Resilience Unravelled

Sometimes it takes a catastrophic event to wake us up, something that upends life as we know it. These turning points can be terrifying but we all encounter them in our lives. The real question is, 'how will we face them'? Although we want to hang on to what’s 'normal', disruptive moments are exactly what’s needed to transform ourselves and the world around us. Radha Ruparell is a global cross-sec...

Claudia Tinnirello is originally from Sicily but has lived in England since 2005. Not being an English native speaker, Claudia understands the struggles of overcoming judgement and the fear of making mistakes when speaking a foreign language. She has however discovered ways of becoming a better and confident public speaker by sharing her voice in many different ways - an international bestselling...

Prior to her professional life as a coach and consultant, Jennifer or Jen Crowley thought she had life she was meant to have. Married with a son, she also had a high profile job as Vice President of a large wine distribution company. She then went through what she refers to as a six year character building period before deciding she needed to follow a completely different path and left her success...

Pat Moffett married his wife Carmen in 1976 and they raised five children together.  Then, in 1998 Carmen was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer's. After years of struggling with the disease, she was finally admitted to a nursing home and Pat then wrote his book ‘Ice Cream in the Cupboard’ about their story post diagnosis. After Carmen's death in 2010, Pat continued to work with the Alzheim...

Wendy Tamis Robbins anxiety, obsessive-compulsive and panic disorders started when she was a young child growing up in a volatile household. Anxiety controlled her life well into adulthood, to the point of agoraphobia. Despite this, she worked her way through Dartmouth College and law school before, in her 30s, she set her mind to overcoming the anxiety and panic attacks that increasingly limited...

We all work towards a code, a pattern or belief system that we follow in life. This can be very difficult to change and to do so we need to deliberately step outside the code to find what is meaningful to us or to build the life we want to make for ourselves. If we create a picture beyond our current code, it becomes the motivation and the key to break it.

"There is no evidence to link the severity of pain with the amount of tissue damage. If the body heals and the pain persists it may be more about whether we are anxious, depressed or have negative beliefs about pain rather than the extent of the injury. Our attitude to pain can also affect the level of pain we feel as does our personality and behaviour."

Through counselling, Gam anon and researching addiction, Erica managed to separate the person from the addiction. The person she married was not the person who did those reckless things, but there was much anger and hurt. She couldn't throw the towel though because she knew it was his addiction that was causing his behaviour. When she first found out about the gambling she felt duped and angry but...

Camp Jabberwocky was one of the first sleep over camps for people with serious disabilities. In 1953, UK actress Helen Lamb was working in Massachusetts as a speech therapist. She worked with some children who were in wheelchairs and it made her angry that they were unable to enjoy the summer experiences other children had. In the summer of 1953 she took three kids and one helper away for the firs...

When we lose someone we love, especially if we are involved in an accident and have survivor’s guilt, we need to see that there is a reason we are still here and tap into it. We need to look for a path forward and see the good that can still come from our life. The loss will still be there but if we can work through the pain then we can look forward and see that although life is different, it can...

Steven R Campbell, MSIS,  worked in hospital administration for twenty years before acquiring his Masters at the University of San Francisco and going on to pursue his greatest love, teaching. As a University Professor and Educational Dean in Northern California for the last 20 years, he now presents an eye-opening look at how our brains conform and how optimise the messages we give them, so...

Resilience can be seen as a deep well of resources that resides in each of us. It's more than just bouncing back, it’s about reaching our personal or professional goals with the minimum unnecessary difficulty, whether it’s physical, emotional, spiritual or physiological. There are many things that can deplete resilience. Our life circumstances, not learning how to deal with problems and being infl...

This week on the podcast, Dr Russell Thackeray talks to Laura Khoudari who is a trauma practitioner, certified personal trainer, and corrective exercise specialist whose work grew out of her own experience healing from trauma.   Laura designed an holistic program to support her own treatment for PTSD that combined talk therapy, mindfulness, bodywork, and strength training. Realising there wer...

If we are too preoccupied with the past and the future, going back over memories and worrying about what might happen, with no real solution or plan fear can take over. We need to become more aware of our own thoughts so we can pull our attention back to the present and reconnect with our ourselves in the now where fear cannot exist.

Mindset prepares us for some of the most important conversations in our lives. Whether it’s going into a competition or a boardroom meeting, we need to ask ourselves and others the right questions. What mindset do you want to go in with? Are you ready? What part of your experience do you want to share today? With the right mindset you get the best outcome.

Maladaptive perfectionism can lead to anxiety, depression, burnout and even suicide. Nothing is ever good enough and perfectionists constantly battle between 'good' and 'bad' perfectionism. The key to dealing with maladaptive perfectionism is to create equilibrium to regulate experiences, develop self-management techniques and learn self worth.

We all need fortitude or inner strength. Our day might not be perfect but we can take control of our life despite of what’s coming our way – we can deal with what we’re going through because we’re strong and have fortitude. It’s about having a mental narrative and giving ourselves positive messages. Gratitude is the umbrella. It’s a state of being thankful, a place of joy or love which over time s...

Changing purpose or narrative is a key part of getting unstuck. The conversation we have with ourselves determines how we see the world. Changing this can produce different results but we need to shift more than our linguistical world, we also need to shift our emotional and physical worlds to bring lasting change.  

Barbie Wharton's resilience was really tested in 2015 when she woke up with Bells Palsy, a condition that causes a temporary weakness or paralysis of the muscles in the face. It can occur when the nerve that controls the facial muscles becomes inflamed, swollen, or compressed and it causes one side of your face to droop or become stiff.  In Barbie’s case, it was very sudden. She woke up on a...

As well as being something physical, threats can also be intrusive or repressed thoughts and emotions. These are processed in the brain in the same way as a physical threat and are a bigger problem because we can’t escape their consciousness. The body’s response to stress chemicals and inflammation is the same whether the source of the threat is mental or physical. If the threat is sustained, ongo...

If you take a group of people playing slot machines or cards, backing a horse or a football team, some won't be affected at all, a couple may develop a mild gambling habit whilst one may end up with a with a severe problem. It’s hard to say what the trigger is as its different for each person but there is a point when things change and it goes from being fun to being the solution to the problem -...

As a survivor of invasive breast cancer whose marriage dissolved as treatment ended, Susan De Lorenzo draws on her personal journey as well as her training as a life coach to give clients, readers and listeners the mindsets and tools to rebuild their lives and create something even greater through a higher platform of awareness that gives inspiration to dream bigger and go for more. She says that...

Using meditation to help with the mental, physical and emotional problems created by stress. Taking the ‘woo woo’ away from meditation and making it simple and easy to practice whatever environment you're in . There’s no need for incense, flowers or special clothes, you just need to sit down and get started.  

The therapeutic processes of art and the way that creative expression can develop healing and mental wellbeing and transform challenges into wisdom, information and potential. Art therapy tools integrated with neuroscience techniques helps build creative intelligence so people don’t get derailed from life challenges such as stress, pain and heavy emotions.  

James Boardman is a former Royal Marine Commando who now helps men to rebuild their lives and have a better state of mind through the way they live their lives emotionally, physically and mentally. James originally started working with his clients on their fitness and nutrition but many seemed to fall off the programme so he started considering why this was happening. He realised that the chaos of...