Episode One- My Story

Triumph through Trials - Episode 1

In the premiere episode of 'The Business of Lifestyle' podcast, host Lauren Riley broadcasts from Barbados, sharing her deeply personal and transformative journey over recent years. 

00:00 Introduction and Podcast Overview

00:59 Lauren's Background and Entrepreneurial Journey

03:16 Personal Challenges and Mental Health

06:28 Motherhood and Health Struggles

08:54 Daughter's Diagnosis and Aftermath

17:21 Solo Parenthood and Business Challenges

28:34 Financial Struggles and Housing Issues

35:22 Healing and Personal Growth

43:19 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Lauren, an entrepreneur and coach, opens up about overcoming significant life challenges, including her daughter's serious medical condition, struggles with mental health, postpartum complications, and the end of her relationship. She candidly discusses her experiences of anxiety, ADHD, PTSD, OCD and navigating business setbacks. This is only a small part of a much longer story but it is hoped sharing is helpful and inspiring. Despite these adversities, Lauren emphasizes the importance of resilience, healing, and how her journey has equipped her to coach and inspire others. 

• This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, health or professional advice.
• We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast.
• This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice.
• The content is provided as-is with no guarantees of accuracy, completeness, or timeliness.
• Listener discretion is advised. This episode contains explicit content that may trigger some listeners and it may not be suitable for all audiences.
• The views expressed in this podcast are opinions only and may not be those of the host or the management.

Join Lauren as she reveals how she's turned her trials into a path of personal growth and empowerment, aiming to offer valuable insights and support to her listeners.

Transcript

Speaker 0:08

Hello guys and welcome to this, what is the first ever podcast recording that I have done. For those of you with the benefit of watching this, Uh, you will see that I am not in my usual location, um, this is being filmed in the beautiful and tropical island of Barbados. I actually really wanted to film the first episode of this podcast in England because I have a beautiful country cottage and it kind of epitomises a lot of my life and my lifestyle.

0:43

But anybody that's following me on Instagram Periodically anyway, so hopefully some future episodes will come from there. But right now let's get straight into it from Barbados, which hopefully you'll agree is no bad view. So this podcast is really exciting to me. At the moment we've got a working title of the business of life by Lauren Riley and I have been talking a little bit about it on social media, on Instagram, if you're not following me on there, my handle is@MissLaurenRiley, but I've never actually told my story, what's happened to me in recent years, and I think it's super, super relevant to a lot of people who have experienced Some of the things I'm going to talk about. And if you haven't, then, there is wisdom in the healing journey that I've been on in improving wellness in general and mental health. And the reason I'm going with the working title of the business of life is because, I firmly believe that my 10 plus years as an entrepreneur has really helped me. Me personally, to overcome some significant challenges and there are lots of transferable skills from business and transferable lessons between the two. Yes, I will talk about business and yes, I'm really very much focused and very much known in business circles and that's what a lot of the time people will lead with when talking about me. But this particular episode, I want to talk about my life and some of the places. That I have been and challenges that I've overcome. It does come with a trigger warning because there are some quite heavy topics, that we'll cover. But, overall, resoundingly, you know, This is a happy story this is a story about how I've taken some of the most challenging times. And I've turned them into not necessarily a positive, but certainly I've turned them into a learning experience, a healing journey, and I've come out of the other side of it with so many lessons. That I suppose is a bit of an exclusive for the podcast is that is actually what I am currently doing is coaching other women through challenges, but on a spectrum, a fusion basically between business and lifestyle. But to understand why I've made that decision, you kind of have to understand where I've been. let me dig into that. Really brief history because probably a lot of you have been following me for a little while, but I suppose fairly standard, childhood, grew up in the UK, only child, there's a bit of, childhood trauma stuff to dig through when we go a bit later into the episode, but predominantly, although grew up in a working class family, a privileged existence in terms of, all my needs met. I went, so I grew up in the northwest of England. I am a qualified solicitor, so I'm a family law solicitor by background. So I'm a lawyer. Though I haven't practiced for a long, long time, but I think it's kind of relevant to some of the commercial experience I've bring to what I do. I was nearly 10 years ago now, but I was on BBC The Apprentice. So, I think I made it to week seven of 10. And that gave me, quite a nice little platform, quite a fun little existence. I moved to London at the time, you would have caught me around a few celebrity parties and things like that, which was, super good fun. It's like a million miles away from the person I am now, and you'll rarely, if ever, hear me talking about that experience, just because it's not the most interesting thing about me by quite a significant margin. I don't really talk about my time on reality TV, but I know a few people found me because of that. And then I founded a tech startup, um, after being a lawyer and that's really what I've been up to for a predominant, period of my life. I've been really lucky to be coached in business by some of the best minds in, business and technology. I went over to Silicon Valley in America. And yeah, so that was, super, super beneficial for me. my career was a bit of a portfolio, as well, because I do, some board work, for businesses and I had a public speaking career until the pandemic. I haven't actually done very much, along a lot of the networking and out there side of things since the pandemic. But yeah, I had a whole public speaking career where I would speak, you know, predominantly in the UK, but also did a bit of international speaking as well. So that's as much as I'm going to talk about the past, I'm going to invite people, you know, because I'm going to be covering at a very high level now. Lots of topics, lots of things that have happened to me in the recent past. And you know, I'm gonna be doing this much of a topic that is absolutely huge. I will organically cover a lot more on them anyway. But if anything is resonating to you and you are looking at this on Instagram or on YouTube, please do comment. The topics that you'd like me to just to discuss first because of things that you think will be the most helpful because I'll try and do them in an order that's the most relevant to my audience effectively. So please do comment along and let me know, what would be helpful. But, yeah, this is going to be a high level on pretty much most of them, I guess. So if you go back to, um, the pandemic, I suppose, um, which was a tough time for everybody, so I won't drill too much into that. Um, you know, I, there was some grief in there for me, and a lot of upheaval. I did actually move to this beautiful island, which was resoundingly positive, and I moved back to the UK actually to, conceive my daughter, because we wanted to, have a baby. So I was really fortunate to, fall pregnant. And that's, I suppose, when a lot of this changed and when I came off social media to a large degree. I had quite a lot of physical health complaints when carrying my daughter. by the end of it, I couldn't walk, which was really quite challenging just of itself for the obvious reasons. But moreover, when you look at some of the journey I've got with, one of the topics I'm going to talk about, ADHD, I had built a life where I had coping mechanisms in place that just kind of not all went out the window, but vast majority weren't accessible to me when I had poor physical health and poor mental health. so yeah, lots of physical complications, but, nothing that threatened the pregnancy, fortunately. But I also got anxiety during pregnancy. And at the time it didn't really make much sense, but now when you get to understand my journey, it will start to make a lot more sense. But that was really challenging. I also suffered from low moods, the hormonal rollercoaster, I suppose it's best described at, which is experienced by so many women, who have children. So that's where I started. I also put on 30 kilograms when I was pregnant. She was quite a big baby. So there was a chunk of that was her, That's half for context. That's just under half of my body weight. I put on in addition to what I started so that was Definitely a sign of some of the mental stuff as well as physical Things, but yeah, that was it was it was quite hard on my identity I'll talk more on another another time about it. But yeah, so that's where I started And When I had her, you know, it's such a blessing having a baby and I'm so, so grateful to have become a mother. I was a mum at 36 years old and it was not necessarily a given in my path. So I am resoundingly, resoundingly grateful for that opportunity and she is amazing. But our journey was not straightforward, um, at all. So shortly after she was born, it became really apparent that I was struggling with, what later will be gone to be described as, ADHD type symptoms. when you've got a new baby and you are postpartum, life is complicated, hormones are all over the place. I very quickly found out that those coping mechanisms like meditation, yoga, like intense exercise, I've been reliant on. to mask those neurodiversities were not available to me and that was really challenging. Um, and, but new motherhood was still a blessing and there was still lots of beauty in there despite the mental health challenges I was experiencing at the time. And then we get to about, well my daughter's about nine weeks old. So I told you how I had anxiety when I was carrying her, which is something I didn't, now I know a lot more about it, I probably had experienced it a little bit before, but it was, marginally part of my existence, certainly not, a major concern of mine or a major issue that I've been suffering with. But yeah, At nine weeks old, my daughter was diagnosed with a tumour and I'd always known, and I think that's what the source of the anxiety was, I'd always known that something was not, a hundred percent, in terms of I was never that relaxed around the pregnancy and the newborn baby. You know, even though we were going to the hospital for scans, and I was being told she was, you know, that it, it wasn't anything too serious. A part of me couldn't relax into that new motherhood. And, you know, it was hard. But, you know, ever the optimist, ever the, you know, everything's going to be, everything is going to be okay. You know, you. it'll be nothing, etc. Um, yeah. So we hadn't, we'd had a couple of scans, like I said, and, you know, so I, you know, it's going to be something small something like that. Um, because you could physically see the tumor on the outside of her body, it was on the base of her spine. And then we had an MRI when she was nine weeks old and I was in there and I'd managed to successfully, make sure she was, you know, Um, full of milk, she was breastfed at the time, and so she was just completely in that milk coma, so she didn't have to be sedated for the MRI. And I skipped out of that hospital, because I was like, oh, that's the biggest bit I've got to do. I was so traumatised, even by the idea of her having to be sedated. Um, but yeah, so we got, well, I got a call at 7pm that evening to tell me what they'd found on the MRI, and as soon as I saw the phone ringing, you know, I I knew that nobody in a hospital would work that late and give us the results that quickly without it being something, um, pretty serious. And, um, yeah, from that point onwards, for a good chunk of time, my life kind of, yeah, crumbled. Um, they knew what type of tumor it was, but they did not know whether it would be, um, cancerous or not. There's no way to find out until it was removed. And, um, tested. And I know this is emotional, and I know I gave a trigger warning at the start, and I know I'm upset. Clearly I'm upset. But honestly this is such progress, like being able to talk about this in the way that I am now, even though I will cry and I will get upset about it. is such significant steps for me because when this was happening I wasn't able to talk about it at all like I have not shared this publicly anywhere um and you know admiration to anybody that can go through an experience like this and also share it with the world because I couldn't even share it with like some of my closest friends I couldn't talk about it because it was so traumatic that it felt like if I talked about it it would be true. And I just, yeah, I just couldn't, I just couldn't go there. So, you know, whilst I did, you know, my closest friends and my family knew, and I was supported through it, it was, you know, without doubt an incredibly, incredibly challenging time. Um, and, you know, I will talk about this of itself in its own post, but just to keep things at a high level, you know, The tumor was the size of a tangerine. So for a newborn baby, that's a significant size. As I said, they did not know whether it would be a benign tumor or it would be cancerous. Um, she was so tiny. I mean, she, she was bigger than the average baby. Um, um, she was born quite, um, big, but, um, she's still, you know, she's a newborn baby. I was still in, You know, the absolute throes of postpartum chaos, just learning how to be a parent. I was still breastfeeding. You know, things were still very chaotic, very new to us. And yeah, it was, it was the hardest time I could ever imagine to go through because, um, the surgery was, was risk of life. It was, it was really serious. major surgery to do. Um, she was 11 weeks old when they operated. Um, and they did, you know, obviously they didn't find it straight away and they should have found it when I was pregnant. They didn't. but when they did know what it was, um, she was treated very swiftly, you know, really, um, You know, we're really grateful to the people that, that helped to, um, pull that operation and what was, you know, it's obviously a significant piece of, medical intervention together. So, yeah, so that was at 11 weeks old, um, she had the operation, um, It didn't, it, it, she is fine. That's the overall, an overarching, um, thing that everybody needs to know. She's absolutely fine and she's a wonderful little girl. She's amazing. Um, it didn't go completely straightforward even on, on the day. There was times where she wasn't coming around from the anaesthetic and things like that, that were just, you know, beyond, beyond traumatic. Um, you know, she needed to have extra scans to see whether there was damage sustained to, um, her head. As a result of the anesthesia and things like that. So, you know, for a small amount of time we lived on the, um, uh, high dependency unit. Um, um, and yeah, I think everything going forward in life after that will be benchmarked by that level of Anxiety, that level of trauma, that level of fear, but real fear. Um, but she had the operation, she recovered from it eventually, she recovered from it amazingly well. She has no complications that we can detect at the age that she is. She will be monitored for her whole, her whole childhood. But she is doing fantastically well and. Yeah, that's what you need to know out of that story. But as a result of that, I was diagnosed with PTSD. I suffered hugely with anxiety. I, um, was so, so grateful that she survived the operation. But, um, yeah, it was a real challenge thereafter for me to, um, You just put one foot in front of the other in normal parenthood whilst dealing with that, you know, the, the mental health ramifications of that. Then we fast forward what was only actually a matter of months and the father of my child left. I imagine that no matter what the circumstances of that, it's pretty hard to deal with. It's pretty challenging to become a solo parent anyway. for me, it kind of happened overnight. We went from being a relatively tight family unit. To, him going away with his mates for the weekend and just not coming home. that suddenly plunged me into not just single parenthood, where we had a co parenting relationship, but solo parenthood, where it was just me. I was the only person doing all of the childcare, the nursery pick ups, all of the finances for the family. All of, absolutely everything. cooking every meal, etc. And, whilst I was still on my own journey, that was it. It was hard to go from a place where you're thriving and, you know, life is good, to, you know, I was in poor physical health. And I put on quite a bit of weight at the time. I was overcoming a number of my own challenges. And to then have a little person who's just completely and solely dependent upon you, whilst you're overcoming your own challenges, and you'll climb back up that, what can be an unfortunately quite slippery slope, was really it was hard and you know what it was unfair like we don't talk about it enough as like new parents and in that postpartum period you know the support that you receive from people and I absolutely did by the way is just so precious and just something to be so so grateful for um and anybody that adds challenge to that period um is the opposite So, and I don't think also we don't talk about enough the guilt that we experience as parents, I suspect particularly mothers, where you envisage something for your child, you go on a journey and you create a life. hoping that this is going to be, I was going to say a fairy tale, but I don't think that's actually fair. Um, or just, you know, something that you didn't have yourself. So for example, my parents got divorced when I was still a child and I was really hoping for that 2. 4 children white picket fence experience for my kids. Unfortunately, that's not what I was able to deliver. And I know that's circumstances outside of my control. But it's still, you know, we feel mum guilt for all sorts of things that we shouldn't do. And this was one particular instance, and you grieve the loss of that family. that you thought you were going to have at the time. And it's sad and it's challenging. And I know that's something that so many people resonate with, whether they became single parents that are co parenting now or, you know, solo parents or anything in between. I know it's challenging for everybody. And I know that that that guilt and that sadness stays with people for quite a long time. So, onto another topic, was I went through, what could be described as a business failure in the depth of what I've just described to you. I had a plan in place for the business because it's something that I've run for a long time and I had put provisions in there to make sure that the business was well cared for even in a short period of time that I was going to be off. So I decided to only have three months maternity leave which by UK standards is actually a really short amount of time. But the reason that I've done that is because, you know my family's finances depended on the success of that business. And also it was very much intrinsic to my identity. And, I really enjoyed what I did. so I had planned only a small amount of time out of the business and it became really apparent really early on that I wasn't even going to get that. week, about only a week in, I was already dragged into meetings. At the time it did feel unfair, but it was something that I did because I care deeply about the business and its success. And in the period where my daughter was in hospital, that, two weeks actually I took off, bearing in mind it should have been a three month period. One week was because, We didn't, you know, we didn't know the outcome of the operation and that might've been the time that we had with her. So I took a week off before operation and a week off afterwards and somebody known well, to the business and to me had made a commitment in advance of that, for further support, which during that period was withdrawn. I came back to work after that two weeks to an email to say that they questioned the commitment to the business. And at the time, that was particularly hard to take because even though I know it's a commercial decision and I know it's purely a business decision, it's hard, or it was hard for me to take away the humanity of that and it really led me to question a lot of things, if I'm honest. Because I am a huge advocate of mental health and well being and I was far before this. I've been talking about it for many, many years and we should be able to take annual leave. Even if you have a really important role to a company or you're the CEO or you're the founder, you should still be able to take time off and you need to take time off. You need to take it off for yourself. You need to take it off for the good of that business. Because if you're not functioning optimally, neither will you be doing your role optimally. It really made me question what was this all for? If you cannot be there for your family in the times of absolute need. but, ever the optimist, I know that that series of incidents and those things that happened to me and the burnout that probably inevitably resulted from pushing through when I was physically and mentally exhausted as a brand new mum. It means that I advocate for women not to go through what I did, whether they are entrepreneurs, whether they're founders, whether they are in employment. There are lifestyle choices that we make and that is a really positive thing that I am now making sure that I am part of the change and I'm supporting other women to get the balance that I did not receive at the time. so yeah, I mean there's that whole sunk cost fallacy, that I'm sure you're familiar with whereby whether it's a relationship, whether it's a business, whether it's pretty much anything in life, once you've spent so long trying to achieve that thing or investing in it effectively, can you then pull yourself away from it because you think you deserve an outcome, or you've been promised either by yourself or by somebody else? an outcome that you've not yet received and continuing to devote energy and time into that feels like the right thing to do and a lot of us get stuck on that path and it's really brave to choose something else really brave and not that easy to do so yeah there is a whole piece of work and a whole other episode where we'll talk about that type of stuff. but switching up topics for the moment, so I think a lot of parents, well I don't think I know a lot of parents will experience this, and I did a piece of work in this period around, inner child work, and I think I'd heard it referenced on like, I don't know, some social media, um, post from a Kardashian or somebody, which, I don't actually follow them, so I'm not sure how I got to that. But the point is, it's not something I ever took particularly seriously. And I preface this discussion with the fact that I've got supportive parents, and I'm very lucky in some of the aspects and some of the support that I do receive. But when you become a parent, and again I think this is something that probably particularly affects mothers, you end up with some work to do around the needs that were met for you as a child and the needs that were not and that comes from a really pure place of wanting to show up as the best parent that you can and be the best mother that you can be and give all of this love but it leads to something that lots of people talk about in respect of reparenting and it's a concept that I hadn't come across and it's one for a future episode but I do know from just speaking to my own circle that, the inner child work and the reparenting is something that a lot of us have to face, and challenging in and of itself. And a lot of the stuff I've talked about on today's episode is, some of the stuff you'll resonate with, some of the stuff you won't at all. I pray that nobody's sitting here in the same position as I was on a lot of this stuff. But the, the way that I'm coaching women going forward is not just about challenge, it's not just about trauma. It's about showing and evidencing, my story, my journey, and how I have a path to transformation at whatever point in which I meet the people that I work with at the time and that's, you know, it's so, like I said at the start, it's overwhelmingly a positive journey and a positive message, but I do obviously talk about some of the stuff that I've been through to hopefully inspire people. And maybe if anybody is facing these challenges to know that there is most certainly light at the other side of this. So as a result of some of the stuff that I've already alluded to, I ended up in a really difficult financial position and that's really hard and again, I've talked about guilt and mum guilt and when you're not able to provide what you want for your child and what you'd envisaged, that's a really tough place to be and I don't think I'd really appreciated and I had enough gratitude for the journey that I'd been on before this part of my journey where, I was able to generate wealth in an extent that, I was really comfortable. And, you know, a lot of the pick me ups, a lot of the positive things I could do for myself when I wasn't feeling great, were predicated on having the finances to do that. And when you don't have that, that's an additional challenge on top of, the many layers of challenge that may already lie in somebody's life. So the finance side was tough. one thing that happened was, we lived in a house that was rented and it was the fourth house we'd lived in in two years. which is quite a lot of moving around for somebody that identifies as having an ADHD and neurodiversity. so that certainly didn't help. And one of the things we encountered was mould in a property. Now it wasn't, to be transparent, it wasn't mould absolutely everywhere. It was mould in an open area that came out into the common areas, but it was, and this was a property that, you know, the rent on was, was pretty significant. we just couldn't get the landlord to act on it effectively. that caused me so much distress because I was already, experiencing anxiety around my daughter's health. to not be able to bring her home to a space that I considered to be a safe space was really difficult, really difficult because even in your own home if you, you perceive a threat, that's really awful. And ultimately it led me to moving once more, to a much more positive circumstance, which I'll talk about on another episode, but to a beautiful spot. But at the time, again, another layer of, um, Just distressing circumstances that really, really didn't help. One of the things that I came to learn, partly through my own investigations, and partly through the therapy that I had, been the recipient of, was A relationship in my past actually, would be categorised, as narcissistic abuse. Now, that can span a whole remit, but, you know, legal, financial and emotional, are topics of themselves and really, really complex. And it was difficult for me to unpick that because I didn't identify as a victim and I much prefer, obviously, like when you use a terminology around like survivors, but to acknowledge what I went through, it was quite significant and there's a layer of PTSD called complex PTSD, which often, will be present in people who have been in these type of relationships. So that was a huge piece of work and very very difficult to understand the depth and the breadth of lies to wrap your head around a version of reality that is not your own. So, you know, gaslighting is very problematic to one's own perception of reality. my therapist would call it, cognitive dissonance, which is In, I'm not a therapist, so in very, um, lay person's terms, a disconnect between the reality that you're experiencing and the reality that you've been told and you believe is true. In those type of relationships, who you meet at the start, and who you fall for, and who is revealed at the end, you know, they're just not the same person, and it's really, really complicated to wrap your head around that, and to thrive during all of the unpicking of what comes with the discoveries and anybody that identifies as having ADHD will know how you can really deep dive into a topic. So I did a lot of work on that, a lot of research. and I did get my OCD diagnosis, which again is a very challenging condition to live with, particularly in the postpartum period. And for full transparency, when it comes to ADHD, because you will hear me talking about this, and you will hear me talking about how I identify as having ADHD. Like I want this to be like an honest space and in transparency I didn't actually get my diagnosis. So by the time I was in front of a, psychiatrist, the waiting list in the UK is very long to get a diagnosis here. they were a little bit woolier about my childhood stuff, but in terms of how I presented as an adult, you know, it was very clear that I did have the symptoms of ADHD, but because of the what they described as a level of trauma, involved. it was too hard to unpick effectively what was causing those symptoms, whether it was, complex PTSD or, ADHD. So I didn't get any help with that at the time, which certainly, um, was not, was not. great for me. However, you will hear me talking about ADHD and I do identify, I'm backed up by, a private therapist. I believe that that's something that I suffer with and whether or not it officially sits under that label, the symptoms are the same. So you'll hear me talk about ADHD and other related, comorbidities, I think they're called, like PMDD, and wow, there is so much to deep dive into on the other podcasts around that.

Speaker 3 35:22

Ultimately forgiveness for the version of myself that i was in that time period, and, honestly as much as I would never wish the set of circumstances that I've been through on anybody, like, on your worst enemy., with the exception of the impact it has on my daughter, I do actually have gratitude for it genuinely, at this point, my life is so much better for having gone through, like, All of this stuff, and I've not even got to the end of what is a pretty long list of significant things that happened to me in a very short period of time. But, I wouldn't have healed parts of me that needed healing. I wouldn't have done the deep and necessary work to get to the part of my life that I'm in now. Which is You know, nothing is perfect, and I'm not sitting here saying, Oh, my life is absolutely perfect, because it isn't. And I would challenge anybody who says that it is. But it's so much better. Not even better than when it was, like, bottom of the barrel lying in the floor, on the floor, in a heap Like, it's not even just better than that. It's better than it has ever been at any moment of my life. And I know that is a direct result of the traumas that I've been through and the healing that I've had to do to get to this version of me. And my God, like, was it worth it? In terms of, was it worth it to do the work? I mean, not to experience trauma, obviously anybody would avoid that at all costs, but to get to this part of my life, like, yeah. And I'm so passionate about helping people to get from where I was to I am now. And, like I said, at the beginning of this, you know, my specialism to all intents and purposes, you know, is business, but I have got so much experience with which to draw down and I tried so much like I experimented so heavily to get to where I am right now like there is probably not a healing methodology that I didn't take a stab at to see if it would make any difference so I've got like so much experience that I'm bringing to other people and I've helped other people and having these conversations like I'm not gonna lie like getting on a camera, getting in front of you guys and telling my story, you know, still brought up anxiety for me today, even though I would barely battle with it anymore, thank God, um, because it's telling my truth. It is being vulnerable to effectively, you know, my friends and family, I guess, will watch this to, you know, hardly anybody knows the truth about what I went through. I had. handful of amazing people in my life, like, and if I can give you a life hack, it is get those good girlfriends, get those friends, those people you can really rely on, that you can get on a video call and sob your heart out to when, you know, another episode another below that you don't think you can take. Um, now, and I want to be kind of honest as well because I don't want to paint too rosy a picture in so much as, you know, I would say that I parented without the traditional village. You know, I've got amazing, amazing friends. Uh, who were totally there for me, like, on voice notes and, you know, where they could. But some of them had their own battles, their own challenges, their own children. So, you know, they can't always show up in person. So the village, as in, to go and just, at the drop of a hat, pick up my daughter, because I wasn't feeling well, or, or any of that, you know. And I think it's important to say that because I think there are a lot of us parenting without a village and that it is challenging and you know I've got you know I'm really thankful both of my parents are still alive but my father doesn't live in the same country as me you know and my mum is has been super helpful but you know she's in her mid 70s and you know there are challenges in respect of that as well. I suppose a couple of more major things to talk about, you know, one of my friends was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer in the midst of all of this as well. So, um, I think there was a beauty in the fact that we were able to support each other through challenging times, but obviously, you know, that was, was, was really devastating to see. see her having to face that battle and I was obviously trying to support her in the absolute best way that I possibly could. Um, whilst obviously, facing my own challenges. Um, so yeah, that was, that, that was, um, was really tough to watch somebody that you love go through something like that as well. I also, became entangled in a number of litigations, which anybody that's ever been through litigation, it's a really horrible process to go through you know, every time I opened my mail, my emails, looked at my phone, I was just like, I was scared of what I was going to find because things were just piling on top of me. So when I say like, I was in. A challenging place, or a difficult place for so, so many reasons, like, I really, really, really was, and like I said, like, being able to work through that and come and sit in front of you today, and be in, you know, this absolutely stunning place again, and, be in the healed place. Healing's not linear, it's not a definitive destination. I'm playing with a crystal, one of the things I'll probably talk to you about, but um, yeah, the reason that, I guess I can sit here with confidence knowing that whatever you are going through, and I know it's all like, it's all very, very subjective, and you may, you may resonate with some of these challenges, your challenges may be completely different, or, you know, fortunately maybe you have none of these challenges, but you may want to build resilience into a future where if things happen, and they will happen, you know, we, none of us get You know, significant things happening to us, um, particularly at this age that I'm at now, like I'm in my 30s, but I'm about to go into my 40s. I feel like a lot of us face challenges in this time and having a toolkit to build resilience from, I hope is super helpful to people. Yeah, I want you to know that wherever you are in this journey, it does get better. Um, there are so many resources out there. A lot of things that I, you know, I paid for, a lot of things are free. I'm going to talk you through the things that I found the most helpful and that cut through the challenges that I had. Um, whether They're specific to you in terms of, you know, you resonate exactly with my postpartum story or not, or whether they are, you know, the mental health struggles, anxiety, low mood, etc. I'm not a therapist by any means, but I'm happy to share my story. I am about to be certified as a positive psychology coach as well, and that's the work that I'm doing and it lights me up. I like to help people. Um, in business and in lifestyle is something that I am, I'm absolutely loving and the feedback I'm getting in the early days is just, you know, phenomenal. And I'll, I suppose I'll end this here because I'm aware that I've been talking for a long time and I did want the message to be that, you know, wherever you're at on your journey, you know, it does get better. And this episode has been pretty heavy. I acknowledge that. And I understand. Um, anybody watching that might come away with a, you know, deep breath feeling, but I needed to get my story out there for people to understand when I go deep diving into some specific areas or some specific healing techniques or some specific, more specific stories, that this is, That is my story and I went through and yeah, know that it gets better and I think the overwhelming thing I now know that I didn't when I was going through all of this. And believe me, like, I helped myself, like, in terms of, you know, I went to therapy. I went to therapy week in, week out, you know, I listened to the podcasts, I listened to the audio, you know, my nutrition, my fitness, all of the stuff, you know, at one point I was doing, and I'm not. Hailing myself out to be some, you know, incredible superhuman, but I tried really, really hard to get myself out of where I was, and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't, but overwhelmingly the feeling I got at the time was it wasn't working. I was like, this is, it's not helping, none of this is helping, and I, it induced panic in me because I was like, how can I be trying this hard and doing this many things and it's not working. And if that is you, if you're trying these things, and I guess you are because you're listening to this podcast, you're reaching out or you're benefiting from people who have walked the path before you, and that is a step to healing. It's a step in the right direction. Um, but what I know now that I didn't know then, um, and please hear me when I say this it is helping. Even if it's a fractional, even if it's half a percent, even if it's a tiny step forward, all progress counts and you will get to a point if you keep on this journey where it suddenly, well for me, I can't say that for you, but for me it was very, it was pretty sudden. I was going nowhere, going nowhere, going nowhere and actually the fog had cleared. Now, I had been benefiting in the background from all of that. All of the techniques, which I've, I've just talked about like a tiny amount of the things that I tried and the things that I'll recommend over the course of these podcasts, but it was working, but I just couldn't see. I couldn't see through the fog. Um, so if you do have even one positive habit, please keep going on it. Habits do add up to real change in your life and you know, I'm wishing you so much luck on your journey. This is the first podcast. And like I said, you know, it feels. really quite, I guess, scary to stand in my truth and to be sharing my journey. And I'm so grateful to, you know, even when I sort of mentioned a little bit, I did certainly didn't tell people what I've been through, but I started to talk about that. I was going to share my journey and I had so many people reach out to me and I really appreciated all, all of that support. Yeah, I just think you guys are amazing. Anybody that supported me through this journey, that knows me personally, or that's just even liked a post, or commented, or will share this, that they think there are other people out there that hearing my story might help, then, you know, please feel free to share this along, and, um, you know, subscribe to the podcast. And, and the YouTube channel and, and listen to the story as it unfolds. And hopefully what will be really valuable wisdom in there for you guys too. And thank you for listening to what is the very first podcast that I have ever done. I really appreciate you and I hope this, even just this share at this level helps and I can't wait to, to go on this journey and more of this journey with you and hopefully share some really valuable insights. Bye for now.