The Good Intentions Podcast
Good Intentions connects with experts and storytellers around social impact, psychology, mindfulness, personal growth, and health.
Each conversation unpacks the beliefs and rituals that drive and ground each guest. You will hear about achievements that go beyond the conventional and tangible to a deeper level, finding the meaning and intention behind what we do.
I believe that there is a deep longing in our culture and society for something more: something higher, something deeper. Material possessions and technology do not satisfy our souls. As human beings we long for connection.
I'm on a mission to spread positivity, drive connectivity and to inspire others to live a more meaningful life.
The Good Intentions Podcast
Ep 31 - Living a Fearless Life - Cassie Mather-Reid
Cassie Mather-Reid is a holistic life coach who left her 18-year career in corporate IT behind to follow her calling.
One of her main areas of focus is blocked energy and how we store trauma and distress at a cellular level, leading to emotional and physical problems.
She works with clients on both their belief systems and energy systems to overcome limiting beliefs and release energy blocks - sounds fascinating, doesn’t it?
We talked about how Cassie recognised that she was feeling lost and unfulfilled in life and chose to take a different path, healing her own trauma, discovering her goals and learning to live in alignment.
We also talked abut leadership and the challenges of the corporate world, discussed the mind body connection and how it works and how our body has everything that it need within it to heal itself. We just need to listen to it.
Cassie is warm and approachable and as you might expect, she has great energy - it was a delight to talk to her.
I hope you enjoy this episode.
Follow me, and the Good Intentions podcast:
https://www.instagram.com/kellyharvarde/
https://www.instagram.com/goodintentionsuae/
Find Cassie here:
https://www.instagram.com/cassie_mather_reid/
Immerse yourself in some of the books we discussed:
Gay Hendrix - The Big Leap
https://magrudy.com/book/the-big-leap-conquer-your-hidden-fear-and-take-life-to-the-next-level-9780061735363/
Hal Elrod - The Miracle Morning
https://magrudy.com/book/the-miracle-morning-the-6-habits-that-will-transform-your-life-before-8am-change-your-life-with-one-of-the-worlds-highest-rated-self-help-books-9781473668942/
Vex King - Healing is the New High
https://uae.kinokuniya.com/bw/9781788174770
Welcome to good intentions, the podcast where we explore the world around us to find meaning and intention in what we do. I'm Kelly Harvard, and I'm on a mission to spread positive stories that will inspire you to live a more meaningful and connected life.
Speaker 2:Kathy mother Reid is a holistic life coach who left her 18 year career in corporate it behind to follow her calling. One of her main areas of focus is blocked energy and how we store trauma and distress at a cellular level, leading to emotional and physical problems. She works with clients on both their belief systems and energy systems to overcome limiting beliefs and release energy blocks. Sounds fascinating. Doesn't it. We talked about how Cassie recognized that she was feeling lost and unfulfilled in life and chose to take a different path, healing her own trauma, discovering her goals and learning to live in alignment. We also discussed the mind body connection, how it works and how our body has everything that it needs within it to heal itself. We just need to listen to it. Cassie is warm and approachable, and as you might expect, she has great energy. It was a delight to talk to her. I hope you enjoy this episode. Thanks Cassie so much for joining me today. I'm really looking forward to our conversation.
Speaker 3:Thanks so much for asking me. I'm so excited to be here. I'm really looking forward to diving into this with you.
Speaker 2:Super let's start at the beginning. You've got this really interesting job title, holistic life coach. And I kind of feel like I might know a bit about what a life coach does and I might know a little bit about the holistic, but I dunno how it comes together. So, so what's involved in that. I mean, what do people come to you for? How do you differ from a sort of conventional one or the other? How do the two combine
Speaker 3:For me the two, the combination came because of my own journey. So it became what it was because it was what I needed. So I had gone on a journey of my own journey of self discovery through yoga, through healing, through sort of achy and crystal healing I'd have coaching. And each of them had given me something, but combined, I felt that they could give me something so much more powerful. So even though a life coach is amazing, you know, they're really focused on setting goals and actions and getting you to the place that they want to be for me holistically. It's looking at where all of your emotions are stored within the body, as well as how it's impacting your mindset, what you could maybe do physically that might help you along your journey and how we can understand those things that have gone before that then impact how you are able to move forward in the future. So that kind of surmises a little bit what a holistic life coach for me does.
Speaker 2:Brilliant. And so, so when you talk about like emotions and the body, I mean, talk us through sort of what you mean by that. Cause I kind of think I have a bit of a grip on that, but I'd love to know exactly what you mean.
Speaker 3:So in our bodies, we store our reactions to any experience the, the good, the bad, the ugly. So what happens is when we experience something, we get a reaction or a response to that feeling. And then what happens is it creates an imprint really on our cellular memory. And then when other things happen in the future, those responses start to compound because we know that we felt like this before we know that we have this certain response to it and it almost impacts the way that we respond again. So what we're really looking at is those things that have happened that have created an emotional response in us and how then we can move forward from that if it's created and negative or an adverse response in us.
Speaker 2:Wow. Okay. That's so interesting. And so, so when people come to you and you know, they kind of sit down in front of you or having your, your sessions with people, like what, what's the thing they're coming to you for? Like, is it a problem? Is it an issue? Like what's the reason for, for people to see
Speaker 3:It? So typically I work with people who want to make a change. They don't kind of know what's getting them stuck. They may be in this cycle of overwhelm or anxiety and stress. And I really help them look into what it is. That's keeping them there, how they can shift perspective or transition to create that better life of balance and really connecting with their own mind, body and energy.
Speaker 2:Wow. Okay. So people have got to a point, is it, is it that they've got to a point where something like, not something has broken, I don't like the word broken and fixed at all, but like there's something that's holding them back or there's, there's something that's something has happened or
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think often it can be limiting beliefs, so it can be something that's keeping them somewhere where they don't want to be anymore. It's a response that they've found that they keep repeating and they don't really know why they've done a lot of the work potentially already, or they've started to understand themselves a little bit, but they're still unable to change this response pattern or really elevate themselves to where they want be.
Speaker 2:No, I recognize this a lot sort of in myself and then amongst my peers were sort of, I, I dunno if it's an age thing, but I think you get to a point where you're like, okay, I think if you're quite self aware and you're kind open to these kind discussions, you can be like, okay, I'm gonna read these books. I'm gonna go on a couple of workshops. I'm like gonna go to a retreat, but you get to a point where you can't do it on your own.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:You can't operate. I've done the best I can. And I'm quite self-aware, but now I need someone else to get me through this last bit. Cause you know, I'm not the expert here and I can't do it on my own. So yeah, I think this is super interesting. So I'm really fascinated by this, like you spent, is it 18 years working in it?
Speaker 3:I did. So I worked for, um, a corporate it company that dealt with huge public sector accounts, selling services basically to the government. So I kind of worked my way up, but all in all, I was there around 18 years.
Speaker 2:This couldn't be any more different, just sort of like for people that are listening to the podcast, I can also see Cassie, she's got this beautiful setup, this very calm room, that's comfort burning. And then you are kind of talking all about things which involve intuition and feelings and, and memories. And so you've gone from sort of one extreme to the other sort of what made you sort of change so drastically and, and talk us through like how that change happened.
Speaker 3:It wasn't a light bulb moment and it wasn't one switch that made the change. For me, it was a number of things that brought me to where I am today. So my, it was a journey for me. It wasn't just a, you know, I can't do this anymore. I'm done. So my start in the change really was having my children and returning to work after having my children. And my first thing in, you know, when I sort of was confirming my dates from coming back, um, the response that I got back was, well, you can't actually return to this job on the condensed hours that you want to return to. So you either come back and do your usual pattern of working 40 hours, but actually really doing more like 50 plus, or you find yourself another role to go back to, is that in the UK? It was, yeah. Gosh, are they
Speaker 2:Even allowed to do that in the UK? Isn't that
Speaker 3:Illegal? I think if you return to work after a certain period of time, so within a window, they have to hold that particular role open for you. If you go past that window, which I think is approximately six months and with my leave, I think I ended up with about 10 months off. Cause I'd like sort of all of my leave. So by the time they had to give me an equivalent role, but they did not have to actually give me my same role back. So that kind of set me off on a, a bit of a pattern where, okay, this is turned everything upside down now. So not only am I going back to work, trying to balance my new life, I'm also going back to work, trying to balance something that I've never done before, really feeling like an imposter because all of the fear and the doubt and everything starts to creep in doesn't it. So anyway, I was lucky enough to go back in with an amazing leader and he was brilliant, you know, and his motto was almost family first, you know? So if anything happened also to add, my mom was diagnosed with, uh, terminal cancer and I was off on maternity leave. So the plan was always that my parents were going to look after our girls when I returned to work and my mom was diagnosed with cancer. So that happened basically a month before I went back to work. We also moved house. And, um, my dad broke his heel when he was supposed to be looking after my mum by falling out of a loft hatch. So everything had literally turned upside down. So you kind of cope with these things and you keep, you know, we keep going, we keep going, we keep going. And then as the time progressed being in work, I was traveling, um, up to where I needed to work from in Newcastle. And then it it's, it just, everything slowly was starting to fall apart around me. I was noticing I couldn't respond in the same way. I couldn't cope with things in the same way I was becoming really unhappy. And on top of this, the company were beginning to make a lot of cuts in the office. So there was a number of roles that were up for redundancy effectively or at risk of redundancy every quarter. So every quarter you were waiting for this moment to happen, whether or not you were on this at risk list as in your role. So it was never you personally, but obviously going back on condensed hours, going into a new role, always felt like a more risky position for me. So all those things were, were sort of happening. My relationships were suffering at home. My friendships were suffering. My husband worked away a lot and I was just getting to the point where I couldn't cope and I needed to make a change. So the first thing for me was stepping on the yoga map and I tried yoga for many, many years before and being in such a young environment at work and being quite a young person, really action oriented, driven, needed to succeed. All of that. It never really fitted with me. And I found Ash Tanga actually is a practice, which is really quite physical and quite driven. And it fitted, it fitted with what I needed to get out of it physically, but actually it introduced me mentally and emotionally to what I needed to tap into. And that became the start of my journey really. And then through that practice, I then ended up training as a yoga teacher.
Speaker 2:It's an interesting that sort of that. And again, so already that mind body connection, cause um, I interviewed Sasha Bates. She's written an amazing book about grief. Her husband died very suddenly. So when he was only in his early fifties, she's a psychotherapist. And so she's written this really interesting book anyway, it's a different episode, but, um, but what, one of the things that saved her was the whole sort of was a yoga, but it wasn't just the yoga. It was the fact that she was having this, like she was connecting deeply back into her body after she'd had this experience, which was kinda made her feel sort of free wheeling and frightened and untethered. And then the practice of kinda sitting and coming and being with herself really helped, which I find really interesting. So that was that you started, you went retrained as a yoga teacher, but then when did all the sort of holistic and the coaching bit come in, then
Speaker 3:They were gradual really. So it took me a couple of years to get my training as a yoga teacher and to qualify, I did it over a longer period of time. I didn't just run off and couldn't just run off to India unfortunately and do like a, an intense months training. So I did mine over around six months with an amazing group of women and actually most and, and one gentleman as should taste to our, but we were all actually a little bit older. So nobody really was very young. Everybody was kind of going through a change and had come to their mat or come to their practice or their yoga teacher training for something else and because of their own life experiences. So as a group, it was a really powerful collective. And then I just began as I was teaching yoga, I began to want to do a little bit more. I noticed when people were coming to the mat and they were leaving, they'd loved it, but they still needed a little bit more from me. I felt like at the end of a session, we could have sat down and done a circle and been there for another hour. So, and I did my Raiki training and then I incorporated a little bit Raiki into my yoga practice with my students. And then I did my crystal healing. And again, I brought it in and used to use essential oils and um, then my life still wasn't completely on track. I still didn't know where I was going. I was doing all of these things, doing all of the self development work, but I still felt lost. Still. Didn't really know where I was by this point. My husband had moved countries, he'd moved into Canada and we decided that we would do the transition gently and see if he even liked it for the first year and was somewhere that you wanted to settle. So it was a lot again, emotionally and, and everything in our lives. And then I, so I continued with different aspects of yoga, teach training. I did my trauma, my trauma sensitive yoga practice. I did Y yoga. I did pre and postnatal. So I grew my yoga portfolio, I suppose, into appreciating more about how it can be tied into different aspects of different people. And I love the, I literally love the fact that I could focus on women's wellness with that. And then I had a coach myself, and that for me was like, the moment I just spent, this is it. This is what I need to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah. This is something that I'm realizing now, when I speak to a lot of people that sort be the coaches or they're in that personal development space and they all have their own coach, even Dr. Salha from the lighthouse has her own therapist. I was like, okay, now you say this, it makes total sense. But like you kind of think that the coaches have got it all worked out or the people that are giving you advice, but actually know everybody needs a coach, which I think is really interesting and really encouraging. Cause it makes me feel none of us are the perfect finished article, right? We're all growing and developing and doing the best that we can and everybody needs<inaudible> as well, which I think is really interesting.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And I think before you've had a coach, you don't know a coach is what you need. Then once you've had a coach, you realize that actually there's so many different aspects of coaching that you can tap into that will continue to support you through your journey. Like I've got a business coach at the moment that I'm working with. I'm always working with other coaches in different groups to do co-mentoring and co co support. So you, you journey with coaching never end you journey with development in yourself, never ends you just for me with the type of coaching I do. I give people access to coaching and I give them ways to be able to recognize things in themselves. So they don't sit in that dark spot for too long. And even just doing that for somebody really gives them an insight into how powerful they can be. And sometimes you just need a little bit of help facilitating that journey.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Just a little bit of a push now. I totally agree. So talking about clients and the kind of people that come to see you, I mean, you mentioned that people come to you when they're stuck or they're repeating old patterns. I mean, what's the most common if you wanna call it a complaint is, and is there anything that is sort of specific to Dubai that you see people coming to you with?
Speaker 3:Um, so Dubai is probably more around professional women. I think where there's a lot of, um, women who, and I say women because potentially, well, most of the time it is women that are drawn towards walking are working with me. So generally they have no balance in life. You know, they're doing all of the things that we weren't expected to do actually generations ago, but we're still expected to respond in the same ways as women or mothers or daughters. So, and then throwing a COVID pandemic, it kind of has reassessed the world for a lot of us. I think, you know, it's given us an opportunity actually to think I've managed to balance working at home with the kids. I've managed to balance my job. Then I've managed to balance going back into a workspace, but actually now this isn't really necessarily working for me. So how do I still drive forward in my career if that's what I want to do or choose to look into doing something else while still maintaining time with the people that I love and doing the things that I love. And it's really being able to create that balance for themselves. What seems to have happened for me with clients that I've worked with in the past is they've done a lot of work already. So they've kind of tapped into this. Well, I know that I need to maybe get on my yoga out, or I know that I need to make some changes. I know that I need to read some books. So they're do, they've kind of dipped their toe in the water and they've taken themselves so far and they realize that they can't take themselves any further by themselves.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm yeah. I hear you loud and clear on that. And when you mention COVID, do you feel that people, I mean, we, there's been lots to talk about the great resignation and the great reset and even, you know, the team that I work with, just the way that we think about work is so different. You know, it's not just about the paycheck anymore at all. It's more about like the purpose and the meaning and what am I doing this for? You know, I've got this corporate job, but sort of who's it benefiting and, and trying to find sort of meaning, meaning in it. Do you, does that make you feel hopeful that things are sort of moving in a slightly more sort of like empathetic, holistic direction?
Speaker 3:It does in some respects, but equally I think there's a lot more that the workplace can do to support people in these environments. You know, wellness in the workplace still has a lot that needs to be done, you know? Yes, you can have mental health workers in there. You know, there's people that work in HR that do these mental health support qualifications so that they can recognize symptoms and things, but there still aren't safe spaces for people to go and talk. So if they want to raise concerns, maybe about their workspace, about their leadership, it might not be absolutely that they want to escalate it and take some sort of action on that, but they just need to be heard. And also they need to know what they're feeling. It's true. It's true to them. It's happening. It's not just dismissed. It's not just a cultural thing or it's not just a toxic environment. It's how they feel. And they need to feel supported in that. So there's a lot of work that can be done in the workspace. I think to support that, to make people feel supported and held, to give them a safe space, to vent these things, to give them tools and things, actually that they can look at ways in which they can respond to other people, which will help them understand the way the other person responds to firefighting. For example, to project deadlines, to whatever it is that might come up and genuinely, we need to have some empathy in some cases for these people that are leaders, because often there became leaders because they did a really, really good job, but actually they didn't become a leader because they were really good at leading people. And most of them don't really want to lead the people. They still want to do a really, really good job and they still want to expand their career and actually taking on people has to be part of that full, but they're not necessarily developed as leaders with people they're developed as leaders for a role.
Speaker 2:Gosh, that's so interesting and really ringing a massive planning bell at the moment. How do you sort of address that with people mean, I guess people are coming to you that sort of to it and receptive to, okay. I could do things differently. How do you sort of this with people's perhaps, especially that are at very senior levels that don't have this sort of stranding and that string to their bow. I mean, how can you bring that into them and how can you raise it with them without sort of, especially, I mean, especially in this market, in this region, you know, there's quite a lot of egos flying around. I mean, how can we raise this with people and improve it?
Speaker 3:I think it's understanding egos. It's really interesting that you say that word actually, because ego is both positive and negative. It's actually just about how we respond to situations. So I think it's really important to understand other people's egos and understand in the way that they are driven. What drives that person when they respond that way, are they actually responding to you and a situation or is that just their knee jerk reaction response? Because they do not have the skills or the understanding to respond in any other way. And then your ego is going to decide, well, do I take that as a slur on me? Can I take a step back for a moment and think about those other things before I actually respond. And all you are in control with yourself is how you respond. So it's always taking that pause before response, or actually just using the words to say to the person I need to just come back to you on that one. Just give me some time to go away and think about it. And let's come back and have another conversation on this. And those are those really give you some control back on a situation, because then it gives you time to pause. It gives you time to assess the situation and it gives you time to assess how you and how you respond actually is really powerful because if you've understood why they've done what they've done, you've understood enough to then take a moment and respond in the way you feel is going to be most effective. And the outcome potentially is going to be very different than both of you just reacting on a knee jerk thing. Mm-hmm
Speaker 2:<affirmative> yeah. Which when you often don't just progress anywhere, do you, it just becomes like this. Like he said, she said, he said, I said, yeah, doesn't really benefit anybody. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm
Speaker 2:Really interested. So when people come to see you and there might be coming okay, right. I need some coaching, you know, I'm gonna go to cast, she's gonna help me here. Then when you bring in sort of all these sort of body, mind, connection elements and things like crystals and oils, like how do people react to that? Are they open to it? Have you ever had somebody come to you a bit? Like, I'm not sure about this. And then you kind of see them sort of transform with the experience. How does that work?
Speaker 3:So for me, it's about baby steps with people. It's never just about saying to them, and that's not my job as a coach, really to say to them, you need to do something this way. It's about offering them all the tools that are in my toolbox and they take what they want from it. And they leave what they don't, but it's giving them an opportunity to experience other things that they may not have experienced if they were doing it by themselves. And I always say to people in whatever, they try, start really small and start really simple, but don't just try it once or twice, try these things for a week or two, and then see how it feels, see what you can create, be that space that you need to create in yourself, or just creating some sense of calm so that you can respond in a different way, but try these tools and techniques for a period of time, give them chance to create a habit and create a change in the pathways for you so that you're not responding in the same way.
Speaker 2:Okay. Interesting. And I've recently been rereading the book. The body keeps the score, which I absolutely love just such a fascinating book. Um, if anyone hasn't read it, it's all about how your body, like what we've been talking about, basically how your body store trauma. Yeah. But obviously here and especially here in the UAE, you know, love the UAE. Whenever you go to a doctor, there's very much this, like, okay, let's write you a massive prescription and send you on your way, unless you're lucky enough to find someone who's a bit more open to sort of exploring, you know, what, the reasons behind this pathway. So mind and body are very separated in modern medicine. And yet your approach brings this together. So how do you sort of work on both of these together? You know, maybe a client comes to you for some coaching, but they've got this pain somewhere in their body. And then you, you know, you're starting to uncover this trauma. How does that work and how do you bring the two together?
Speaker 3:So we look at, on my initial assessment, when I work with a client, I'm asking them straight away, if they've got any physical symptoms, it could be that they have got digestive issues. It could be that they feel a lot of tense or tension in the shoulders or the lower back. So those things actually already are telling me things that are going on with their body. So then we also will ask about experiences that they may have had in the past. So any adverse childhood experiences, for example, anything that may have been a big event for them. So trauma doesn't have to be a huge thing. It doesn't have to be one huge event. That's happened for somebody. Trauma is your response to an event. So that event actually could have happened to somebody else. And you could have born witness to that and it could have created a reaction in you. So it's really important that people understand that actually doesn't have to be theirs, but it's something that they responded to that made them not feel good or made them feel low or question themselves it's whatever your response is. So we look quite deeply actually into events that may have happened in the past. That then give us an understanding of what then has happened to build up a response pattern for them. And that could be self-worth issues. It could be, you know, not feeling safe, not feeling abundant, any of those things. And actually the physical symptoms then tend to correlate with what's happened with those traumatic experiences for them. So we tie those things together.
Speaker 2:Interesting that you say about it could be witnessing someone else's trauma. I hadn't thought about that before.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:If you read Oprahs, it was not new anymore. It's the book. It came out. It was earlier this year, last year. I think it was last year. I took it on holiday with me. And it's all about what happened to you. So rather than like, what's the matter with you, it's what happened to you? And she talks a lot about draw and she says, she's written over the doctor. It's not, you know, her professing to know all of this, but, um, it's really interesting cause it says you, everyone thinks that trauma has to be like, this is what happens to war vets when they come back from a war, right? If you fight in Iraq or whatever, it's like P it's really like serious PTSD. People are like, well, I can't possibly have drama because I had pretty normal upbringing. And this, you know, this happened to me, my car didn't crash, you know, no one died. So people think, okay, I haven't had trauma, but actually it's either can be like you say, experiences that have affected you or that things have, that have happened to somebody else, which I think is interesting.
Speaker 3:I think everybody, at some point in their life has experienced trauma. They had some sort of response to trauma, whether or not they see as trauma is a completely different question. That's very subjective for people. But actually I would say 99.9% certainly of adults have had some response to something in their life, which is imprinted on them physically or emotionally, just that feeling when something happens and it makes you feel a little bit sick. Your body remembers that if you think about fear and excitement and the butterflies that you get in the, the tummy, the nervous system doesn't really know how to cope with that. And then you can slowly make a decision based on previous experience, how you are going to respond to that feeling. Are you going to let the fear hold you back? Or you're going to let the excitement take you forward. There's so many ways in which these experiences tie into how our body reacts and how our mind reacts and how we can work with that to then create new pathways for people to move forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I'm interested in, in these sort of new pathways as well. I mean how, I'm assuming it's not easy, right. To overcome these kind of pathways and tracks and like this, this path that you've been on and the, and the, the patterns that you've been repeating. So, you know, how hopeful are you when people, when people come to you, you know, how difficult is it for them to sort of create these new pathways and start overcoming them?
Speaker 3:I think if people are open to this sort of work in the first place, that's the first hurdle because I can't convince anybody to come and work with me if they're not ready with me and I, yeah. Ready to work with me. And I wouldn't want to do that because it's pointless. Somebody has to be ready to do the work. They have to be ready to accept that. Actually, maybe there's more than one thing that's tying into this and it isn't just mindset because mindset's awesome, but let's face it. You can't control everything with the power of the brain. There's lots of other things that are happening to you. There's lots of other signals that are being sent to the brain, not just the brain sent and the signals. So it's listening to those and tapping into them. So people really need to be ready to do the work and it can be difficult. It can be difficult to address things that may have happened previously. And it can be difficult to understand how that's created a response for you. And the idea is to give those people, assurances that actually the way that you respond it, isn't just because that's the way you are. You know, you're responding that way 90% of the time, because something has happened to you and you've learned to respond in that way. It's learned behavior. So for example, if you were a child and you were always told to shut up, you were too loud, you were too noisy. You weren't made to feel valued in anything that you said. You're often not going to use your voice. If you're always told that you shy, you're quiet, you timid. You tend to adopt that label. And then you don't know another way in which to respond. So there's a lot of things that happen that just start to build up and then they create this response for you. So it is difficult to unpick it, but it's about understanding it, creating a new way of responding and moving forward with that, with any tools or anything that you need to take.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And you mentioned sort of like listening to these things that are happening, like whether that's in your body or your, but being aware of them, like how, I mean we're so disconnected, right? Like sometimes people talk about intuition, like what's your gut telling you? And I'm like, to be honest, I really have absolutely no idea. I can't hear anything right now because I'm so, you know, I'm operating in a space which is not connected. So how can we learn to be more in tune with our bodies and listen to what they're saying to us? So
Speaker 3:I think in the first instance, it's knowing that the body is sending you a signal. And often we don't even know that these tight shoulders are telling us that something doesn't feel good for us, that actually it's making us either want to be hidden or it's tapping into our fight and flight response and thinking, and need to get the heck out of here. So it's just understanding those small things, that happening areas of tightness in the hips often tied into really emotional behaviors, really emotional patterns. So it's understanding these little signals that actually the body is sending you and then being able to tap into those to say, okay, when can I start to notice that? Do I notice that actually when I'm in the workplace, I'm in this meeting with this particular person, that's when the shoulder pain starts. That's when I really start to feel the tension in my neck. Then when I'm at home, I'm with the people that are love and support me. There's no shoulder pain, there's no tightness in my neck. That's because it's the situation or something that's happening to you physically. That's creating that response that you don't like, and that you're not comfortable with. So it's really encouraging people to notice situations. And then the responses that happen to them to slowly start to unpick the, getting connected back into the body. And then you using simple tips and tools. Like breathwork noticing your breath, noticing how your heartbeat goes, encouraging people to breathe in a particular way to get the connection back into themselves. So that then they hear these responses a little bit louder. Gosh,
Speaker 2:Even as you said it, then I just took a deeper breath without even<laugh> soon as you say, I'm like, oh yeah, I'm not doing that. I must do more of it. I mean, it seems pretty clear, like the science proves this link, right? Between the mind body. It's the mind body connection. It's all out there. Like every, you know, Joe spends a, this huge amounts of research about this now why we're not more aware of it, why isn't it being considered more? You know, almost if you start talking about this, there's a little bit of like, you know, we watch out for your tin, foil hat, you know,<laugh> what I mean, obviously like when you're speaking to more enlightened people know, but there's still a bit of an element of that out there. And I just find it staggering that when there's so much science, we're just willingly ignoring it. Like why is that? I think
Speaker 3:Because people are seen to be either woo or scientific. And actually I think there's a real balance in both your intuition. Yes. Is something that's IBU and it's not necessarily tangible. So you can't really understand why, but then actually when you look at the science of it, your body is sending you a signal it's telling you about something. If you look at like the Vaus nerve, for example, we can tap into the vagus nerve and impact our responses, our vital flight rest and digest. We can send signals through the heart, through to the brain. And actually more signals are coming up this way than are going down that way. So we can actually impact the way that we respond to a situation just by tapping into our able nerve 10th cranial nerve. We can impact it by really simple things. Breath, breathe into the belly, don't breathe into the chest tone of voice. So if I drop my tone of voice and I speak to you in a different way, in a way that I might record a meditation or do something straight away, I'm sending a different signal to you by using this tone of voice, it's so easy humming causing a vibration. It creates something in the vagal nerve that then creates a response that sends the signals through the body. So there's so many effective ways that we can tap into things. And it's understanding that, yes, there's a real element, but also there's a lot of science behind it. And actually when you look at generations before us, they were so much more self-aware and did things before the invention of all of the modern medicine,
Speaker 2:Of course, right? When you look into so many of these things they've been around for literally forever, I mean, humming, I'm a recent Hummer, by the way, Wayly I read about, feel a bit, feel a bit silly humming. And obviously if I, if you are somewhere where there's other people, like I'm not yet at the stage where I can just hum freely. So I have to wait until like, perhaps nobody in the house, or if I'm on holiday, I have to go and sit somewhere really far away from people. But I tried it and it was amazing. Like I felt amazing afterwards. I was like, but then I read about it. It was like, yeah, people have, people have been humming since like prehistoric times, like this is nothing new. And then, you know, we find these things and we're like, oh amazing. But actually it's part of our psyche in our DNA. And it's part of our civilization has been functioning. It's only, now that we've become so sort of detached from some of these things and working in our little tin cams that we drive to the other tin cannon to sit in a tin cannon all day and then come home to a different tin cannon. And it's like, we're not really meant to live like this. And there's many, many more things that we could be drawing on.
Speaker 3:And ego is so apparent in the world. Isn't it? Because we are so worried actually of stepping out of our box or being seen as doing something that maybe isn't the norm or doesn't fit with society or the way that people do things. And it's having the strength of your own character, your own self worth your own ability to be able to step out and say, you know what? These things really work for me. And actually they make me a more effective colleague. They make me a more effective leader. So if tapping into this helps me and works for me. I'm not afraid to stand up and say that I do that. I'm not going to live in the fear of other people's expectations.
Speaker 2:No, I couldn't agree more. And um, yeah, you're not the first person to say this to me actually on the podcast, I've spoken to a lot of people that do this full time and I've spoken to people who kind of have this element of their lives that maybe still have a really corporate job that they have to go to every day. And I'm really interested in your opinion on this actually, as someone who have this kind of corporate, you know, going to an office job, I mean, how can you sort of marry this sort of spiritual side of yourself with, okay, I've still gotta get on and put on, you know, the suits, the hair, the makeup go to this job. Like how can I incorporate both of these things and, and have both of these things without having to leave the job, which would be lovely. But the reality is, you know, not everybody gets to live in a year on the side of a mountain. So how can we balance that? Okay, I need to go to work and have this corporate life, but I wanna nurture this spiritual more deep side of myself and find meaning. And
Speaker 3:Just something you said there actually as well, Kelly, you said it's either one or the other. So it's either I'm in this corporate world. Or I live on the side of the mountain in a U that's an expectation that the two things can't work together. And I think that's why there's not as much wellness in the workplace as there needs to be on this level. It's because people think they are exclusive of one another and not inclusive. So there's some work to be done there to make people believe that actually it's a combination. I mean, if you look at some of these really, really successful people who have long careers or great businesses, they've got a routine in their life. And we're not saying that it has to be something that includes breath work or trauma work or anything, but they've got things in their lives that work for them that create some sort of balance that make them a more effective person. It might be yes, that they do some meditation walking might be their meditation. Meditation doesn't have to be sat on your map. It's something actually that just brings more calm and more balance into the body, mind energy space. So it doesn't have to look a certain way and it's letting people know that they're not exclusive. They can be done together and it's working out what works for you. So if you are really unhappy, for example, in your corporate role does work to be done to see what is it that you're actually unhappy with? Is it something that you can fix? Is it something that you can then take into this workplace and be more effective or is it actually the workplace that needs to change? And so there is work around that because in some situations it is exclusive to the workplace, you know, and that does need to change. It doesn't mean that they can't still do that role, but it might mean that they can't do that role in that workplace. They might have to take it somewhere else, but equally there's lots of things that they can do to understand themselves and also to balance themselves better so that their responses are different so that they can drive themselves forward in other ways to then make it an inclusive practice for themselves to have two of these things that work in, in alignment rather than being exclusive.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's so interesting what you're saying about, yeah, it doesn't have to be one or the other, like I do often go to the example of the earth on the mountain. I think I need to stop doing that. And<laugh>, I must have a somewhere if I'm meant to be living my truth in a year clearly, which I'm not doing,
Speaker 3:But there's a belief system there isn't there as well. There's a belief system. There's a condition way that we all take forward, you know, and certainly for my generation, I was a fat baby. So I was brought up that women power did things a certain way and you cannot be a woman in power if you do not follow that patriarchal system or that masculine way of doing something, but, and actually to be completely belong. It's total BS. There are so many ways. Yeah. You're not gonna be able to change the patriarchy in a lot of ways, but it doesn't mean that you can't work with it to better understand yourself and still be as effective if not more effective doing it your way rather than,
Speaker 2:Oh my God. Yes. Casie for president<laugh>
Speaker 3:Wouldn't
Speaker 2:Agree. No, absolutely. And I think there's so many more workplaces now that are kind of, sort of trying to bring this in with varying degrees and, you know, sort of finding people within organizations. I've met a few very inspirational people here that are trying to do it, especially women that are trying to do it a different way. And it's not, you know, with the old, the old roots that are, are the only roots
Speaker 3:And it's understanding what that thing that women need. Is it isn't yes, we need help to balance kind of our lives as in work life balance. But also it isn't just about, oh, let's give them some extra time working at home. Actually people might like to be in the office. They might like that separation between work and home. They might just want one day at home, but it's understanding what they need. It's not a one fix one solution fits or scenario. This it's actually asking people what it is they need, what do they need for their further development? How do they need to feel, how can they sponsor that within a work environment? How can they offer people a space to talk? How can they offer people support? How can they offer people a path to leadership that fits in with their life and their lifestyle and their expectations. And if we don't have this understanding that things aren't going to change.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Couldn't agree more. So this podcast is all about good intentions and we've touched on some of the great things that you mentioned, like breath work and, and things that can sort of help help us kind of set intentions for ourselves. Have you got any sort of top simple, practical tips of how we can sort of keep ourselves at an optimum level and encourage this sort of optimistic, positive outlook and energy? I really gonna have lot of tips.
Speaker 3:Oh God, this Lord there's so many. So one that I regularly share with clients is about breath work, actually. And it's about just bringing the breath down into the valley. So again, stimulating that Vaus nerve stimulating, whether you are in the fight and flight in the workplace. And if you are, it's going to really help bring you back down into a bit more of rest and digest. So what I try and say to my clients is attach it to something that you do all of the time. So it might be that every time you go to the washroom and you wash your hands, you take five belly breaths. Every time you go and fill your water bottle up, or you make a tea or a coffee, do your five belly breaths. So it's attaching it to something that is really easy and that you can create a habit of. And then before, you know, it, it becomes a natural process that you do without having to attach it to something that you do as a habit. So that's a really, really effective place to start. And also pause is really brilliant because it's gonna give you an opportunity to respond differently. And it's something you are in control of taking a pause. So when somebody says something to you, take a breath, take a pause, decide whether or not you actually even want to respond now, or if you are going to respond later and then just say the words to the person. If you need to take the time, I need to just think about that for a moment. Doesn't, you know, don't have to explain yourself. It just has to be. I need to just think about that. Let me come back to you later on that one. I might have some other ideas, you know, whatever it is, whatever sentence works for you, but take the pause. So, yeah, there's a couple, but anything really that works for you humming is a brilliant one that we mentioned earlier, and it can be something really simple, like breathing and just hung out on the exhale. So there's a whole pre a whole breathwork that you can do with that, that runs a lot deeper called be's breath, which we won't go into on this. So we're not gonna do a VRE session, but actually it just starts to stimulate it. But again, it's attaching things to things that you do all the time. So for example, when you are in the shower, that's when I'm gonna do Mohamed.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's, that's a good idea. Close the door.
Speaker 3:Nobody you, yeah. If you say anything, you just say you singing in the shower. Yes I was. Or in the morning, if you are the person that gets up in the morning first and makes a coffee, or you are preparing your lunch home, then set yourself for the day. All of these things can be attached to something to make it easier for yourself to start.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, absolutely. I went through a stage of what was doing like squats or something. When I brushed my teeth, it worked for a long time. Actually. It was, it was when I was trying to get myself back into exercise and I really didn't wanna do it. I don't, I think I let it go now. Cause I'm actually exercising. But yeah, that whole sort of like I have to brush my teeth twice a day, sometimes three times a day. So what, how can I sort of use this time and yeah, exactly. Sort of create a new habit, which was, um, it actually worked really well to say probably revealing a bit too much about my personal life.
Speaker 3:<laugh> yeah.
Speaker 2:And I love the sort of breath work thing as well. I breath work where I had to flap like a bird and then do the breathwork with it. Have you ever done anything? I dunno what, it was an amazing teacher that used to Beira and yeah, you have, we were blindfolded. Okay.
Speaker 3:Well,
Speaker 2:Cause you feel so ridiculous. So she was like, it's best that you can't see one another. So she blindfolded us all. And then we did this kind of flapping and breathing at the same time, which sounds absolutely nuts. So when I look back on it, I'm like I did what, but at the time, like the feeling that it gives you and the way your brain is obviously loads of signs
Speaker 3:Behind it. There's lots of things you can do with your arms. And it builds likey energy. So it's a power breath. What automatically stands out for me doing something like that is I'm a trauma sensitive teacher. I'm a trauma sensitive coach. So the fact that you're asking somebody to cover their eyes in a situation like that would be a, a massive, no, no, maybe, but it would certainly be something that would worry me. Shall we say
Speaker 2:I anyway, we, but yeah. Yeah. So we mentioned the body keeps the score earlier. Could you tell us a bit more about any books that sort of meant something to you or that have been super helpful that you've really sort of helped shape how you live and what you do?
Speaker 3:So the body keeps score is amazing. And actually it was one of the books that I read before I started working with people in addiction and I used to go and teach yoga in a center that dealt with people that had, um, addiction to alcohol or drugs. So it was a brilliant basis actually for me to understand that more. And obviously I'd worked with trauma sensitive by then and done my sort of continued professional development in that. But one of the very, very early books I read when I was still working in a corporate job was gay Hendricks, the big leap. And it's about understanding yourself a little bit more and actually where you stop yourself doing things and where you upper limit yourself and things like that. And it's a brilliant, brilliant book to start to try and understand yourself a little bit more. Certainly if you're still working, it's how to understand, why do I not put myself forward for those things? Where are those beliefs coming in? So it's a really general book. It doesn't dig into kinda necessarily trauma. It digs into a little bit of experience work, but it doesn't go very, very deep. So it's a great place to start. Miracle morning was another game changer for me when I first started, they've all been brilliant. And then there's been some yoga books that I've read that have been quite deep. The book that I'm reading at the moment is this amazing book, which is called healing is the new high by vex king.
Speaker 2:I saw this in mcg the other day. Tell me what it's like.
Speaker 3:It's brilliant. And what I love about it is it's not really telling me anything that I don't know in the work that I do, but what it is teaching me is a more simple way to explain things.
Speaker 2:OK. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And what I really like about vex king and the way that he shares his story is he's telling you about what happened in his relationships and how he responded to them. And then he's telling you how he got to a deeper understanding of it. But he's doing that in a way that isn't talking very deeply about spiritual stuff or will. So it makes it open for everybody, you know, and the tools that in techniques that he use is, you know, he, he goes into, for example, a yoga Nera, which is something I use myself, which is brilliant, but he just does it in a very, very simple way. So if don't let the, the subject healing is the new high, put you off, it's a brilliant book. And actually I've got my husband to read, um, started the other day because we are very different. He's definitely the yang to my in. And, um, he kind of, the language of spirituality loses him. And when he read, if you just a first chapter of something of this book, he was like, yeah, it's good. That actually isn't it. I, I could read that, you know, and he is not that his books, aren't really something that he's drawn to unless the kind of live story stuff. So the fact that that drew him in and he could read something like that spoke volumes to me, cause it's just super simple and accessible and that's what you want. Accessibility is key.
Speaker 2:Totally. Well, I think we might be married to the same person, actually.<laugh> say there's always some sort of like gentle eye rolling when we're on holiday together. Cause the books I read are like wildly different to my husbands. Although saying that, I mean, he does read a lot of self-improvement books, but um, the Oprah one that I mentioned, he, he really loved the, um, the, what happened to you because it's Oprah, but then it's a doctor. So Oprah kind sets up the chapter and she kind of goes a bit woo. And then she talks about a lot of feeling, but then the scientist, the doctor comes in and he's like, OK, right. Well, I think that's, it's a fair point. You know, not everybody wants to is interested in the sort of ultra ultra spirituality side of things. So to have something that's a bit more accessible and
Speaker 3:What I like about Oprah when she does stuff as well, is when she does her super cell Sundays, for example, and say, she'll have Eckhart who came in, was a guest with her and she lets him really, really dig deep. And then she takes on the role of the less spiritual person. So that's really clever that in the fact that she can see both sides and that she can interview him regardless of what maybe her own beliefs are, or also play devil's advocate, if she believes everything that he's saying. So she's, it's really clever, I think in the way that she can transform herself into those different roles.
Speaker 2:Yeah. She can't there's um, there was a brilliant series. I think it was his, his second book, a new earth. And she basically, she did a chapter for every chapter. She interviewed him for the podcast. They went through. The idea was that you would read along with it, see chapter one chapter two, and then they would talk about it. And all of my friends, we were all kind of trying to do it at the same time. I think it was chapter five and yeah, he was going on about how brilliant it was, was like chapter. And I still don't get it, like, forget, like leave all that behind. And she was really grilling him on it. And I was like, thank God. Cause I didn't get chapter, whatever chapter it was. I was like, I didn't get it either. And I'm happened to read every page, like five times. Yeah. And now I love that she does that and brings it, brings it back down to earth as well. And
Speaker 3:Again, it makes it accessible. Doesn't it? Because by doing that with them, you realize actually it was nothing about you. Like your ego was telling you, oh, oh God, I should have got this it's me. I don't understand all of those negative limiting beliefs come in. And actually Oprah's saying, yeah, I can't. That was rubbish. I didn't understand that at all. So the fact that it's not, you makes you feel much better about yourself as well.
Speaker 2:That makes you lot of Virginia as well. Cause otherwise you just, just stopped. Yeah. I'm just gonna have to stop. I just, this book is not for me. I can't read anything else by him. You know, it's just too much. And actually yeah, no, no, actually I'm gonna carry on. I'm not stupid after all, always about us.
Speaker 3:Isn't it? How we talk to each other. We talk to ourselves.
Speaker 2:Absolutely awful. I talked about this just recently with the guest. Like the way we talk to ourselves is just absolutely hideous.
Speaker 3:And we repeat what we've been made to believe. That's the point we've sent these messages and these words from a very early age and we take them and then we make them into our belief and that's why we do it. We repeat the things that we've heard. We repeat the things that are around us and our experiences. And we adopt that as our story and our brain's very clever at creating stories in the science side of it. Your brain creates a story to keep you safe. And so it's taken the signal from the nervous system or we did that last time and we didn't like it. So it creates a story. And also if you tell a story a certain way, a number of times the brain believes it. So it really all comes back into those experiences and those stories that you tell
Speaker 2:Yourself. Yeah. And at the end of it, I mean, I find that really quite moving as well. It's like your brain, all of this is because your own brain is trying to keep you safe. So it's, you're self sabot, but it's from a good place, which I find. And that, yes, it sort of break that person is so tough, but yeah, you are trying to keep yourself safe. So interesting. And I just end on one big question and I you're gonna have a great answer this, why are we here? What's our purpose on earth.
Speaker 3:So for me, my purpose is to help more women and to make sure that the generational trauma doesn't get spread through all the common generations. That's kind my purpose.
Speaker 2:Gosh, what an incredible purpose. Yeah. Thank you so much for this conversation. I absolutely found it fascinating, super interesting. And it's given me loads of food for thought as well. So thank you so much.
Speaker 3:You're welcome. Thanks so much for having me. It's been lovely to talk to you.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for listening to the good intentions podcast. You can find links to issues and to books that we discussed in the show notes. And you can look for the podcast on Instagram. It's good intentions, UAE. Please do make sure you subscribe to the podcast. And if you enjoyed this conversation, I'd so appreciate a review on whatever platform you're using. It helps more people find out about the podcast. See you next time.