Turning tragedy into purpose

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Keywords

Resilience – Grief – Identity – Loss - Image – Changing the narrative – Labels – Vulnerability – Connection – Purpose – Rebirth Day

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled J R Martinez shares his journey from the battlefields of Iraq to ABC’s ‘Dancing with the Stars’.  J R talks about how he joined the military and went to war at 19 but was injured after just one month, suffering 34% burns and inhaling so much smoke it was thought he might not survive. He was in a coma for 3 weeks and, when he came out of it the reality of the injuries and scars to his body left him thinking there was no way he could live in society. Eventually though he realised there were a lot of things that he could still do and he turned tragedy into purpose, sharing his story and expanding his career into acting, advocacy, non-profit work raising awareness for injured military personnel and writing his memoir.

Main topics

  • Why resilience needs to be conditioned and exercised

  • How our early life conditions us for the difficulties we meet later

  • Grieving for the loss of an old life so you can accept the reality of a new one

  • Losing your sense of identity

  • The difference between being alive and living

  • How we can all have a ‘rebirth day’ when roles evolve and change

  • Choosing to jettison parts of your old identity

  • Creating a new image and changing the narrative

  • Negative words and embracing the labels given to us by other people

  • How society and culture conditions men to be tough and avoid talking about emotions

  • Why vulnerability needs to be expressed in different ways Seeing the individual, not the injury

  • How connecting as humans beings can change the narrative and the way you look at anyone else you come into contact with

 Action items

You can find out more about J R at https://jrmartinez.com/ or through his social media Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn

  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.     

The Wrong Calamity

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Keywords

Resilience – Change – Coping Mechanisms – Shifting Perspective – Reframing Challenges – Narrative Building 

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled Marsha Jacobson, an author, teacher, and writing coach from New York, shares her life story, and how she overcame her challenging childhood, abusive relationship, and personal struggles to build a successful career and a fulfilling life. She discusses her experiences with vulnerability, resilience, and personal complexity, how she felt unprepared for challenges and how she overcame them.

She also discusses her resilience, her journey from teaching to consulting, and her experience in non-profit management and about her second husband's struggle with PTSD that ultimately led to their separation.

Main topics

  • The importance of embracing change and transitions as part of personal growth.

  • Adopting coping mechanisms such as "tiny experiments" and writing fake headlines to shift perspective.

  • Reframing challenges as learning opportunities.

  • "Narrative building" as a strategy for reframing challenges.

Action items

You can find out more about Marsha at  https://marshajacobsonauthor.com/about/ Her memoir, The Wrong Calamity, is her debut book.

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.   

Integrating connections for well-being

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Keywords

Resilience – Writing – Memory Consolidation – Cogent Narrative – Self-reflection Identifying Emotions – Developing Connections – Mental Constructs and Patterns

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled Dr Jacqueline Heller, MD shares her journey of writing a book following the grief from losing her mother. Jacqueline feels writing helped her consolidate memory and connect emotions to visual memory and in this podcast, she discusses the power of self-reflection through writing and emphasises the importance of identifying emotions for better judgment.

Main topics

  • The benefits of writing for memory consolidation and creating a cogent narrative.

  • How writing helps in self-reflection, identifying emotions, and developing connections to past experiences.

  • The importance of managing emotions to prevent outbursts.

  • How reflective writing helps in understanding automatic mental constructs and patterns.

Timestamps

1. Introduction. Introduction to the podcast and guest, Dr Jacqueline Heller, MD. 00.02 - 00:27.

2.The Power of Writing. The benefits of writing for memory consolidation and creating a coherent narrative. How writing became a cathartic and connecting process for Jacqueline. Writing as a tool for consolidating memory and connecting emotions to visual memory. 00.27 – 03.15

3. Reflective Communities and Parenting. Jacqueline's background in attachment theory and Reflective Communities. Bringing reflective parenting programs to schools. How Jacqueline's book is resonating with people and helping them 03.16 – 05.07

4. Self-Reflection and Introspection. Exploring the concept of introspecting and identifying emotions. The importance of identifying and understanding emotions for self-reflection. Connecting emotions and past experiences through writing. 05.08 – 08.28

5. The Process of Writing. The circular nature of self-examination and creating new connections through writing. Writing as a tool for developing new insights and connections over time. Managing emotions through writing and promoting higher cortical functions. 08.29 – 12.25

6. Personal Reflection and Journaling. Jacqueline's personal experience with mental journaling and reflection. The pressure to journal and the various forms of self-reflection beyond writing. 12.26 – 15.34

7. Writing Process and Book Creation. The organic process of writing Jacqueline's book. The importance of a well-being narrative and stability in one's self-story. Target audience and potential benefits of reading the book. 15.35 – 19.38

8. Book Overview. Jacqueline gives an overview of the book's content, including triggers, psychological principles, consciousness, and parenting. Chapters on defence mechanisms, cognitive distortions, and neuroscience of attachment. Example chapter "Dana's invisible trigger" and writing style. 19.39 – 25.37

9. Conclusion. Closing remarks and information on where to find Jacqueline's book and website. 25.38

Action items

   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.   

Thinking differently about disruption.

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Keywords

Resilience - Change - Transitions - Disruption - Changing Narratives

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled, Linda Rossetti, a business leader and pioneering researcher on individuals’ experience at the crossroads of their lives discusses her work in helping people respond to disruptions in their lives. Linda emphasises the importance of thinking differently and responding with hope and expansion and explains the differences between changes and transitions. She also highlights the emotional response that accompanies change and disruption, acknowledging its significance alongside practical considerations and touches on the limitations of traditional change management approaches before suggesting a new narrative around disruption and transformation.

Main topics

  • The power of changing narratives and shifting from a chronological narrative to a value-based narrative.

  • Why educating people about the options and new perspectives during times of disruption can be enlightening.

  • The importance of anchoring on things that hold meaning or value in times of transformation.

  • Why we need to ask new questions and explore different narratives to move forward.

  • The different levels of response to change.

  • Focusing on the practical and emotional aspects of transformation.

  • Why people should see disruption as an opportunity to engage more of themselves and amplify their voices.

  • Why there is a need to change the way society responds to disruption.

 Timestamps

1: Welcome and introduction - 00:02 - 00:19
2: Traditional ways of responding to disruption - 02:06 - 06:51
3: The power of transformation - 08:03 - 10:03
4: Changing the narrative - 12:16 - 14:09
5: Leadership and change - 15:18 - 19:58
6: Empowering individuals to respond - 21:47 - 24:38
7: Addressing values and the book "Dancing with Disruption" - 26:39 - 28:48
8: Conclusion and contact information - 29:59 - 30:26

Action items

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.   

Share your story.

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Keywords - Resilience – Storytelling – Narrative – Journaling

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled Molly Sider,  a storytelling coach, shares her journey to discovering the power of personal narratives and how telling our stories can create connections with others. She encourages people to get vulnerable and share their stories in whatever way feels comfortable for them, whether it be with friends or writing it down. Molly emphasises that sharing our stories helps us humanise ourselves and others and creates compassion and empathy. The act of hiding our true selves takes up unnecessary energy, so we should aim to release these little bits about ourselves in order to live more authentically.

Main topics

  • The benefits of sharing personal stories and experiences.

  • How opening up can help individuals understand their core identity and values.

  • How privacy is okay for those who are uncomfortable with sharing personal details.

  • The importance of interpersonal communication in calming one's nervous system and reducing stress.

  • How listeners can start small by journaling or listening to others' stories before sharing their own.

Timestamps

1: Introduction Russell welcomes the audience and introduces Molly. 00:02
2: Getting to Know the Guest. Russell asks Molly how she is and about her background and how she discovered storytelling. 00:14-00:47
3: The Power of Storytelling. Molly talks about her experience with storytelling, the benefits of storytelling, and how it can create an immediate connection with the audience.02:38-06:23
4: Sharing Your Story. Molly and Russell talk about different ways to share your story, including journaling, talking to friends, and professional help. They also discuss the importance of picking and choosing when and how to share your story. 08:33-15:22
5: Listening to Other People's Stories. Molly and Russell discuss the importance of listening to other people's stories and how it can help you understand yourself better. 19:25-20:04
6: Working with the Guest. Molly talks about the work she does as a life coach and how she helps people share their change stories. 20:23-22:13
7: Conclusion. Russell thanks Molly and provides information on how to contact her.22:13-22:18

Action items

  • Listen to Molly’s podcast I Am This Age a platform for people who have made big life changes beyond 40 years old.

  • Find out more about Molly at mollysider.com

  • Listen to The Moth, a storytelling event available as a podcast.

 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.  



Approaching change

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Joe Caruso is a leadership coach who advises CEOs and leadership teams to optimise what they do and how they do it to get what they what in the fastest most efficient way possible. Most of the time if we are left on our own, we do more and more things that are less and less important to the customer. We become lost on our own thoughts and it becomes hard to think objectively about ourselves.

Any time we define a problem, we’ve immediately defined all the solutions our mind can’t consider just by the definition we choose. This type of thinking usually requires a candid experience assessment and a candid exchange of ideas.

Joe feels we need to move away from problem orientated thinking to solution orientated thinking and be able to think back to what could this could be or what else could this mean. These are the kind of questions that once a CEO speaks and gives their definition, people it as gospel. People will tell you that they like change but don't change anything. We tend to become too static in a dynamic world especially in market places that are changing every day.

We’re changing all the time cognitively, mentally and emotionally so the problem is perhaps management practices. The process of being changed or managed through change. Change is a problem in itself but change by its very nature is something we are very good at. The problem is how we approach change. The way we define it is the problem. The last thing people or businesses want to do is change identity.

Any time we define anything in our external world we use ourselves as the foundational context. Who you are affects how you define something. We start with the mind and a simple question is who am I or what have I become. Everything starts with how we think. Narrative is the foundational understanding of who I am. The more we learn about our own narrative the more we can recognise the narrative of others.

It’s about creating a corporate culture based on a compelling narrative that allows us to make sense of the world.  The first thing you need to do to create compelling is Identity. Something that everybody can agree with. Who are we as a collective mind? What problem are we trying to solve? What is our process? A leadership team is the best of what their profession is. But that's not a team that's just the top of the different divisions in the organisation. There has to be a trust and candor where everyone is able to talk on all areas. The CEO job is not to create excellence, it’s to create an environment where excellence can thrive.

 Find out more about Joe at www.carusoleadership.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.

Self-esteem. Recreate the narrative.

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Self-esteem, the worth in which you hold yourself, can be a challenge for people with low self-esteem because they often use belittling language towards themselves. Their ‘attribution style’ sees positive things as being temporary or down to ‘luck’ so they don’t build on achievements or learn from them. They use an attribution that anything ‘bad’ is due to them and that it’s likely to repeat over time. This narrative builds on ‘confirmation bias’, the cognitive routine that highlights evidence of what we believe, and reinforces the self-esteem spiral as negative opinions are ‘proved’.

It’s vital that we recreate our narrative - the broad journey of our lives and how we see ourselves moving forward - as well as learning to catch ourselves when we knock ourselves down, Learning to reframe is key by creating language with a time-bound limit of negativity. Instead of saying 'I’m really not good at this’, learn to say “I’m really not good at this now, or today’. The creation of a time-bound element forces the brain to solve the problem of how to improve. So ‘how will I be later’, or even better ‘how will I choose to be better later’.

The realisation that all thoughts and actions are a function of choice provides the opportunity to choose differently and to begin to develop a realisation that you have ‘a voice’ that you can listen to when you choose to do so.

Change the narrative and get unstuck

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The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released Resilience Unravelled – Change the narrative and get unstuck.

 In this episode, Dr. Russell Thackeray talks to Russell Heath, a life and leadership coach who is based in New York City. Russell has been a life and leadership coach for over ten years but before this he ran an environmental group that protects the national forest in Alaska. Over a period of time he came to realise that what the organisation could do was limited ,not by finance or by circumstances, but by his leadership - he could only take it as far as he was himself was developed and able to go. He attended leadership training courses but found that these focused on skills like presentation and staff management rather than the underlying behaviours needed to deploy the skills. In 2010 he moved to New York City where he undertook training and coaching to learn how to be a leader but eventually decided to go into business himself and retrained to be a professional coach

Russell now works with high performing professionals who are stuck in some way- they want more out of their professions, are very successful and have a good family and home but want something more and don't know what it is. The framework he uses works around the idea that we all develop a way of looking at the world and a set of behaviours and values at a young age. These are developed for our own physical and emotional survival and, whilst they produce results for some people, others often in their 30s or 40s find they aren’t producing any satisfaction or meaning.. They are stuck because this is all they know but what they need to do is look at the world to see what would produce meaning, fulfillment and excitement.

Russell uses the Ontology style of coaching. Ontology is the study of being and is about developing the ability to choose our being regardless of circumstances so we can choose the way of being that best enables us to fulfil on what is important to us. Ontological coaching expands our capacity to choose so we aren’t driven by our “default” behaviors but have the freedom to choose who we want to be. This allows us to accomplish our goals, deepen our relationships, and live a rich and rewarding life.

If we’re not getting the results we want we need to ask ourselves what we need to do differently to get better results’? ‘Do we want these results? What do we need to do differently? Who do we need to be to get different results? Money and status are external to ourselves but we can sometimes have difficulty giving them up for something more meaningful. How then when we achieve something can we avoid getting stuck? If we win is it what we wanted?  When we get so focused on getting there we realise we didn’t enjoy the journey.

Changing purpose or narrative is a key part of getting unstuck. We are in conversation with ourselves and that conversation determines how we see the world. Changing this can produce different results but we need to shift more than our linguistical world. To bring lasting change we also need to need to shift our emotional and physical worlds.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Russell here. Our previous podcast episodes and upcoming guest list are also available as is our full blog archive.

You can find out more about Russell or get in touch with him through his website.

If you would like to find out more about Russell’s Alaskan based thrillers visit https:/russellheathauthor.com/

How our narrative determines our choices.

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The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled – How our narrative determines our choices.

Kimberly Spencer is an award-winning high performance coach and trainer, who is currently based on the Gold Coast of Australia. Originally from Los Angeles, Kimberly is also and Amazon best-selling co-author, international motivational speaker, and founder of CrownYourself.com where she helps visionary leaders build their empire and stand out in their full potential in their bodies, businesses, and relationships.

Kimberly’s uses her personal experience to inspire, motivate, and coach her clients using what she has learned from her personal development to help others to find their truth. She feels very strongly that we learn from different experiences and that in every problem there is an opportunity to grow.  The narrative we feed ourselves is incredibly important - the old adage of whether the news is good or bad comes back to the news being how we view it and what we decide it is.

She feels this also equates to the narrative of whether we see ourselves as a success or a failure. We all have successes and failures but we don't tend to share our failures so other people only see the successes. The link running through all our successes and failures is having the resilience to pick ourselves up and carry on. Our narrative also determines the choices we have and ultimately the control we have over our lives. We might not like some of the choices we are given and would prefer different options but we all have the ability to choose the attitude we take in that space. No one can take away the way we respond to a choice.

This power of personal choice is especially important to Kimberly as she grew up in a household with an addict father, which made her early home life very difficult. She realised she was a people pleaser so had to learn the importance of self-love. The pressure to be perfect can be overwhelming and cause people to blame themselves for just being human.  Often we link our personal value to something tangible. We need to get away from this external validation and external pleasing and not live our lives at the behest of other people.

Kimberly also talks about identity and how people attach it to things such as bank balances or weight. By attaching identity to the number on the scale, we are looking at it as the effect of choices that have been made. Having these choices allows us to be ourselves and, equally, making a choice not to do something is incredibly empowering because we’re cleansing ourselves and getting rid of things we don't want to do.

You can listen to the podcast in full here. Our previous podcast episodes and upcoming guest list are also available and there is an option to sign-up to receive our podcast episodes on release. Our full blog archive is also available and you can sign-up to receive these on a weekly basis.

You can find out more about Kimberly here.