Stronger After The Storm

Episode 53 - The Machine I'd Been Walking Past: Defibrillators and a Story for 2027

Free 7-Day Mind Reset Plan for the first week after a heart attack ➡️ strongerafterthestorm.com/reset

On an early misty walk with Bud, I share how a coffee with an old friend, a fellow heart attack survivor and trustee of our local charity Kelso Heartbeat, stopped me in my tracks.

Twelve years into my own recovery, I'd been walking past the defibrillators in my town without a second look. And I think I finally worked out why: the night after my heart attack, I was told I might need to be put under and shocked to get my heart back into rhythm.

This is a short teaser for a story I hope to tell properly in 2027.

Do you know where your nearest defibrillator is?

Learn CPR and how to use a defibrillator with the British Heart Foundation's free 15-minute RevivR course: bhf.org.uk/revivr

This podcast shares personal experience only and is not medical advice. Always follow the guidance of your GP and cardiac team.

One steady step and heartbeat at a time.
Dougie

💻 Visit StrongerAfterTheStorm.com — the home of the podcast and weekly Reflection Letters.  
📩 Each week I write an honest letter for men rebuilding life after a heart attack. You can sign up on the site.  
🎧 Make sure to follow the podcast so you don’t miss the next episode.  
⭐ If something in this episode helped you, please leave a review on Apple or Spotify — it really helps more men find us.  
🤝 And if you know someone going through the same storm, share this with him. It might be just what he needs today.

Episode 52 - Back to Work After a Heart Attack: Will I Ever Trust My Body Again?

Free 7-Day Mind Reset Plan for the first week after a heart attack ➡️ strongerafterthestorm.com/reset

Will I ever be able to do my job again?

If you're in the early days after a heart attack, it's a question you might not have said out loud yet. Not just the work, but being the man who goes out the door in the morning with his bait bag and flask. The one who earns, fixes and just gets on with it.

In this episode, I'm standing in a storm-blown wood where I work, among the tall larch trees that came down last weekend. It took me back to the three months it took me to build up the strength and confidence to return to forestry after my heart attack, and how my mind wouldn't switch off from what was happening on the inside.

Twelve years on, I'm still working in the woods five days a week.

Confidence doesn't come back all at once. It comes back in wee pieces.

Watch the video version on YouTube: search "Stronger After the Storm"
Weekly Reflection Letters: strongerafterthestorm.com/reflection-letters/

This podcast shares personal experience only and is not medical advice. Always follow the guidance of your GP and cardiac team. For clinical information, visit the NHS, British Heart Foundation or American Heart Association.

One steady step at a time.
Dougie

💻 Visit StrongerAfterTheStorm.com — the home of the podcast and weekly Reflection Letters.  
📩 Each week I write an honest letter for men rebuilding life after a heart attack. You can sign up on the site.  
🎧 Make sure to follow the podcast so you don’t miss the next episode.  
⭐ If something in this episode helped you, please leave a review on Apple or Spotify — it really helps more men find us.  
🤝 And if you know someone going through the same storm, share this with him. It might be just what he needs today.

Episode 51 – The Same Date, Twice

If you’ve had a heart attack, there’s a date that’s yours now. You feel it coming weeks before, every year.

Mine is the 19th of October. Twelve years ago that night, I woke at four in the morning in my cottage in the Borders to pitch darkness, a silence that was deafening, and a pressure on my chest. I was alone, and I didn’t know if I’d ever see my family again.

Eleven years later, on the same date, I did the second most terrifying thing I’ve ever done. I sat with my finger over the button and told everyone I knew about Stronger After the Storm.

In this episode I talk about both of those days, and what I’d want a man to know if he’s a few weeks home from hospital and lying awake tonight. Your date will stay with you like a tattoo on your arm. But with intention, you’ll get to it one year on, and many more after that.

Read the full Insight here:
 https://strongerafterthestorm.com/the-same-date-twice/

If your head’s busier than it should be, my free 7-Day Mind Reset Plan is a good place to start:
 https://strongerafterthestorm.com/the-7-day-mind-reset-plan/

💻 Visit StrongerAfterTheStorm.com — the home of the podcast and weekly Reflection Letters.  
📩 Each week I write an honest letter for men rebuilding life after a heart attack. You can sign up on the site.  
🎧 Make sure to follow the podcast so you don’t miss the next episode.  
⭐ If something in this episode helped you, please leave a review on Apple or Spotify — it really helps more men find us.  
🤝 And if you know someone going through the same storm, share this with him. It might be just what he needs today.

 Finally Listening to My Body | Why I Stopped Ignoring the Warning Signs 

 The waiting is what turns something small into something serious 

 “You can’t drive yourself. I’m calling an ambulance now.”

That’s what the doctor said after I’d spent four days brushing off a cough while planting trees on a steep Borders hillside. I was new to the job and didn’t want to be the one who couldn’t keep up. It turned out to be bilateral pneumonia. A week in hospital, and three months before I was fit for work again.

This summer, out at work again, my legs went light, then my head. This time I told the lads I needed to sit down, and I phoned the doctor at breakfast break. It was a heart arrhythmia, caught early and dealt with.

Same body. Same instinct to push through. A very different response.

In this episode I talk about why so many of us wait, and how the waiting is often what turns something small into something serious.

If you’ve ever felt something wasn’t right and talked yourself out of doing anything about it, my free 7-Day Mind Reset Plan is a good place to start:
 https://strongerafterthestorm.com/the-7-day-mind-reset-plan/

💻 Visit StrongerAfterTheStorm.com — the home of the podcast and weekly Reflection Letters.  
📩 Each week I write an honest letter for men rebuilding life after a heart attack. You can sign up on the site.  
🎧 Make sure to follow the podcast so you don’t miss the next episode.  
⭐ If something in this episode helped you, please leave a review on Apple or Spotify — it really helps more men find us.  
🤝 And if you know someone going through the same storm, share this with him. It might be just what he needs today.

EPISODE 49 – Face to Face With Your Own Mortality — The quiet moments that remind you you're still here 

This October it's twelve years since my heart attack.

I used to think facing your own mortality happened at the big moments. Family photos. Big occasions. The ones everyone expects to hit you.

But for me, it shows up in the quiet ones.

In this episode I talk about a Saturday ride on the bike. Kelso to Selkirk, up the Yarrow Valley, past St Mary's Loch, and on to Moffat for a coffee and some toffee. Somewhere along that road I pulled in, cut the engine, and sat in the stillness. And the thought landed: I could have missed all this.

I talk about what mortality looks like twelve years on. Not fear, but something quieter. Gratitude. Stillness. And becoming less about survival and more about being a witness to your own life.

If you're a man over 50 rebuilding life after a heart attack, I hope this one helps you notice your own quiet moments.

If your head's still busy and you're looking for somewhere to start, my free 7-Day Mind Reset Plan is here:
 https://strongerafterthestorm.com/the-7-day-mind-reset-plan/

💻 Visit StrongerAfterTheStorm.com — the home of the podcast and weekly Reflection Letters.  
📩 Each week I write an honest letter for men rebuilding life after a heart attack. You can sign up on the site.  
🎧 Make sure to follow the podcast so you don’t miss the next episode.  
⭐ If something in this episode helped you, please leave a review on Apple or Spotify — it really helps more men find us.  
🤝 And if you know someone going through the same storm, share this with him. It might be just what he needs today.

EPISODE 48 - Planting a Tree For Someone I'll Never See-Why I'm building something that outlasts me

There's a particular kind of tree I love planting — the ones that'll stand in a parkland for hundreds of years after I'm gone, long after anyone remembers who put them in the ground.

In this episode I talk about why I started Stronger After the Storm alongside my forestry work — the moment it clicked for me last winter, kneeling down with a young tree in my hands, that I wanted to build something that could help other men recovering from a heart attack long after I'm not around to do it myself.

Forestry is good, honest work, but it's limited to where I can physically put myself. This is different — a way of reaching people I'll never meet, for years to come.

If any of this stirs something in you, the 7-Day Mind Reset Plan is a good place to start finding some clarity: https://strongerafterthestorm.com/the-7-day-mind-reset-plan/

💻 Visit StrongerAfterTheStorm.com — the home of the podcast and weekly Reflection Letters.  
📩 Each week I write an honest letter for men rebuilding life after a heart attack. You can sign up on the site.  
🎧 Make sure to follow the podcast so you don’t miss the next episode.  
⭐ If something in this episode helped you, please leave a review on Apple or Spotify — it really helps more men find us.  
🤝 And if you know someone going through the same storm, share this with him. It might be just what he needs today.

Ep 47: The Hard Days Still Come - Expecting the waves and knowing you can handle them

There's a moment out on the hill, knapsack full, heat rising, when I know I've gone past the point I should have stopped. This episode is about that moment — the voice that tells you to push on anyway, and what it actually takes to say "I need to take five or ten" instead.

I talk through the day it happened, what's changed in how I listen to my body since my heart attack, and why I think we're all carrying some version of that same knapsack, whatever ours happens to be.

If this one lands with you, the 7-Day Mind Reset Plan is a small daily practice for meeting a hard day a bit calmer: https://strongerafterthestorm.com/the-7-day-mind-reset-plan/

I'm Dougie — sharing real talk on heart attack recovery for men over 50, from lived experience, not medical advice.

💻 Visit StrongerAfterTheStorm.com — the home of the podcast and weekly Reflection Letters.  
📩 Each week I write an honest letter for men rebuilding life after a heart attack. You can sign up on the site.  
🎧 Make sure to follow the podcast so you don’t miss the next episode.  
⭐ If something in this episode helped you, please leave a review on Apple or Spotify — it really helps more men find us.  
🤝 And if you know someone going through the same storm, share this with him. It might be just what he needs today.

Episode 46 — Why Support Matters | Giving and Receiving Help After a Heart Attack 

It's always been easier for me to give support than to receive it. I found that out properly after my heart attack — twice, in two very different situations. 

When I got home from hospital, my daughter tidied the cottage up and stayed the night to make sure I was okay. She'd done exactly the same thing months earlier when I had bilateral pneumonia. Both times, I asked her to go home after one night — not because I didn't appreciate it, but because letting her look after me felt like admitting I was weak. 

Then, back at work, felling a big Spruce with a workmate, he needed my strength to get it down. Giving that support didn't feel like a burden at all — it felt good. 

Same kind of situation, same me, but it only ever sat comfortably running one way. This episode's about what I've learned trying to let it run both ways. 

 Music's been part of my own recovery too — a few of the songs that got me through are in The Rhythm Room, if that's something you want to check out: https://strongerafterthestorm.com/the-rhythm-room/ 

If you've experienced fear or anxiety after a heart attack, or you're in the early stages of recovery, my 7-Day Mind Reset Plan might help — it's free: https://strongerafterthestorm.com/the-7-day-mind-reset-plan/ 

💻 Visit StrongerAfterTheStorm.com — the home of the podcast and weekly Reflection Letters.  
📩 Each week I write an honest letter for men rebuilding life after a heart attack. You can sign up on the site.  
🎧 Make sure to follow the podcast so you don’t miss the next episode.  
⭐ If something in this episode helped you, please leave a review on Apple or Spotify — it really helps more men find us.  
🤝 And if you know someone going through the same storm, share this with him. It might be just what he needs today.

 Ep 45: Men, Vulnerability, and Real Talk 

 Something changed in me after my heart attack that made it a bit easier to talk about the hard stuff. I don't think it was courage — not really. It was something different to that. 

In this episode I look back at my own relationship with being open: the conversations I could always have with my dad, the bonds I built years ago in the Merchant Navy, and how all of that got buried once I went into business and the hotels took over. I talk about what I think actually shifted after my heart attack, and why I don't believe it was bravery that did it. 

Read the full Insight from this episode here: 

https://strongerafterthestorm.com/men-vulnerability-and-real-talk/

If you're in the early stages of recovery, the free 7-Day Mind Reset Plan I put together might be worth a look:

https://strongerafterthestorm.com/the-7-day-mind-reset-plan/ 

💻 Visit StrongerAfterTheStorm.com — the home of the podcast and weekly Reflection Letters.  
📩 Each week I write an honest letter for men rebuilding life after a heart attack. You can sign up on the site.  
🎧 Make sure to follow the podcast so you don’t miss the next episode.  
⭐ If something in this episode helped you, please leave a review on Apple or Spotify — it really helps more men find us.  
🤝 And if you know someone going through the same storm, share this with him. It might be just what he needs today.

Episode 44 — One Year Stronger | Reflecting on a Year of Stronger After the Storm

A year ago I sat at my desk with my finger hovering over a button. Do I press it or don't I?

I'd spent weeks building it — recording at home, editing in Audacity, no idea what I was doing, no YouTube, no plan beyond wanting to tell my story and hoping it might help someone.

August 26th, 2025. I hit publish. Terrified and excited in equal measure.

A year on — 43 episodes, reaching 46 countries and 199 cities, a friend who reached out mid-year and told me he saw himself in one episode completely, and the hardest, most rewarding thing I did all year — posting on my own personal Facebook page, to the people who actually know me.

In this episode I'm reflecting honestly on the whole year. What's changed, what surprised me, what I've learned.

If someone came to mind while you were listening to this — a mate, a brother, someone quietly going through it — please send them this one. You don't need the right words yourself. Sometimes this says it for you.

🔗 Free 7-Day Mind Reset Plan:
 👉 https://strongerafterthestorm.com/the-7-day-mind-reset-plan/

This is Stronger After the Storm. I'm Dougie — a Scottish Borders forestry contractor who had a heart attack at 50, and I'm here to be the man a few steps further down the road that I wish I'd met when I first got home.

💻 Visit StrongerAfterTheStorm.com — the home of the podcast and weekly Reflection Letters.  
📩 Each week I write an honest letter for men rebuilding life after a heart attack. You can sign up on the site.  
🎧 Make sure to follow the podcast so you don’t miss the next episode.  
⭐ If something in this episode helped you, please leave a review on Apple or Spotify — it really helps more men find us.  
🤝 And if you know someone going through the same storm, share this with him. It might be just what he needs today.