155 - Nadyne McKie - Embracing Kindness on the Healing Journey

Have you ever felt the weight of an unexpected life challenge shift your entire perspective? Join me & Nadyne McKie, who combines her unique blend of psychotherapy, yoga therapy, and breathing coaching to guide those navigating the turbulent waters of Long Covid. Nadyne opens up about her personal journey; how her own experiences & those of her child have reshaped her understanding of health. Her story serves as a beacon of hope, illustrating the potential for growth & joy even in the midst of adversity.

Throughout our conversation, we examine the complexities of stress & its pervasive impact on our health. Nadyne shares her wisdom on transitioning from a stress-fueled existence to one that cherishes rest & self-care—an often daunting task given societal norms that equate rest with laziness. We challenge these misconceptions, advocating for a healthier narrative where taking time to simply be is not only acceptable but essential. Nadyne's insights into cognitive fatigue & the digital world's demands highlight the urgent need to redefine rest & productivity, especially on a recovery journey.

We touch upon the significance of self-compassion & the transformative power of gentle movement. Nadyne invites us to reconsider exercise not as a rigorous task but as a nurturing practice that listens to the body's needs, embracing exercises that feel good rather than those that punish the body. This is a call to healthcare professionals and listeners alike to practice self-compassion, seek support, & engage with their healing journey through a lens of kindness & understanding.

Links:
Purchase "Breathe, Rest, Recover" by Nadyne McKie & Fiona Agombar
(20% off direct from Signing Dragon: BRR20SD)

Order from Amazon

For more information about Long Covid Breathing courses & workshops, please check out LongCovidBreathing.com

(music credit - Brock Hewitt, Rule of Life)

Transcript

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Overcoming Long Covid Through Mind-Body Therapy

Jackie Baxter 0:45

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Long Covid Podcast . I'm delighted to be joined today by Nadine McKee , and Nadine's got all sorts of experience in working with a whole load of different people and she's going to explain more about this herself . She also has experience of Long Covid , not only herself , but also with her child , so we're going to be talking all sorts of things today . A very warm welcome to the podcast today , nadine . I'm so glad we finally got to do this .

Nadyne McKie 1:15

Me too . Thank you so much for having me on . Very excited to talk to you .

Jackie Baxter 1:21

Before we kind of dive too deep down , whichever rabbit hole we're going down , first would you just say a little bit about yourself and kind of what it is that you do so I call myself a mind body therapist because I'm a psychotherapist , I'm a yoga therapist , I also work with the breath .

Nadyne McKie 1:40

I'm a breathing coach too , and what I love about what I do is that I can help to support people not just through talking therapy , but also through addressing , you know , our health and general wellbeing with the body as well . So it's a lovely blend , I find , and I think also it's a blend of therapy and support for people that we really need , because we are human beings , you know , a full body , we're not just a brain and we're not just our mental health and we're not just our physical health , and so much of how we perhaps have been taught to look at ourselves kind of separates everything , and actually when we don't separate everything , when we bring it all together , it starts to make more sense , I think . And that is also a perfect blend for working within yoga therapy as well , because yoga , of course , is about that very thing . You know that we are not just a mind , not just a body , we are everything , and that needs to be how we look at our health and general well-being , for sure , and that needs to be how we look at our health and general well-being , for sure . So , yeah , that's kind of why I do what I do , I guess . But also I am a therapist , I work in psychiatric hospital in acute mental health services and I run a private practice where I predominantly work and have been doing so for the last kind of are we now 24 , aren't we ?

Nadyne McKie 3:10

So it must have been four years at least uh , with management of chronic health conditions and that is , for me , has been specifically fatigue-based conditions and , um , yeah , obviously long covid , which I have personal experience of myself , and , as you said , yeah , my son also experienced long covid , post covid two years ago and is recovered . But you know , I think , as everybody who might have experienced this or gone through a fatigue-based condition kind of realizes and sometimes it's not a very pleasant realization , it's not that we necessarily ever go back to how we were , and I think that's a really important part of certainly was of my learning journey , but also of the journey that I go on with with my clients and people that I work with is understanding that you know what we might need to address some stuff and how we've been living and how we might perceive recovery and what that might mean and and kind of looking towards a new normal for ourselves , which you know you and I have spoken about this . It's a horrible experience going through a fatigue condition and long covid , especially because it encompasses so many different symptoms .

Nadyne McKie 4:30

And despite it being a horrible experience for the most part , I think for myself and people that I've worked with there is a kind of beauty in the journey not in the experience , obviously , so this is not to dismiss how absolutely bloody awful it is to feel that way and it's horrendous , and to deal with the stuff that goes alongside dealing with what is essentially an invisible kind of disability , but actually allowing ourselves to have the opportunity to learn , to use that space to learn about ourselves and maybe gain some self-awareness and look at life a little bit differently . And a lot of people do come away , I think , into that recovery period and feeling a lot better , understanding themselves a bit more , which I think is a beautiful thing , because we're all kind of on that journey , really , aren't we ? Yeah , getting to know us , what , what helps us , what doesn't help us , what do we enjoy , what brings us joy ?

Jackie Baxter 5:35

it's always quite difficult to talk about , and I've noticed that you know I'm now a year and a bit , you know , on from recovery and you know a lot of things have changed in the last year and a bit , you know I I'm able to look back on it with a slightly different perspective than a year ago when I just recovered , or certainly a couple of years ago when I was still sort of in the middle of it , um . So so certainly for me that has changed , um , but you know , I think you know that that distance does give you this kind of ability to go oh my goodness , that was horrendous . But also , now I've got a bit of space from it , I can look back and think , okay , I am now living a very much better life than I was before . I'm so much happier . I wouldn't have considered myself unhappy before . But now , looking back on it , you know there's quite a difference and I love this idea of , you know , personal development or you know this kind of more

Exploring Awareness and Stress in Recovery

Jackie Baxter 6:33

.

Jackie Baxter 6:33

You know greater awareness that you were saying of , I guess , everything . Actually , you know I find myself so much more aware of everything you know , in my body , out of my body , in my head , just around me . You know , I just I notice around me . You know , I just I noticed things , you know , birds and skies and things that I didn't before . But yeah , you know this , this kind of experience , and I suppose for me it was making something from an experience that I didn't ask for , I didn't want and I didn't enjoy , but I was put in that position and I sort of had to find my way through and , yeah , I guess , you know , make make the best of it of a terrible situation . So what can I do now ? I think it's always been . What can I do has always been my kind of question really it's interesting , isn't it ?

Nadyne McKie 7:24

because I wonder what would it be like to change that and say how can I be in this in a way that better supports myself through this experience ? And maybe you know we look for things to do and you know , I know I remember that feeling myself when I had COVID , and feeling really quite fearful for many reasons . You know one it was the first time I've really experienced being breathless . That was obviously very scary and is understandably scary , because this is how our body works , you know , when we can't breathe , that alarm system is sounding loud and clear . So so , of course , and yet also there was a feeling like I wanted to get rid of this thing , you know , as quick as possible , and I think that's probably how I'd approached lots of different areas of my life , like how can I get through this as quickly as possible ? How can I get to the next thing because I'm so busy or I need to do this . And you know you and I were just kind of laughing earlier about , you know , self-confessed plate spinning .

Nadyne McKie 8:35

And I think that's a big aspect to the learning process is recognizing that , recognizing how that affects us as well when we're trying to recover , specifically , and it's something I think I'm becoming more aware of , uh , for myself .

Nadyne McKie 8:54

And , look , I am a work in progress , for sure , as we all are in our own specific way . But I think it's one of the things that , like you said , you know you don't necessarily , until you've got the benefit of kind of time away from from the illness itself , you can kind of look back and think , oh , my goodness , I was doing so much . I was doing so much . And I think one of the things that comes across to me when I'm working with people is not necessarily recognizing , when we're stressed like that , that ability to disconnect from how we're really feeling , because it becomes so commonplace and becomes our kind of normal to live in that state on an almost constant basis . And of course that contributes to and you know I'm absolutely not saying that that's the cause of getting long COVID . Not , not at all . But I've yet to meet somebody , I think , who has gone on to sadly experienced on COVID that wasn't extremely stressed prior to , you know , getting COVID , which of course is nobody's fault . This virus came along and there it was .

Jackie Baxter 10:09

But I think the experience of being stressed and not necessarily recognizing stress and how to manage it is , is also a very interesting part of a recovery journey yeah , absolutely , and I think you know , certainly for me it sounds like you were maybe in a similar position and and a lot of other people as well , where you're so used to being busy and you know maybe there were patterns from before , from childhood , or maybe there weren't , but you know where the act of of resting , of not doing , is seen as lazy . I mean , certainly that was my experience . You know if you're doing nothing , then you know that there's something you should be doing , so it kind of feeds into that . So you know you're sort of you're bouncing around , always busy , and you know that kind of fight flight place , it's all you ever know . It's your home away from home , and then it can be very difficult to feel comfortable in other places . And I still find that now , you know I sit and read books at lunchtime sometimes and occasionally I'll catch myself going .

Jackie Baxter 11:15

This is a bit lazy , shouldn't you be working Actually ? No , no , I can read books at lunchtime . That's not lazy , that's me taking time for myself and I can still kind of feel some of those things

Recognizing Stress and Embracing Recovery

Jackie Baxter 11:26

. So I think you know , like you said , you know it's very difficult to sometimes recognise stress , if it's all you've ever known . And there's also , as we now understand , having been through this experience of long COVID , that there's a lot of different types of stress as well , you know . So . It might be physical , it might be cognitive , it might be emotional , it might be social , it might be , you know , whatever other types of stress there are , and they're not always that easy to recognise , are they ?

Nadyne McKie 11:55

No , they're really not , and I think you've made some really valid points there that you know the need to be and feel productive all the time , need to keep achieving , to strive on and push through and keep going . You know , these are kind of phrases that are almost celebrated in so many ways and that's the exact opposite , really , of what creates a healthy environment for healing and recovery of anything , let alone donkovid and fatigue . But you've touched upon a few things which I think is really interesting to me , you know , is , um , stress is one thing and we know that stress and feeling stressed quite kind of chronically disrupts our systems and certainly dysregulates our nervous system . And , like you said , we've become accustomed to that oh so familiar place of feeling stress because we might only recognize that and I absolutely hold my hands up is when we come to rest or feel like we need to relax . You know that , for you just need to relax . But what if it's really difficult to relax , what if relaxing is actually the most challenging thing ?

Nadyne McKie 13:05

And I remember when I first started yoga , I was the person used to leave . When it got to the the laying down bit at the end , you know the shavasana I'd be like , oh , almost itching out of my skin like this can't , oh no , this is just too foreign . You know , I can't do this . This is awful , I can't stand it . And and now I definitely can rest . I mean , I would say I still probably would like to rest more . Um , and yes , I said , you know I work on that myself and I hold my hands up because I'm just a human , you know , and I I make mistakes and I don't always recognize my signals all the time , but I certainly feel like , societally , especially when there's an illness concern , there is a real need to kind of get back into our lives as quickly as possible . And , of course , I want to recognize that taking time out is a privilege for many people , because it is not always doable and there are lots of restrictions on our time , such as work and family , and so many people that care for other people , and that caring is 24 7 , and so there are lots of impacts to our daily life that we might not recognize because they become just the norm , that are actually very , very stressful .

Nadyne McKie 14:29

And I think that you mentioned , you know , these different kind of stresses , like the cognitive and physical and these things that drain our energy , and I think we're learning more and more how impactful those things are . Like you know , people talk about their social battery running low and maybe we haven't really recognized that actually being social and having social connections is obviously very , very important and , of course , at a time when many of us were going through covid and then experiencing long covid , we had a lack of social connections and felt very isolated for different reasons , but specifically due to the isolation of lockdown and being unwell , and I think that that that turns us towards maybe trying to find that connection online . And then we come into the more like cognitive fatigue states that happen when we spend a lot of time online and I address this a lot with with clients in in terms of recognizing those body signals , recognizing our breathing patterns and when they change and being online , wow , does that change how we breathe ? Because our bodies kind of go into this automatic state where they're almost primed to get a notification or scrolling through , and we kind of go into this almost apnea , you know , low , low , low , shallow breathing state where we're just not getting an effective , you know , breath circulating in our body . So of course we're going to come away feeling more fatigued and I think it's through that journey of starting to recognize these things within us and also in our , in our , in the world around us .

Nadyne McKie 16:14

You know this kind of push on through culture in which we live which doesn't really , I don't know , not acknowledge , but it certainly doesn't encourage rest and recovery in the way that actually I think long COVID really requires . And that's a super important part of the healing journey . And that's certainly you know why Fiona and I , who I wrote the book with you know we wanted to really make that acknowledgement that this is not something that is always internally driven . There are lots of internal contributing factors and , yeah , we might have been set up with patterns from childhood where not doing anything is seen as really lazy or taking care of ourselves and our own needs is selfish , and they might have followed us into adulthood for various reasons and we might find ourselves on that kind of hamster wheel , you know the kind of constant treadmill of not wanting to down tools or not being able to down tools and and rest and recover .

Nadyne McKie 17:18

And so we kind of approached it from a place of looking at how we can come back towards that art of convalescence like what does it really mean to recover ? What do our bodies really need . And for me I say this , I can say this now , I guess with a bit more humor , but at the time , honestly , resting felt like torture . And now I feel like , oh , I felt maybe like I'm a bit of a rebel for resting now , because I'm like , ha , yeah , I'm resting whilst the outside world is doing the everything . Now I can actually rest because I know I need it away from everything .

Jackie Baxter 18:04

It's a really interesting word . I think you know when , when I was unwell , it was something that I did because I had to , but I hated it . You know it was a waste of time I was . You know , resting my life away was kind of how I saw it . I found it very difficult . I found it , like you , very uncomfortable . It's not easy to do for someone who's never really done it before and it is very interesting .

Jackie Baxter 18:29

Now , you know , I will also hold my hand up and say that you know I can get caught up in things and you know there's definitely times where in the morning I've gone , I'm going to make sure I take time over lunch to actually just stop and sit in the garden and , you know , literally smell the flowers kind of thing . And I don't . I don't always do it , in fact I often don't , but I appreciate it now in a way that I didn't . Um , so that's definitely been a sort of change , I think .

Jackie Baxter 18:59

Going back to something you said earlier now I'm going to paraphrase because I can't remember exactly what you said um , but it was , but it was something along the lines of being in the moment rather than what can I do , what can I be , I think , was what you said , and you know I've always been a very proactive person . You know if there's a problem I'm going to fix it because I'm a fixer and you know this was both a useful and unhelpful quality , I think . You know , going out and searching out things that were going to help me , you know proactively was what found me my way through recovery . You know it was those things that I found . But I think , also taking that time to , yeah , to sit in the moment , to be in that , you know , uncomfortable often space and you know , dare I even say the slightly dirty word , acceptance .

Nadyne McKie 20:36

You know where's the balance between all of that , you know , between let's find some things that help , let's look for some solutions and let's just be in this moment yeah , it's such an interesting one because what's really important , and also very , very challenging , is keeping the mindset , or at least attempting to keep a mindset , that recovery is possible , because it is , and that for many people takes varying amounts of time . Because I think when we look at well , that comparison of person x recovered in this time . So if I don't meet that target myself , well , that means I've failed somehow . And you know that kind of patterning can follow us in so many ways and because I work with the breath so much , that is a space where I really see that kind of push to want to get it right . You know I've got even in recovery .

Nadyne McKie 21:35

You know people want to get it right and they've got to do everything . And , yes , of course we all want to get better when we're not feeling well , of course , and that often leads us to search out because these things , specifically fatigue-based conditions , are still so under-researched and under kind of uh , under known , if that's a word uh dismissed , and there is almost that battle to be heard and so much misinformation about what it means to be experiencing a fatigue-based condition . And you know , I never want to hear another person say , oh , you just probably need a good nap .

Jackie Baxter 22:13

It's just like oh , you obviously don't really understand fatigue oh oh , I'm tired too I'm oh yeah , life is tiring isn't it ?

Nadyne McKie 22:22

oh god , yeah . But I remember I was working with um , a now retired pediatrician , and she was saying to me how she was also experiencing long COVID . And she was saying , you know , I didn't used to believe people when they had this condition . I used to think , because there was that real kind of disbelief , that well , you , you probably just , yeah , a bit tired , you know , kind of

Navigating Self-Compassion in Recovery

Nadyne McKie 22:51

buck up , get on with it , we're all tired . But when you actually experience it yourself and I think this is kind of a pivotal moment because we do have so many health care professionals now that have , sadly , really sadly , you know , I wouldn't wish this on anybody , but they have experienced a post-viral fatigue and it is debilitating and your whole body feels like lead , and it's not just a nap that you need , you know , this is your whole body kind of screaming like no , we can't keep going in the way that we once did . And well , that's certainly how I experienced it and often how I hear other people describe it to me too , and um may have gone off on a little tangent here , but that experience of fatigue and going through recovery in that way , that maybe means that we start to kind of add the doing things . Oh , I need to do this , I need to do that and sometimes I feel like , with people I I'm working with , there needs to be a recognition that our brain isn't necessarily recognizing that this huge to-do list of things we need to do to help ourselves is anything different from another to-do list of like life , admin , you know , and it still requires a lot of energy and actually even that can be very , very draining , and we can also set ourselves up to . Well , if I don't do that , what does that mean for me ? You know , if I don't do that hour of mindfulness meditation , if I'm not resting for this long , or if I'm not able to do something that I need to do for myself and we were talking earlier about , you know , changing beds and the annoyance of it , but actually both you and I agreed it's really great to be able to change a bed now , because it's really tiring to do that , and I was . I definitely couldn't do it when I was ill , you know , it was way too much .

Nadyne McKie 24:48

So there is a real balance , as you were saying , between the acceptance of what is on a daily basis and also keeping in in our minds , perhaps visualizing ourselves , that , yes , we can recover . So that acceptance of what is super important because that allows us to recognize the need to rest when we need to , to listen to those signals which during that you know our conversation about what it is to be so productive in life and be a doer and an achiever and plate spinner and constantly on the go that often signals to me that we are in that place where we're not listening to our body signals . And there can be many , many reasons why , how we've come about , how that's come about , why we've learned and conditioned ourselves not to , and why that's been necessary , perhaps at one point even in our lives . And yet it's going back to those basics of kind of checking in with ourselves that allows us to be able to have that acceptance of what is in the present moment . And yet , of course , yes , there is this balance of some days that feels really , really awful to accept that we're feeling really dreadful that day and the symptoms are here , or we might be in a relapse phase , and then it's it's , you know , that other hard challenge of finding self-compassion in that moment as well , in that time , and being able to recognize what we need and that that's okay to have what we need and to find what we need and to allow ourselves almost to give ourselves permission for that , because we might have been people and this comes up so frequently but people that have constantly been the look , looking after others , people you know , the people that maybe find it hard to say no to stuff that you know . We kind of we almost dismiss it into this little sentence of people pleasing , but it goes far beyond that .

Nadyne McKie 26:50

It's not just about being a people pleaser , it's about almost , you know , patterning that comes in like this need to make sure everybody else is okay , and again , that can come from a really deep place and that might also need some acknowledgement .

Nadyne McKie 27:05

If you know , where has this pattern come from ?

Nadyne McKie 27:07

That requires me to disconnect from myself , to look after others above and beyond me , because that's another place that we might find ourselves needing to distract ourselves from , because sometimes it can be a painful place to go to and a really challenging and uncomfortable place to acknowledge within us that that's how we've been living , for whatever reason , and that's why I think that recovery really is a journey , as you say , of balance and of self-discovery and , yes , of challenge and absolutely lots of discomfort within that for various reasons .

Nadyne McKie 27:50

But ultimately , I think , if , um , if we can allow ourselves to have that acceptance and move towards , you know , growing in self-awareness about what we need and , ideally , towards that place of self-compassion which look , hey , it's never easy even if we're really , really good at giving it out in bucket loads to other people , it can be quite difficult to turn the mirror back on ourselves and reflect that kind of care and attention that we give to others back towards ourselves .

Nadyne McKie 28:48

It is a beautiful thing when we start to go on to that journey of getting there , and sometimes we need support for that , and that's really important as well , that we we give ourselves that permission to seek support , and especially through management of of long covid and these fatigue-based conditions , which encompass so much , you know , anxiety and dealing with medical appointments and medical dismissal . And luckily there are some amazing people out there , amazing doctors , amazing healthcare professionals that really get what it means and you know . That's why I think this is a real pivotal moment , because often those people are people that have experienced this themselves and are finding out that actually , yeah , this is something that requires a lot more attention in our healthcare system and I think there was something you were just saying about .

Jackie Baxter 29:49

You know the , the way that you know , again , it's it's not everybody , but a lot of people . You know the caregivers . You know who , the caregivers . You know who are always putting other people first , for whatever reason that is , and you know they'll . You know , look after everybody else . They'll say really kind , be really empathetic , be really compassionate to everybody else except themselves , and it's almost like you treat yourself in the way that you would never , ever treat anybody else .

Jackie Baxter 30:23

And often we're not aware of it . Certainly , you know , I fall into this trap even now . Sometimes , you know if I'm feeling tired one morning and I'm thinking , well , I was supposed to go for a run , so we're going to go for a run , and it's like , well , actually , maybe I've had a really hard week , maybe I should do some yoga or go for a walk or stay in bed for an extra hour instead , which is all things that I would say to somebody else . But , heaven forbid , I should say it to myself , because for some reason , I have different standards for myself , where I have to beat myself up about everything , which is ridiculous , isn't it ? But you know , I guess it's like you were saying about that awareness . You know , once you're aware of some of these things , then you can start to catch them and go . Is that really fair ? Is that what you would say to somebody else ?

Nadyne McKie 31:11

yeah , and it's often something that I find myself , you know , kind of talking about with people and it's certainly part of the book , you know is how do we begin to treat ourselves like we're our own best friend ? Because , as she said , you know , to our best friends , we would never put them through the paces that we would put ourselves through or talk to them in the way that we might talk to ourselves . You know , internally , that internal voice that drives doing , the constant doing and , yeah , and being quite harsh towards ourselves , that self inner critic can be really quite , quite mean and yet we can be the most compassionate people and caring for others and in fact , that can become the distraction from what we're really truly feeling . And you know I talk about this a little bit in the book because it was definitely part of my own personal journey and that acceptance and awareness that you know I was saying about how I used to be the person that could , you know , needed to leave yoga when , when it came to shavasana , you know I've got to get out of here , can't be , and for much , many of the reasons for that was because I was dealing with some really uncomfortable feelings and emotions that I didn't really want to sit with and so the kind of non-doing activities . Well , that was much easier to distract myself away from those feelings and not acknowledge them and just keep going from those feelings and not acknowledge them and just keep going .

Nadyne McKie 32:45

And it was only really during the experience of of not being able to do and suddenly finding myself all the things that I'd kind of used , I guess for want of a better word but used to help me support myself mentally , physically , and a lot of those things were exercise-based and required a lot of doing and energy .

Nadyne McKie 33:10

And you know what , when you can't do those things anymore , when those things are kind of removed , then the sitting with what is essentially being with yourself can be very challenging . I certainly found that a very challenging time and I think that that's something that is often kind of in the kind of subconsciously driving the constant doingness and that need to . It's not even necessarily a need , but it's . It's the knowledge that coming away from that low level , constant stress , that space where we might live the home from home , I think you called it is so challenging , you know , and so uncomfortable that we'd rather stay there , and it's definitely the recovery journey I think for many people is the acknowledgement that , yeah , you know what . We might have been living there for quite a few years yeah , I mean there was definitely .

Jackie Baxter 34:13

I mean , you know , beyond the physical discomfort of of being with yourself when you're in pain or you're experiencing these horrible symptoms and being there with them because , as you say , I can't distract myself by exercise because I can't um , that there was . You know , obviously that's incredibly uncomfortable , it's physically uncomfortable , it's it's mentally uncomfortable , um , but I think what I found very , very difficult was that actually there were bits of myself I didn't like that much and there were bits where I felt , you know , I think a lot of my constant doing had be to kind of , you know , cover up this , I'm not good enough . I'm not good enough , so I need to do more . I need to do more . I keep to neat pushing , you know , and this , this sort of drive to always be the best , and even when you succeed of something it's still not good enough , kind of thing .

Jackie Baxter 35:05

So it's that , you know , constant unworthiness . And then , of course , when you have something like long covid , you maybe aren't working , you're not able to do the things that you want to do or that you are you know quote , quote , unquote supposed to be doing . You know , caring for children , working , doing chores around the house , whatever it is which kind of piles on to that kind of feeling of unworthiness that maybe I had before , and then you just end up feeling completely useless because you know I've failed as a human , I can't do anything , and that is a horrible place to be because you feel really , really uncomfortable with all of that . So , as you say , it can be a very difficult place to be and you sort of have to face up to and sort of confront , maybe , things that you don't like and that you don't want and you know that's a that's a really insightful awareness .

Nadyne McKie 35:59

I think that we can discover about ourselves and very uncomfortable as well to have that discovery and it can come from a place for many people of having experience , perhaps not knowing how to soothe or be soothed from really years , that maybe that wasn't available . And so we build these kind of coping mechanisms around us , these adaptive techniques that you know how clever are we as humans , that this is how we we learn to survive , but I use that word survive because it isn't thriving , because it's not necessarily good for us in the moment it was necessary . And then , as we get older and those patterns might continue , we learn that actually this is really unhealthy . And keeping me from addressing , perhaps , or the awareness of what's underneath , which is that I felt not good enough or I felt unworthy of receiving the care and the love and and the soothing comfort that we might have needed at that time . And and I recognize we're kind of going quite deep here and these are kind of like very therapy-based issues that you know most people we need support with while we're dealing with this awareness , and I think it's also really important to say that there's also for many people the societal awareness of what it means to be a human . You know , you said I felt like I was failing as a human because I'm not doing the things that I feel I have to do as a human . And then suddenly , well , who does that make us ? You know that we can't do those things and the whole world is saying you know , you need to be working constantly and you need to be able to look after everybody and you need to look a certain way and you need to be able to achieve a certain thing , all the while , of course , looking after ourself , because you know the self care kind of bombardment of what it means to look after ourself requires an awful lot of energy as well . So we're dealing not only with the internal kind of environment that we find ourselves in and what we're dealing with internally , but also the external pressure of living in a society that really doesn't necessarily support recovery from illness and does require us , or certainly encourages us , to really push on through .

Nadyne McKie 38:35

And you know I speak about this um in the book in terms of we were talking a bit about exercise and using exercise for mental health and that need to um almost reframe what it means to exercise and maybe maybe we can't exercise in the same way because we're dealing with a really horrible

Reframing Exercise for Mental Health

Nadyne McKie 38:56

illness and yet it's still important that we can find movement in different ways and actually that can become really soothing . That can become a really lovely way to show ourselves some compassion . You know that we acknowledge . Yeah , we used exercise for this . But now I'm going to do something different , which is actually kind to myself in a different way , because exercise is so often used as almost like a punishment in some ways , and I love exercise , so I'm not anti-exercise , but for a long while I couldn't exercise in the way that I used to . So I'm not anti-exercise , but for a long while I couldn't exercise in the way that I used to and I really recognize how it was a real kind of crutch for distraction in many ways as well , as well as being , you know , obviously very good for us and I get that .

Nadyne McKie 39:46

But what about when we can't do it ? And what I find most often with people is how disconcerting it can be to invite someone to only move in ways that feel good for them , because exercise so often forces us to move our bodies kind of through . You know , just do it . You know , through the pain threshold , keep going , feel the burn . You know all these feel like Jane Fonda . Now I'm gonna get up and do some star jumps , but um , yeah , that kind of attitude that means you've got to just keep doing it . You know you've got to reach that target or achieve that thing and personal best this and whatever . But actually if we reframe exercise and maybe even if we call it something slightly different like movement , it can become something that's actually very nurturing and very caring of ourselves when we allow ourselves to move in ways that do genuinely feel good for our bodies and that can be a really helpful process . I think to go through on a recovery journey is learning that about ourselves yeah , definitely .

Jackie Baxter 40:55

I had never done yoga before in my life . In fact , you know , I actually would have turned my nose up at yoga and said that sounds like hippie crap to me . I am not interested , I'm gonna go pound out a 10k and the hippies and their crystals can , all you know , congregate together ?

Jackie Baxter 41:13

no , thank you . Um , you know that that's me from five years ago , and you know I discovered yoga and I found it really helpful because , you know , as somebody who had to exercise you , I had this need to move , to exercise , and yet I couldn't . Or when I tried to , it just made everything so much worse . And it was something that allowed me to gently move . And there was something that the guy that I was doing it with , he said , don't listen to me , listen to your own body , which was such an insightful thing to say , because I'm exactly the sort of person that would be like , oh well , if he can do that many whatever it is movements , then so can I .

Jackie Baxter 41:55

In fact , maybe I can do even more because you know I'm me , um , and it was , you know , as you say . You know , moving in gently , in a way that feels good to me , rather than what I quote unquote should be doing . And you know , I really kind of opened up my world to kind of gentle movement . But also , you know , as we've been kind of saying , that being with yourself , but it was something about being with myself whilst doing some very gentle movement that made it a lot more acceptable to me , rather than just , you know , lying and being with myself whilst not doing anything else . And I don't know , I mean , maybe that still counts as a distraction , I don't know , but it it seemed to work for me .

Nadyne McKie 42:44

I don't know if it counts as a distraction . Only , probably , if you're doing it like 24 7 , that becomes the only way that you can be with yourself , you know . So I think if you're doing it in a , in a , in a healthy way , it's so good and I think you've really hit upon some really interesting things , because I think what we can learn about ourselves , kind of in or on the mat , as it were , can be really interesting and we can take those things that we learn into our lives . But I think , um , you know , I agree with you , so many people come and they're like I've been told to try yoga . You know , I don't want to try yoga , I'm not flexible . I , you know , I don't really want to get involved in that hippie shit and I'm like I get , I hear you , but actually this isn't necessarily yoga that we might think . It is , because actually , a lot of the times that we we see yoga , we're looking at a very dynamic practice . Um , maybe , you know , we see lots of images on social media and they tend to be a certain type of image and you've got to have all the gear and you've got to , you know , be able to do these very complex pretzel movements with your body and and do everything super fast and be very , super strong and and , of course , that is an aspect to some people's yoga practice . But it's not , absolutely not where we need to begin when we're recovering absolutely not , um , it needs to be more of a therapeutic , I think , kind of movement based practice that that is really focused on on being mindful towards our body , you know , being with ourselves , and I love that your teacher said that , because I so often say to people , um , that there's always somebody that says am I doing this right ? And I said , well , there's only one right way and it's the right way for you . You know , and you are the person that knows your body best , you know , I do not know what that feels like in your body . So , and I do say to people you know , if somebody tells you're doing it wrong , maybe they're the wrong teacher for you , which , you know , may be a bit controversial to say , but I genuinely believe that , because there can be no right way to do yoga , in my opinion and again , maybe that is controversial , but certainly yoga therapy .

Nadyne McKie 45:05

This is the way we work . You know , we work in a very invitational way . It's about what feels good for the person . It's about being with ourselves as we go through the journey of maybe doing things a little bit differently and getting curious . You know what's our response when we slow down a bit , because it's in those slower moments that we really get to notice what's going on in our bodies .

Nadyne McKie 45:29

We really give ourselves time to be with ourselves and that's that's actually can be a very , again , challenging place , but actually a really beautiful place as well and certainly a place that our nervous system needs to be . To get to that space where we can start to heal and recover . Because you know the rest and digest system , you know the parasympathetic nervous system , it needs to be treated gently . It doesn't need to be forced into something that will ultimately keep it stuck in that you know often home from home type space . But again , that's acknowledging that it is not an easy journey if we've been used to being constantly on the go and it can feel very , very uncomfortable at first , but it's definitely what our bodies need in recovery , for sure , and through that recovery journey .

Jackie Baxter 46:29

Yeah , and this brings us back to , you know , something you said right at the start . You know , it all starts with that self-compassion , I guess . Doesn't it kind of uh , full circle in a beautifully , accidentally crafted way ? Absolutely , yeah . So , yeah , that's a really beautiful place to leave it , I think , for today . Um , the book is live this week . We'll put the link into the show notes and we're going to come back and talk a bit more about this , because I think we've both just realised that there's an awful lot more to be said on this topic . So , thank you so much for joining me today . It's been my absolute pleasure and we'll do this again .

Nadyne McKie 47:09

Absolutely . It's always lovely to see you , Jackie , and speak with you and just thank you so much for supporting this condition and the recovery of it .