Meeting of Minds

Joy is my favourite topic, closely followed by freedom and in this episode I'm talking about them both.

In January 2017 when I lost a lot of the sight in my right eye,  the unravelling that followed took me to therapy for 3 years. In therapy I learned how much my childhood trauma was weighing me down. I also learned how to put a lot of that trauma down and I experienced so much freedom as a result.

After the therapy I had to work out who I am now I am no longer caught up in all the trauma. I had to take a long look at how much my conditioning from my family and Society in general had shaped how I felt about myself and how I showed in the world. I learned how to put a lot of the conditioning down and experienced yet more freedom as a result.

Now I feel so much joy every day in those little moments that I would usually have been too busy to even notice. Those ordinary moments of the sun peeking through the clouds, the sun on my face, the smell of fresh coffee. The joy that comes with the freedom is immense.

What can you do today to start building freedom for yourself and what can you notice that will bring you joy? Let me know what you discover.

LINKS

Here is the link to sign up for my newsletter and in return you will receive a copy of my new ebook book, I see You: newsletter sign up

To buy my book: I See, Me on Amazon

To get in touch:

Email: [email protected]

Instagram @safeandsupportedcoaching

Website: safeandsupported.co.uk

Production: Jay Herbert

Original music: Jay Herbert and Alex Ware

This is a simple episode about a complicated subject: estrangement from your family. It's not something that is talked about often, actually it's fairly taboo. After years of trying desperately hard to forge a meaningful relationship, I got to the stage where I felt I had no choice but to withdraw from my alcoholic mother. It was easier than being on the rollercoaster of dependency with her but it wasn't easy. There are complicated feelings of guilt, shame, relief and loss at play and  it is not an easy option. For some, it feels like the only option and that's where I found myself in my early 30s. I have no regrets.

I recorded this episode in case it was useful for anyone in a similar situation to hear.

LINKS

Here is the link to sign up for my newsletter and in return you will receive a copy of my new ebook book, I see You: newsletter sign up

To buy my book: I See, Me on Amazon

To get in touch:

Email: [email protected]

Instagram @safeandsupportedcoaching

Website: safeandsupported.co.uk

Production: Jay Herbert

Original music: Jay Herbert and Alex Ware

This is a deeply personal episode about my relationship with food, my body and myself. I have been meaning to record this for a while but have been putting it off. It felt important to talk about this but it also felt uncomfortable. Finally, I was ready.

I talk about how being put on a diet age 7 affected the way I felt about my body for a very long time. I also talk about how losing a lot of weight made me feel and how I feel that Society treats fat people really badly. I also talk about how healing my relationship with myself helped me feel so much better about my body and repaired my relationship with food.

Let me know what you think.

LINKS

Here is the link to sign up for my newsletter and in return you will receive a copy of my new ebook book, I see You: newsletter sign up

To buy my book: I See, Me on Amazon

To get in touch:

Email: [email protected]

Instagram @safeandsupportedcoaching

Website: safeandsupported.co.uk

Production: Jay Herbert

Original music: Jay Herbert and Alex Ware

I recorded this episode when I was having a hard time with some of my relationships. I talk about how I worked through some of the things that were behind the part I was playing in what was going on and how I figured that out. I thought it was useful to talk about it on the podcast as it might help listeners see how they could work things out for themselves.

No matter how much work I've done, my past keeps coming back in and it's useful for us all to know that healing works in layers and there is often more to delve into. This was another layer for me and I started to unravel it by understanding that something was going on and noticing when it was happening. My healing journey continues and my most important tool at the moment is self-compassion. Self-compassion is so important in those moments when things aren't going so great.

I hope you enjoy this episode and find it helpful. Let me know what you think. 

LINKS

Here is the link to sign up for my newsletter and in return you will receive a copy of my new ebook book, I see You: newsletter sign up

To buy my book: I See, Me on Amazon

To get in touch:

Email: [email protected]

Instagram @safeandsupportedcoaching

Website: safeandsupported.co.uk

Production: Jay Herbert

Original music: Jay Herbert and Alex Ware

This episode is a conversation with the wonderful Martin (@coasaresuperheroes on Instagram). Like me, Martin is the child of an alcoholic, in fact alcoholics in Martin's case. We have some similarities in our stories and many differences and I am so pleased to bring his story to the podcast. It's so important to get our stories out into the world so others going through similar things know they're not alone.

Martin's self-awareness and determination to use his experience for good is impressive. The courage he shows in sharing his story is inspiring. There is so much in this conversation as we talk about, amongst other things, his childhood, shutting down emotions, the flood when the emotions are released, being in survivor mode, seeking perfection, forgiveness, role models and identity. We talk about feeling unworthy as it's hard to feel good about yourself when your parents "choose" alcohol over you. We also talk about the richness of community and the wonderful work of Nacoa (the National Association for Children of Alcoholics).

If you would like to support Nacoa by becoming a member, making a donation or any other way, you can find them at nacoa.org.uk and @nacoauk on Instagram.

You can find Martin on Instagram and Facebook @coasaresuperheroes.

LINKS

Here is the link to sign up for my newsletter and in return you will receive a copy of my new ebook book, I see You: newsletter sign up

To buy my book: I See, Me on Amazon

To get in touch:

Email: [email protected]

Instagram @safeandsupportedcoaching

Website: safeandsupported.co.uk

Production: Jay Herbert

Original music: Jay Herbert and Alex Ware

In this episode I am talking about the layers of healing. How any healing or personal development journey takes place over time, a layer at a time.

Healing is not quick as time is needed to process and work out how to live with each new reality as a layer is uncovered. It's a wonderful journey of self-discovery and being really interested in how to find that true and best version of yourself that you can bring into the world as often as possible. Enjoy the process and celebrate moments of progress.

The best advice I can give I can give people who are doing their own personal work is that when it seems too hard to carry on, that is when you're on the brink of something and it's the time to dig in and stick with it.

LINKS

Here is the link to sign up for my newsletter and in return you will receive a copy of my new ebook book, I see You: newsletter sign up

To buy my book: I See, Me on Amazon

To get in touch:

Email: [email protected]

Instagram @safeandsupportedcoaching

Website: safeandsupported.co.uk

Production: Jay Herbert

Original music: Jay Herbert and Alex Ware

Perfectionism and our drive to do our best. These two subjects came together in this episode after I recorded an interview for someone else's podcast about perfectionism and I listened to a podcast about the desire to do our best all the time.

I have always identified as a perfectionist and done this with a certain pride believing it was a good trait to want things to be "just so" all the time. The reality is that, for me, it comes from a place of feeling less than and the being perfect is about not standing out as being not good enough. However perfectionism shows up for us, it is exhausting and it's tough when I think about the time and energy I have wasted over the years trying to be "perfect".

So how about we stop trying to do our best all the time? How about we are just enough? What would it be like it we could accept who we are and know that's enough? Sounds good doesn't it!

Let me know what you think.

LINKS

Here is the link to sign up for my newsletter and in return you will receive a copy of my new ebook book, I see You: newsletter sign up

To buy my book: I See, Me on Amazon

To get in touch:

Email: [email protected]

Instagram @safeandsupportedcoaching

Website: safeandsupported.co.uk

Production: Jay Herbert

Original music: Jay Herbert and Alex Ware

I've been meaning to talk about conditioning for a while and as it is coming up a lot in my client work at the moment, this seemed like a good time. 

We are often so bound up in our conditioning that we don't even know it has happened, that it is happening and how it affects us. 

By conditioning I mean the subtle, and often not so subtle, information, clues and ways that we learn to behave in our childhood to get our needs met. Needs such as love, care, attention, safety and many others. If we don't have emotionally present parents, we are likely to miss learning how to understand our needs, how to ask for them to be met and how to receive whatever it is we need. Instead we subconsciously learn how to manipulate our caregivers in the hope they will give us what we need. For me that was people-pleasing and being the "good girl".

My conditioning really showed up in my career as a lawyer, particularly in the early days, when I played the game of working hard and partying hard which I understood to be necessary if I wanted a job. How many other unwritten rules do we follow, or games do we play because we feel we have to? We often don't know where the conditioning started or where it came from and it takes courage (and support sometimes) to go against the rules, to fly in the face of what we have learned to be true. It can feel lonely and unsafe at times but there is great freedom and joy on the other side. 

Is there anything you might do differently after listening to this episode? Something you might stop doing? Or start something new? Let me know, I really want to hear from you. 

LINKS

Here is the link to sign up for my newsletter and in return you will receive a copy of my new ebook book, I see You: newsletter sign up

To buy my book: I See, Me on Amazon

To get in touch:

Email: [email protected]

Instagram @safeandsupportedcoaching

Website: safeandsupported.co.uk

Production: Jay Herbert

Original music: Jay Herbert and Alex Ware

In this episode I'm talking about my understanding of what you will hear some people refer to as our inner critic and imposter syndrome. I'm really not a fan of the term "imposter syndrome" as I believe that is it actually fear and it's more helpful for healing to call it fear rather than label it as a "syndrome". 

My inner critic has been very loud in the past and it mainly centred around my body. I am fat and I have always been fat. I knew this because of things my mother said, other people said and how society in general tells us that slim is acceptable, fat is not.  I turned to food to fill the hole of not feeling acceptable and I wore big clothes to hide my body. Obviously as I got bigger the clothes got bigger and I became more noticeable which is the paradox of binge eating for comfort and wanting to be hidden. It makes life, feelings and relationships feel really complicated and lonely.

In the past, around all these body issues, has been shame and during my healing work I came to realise that my mean inner critic, that told me I should hide my body, that I shouldn't wear a bikini, that I shouldn't wear a vest top, was actually trying to shield me from the mean words and actions of others. If it got me to hide and cover up I wouldn't be subjected to as much ridicule. It was trying to protect me. That was such a big thing to learn. So the work is to try and understand what our inner critic is trying to protect us from and when we realise this we can start to heal. 

I have found such joy, such acceptance and freedom to be myself that I now want to bring this to others. If you needed to hear this today, let me know what struck a chord with you. 

LINKS

Here is the link to sign up for my newsletter and in return you will receive a copy of my new ebook book, I see You: newsletter sign up

To buy my book: I See, Me on Amazon

To get in touch:

Email: [email protected]

Instagram @safeandsupportedcoaching

Website: safeandsupported.co.uk

Production: Jay Herbert

Original music: Jay Herbert and Alex Ware

In this episode I'm talking to Birgit Livesey, the creator and host of the Living on the B Side podcast, a place to showcase the power of music through people’s stories. Birgit has been a music lover all her life and in 2016 took the leap to give her passion a voice in the world.

We talk about being an introvert and what it meant to Birgit growing up and how that has changed as she has learned more about introversion and herself. As Birgit says, it's not about being antisocial or always being in a corner with a book. It's about managing energy and generally introverts recharge alone whilst extroverts recharge in the company of others. Like most traits, introversion and extroversion is on a scale and where we are on that scale can vary. You may hear people who are midway on the scale being referred to as ambiverts. Understanding her introvert tendencies helped Birgit really step into the truest version of herself and those of you who are regular listeners will know that that is something I am very passionate about.

Thank you to Birgit for this fabulous conversation. Let me know what you enjoyed most about it.

Here's a link to the Keala Settle video we talked about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLFEvHWD_NE

LINKS

Here is the link to sign up for my newsletter and in return you will receive a copy of my new ebook book, I see You: newsletter sign up

To buy my book: I See, Me on Amazon

To get in touch:

Email: [email protected]

Instagram @safeandsupportedcoaching

Website: safeandsupported.co.uk

Production: Jay Herbert

Original music: Jay Herbert and Alex Ware