Welcome to The Crucible, Conversations for the Curious.
I am Hamish, your host.
This podcast is for anyone going through awakenings, trying to make sense of life.
Whether dark nights are the soul, needing to make life -changing decisions, struggling with addiction or critical illness, or simply realizing that their life as they know it is
not aligned to values and purpose.
You are not alone.
You can get through this, promise you.
Life is far more beautiful on the other side.
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of The Crucible Conversations for the Curious.
Today we've got Robin with us.
Robin and I met in a networking community a few weeks ago and she's got a really fascinating story.
She wasn't always in love with her body.
There was this time when there was a kind of disconnect and a bit of a tussle let's call it.
So Robin thank you so much for turning up today for us.
It's great to be here Hamish, thank you.
And can you please tell us a bit about this this tussle you had with your body over the years?
Absolutely.
I got to a place where I was really at odds with my body.
I didn't like it.
I felt it was letting me down.
I felt it was full of pain and discomfort and I felt there was nothing I could do to change it.
I felt stuck and yeah it was a really uncomfortable place to be physically, emotionally, all sorts.
But I...
was trying the usual things.
I went to the doctor and got put on medication.
I was sent for counselling and they weren't working for me and it was only fairly recently looking back that I realised they weren't working for me because I felt more disempowered.
I realize now that what I was looking for was something that would help me to feel empowered, that would help me to feel I had the tools that no matter what life threw at
me, because it's always throwing us curve balls and always shaking things up a little bit, that whatever happened, I would have the tools to draw on.
Because I had a sense that
They talk about you have your resources, all that you need within you.
At that time I didn't feel I had, but at the same time I think there was something deep within me that was kind of giving me that nudge and saying, you do, you need to find them.
Because unless you do, you're gonna be so dependent on external things.
And those things aren't always gonna be there in the way that maybe you want them to be there or you think you want them to be there.
That nudging, I guess, just led me to go on a journey and to find out what are my resources?
How can I develop my toolkit?
And through that and through my learning and my reading, realized that I was disconnected from my sense of self, my love of self.
And going further on that journey, reconnecting with that and now just finding joy in every single day.
I think that's fascinating.
think many people will relate to having that disconnect with their own body.
How did that feel?
How did that make sense or not make sense that you were not connected to it?
You didn't understand?
Talk me through what you felt and didn't feel.
I didn't feel at ease at all.
And I think now people might say things like just living constantly in survival mode, constantly in fight or flight, constantly in stress and anxiety.
And it's over time led to physical symptoms.
So like I said, aches and pains.
I actually eventually got diagnosed with ME, myelgic encephalomyelitis.
So people may know that as just exhaustion.
no energy whatsoever, no sense of enthusiasm or motivation or vitality.
I developed a lot of allergies, food allergies, went on to develop eczema as well and hay fever.
And so yeah, just had aches, pains in my joints and my muscles.
had brain fog.
I had headaches.
I had migraines.
So lots of, they weren't...
big diagnoses but little niggly things that I just couldn't shift that were making day to day life really horrible.
Really a struggle.
I think that's fascinating.
And what's even more interesting is the fact that, you go to seek help and that action of seeking help is actually disempowering even more, isn't it?
I mean, that's kind of bonkers, isn't it?
We want to go and get help, but yeah.
So talk me through that logic of I need help because sometimes it's really important to help or ask for help.
But there was obviously, there was even more another layers in there as well.
Absolutely, and I needed to reach out and ask for help.
people, if they know about ME, they may have heard it described as, you know, people who are high achievers or very intelligent or who work really hard.
They tend to be the ones who get ME because we're in that push, push, push, fight or flight, survival mode a lot of the time.
So when you're somebody like that to reach out and ask for help is challenging because quite often we feel I have to be independent.
And I, you know, what we've already talked about, I wanted to be independent.
So there is an element of being able to reach out and ask for help.
And there's an element of being able to release that independence in order in a sense to get it back.
So yes, it was very important that I did reach out and ask for help, but at the same, and the help that I was getting, what was offered to me also made me realize this isn't what I
wanted.
So.
It was an important step for me, even though it didn't do what I wanted it to do.
I guess in a way it kind of did because it revealed what it led me to a path that got me to where I am now.
So I never, you know, people talk about it was, it failed.
It didn't work.
It was wrong.
And I would say, really?
Maybe if you could just reframe that, maybe it wasn't wrong.
Maybe it was a step along the way that took you in a different direction because that didn't.
take the box for you.
But for me if I hadn't done that would I be here now?
Maybe I'd have come another route.
Could be, couldn't he?
There's more than one route to Rome.
Yeah.
I like that.
So it is, isn't it?
It's that ability to look back and say, well, that decision wasn't the right decision, but I learned from it.
I learned that that is not the right door, but going up to it, it's like, there's another one.
can go that way.
That's really cool, isn't it?
And then, so you realize that...
You were not going to get the support you wanted.
You weren't getting the answers you wanted.
So where did you go then?
How did you start looking for different answers, different solutions?
I'm a bookworm, so the next option for me was, you know, that door has shut, that door has shut, I don't know where else to go, what can I do?
I'll go and do some reading and I'll go and do some learning.
And also, the internet was just kind of coming into my life at that point, so I went on a nine month online study, which was a global study, it was run by a guy in America, but one
of my best friends I made through that course, she's in Australia.
So it was interesting because most of the people were, I think, from America, but the two of us kind of on other sides of the planet, but we really connected.
And it was all about how we think and how we look at things and how that can be a choice.
So there was that and there were various other people that I read and I love quotes.
So things like Wayne Dyers.
when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
That had a massive impact on me when I kind of meditated on it, sat and thought about it and it was like a light bulb.
So I have a choice.
So I have the power to change things just by changing my perception.
And then kind of, is that true?
Could that possibly be true?
How much is that true?
To what extent can I change things?
and going off and trying it for myself and finding, my goodness, it really does make a huge difference.
And Dr.
Bruce Lipton's, moment you change your perception is the moment you change the chemistry of your body.
Knowing that my symptoms were due to the chemistry of my body, due to what was going on inside of me, could I shift that as well?
Could I shift that by shifting my perception?
Well, Wayne Dyer told me that I could.
effectively.
So I've tried that as well and yeah.
And for me it was that it was small simple steps but taken consistently had massive changes.
Like my life is unrecognizable now compared to how it used to be and I didn't do anything massive and if I had tried it would I get overwhelmed.
So I would have just run away.
screaming in the opposite direction.
But the fact that they were kind of smart goals, they were small, they were measurable, they were achievable, they were realistic, and I could do them within a time frame.
And I can look back now and see how far I've come.
Which is so amazing.
It just blows my mind.
But if I can do that, anybody can do that.
It's not difficult.
very simple, it's just it's the consistency mostly that's sometimes challenging because we have to go against how we think.
Yep.
I think so too.
think Bruce Lipton is fascinating.
I saw him a couple of years ago and how he takes you on a journey from, from here to completely woo woo way out there and wacky.
And every single step makes perfect sense.
It's lifestyle, choices, decisions, all these things affect your, as you said, your neurochemistry and turn genes on and off.
it's woo woo, but it's also scientific.
And I love people who bring those two together.
Yeah, it's so important, isn't it?
Because there is seemingly a massive disconnect and yet, you know, the origin of science was magic and then it became science and it's sort of homogenizing and absolutely, yeah,
and then bring some consciousness in there and then it's just like, okay, what's going on guys?
Dr.
Joe Dispenza's Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself and if you're interested in how the mind impacts the body, impacts the mind, that's a great book.
He's an interesting one, he?
He rebuilt his back, didn't he, after a car crash, wasn't it?
I think he was taking part in something like a triathlon and he was doing the cycling element and he got hit by a truck and yes did some very serious damage to his spine.
That's right.
And then he just spent time visualizing, refixing his back and mending.
And now he's running around doing amazing stuff.
Yeah.
Quite an interesting human being.
So you've read quite an eclectic collection of science and I'm going to use the word woo woo because I can't think of another one.
And these people are bringing these things together just to say, hey, look, we are more than this.
Absolutely.
helped you make sense of your journey and make sense of what you're doing?
I think one of, there have been several ones that have been massively impactful, but in more recently, I think it would be Dr.
Gabor Mate and his work on trauma.
Because I think so many of us maybe don't realize exactly what trauma is and how it impacts us and that things that have happened in our lives have been.
possibly traumatic for us.
We wouldn't think of them as trauma because we sometimes think of trauma as the big things, 9 -11 or a car crash or losing a limb or a serious diagnosis and terminal
prognosis.
But trauma isn't, as Dr.
Gabor -Matti says, it's not what happens to you, it's how you respond to what happens to you.
And it can also be what didn't happen to you.
And Stephen Poor just talks about it as being a chronic disconnection.
And Gabor Mate says the worst disconnection, the biggest wound is that we disconnect from ourselves.
And going back to where we started this conversation, that's where I was.
I had to disconnected from myself.
Me and my body were not together.
We were fighting each other.
I didn't realize that my body was just doing what it's designed and programmed to do.
It was
trying to talk to me, was trying to tell me things, it was just sharing information.
But I was just, I don't want that.
It's uncomfortable, it's painful, you're not working for me, you're letting me down.
So yeah, we were totally misunderstanding each other.
It's an endemic problem, isn't it?
This lack of connection between whatever's sitting in here, your heart and your gut as well.
And yet they're all, you've got three brains all working together inside of this body.
And yet we just listen to one of them sometimes.
And a lot of people don't listen to that one.
But we are conditioned to do that through our education system, through our medical system.
We're taught to focus on just the head brain, to be analytical.
That's what it is to be a human being, isn't it?
That's what it is to be intelligent and etc.
etc.
Never mind the fact that the heart brain has more electromagnetic activity going on in it than the head brain and the gut brain sends more information to the head brain than the
head brain does to the gut brain.
And yet we still think that this little one up here is so much more than the others.
It kind of baffles me and as you were saying that I'm just going to play devil's advocate and what have you got in your gut?
You've got two or three hundred different bacteria so we're not even just a human.
There's countless bacteria in there so I that that's putting another spanner in the works because I know if you change that gut health you're going to change your physical health
as well so yeah it's
It's quite incredible, isn't it?
Well the bulk of our serotonin, our mood hormone, comes from our gut.
And you talk about the percentage that is, you know, other bacteria.
There's a book, One in Ten, which looks at the fact that this thing we think of as a body, one tenth of it is DNA, human.
The other 90 % is those microbes.
It's kind of mind blowing, isn't it?
it is in it and we fight about color, you know, I'm American, I'm Scottish.
No, you're bacteria mate, you're only a tiny bit of those things.
Okay.
these bacteria around.
Lovely.
Next time I meet a right winger to say no, you're not a white Aryan rich wealthy opinionated who hates blacks.
You are a bug.
Yeah.
You're a colony.
maybe I wrote that you're a colony, absolutely.
But seriously, we are mostly not our own DNA, aren't we, as you just said, or what we thought we were, okay.
exactly.
But none of us are what we really think we are, if you take that example of somebody who's very opinionated and has very strong political views.
And, you know, I'm of this color and this race and always have been kind of thing.
There was a great program on television once where they did the DNA testing and they sent it off and it came back and people who were very Aryan were related to people of a
culture that they wouldn't want to have anything to do with.
Because we are all such a mixture, in particular living in the UK, we have all sorts, all over the generations, the millennia.
That's absolutely fascinating.
So what would happen if we did really connect to our bodies then?
What would we learn?
It would be incredible, wouldn't it?
all of that wisdom that it holds for us, that is the resources that we have inside of us.
If we could really listen and draw on those, what might life actually be like?
It's such a mind -blowing question, great one for journaling or whatever.
What might my life look like if I listened to my body, if I let it tell me what's right for me and I made my choices from there?
from a place of feeling at home within myself, at peace within myself, comfortable in my own skin rather than from fear -based decisions, trauma -based decisions.
I think that's really intriguing because I was chatting with a friend the other day about feeling safe and how easy it is not to feel safe when we are looking at those fears,
looking at all of that kind of stuff.
And yet when we leave that behind us, and that's not easy, but when we do, just forget about it for a little bit.
And as you said, listen to this body, this vehicle that is carrying us around.
It knows what's happening.
It's got a pretty good idea.
Hmm.
Lots to think about.
Yeah.
So how do I begin to reconnect to my body?
What did you have to go through to start to feel or whatever?
me through how you reconnected.
I guess it's quite a lot of somatic stuff, so somatic of the body, not paying so much attention to what's going on in the head, becoming conscious of it, being able to take
that step back and be an observer of what's going on in my head, but also to bear in mind that there's a lot of stuff equally valid going on in my body and to be an observer of
that too.
and to listen, to acknowledge, to become aware of the fact that pain is information.
So if I'm feeling pain somewhere, I can actually ask that part of my body, what is that pain all about?
What is it holding for you?
And it might just be something as simple as, well, it feels tight.
Okay, so where do I feel restricted in that part of my body?
Or what does that part of my body do for me?
Where do I feel restricted in that, in my life?
because even just simple being very, very basic in those kind of questions.
And I did a lot of journaling around that as well.
it's amazing.
I used to sit down with my journal and think, I've got nothing to write today.
I'll probably just write about three lines, three pages later.
I'm thinking, what on earth just happened?
Where did that all come from?
No idea.
But reading back and then because of doing it for quite some time, I was able to read through.
and see where there were patterns or see where there were questions that I was pondering and exploring and how that was kind of opening things up for me.
So I think it was a combination of getting conscious.
So I did quite a bit with Eckhart Tolle, read a lot of his work, observing, doing my best to take any judgment out.
Because I think that relates to safety as well, that we feel so judged.
And we're afraid to, I was even afraid to write things.
Somebody might read what I wrote in my journal and then they might judge me.
And then they would think that I was crazy.
And all of that kind of stuff.
was, you know, jumping miles ahead.
I hadn't even put pen to paper yet.
So it's all of that stuff, which comes into that whole idea of safety.
Cause it's not just physical safety.
It's emotional safety and psychological safety.
And to have all of those in place.
doing as much as we can for that as well I think is huge in just starting this journey.
So that's something I write about in my book.
I've got a section on specifically just on safety because that's the place to start.
If we're not feeling safe it makes it very difficult even to take the first step.
Absolutely, yeah, I had a great conversation with a lady called Kate a few weeks ago and she said that once you feel safe, that's when you can start working, that's when you can
take that mask off, you can stop lying to people or lying to yourself, you can start trusting.
And it came across so eloquently that...
When you've got that safety around you, you can get curious.
And obviously that's what you were doing.
You were reading about your curiosity and listening and making sense of it and writing it down.
Or not.
Yeah.
And I completely understand that, you know, when we are guessing, second guessing might be what if, could be if, if, if, if, if we waste so much energy.
We waste so much time and energy on that noise and we're addicted to it as well though, aren't we?
That's the other problem.
are, and that's what the Joe Dispenza book that I was talking about earlier, he talks about how we are addicted to this stuff because we think it in our heads and then our body
gets used to it and we're then looking for confirmation of that and so we create or we filter to have more of those experiences because if we don't we feel unsettled and uneasy
and in that respect it is like an addiction.
But as Dr.
Gabor Mati says, don't ask why the addiction, ask why the pain.
What's driving that addiction?
What's driving that need?
Safety.
Wanting to feel connected.
Wanting to feel human.
Properly human.
To feel accepted.
To feel connected.
the very bit that we are breaking away from, the very bit that we are isolating from.
We're actually, we're sabotaging aren't we?
Because the opposite of addiction is connection, yet we deliberately separate from your body, from your loved ones, from your clients, from work, from whatever in that, in that
state.
that's, so you're, yeah, so you're following your tail, the snake chasing its tail.
How do you get out of that cycle?
Because it's,
Yeah.
For me, recently, it's been reading about the fact that when we're tiny infants, we have two absolute essential needs, attachment and authenticity.
But if our attachment is threatened by, or if we feel our attachment is threatened by our desire to be authentic, and you think of the little child who isn't maybe able to express
themselves verbally, so they might throw a tantrum, and then the parent or caregiver tells them off.
So, ooh, I can't express myself in that way because I want to maintain my attachment to my parent or caregiver.
So I push down my emotions.
And if that happens repeatedly, if the child learns that for me to express my authentic self in the only way that I can is actually going to threaten my attachment, if the parent
doesn't repair and say it's okay and we'll find ways to help you express yourself in more constructive ways or whatever.
then that child is going to shut down their authentic expression and going to learn that it's actually threatening.
It's because as well, our primitive brain just goes black, white life death.
There's no gray area.
There's no, well, I can express this bit and I'll just keep this bit for me and keep it inside, but make sure it's still able to do its thing.
It'll just go, no, I cannot be authentic.
If I want to still have
safety of any kind if I want to still be fed, clothed etc then I need to just do what my parent caregiver says to me that sets us up for that detachment
Yep.
and it then actually does feel life -threatening because that's how we've been programmed.
Yeah.
And then we live with that disconnection and we wonder why relationships don't work.
We wonder why we don't dare to be authentic.
And we, guess, build barriers and build masks and stories.
And we just keep on doing that until we break the cycle.
Because unfortunately, this is where our brains are programmed to work this way.
But they haven't got the memo that we're living in the 21st century now and there is no need for us to be in that level of fight or flight.
It's not serving us.
It did at one point and that's great.
It got us through that difficult, challenging time.
But we haven't yet learnt to write.
Now's the time to...
revisit this, these habits aren't serving us, how can we do it better?
And there's nothing, not nothing, but there's very little, at least I felt there was very little in my immediate environment that was saying, this is how you break that cycle, this
is what you can do for yourself instead, this is how to create healthier.
I had to go look for it.
It wasn't just offered to me when I went, help.
Yeah, that's yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
I was just trying to think because yeah, I didn't go looking for it.
I drank it.
I drank it out of the way and that worked for a while.
I guess like you, had eggs and yeah, we do.
But they don't always work.
You got sore.
I got drunk.
There's a kind of macabre humor there.
sorry, say again.
I'm the child of somebody who got drunk, so yeah.
And that was one that I guess it was an option, but I was like, I'm not going there because I'd seen the damage that that can do.
But we all have something.
So my dad drank, I did other stuff.
And it's being able to step back and see that's my addiction.
That's what I'm doing.
For me.
It's just, we may have a variety of kinds, but it's still doing the same thing for us.
We're still self -medicating about something.
So your journaling, your writing, your reading, that curiosity, that choice you made to self -empower, I think.
That's basically how we could phrase it, isn't it?
How did you keep that going?
Because I assume it was uncomfortable because it was initially unsafe.
Yes, and that's where I think the consistency can be a real challenge because I'm saying it's small simple steps and I think it was keeping the steps small but also the reading
that I was doing you know if you you they say that you become the five people you spend most time with so I was reading Eckhart Tolle and lots of other writers as well Caroline
Mice and various others.
Brene Brown has been a big one for me listening to Brene Brown reading Brene Brown and
just being inspired.
And I think any time that I felt low, any time I I can't do this anymore, I would read and therefore spend time with one of those people who lifts me up, inspires me.
And like reading Dr.
Joe Dispenza and you just think, my goodness, how did he fix his own back?
That's possible.
And it just gave me another little shot of, yeah, this is possible.
Maybe I can do it too.
Even though I look at those people and I think, my goodness, I will never reach their level in a million years.
But just even if I could have one hundredth or one thousandth of what they have, and why not?
We're just all human beings.
So I think it was that.
was coming back into that mindset, immersing myself in that mindset and feeling, yeah.
Inspired again.
think you've nailed it there isn't it it is you've you found something you wanted you've you said I want that and you've set yourself towards it you've gone that is really what I
want I'm gonna go for it and that that determination makes so much doesn't it I remember as a kid I wanted or the kid a teenager I wanted to get into the TV industry and I would
go down to London and back
down to London and back.
And eventually I got that job and it was worth all that stress and frustration and I never got to get a job.
And that was more important to me than anything.
And I think that's it, it?
When you find that thing that is really important to you, you put the effort in.
And there are so many stories out there about the number of famous people and that's what they've done.
They've just gone for it, gone for it.
Steve Jobs, lots of sports people who've been knocked back, knocked back, knocked back.
But they've just known that's what I want.
And they just won't take no for an answer.
And I think it's when you find that thing and that's whatever it is for you, because we're all individuals.
For me, it was, I don't want to live like this anymore.
I can't bear it.
it's this or I'm checking out.
You know, this has got to work for me or I'm not here anymore.
So having that just, no, I'm going to do it because it doesn't feel like there's another option.
So you were trusting your gut, you?
You were trusting that that vision was, I'm going to go for it.
I had to bring it back into the body because it's somatic.
And I think it was that little niggling voice again.
I don't think I had a clear sense up here.
I had a guidance from down here, from my gut, from my heart.
This is possible.
This is who you were born to be.
This is actually who you really are rather than what you think you are and how your life has gotten out of shape.
And you have
disconnected and lost that sense of your body knows, your body's talking to you, listen to your body.
Something in my body was still going this way, do this, listen to me.
Yeah.
And it gets more insistent, doesn't it?
And as you said, you get aches and pains, you get sick, you autoimmune diseases, you get cancer.
All these things are your body saying, hey, this ain't working.
Drinking, this ain't working.
You know, I was in that conflict.
because it wasn't working and yet I didn't know better until it was that time to make that change.
So they got too uncomfortable like you did, yeah.
Yeah, and I think along with that, the curiosity curiosity is a big one for me, but the compassion.
So you did it for a reason and you're not mad and you're not stupid and you're not rubbish.
Your body was actually just trying to keep you safe and it was doing a great job initially.
But that's not something that serves you over time.
So now you've got to this point where you realise it's no longer serving you.
Great!
It's just, okay, now's the time to make a change and choose a change that you want rather than choosing by default or ending up in another path that you're not really that keen is
not helping you.
It's just the op it's the option, it's the offer.
I think that's what disease often is.
It's that opportunity to think again, to choose another path.
Yeah.
I'm currently reading Robert Fritz, the path of least resistance.
And he says, you've always got choices, but you can make it.
You can, you can pick one for you, or you can just go for one or, you know, just eliminate them all.
And yeah, go for the one you want.
It is, it's so empowering, isn't it?
And you've taken away the shame.
You've, you've just said, Hey, what you were doing for X years, weeks, months.
That's what you were doing.
You were doing the best you could and now you'll be able to look at it from a slightly different direction and go, hmm, I can do it differently.
So there's no need to shame.
Just be aware and go right.
But yeah, taking out that shame because shame doesn't really serve a purpose.
And I loved what Gabor Mate again, I talk a lot about him, but he talks about guilt is feeling bad about something we've done.
Shame is about feeling bad about who we are.
And when you think about that, how awful is that to feel bad for being yourself?
And it works for, you know, if you want to control people, if it's, if you're trying to manipulate a certain outcome, shame is often used because people will behave in a certain
way if they're feeling shame.
But if we empower ourselves and can release that shame, how much more could we be?
Because we're not feeling restricted, we're not
shutting ourselves down in any way we're able to stand tall in who we really are and not worry about what other people think about us.
And there's been other stuff that I've read over the years about how amazing we actually are.
I read something once about how we are made from stardust, you know, if you think about the Big Bang and there's all that stardust out there and it all came together and formed
planets and asteroids and all of these things.
And then down the generations how different genes and so on were selected.
But also if you think about how many embryos are fertilized or not fertilized even, so they don't go any further, ones that are fertilized that don't make it.
And yet those of us who are here living this life, we made it despite all the odds and that we were designed to make it and designed to bring our unique
gifts and whatever to the world.
So I love Marianne Williamson as well, her quote about, it's not our shadow we're afraid of, it's our light.
Because then we've got to stand up and own it.
But our playing small doesn't serve anyone.
Whereas standing up in our truth, shining our light, serves those around us, serves us, and gives everybody else permission to do the same.
Super powerful, yeah.
reading that along my journey just blew my mind and just thought, wow, if that's true, what could that mean for me?
It is, isn't it?
It's empowering.
I think, I don't think, I know giving ourselves permission to be ourselves is so magical because then we are not, we're not carrying on the addictive father.
We're not carrying on that trauma.
We're not carrying on the abusive relationship.
We're not carrying all that stuff.
are, we're actually being who we know we are.
And yes, society doesn't like that.
Schools don't like that.
We're not designed to think for ourselves.
We're designed to be the next person pushing that button and feeding the treadmill.
But when we do that for ourselves, we set ourselves free and we help other people to start believing in themselves.
And also I think in terms of that we're afraid of our light.
I think to take the pressure off, we don't have to be perfect.
If we can just be conscious and if we're making a mistake, that's okay.
Be compassionate and learn from that and make a different choice next time.
Hopefully a better one.
But we're perfectly imperfect or imperfectly perfect.
And that's enough.
We don't have to get it right all the time.
And I loved a thing I learned a while ago, that if you make a choice and you discover this isn't going quite how I'd hoped it would, plot twist, go in a different direction.
We're never stuck with a decision we've made.
We can always make another one.
Yeah, there might be consequences.
There might be a of fallout.
You've learned something.
Yeah.
I'm not very fond of my journey into alcohol and out the other side, but I learned something from it.
And it certainly brought me to who I am today with a bit more compassion.
And I don't think the person sleeping under the bus station with a needle in his arm is a horrible person.
He's just had some crappy time.
Yeah.
You know, I see that.
stigma must not exist for the alcoholic, for the drunk, even though society sort of looks down on people.
And also if you look at some of the most amazing inspirational characters, they've been to some of the worst places.
Emotionally, cognitively.
So I think it does, it teaches us compassion.
When we feel what we feel like is our rock bottom.
And then we can reach out to others, we can connect on that human level, and also we can say to others, you're okay.
Yeah.
Don't stigmatise yourself, don't label yourself, don't be ashamed.
We've all got our stuff.
That's what makes us human.
It's fine.
The thief of life is comparison isn't it?
It really, it really is comparing yourself with somebody else who's got a different story, different experiences, more money or less money, better looking or worse looking or the
filter on TikTok.
Yes.
I don't know.
Yes, exactly.
It's not very helpful, is it, really, in many ways?
Yeah.
I think it's like anything.
Social media just is social media.
It's how we use it and how we interact with it.
But unfortunately we're doing that from a fear -based, trauma -based place.
If we could get more conscious on how we interact with it and what it's doing to, for us.
And using it from that place of, I'm aware of what this is doing.
I'm aware and conscious of the choices in my using it.
I think...
would be better for it.
I get some great inspiration from it.
I'll flick stuff on at three in the morning when I can't sleep.
that's a good idea.
it is isn't it?
yeah intentionality comes back down to that as well doesn't it?
us.
Okay, so someone is disconnected with their body.
I mean, you've touched on journaling and things like that.
What would be some really simple tips that they would start to see some changes quite quickly?
I know that's a crazy ask because we all want things quickly, what...
I'm going to start that again.
Okay, so we've got a couple of listeners who...
are not feeling connected to their body and they know something isn't right.
What could you suggest to them, differently to what the journaling and things like that, that they will start to see some results just to get that sense of achievement and go, I
am going down the right path.
There's a lot of stuff, anything that works the body.
I start quite often by encouraging people to do a body scan because then we can notice what's going on in our body.
We can be that observer of what's going on in our body.
And I think in terms of a body vocabulary.
So how does my body show me?
There'll be similarities, but we all also have our unique ways of how our body shows us what feels good and what doesn't feel so good.
And when we get
That set of vocabulary for this feels good, right?
This is where I want to be.
How do I get myself to here versus what doesn't feel good, right?
Okay, I'm noticing that I'm starting to drift into that.
How can I support myself to drift more over to what feels good?
And we are designed to be able to go between those two states.
It changes our heart rate variability.
And when our heart rate variability is good, so sometimes it's high, sometimes it's low, it's not constantly high or constantly low, but being able to go between those two is
really good.
And we get that literacy, emotional literacy of, know what I feel like when I don't feel good.
So when I start to notice that I take action, I can catch it earlier and earlier and earlier.
The earlier I catch it, the less distance I've gone away from.
where I want to be balanced and well -being.
But also things like qigong, tai chi, yoga, and finding the practice that's right for the individual, because different people, are so many different types of yoga.
What feels good for you, but using your body, dance as well is another great one.
Using your body and feel how it feels when it feels good and you're listening to it, because yoga is all about discipline and practice.
any of those kind of Eastern body disciplines are really good for that.
Something like that.
even you know walking, getting outdoors in nature and just spending that time developing that sense of safety in movement and safety in expression with your body and just
noticing, just observing.
All of those things I think it's a good foundation for developing that further.
And it does work quite quickly, doesn't it?
You do start to feel, you do start to notice things.
It's like, I've got that pain in my neck.
What is it?
And yeah, I I spend a lot of time out in nature and I find it really, really helpful and breathing and slowing down.
And it does make me feel better.
really does.
Simple, few simple things.
I've got a great exercise that I learned and I've shared on my YouTube channel, which is, you know, get lots of different breathing exercises, but in terms of the coming back into
your body and the groundingness and centeringness of that, it's just to trace around the hand.
And every time you go up, you breathe in.
And when you come down, you breathe out and you can do it at whatever pace because the more we can slow our breath and deepen our breath.
And because it's tactile, it brings us back into our body, helps to ground us and centre us.
And when we do that, we get greater clarity of thought because we're not in that buzzing hamster wheel of, I've to do, I've got to do, I've got to do.
It just brings us into the present moment.
I love that.
think that is fantastic.
can see myself walking down, walking around the woods doing that.
That is a great one.
is definitely, I'll make sure that gets highlighted in the show notes for that.
Yeah.
Robin, that's brilliant.
Thank you.
You've shared some lovely stuff with us.
I think that's that enthusiasm and...
that importance of just beginning to feel your body and reconnect with it because it's powerful, isn't it?
It's really, really powerful.
And the more we listen and respond, the more our body realizes that we're listening and responding.
And it will start to work with us.
So from where I was in a place where just pushing against each other, just starting to listen, then it doesn't need to shout.
So the pain will dial down, discomforts will dial down and it will start doing the body vocabulary.
We'll get clearer on what it's saying.
It will
start speaking with us more, sharing more with us, we'll be able to know how to respond and it all just becomes a really positive cycle.
Cool, okay, so what is your relationship with your body now then?
Explain from the before to what it's like now.
I live in the country and I have horses and a dog.
So nowadays I'm out walking a lot and moving a lot and I just notice how easy my body is these days.
Whereas before it was stiff and painful and now my joints just move.
You know, they just feel like somebody's lubricated them and
They feel easy and I love to feel all the things that my body can do for me rather than how I always felt it was doing things against me or it wouldn't do what I wanted to do.
And I used to have food intolerances and stuff and now I just, right, body, what do you feel you want today?
Okay, let's have that then and let's enjoy it.
So I'm very big about getting curious, about bringing joy in, because joy is a choice.
And sometimes we might not be able to see that and work with that, but it gets to being a choice.
So I've got to that point now where I choose when I feel happy.
And if I find I'm not feeling particularly joyful, I stop myself and say, right now, where's my joy?
there it is.
The light bulb has just come on.
So I think that it's that kind of thing.
It's being able to have fun.
play with my what I can do and how my body can move and all the things that it allows me to do and to experience and then bringing in joy and my wild acronym the last one of those
is dance so it's just seeing life as a dance so sometimes I actually dance but sometimes it's just that feeling inside of me where something is dancing doing a little happy dance
Brilliant.
Tell me about this wild.
What is this?
This was something that I developed through my journey and because I work very strongly with the wisdom of nature, ties in nicely, and we kind of touched before we came live on
how life can get messy.
I live in the countryside and particularly over the summer we've just had, we've had a lot of water, rain, and the temperatures have been mild -ish.
So things have just gone crazy.
We have brambles that seem to grow six foot overnight and they just entangle and they trip you up.
And life can be a bit like that.
Sometimes you feel like something just trips you up out of nowhere.
So it can feel messy.
But for me, it's when we shift our perception, when we remember that quote from Wayne Dyer, when we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change, then
we get to be conscious and have the right intention and then life is less likely to trip us up or we can maneuver, can, or sorry, we can manage that and find out the best way to
work with that as well and to allow a certain amount of it because that's fine.
Life just is like that.
It colors outside of the lines.
If it was
boring and regimented it wouldn't be half so much fun.
So just laugh with it, plot twist and enjoy.
So the different parts of the acronym are to see life with wonder.
As adults we get cynical and jaded and weighed down by worries versus just seeing it with the eyes of a child.
You know that why why why is the sky blue what's a rainbow and they're just
reaching out and grabbing all of the knowledge and the experience they can and I think that's kind of why we're here.
That's what life is about.
Getting every little nuance of experience, whatever that experience might be.
We are the ones who put meaning on it and label it as good or bad, right or wrong.
It just is.
So that's wild.
Wonder.
I is intuition.
whole listen to your heart, listen to your gut, let your body guide you.
It's your compass, it's your sat nav.
It's like the lane assist in your car.
If you're feeling discomfort, it's just the alert that you've drifted.
Come back to your true nature.
Come back into your own lane.
You'll be fine.
L is love yourself, as you are, and as you are not, that whole comparison thing.
You might not be this person on TikTok.
You might not be this superstar, but you're you, and you're the only you.
and you're the only one who can bring what you can bring to life.
And then D is dance.
Because we sometimes see life as one step forward and two steps back.
Whereas somebody said to me recently one step forward and ten steps back.
But if we saw that as a dance, then that's okay.
If I go one step this way and ten steps that way, it's no problem.
I just experience this and then I experience that.
So taking away that judgement, taking away that sense of right and wrong, good and bad, I'm a failure, I'm not good enough, we just are.
And it's all okay.
Yep.
I love that.
I love the whole idea of the not the virus were wrong, not the regimented, not the black and white, but it's a dance.
It's like, yeah, I'm over here.
That experience.
Didn't like that one.
That was all right.
That one's brilliant.
That one's good.
Yeah.
I love that.
Yeah.
It is a dance.
Fab.
Where can people find out more about you and what you do?
So my website is probably the central place and from there you can find me on my socials.
My website is equenergy .com.
E -Q -U -E -N -E -R -G -Y .com.
And then I'm also on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
Okay and we were talking before we went live about something you're recording and a book.
Tell us a little bit more about that.
Yes, so in July this year 2024 I published my book Take a Walk on the Wild Side.
So it's available currently paperback on Amazon and Waterstones and it's also available from my website.
There's also a Kindle version on Amazon but a lot of people are saying they want audiobooks these days because they're out and about or for whatever reason
So I am recording the audiobook and working my way through editing it.
And it's all myself doing this, so I'm just fitting it in and around everything else in my life.
So it'll be a while, but it should be well before Christmas, I'm hoping.
I've set myself that intention.
Brilliant.
Thank you very much for that.
Well, I'm looking forward to the audio book and I'll get that before Christmas.
Yeah, that's my intention as well.
Lovely.
Robin, thank you so much for this.
And yeah, one last question.
What is your superpower that you have got from getting your body back?
I think empowerment.
It's what we've kind of been talking about throughout our conversation today, how we can empower ourselves.
And I think that's what I really want to share as well, that we all have this ability.
There's nothing special about me.
For every single one of us, our body is just wanting to share with us, wanting to empower us, wanting to say, we've got this.
It's just a matter of getting curious.
paying attention, being conscious.
Brilliant.
So important.
Yeah.
Well, Robin, thank you ever so much for today, for your time, your wisdom and those little gems.
And I am so taking with permission.
Plot twist as an excuse for things going not right or wrong as for things going.
Yeah.
Plot twist.
Yep.
Love it.
Yeah.
Thank you ever so much.
wasn't mine to start with, so you're most welcome.
Well, I really appreciate your time today.
So thank you ever so much
Thank you Hamish, it's been wonderful to chat with you and to share a little bit about this.
My passion.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Crucible: Conversations for the Curious.
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