Resilience Unravelled

Clint Davis is an entrepreneur with a passion for storytelling and preserving the past. A cancer survivor who lost two siblings at a young age, Clint has always had a keen awareness of the importance of remembering the past, while also making the most of the present moment. He now empowers others to save their histories and pass on their legacies. In this podcast: Clint talks about how moving give...

Rosie Mankes is a life coach, motivational speaker, and author of Find Your Joy and Run With It, a memoir about overcoming her second battle with cancer, the transitioning of her mother into an assisted living facility, and the unexpected loss of her brother, all within one year. Rosie talks to Dr Russell Thackeray about how her identity as a secret comedian helped her come out of adversity happie...

Karen Liebenguth is an accredited mindfulness teacher, certified coach, mentor and facilitator.  She is also the founder of Green Space Coaching and a life and executive coach, eco-therapist and mindfulness trainer.  She was one of the first people in the UK to start coaching while walking in nature after finding that both she and her clients get far better results outside rather than si...

Dr Alex Hershaft was just 5 years old when the Nazis invaded his homeland of Poland. He and his family were forced into the Warsaw Ghetto but he survived and after escaping Nazi persecution and immigrating to the USA, he worked as an environmental consultant. In 1972, a routine inventory of a Midwest slaughterhouse changed the course of his life. He is now the President and founder of Farm Animals...

Lisa Broderick has worked with entrepreneurs and established companies to create lives of presence and purpose for four decades. Her approach of integrating science with metaphysics and her own personal experiences to help others with little or no scientific or spiritual training master their innate abilities with practices designed to improve their lives, their relationships, and how the world se...

This week on the Resilience Unravelled podcast, Dr Russell Thackeray talks to Arman Vestad who spent a lot of his life on the run! Through a series of poor life choices and unfortunate circumstances, he found himself dealing drugs and engaging in other criminal activity. After leaving prison for the 10th time, it wasn’t long until Arman found himself under arrest once again. This time, however, a...

The Soberful Life with Veronica Valli This week on the Resilience Unravelled podcast, Dr Russell Thackeray talks to Veronica Valli who struggled with alcoholism through most of her twenties. A binge drinker, she was aware for some time that something was wrong but was unable to define what it was however a chance meeting led to her finally getting help and turning her life around. At the height of...

Jonathan Joseph saw a lot of toxicity and negativity when he was working in the luxury womans fashion and sportswear industry. This not only affected people working in the industry but also consumers through marketing and advertising. He thought that it would be possible to shortcut some of the issues such as the body dysmorphia created by unrealistic standards by empowering children rather than f...

The type of conversation that many couples have often doesn't help their relationship. Often it boils down to a debate, a checking in about who knows what and whose ideas are better. What’s needed is an enlivened conversation that builds resilience and allows both people to explore and learn together. They can then move out of an adversarial mindset to a place where they can learn and be resilient...

Welcome to 2022! This week Dr Russell Thackeray muses on the recent arrival of 2022 and suggests some ideas to make the most of the year. He focuses some thoughts on the nature of resolutions as opposed to goals and challenges us to think more creatively about where and why we are aiming as people often understate their long term ambitions. There will also some thoughts around choices and the natu...

Critical thinking is essential in helping teens work through a problem and realise what is going to move them forward so they get the result they want. Schools can’t be responsible for everything so parents need to be responsible for the provision of a parent model. A parent helping guide their child through making a decision is extremely powerful but Valerie often finds that although great stride...

Another chance to listen to last year's Christmas podcast from Dr. Russell Thackeray. In it he talks about why resilience is so important at this time of year and also explains the need to stop and rejuvanate ourselves and/or invest in ourselves to plan forward. Finally, he discusses how the narrative we use can help our mental state and how confirmation bias can help give us the things we believe...

Whatever the size of a dispute, the issue at hand is usually not the problem. People generally prefer peace so only involve conflict if they feel there is no other way to get resolution. As we are not generally trained in ways to resolve conflict it is difficult to know how to deal with anger or upset without being triggered yourself. One of the key foundational skills of life therefore is learnin...

MS is a life limiting illness but people can choose how to look at it, deal with it and live with it. It can be very easy to feel out of control and slip into a depressive zone but manipulating the way you use your brain can help deal not only with MS, but also other illnesses or situations.  As well as mindset, there are many other things that can interfere with how your body functions. What...

There are many types of yoga. Hatha, Vinyasa, Kundalini, Restorative and Laughter for example, and Paul Denniston uses elements from each in his Grief Yoga practice. Paul designed Grief Yoga to help with his challenging emotions of anxiety and grief by releasing pain to fund more empowerment and love. Paul feels that we can have physical pain in the body that is a manifestation of suppressed grief...

Derek Newborn had always had a vision of how his life would be. He achieved everything he thought he wanted but, on the inside, abandonment issues from his past meant he felt extremely empty. The only thing he was concerned about was filling the emptiness he felt. and he used self-sabotaging behaviours to try to find the peaceful feeling he felt he was missing. Derek's fear outweighed any love he...

When Clarke was diagnosed with Polymyositis he was depressed, angry, mad at the world but also helpless. Because the disease had progressed very quickly it was difficult to understand what was happening and as his body was declining, his mind was driving him downward as well. At the time Clarke didn't really know how much mindset can affect physical health but an experience he had when he thought...

Nicki feels that we don’t talk about grief and loss and what we go through in the early days enough. There is a lot of information about grief but lots of it is irrelevant. We need to have an idea of hope and a path towards it but we don't need to have someone telling us it'll all be great. Logically, we know we’ll come out the other side and that we’ll get back to what will be a new normality wit...

Jeff Martinovich has had many dark days but, when he looks back on the things that happened, he feels the key to getting through was perseverance and resilience. He thinks you have to dig deep to find strength you maybe don't know you have so you can find a way to keep fighting and grow so you can deal with even bigger challenges.  

Kathy Hagler partners with organsations through good times, crises, challenges, and obstacles, and helps to move their culture, climate, and character forward with clear vision, strategic intent, and success in an everchanging world. She says that organisations are similar to human beings - both have wounds and, like people, organisations can break and can heal.  We all carry wounds in our bo...

David’s Richman's career working for a Wall Street firm was incredibly stressful. He suffered from both external and self-inflicted stress, was overweight and a smoker, did no exercise and had four-year old twins, as well being in a relationship with an abusive alcoholic. He needed to make a change but it wasn’t until his only sister was diagnosed with terminal cancer that he started to change his...

Eating disorders cross gender, race, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic groups and are among the deadliest of mental illnesses. Anyone caught in the downward spiral of continually obsessing about food, weight, and body image, needs support to free themselves. People not suffering from an eating disorder often believe that saying “No!” to self-destructive behaviors should be easy but it’s not. I...

The word 'sensitive' can be seen to have some negative correlations for men by being thought of a ‘weak’ characteristic. Frailty or vulnerability are things men cannot allow themselves to be and this may have led to the increase in suicide in men because they can’t recognise themselves as being vulnerable in any way. Cultural icons in films and books supersede all the emotions people have so there...

Studies have shown that love after 50 can be more satisfying than at any other stage in life. People are more emotionally stable, more focused on the present and know not only what they have to have, but also what they can live without. Partnering is no longer about building a family, career and fortune. It’s about sharing intimacy as grounded individuals.

There are many people trying deal with substance abuse and addiction who don't talk about it because of the stigma they feel surrounds it. Encouraging difficult conversations and honest education around these issues, can help break down the stigma and ensure that those who struggle receive the help they deserve.