A survival guide?
I love the idea that by telling and also totally owning your story, then you can help others too.
Brene Brown says “one day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through and it will be someone else’s survival guide”
This, my first ever blog has this idea at its very core.
As I wrote this all down for the first time last month, I felt many emotions including and not limited to some pain and a little heartbreak. These I rediscovered were lurking in the shadows, rather uncomfortably alongside some very large grey waves of grief, on the shore line were some of the worries, the awful anxiety and also the fear. I also experienced the feeling of being exposed and really vulnerable, the very idea of somehow baring your soul.
It is of course now part of who I am and it is after all why I am here - it is why I want to do my work. This story then has become my WHY. Why is this relevant to you? It may not be, however if as you read this, even some small parts of my story is also some of your story - well, then maybe I can help you to move forward and we may be a good match.
I guess if I start with what I realised I no longer wanted to do and the ‘why’ I changed course – and so that will mean going back to the year 2000.
I was then a customer services manager and my work took me across to Europe. So every month I was flying into Belgium, Holland and Eire and I did not really have any work life balance. The work was pretty tough and despite great teams and many solid people, it was pretty thankless and exhausting.
I was burnt out and I was tired and so I decided that change was vital. At this time my younger brother and partner and many of their friends were living in Sydney, the Olympics were due to start in a few months. So, as I stood in the work toilets in the head office in Lancaster, I said to myself in the mirror, you know what, I think it is now or never.
I worked my notice, I called trail finders and I booked an around the world ticket, one which via some other delicious places, took me into Sydney for that October and to those Olympics.
Best thing I have ever done and for so many reasons. Living on the Northern Beaches of Sydney gave me a whole new perspective, and it was while living and working there that I was introduced to the world of complementary health.
I fell in love with this whole new way of life and in so many ways living there totally expanded my horizons. I worked and I also travelled over to New Zealand to do some walking and to explore a totally new side of the world.
Me in 2000 walking in NZ in the South Island near Hanmer Springs - literally walking through 4 seasons in one day - some rain, sleet, wind and then 28 degrees of sun at the top of one track.
I loved the feelings of optimism and the spirit that I found here. I also met some amazing women who I am still lucky enough to count as my ‘soul sisters’ and very dear like minded friends. It was here that I found a new attitude and a whole new world of possibilities and positivity.
I adopted all of these feelings and ways of being and thinking and when I came back to the UK, I brought them all back with me.
While working back in the corporate world once more, which was what I needed to do on my return certainly financially, I knew that I had to change course.
So I invested all my bonuses for the next 3 years back into my education. I worked hard at weekends and during my annual leave. I studied and I got my diploma, first in Anatomy and Physiology and then in Clinical Aromatherapy.
So all is going very well right? So far, so good…
This is not the airbrushed highlights, so this brings me to my very own WHY.
So during my final exam and studies, when I was also still working full time, I was in the midst of negotiating a big contract with a major department store/ chain.
It was so stressful, one day I just totally lost the plot and found myself sitting on the floor in the lounge in tears. I felt totally overwhelmed and full of anxiety. I was also consumed with how I would be able to find the energy to adapt, change and to start my own business.
Add into this the small matter of by now having met my amazing ‘to be’ husband Miles, and so I was helping part time, to bring up 2 boys. My stepsons Tom and Hamish, (now thankfully lovely young men), were then very tricky and almost too much of a handful for me.
Most of all though what I realised was that I did not feel very well, AT ALL. So much so that I would set off for a stroll with our then puppy Willow, and after 5 minutes literally be so tired I wanted to just lie down in the field.
My hair started to fall out and I developed a really nasty tremor and shaking sensation, I was out of breath and boiling hot all of the time. To cut a long story short, I was really poorly I was just turning 40 and I was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition called Graves’ disease. Which meant an overactive thyroid, eye issues and eventually a big and life changing surgery.
I was hospitalised for a few days before I finally recognised that surgery would be my fate. I hated every moment and while I was in there I quickly realised that this was a real ‘dis-ease’ and that I had to change things. I also lay there (on a heart monitor/ beta blockers etc.) and decided then this would not break me, instead that it would be a new start.
Surgery was the result, as I knew no better back then which was back in 2012. As I had not even started on my real life’s work, or met the wonderful people I know/ have been lucky to know, and that I will continue to meet.
One of the hardest parts of this chapter for me was that firstly I lost my hair, as after the operation my body went into shock. I also then felt as though I lost my identity as I felt ugly, overweight, bloated and overall pretty useless - I lost all my hope and my motivation for pretty much everything.
2012 - 4 months after the surgery and in the process of hoping I can turn a negative to a positive - my friend/ hairdresser Michelle came to cut off the last of my ailing hair and I raised lots of money for comic relief.
Most significantly for me, I slowly came to the realisation that I would not be able to have any children of my own. For many years I felt angry and super jealous and resentful of those friends who were able to have their own children.
My husband and I will always be sad this was not our fate together. I had 3 miscarriages and although they were early, I was so hopeful each time, only to end up crushed and heartbroken. After the last/ 3rd one it was especially tough for me, as then I knew that I had to come to terms with the fact that my body was unable to support a pregnancy.
I started to also understand that this operation and the total disruption to my whole endocrine system was also throwing me into early menopause. I have had to work really hard over these last few years to come to terms with this loss and the grief I felt.
In time I was via many different routes, able to dust myself down, pick myself up and I worked hard to slowly get well enough to feel I could work properly again.
I then came back to my practice and ‘Nurture Aromatherapy’ was such wonderful way to begin to heal, working with wonderful women. Learning all the time about health, wellbeing and what it means to support and to serve - also to work with beautiful and powerful essential oils.
I added to my education and gained a diploma as a nutritional advisor – not to prescribe, more to understand what we eat and digest (or not) and how this is all so vital for our health and our overall wellness.
Over the last few years I have studied some more, I have read so many books and articles and I am lucky as I continue to learn each and every day - joining more of the dots.
I have been lucky enough also work with other inspirational practitioners and I worked closely for a while with other Thyroid patients. I happily volunteered for the British Thyroid Foundation, for over 2 years in the evenings and weekends, as a telephone support for people who were struggling in various ways.
Over a 12 month period I also worked in clinic with the inspirational (and sometimes controversial), Dr Peatfield. I saw first-hand how he changed the direction of people’s lives by listening, understanding and by showing compassion and empathy. By supporting (mostly women), listening to their stories which often involved trauma, and then helping them to get well. With a mixture of supplementation, changes in their medication and encouraging them to adapt their diet and change their thinking.
It was amazing and I loved his way of working. For me the ‘magic’ was that moment in clinic, when these strong brave women, having told him their own story, sort of ‘let it go’, and thus gave themselves the permission they needed to begin to get well and to start to heal. This still sends a shiver down my spine and makes me smile inside, as this was the moment when they recognised that they were making a new start.
I am now after another 2 years of part time study, a fully qualified health and wellness coach. I am so proud and excited to be a part of this relatively new movement both here in the UK, with my membership of the ‘UK Health Coaches Association’ and also back in Australia, with the ‘Health Coaches of Australia and New Zealand Association’.
Now it is my time to ‘shine’ - I love the saying ‘this little light of mine, I going to let it shine’ - shine my light in order to help other women to get back on track. Shine as I support and nurture other women. It is my goal to pass on everything I have learnt, and will continue to learn. To share all of the information I have gathered over the last 10 years. To encourage some honest and open conversations and so ‘shine the light’ on those issues that we have often ignored, or that we shy away from.
Me Summer 2020 after a 49th ‘birthday’ morning swim
To light the way for other women, as maybe you too feel that it is now time to choose a new route?
Is it maybe a good time to arm yourself with new ideas and find new ways of working?
Time to create some new healthy and lasting habits and to set some great achievable goals and milestones along the way.
All with a very clear vision in mind and a wonderful destination in focus for your own health and wellness.
I can say with my hand on my heart - I am here and I am ready to help and support you.
Here are the various way we can begin our work together - let us start by having a conversation .