The Path of Awakening

Keywords

Resilience - Poetry - Meditation - Mindfulness - Awakening - Flow States - Zen

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled Henry Shukman, a widely published poet, author, meditation teacher and Zen master of the Sanbo Zen lineage, shares his personal story. Henry grew up in Oxford, UK, where his parents were professors and his early love of poetry led to an interest in Chinese Zen poetry, and ultimately to him becoming a writer and poet.

Henry suffered from severe eczema from infancy into his 20’s, along with associated psychological problems, and meditation was a key element in a long journey of healing. He travelled extensively, eventually settling in New Mexico where he became fascinated by the indigenous culture's deep connection to the earth and where he was introduced to meditation and Zen, which in turn influenced his writing.

Main topics

•  The meditative quality of poetry and how it can bring one back to the present moment

• Using poetry in meditation to create a serene atmosphere.

• The differences between various forms of meditation

• The concept of awakening

• The connection between meditation and mindfulness

• The transformative power of poetry and its potential to enrich one's life

• The concept of original sin and its influence on Western culture

• The idea of karma and its physical consequences

• The concepts of mindfulness, support and absorption

• The concept of flow states and how they can be achieved through complete absorption in a task, leading to enhanced performance and increased happiness

• How flow is not limited to specific professions or activities and can be accessed through simple practices like meditation

• The relationship between meditation and religion and the practical and philosophical significance of meditation.

Action items

Henry's book is "Original Love: The 4 Ends on the Path of Awakening" and it has an accompanying meditation app, "The Way."

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.   

Changing perspective to overcome challenges

Keywords

Resilience – Mindfulness – Breathing – Breath Work – Wellbeing

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled Michael O’Brien, a qualified meditation teacher, executive coach, and endurance athlete, talks about stopping a bad moment becoming a bad day and accomplishing hard things through mindfulness. Michael shares his career journey in healthcare pharmaceuticals and his personal experience with a near-death cycling accident.

Michael discusses how his perspective on life changed after the accident, which occurred when a driver crossed over into his lane, causing a head-on collision. He shares his bleak prognosis from doctors following the accident and how he struggled with anger and uncertainty about his future roles as a father, husband, and employee. He also highlights how a mentor helped him adopt a more positive perspective by emphasising the importance of self-labelling, practicing gratitude, and mindfulness. This shift in perspective helped him overcome his challenges and gradually move forward in his recovery journey, which included both progress and setbacks.

Main topics

• The concept of mindfulness and its benefits

• Using breath work to manage stress and improve focus and decision-making

• The importance of creating space between stimulus and response

• Cultivating a more thoughtful and neutral approach to decision-making

• The importance of connecting with one's breath for overall health and well-being

• Different patterns of breathing

• Using shorter mindfulness practices to promote mindful living and improving overall health and wellbeing

 Action items

You can find out more about Michael at https://www.michaelobrienshift.com/pause-breathe-reflect/

  You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.   

Creating new solutions for burnout

Keywords

Resilience - Burnout - Retreats - Mindfulness - Wellness - Self-discovery - ROI

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled Max Schneider from Sand and Salt Escapes shares his experience of burnout and how it led him to create a solution to help others going through similar issues. He discusses how he initially struggled to recognise and address his burnout, explaining that his high-achieving and competitive nature led him to push through physical and emotional signs of exhaustion. A significant turning point came when he developed shingles at 27, a symptom he now recognises as a warning sign of burnout.

During a trip to Costa Rica, Max realised he needed to make a change and when Max and his wife returned from their trip, they left their jobs and started a process of self-discovery. He realised that his own behaviours and mindsets, rather than external factors, led to his burnout and took responsibility for his actions and sought therapy to understand his brain's wiring and learn how to manage it. He also found mindfulness and meditation helpful tools to prevent future burnout. This experience led him to create something to assist others who are experiencing disconnection, loss of identity, or burnout.

 Main topics

•  The rising issue of burnout in many cultures and the potential solutions

• The importance of self-reflection, therapy, and mindfulness

• The cultural pressure in organisations that often fuel burnout

• The value and challenges of implementing workplace wellness programmes

• Shifting organisational responsibility towards caring for top talent

• The difficulty in calculating the return on investment (ROI) for such programmes

• The challenge of getting CEOs to fund such initiatives for all employees

• The benefits of retreats with a focus on mindfulness, self-discovery, and connection

 Action items

 You can find out more about Max at sandandsaltescapes.com or through LinkedIn or Instagram

  You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.   

Mindfulness for organisations

Keywords

Resilience – Mindfulness – Performance – Leadership – Workplace Culture - Stress

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled Andrew MacNeill, a leadership consultant who helps individuals and teams thrive under pressure, discusses how mindfulness can be used as a tool to improve both well-being and performance in high-pressure environments.  Andrew spent 20 years in senior leadership and throughout his career led large teams in high pressure environments. He is also an accredited mindfulness teacher and brought these two worlds together in his book Organisational Mindfulness - a How-to Guide in 2019.

By integrating his leadership experience and insights from being a mindfulness teacher Andrew has developed a method to help leaders and their teams embed and implement techniques which improve performance, build psychological safety and support their own and their collective wellbeing. 

In this podcast Andrew shares his personal experience of discovering mindfulness while in a high-pressure leadership role and how it helped him cope with stress. He also explains that mindfulness is about non-judgmental present moment awareness and choosing where we place our attention intentionally.  

Main topics

• The implementation of mindfulness in organisations, particularly in meetings.

• The importance of noticing one's own biases and reactions, choosing to respond rather than react, and being present for effective decision-making.

• The need for cultural change towards mindful practices but acknowledging that it should be done thoughtfully as some people may not want to participate.

Timestamps

1: Introduction - Russell welcomes the guest, Andrew, and introduces the podcast. 00:00-00:23
2: Andrew's Work - Andrew explains that he is a leadership consultant who helps individuals and teams thrive under pressure. 00:56-02:03
3: Mindfulness - Andrew discusses how he discovered mindfulness and how it can be applied in a work context. He provides a practical example of how to practice mindfulness, and explains that it is a life-long practice. 02:05-08:28
4: Organsational Mindfulness - Andrew speaks about his book, "Organisational Mindfulness," which explains how mindfulness can be applied in a work setting. He discusses how mindfulness can help organisations support their people and deliver objectives. Andrew also explains how to implement cultural change and build skills to navigate high-stress environments.  08:51-15:24
5: Mindful Meetings - Andrew provides an example of how a program board meeting can be a practice in shared mindfulness. He explains how mindfulness can help people choose to respond rather than react in difficult meetings. 15:35-19:41
6: Conclusion - Russell and Andrew wrap up the podcast and provide information on where to find Andrew's book and services.  19:41-25:05

Action items

• Find out more about Andrew's book Organisational Mindfulness. http://www.organisationalmindfulness.co.uk/

• Find out more about Andrew at https://lxleaders.com/

 You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.  

Unlock your core creativity

Dr Ronald Alexander is a pioneer in the field of holistic health, psychology and behavioural medicine since 1976 and was of the original founders of the very first holistic health and medicine at the Cedar Sinai medical office towers in 1978. He has been teaching and writing books on mindfulness, positive psychology and creativity since 1976.

When he was a teenager he lived in Boston and often spent much of his spare time at the weekends at the Harvard book store reading about philosophy and Zen Buddhism. In the evenings he would go to different music venues initially to listen to folk music but then to the bands that made up the ‘British invasion’ including The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Who and Jethro Tull. He also started playing in a group at high school and became fascinated by the creative process in both his own group and through sitting, listening to and being mesmerized by high profile bands.

When artists describe their creative process, they inevitably talk about being in an open mind state where the download of core creativity can happen. Musicians such as The Band’s Robbie Robertson’s description that “Creativity comes from the womb of emptiness” to James Taylor’s observation about “waiting to hear it” and having “to be in a place where you can receive the song” reveal that creativity isn’t a rational, calculated activity. It’s about allowing oneself to become receptive. 

Whether its creating from scratch, interpreting music and adapting music, Ronald feels the processes are similar or are derivations of each other. There is a similarity between all creative processes in music and other forms of art in that the thread is in innovation, invention and a development of a particular musical or artistic theme. Then there is core creativity and that's something that is very unique and special. For example Paul McCartney wrote the song ‘Yesterday’ after dreaming it. When he woke up and wrote it down and played in on the piano. For a month or so he took the song round London asking people if they had heard it before realising it was his and that it had come from a creative unconscious.

Pure originality is core creativity and arises whether its Mozart or Beethoven. When they are composing they actually hear simultaneously the various parts of the symphony and its as if it’s coming from some sort of mystical other. If we want to de-mythify the thing Ronald calls the mystical other, we could say it comes from ones pure core collective unconscious. From all cultures, all histories all times, for example the Greeks organised and articulated creativity through the metifor of the nine goddesses, the sense of the muse.

Most of the creatives Ronald has interviewed, whether they have a formal meditation or prayer practice or something more informal such as sitting outside of their studio on their front deck have a cup of coffee or tea, smoke a cigarette and look at the sky, what they are really doing is creating their own meditative state to access or tap into their creativity. Mindfulness meditation takes us out of overthinking and into the mind state of receptivity. The stillness and focus involved in meditation alters our brainwaves, and therefore, our mind state. Distraction-free time leads us to an open mind. Both core creativity and intuitive wisdom and knowledge can be accessed in an open mind state — not because we have an open mind, or are trying to be open minded, but because we’re in a state of pure receptivity after giving ourselves over to emptiness.

You can find out more at www.CoreCreativity.com or at https://ronaldalexander.com Dr Alexander is also the author of the highly acclaimed book, Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss, and Change (2008), and the new book, Core Creativity: The Mindful Way to Unlock Your Creative Self.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.

Create a different story

Kevin Roth is a Life Coach but started his career as a dulcimer player and musician in 1974. By 2015 he had worked on around 50 albums, sung the theme to a children’s hit TV show Shining Time Station that was based on the stories of Thomas the Tank Engine and developed a children’s music career.

Everything was going well when in 2015 he was diagnosed with Stage 3 Melanoma and given around 2 years to live. It was a sentence he didn't agree with so he decided to change the story and moved from Kansas to California to live a bohemian lifestyle in a beautiful place. After a couple of turbulent years dealing with the diagnosis, someone suggested to him that he should become a life coach, something he didn't know anything about. Initially it didn’t appeal to him, but he found a way to teach the dulcimer in a meditative style and become a life coach in his own way using spirituality and science to talk to people about understanding life, dropping stress and creating a life that they really love.

As a child Kevin was very musical and played piano by ear. At 13 he heard the Appalachian Mountain dulcimer and fell in love with the sound of it and learned to play it. In some places it is still seen as a traditional folk instrument but because Kevin didn’t know about its history he played it like a guitar or piano and came to be seen as a very innovative player. Being seen as doing something different helped in him getting his first record deal with Folkway Records.

Kevin feels that music teaches resilience. Its hard to make a living as a musician and in a business sense music teaches us how to create something out of nothing. It also helps us recover from making mistakes – how do you come back from a bad gig when people don't applaud?  In jazz there are no mistakes just improvisation and often what we class as mistakes are just someone else’s judgement. Kevin also feels that music should be taught in schools like maths and science, the more people who are artistic or musical the better. Everyone can be artistic and the more artistic skills you teach, the better people will be able to do their jobs.

When he got his cancer diagnosis Kevin thought he was in in good health. He now feels that it was the stress in was under the three years prior to the diagnosis that caused it. Stress and inflammation can have a really damaging effect and we have to know how to handle stress and what to eat in balance.  When he was diagnosed Kevin had to think about what was really important  – I only have two years to live so what do I want to do? The fame and fortune didn’t matter anymore what he wanted to do was make music, spend time with his dogs and move to California. He rejected the diagnosis. They removed a lymph node to see if the cancer had spread and then waited a year to see if it had come back and it never did.

Kevin never thought he was going to die, he changed the story. When you realise that nothing lasts or matters and everything passes, you get out of the story of ‘I hate my job or partner and don’t like this or that’ and then when you change the way you look at things the things you look at change. When he had the diagnosis Kevin said he was going to go and watch surfers in California, and wasn’t going to live the rest of his life in a cancer ward. We create stories every day. When we wake up it can be a good day or a bad day. If you’re in a really bad mood and the phone rings and it's a friend you haven’t heard from a while then suddenly you’re in a whole other dimension. All the drama that was ruining your life is gone. When you look at mindful awareness and take the time to contemplate it you realise you that you really shouldn't get upset about very much. The story is the story. Learn to live in balance.

Every day we create a different story. When Kevin wakes up he says this is what I want to do and feel today.  Of course there is a need to eat the right things, to rest and exercise and do some sort of meditation but we need to get out of the illusion that money buys happiness. We also need to recreate our life on a daily basis. We need to retune ourselves through the day. Many people don't know how to sit in silence or be comfortable with themselves any more.  They have lost who they are and are addicted to stress.  We need to drop a lot of the things going on in our heads, be nice to ourselves and give ourselves a break. We have an inner voice that will talk to us if we are quiet enough to listen so we can replace what doesn't work with what does.

There is a balance between planning for the future and learning to live your life now. When you figure out what matters and why, everything else falls into place.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

You can find out more at Kevinroth.org

Mindfulness in nature.

Karen Liebenguth has been working with individuals, teams and groups for 12 years, using green spaces, mindfulness and coaching to foster personal and professional development, mental resilience and wellbeing. Karen was one of the first people in the UK to start coaching while walking in nature after finding that both she and her clients get far better results outside rather than sitting indoors.  

Karen became interested in linking the threes areas together after she suffered some mental ill health herself. Around fifteen years ago she was heading a team for a corporate company but received very little line management support. She was suffering from anxiety, sleeplessness and a lack of confidence and needed to do something about it. A friend suggested she look into meditation and from that she thought abouttraining as a coach herself. She signed up for weekend coaching event and that was the start of her new career and setting up and running her own business.

Nature is really the space in which Karen prefers to work with her clients and this goes back to her childhood. She always had a deep connection with nature and is grateful to her mother who was a nature lover and took Karen and her sister on bike rides and walks, Her mother was a single mother who worked full time so the time they had was limited but the time they did have was spent outside and this really helped when life wasn't easy. 

Being in nature supported Karen’s own mental health so when she started coaching and working with clients, she wanted to bring nature into work so they could benefit from it as well. Over the past few years there has been a large shift towards different types of outdoor coaching but there is a lot of evidence to show that being in nature is good for us. We all know what it feels like when we go into our local park or into our back garden. We feel different because we come from nature, it’s our place of origin. The pandemic has put the benefits of being in nature on the agenda for both mental and physical health. E. O. Wilson coined the term biophilia hypothesis, the idea that we have an innate attraction to seek connection to the natural work. It is also well documented that spending time in nature reduces the heart rate, stress and hormone levels as well as boosting the immune system and reducing feelings of loneliness, isolation and depression.

Mindfulness is a skill that needs application and practice. Karen feels it’s training for the mind in the same way physical exercise trains muscles. She also thinks that mindfulness happens in the relationship between our brain and our environment. It is often talked about as if mindfulness only happens in the brain but neuroscience has shown the brain can change but it doesn’t happen on its own.

Mindfulness is so much more than self-awareness. Its about paying attention to the body, emotions, events, how we relate to other people and our environment. Its also about heartfulness, the attitude we bring to ourselves and others. In any situation we can choose the attitude we bring - whether we are open, friendly, kind, compassionate and respectful or whether we are closed, harsh, and critical. Mindfulness helps bring a non-judgemental attitude to ourselves, our own experience and to other people as well as helping us to get to know ourselves so we understand how our actions impact on other people and our surroundings.

Karen feels that we have to experience mindfulness for ourselves, that we have to come to it because we are curious enough about the idea that it might enhance our life.

You can find out more about Karen and her work at greenspacecoaching.com

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

Never good enough – recovery from an eating disorder.

Faith Elicia has been on a seven-year path of recovery from an eating disorder. Though it there have been many highs and lows, but most importantly, there have been opportunities for growth and change. Her new book, Do You See What I See? Is based on her experiences and follows her journey of recovery from her eating disorder.

Although not a professional in the eating disorder field, Faith has worked closely with psychologists and dieticians during her own recovery. She feels that anyone suffering from an eating disorder has a distorted body image of themselves and also uses maladaptive coping mechanisms to focus on food or their bodies rather than their feelings. It can appear as if they are functioning but their feelings are numbed because their focus is on binging, purging or restriction.

Faith feels that eating disorders are not really talked about as much as other addictive behaviour although there are some very sobering statistics with 9 percent of the U.S. population having an eating disorder in their lifetime. Eating disorders cross gender, race, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic groups and are among the deadliest of mental illnesses. Anyone caught in the downward spiral of continually obsessing about food, weight, and body image, needs support to free themselves from this dangerous illness. 

The most well known eating disorders are Anorexia, Bulimia and BES (Binge Eating Disorder) but there are a number of others. They can start for many different reasons but a common factor is some type of trauma. This could be emotional, physical or sexual but there is usually an internal belief that the person is not good enough. This belief can then morph into an eating disorder and this can sometimes occur in conjunction with another disorder such as anxiety

Faith’s Father was an alcoholic and although he sought recovery in later life in her childhood her was drinking and she was always in fight of flight mode from a young age. This led to deep routed emotional suffering which was hard to clear away. She depended on her mother emotionally and didn't believe she could do things on her own so no matter how in control she seemed externally, she felt completely different inside.

There are some professions, particularly those with a high media profile such as acting, where there is huge pressure on body image.  In America the ideal is to be very thin and there are constant messages to children that this is the norm. The obesity rate is very high in America and 7 or 8 year olds are talking about dieting to obtain the ‘perfect’ airbrushed images put forward as the ideal. It’s therefore important to use the right language, for instance that exercise is for the right reasons not for maladaptive reasons. It’s also important to be aware of what sites young people are looking at – sites that promote eating disorders and set a pattern that is very difficult to get over.

There are some noticeable signs that someone is suffering from an eating disorder.  Talking about their body a lot, skipping meals, picking around food, disappearing after meals and starting to exercise a lot are some of the more noticeable ones. But sufferers can be very good at hiding their problem and not letting other people know what’s going on.

Faith feels that the smallest things can be the biggest milestone, that small actions add up and can change thinking. It’s hard to believe you’re deserving when deep down you don’t believe it but practicing self care and gratitude has helped Faith change how she looks at herself and now knows that she ‘deserves it as much as anyone else’.

People not suffering from an eating disorder believe that saying “No!” to self-destructive behaviors should be easy but it’s not. It can be a daily struggle with no single solution. Instead it’s a journey of stops and starts but through learning various strategies it is possible to break its hold. 

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Faith here. Our previous podcasts, upcoming guest list and previous blogs are also available.

You can find out more about Faith at faithelicia.com

Resilience, burnout and the importance of self-compassion

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled - Resilience burnout and the importance of self-compassion.

Dr Gail Gazelle spent a large part of her career as a hospice physician and end of life carer. Ten years ago she pivoted and retrained became an executive coach so she could help other physicians deal with what at the time was seen as an epidemic, physician burnout.

Dr Gazelle sees resilience as a deep well of resources that resides in each of us. Resilience is more than just bouncing back, it’s about reaching our personal or professional goals with the minimum unnecessary difficulty, whether it’s physical, emotional, spiritual or physiological. We all have goals but can run into obstacles and resilience helps us to reach our goals with minimum wear and tear.

There are many things that deplete resilience. Our life circumstances are often not within in our control. We can do little about where we are born, poverty, wealth, racism or other issues but some resilience comes with these circumstances. Another thing that can deplete resilience is not learning how to deal with our problems and being inflexible in how we approach them. We also don't learn how to work with our own thought processes. or have the fexibility of mind to work with our own mind. Additionally, we don't invest in the relationships that support us during hard times by connecting with people or nurturing and repairing our relationships.

The other area Dr Gazelle is interested in is burnout. Burnout can occur in a large variety of professions or workplaces. The thing that is universal is a lack of engagement and this captures the essence of what many people find in their workplace - that they are not being seen, they are not being given the time to do their job or being appreciated. Dr Gazelle feels that burnout is a feeling of being disconnected from our sense of purpose so that we become unfilled and emotionally exhausted. This is seen a lot in the healthcare sector and a result is that the focus of the person suffering from burnout becomes less on the patient on more on their own feelings. There is also a deep sense of pain which can stop them connecting with those they serve and should be taking care of. In other other professions burnout can lead to a loss of passion and caring and a sense of depletion and lack of direction.

Mindfulness is at the heart of resilience. It’s about awareness and paying attention to what’s right in front of us so we get to know our own mind patterns and understand when our mind is helping us or tripping us up. Mindfulness is different to self-awareness because mindfulness involves working with the judgments the mind makes and trying to bring more compassion and more kindness to ourselves and others.

Self-compassion is also a powerful tool that can help us find more inner peace, strength and motivation to deal with the challenges that come our way. Self-compassion is about responding to our own suffering in the caring way we would respond to a friend or a child who’s struggling. A Self-Compassion Break uses three different stages to directly experience the three components of self-compassion - Mindfulness, Common Humanity and Kindness. We need to bring compassion towards ourselves so that we are aware that we are struggling and going through difficulties. We need to remind ourselves that suffering is part of the human condition and this is what it looks like. By bringing the kindness to ourselves that we would give to someone else, ultimately builds greater kindness to ourselves.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Gail here. Our previous podcast episodes, upcoming guest list and previous blogs are also available.

You can find out more at www.gailgazelle.com

Dr Gazelle’s book is Everyday Resilience. A Practical Guide to Build Inner Strength and Weather Life’s Challenge

The body, mind and PTSD

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled - The body, mind and PTSD.

Laura Khoudari is a trauma practitioner, certified personal trainer, and corrective exercise specialist whose work grew out of her own experience healing from trauma. She is based in New York and works with her clients to turn movement practices into healing practices so most of her work is done in the gym.

During the winter of 2014-2015 Laura designed a holistic program to support her own treatment for PTSD that combined talk therapy, mindfulness, bodywork, and strength training. As she put together a program for herself, she realised that practitioners who worked with the body (doctors, massage therapists, meditation teachers, and physical therapists) often did not fully understand how trauma impacted their clients.

Frustrated that there weren’t more people in the fitness space who were equipped to help clients living with trauma, she decided to become the trauma informed personal trainer and coach she wished she had had. Her holistic programs draw from body-based trauma healing modalities, neuropsychological models, psychodynamic theory, mindfulness practices, and exercise science.

Laura feels that when people think of trauma they link it to medical trauma or emotional trauma and ask why they are working with her in the gym. Trauma can mean many different things but Laura thinks it is unprocessed nervous system energy that is left in the body after you’ve gone through something overwhelming or had to deal with something to fast so your body didn't get the chance to process it.

People generally come to Laura in two different ways. The first group are people who have a trauma history and want to bring movement back in their life but are having a hard time doing it – people who are suffering from things like PTSD or CPTSD and can’t get back to the activity they used to do or their doctor wants them to do. Others are currently in treatment for trauma and are working with a therapist and want to build skills they can use in therapy to process trauma.

Laura feels when you are in therapy you need to be in touch with your body. In therapy you are talking about your thoughts and, to process your emotions and experiences, it is useful to be able to stay with sensations and what happens in our body we are doing this. This means it has a lot more meaning rather than just talking about what’s going on in your head.

Laura’s clients do not have to tell her their trauma story. She feels there is a lot of pressure for people to prove that they need help and to put their story out there through social media. Her clients have suffered a wide variety of trauma including addiction, eating disorders, chronic fatigue syndrome, sexual assault, and abusive relationships. Laura has had her own trauma experience and her own fitness story. As a child she didn’t like sport or gym but when she was 20 she suffered a back problem.  Her doctor recommended physical therapy and strength training but it wasn't until she was 27 she decided to commit fully to strength training. Over time she started to love the gym and the fact she wasn’t in pain any more so in her mid 30s she took up the sport of Olympic weightlifting. Outside of the gym she experienced an acute trauma and suffered from PTSD. Her relationship with the gym changed then and it went from being fun to training ten times a week. She got injured because she wasn't resting enough and when she came back after a number of months of physical therapy and strength training she realised what she had been doing was a problem and not the culture she wanted.

She found it difficult to find a trainer who understood that trauma overwhelmed her ability to go to the gym so she figured out how to do it herself. She decided she wanted train people who liked her loved the gym and found it empowering but understood the impact on physiology and the nervous system and work together to get you back to where you were in a slower, structured way.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Laura here. Our previous podcast episodes, upcoming guest list and previous blogs are also available.

You can get in touch with Laura through her website laurakhoudari.com where she writes a regular newsletter and shares resources. Laura is also the author of Lifting Heavy Things: Healing Trauma One Rep at a Time  

Strategies to deal with fear.

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled - Strategies to deal with fear.

Lawrence or Larry Doochin is an author, entrepreneur and survivor of sexual abuse. As a child, he felt fear, anger, guilt and shame and it wasn’t until his late 20’s and early 30s that he began find strategies that helped him learn how to deal with and release fear. It was then that he started to move along an emotional and spiritual healing path.

Larry feels that fear is an emotion, a belief and an energetic in the body. Most people know the psychological part of fear that is built into our evolutional system. Larry refers to this as good or cautionary fear but there are different types of fear some of which we are not even fully aware of. These fears that lie under the surface could be a of not being successful, of not coming up to other people’s expectations, death, or of not being not lovable or worthy enough. Some are fears we feel individually and others collectively.

To determine what fear is, we need to watch our emotional reactions and how we interact in our experiences. This is called witnessing.  We also need to see how we are projecting so we can then bring these projections back in. This will not only show us our fears but also the beliefs that support them and the conditioning that created them. We can see how they are affecting us in our lives and experiences so we can make a start on changing them. Seeing what these fears are how they were formed helps us to lose those that are not useful.

Lawrence feels that we are too preoccupied with the past and the future, going back over memories and worrying about what might happen with no real solution or plan. This is when fear can take over so we need to become more aware of our own thoughts so we can pull our attention back to the present and reconnect with our ourselves in the now where fear cannot exist.

Fear does have a purpose. We will always need to have cautionary fears but fear can also be a good thing because it acts as a pointer as to what is not working for us. This then allows us to change and overcome our fears so we have a greater sense of ourselves and can live our lives the way we want to.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Lawrence here. Our previous podcast episodes, upcoming guest list and previous blogs are also available.

Lawrence’s book is A Book on Fear: Feeling Safe in a Challenging World.

You can find out more at lawrencedoochin.com.

Hamilton to heart attack. The theatre of perfection

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled - Enjoy the experience as much as the result. Musical theatre and managing perfectionism.

Julian Reeve was a Music Director for over 25 years with a career that combined music and business and took him around the world.  He joined the Broadway team of Hamilton as Music Director and took it on it’s first national tour in 2017 before suffering from a heart attack which was triggered by maladaptive perfectionism. He is now based just outside Los Angeles where he is a perfectionism contributor, speaker, and author.

Julian started out as a musician before moving on to musical direction, which involves the running and creative upkeep of a show. Musical theatre can be seen to be a process rather than being creative as its essential to keep producing the same piece of music every night without mistakes to ensure the longevity of a show. The Musical Director also has to build team spirit and ensure high-level performance without burning out. Resilience is important. Julian feels you need to find the parts you enjoy and forget the bits you don't like to find the positivity which is the only thing that keeps you going. The Music Director is sometimes thought to be the least musical person in the room as their role is less about the music more about being the best leader and facilitator. Julian found his resilience by looking outside the box. He was always motivated by finding out what made his team tick and what got them to perform at their best every night. Even after five years on the same show you can still discover new things.

Julian had no idea he was a perfectionist until he was in his 40s. He suffered his heart attack 3 months after starting Hamilton and he feels his perfectionism was the cause. In his childhood he suffered from low self esteem and bullying, which led to bad lifestyle choices. Perfectionism has numerous explanations but research has shown it falls into two categories - adaptive and maladaptive. The adaptive part is what is recognised as good perfectionism, the part that gets good results, but the maladaptive side can lead to anxiety, depression, burnout and even suicide. Nothing is ever good enough. Perfectionists battle between the two and need to create equilibrium to regulate their experiences but this needs knowledge. We need to find a way to speak to perfectionists in a different way. They need self-compassion. This is made up of three elements, self-kindness, mindfulness and common humanity.

Julian now works with children and adults but his book is aimed at 6 to 12 year olds who can learn perfectionist behaviour in childhood. They need to develop self-management techniques. Warning signs include low self esteem, putting themselves down, mistakes being unacceptable, struggling to celebrate when they do well, fear of failure, all or nothing thinking and there only one way to do something.

Perfectionists need to learn self worth, to value themselves enough and to learn to love themselves.  They need to be able to say ‘I’m worth more than this’, to slow down and readdress. Perfectionism can be exciting if you can hone the gifts perfectionism gives you to the point where you become high performance.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Julian here. Our previous podcast episodes, upcoming guest list and previous blogs are also available.

You can get in touch with Julian at www.julianreeve.com or www.captain-perfection.com