White Fox Talking
Talk About Mental Health & Well-Being… Why Not? Mark ‘Charlie’ Valentine suffered life changing mental illness, before beginning a journey to recovery and wellness; the darkness of PTSD transformed by the light atop mountains and beyond. Mark is now joining forces with Seb Budniak, to make up the ‘White Fox Talking’ team. Through a series of Podcasts and Vlogs, ‘White Fox Talking’ will be bringing you a variety of guests, topics, and inspirational stories relating to improving mental well-being. Find your way back to you! Expect conversation, information, serious discussion and a healthy dose of Yorkshire humour!
White Fox Talking
E72: Healing Through Trauma: Miranda Arieh's Journey from Patient to Practitioner
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Miranda Arieh's journey from mental health patient to pioneering trauma specialist will forever change how you understand recovery and healing. After spending her teenage years in foster care and being sectioned under the Mental Health Act, Miranda became what she calls a "rebound patient" for 15 years—unable to find effective treatment within a system that often re-traumatized rather than healed.
The breakthrough came when Miranda decided to work within the very system she struggled against, eventually creating the Heroes Program—an innovative eight-week curriculum that's already helped thousands recover from trauma and mental health struggles. But her approach turns traditional treatment models upside down.
"We're not here to fix you or treat you," Miranda explains, challenging the medical model that treats emotions as illnesses. Instead, she sees trauma as "a living breathing wound that opens in the present moment when echoes of the past are triggered." This perspective shifts healing from revisiting painful memories to working with present-day triggers—providing tools to apply "ointment to the wound" each time it opens.
The program's philosophy extends to addiction, viewing it not as the primary problem but as "an attempt to solve a problem" when people lack capacity to hold difficult emotions. "We're almost like personal trainers for the mind and nervous system," Miranda says, teaching participants to build emotional strength rather than numbing out.
What makes Miranda's work truly revolutionary is her firm belief that healing is possible for everyone. "There is no order of difficulties in healing trauma," she insists—someone with severe abuse can heal just as completely as someone with milder trauma. The goal is what she calls a "return to self"—living authentically rather than in fear.
Ready to change your relationship with anxiety, trauma, or difficult emotions? Listen now to discover the transformative power of befriending rather than battling the wounded parts of yourself. As Miranda's story proves, sometimes our deepest pain becomes our greatest gift for helping others.
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Hello and welcome to the White Fox Talking Podcast. I'm Matt, charlie-valentine and Ted. Hello, charlie. How are you, mate? I'm alright, thanks. It's been a while since we've been in here. I haven't seen you in ages. I know Missed you. Have I changed? Have we aged? Probably yeah, mate, it's got longer and greyer. Oh, longer and greyer. So what's new, mate? I'm knackered Tired. Funnily enough, I've been away in Switzerland doing a bit of work and then having five days in between work, relaxing, nature, therapy, a bit of walking mountains like I love to do, which is just my medicine, basically and then driving home has absolutely knocked Pony at me. So I drove home a 22-hour drive, but then soon as I got, I were on the A1 and I got to the border with Yorkshire and there was an hour and a half delay and I'm like I really don't need this and you just straight back into it. I remember you calling me and you had a bit of road rage going on.
Speaker 2:I don't have road rage.
Speaker 1:I don't think it was so much road rage or just some drivers aren't as good as me. In myself, there's definitely a correlation between fatigue and I was going to say short temper, or, let's say, a higher level of cortisol. Yeah, okay, so I might not be as as nice as then as I'd like to be. Luckily enough, we're doing some nature therapy this week. Are you coming? Yes, I'm launching my nature therapy sessions on saturday morning, 7 a.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this will have already gone out. No, sorry, the session will have been done, but I'm just thinking. It's like 7am, why do you want to?
Speaker 1:do a nature therapy at 7am on a Saturday morning, but it's setting you up for the weekend and part of the actual process is I'm not going to tell you at all, otherwise you won't turn up but part of that actual process is putting all that stress from the past week into a hypothetical container and then you can take it out after the session if you want, but during the session leave it, I mean, and just jump into the session. Really Sounds good, it should be Right. Let's crack on. We're running out of time, right? So I'm delighted that we have got Miranda Arieh in the studio. Arieh out of studio Arieh, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:I've been called a lot worse. I do this.
Speaker 1:I do this all the time. I did it with Paul, didn't? I Doesn't matter how many times I think it's, the brain doesn't stretch to that many letters, but it's not that.
Speaker 2:How did you mispronounce, paul?
Speaker 1:It was a. It was a. Well, yeah, paul. Well, yeah, the way that my mind works. It's ridiculous. Actually, I've stopped fighting it. I used to get really stressed and I'd just have to go with it or go around it. So anyway, welcome to the studio and thanks for coming in. The White Fox Talking podcast is sponsored by Energy Impact.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:We should really say thank you to Debbie at Leeds Mag as well. She messaged me and it was a suggestion and then, due to the, I don't like just doing Instagram messages, but you fancy being on a podcast, yeah.
Speaker 2:Hell, yeah, yeah, absolutely I'm in.
Speaker 1:So that's cool. Thank you for giving us your time. Would you start by giving us a brief or giving the listeners a brief introduction about yourself?
Speaker 2:So I am primarily a mental health activist, trauma specialist, do my best at motivational speaking, and I'm also founder of the Heroes Program, which is an eight-week, 20-hour program for people to recover through childhood trauma, through mental health struggles in any way, which way, way, shape or form they present in people's lives.
Speaker 1:And heroes stands for healing, education and recovery of emotional strength oh, there is a lot, a lot in there when we're going to your story, you know oh, hell, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'm a lived experience practitioner and, above all else, I'm a lived experience practitioner. I've learned through my own suffering and I believe that that's the greatest qualification that anyone can have when it comes to experience. Wise, you know, I call it learning on the job right, there's a reason I've got into working in mental health, you know, and it's through my own suffering yeah, tough, a tough apprenticeship yeah, yeah, but one that's brought many, many gifts, and I do hold great gratitude for my past, however harrowing it might have felt at many points.
Speaker 1:Are you open to talking about some of that? Yeah, in case some of our listeners have not, because you do quite a lot, don't you? Public speaking. I do, yeah, presenting. Yeah, obviously, you're out there, very, very active. I'm out there. Yeah, you're out there.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I've been here but a lot of the time I'm out there, yeah, yeah. So I mean, cut a long story short. You know I've had a very, very long journey with my own mental health. I'm 41 years old now and I guess that you know my mental health journey started at a very young age. You know a lot of difficulties in my childhood home, a lot of difficulties at school. You know I see myself as a little girl, as you know, almost like a rabbit in the headlights kind of vibe.
Speaker 2:I had severe anxiety from being very young due to my home life, yeah, due to a lot of trauma, I guess, reflecting that I was encountering back then, and it really led to a little bit of a breakdown. Really, when I got into my teenage years I started repeatedly running away from home. From the age of about 14 years old I was self-harming, I was overdosing and I got put in Leeds Safe House. Then I got put in foster care and shortly after that I got classed as a risk to myself which you know, on reflection I certainly was and I got sectioned under the Mental Health Act. I got put in High Roids Mental Hospital. Yeah, the adolescent psychiatric unit there called Linton House, no-transcript re-traumatized me. So I'd come from quite a lot of trauma in my background and then within the mental health system, I did find the experience quite traumatic and, following on from that, following being released from High Roads Mental Hospital, I ended up in the mental health system for at least 15 years following that and I was a rebound patient.
Speaker 2:You know, I was a rebound patient again and again and again, being unable to be, you know, treated within a system, receiving many diagnoses of exclusion and really, you know, finding what was on offer quite re-traumatizing. And then I started to just work in the system. I thought, right, okay, I'm going to start working in this system and started work with many different charities, third sector organizations, and ended up getting placed in the NHS In 2020, following a lot of mental health campaigning that I'd done. I got, you know, pretty much headhunted really for a job by a lovely business manager in a primary care network setting who asked me to come and just create something for the patients with mental health problems there. And that's when Heroes was born in about 2020.
Speaker 2:So my Heroes journey has been going for about five years now and it's just been one of the most beautiful times in my life, like a big passion project of mine and we've served thousands of people so far. And finally now we're going citywide from the end of this summer and we're going to be rolled out to the people on the mental health waiting lists who are the rebound patients the exact patient that I used to be. So it's feeling very full circle at this point. It's feeling really exciting and it's feeling like just a complete blessing to have been able to take that pain and make it into purpose now. So we're at a really good, good place at the moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah that full circle, that's. That wasn't a plug for my nature therapy, because that's what I've called it full circle he's saying that I've got a big water cast on my hand here.
Speaker 1:I wish there was a water cache in the desk, but I think it's because it was my wife, kirsty, that mentioned that as a name, that full circle of coming round from being and then to then giving, and you know, we do have a lot of people in with wounded healers, so and that lived experience is so valuable now, isn't it? Yeah, whereas and no disrespect to people that are out helping, working in the mental health world, that have not suffered, but generally most people have, haven't they?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, this is the thing it's like. Trauma is quite a big word. People see the word trauma and they go oh well, I haven't had trauma. But really to me, trauma has come to mean and this is what we teach in Heroes it's a living breathing wound that is formed from difficult development or conditioning in whatever way. So it's a living breathing wound embedded in our nervous system that opens in the present moment when any faint echoes of the past are triggered.
Speaker 2:So, for example, if we're programmed in our nervous system this is about a scientific because I get, as we're programmed in our nervous system, this is about a scientific as I get, as we're programmed in our nervous system that rejection as a child has been a threat because we've had, you know, we're in survival mode as children, we can't even hold our heads up. So if you know, perceived rejection has been programmed into our nervous system as a threat, then in the present moment we might not receive a text back from someone. I'm just giving like a basic example. That wound opens, that's the trauma, okay. And when we see trauma as a living breathing wound, rather than the things that happen to us, then we see that every single time that wound opens in the present moment, we also have an opportunity to apply ointment to that wound, and that's how we do trauma healing with heroes.
Speaker 2:We don't look at treating the past, we don't re-traumatize, and that's why our outcomes are being so, that's why they're so phenomenal, because we're treating trauma in the present moment, working with present day triggers and viewing that as the trauma. And I think everybody's had difficult developmental conditioning in many different forms in whatever way, because we've all had beliefs instilled upon us that limit us in some way. You know, I say all. Yet of course some people are very mentally healthy, they've had really supportive parents, they've had a fantastic life.
Speaker 2:But things that limit us in this life, I would say, is a trauma wound. You know, if we've been told to go hug Uncle Harry and we've not wanted to, and we've been taught that, you know, for our parents' approval we have to breach our own bodily boundaries. That's trauma, because in the present moment we might say yes when we mean no, we might say no when we mean yes, and that's our trauma. That's a people-pleasing form trauma response. So there's many different forms. So I would say that you know, we could all do with a bit of trauma healing, you know, to reach the authentic truth of who we are and live life as that, within authenticity, and that's what healing has become all about meaning to me not living in fear, not living in defences, but living in authenticity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's forgotten again. Funnily enough, this is part of me being open about the PTSD is I read stuff and then I listen to it. Well, I don't read so much, but I listen to stuff I've forgotten, forgotten where it's come from. Anyway, yeah, diversify, but that thing about being authentic to yourself and but as a culture and a society, we seem to be like you say, it's like one of them things where, oh, can you do this? Yes, I will. And even though you're putting yourself oh, funnily enough, even though you put yourself out, you're putting yourself out. It might not be good for you to help somebody else, but you don't want to let them down.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah, and then, in that respect, we might even start to see trauma. You know that word trauma mean. You know, a modification of the self, a way that we have learned to adapt to surroundings that may have been unsafe for us in whatever way. And so there's extreme versions of that, where it might have been unsafe to have been seen or expressed our emotions because we may have encountered violence or abuse. That might be a way more extreme form. But there's also those other forms that we've been taught to adapt and modify our behaviour to get our connection needs met by parents or caregivers or at school that need to belong, they need to fit in. How do we need to modify or adapt to make sure we're accepted and approved of, because we're all seeking belonging as human beings. You know we're meant to be a community of. You know togetherness and you know, and school can have impact on that. So, whatever what I would say, with whatever range that people's trauma sits in, that letting go of that need to adapt for approval of others, I would say it's so vital. It's so vital and we see it time and time again. You know, in the groups. You know I've seen inside thousands of people's heads at this point and the amount of people that come and say that they are breaching their own boundaries so that they don't get rejected by others. And it's harrowing, you know, those chains that we put ourselves within. Because by speaking our truth and showing up fully as us, we can only really stand to lose what we do not want. So if people walk out of our lives, for us speaking authentically and being open about what is within our boundaries or our limits, we're only going to lose the people that we don't want in our lives. Because if people can't take us as we are, you know, then do we really want that anyway? So, being authentic, I call it a return to self. A return to self, and when traumatic incidences occur, we dissociate from ourselves. We dissociate because it's too overwhelming, especially when it's something absolutely abhorrent. You know, so many people have been through excruciating, unthinkable abuse and in those moments we escape from the self. We dissociate because it's too overwhelming for the nervous system, it's too overwhelming for the mind. So healing then becomes about this return to self and feeling safe and at home in who we are and what we want and what we want to achieve in this life. And it's possible for anyone, no matter the form of trauma. And and I really would say at this point that there is no order of difficulties in healing trauma, because I'm aware I'm talking about, like some people might have just been made to hug uncle harry, like I said before, that example for approval of the parents some people may have had excruciating violent abuse as children, you know, including myself quite but there is no order of difficulties in healing this trauma. Okay, I really want to state that very, very clearly, because some people come and they go. They go. Well, it's just been so much, it's been so much.
Speaker 2:How am I ever going to heal? And what we always teach is that then there's just more opportunities for practice because you might be triggered more so that wound will open more. We'd be way more triggered. But we want to teach through heroes, the tools that people can use to navigate the world in a way that feels safe for them. So as long as we have those tools, then we've just got lots of opportunities to practice with every trigger that rises and we start framing then triggers as opportunities for healing.
Speaker 2:And you know, 10 years ago I would have found that really hard to even hear Like what my triggers are an opportunity. When I'm in this excruciating state of suffering and pain and anxiety and fear and overwhelm, that's an opportunity, that's a gift. On some level it's an opportunity for healing. I would have found that almost abhor. On some level, it's an opportunity for healing. I would have found that almost abhorrent. But it's living with that mindset that has changed my life and helped me to get to the place that I'm in now, where I actually live life in in quite a lot of peace and happiness and presence, and I would have never thought that possible 10 years ago either at all. My mental health was debilitating, absolutely debilitating.
Speaker 1:So you know, if I can do it, so can you, is what I would say so when you mentioned like triggers because he keeps seeing stuff on social media people you know well your triggers aren't my issue and things like that I mean my own opinion is everyone's got no one's got trigger, even if they're not traumatized, there's things at a certain level.
Speaker 1:If you put things on a scale, you know even a trigger of coming in at number five, which probably wouldn't class out of a scale of 30, wouldn't class as a mental health issue. But it's something that puts someone's back up, isn't it Sure, or it could be, or it's something that actually drives a serious reaction. I could never, I couldn't cope with having people behind me because I'd been attacked from behind, yeah, I mean, which is fair enough, I think, but then when you start hiding stuff like that, suppressing them emotions, it just steamrollers. Yeah, yeah. So on the program. So you encourage people to look at the triggers and record them and then work on them yeah, absolutely, and you know we've got to make sure we feel safe to do this stuff.
Speaker 2:So, for example, you know for you like of course you've just shared you know that you really struggle with having people behind you. What we have to recognise is that there are some situations that are very triggering for quite a lot of people, as, in you know, being shouted at is probably majority of the time going to trigger people. They're not going to like that, but some triggers are very personal to us. So that trigger for you that might not affect everybody. So then we have to take the lens of it being about the person walking behind us or talking to us in whatever way, and we do this process that we call in Heroes of turning inwards, where we almost, when we're triggered, we almost look to take everyone and everything else out of it, to take the situation out of it, take the circumstance out of it, take the other person out of it that might have offended us or been rude to us or been walking behind us, whatever. And we turn inwards and we ask the question what is this showing up in me? That is unhealed, and we see then the trigger, almost like a compass pointing an X marks the spot on a map of okay, there's something still unhealed here. How can I apply ointment to this wound that's opening? What need I do? And we teach methods and tools to do that. I can take you through some in a bit if you like. We train people to hold an internal conversation with this part of them in fear. Now this process.
Speaker 2:I just want to be clear that it doesn't mean, then, that we don't change the situation. Being present is not like if someone's talking to us badly repeatedly in a relationship. We don't just go oh well, this is my issue. I just need to turn inwards and I need to change and heal. We apply the ointment to the wound. We recognise that this part of us needs healing, but then the action that we take might be one of. I'm worthy enough to walk away from this, so we take the action afterwards. It doesn't mean we don't take ourselves away from the situation and go. I'm not enjoying this person walking behind me. I'm going to sit on this bench for a bit.
Speaker 2:We take action. We take action, but it's the healing work that makes us take the action, because if we don't apply ointment to the wound and heal the wound and heal the issue at hand, we'll find ourselves stuck in the same relationship patterns again and again, the same situations again and the same circumstances again, until we heal what's going on inside. We heal what's going on inside first, and then we take adequate action in the external world, with the other person, or with the career that we don't like, or the boss that's being rude, or the person walking behind, or whatever. Okay, so this idea of ownership of feelings is not about placing blame or fault. It's about it's an empowering stance to recognize that we all have power to control our internal world. And when we gain power over controlling our internal world of emotions or not even controlling, but integrating it and being compassionate with it, when we gain power with that, our external world then changes, because the choices we make are very different from that place of integration and worthiness and compassion.
Speaker 1:My mind goes straight to 30 years ago. Would this program, would this being able to work? Because of society's attitude? And I go to my experience of on the fuck up and stuff like that, because what would happen if you had a trigger or something was bothering you, then you would have to display a front, you'd have to man the fuck up, you wouldn't cry in public or whatever, or you'd have to do exactly what I did and practice distraction techniques such as alcohol, drugs, violence, etc. Etc. I mean, they're just mine. Is that a sign of how far forward we've come?
Speaker 2:I think it is, and you know it's also a sign of how far back we're going as well, because these are ancient teachings. This return to South is ancient. It's ancient teachings, but the medical model got involved and it became very unsafe, particularly for men, to start being able. It started becoming unsafe for men in particular to share their feelings because there was slogans thrown up you know, man up, take it like a man. All this stuff and we're seeing this harrowing rates of suicide, quite frankly, at the moment, particularly across the yorkshire region. It's, it's, it's. It's shocking, quite frankly, and you know so. So, yes, things are changing in direction here. There's loads of amazing campaigners out there doing lots of work around making sure people speak about their mental health, that there's loads of stuff moving in that direction, which is great. But it is almost a return to a very ancient way of being which is about connection, unity, connection to self, compassion with the pain, et cetera, et cetera. You know these teachings are as old as time. You know these teachings in essence I mean, I'm not any religion they go back to the Bible times. You know know thyself, love thy neighbour as yourself.
Speaker 2:These teachings are as old as time, but money and power got involved, and I do believe that the pharmaceutical, medical model of mental health treatment also got involved and started seeing emotions as an illness. Because it's good to cast a quick book if we treat the bodily experience of emotions and, you know, while medication can be like I've saved my life in the past I'm not anti-medication. I want to make that very clear. I'm not anti-psychiatric medication. But the problem that occurs when we just look at treating the bodily effects of any mental health condition is that we don't get to the root whatsoever. It's a management of symptoms. It's a treatment of symptoms, not a treatment of the illness. Just as much as drinking, like you just mentioned. Great, numb out the symptoms every day, I mean. Did it cure the PTSD? Great, numb out the symptoms every day, I mean did it cure the PTSD?
Speaker 1:No, exactly, it makes it worse. It's because you're then in that cycle of lack of sleep, lack of rest. You're sleeping, but you've sedated yourself. So basically it's sedation You're not getting the sleep. And because you're not getting the sleep, it emphasises more mental health issues.
Speaker 2:Absolutely no-transcript. You're here to save yourself. We are not here to fix you. We are not here to treat you. We are here to teach you how to deal with the human experience of navigating emotional landscapes that we all have. And we look to befriend anxiety. We look to befriend and come closer to pain, come closer to suffering, form a very, very effective and loving relationship with the wounded parts of us that are frozen in time, that daren't be authentic, that are afraid, that are scared of rejection, that are scared of being who they are. We look at bringing that closer than, rather than going. We're going to treat the anxiety, we're going to get rid of it and that's sadly what the medical model does Get rid of the anxiety.
Speaker 2:Anxiety is a human emotion. We're human beings here and there's something very human about it. You know, teaching people to hold a positive relationship with their mental illness in inverted commas and it's possible for anybody to do that. I know that from my experience and I know that from thousands of people's experience that I've witnessed, been fortunate and privileged enough to witness so many people's journeys, working with their childhood trauma or trauma in adult life, everything they've been through, and that journey back to self, I know it's possible for anybody and it doesn't come ever by saying we're going to fix that, we're going to treat it and we're going to get rid of the anxiety so when you speak about teachings, we're talking sort of not general teachings of from eastern philosophy, eastern history, but then, like you said, the medical world got in the way.
Speaker 1:These problems still do seem to be Western problems, don't they? I put one thing I went to. I went in Bali and we were speaking to the guy who he was like, available if he wanted to drive somewhere. And my wife was talking to him and says what do you? How many lives in your village? What do you do on a night? You know, I night I thought she was pecking his head, but it was all right with her we sit outside.
Speaker 1:Everyone's got a temple in the garden. We sit outside, we chat. We chat as a community, any other community there, they're not sat in isolation looking at a TV. What do you do if there's 1,000 people in their village? What do you do if someone has mental health issues? Well, we. You do. If someone has mental health issues out, well, we don't really have them. Wow, that's what he said. He said maybe one person sometimes maybe has issues and we all sit and talk and support, whereas and I was at a conference, and I won't remember which conference it was, and part of the part of one of the speakers was the problem with the uk and mental health is possibly the nhs because everybody's just waiting for a cure.
Speaker 2:Awful yeah, and I used to be there for over a decade waiting the right therapist will fix me when I get to the top of the waiting list, the right thing. I don't want that treatment. I want what treatment, you know, and it puts you in this place of powerlessness. We have to start teaching people that you are enough to save in inverted commas yourself, you're enough to save yourself. And in inverted commas yourself, you're enough to to save yourself. And you know, in here as we teach a method called the save method, which I created through many years of my own suffering, the save method. I can. I can talk you through it in a bit. You know it stands for see, allow, validate and embrace a process that we can go through within ourselves to save ourselves. We all have the power within us to heal and we all have everything we need inside us to heal. We do not, you know. I will just say a disclaimer. Sometimes anxiety or those human emotions can become a really debilitating experience, a mentally ill inverted commas experience and professional help is required, and I would encourage anybody to seek professional help. I really would you know. And if that is medication and I would encourage anybody to seek professional help, I really would. You know. And if that is medication, great. You know. If that is seeking the right therapist, fantastic. Seek professional help.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that, you know, go do trauma all over the place and, you know, deal with it yourself. I'm saying that we all have the power within us. Everything we need to heal ourselves and what we need to recognise within the mental health system is that education is power. There has been knowledge that has been reserved for practitioners who can afford to go to university, who can afford to study a degree or a course in the mind, you know, who can also then probably afford private therapy. So the mental health system to me and I know this might sound a bit radical it's classist and that is a big issue that I have with it, because the people sitting on these waiting lists are not people who can afford private treatment. There are people here who cannot afford to go private and they are ones that are sitting with their arms in the air waiting to be saved. They're the people we want to reach through heroes. They're the people that we want to teach that education is power.
Speaker 2:They're the people that I want to see running the mental health system in the future, because I feel, like you know, until the mental health system is run by people with lived experience of knowing exactly what it's like to live in, deprivation, being on the mental health system and dealing with mental health problems those three lived experience areas I don't believe we're going to have a class-free and holistic mental health system. For me, having people that don't have lived experience pulling the shots in the mental health system, it's literally like putting someone straight in charge of making decisions for an LGBTQ plus service to me, which would be. I don't believe that would be okay because they wouldn't know, they don't have that lived experience. They might be an ally fantastic but until you've had that lived experience, you don't know what people need. And I think this is where the medical model has got a bit over-involved in mental health system and we want to empower people. We want people who are going through Heroes to be the future leaders, and that's as far as we want to go with it.
Speaker 1:Are you putting them on a path to emotional and psychological freedom, would you?
Speaker 2:say capable to deal with whatever shows up. Freedom meaning not that they won't experience anxiety anymore, not that they're not going to experience beliefs that limited them anymore, or depression or low days or hard days, not any of that. It's that they will feel capable enough in their relationship to themselves that they can deal with whatever occurs. Because we can't control the uncertainty of life, the whole. You know, the only thing that's certain in life is its complete unpredictability. If external events can hit us at any time a bereavement, an illness, something harrowing could happen in our lives a loss of a job, whatever that might be Life is unpredictable. What we do is we teach people to build a relationship with themselves that is so strong that they will be capable of dealing with those things.
Speaker 2:Not that they're not going to feel the pain, but that they know how to be with the pain, and they let themselves feel the pain without needing to numb it out anymore, and this is why people are having remarkable outcomes when it comes to addiction, when they go through heroes as well, because we're not teaching them to numb it out anymore or telling them they need to get rid of it. We're saying okay, welcome it, and here's what you do with it, that sort of human approach, and that's where it's been received quite differently within the mental health system by people, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, there's always been a in my lifetime. There's always been a big stigmatisation against people with addictions. But what we're looking at there is people sort of casting their opinion on an addiction but not looking at where the addictions come from. And generally an addiction for my mind, would be a distraction. It's a distraction or a survival technique. Even. You know, it might be that someone is really ill through their addiction, but it's actually what's led them. There is a survival technique from their trauma.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. And addiction is not really the problem. Addiction is an attempt to solve a problem. So that idea, I love what you're saying there. It is a distraction and it comes from a place where we don't have capacity within our own nervous system, within our own body, within our own mind. You know, we don't have capacity to hold the difficult emotions. And this is what we see with people who've been through really traumatic experiences. You know, like yourself and people who've been through traumatic experiences in childhood. You know, like yourself and people who've been through traumatic experiences in childhood is that if we almost imagine, like a container, like you know, a container, a cup, a bowl, whatever, when we've been through really traumatic instances that have caused the trauma, the container shrinks to this tiny, a millimetre, a millilitre it can hold and then emotions that we carry or experience, they're spilling out all over the place and this is where addiction comes in, because it's like I can't carry this, I can't contain this, I don't have capacity within me to hold this level of pain. I need to numb it out, okay, so we safely what we, what we aim to do, it's what we're doing in heroes, it's almost like a personal trainer for the mind and nervous system. We're teaching almost an emotional sit-up toning and building strength and capacity. We're building that container, we're building that bowl, that cup. We're building capacity to hold those difficult emotions and feel them and be with them and build a positive relationship with them. And we have to do it in a safe way. We can't just immediately. Just you know, when people have been through absolute horror, you know if we're just like to you. Okay, just go down, walk down a busy street in the dark with people following you. It's got to be safe. But we've worked out a way of doing it very, very safely within a setting. This is why I do say you know, sometimes it's very important to seek professional help, you know if we're talking about severe and enduring trauma. But what we're doing is we're teaching people how to build capacity to hold difficult emotions so that there's no need to then numb out. You know that is sort of more robust and it takes practice, just like if you go to the gym and you don't get a bicep overnight by lifting a weight once. It's repetition that builds that strength. But that's what we can do with the nervous system. We all can do that, no matter what we've been through.
Speaker 1:It's another one of them references that I've got Seb, when I can't remember where I've got it from. I don't really know. Gabor Mate, I love Gabor. Yeah, I think it must have been one of his, because he that's what he worked and wanted addiction clinics, john, at vietnam vietnam war 50 of all the american troops over there were taking heroin. But when they returned, only five percent of that 50 still took heroin. And when they, because they moved out of that traumatic situation. But when they looked into that five percent, most of that five percent had some childhood trauma. Sure it's problematic. Wow see, I mean, do you know what I mean? So there's that background there that you take the person away and I suppose in some cases I'm an example of that where I used to just drink to complete annihilation, didn't I say, whereas I don't have to do that now, yeah.
Speaker 2:And what helped you. Like if you want to share.
Speaker 1:Oh, I think I've spoken. I think it was an acceptance that I have got. You know, I've got ptsd and it was one of these things. Do you know what it was suppressing it? It was suppressing this thing because I didn't want to talk with him, talk about because we're all lads but then there was a couple of friends that took their own lives and I just came with this overwhelming guilt, feeling of guilt that could I have helped them because of my experience? Yeah, and there was. There was a lot going on at the time as I got into, I got into the mountain stuff, and because I got into the mountain stuff and the outdoor stuff and I didn't realise at the time but that sort of nature therapy, which is what I'm looking at now but because I had that focus of well, if I'm off to drive up to the mountains, I'm not getting pissed the night before I mean.
Speaker 1:I'm'm staying out and just drinking. I was one of them people that would have to be out to the van and of course I was avoiding sleep because flashbacks, trauma, you know, sorry, traumatic dreams and things like that, which I would have to be just, I mean, paggied really you know what I mean. It'd be one of them where I'd just like drink to annihilation Because I just can't feel that.
Speaker 2:I can't feel that I can't experience it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it's detaching yourself from that. And it's only in the last few years, I suppose. I like a bit of so diagnosed with PTSD, like 30 out of 30 for PTSD and depression, 29 out of 30 for depression, but I didn't even realise about depression. So the PTSD ride, you know what I mean. But then I think in the later years, as I've confronted things and started doing my own learning, then possibly and this is what affects a lot of people that are in my situation like the survivor guilt how did I get away with that?
Speaker 1:And you feel guilty for being alive, and then you feel guilty for the mess that your bloody life's in. And it's a spiral, isn't it? Once you get into that sort of mental thing where you're out of control and you're living with this anxiety, then sleep. So job suffers, health suffers, relationships suffer, and then I know I will look in. I just have a get up and have a bloody can of coke and a double decker and that's like, yeah, shit, breakfast, yeah. And now people? Now, people just don't like conversations. When they cost them a bit of food, I mean, they're just like, nope, you can't do that, you've got to be on this thing and it's, it's all linked in it.
Speaker 2:You were talking about your water filter before we came in Exactly. Having to move the floor right from the water. Where's that double-decker now?
Speaker 1:eh Well, I don't eat any chocolate. I don't eat any chocolate and I keep away from sugar and try and keep away from processed foods.
Speaker 2:What shifted in you in terms of the way you saw yourself, would you say, because that man who's waking up having a can of Coke double-. Because that man who's waking up having a can of coke double decker, like he sounds, like you know who did you see yourself as then, compared to now?
Speaker 1:I think I saw myself as a victim. To be fair, I was still a victim and the world was all against me.
Speaker 1:I needed to be like look how many years this is going on. And then I think a lot of it is to do with my own learning and I read the Body Keeps the Score Beautiful. I didn't read that until a few years ago really. And then, when I started learning about mental health you're thinking, hang on. So I did my all validation. I need to get these qualifications, which I think were a distraction, a distraction technique, but it was a distraction from the other.
Speaker 2:It's an escapism. It was a healthier distraction. Yeah, it was A double-deckers. A healthier distraction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a double-decker. I was putting myself in dangerous situations, mountaineering and going off by myself and not telling anyone. And I still love that, to be honest, I just love being in that environment, when I'm by myself and no one on the planet knows where I am. But even that, that's like a control thing. I'm now in control, you know, yeah, yeah. And when you start ticking all these boxes or linking all these things together, it's like, well, hang on, what's going on? Here I'm, I'm reading stuff and I'm researching stuff as I became more aware and thinking hang on, these are typical, typical symptoms. Yes, that have come from, in fact, I said I said this in the speech down at ellen road they're ordinary, ordinary reactions to extraordinary events.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's like hang on that.
Speaker 1:You know, read. The Body Keeps a Score and we all think our. I think my PTSD is my PTSD, but there was a change of PTSD running me and now I work with it. Yes, beautiful. Hopefully most of the time.
Speaker 2:So you like you learn, you educated yourself and that was like A big turning point. Do you know what I?
Speaker 1:think it is. It's thinking that actually I'm not the only one. Yeah, whilst I'm a big fan, or I would press with anyone that goes to speak to a health professional, your mental health is individual to you, but the symptoms you know, things like working the tiger. Have you read that?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, peter.
Speaker 1:Levine yes, you know, there's all this literature that's out from like, all this literature that's out from like you started like 80s, 90s, uh-huh 2000 now we've got cabal mate all the stuff he's doing. Yeah, and you're thinking, hang on, there's millions of people in the same situation there is, yeah, and that's what I love about group work like.
Speaker 2:So heroes has started out as a group program. We are probably we're at some point going to be launching online a one-to-one version of heroes for those who really feel like it's not possible for people to go into a group or they can't get location-wise to a Heroes group. But that group work experience, I think offers what you're talking about as well, where people actually hear other people's stuff, you know, and go oh my God, I get that, oh my God, that's me. And you know, like this, you know this guilt you're talking about it's almost more shame. You know, like, guilt and shame are very interesting. They're very interesting emotions to work with, because the shame is sort of about you know, there's something about me that you know why did I survive? You know, it becomes very self-focused and agonising, quite frankly, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:self-focused and agonising, quite frankly, doesn't it? Even though health medical professionals had told me there's nothing I could have done, even though I tried, I still felt that failure, that a man had died while I was trying to give him first aid, and it's like could I have done something different? How horrific. You know what I mean. But the thing is, I don't know whether it's my make-up, but I am fascinated by the way the brain works, even though my, my personal brain won't go down psychology way, but you know the way the brain works and and reconfigures itself. And then you're thinking well, why am I thinking that? Yeah, why? Why does that happen? Why does this trigger trigger me? Why does it? Does it trigger animal? Okay, am I suppressing everything?
Speaker 2:and this is this is a really interesting thing that I have seen quite a lot is that people are coming to groups or they're coming for sessions, in whatever form, after really horrific life events. So, for example, a bereavement, something horrific, an incident like you're talking about, you know where there's a massive shock with it as well, these sort of external experiences beyond our control, and for some people it won't impact them as much and again, I'm aware this might sound quite radical as well, but I do think there are imprints on the nervous system that are made only really in developmental years or even ancestrally. Sometimes intergenerational trouble won't go into, because it's a whole other kettle of fish. But some people are more vulnerable to going down this route of something breaking them completely and shattering their life. You know we see the classic midlife crisis. You know nervous breakdown, whatever, and sometimes I've seen people. You know they come with a bereavement. They go.
Speaker 2:I've never struggled with mental health in my whole life. I had a really, really happy childhood. My parents were really great, I had a good time at school in general or whatever, but this bereavement has completely broken them. They've got absolute shame. I should have messaged them and then maybe they wouldn't have taken their own life.
Speaker 2:Whatever it is, there's loads of harrowing stuff, but then when I trace it back with that person who it's impacting in a massive way, there's always links to childhood person who it's impacting in a massive way. There's always links to childhood, some identity they might've created for themselves as a child about being responsible. Or you know an identity of you know not being good enough in some way. Or you know people think they've had a wonderful childhood and I've got a great relationship with my mum now whatever, and then they share. Well, actually I was bullied at school and like who did you share that? With no one. I never shared it with anyone. Okay, why? Well, we didn't talk about emotions in our home. That's trauma. That's trauma and it doesn't mean your parents are horrible or bad or wrong or anything like that. It just you know everyone's got their own conditioning.
Speaker 2:We're not looking to blame anyone in the past, but when you trace things back from these catastrophic life events that happen the people who they affect the most it looks like it's the event happening now that's causing that massive upheaval of trauma and sending people into ptsd and of course it overall is bringing it all up. But there's always something you can link it back to that it's tapping on a wound that's pressing on from very much earlier on, including including with bereavement, and I know that might sound a bit, you know, out there, because you know some people are like no, I literally have had a great life, I've lost my partner. Of course I'm devastated, of course you're devastated. But for those people where it becomes complex trauma as in it, lasts a long time, it leads to severe mental illness, et cetera, et cetera, ptsd those people to severe mental illness, et cetera, et cetera, ptsd those people. I would say there's already been an imprint there in the past that this catastrophic life event in the present moment is inviting you to heal. You know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean there's sort of evidence now, isn't there about? I'm not going to go on about that education system again.
Speaker 2:Oh, good for you.
Speaker 1:It's a common thing because it's not much about now. You know, we're putting young people I suppose this is a british society where both parents haven't got to work, so you're then putting a young person in the care of someone that they're not, they haven't got relationship with, they're not really supposed to be hugging them, cuddling them attachments all over the place?
Speaker 2:where's my secure space to put my anchor into the land you know?
Speaker 1:Parents coming home shattered from both working yeah, stress and they might be doing the best they can in the world, these parents.
Speaker 2:We don't want to just start vilifying parents across the land, you know, but they might be doing the best they can in the world. They're working really hard for their kids to do the home, to get home, and they're busy and they're tired and they don't and they put the child you know whatever. But but you're very right in what you say about you know that experience that you shared about that driver in Bali I think you said. You know there's this community, you know there's that saying it takes a village to raise a child. Well, well, right now, you know, the parents are really strung out and battling their own conditioning and what I would say to any parent is that work on you, work on yourself, work on your relationship with you and that'll filter beautifully into your child.
Speaker 2:Because, you know, for a lot of time I lived in absolute fear my daughter's 18 now.
Speaker 2:I lived in absolute horror that I just didn't want to be like my mom was to me and each stage that Robin went through my daughter, every stage she went through so eight to 10 or in teenage years, it was really challenging for me parenting her because I didn't have an experience of what that was like being.
Speaker 2:I had great foster parents, I'm not going to lie but I didn't know what that was like. So I didn't know how to be as a parent and I was desperate for her to never feel rejected or abandoned. And I kept over pushing it and disturbing her when she wanted to just be in a room on her own or whatever, pushing it because I was wanting to not make her feel abandoned. But the real magic happened when I turned inwards and went heal. This guilt and shame that you feel for being abandoned back then it does not mean that you were not good enough. And then I started to see myself as good enough and organically I started breeding a really beautiful, healthy relationship with my daughter, where I respected her boundaries If she wanted to lock herself in a room and I didn't make it about me anymore because it's not personal and as a parent, I think one of the greatest things that I ever learned to do was not take things personally, especially from a teenager, you know it's's not about us, but our old wounds are fired up in parenting.
Speaker 1:Do the inner work as a parent on your own stuff and it'll filter to your children yeah, I mean, I think obviously the relationship I had with my young, with my daughters, was strained because they were very, very young, yeah, but as I've sort of come into this, what you know, this area of my life, then it's such a healthy relationship because they do what they want and I'm there for advice and stuff like that and, to be fair, as you know, as deft as I am, for some people there is a lot of lifting, a lived experience which I'm happy to share, and that's why we're we're all here talking about that beautiful and it's about talking.
Speaker 2:And you know, as parents like it's, it's important to keep those conversations going and it's important to just we're all gonna get stressed at times or be overly busy or whatever with our kids. You know, and I don't want anyone, I don't want the listener thinking like, oh my god, is that trauma if we don't talk about emotions? Oh my god, I've done this with my child or I've been ignored. You know, essentially it's about always just letting our children know that our mood or stress or how we feel about ourselves is not actually about them Naming it. I'm really stressed today. I just want you to know that I recognise that I just snapped at you in the kitchen A, I'm really sorry about that and B, that wasn't about you.
Speaker 2:This is where kids don't get trauma. We name it, we own it and we apologize. We don't need to fawn with our children, but we apologize and we own our behavior and this is where children start to develop a really healthy sense of self, you know. So that work that we do on ourselves, that is gonna, that will heal the world, that is what will breed the next healthy generation us working ourselves. Because kids don't do what we say, they do what they see.
Speaker 2:So if they see a parent having a beautiful relationship with themselves, they're going to have a kind, loving relationship with themselves. If they see you know mum, drop the rice on the floor and go oh god, I'm such an idiot. Okay, don't make sure you're kind to yourself, you know? Then the daughter falls over and says something bad to themselves oh no, you're not being kind to yourself. Be kind to yourself. There's no point telling your child to be kind to themselves if they're seeing you talk to yourself like crap. So so it's role modeling, doing the inner work, kind, loving relationship with yourself. You don't even need to tell your child to be kind to themselves if you're doing them.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, I mean I may be wrong, so I'll ask for your both opinions. It's, but do you think we'll even know? This might just be revealing something about my own psyche, but this thing about it's seen as selfish, taking care of yourself first in the sort of british way, isn't it?
Speaker 1:you know, I mean, and you've got to be doing stuff and it's like you say, it's like all right, well, because I do this an awful lot and I've got a horrible term for myself that my wife hurts because I do really struggle with knowledge and words. But we've already been doing amdi. You're seeing, it's ticks it and it's took it. It's took it right back to the incident because my therapy was a writing. I just so, basically for an hour a week I'd be talking to a counsellor, but every morning I had to get up and write an account of the trauma of the incident which you know, someone was, two people were killed and someone was stabbed nine times. Oh my God. So when I start writing a bit and I get stressed, then Ed flips out. It's not been bad lately. I mean I haven't broken any computers for a while, I've said and phones.
Speaker 2:The night is young.
Speaker 1:Seb's my calming influence, but then that's just me loading it on him. But you know what I mean. Without addressing that, and like you just said, then it's like I've got this term and you know it's not a very nice term for when I do things wrong, but I do tech two or three times, yeah. So you know, is that just something we've grown up with as a British?
Speaker 2:Yeah, In Britain I think Yorkshire as well we've got this very much shut up and put up attitude that a lot of people have been brought up with as well, and we've got to make sure we don't bring that through with our kids. But this idea of self-compassion or self-love or being kind to ourselves, having a good relationship with ourselves, being selfish, could not be further from the truth, because all we're doing is we are moving with love, kindness and affection and compassion rather than fear, okay. So again, going back to that point that we said at the beginning about this fawning mentality, you know we say yes when we know, you know we're being selfless by doing that. It's like actually, no, we're moving, we're taking action from a place of fear, not love, okay, whereas if we're loving to the self, we have way more to give. We can expand further in this life. You know, I believe that we all have really infinite power, capability. You know to create and you know help others and be of service in whatever that looks like to you. It might look like creating art to be of service. It might look like setting up a podcast to be of service, creating a mental health program. It might look like working on the checkout and you're there with a smile because you're not beating yourself up and you're there being able to greet everyone with a smile because we've all done it.
Speaker 2:When we're feeling crap about ourselves and we're feeling terrible, we're beating ourselves up about a mistake or something, we're irritable with everyone around us, we spread hate, we spread fear, we spread anger because we're feeling some crap about ourselves and that just vibrates outwards. Doing the healing work on ourselves to make sure that we feel good above all else, and having a kind, loving relationship with ourselves, even when it's hard because it can feel unsafe to do that. When we've been taught to abandon ourselves from being very young and we've been taught that it's scary to live in whatever environment from when we were young, so it can feel unsafe. I just want to honor that. But but starting to breed a loving, kind, compassionate relationship with ourselves is the most loving, kind, compassionate thing we can do for the world and everyone around us, because it means that we expand, it means that we grow, it means that we're able to live life more in service of others, whatever we decide to do in that vein.
Speaker 2:Being of service doesn't always look directly like helping people with, you know, on a cancer ward or mental health. Whatever being of service happens in many different ways. Being of service is as much as not scorning a child who bumps into you in the lift because you're not so in your head and in aggression or rush kind relationship with yourself. A child bumps into you, you go. It's all right. Sweetheart, we spread the love and that's being of service and it comes from being we've got to reframe the word selfish. Of course there's some forms of selfishness that's a bit like, you know. Of course they're not going to be as sweet, but you know, focusing on that return to self is only going to serve the world and all those around us. You know doing it with that intention to spread more love.
Speaker 1:Lovely. To be honest, when you said that about someone bumping into you in a lift, you know what. You can often see that people, especially young people, and they're waiting for you to react, and when you don't react, it doesn't matter, does it On the scale of things? But the use of people being so uptight and reactionary.
Speaker 2:And that reaction or that action that we take of loving kindness to that child, the amount of spilt the drink on us, whatever is that ever going to happen if we're feeling a crap about ourselves? We have to be honest, because if I'm in a mood or I feel like I'm beating myself up about something, or I'm in a rush and I can't forgive myself for being late or whatever it is, I'm in my own head, I'm going to be annoyed, you know right. And if I'm feeling good, I'm feeling at peace, because I've integrated those parts of me wounded, I'm going to be spreading love and kindness, and that is what we are here to do. And actually I would go as far as to say that that is the truth of who all of us are, in our true nature, and that people, you know, hurt people hurt people, and that's what we see in the prison system that's what we see in the prison system.
Speaker 2:We have to get very, very real. You know we could do the whole. We've spoken a lot about the mental health system, the prison system. It's filled with people who're just so traumatized that they're just living in reaction. You know, and have been through great suffering, you know a lot of the time and we needed more trauma-informed criminal justice system. Feel as well. But you know, hurt people hurt people. So so to be kind to ourselves, it's greatest thing we can do to to integrate those wounded parts of us and, and you know, heal shame.
Speaker 1:Do you know what? It's been fascinating, really good. So where can people find you? And we will put all this in there.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm actually currently in a studio in Leeds, so I'm all over the socials. I'm on all the social media platforms. I'm more active, I say, on Instagram and LinkedIn and Facebook. Miranda Arieh, you can find me A-R-I-E-H or you can find me at MirandaAriecouk and MirandaAriecom, and there's loads of info coming out about Heroes programme soon if you're interested in that.
Speaker 1:Well, we will spread all that, we will put when this goes out. Well, seb, I want to say we, seb, will put in the show notes. I would absolutely. There was a delegation there Can't leave short notes to me. You'd have to read them. You'd have to read them. You'd have to read them with a mirror, but I would. I mean you might say no, but I'd love to have you come back in and talk about transgenerational trauma. Oh, I'd love to so thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Pleasure.
Speaker 1:Absolute pleasure Cheers. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2:Thank you Anytime. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:And if you'd like to support us and help us keep the podcast going, then you can go to Buys A Coffee or you can click that on our website, whitefoxstalkingcom, and look for the little cup. Thank you, ©. Bf-watch TV 2021.
