core of this baby that’s needing feeding and changing and looking after. So, that’s a loss of your independent self. And then as a parent, you have to learn to adapt as your child adapts. So, when the first time you send them to nursery, kind of letting them go and not being with them all the time, too. I had a case study in the book about Lena whose daughter was getting married. And you know, she was losing control of her daughter and the fight was about the marriage ceremony, and often it’s by the napkins or the color of the flowers. But in reality, it’s about the pain of the loss of the relationship as it was as your adult child leaves you, you shift in importance to them, you have to step back and re-calibrate your relationship as a parent. You give your children roots and wings. So, that is a living lost but that’s a long one over time as a parent. But you know, every day we kind of take things on that we have to take in and then we have to let other things go. Does that make sense?

Chloe: Yeah, yeah. So, it’s not necessarily a person dying, we can still experience these losses along the way in our lives.

Julia: Moving house, moving country, moving jobs, getting a health diagnosis, you know, grief starts at the point of diagnosis when you, one minute you thought you’re a healthy person, you had the life of a healthy person in front of you and then you’re given a life-threatening or life-limited diagnosis. That’s grief at that moment because your life changes forever.

Focusing Chloe: And you mentioned just now the eight pillars of strength, which you mentioned in the book as well. You mentioned focusing, can you share what that is? I thought that was a really interesting one to– a tool that people can be doing. Yeah.

Julia: Yes. Focusing: It’s allowing the wisdom of your body and the knowledge of your body to speak to you. So, it kind of begins to turn off the chatter in your mind. And I get people to close their eyes and breathe and move their attention internally their body until they find the place inside themselves that they feel most sensation.

Then I get them to breathe into that place and describe it and does it have color, does it have a shape? They see a sort of black hole, if that black hole would speak, what would it say? I follow where that takes them. Often, in a way, it’s a bit like analytic therapy, that it’s your unconscious speaking. But it’s a more visualization version of it. And it’s incredibly useful and powerful giving us yeah, the wisdom within ourselves that’s there already that we just have to access.

Chloe: I love the idea and getting us I suppose to focus on the feeling and turning it into a thing almost that can speak– [crosstalk]

Julia: Yeah, and what’s it telling us.

Chloe: Yeah, that’s really powerful. I hope people are going to try that listening.

Julia: What do you use? Do you meditate, do you–

Chloe: I meditate. I do TM.

Julia: Do you?

Chloe: Yes, Transcendental Meditation, and I try to journal because I’m definitely one for– I think it’s part of, when you use Instagram for your job, I kind of, quote-unquote, have to be on there. And it’s such an easy escape. And I find myself if I’m having an [crosstalk] argument with my partner, “Oh, wonder what’s happening on Instagram at this particular moment.” So, I have to really be aware. And it’s a great reminder for me having this conversation now to keep listening to what I’m feeling in the moment and focusing and processing rather than just staying busy and that sort of thing. So, thank you.

Love and conflicts Julia: And also in the book, there’s a whole section on how to deal with conflict in the love bit–

Chloe: Oh, yes, yes.

Julia: –about you know, that we need to fight, that we learn from fights, but we need to know how to connect and resolve after a fight. Otherwise, the fight builds up like this huge pile of poo under a rug that you go back to the same fight and you have it again, and again. There’s Johnny Gothman who has got these four horsemen of the apocalypse, and what he says he can be with a couple for five minutes, and he can tell within five minutes, whether their relationship is gonna survive or not from how they communicate with each other. Whether they’re stonewalling, whether they’re standing apart; all the different things that we do as a couple. So, we need to learn how to fight.

Chloe: Wow. Yeah, I remember reading about that about contempt and how this micro facial expression that people sometimes make of contempt, slightly downturn lips is a sign that your relationship is not going to be lasting very long basically, so be careful of that one.

Julia: Women are more likely to be contemptuous than men.

Chloe: Oh, really? That’s interesting. That’s interesting. I was really interested by one thing you spoke about of different generations and the different things that come up in different generations. And probably most people listening to this are probably millennials or yeah, Gen X and Gen Z, And you mentioned a few things about the specific issues around kind of change, the millennial space. Could you speak about that a little bit and the struggles there?

Generation millenial Julia: So, I think there’s lots of things. There’s the context that they’re in that sort of environment is very different. So, I’m a baby boomer. So, I think millennials believe with some credibility that we’ve stolen their future. You know, we’ve burnt the planet and we’ve spent the pension. And so we had a kind of very fixed attitude to life and for work, for instance. You had employment, you had your education, then you had employment and then you would retire and you were likely to do the same job within the same company, for your lifetime.

For millennials now, that is extremely unlikely. So, one of the reasons why my books’ important is that for work, you have to learn to adapt, that you’re likely to do many jobs at the same time, or do a job for three or four years and come out, retrain to another job. And this idea of the hundred-year life that you’re likely to be working until you’re 70 or 75. That changes your perception of why would I start having a full-time job at 23 when my parents want me to if I’m going to be working for the next 50 years. Parents looking at their children saying “I’ve spent all this money on you, all this time and you, and by the time I was 23 I had a full-time job.

What are you doing going off to the Himalayas and meditating? You know, get on and be a grownup.” And so there’s a conflict around expectations without including what’s changed, but also the big thing is someone called Jeffrey, American psychologist talked about emerging adulthood.

Because young people today have been educated much more, they’ve been parented much more. They’ve been brought up in a completely different world, they’re not likely to be fully mature until they’re kind of 28 to 30. Whereas–

Chloe: Wow, what a relief.

Across the generations Julia: I know and it depends what you call fully mature. And I’m 60 and I can still feel 12, you know, at times in my life. But you know, by taking responsibility, by being willing to commit, whereas when you’re in your 20s, what he talks about, you want to experiment, you want to try things out, you want to find out who you are, you want to check out more of your identity and much more now, your sexual identity, your relationship identity.

All of the norms of marriage, all the institutions, they have broken down, boundaries are broken down, so there’s much more choice but that choice can be so be overwhelming. Like if I can have a polyamorous relationship, what does that mean? Or you know, and that goes against what my parents and what I saw and we’re very likely to model our life and our parents, it’s very confusing.

The difficulty in finding a job because of the economic crisis in 2008, the fear from 9/11. So, there’s, I think, what I see with I’ve got eight case studies of millennials in my book, and what I see is that everything I experienced as a young person, people feel now of uncertainty, fear, excitement, curiosity, wanting to try things out, but they feel it with the volume turned up. So, what everybody feels is intensified.

And a lot of that is because of digital media because everything you see is played out on digital media. So, you see your friends and you know so much more, so you compare so much more. And comparing yourself to others is a route to absolute 100% misery. So, that’s a very long question. And there’s tons more. It’s, I’m like a kind of– I’m very interested in this subject, I think it’s really interesting.

Chloe: Yeah, it’s fascinating. I always think about in terms of jobs, the fact that there’s always so much choice of what we could do, and [??? 37:25] pressure that you can do anything, you need to be famous, you need to get loads of Instagram followers, or you can be a pop star or you can’t just have a normal job now. It’s like, there’s always pressure and I think it makes it so much less content with stuff and that discontent and you know, it causes so many problems.

Dreams Julia: I agree. I mean, one of the questions I asked in the book is that everyone says to you now go for your dreams, reach your stars, and I kind of think that’s pretty unfair. Like you want to fulfill your potential. You want to flourish and grow through your life. But if you set goals for yourself that are way beyond the reality of what they’re likely to be, you’re going to just be so disappointed with yourself all the time. So, one of the questions I asked my clients is, what do you think it is reasonable to expect of your life? What can you kind of build for your life that you really care about what matters to you?

When people think about it seriously, it really isn’t about followers and being famous and being a superstar. It is much more about having someone to do nothing with, you know, to sit and watch a Netflix series with supper and a cup of tea, with coziness, go for walks with, talk to or not talk to. That’s really what’s important, and have a roof over your head and you need to work and pay the bills.

Chloe: Yeah, I think, yeah, one of the things I’m really taking away from your book is about how the– our relationships are the most important thing in our lives and how we need to cultivate those as much as we can and yeah, come back to what’s really important, I think.

Why all our relationships matter Julia: But I think all our relationships matter. So, I think our work relationships matter a lot. I mean, I’m not saying work doesn’t matter. You know, talked about love and work, work and love. That’s all there is. So, we need our work to give us purpose and meaning and to feed our curiosity and to have a kind of go, a place to head towards. And our work relationships are really important so that we go home and we kind of have something we can talk about, and we meet new people and you know, your work must be a huge part of who you are. And you know how you feel about yourself in the world. So, I think it’s all relationships that matter, not just our love relationships; our friendships matter, our girlfriends. I mean, I wouldn’t survive without my girlfriends.

Chloe: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I’ve been going to women’s circles in the last couple of years–

Julia: Have you?

Chloe: –and realizing how important that is to have sisters and get to share in that way, I think is so important. I hope more people are realizing how important not being lonely as I heard on a podcast this morning that being lonely is like smoking 15 cigarettes a day to feel.

Julia: 7.7 million people live alone in this country of 60 million, and most of them are women. So, that’s a big figure.

Chloe: Yeah, yeah. Gosh.

Julia: But with your dreams, I mean, how realistic do you think your dreams are? So, in the next few years, what’s your dream?

Chloe: I used to have a lot of goals and a lot of things I would write down like wanting to be on the TV. And I’ve, in the last couple of years kind of calmed down.

Julia: Dialed down.

Chloe: –quite a few things. Yeah, I’ve achieved quite a few things. I’ve realized, “Oh, yeah, it’s quite fun when that, quote-unquote success happens.” But actually, it’s not that big a deal. It’s not really worth stressing yourself out or beating yourself up over or–

Julia: Burning yourself out.

Chloe: Yeah, burning yourself out. So, I’ve still got dreams about getting married, my boyfriend knows this. But yeah, I have taken the pressure off myself. I did use to put more pressure on myself, I think to achieve things.

Julia: And I mean, what research shows is, I mean, I think it’s really interesting. It shows that you’re maturing, doesn’t it, in some ways?

Chloe: That’d be nice.

Julia: Well, it shows that you’re processing and you’re listening to yourself. So, if you’d stayed fixed of what you felt two years ago, you’d have this slight sort of armor wouldn’t you, like I’ve got to be successful, but it feels that you’ve let yourself learn and you’ve let yourself expand and you’ve let yourself grow, develop through what you’ve learned, which has meant that you feel calmer and wiser. It is interesting you want to get married when stats are that less people are getting married now than ever before.

Chloe: That’s interesting, isn’t it? More people are just living together or not.

Marriage Julia: I mean the stats on marriage are 42% of marriages don’t survive. There are less people getting married– There are less people getting divorced than before but that is because less people are getting married and the biggest increase is people who are cohabiting. But people who cohabit are three times more likely to separate.

Chloe: Ah, than people that are together that they–

Julia: They’re married.

Chloe: So, separate houses maybe is the answer. I haven’t thought this.

Julia: Well, there’s that– the people who are living apart together, the LATs, but that tends to be much more people who have second or third relationships later in life. I mean at your age, you’re likely to want to have children so you’re likely to want two of you to bring up a family together.

Chloe: That’s very interesting to me. Very interesting. I heard that married men are the happiest and then married women, the least happy, and single women are happier than no, the happiest then– No, is that not right?

Julia: Well, maybe married men are happy.

Chloe: Okay. Yeah.

Julia: I mean, in the Harvard long term study of 75-year study of looking at happiness, people who have committed loving relationships are wealthier, healthier, happier, they live longer, they are richer, and they have happier children. So, on every measure and they have a better memory and they get– well, I said, healthy. So, on every measure, people who have loving stable relationships do better.

If you get divorced and you then have a loving, stable relationship, you go back into the thriving category. So, I mean, it affects every aspect of our life. But we need to learn how to be in a relationship, how to grow in that relationship, how to adapt and thrive together. And that’s a tough ask. It’s not easy, and it takes insurance and giving, you know, kind of being a bit patient and being pissed off because he doesn’t take out the bins or, you know.

Chloe: Yes, this is very pertinent to me in my life right now.

Julia: I’m just about to have my 40th wedding anniversary.

Chloe: Oh, wow. Congratulations.

Julia: We’re renewing our vows.

Chloe: Amazing.

Julia: And I think certainly one of the things I think is that she’s the person I most want to run over, or really kind of I’m most furious with, but I’ve actually never wanted to leave him. You’re still the person I want to wake up with and the person I want to go to sleep with. So, I mean you have the most extreme feelings about him. And, again, if you look at research, indifference is the opposite of love, not hate. So, it’s how you kind of learn to love and hate each other and live together and have fun together and be a part and be together and all of these things.

Chloe: Do you have any advice for happy relationships for those who are listening and for me?

Julia: I think you have to kind of work out how we fit together. I think the person you choose to be your partner, if you’re going to have children is the most important decision you make in your life. So, don’t make it from the in love having amazing sex brain. So, that’s my first kind of very strong belief. Because you don’t really know yourself, you don’t really know them. But do we fit together? Do we have the same values? Do we go through the tough times well together? Do we support each other? Are we mainly kind to each other? Do we have fun together? All of those things, do we build bridges of communication? And do we fight well? Do we love well? I think with kindness, having fun is probably the two big things. Respect. You respect someone who is kind to you, and then you reciprocate. If you set up patterns together that create, reciprocate good relationships, and vice versa.

Chloe: Really good advice, I think. I often think that relationships are the hardest things in life, but also the most rewarding, I suppose [??? 46:44].

Julia: Yeah, that’s true.

Chloe: Yeah. Thank you so much for everything that you’ve shared. It’s been absolute gold. I’m gonna really look forward to listening back to this when I’m editing it and learning some more. Where can people find out more about you and buy your books and that sort of thing?

Julia: So, I’m Julia Samuel, MBE on Instagram and on Facebook, and I have a website www.JuliaSamuel.co.uk, so you can find me on there. My book will be in all the bookshops and Amazon. And it’s been really lovely to meet you, and thank you for taking the time to read my book and thinking about these things. And it’s lovely to meet someone who is so curious and engaged and that’s such a lovely way for you to go forward in your life [??? 47:31] to see.

Chloe: Thank you so much. Thank you for talking to us. Thank you so much for listening. I really hope that you gained a lot from this episode, come on over to Instagram and let me know what are you taking from this episode find me at ChloeBrotheridge. And I would love it if you would leave me a review in the podcast app or an iTunes, subscribe to the podcast, leave me a rating. And is there someone in your life that would really benefit from this podcast, you can let them know by sharing this podcast. I’d be so so grateful. So, I’m just wishing you a wonderful week ahead, sending you loads of love. Hopefully, you’ll tune in again and I’ll see you soon.

The post Ep. 90 This Too Shall Pass with Julia Samuel appeared first on Calmer you.

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Caroline Foran is the number 1 bestselling author of Owning It and The Confidence Kit. She is currently working on her third title. She’s the host of the ‘Owning it’ anxiety podcast. 

We chat about: * Her experience with anxiety * Why so many of us are anxious * Practical ways to deal with anxiety * How to support a friend or ask for support from others

The post Ep 89. Owning It with Caroline Foran appeared first on Calmer you.

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Caroline Foran is the number 1 bestselling author of Owning It and The Confidence Kit. She is currently working on her third title. She’s the host of the ‘Owning it’ anxiety podcast.  We chat about: Her experience with anxiety Why so many of us are anxious Practical ways to deal with anxiety How to support […]

The post Ep 89. Owning It with Caroline Foran appeared first on Calmer you.

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This week I speak to personal trainer and yoga teacher Shona Vertue. We discuss: Her experience of therapy and SAD Attachment theory and why there’s nothing to be ashamed of if you are needy or codependent in relationships  The pressures and boundaries of social media  And of course, ask her the question – how are […]

The post Ep 88. Being Mentally Fit with Shona Vertue appeared first on Calmer you.

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This week I speak to personal trainer and yoga teacher Shona Vertue.

We discuss:

• Her experience of therapy and SAD
• Attachment theory and why there’s nothing to be ashamed of if you are needy or codependent in relationships
• The pressures and boundaries of social media
• And of course, ask her the question – how are you really?

Transcript Mentally fit with Shona Vertue Chloe Brotheridge: Hello and welcome to the ‘Calmer You’ podcast. This is your host Chloe Brotheridge. I am a coach, a hypnotherapist and I’m the author of the ‘Anxiety Solution’ and ‘Brave New Girl’. Thank you so much for listening today. I have an amazing guest this week Shona Vertue. Shona is known for being a fitness instructor and yoga teacher. But for some reason, this conversation isn’t actually that much about fitness. We get into such a varied number of topics. She has had her career so far in the fitness industry, but she is now studying psychology and so this is a real passion of hers.

So, we get into topics like her experience of therapy, why it’s totally okay to have therapy and we talk about things like how to find a therapist. We talk about something called ‘Attachment Theory’ and you might have heard this before. Some of us might be anxiously attached for example and it has to do with things that happened in our childhood. We really get into why there’s nothing to be ashamed about if you’re somebody that is perhaps needy or codependent in relationships because it’s not your fault and it can often go back to these things in childhood. So, we chat about that.

We get into the pressures and boundaries of social media and I also ask her my favorite question to ask people which is. How are you really? I love Shona’s answer this, she’s really honest and open and talks about something that I think a lot of us can relate to particularly at this time of year. So, I think gonna love this episode. I felt like I was chatting to an old friend where I met show know even though we just met ten minutes before.

Confidence Challenge Also, I want to let you know that my confidence challenge is coming up on the 24th of February 2020. You can sign up at Calmeryou.com/confidence.

It’s going to be 5 days of community, fun challenges, helping you to think differently and take some action. So, that you can take a few steps towards living the life that you want to live, being the person that you want to be, accepting and loving yourself more, building your own self as and just feeling better about being you overall. Last time I ran, it was really really amazing to see how people made profound changes over just five days and made new friends and expanded their idea of what’s possible for them. So, I’d love for you to join us as well. You need to sign up and register to get all the downloads and workbooks and access the community. You can do that on my website calmeryou.com/confidence.

So, let’s get into the episode, with Shona. Welcome Shona, thank you so much for joining me. How are you?

Shona Vertue: I am good. Thank you for having me.

Chloe Brotheridge: I would love to know a bit about, what it is that you do people that don’t know.

Shona Vertue: Okay.

Chloe Brotheridge: And how you got to where you are today? Can you share a bit about that?

A bit about Shona Shona Vertue: Yeah, I mean I’ll try and summarize I have a tendency for anyone that does follow me or know me to kind of go on big tangents. But I’m gonna do my best, you can always use the editing tool to cut this out cut this down. So, I’m a personal trainer and a yoga teacher. I have been for over 10 years now. Most of my business now is based on online. So, I have a method called the ‘Virtue method’. Which is essentially a combination of strength training and mobility training. That really comes from my background as a gymnast. I found that the way to healthy functioning and well-functioning not just functioning but the well-functioning body was to really make sure that you were equal parts dedicated to strength and fitness as you were with like mobility and flexibility.

Most people tend to do what they’re good at. So, you get lots of people that you know can touch their toes, but they’re not very fit or they can barely do a push-up. Or you get people that you know can run marathons and are super fit, but can barely even bend over to look at their toes let alone touch them. So, that’s one of those things that I’m like if you really want a body that’s going to be able to do the things that you love to do for longer then you need to be dedicating equal time to those sorts of modalities.

Chloe Brotheridge: I can attest that your online program is amazing. I love your integrity and the way you do things has so much integrity, I think. Doing things properly and taking care, there’s so much out there that is not like that and so it’s so nice to have that approach.

Exercise is an expression of self-love Shona Vertue: Yeah, thank you. I think that for me I know this is one of the questions you’ll ask later, but fitness should really be this expression. It is an expression of and it’s cheesy now it’s a cheesy term, but it should be an expression of self-love. I really believe that and if not self-love if that feels too far away from your mindset right now if you’re in a bad place and I totally get that. Then at least at the very least fitness should be an expression of self-respect. If you are punishing yourself with fitness, then it’s not an expression of self-respect. I think that for too long the fitness industry has really perpetuated this notion of punishment, no pain no gain.

Like sweat is fat crying like all this sort of be at just right off. It’s like I’m trying to move us away from associating fitness with punishment totally.

Chloe Brotheridge: Totally, I love that and yeah not many people are saying that that Fitness without self-love. I think that is a really important message.

Self-love isn’t so easy for everyone Shona Vertue: Because self-love is fucking hard, it really is. Like I find it really difficult trust me like I grew up as a gymnast. So, for me, health and fitness particularly fitness has been something that has been in my life. So, I see it as naturally fitting in my life as something like cleaning my teeth or having a shower. That’s what I’m trying to get people to do, but there are other aspects that are important in life that I am terrible at. I’m a procrastinator in other areas and procrastination I often talk about I think is really a form of self-harm. It’s a disrespect to yourself as well. So, self-love is difficult and some of us are better at doing different things that express self-love or that are an expression of self-love. For some of us just it’s a difficulty, we’re all on a journey.

Chloe Brotheridge: Thank you for saying that, because I think it’s so easy to think of self-love’s blah blah. Just be kind to yourself. I’m actually acknowledging that is a journey it is hard work and there are times when you know all of us will procrastinate and that is kind of taking us in the opposite direction but it’s also very normal as well.

Guild hangover Shona Vertue: That’s also a very human, yeah exactly. So, I think it’s not, the criticism around those sorts of things can often be more damaging than the actual act of procrastination. It’s the guilt you have after it. I always call it like a guilt hangover and it’s so shitty that’s where all the shitty stuff happens too. You know what I mean. It’s not just putting off paying a bill and then getting letters about the bill or whatever it might be that you’re procrastinating in. It’s the guilt that you have later where your self-criticizing. Then what that leads to, that leads to the need to binge in the other direction. You know what I mean or perhaps it leads to whatever numbing yourself from that guilt which might look like alcohol which might look like excessive use of social media. Which might look like excessive sexual relationships. So, think different things like that. We’ve gone deep too quick. Let’s go back to fitness.

How are you really? Chloe Brotheridge: I was gonna go even deeper, I’m gonna ask a very deep question that people love hearing the answer from people. Know that you can answer that you’re doing really well I’m not doing; well all answers are okay and welcome. But the question is, how are you really?

Shona Vertue: When you sent me, so I have to tell it I’m telling a run that listened. Ask Chloe just send me like a basic kind of overview what she wants to ask and this was the first question. I honestly it was like reading it was like when you step into a warm bath or a warm shower. You’re like, oh it just felt so nice because it was like oh you actually want to know and you. I felt seen, no it was trendy to say was like I felt seen. So, that’s a really beautiful thing is asking how you are really.

Because how are you is such an interesting question in that most people are just hoping that you’re just gonna go, yeah, I’m all right you know or whatever and keep it really light and easy and it’s just a quick question. S, I never know how to answer that. Because I’m like how deep do I go. So, when you say how am I really, I am really good which I’m happy about but as I was just saying off record off microphone before. It’s been a really interesting two years or so I would say. Where I’ve had to do a lot of unpacking around dysfunctional behavior in my life and how that has been a symptom of some deeper subconscious things that were going on for me.

So, I am good now, but if you’d asked me that question, I probably would have said I was good anyway. Because it just would have been too long to unpack all of it. But I think I’m I can safely say that I feel good because I’ve been going to regular therapy and trying to work on these dysfunctional behavioral patterns in my life. So yeah.

Chloe Brotheridge: Amazing. Can I take aside of it more?

Shona Vertue: It’s so fun, probably to open. But let’s go back, you can edit like I said.

Chloe Brotheridge: Unedited Shona Vertue.

Shona Vertue: Yes.

Choosing a therapist Chloe Brotheridge: What was your experience of therapy? Like, how did you choose a therapist and how was your relationship with your therapist came into?

Shona Vertue: A great question, all right. So, how did I choose a therapist? I’d actually had some really not so great experiences with therapist here in London. This is a therapist that I met in Sydney and she was just actually given, she was recommending her number was given to be my mom. My mom was seeing her and then she had to stop seeing my mum when I decided to see her, I saw her because I’d had a breakup in a relationship that really was only for like six months. But it really hit me in a deep way and kind of uncovered all these behavioral issues that I was trying to get to the bottom of.

She was really amazing. I would say the relationship that I have with all therapists is very honest and open. I think that’s what it should be. I think when we try to filter our answers is where therapy becomes pointless. I mean the whole point is being able to speak to someone so honestly in a non-judgmental way that you can project every single subconscious experience and interpretation of your world onto that person. Essentially all they’re doing is reflecting it back to you, but they provide you with the tools at which to handle those thoughts.

Whereas when you speak to a friend or someone that’s unqualified in that area, they have their own that they’re going to project back to you. Or they have their own life that isn’t neutral and so their opinions can sometimes walk yours. We often attract people into our lives that were having like experiences with. I think all of our relationships are mirrors, but when you speak to a trained professional and a qualified professional in that way, they will reflect back to you. But then they also provide you with a way to actually process that reflection and then learn from it and grow from it.

So, I guess my therapist has been able to in a non-judgmental way say, okay these various behaviors that you are trying to change in your life are a cause of this thing that maybe happen in your childhood or this thing. So. let’s try and work through that. Its’s so interesting because as soon as you uncover something it kind of neutralizes a little bit. Doesn’t always fix it, because the real work happens in everyday life happens outside of the therapy room, right. It’s not like suddenly someone says to you, oh that behavior is because of this it’s actually because you know the change doesn’t happen there. You just become aware of it and then when you go out into your everyday life that’s when you have to sort of make the changes, right.

So, I think that for me my relationship is it’s one of the most important relationships in my life absolutely, yeah. Something I think needs to be less taboo that’s why I’m talking about it. I think that when someone says to you, feeling a bit unhealthy I’m gonna go see a personal trainer. You’re like, oh cool that’s great tell me what they tell you, like let’s awesome, like let’s work out together whatever. When you say I’m not feeling so great I see a therapist people like, oh my gosh okay is everything okay.

Chloe Brotheridge: It must be really bad.

A personal trainer for my mental health Shona Vertue: Really bad yeah, it’s like no not necessarily. If it is really bad that’s also okay, but if it’s not really bad and you just decide that you’re like do you know what I’ve never had any guidance or quote-unquote personal training around my thoughts and how to process them and how to behave in a society where we’re taught to behave a certain that doesn’t align with what I believe or my values. It’s like we’re just kind of winging it. I think that it’s really important to have less taboo around speaking to someone about your thoughts. Ultimately that’s all it is personal trainer for my mental health literally. Why is it so taboo, I don’t understand? So, anyway.

Chloe Brotheridge: Arguably, your mind and your mental health is just as important as your physical health. Even more important to some people.

Shona Vertue: Yeah exactly. It’s silly, because it’s like I don’t I don’t know where it’s come from, it’s well I do. There’s lots of reasons. But I think that more and more we need to move away from the taboo of it.

Chloe Brotheridge: Totally, yeah, I’ve had so much therapy in my life and often talk about it and love hearing other people’s experiences. It’s so helpful for others to hear about. Is a good idea to get a recommendation from somebody. The relationship that you have with your therapist is so important. I think when they’ve done studies into different types of therapy, it’s actually the relationship that you have with them. That is the biggest indicator of the outcome rather than CBT versus counselling.

Shona Vertue: Right interesting. That makes sense yeah.

Seasonal Affective Disorder Chloe Brotheridge: Can you, I remember you writing about SAD a while ago. Can you share a bit about you experience of that and what effect that had on you and what changes you made?

Shona Vertue: Absolutely okay. So, SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) or SAD because it makes you sad. So, I’m Australian and I am also not just Caucasian. My mum is from Fiji. So, I have brown skin, means I need a little bit more access to the Sun in order to get the vitamin D I need or to process the vitamin D I need. So, and I just grew up in Australia. So, you know having Sun in my life really makes a huge difference. So, Seasonal Affective Disorder is essentially when people are affected by mostly winter and the lack of Sun that you get in that period of time.

It doesn’t really happen in those countries that are around the equator. It’s more so the ones that are further away that experience really deep winters. It’s mostly linked to or the depressive downward kind of feelings that you end up having and all other things. Other things that your immune system is usually down to a lack of vitamin D. So, you can supplement at the time to make you feel better but to be honest vitamin D supplementation didn’t. It did a little bit for me it definitely got me through the winter months in in London but nothing compared to just being able to get on the Sun.

So, it was something that really affected me when I was spending full winters here in the UK. It just shows really a lack of resilience for me not for everyone. I mean in the sense that I should have really, I did speak to other people with SAD and they’re like yep but I’ve got a like push on through in winter it’s gonna be over and it’s gonna come through. That’s not me saying that it’s not okay to have it. It’s me saying I know that I became very uncomfortable to spend time around at the time. But I think it’s important to acknowledge that it is a real thing.

It’s not just someone being mopey it’s not just someone whinging a bit more in the winter time. It’s like honor those feelings and be like okay I may actually have seasonal affective disorder, go and seek some advice. Whether that is as simple as trying to increase your time out in the Sun trying to in whatever way that you can. Whether it is supplementation and vitamin D, I mean that’s not something that I can doesn’t generally blanket recommend to everyone. But definitely those are things that you can do. If they’re very severe depressive thoughts, then again speaking to a therapist to try and work through those. But also acknowledging that it may be increased or your feelings are probably more sensitive down to the fact that you may have or be experiencing Seasonal Affective Disorder as well.

Chloe Brotheridge: I suppose it’s well if you’re somebody who loves being outdoors and active. So, cold and dark in the winter months and so that is gonna inhibit you from being doing the things that you want to do. It’s not to make a bigger impact.

Shona Vertue: Yeah, it does and I think that I’m Australian and so it’s really, we’re really lucky. Australians are really lucky and privileged in that sense. Because we have access to winter months but they’re not winters like this and so yeah, just I really wasn’t used to it. I wasn’t ready for that kind of experience and it’s just something that you have to think about. I think around that time, that winter-time.

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah.

Shona Vertue: But it’s a real thing. So, it’s not just people kind of whinging about winter, it’s like if you’re having really strong not even strong if you’re feeling down just know that it may be related to that and there are things that you can do around the winter months to make it better.

Chloe Brotheridge: Just on the topic of vitamin D, the NHS actually recommends a vitamin D supplement for everyone.

Shona Vertue: Amazing, we can link that statement.

Chloe Brotheridge: We can actually say everyone to take that supplement. Because in the UK we are deficient in some sunshine. So, get on that especially if you think you might be struggling at this time of year. Thank you for sharing that. Another thing I wanted to ask you was about something that I think I caught the last half of a talk you were giving. I think you’re on a panel this is like a year and a bit ago. You were talking about something really fascinating to me heart rate variability.

Heart rate variability (HRV) Shona Vertue: Yes, I’m so glad you asked about this, know like what’s your favorite outfit to work in. I was like, you asked me the best questions, HRV (Heart Rate Variability). So, simply Heart Rate Variability is a measurement of the time with a variation in the time between each heart beat and it’s controlled by the autonomic nervous system. So, I have to give a bit of a breakdown. Is that alright?

Chloe Brotheridge: Yes please.

Shona Vertue: Okay, let’s do this. So, stay with me I’m gonna try and keep it as interesting as possible. So, autonomic nervous system, which means it’s really just automatic. So, it’s things like your heartbeat, your bladder, thankfully it is automatic. Because if we had to remember to make our heartbeat, we probably would be dead for a lot of us. Given the amount of things that are on our plate, I definitely wouldn’t remember to be like nah but I’ve squeezed my heart. So, the blood pumps around my body. Luckily that’s autonomic okay. Now the autonomic nervous system can be kind of broken down into two main branches. I’m sure you know this I’m just explaining this for everyone.

So, you’ve got your parasympathetic nervous system and your sympathetic nervous system. In more simpler terms, your sympathetic nervous system is like your fight-or-flight. So, we often hear about this story about the saber-tooth Tiger when talking about the nervous system. I’ll go into that a little bit but it’s your fight-or-flight mode is like are you either gonna like fight the saber-tooth tiger or you’re gonna flight you gonna run away. Then the parasympathetic nervous system is kind of like your rest and digest mode. It’s like actually another friend of mine talks about it as your feed and breed mode.

I sometimes say it’s like Netflix and chill mode, but it’s essentially, it’s kind of where all the good happens to be honest. It’s where all the rest and then the recovery and the sleep happen. So, we want a balance of activity between those two aspects of our nervous system. We obviously need, stress isn’t a bad thing. Now coming back to this saber-tooth Tiger in time the reason we talk about the saber-tooth tiger is because it’s a very primal aspect of our nervous system, right. A nervous system is primal its primitive. Back then, we would have had saber-toothed Tigers right, that we had to watch out for.

So, if you need to if a stress like a saber-toothed tiger comes into your life, I promise I’m gonna come back to Heart Rate Variability in a second but you just need to understand this background bit. Saber-toothed tiger comes in and you think I’ve either got to run away or I’ve got to fight it. So, there are physiological changes and chemical changes that need to occur within your body to facilitate you to either run away or fight, right. So, things like your being able to breathe at a faster rate, your heart rate moving at a faster rate, pupils dilating. Your digestion either well it’s inhibited but sometimes it’s actually stimulated in the sense that you’ll either yourself or you’ll become really constipated.

So, I’m team shit yourself, other people I know under stress are team constipation, I don’t know which ones better. I think it’s pretty shitty to excuse the pun to have to always need to go the toilet whenever I’m nervous. But that’s about the term like nervous poop comes from. So, that’s one side of the nervous system, the other side as I said is your feet and breathe. It’s kind of like when you really chill when you’re able to relax the body goes, okay now we can recover now we can start to. So, digestion is actually increased in the certain parts the digestive system is increased, so we digest our food better.

Various things happen, we facilitate sleep which is where a lot of our recovery comes from. We know about sleep deprivation being really detrimental to our health. So, back to that rate variability, knowing that you have these two aspects. If back in the day where we didn’t have such complex stresses in our life, so we don’t have things like divorce stress and relationship stress and boss stress and deadline stress and all that sort of stuff. We just sort of had like the stresses of you know survival versus just chill. Once the saber-tooth Tigers gone and you’ve dealt with that situation you’re like okay I’m back to the parasympathetic nervous system. Life is more complex now.

If we are too imbalanced in the sensor if we spend too much time in that sympathetic state in that fight-or-flight mode. Let’s say you wake up in the morning, you face traffic you’re late for work you can already see that your boss is like gonna be mad at. You can actually put yourself in a sympathetic state without an actual stressful situation being there. So, we as humans are capable of doing all these physiological changes and chemical changes that in excess are really dangerous just by imagining what your boss will say, if you do a job. You know what I mean and or fighting with your partner in your mind or whatever it might be.

So, with this imbalance comes a reduction in your heart rate variability. So, a low heart rate variability is linked to things like depression, anxiety. It’s also linked to cardiovascular disease. It’s also linked to just a shorter life span. So, what we want to see with heart rate variability is a high variability. So, people often get it confused, because we think that actually when we take our heart rate, we want to see low heart rate right, we want to see a low pulse that’s true for a fitness. But heart rate variability we want it to be high because what it shows and what it’s indicative of is how well your system can shift gears between your sympathetic and your parasympathetic States and between that fight-or-flight mode and then back to chill.

So, we want a high HRV. The way that we can measure this is like waking up in the morning and taking our heart rate and seeing what the state of our nervous system is. Now the reason this information is important not just from a sort of like vague health perspective, is actually also because it does determine how you should probably do a workout for that day. So, there seems to be there was a big, I feel like it’s sort of phasing out a little bit. But there’s a huge push towards is where I come back to this Fitness punishment kind of mentality is that people often think like oh if I’m not working really really hard all the time, then it’s gonna be really bad for me. You know I’m not changing my fitness goals.

But we have to acknowledge the state. I’m not just talking about your mental state as in like, yeah, I feel fine I’m ready to get fit. It’s like, no how are you really. Coming back to your question how are you really, are you stressed out of your mind but you’ve been really good at ignoring it mentally. But your body is like I have a low HIV my hair is falling out, blah blah. All these different reasons right or these physiological signs. So, HIV can be some data that you can check in the morning that gives you a good indication of like should I go to that hit class at lunchtime or actually would it be better off going to the meditation class that I keep avoiding. Or would I be better off just actually resting today and going for a walk out in nature.

HRV is just a tiny easy non-invasive bit of data that you can collect every day there’s an app called ‘Delete HRV’. That’s one that I use, but there’s plenty out there. It just collects that data over time and you really need to collect it for a at least a month to gauge where your nervous system is at and how you should start to then go hmm, I should be chilling out on the workouts a little bit. Because another thing and I should have mentioned this is that we have to remember that fitness and exercise is a form of stress on the body.

Now if you’re in a relaxed state that stress is necessary because stress is what induces adaptation. Adaptation is just another word for the changes that occur which is what we know as in our minds results, #results right or #gains. So, if we want those changes to really occur, so all the work we’re putting into our fitness and our exercise. If we want those changes to occur, we need to be able to shift between that sympathetic state back to the parasympathetic state. If you’re not doing that then you’re inhibiting your results. So, your workouts are in vain and they’re just stressing you out further. So, that was a very long-winded way of explaining. Because I told you this is the way to happen.

Chloe Brotheridge: Fascinating, but as totally a penny has dropped now for me, I understand that. A lot of people that I speak to don’t really understand even things about the parasympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system. So, to have you explain that I think is really helpful.

Shona Vertue: Okay good.

Chloe Brotheridge: Obviously a lot of people listening with anxiety are very much in their sympathetic mode a lot of the time. I’ve heard it also described as tend and befriend. Do you hear that one?

Shona Vertue: I like that.

Chloe Brotheridge: Well, it’s kind of sounds cute, but it’s about people-pleasing looking after people, Because you’re so stressed.

Shona Vertue: Seem sympathetic has been named that.

Chloe Brotheridge: Yeah.

Shona Vertue: See, I’m so codependent that of course I’m like, people pleasing that’s my middle name.

Chloe Brotheridge: Yes, sounds really cute. Actually, if we’re scared interesting, then we might be more likely to carry out those behaviors. So, what is your opinion? So, for a lot of people that I speak to they say my spin class sorts me out when I’m feeling really anxious. I go and it really calms me down. Is that maybe not having a great effect on the body then if someone is really anxious to go and do that?

Cutting out the psychological interpretation Shona Vertue: Yeah and this is why heart rate, yes possibly. I think it’s hard to again give a blanket answer, but something like HRV cuts out this sort of psychological interpretation that you might be making around yourself. So, like if you’re in a really anxious state, but you’ve been living like that for the last ten years and anxiety is your baseline and then you don’t know what actually that’s doing to your body. Getting data like that is very incredibly beneficial, because you can’t lie to yourself. It’s just pure data. Then you can kind of make honest changes. Perhaps the spin class is great for that person perhaps anxiety is, the term anxiety while it’s a very real thing.

It really is particularly if it’s an anxiety disorder it’s a really real thing and has real physiological effects damaging effects long-term and even short-term. I think that one of the reasons that things like this is so complicated is because it is down to individual psychology. So, some people handle the same environmental or situational stress differently to others, right. We know this, which is why it can be easy for some people to be like I’m not stressed I’m fine. They don’t even know that they’re anxious but their body is giving off these signs. So, for those that are addicted to things like high-intensity interval training or just training in general, right.

Whether it’s a spin class or what it might be I would just urge you to start collecting that data. You don’t need to stop your spin class yet, just start collecting that data and see what it says. Then you can be really honest with yourself. Do I have an exercise addiction? Do I have an addiction to this adrenal state where I’m like trying to actually use exercise to ignore underlying issues? Is it still good for me? It’s fine and I’m actually I’m not, I feel great and it’s fine and my body isn’t struggling and my HIV is very high I have high HIV. Just remember that because it gets confusing people like no, I want a low heart rate variability. No, we want a low heart rate higher heart rate variability, yeah.

Chloe Brotheridge: Good to remember. I really want to remember what was that. Yes, so there are people who could be very anxious or stressed but not when you realize it. Maybe they are really snappy with their partner or they suddenly are not sleeping well and go to lots of spin classes.

Shona Vertue: You love the spin.

Chloe Brotheridge: No, I find spin stressful. That’s projecting my own patroness spin classes.

Movement imbalance Shona Vertue: One of the reasons, I am sorry I’m just chiming in here, but one of the reasons I hate spin is because what I see is that a lot of office workers. People that work behind a desk go to spin and from a postural perspective there’s you’re essentially going from one chair to another chair. So, your hips are in a flexed position and they go to another flexed position. The reason that that’s problematic is that if you’re only doing spin is your only form of exercise and where it’s your main form of exercise, it’s an imbalance in the strength muscular strength in your body. Just movement imbalance.

Yeah, there’s so much flexion like forward flexion over a desk and then moving over a bike. So, to me it’s not an ideal way if you love spin and you love it on your lunch break. Because mentally it doesn’t make you feel better than do it. But then just make sure you’re also doing other stuff that is counteracting so much of that forward flexion. Yes, sorry so back to your question. What you’re going to say?

Chloe Brotheridge: I think it’s more a statement of just for people to be on the lookout for those signs that they might be stressed, more stressed or anxious. They realize the physical signs that the body shows us or looking into their HRV, see what that’s saying. Because we don’t always know because sometimes, we can get so used to feeling anxious all the time that it becomes totally normal. Often, I hear people say, what does that one, not lie awake at night on a Sunday no worrying about the week ahead. I thought that was you know everyone did that, I know not everyone.

Shona Vertue: Our capitalist society has really driven us towards glorifying this notion of busy and this notion of like high stress high resilience to that sort of thing. I think that that last probably we can get through it for ten years but then the body starts to break down. Then we wonder why you know I has falling out or we’re seeing different physiological signs that we hate and the worst part is that, then we’re sold some form of anti-aging cream or some form of like hair replace. It’s like what you think care of it that’s to fail in you. So, yeah exactly. It’s like the model our society sets us up in benefits from us being stressed out and dying.

Attachment therapy Chloe Brotheridge: It’s a big topic talk about how capitalism affects us and our mental health. I didn’t ask you I didn’t tell you I was gonna ask you this question, but you mention it before we started recording. Can we talk about attachment therapy? We’re getting very like into.

Shona Vertue: Quite again, I mean I’m not qualified psychologists yet, but we absolutely can talk about attachment theory.

Chloe Brotheridge: Because you are going to train to finish your training.

Shona Vertue: Yes, I mean I’m very at the very early stages of a psychology degree. But yes, that is what I’m going into. Attachment theory was something that I became interested in after reading a good friend of mine Laura Mukha, who has written a book called ‘Love Factually’. She unpacks essentially through both interviewing experts on it, but also interviewing people from different categories of attachment theory. I feel like I’m terrible at explaining it in a really simple way. So, I don’t know whether you want to have, you might want to cut this bit out because I still haven’t found a very simple way to define attachment theory.

But it’s very very interesting when you start looking into it. There’re two sorts of it’s kind of broken down between insecure attachment styles and secure attachment styles. I think the facts that Laura Mukha had put in her book was something around or I think she taught member where she’d taken this from. But correct me if I’m wrong is around 20% of the population will have an insecure attachment. Might be more might be 40%. So, my memory is failing me but insecure attached people can be broken down into three categories. Avoidant attached, anxious attached and then one that’s called disorganized, which is kind of a mix between the two and usually indicative of people have had like really severe trauma.

So, they kind of go but in childhoods they go between being avoidant or expressing avoidant aspects and anxious aspects. Avoidant people, anxious and avoidant people tend to have the same fundamental belief. Something in their childhood or earlier childhood, sometimes even later childhood or some trauma in their life has caused them to believe fundamentally that they are unworthy of love. It expresses in different ways. So, an anxious attached person tends to be that person that we call is being really like needy. It’s always needing reassurance that they’re loved and might play a lot of games in the relationship to try and prove that they’re loved and might get very jealous very easily things like that.

Avoidant anxious, an avoidant attachment style is what is kind of glorified in Hollywood. Particularly with men is this behavior of like the bad boy that’s kind of like moody and always pushing their lovers away and who might Express. It’s will sometimes love bomb right at the beginning of the relationship really intensely. then suddenly the next day you wake up and they’re like they’ve disappeared on you as soon as they have to be vulnerable or intimate. So, securely attached people don’t really tend to express these sorts of things. It’s a very very deep and amazing topic and something that I think for just anyone that experience to really kind of I guess like shocking relationship experiences.

I would highly recommend reading attachment theory and I’ve had so many people write to me since I’ve started talking about it. On social media reaching out saying, oh my god I read Love Actually and it just totally explained me. There’s another book called ‘Attached’ which explains attachment theory in a really beautiful and profound way as well. Makes it less taboo as well, because I think sometimes if you are in securely attached if you do express these behaviors that seem kind of dysfunctional. It makes you feel a lot of shame about yourself. For a long time, I was like oh my god I feel so ashamed around that person or that I can just be described in these like 10 sentences of behavior.

But in actual fact, there are benefits to those behaviors and to why you behaved in that way at that time and why you developed those characteristics. Because they served you at a time when you were experiencing trauma in your life. So, it’s not worth actually hating on yourself if you are avoidant or anxious or have any of those sorts of behavior. It’s just about understanding them and noticing the triggers and being able to express and communicate so that you can start to calm those triggers down. So, I highly recommend people look into those.

Chloe Brotheridge: Such a great explanation yeah. Just talking from my own experience, I am pretty sure I was anxiously attached.

Shona Vertue: Me to

Chloe Brotheridge: Like things like being left to cry as a baby that was very trendy when I was born. My parents did it in quite a I don’t know I think my mom, her mental health wasn’t great because she couldn’t sleep. So, she left me to cry so she could sleep and I don’t understand. It’s a very complicated topic. But I’m pretty sure that led to me thinking I’m not lovable. Then my boyfriend probably got the brunt of that. We’ve been together 10 years now and the first part of the relationship was probably a real nightmare.

Shona Vertue: Tumultuous and as he, would you say that he’s more securely attached.

Chloe Brotheridge: He’s very secure.