Self-Worth Revolution: Tips for your Transformational Journey
Have you ever felt trapped in your own mind, unable to see a way out? Have you ever sat in a room feeling alone, ruminating, and asking yourself: How can I transform my life from darkness to light? How will I get through this darkness? I was once in that very room, feeling like the walls were closing in on me. But I chose to break free from my pain and trauma, and it changed my life forever.
Are you searching for your life's true purpose? Are you ready to find inner peace and tranquility? Do you want to live a life filled with abundance and happiness? Do you want to connect with like-minded individuals on a journey of self-discovery?
This is the right podcast for you. Self Worth Revolution is a podcast hosted by a survivor turned Transformational and Relationship Coach where I share my story and the stories of others who have survived and thrived. This is not a podcast of generic advice. This is a podcast where you will hear real stories of survival and transformation. Together, we'll explore the practical tips and strategies that have helped us live mindful, purposeful lives free from bullshit.
Are you searching for your life's true purpose? Do you want to live a life filled with abundance, happiness, love, and inner peace? Are you looking for actionable steps to improve your life? If so, this podcast is for you. Join me as we dive deep into topics such as:
- Overcoming trauma and pain
- Finding your higher purpose
- Living a mindful and purposeful life
- Cultivating abundance and happiness
- Achieving inner peace
Are you ready to transform your life? Tune in to Self Worth Revolution and discover how you can break free from your past and create the future you desire.
Self-Worth Revolution: Tips for your Transformational Journey
The Power in Embracing the True Self with Guest Debbie Westwell
Peeling back the layers of her life's transformation, Debbie Westwell joins us on the Self-Worth Revolution podcast, taking listeners on a profound journey from the high-speed lanes of corporate success to the more introspective trails of mindset and confidence coaching. Her story, a powerful dance of bravado and vulnerability, reveals the truth behind the facades we often present to the world. Debbie's candid reflections on the pivotal moments of self-realization and the courage it takes to admit we're not always okay open up a world of empowerment and growth.
In our latest episode, we walk alongside Debbie as she navigates the complexities of personal boundaries and the discovery of her authentic self. From the echoes of her outgoing personality serving as a shield to the liberating embrace of vulnerability, Debbie's experiences with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and the power of environment changes punctuate our conversation. It's a heartfelt exploration of the strength found in fragility, and a reminder of the personal growth that blooms from introspection and the acceptance of our limitations.
The path to well-being isn't without its obstacles, as Debbie shares her struggles with juggling professional demands and family caregiving. Her story serves as a beacon for listeners facing similar challenges, highlighting the significance of setting boundaries and prioritizing personal health. With lessons in gratitude, self-reflection, and self-love, Debbie's empowering narrative concludes with her inspiring venture into podcasting—a testament to the transformative journey towards finding and affirming one's self-worth. Join us for an episode that's not just a conversation, but a celebration of the true self.
Guest Speaker: Debbie is a confidence and mindset coach, travel and adventure enthusiast, and podcast host. She is also a beauty and massage therapist, reiki practitioner and meditation practitioner which gives her coaching a unique healing edge.
Having jumped around from job to job and experienced stress, burn out and being at a crossroads in her career, Debbie left the corporate world and has been following her happiness and joy and doing what feels good.
She now helps mid-life ladies feeling frustrated and at a crossroads to embrace self-care and gain more control over their
Some ways to support my podcast and its mission:
Buy Vivian a coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vivianmedrano
Follow and subscribe to my podcast:
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-self-worth-revolution-podcast/id1706384557
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7hs2SVwnhjWu60aoA9fDii?si=a8918280b50d41fb
Rate & Review the Podcast
Share with Friends & Family
Follow me on IG https://www.instagram.com/vivmedrano/
TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@selfworthmentor?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc
Disclaimer:
The "The Self Worth Revolution" Podcast may, at times, cover sensitive topics including but not limited to suicide, abuse, violence, severe mental illnesses, sex, drugs, alcohol addiction, psychedelics and the use of plant medicines. You are advised to refrain from watching or listening to the Podcast if you are likely to be offended or adversely impacted by any of these topics. Neither The Company, The Host nor the guests shall at any time be liable for the content covered causing off...
Do you feel inside and the reason I'm asking this is because I've been there you were presenting yourself on the outside to be very happy, to be very joyful, to be vivacious, but inside you were suppressing everything, without not consciously knowing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know what. I think you've hit the nail on the head completely there, and I think what was happening was I am genuinely naturally outgoing and loud anyway, but I was using it as like, as a shield, like because if I don't let people get in and see the inside of me and I don't show that vulnerability and I don't show that I can be broken, because I've always fixed everybody's problems, everybody's always come to me so I've always had the solution. And so by presenting that front, I think, yeah, I probably was a little bit and maybe energetically I was coming across like inauthentic or just terrified. The living daylight's out for one of the two, but yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I think that yeah, like holding a mirror up to myself.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Self Worth Revolution podcast hosted by Vivian Medrano. I am not only a podcaster, but a mother, a nurse, a life coach and a survivor. This podcast is about turning your pain into your power, your experiences into your lessons, and to start living a life full of abundance, inner peace and fulfillment. My higher purpose are for my listeners to find their self worth and their value by following their path to greatness. We are all deserving of living our best lives. It is time to stop identifying with our past. Start living in the present for a better future. This podcast will have guest speakers that will share their stories of how they transformed their lives and found their worth.
Speaker 1:My mission is to let my listeners know this is your time to shine, to know that you are not alone. Healing is empowering. It takes courage to be vulnerable and our voices have power. Hold on to your lives, because this will be an incredible ride of self transformation, self empowerment and radical change. It is time for us to take our power back. Welcome to the Self Worth Revolution podcast. I'm here with Debbie Westwell. She joined us from the UK. She went from corporate to mindset confidence life coach. It was time for her to change her way of living, way of thinking and just how she viewed her life.
Speaker 2:Tell us a little bit about yourself, debbie Well Westwell thank you very much for having me, because I just love this podcast and I think people need to hear everything about self worth. I think more people need to look in the mirror in the morning and just completely love themselves.
Speaker 2:So, all right, sorry, tell you a little bit about me. I kind of have been working on myself really for maybe like the past five, five years or so, maybe six years now. I used to work on cruise ships. I've done many different jobs but by far one of the most fun was working on cruise ships. So I got to travel.
Speaker 2:I was very lucky, but it was definitely a journey on cruise ships because there's the whole like romantic connotations I could stand in front of and I still can stand in front of thousands of people and talk to them and give a presentation. But when it came to guys on ships I was like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like a bumbling idiot. And let me tell you also, right, the guys on the ships are limited. You're on a tin metal boat, basically, and there's not a lot of choice and so everybody fancies like five people. That's about it. So, but kind of getting back to the point, I will digress all the time, so I'm going to apologize in advance. But getting back to the point, my confidence took a huge hit because I found well, for the first few years of working at sea I did about eight years I found nobody to connect with on a romantic level because a lot of the guys on board ships really wanted to go out with the young skinny dancers, the young skinny spa girls and nobody seemed to want a curly, vivacious, loud, outgoing blonde English woman. That was until I found my tribe. I found my tribe. Bizarrely, central American men seemed to absolutely go wild for me. So high five to all those people and I'd be moving over there at some point in my life. But unfortunately when I was on ships I kind of burnt myself out. I was doing a lot of contracts on a couple of weeks off back from the contract on and when you're working at sea, you work seven days a week and you're constantly on call. Even if you go out to the theater that's on board the ships or the shows or anything you wear in your name badge. You're representing the company. You are on all the time and I remember it being a particularly busy season.
Speaker 2:I was on a world cruise. I was also dealing with all birthing complaints, so any complaints about any rooms, and in an old ship there's loads and there's always problems. And I was working. I was in Australia, the company was based in the UK and I was basically getting up at five, six o'clock in the morning to check the emails of any issues that have come through or any resolutions for any issues that have come through throughout the night. Then I was helping with tour dispatch. I was doing my own. I worked doing loyalty and future cruise sales, but it got to the point where I was just taking on too much.
Speaker 2:I was working through to like 10, 11 o'clock at night still trying to keep up with like time differences and stuff, and I didn't realise I was stressed, I clearly was ignoring all of the signs until somebody walked past me and said hey, debs, are you okay? And for the first time in my life I couldn't say yes. And that's such a bizarre feeling because I have always gone yeah, I'm fine, thanks. Yeah, I'm fine. Yeah, I'm all good. That's my automatic reaction. It's taken me years to go. Do you know what? I'm not okay, but thank you for asking now.
Speaker 2:And literally people would say are you okay? And I would break down into tears and I was like, oh, and it took one of the doctors. She was lovely, walked past my desk and was like my office now and she was like I am signing you off work, like what you have is a mental health condition. And I was like, oh, now you're using the mental health word. I'm not happy with that at all. I don't want to be tarred with this mental health brush. What is this?
Speaker 2:And she even asked me because I just couldn't stop. I couldn't stop crying and obviously this is my body just releasing the emotions or through stress that I hadn't acknowledged. And she sat me down. She was like have you any thoughts of suicide? And I was like that was almost like a big slap in the face to me because I was like absolutely not. But I can't believe that I'm presenting that badly, that you think that that's what it's gonna be. So it was a bit of a shock and I fought against it because I was like no, I've always been the happy one. Everything's always been fine, I can always push through, I can always do this and, yeah, I clearly couldn't. And so I had some time signed off work, but obviously on a ship it's really difficult because you can't go anywhere. So I'm still seeing my colleagues and they're going well. You don't look like there's anything wrong with you.
Speaker 2:There's nothing physically wrong with you and you're like, oh, and in the end I got physically disembarked through stress just because I genuinely couldn't stop crying. And I'm not gonna lie. I had been in New Zealand and I had bought an awful lot of wine, and I did drink through all of the wine that I bought while I was setting the afternoon in my cabin watching Disney films which made me feel better at the time and all of the James Bond films as well. But, yeah, and when I came home, I didn't recognise myself. I was not a nice person. I was yelling at my mum. It was like all of this anger and frustration was inside me and it was just bursting out. But at the back of my mind I knew that that was kind of like a toxic work environment that I didn't want to put myself back into and it was safer for me to stay out. So the company was pretty cool and they gave me sorry, bond.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to ask you a question. I wanted to go back a little bit because I think a lot of people actually go through exactly what you went through and, like you said, as soon as you mentioned a word mental health a lot of people see it as something negative, right?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And, in reality, our mindset and our mental health has a lot to do with how we present ourselves physically, and I know that you always said you were saying recently that you were really happy, that you showed that you were really happy, you were glowing, you were vivacious and therefore people weren't really attracted to you, but you couldn't understand why they weren't attracted to you. Do you feel inside and the reason I'm asking this is because I've been there you were presenting yourself on the outside to be very happy, to be very joyful, to be vivacious, but inside you were suppressing everything without not consciously knowing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know what. I think you've hit the nail on the head completely there, and I think what was happening was I am genuinely naturally outgoing and loud anyway, but I was using it as a shield because if I don't let people get in and see the inside of me and I don't show that vulnerability and I don't show that I can be broken, because I've always fixed everybody's problems, everybody's always come to me so I've always had the solution. And so by presenting that front, I think, yeah, I probably was a little bit and maybe energetically I was coming across inauthentic or just terrified of the living daylights out than one of the two.
Speaker 2:But yeah, absolutely, I think yeah, like holding a mirror up to myself. Yeah, I'm too worried about what other people or I was, I'm not anymore. I was too worried about what other people were thinking about me, and so I was trying to project what I thought that they wanted to see as opposed to the real me. And then if I was having like a down day, I would just hide it away. I would never really share it. So, yeah, you fit the nail on the head there.
Speaker 1:Do you feel that that was your awakening moment? What was that moment where you just and I know it probably felt so great for somebody to finally acknowledge, but the bravery that it took you to say I'm not okay? It took a lot of bravery for you to say that, because vulnerability is very hard for a lot of people to come by and to express to others, because that's the whole thing. You're suppressing all this emotions you have inside and coming at us as happy, go lucky person. Because the fear of vulnerability, the fear of shame, the fear of what are others gonna think of me? How are they going to respond to me if they know that I'm not feeling well, that I am having a bad day today? You know what I am actually sad inside, I'm not happy. How did that feel? That moment where you finally were able to say you know what I'm not okay and you acknowledged it? How did you feel at that moment? Was that your darkest place at that time? Do you feel?
Speaker 2:probably because, I mean, it's very kind of you to say brave, but I think at the time I didn't feel brave. At the time my brain wasn't in the right place, I wasn't thinking straight. That that changing moment for me that made me go, oh, I need to do something about this and massively look at my life, was when I came home and I stayed at my parents house and my mom was just doing what anyone wanted to do. She just wanted to make her baby okay and I was biting at her and I've never like been that bitter kind of person at my mom and I thought I can't, I do not want to be and I cannot be this person. It is not who I am. So I need to do whatever I need to do to process through, to get through.
Speaker 2:This. Part of that was the company provided me with CBT and I'll be honest, it it wasn't great. I've had other different types of therapies since, but it it just didn't really work for me because in my solutionizing brain I just went right well, the solution is come off ships, which, which was a big thing, because then I had no job and no plans can explain with CBT is because I'm sure so yes, cognitive behavioral therapy.
Speaker 2:So with cognitive, with different therapies, some help you kind of deal with you know they talk about your childhood, some kind of like deal with the emotions that you're dealing with at the time. Cbt cognitive behavioral therapy kind of helps you cope with the emotions as they arrive. So this is what I'm going through. I'm gonna learn how to deal with this if and when it arises again. So actually, my therapist's full theory was let's get you in a place where we can send you back to work at sea and you won't feel like this because you'll have some tools in your box that you can, you can use to sort yourself out.
Speaker 2:But for me, I just knew I just needed to remove myself from that environment and everything that that surrounded it. And you know it's just genuinely think. Things happen for reasons and you don't always know the reason at the time, and but you know and that's it. So that was just my time to come off. Ironically, about six months earlier I had said to the office I think I just need six months off from cruise ships. Find me a project in the office and I'll do it, and I'm sure I'll go back and they were like, oh, but you are gonna do the world cruise, aren't you? And I was like yeah yeah, I didn't complete the world cruise.
Speaker 2:I completely got signed off way through. So, yeah, that was an interesting time, should we say. I kind of learnt a lot, but I think I wasn't emotionally mature enough to fully understand that that, potentially, is a pattern that's gonna start repeating itself, that stress, and it's something that I can reflect back on now and absolutely say I know that the reason why I was doing that is because I say yes to everybody and I take everything on and I'm the solution near and I can solve everybody's problems and I can make everybody and that's essentially an intrinsic part of who I am. If you are crying, I want to give you a hug and I want to fix you.
Speaker 2:If you come to me with a problem, I want to solve it and I am not a superhero and I am not God, and so I can't solve everybody's problems and sometimes people just need an ear to listen to as opposed to somebody coming at them and that and that's something that I've only really learned within the last like 12 months, I think. So I think that episode on the ships was definitely the start of me kind of looking at myself, but I have fallen into some habits when I started working on landed, in corporate life, on land. That I repeated consistently until I've learned a lesson. If that makes them so, I was I was explain that a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I would work in a job and then I would push myself and push myself, and push myself, and then I'd find myself getting stressed and I'd be taking on more work and I wouldn't articulate. I've got all of this work and this is how it's making me feel. I just assumed that I can do this, I can do this, I can do this, and I think it goes back to that. I don't know, maybe it's a small fear of am I gonna get sacked if I can't do this work? And then it gets to the point where I get to that, that break point of nope, I've had enough, now I need to look for another job. This is ridiculous, and all I do is then look for a job.
Speaker 2:But I'm looking for a job out of anger and out of leaving this job, out of desperation, and so then I move into another job, rinse, repeat. You know, I go through that job and I go through the steps and it's great at the beginning because you're learning a new role, and then, as you get more competent at that role, you get more work thrown at you. And then you take it on and take it on, and take it on, and so I do genuinely think that you have to learn a lesson, otherwise it keeps getting thrown at you. So, however you believe God, universe creator source, it will keep throwing those lessons at you until you learn the lesson. It is like basically picking up a tray and smacking yourself on the head repeatedly until you get the message, and that message dawned for me this year.
Speaker 1:So it was a message. How did that? How did that message of awakening come to you this year so?
Speaker 2:the message itself was have some self-respect and self-esteem and put boundaries in place and say no to people, and it's been a really interesting ride. So my, yeah, my mom's got Parkinson's Parkinson's for about eight or nine years and she's been on the dementia path for a couple of years now and unfortunately, the back end of last year it kind of it was a massive accumulation. I'd done a hundred kilometer walk for charity, to raise money for Parkinson's UK. It was a non-stop walk. It took me 33 hours because I popped a muscle on kilometer 70 and had to limp the last three, crying again. Realistically, a sensible human being probably would have stopped and known that the people who had sponsored her would have just given other money anyway. But I was like no, I've got to carry on. And I was literally like limping and sobbing. And then at the same time that was my birthday at the same time and my sister was messaging me saying dad is killing himself looking after mom and I can't cope anymore. Mom's like really in a bad way.
Speaker 2:So and I started a new role. I'd had a promotion and I started a new role and I literally had to phone up on the day that I was starting my new job and say I can't be there today because I've got to catch two trains in an eight hour journey, because I can't drive, because my leg is knackered, to go and be with my family and essentially help care for my parents. My dad needed a he's awesome now, but he needed a defibrillator fitting at the time and mum was in a terrible way and kept falling. And so I basically upped my life and moved it kind of like six hours north and drive basically, and like moved into my parents house and was trying to continue again doing that. I can do it all it's fine. And I was on work calls with my headphones on and I'd hear my dad go, your mom's fallen, and I'd literally just be like like pull my headphones off, I don't care what they're talking about and I'm out of there. And again, I was signed off by a doctor for stress at home, because the doctor was lovely and just basically said you've got stress at home, you've got stress at work, you cannot control both, so let's eliminate one of those that we can eliminate and then you can focus on your family. So I was signed off work for four and a half months and I was a completely different person I was again.
Speaker 2:I was arguing with my sister because she the way she processes things is, she just wants to talk about it and have somebody listen and as she talks out, she processes it in her head, whereas I internalize everything and then I like to tell people afterwards this is how I've worked through everything and I'm okay now. So, but I do that as a protection thing. But we were. We hadn't had that kind of grown-up, adult to adult conversation of this is what I need from you. So every time she came at me with her talking that she just needed me to listen, I was going how can I solve your problem, how can I fix you?
Speaker 2:and she was like stop her, stop trying to fix me so in the end we managed to have a sensible conversation and now it's great, because now it's like that communication where I go, oh, in my head, I go, I just, I just gonna sit back and when I twiddle my thumbs and I'm gonna listen and I'm gonna say yes, in the right place because she doesn't need me, she just needs to talk to somebody. So that was a big thing. But when I went back into work nobody tells you that it's the hardest thing to do returning to work after a period off I'd had talking therapy. I found holistic therapies like Reiki and crystal healing and stuff like that, and I found that you know what. They were wonderful and they absolutely set me on my path and I I've learned Reiki this year as well. And when I went back in yeah, I know well.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna do.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna have give or learn, like holistic therapies and alternative therapies, because I found that only I can help myself right now. Only I can like like I am the architect of my own life so I can sit and think that the world is coming at me and against me or I can work with what I've got and learn the lessons from it. And I've had an amazing coach that I worked with this year who's done like trauma release, breath work with me and then kind of like coaching through all of this, and I don't think I would be in as good a position as I am now had it not been for her. She was fabulous because when I went back into work, I requested like a three-day working week and they basically said, no, you have to return full-time to prove that you can return full-time in order to be able to put a request in to request reduced hours. And I was like, hang on, that makes no sense to me. But okay, we'll do it. And I was sat at my desk and I was crying and most days I was crying and I was.
Speaker 2:My boss wasn't the most supportive and I don't think that's not from her want of being that.
Speaker 2:I think she was also overworked and probably I was reflecting back to her a very similar I think we were very similar in how we were and it's a really, really interesting how she reacted when I started to say no, she was kind of like the boss that would put in emails on a Saturday night at nine o'clock or be working till midnight some nights and sending emails, and I'm like I don't save lives, I don't protect children.
Speaker 2:I get paid for a certain amount of hours and these hours are what I'm going to be working because, quite frankly, my priorities have massively changed now my family and my priority and I want to be able to spend time with my parents and my mom, because my mom kind of had a fall, went into hospital four weeks later. She went from walking, talking, feeding herself to basically can't feed herself, she can't even articulate herself very well. It's exacerbated her dementia and she has to get hoisted from her bed to a chair and we had to put her in a nursing care home, which we promised we would never would, and so it was hard working through all of that, trying to support my dad and ultimately become that carer and I guess it's been.
Speaker 1:That's been probably extremely hard for you especially knowing that you're trying to figure yourself out, you're trying to figure out what's best for you, but now again you're put in a position and by all means it's something that you wouldn't want to do. They're your parents and you want to give your mom back what she gave to you, so you want to give her that same love, that same care, but now again you're put in a position where you kind of have to put another person before yourself. How is that making you feel right now and thank you for sharing that with us, because that must be really hard for you right now especially making a decision to put your mom in a home, when that was something that you never, really ever, wanted to do before?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was really difficult. Thank you for acknowledging that and actually I've come through so much. At the back end of last year, we got told that my mom had three weeks to live. She's still with us almost a year on, which is amazing. We've had this time with her and who knows how long we will have. I mean, hey, I could go first. You never know, do you?
Speaker 2:So I think that it has been ridiculously hard, but it has laser-sharpened my focus to what I want from life, and what I want from life is to be able to spend quality time with my parents, and I decided I don't want to be sitting behind a desk being told I have to work 30 hours for somebody. I want the freedom to be able to be a digital nomad and work wherever I want. It was always a dream of mine to be a digital nomad and work anywhere in the world, because in my brain I wanted to travel and I wanted to go and visit friends and sit outside in Mexico in the tropical heat, and you should always be careful what you ask for, because you get it, but it's never in the way that you ask for it, and so obviously it laser-sharpened my focus on that because now I want to spend the time with my parents and whatever time I've got left with them. And it's been a big learning curve because just the way that we all deal with emotion, and I've learned a lot about family history and everything, because my dad has been telling me about how he remembered his mom never crying after the loss of her husband his dad and he saw her with red eyes but he never saw her cry, and so when dad started to get upset at the beginning he would just walk off and I would literally be running after him in the house going it's OK to cry. It's OK to cry, let it out. Let it out because that's something that I've learned, like an emotion has to come out, and I've been getting into a lot this year of how your body heals itself or how it holds trauma and if you don't release that trauma, what it can turn into. And so it's definitely brought my dad, my sister and I a lot closer together because we've had to have that just emotional breakdown and some days it's like I don't even know why I'm crying, it's just coming out.
Speaker 2:Something's triggered me. But when I started talking of triggering, when I started saying no at work. It triggered my manager, and so I actually had to look at that with love and kindness and just think, ok, I'm triggering something in her. She had lost her mum and she had admitted that, she went back to work too early and she was crying and stuff. So in my head like why are you not supporting me? But I think it's just the pressure of the job and she was just trying to be that perfectionist, getting everything done, promising the world to people, like exactly how I was.
Speaker 2:And then when I started saying no, she was like and it's been very interesting to learn and process it through and then again I had to stop being angry. And it was once I managed to let go of the anger, because I believe that anger is a secondary emotion. And so I would be sat at work and I would get so, so frustrated and angry and I just and most of the time, if I get angry, it comes out as tears of crying. And then working with my coach and doing breath work and stuff I was like, ok, anger is a secondary emotion, let's just sit down, let's take some deep breaths and see what's going on. And every single time there was an underlying need that wasn't being met. That was causing me to have anger.
Speaker 1:So, like.
Speaker 2:One of my main ones was like I'm saying something, you are not hearing me. You want my need to be here. Heard is not being met. So actually that enabled me to go. Oh right, ok, reflecting with me. Maybe I'm not articulating it in a very good way, maybe I should try via email, maybe I should try to talk to somebody else and see if they can recommend a different way of how I'm saying things. And so what my kind of approach brought me through was you can't leave a job with anger. You're coming from scarcity. When you're thinking I've got to leave a job or I'm angry at this, you kind of almost have to be like what is this job providing me? And I don't know about you but I do a gratitude.
Speaker 2:I started a gratitude list and I write it every single morning and I started earlier on this year and I could literally get to now. I can't stop and I also go for like what I call gratitude stumps. I go out in nature and I'm like thank you for the trees, thank you for the oxygen you provide. Oh, hello babe. Thank you for flying, that's awesome. Hello, skies, please. Thanks for being blue, thank you for my legs, for walking. I can literally go on and mention about everything, but I don't even know what.
Speaker 1:I'm saying we do Before. I used to always wake up and I never, ever would say my gratitude, just never did. And I don't know whether it's because I truly wasn't grateful for things because I'm pretty sure I was it was just not something that I created in my ritual. I never really had a ritual, I didn't really do anything right Until I started my healing journey and my journey of transformation that I started creating things within myself to bring a better day. And so I'm the same way now.
Speaker 1:It's like I have so much gratitude for just the simple things of waking up and feeling safe and I feel safe, and that, to me, means so much, especially when you've gone through so much trauma in your life, to finally say I have gratitude for feeling safe. I have gratitude for being able to be here alone, but not feel alone and not feel lonely, because now I'm not looking for anything or anybody. Everybody who comes to me graciously comes to me just because we're meant to be with one another. I've met so many great people throughout this journey, and I've also lost some friends along the way, not because I've consciously lost them. I think the universe has a way of just keeping certain people away, and I don't force it, I don't question it and I just go with the path. And so it's funny, because over here I don't know how the UK is, but over here we have daylight savings time, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we do.
Speaker 1:OK. So I go to sleep and I wake up and I'm like, why is this sent out? I'm like, oh my gosh, my alarm did not go up. Oh my gosh, I'm going to be late. And I'm just like, oh my gosh, I'm in inside of me. I'm like, no, vivian, you're going to be calm, it's going to be OK. So I look at my watch and my phone and it's six in the morning and I was like who?
Speaker 1:Traffic here is bad and I had to be at work at a certain time, but I still did not panic. Before I would have panicked, I would have rushed, I would have been yelling, I would have been cursing, I would have been who knows what right. No, I just said I have gratitude for the universe for waking me up at 6 o'clock in the morning. I am not going to be late to work, traffic is going to be light and I'm going to be on time and there was no traffic. I was to work even 15 minutes earlier and I got to sleep an extra hour without not consciously knowing that I got to sleep an extra hour. So I had so much gratitude. So now, like you say, when you create the gratitude of just the simple things that we have around us. We appreciate life in such a deeper way that get things happened to us, because we create that for ourselves.
Speaker 1:So, what have you felt through this journey of growth for yourself? That you're like, wow, I am in a better place right now. How can you explain that to people? How you were in a corporate cruise, corporate job, answering, helping other people, to finally now saying I feel safe, saying no and sticking up for myself. How does that make you feel now?
Speaker 2:Do you know what it makes me feel? Amazing Now, and it's interesting because as soon as I started saying though, it's like a flick to switch on and the universe kind of went huh, ok, you're prioritizing yourself now, congratulations. We've been waiting for you to do this for the whole time. Now we're going to send you all of the opportunities that you've been wanting. And so I think it goes back to like you were saying about you know, getting up late in the morning and then being like ah, and if you'd have gone into panic mode.
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, when you get into stress and panic mode, nothing in your body works. You're in fight, flight or freeze mode, and so your old school kind of brain goes right. Do you know what we might have to run here? So I'm going to send all of the energy to the legs, I'm going to stop all of the digestion, I'm going to stop your skin, like anything goes to your skin. So, basically, that's why, when people are stressed out, they can't lose weight, and things like that. I'm diverting here a bit along the conversation, but I think, going back to gratitude, you can find it. If you can find gratitude in the things that aren't working out for you. That's when you start to bring in the things that do work for you, so like for you in the morning when you were like, ah, it's all going wrong.
Speaker 2:But you're like oh, I'm grateful that I got an extra hour sleep. I'm grateful that the universe is allowed this and still got me up in time and I'm still safe and like for me. When I was like, ok, now I'm grateful for a job that enabled me to go off for four and a half months and look after my family. I'm grateful for a job that is still paying my bills. I'm grateful for this, that and the other. I think then I was like, oh, everything just seemed to start flowing when I started respecting and honoring myself and my time and putting my boundaries in place and saying no, actually, and I had to do it with my friends and, like you said before, you know we've lost some of our friends. I always say I've not lost them, I know exactly where they are, but they're just not in my life anymore. And actually doing that, with coming at everything that happens to you with an attitude of if it's not working for me, it's a lesson, as opposed to it's all working against me, and why me and the victim roles, it's like from victim to victor, isn't it? Do you know what I mean? So, instead of like, so, I had a couple of friends in my life who I was always the first one to reach out and when everything was going on with my mom, I kind of just wanted to shut down. And do you know what? Selfishly, I did not care what was going on in other people's lives, I was just fully focused on everything that was going on in myself and my family's lives. That I was saying to friends I'm so sorry. First of all, love you to death. Stop asking me how my mom is. She is dying. That's the end of it. I can't send you a different, different words. And so a lot of some amazing friends don't get me wrong. Literally we're just like right, message us when you need us, that's it, we're here for you. And then every now and again they just send me like hug, emojis and stuff like that, which was wonderful. But some of my friends I literally stopped messaging and then I've never heard from them since.
Speaker 2:And I'm not angry about that, because I think people come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime, and I think if our paths are due to cross again, then they absolutely will at some point in the future and I harbor no ill will to those people. We're just on different journeys and maybe, as I am, developing myself and respecting myself more and learning more about myself. I either it doesn't align with with them if they're still stuck in the same way, in the same mentality as I was before, or, like I said, we're just on different journeys and pathways and if they come back, then again that's fine, to let go of them with love and just wish them well in the future, because I think that's one of the most powerful things you can do, even when things are going wrong for you Just try and what am I learning from this? And just accept it with love and feel some form of gratitude for the lesson that you are learning at the time, because it then starts flowing for you and, like my Reiki teacher said, once you start with Reiki and going down this path proper looking after yourself energy she was like it will kick you onto the path that you are supposed to be on.
Speaker 2:You don't have a choice and you've just got to go with it. So I was like oh, yeah, okay, whatever, no, no, it really has. Like this year I quit my corporate job. It was really interesting. I don't know how long we've got. I'm going to tell you this quick story because I love it and it's about manifesting.
Speaker 2:So you have the powers, no worries, I went down to four days a week because they didn't give me three. But I saw I went down to four days a week and I was like, right, how am I going to manifest like an extra £1,000 a month? And I literally wrote down how to earn an additional £1,000 a month. This is easy. And then literally wrote a list down of everything that I could possibly think of and it literally went from stripping, winning the lottery, robbing a bank, asking my parents for it, like I'm a beauty therapist. It was like massage, waxing, facials, I was like. And then I went online and I was like, how can you earn extra money? Everyone be friending people, doing some more jobs for people, tour guiding? I put that down. I was like, I have no idea, just put it down, it's all fine. And the reason why I did that come back to the story in a minute. The reason why I did that is because when you provide yourself with a problem so how do I do this? Your, your kind of your conscious brain starts panicking and starts going oh well, we've got to solve this. We've got to solve this problem and if you can go, pacify it and go, here's all the ways that we can solve this problem, don't worry about it. Then that's exactly kind of like what I was doing. I didn't want my kind of conscious brain to start trying to go no, we can't do this, we can't, we can't do this, it's an impossibility, you can't do it. I think you can genuinely do anything.
Speaker 2:So on that list obviously was tour guided. Literally within about three days, a friend of mine from cruise ships had posted on LinkedIn to say we're looking for a tour guide. I was like OK, I like message. And I was like I too old to be a tour guide. I thought it was for a young company. And she was like no, do you want to chat with my manager? So like yes, and so I was still working corporate at the time and I hopefully don't listen to this because I'm not going to find. And so I had this non interview that she was just like just ask me all the questions and ask all the questions. And she was like I know this isn't an interview, but if you want the job, it's yours. And I was like huh, awesome. So it was just a one off tour, one week around Scotland. I was like nailing it and but I was like OK, so I've got a week to turn around to learn all of the history of Scotland.
Speaker 1:To learn everywhere, where.
Speaker 2:I'm going to do all of the onboarding. I was like I've got this, it's fine, I can do this. And do you know what I learned? First of all, I made my 1000 pounds because that's what I got paid and I was like awesome, I got tips and it didn't feel like work. It was. That was the biggest wake up call to me. I was like, oh, I'm getting paid to do this and this is fun. I get to meet people, I get to take them out for dinner, I get to chit chat to them and just get to know no people and talk, and I get to see beautiful parts of the country. I'm like, oh, this is exciting, like that is exciting, yeah, and I got really good reviews. And then I was like, ok, I'm going to.
Speaker 2:I wasn't consciously thinking I'm going to quit my corporate job and go and do that, because I was just, you know, wanting to survive. But it got to the point where I was like I've had enough with this corporate job and I give it. I was like, right, I'm writing a deadline down and I'm writing I will leave my job by the 31st of, like August. I'll have my noticing, that's it, I'm doing it. And so, because I booked time off, work on annual leave, in order to do the first one. As soon as I wrote that down so again, it's all about like the power of thought and manifest. And as soon as I wrote that down, I got that like within an hour I got contacted by the lady from the tour company saying, hey, how about we give you like an extra three or four tours this year? I was like brilliant, thanks very much. I was like winning, thank you, universe, you just send me the money because you showed me on the right path, brilliant. And then, when I handed my noticing again, she messaged me again and said well, we've got like another three or four years. I was like brilliant, thank you. So that's what I mean. It kind of just felt like as soon as I started respecting myself and made that decision to put my boundaries in place and start saying no, I'm kind of going, I'm going to, and then I proved to myself that you can actually have fun and earn money at the same time, I was like this is amazing, this is what this is. This is also. This is like the universe giving it to me.
Speaker 2:Now, this isn't a full time job for me because it's only seasonal anyway, but what it enabled me to do was to make sure that I was able to make me to do was going back to the beginning. One of the things that I wrote down that I really wanted right at the beginning, when I started to do my gratitude, I wanted to be able to spend quality time in my family, and so I was away for a week at a time and then I was back for like a week or whatever, and so I did and I got to spend really good time with my family and I like massively appreciate that job for enabling me to do that, but also enabling me to see that I can do things that are fun and still earn money, and I don't have to be tied to a desk, and it does involve travel and moving around and things like that. So I just think, if you're open to it, it happens, and it's not been easy, and sometimes you do question yourself and go am I on the right path? What am I doing? Should I do this? Do I need to go back to corporate work? And I think the hardest part is family and friends going. So when are you going to get a job? When are you going to get a real job Because now I've I want I'm massive on corporate wellness, as you can imagine, because obviously I've been through that.
Speaker 2:Like it's not great when corporate wellness doesn't work or like you know, they always go. Oh, you can phone this phone line and they'll help you. And like they told me they couldn't help me and I had to find help for myself. And so I'm all about corporate wellness and I'm all about wanting to help people to like they don't have to quit the job, you don't have to do it as crazily as I did and just like, wow, I'll leave my job, type of thing. I would never actually recommend that to anybody.
Speaker 2:I would recommend making a plan to leave your job or actually learning to love your job and changing your mindset and like trying to find those positives and going back to your gratitude about like what lessons are you learning and what can you get out of that, and then how can you use that moving forward?
Speaker 2:And so I'm like now in a coaching career where I'm helping people kind of do that and shift their mindset around, which is amazing, but I still have friends and family that are like, so when are you going to get a proper job, then, and it's so hard, and some of the most supportive people I've found are people that complete strangers, absolute complete strangers who either are on the same journey or they understand and they just unequivocally support with their whole heart, because they don't see those tick boxes of you know, do you work for banking or corporate or you know whatever it is. They don't pigeonhole you, they just go yes, just go and do it and encourage you to do it. So yeah, I feel like I was rambling then, but I've got a question for you.
Speaker 1:No, no, you did great.
Speaker 2:Okay, ask me a question, I've got going back to what we were saying before about like you set up your daily routine, do you have a morning routine then, or is it later on in the day that you've got your routine set up, and what is it?
Speaker 1:My morning routine. So when I first first started on this journey, I had to create a bare on my sanctuary room. That's what I told myself and what's the best? What's the number one thing that people can't do usually when they're going through their healing is sleep. It was really hard time falling asleep, and so I created my bedroom as my sanctuary and I also connected with my chakras and I believe in energy healing and I've had some Ricky done, and so in my room I actually have my happiness, I have awareness and I forget the other one that I have, and so those are my signs to me.
Speaker 1:For myself to acknowledge what I have in my life, I had to become aware of what I was going through, to create the happiness and love within myself, and now the it's like I'm connecting with me as a whole. So what I do in the morning to connect, to keep connecting, is I always am thankful for what I have and for this new opportunity in life to live the life that I'm supposed to be living, and I always say thank you for letting me go of what does not resonate with me, and I always say my pain is my strength and my power to keep moving forward, and my experiences and challenges are only my lessons in life that I need to learn in order to get me to where I need to be.
Speaker 1:And I meditate and I think all my chakras in my body for what I have, and I especially think my voice for letting me speak in a way I've never been able to speak before because I was holding me back a lot.
Speaker 1:And in podcasting, we need to be able to speak and become vulnerable and become open and be able to be authentic and be able to be raw, and that was very difficult for me to do for a very long time, and it is still something that I'm still working on myself, and I always take about two, about three to four breaths. I bring in greatness, I let go what doesn't resonate with me, and again, and I say my words of affirmation, what's important to do is not just say I am, but to truly believe that you are, because you could say I am love, I am worthy, I am enough, which you are, but if you don't truly believe it within yourself, then they are just words full of emptiness, and so it's important to not only say it but feel it. You have to really feel it in your body that that's who you are. And so now I wake up and I look at myself in the mirror and I see a beautiful person looking back at me, and for a long time and I was- oh no, thank you for sharing.
Speaker 1:And so yeah. So now it's like I have gratitude every day for this new life I'm living and I wouldn't have been here if I didn't go through my pain and my trauma and my struggles, and so I'm grateful to be meeting, meeting you, to be like you're in the UK.
Speaker 1:I have a friend in the UK, Like you know. It's like I have met so many amazing people that you would have never thought would have been your friends, you know, and it's like to be connecting. It shows you how much beauty is in this world, because a lot of people are always saying, well, there's only ugliness, there's no goodness, like, no way. And you know there is so much beauty out there, there's so many beautiful people out there. It's just it's time for us to let go of all that pain and anger that's holding us back and just release it. Let it go.
Speaker 1:And it's not easy. It's a very difficult journey, but it's one that will fill you with so much greatness at the end. Like you, I mean, you went out in England and gave a tour to people and probably had a genuine happy smile on your face Instead of faking it like you did when you were in the cruise. Now you generally felt like that and so everybody felt that energy. So now it's like everybody gravitated to you and you weren't worried about not being the skinny model looking person Like people like you. For you, you know, and that's the beauty of it.
Speaker 1:Now you see yourself worth, you see yourself value and because of that you bring people to you. You're going to give tours of England and have fun doing it, and now you're a mindset and confidence coach and you're bringing this life and awareness to other people that now you're seeing for yourself. And that's so beautiful, because you lived it, you experienced that and now you're helping others to fulfill that life for themselves. How does that make you feel?
Speaker 2:It makes me feel like just like my heart is full when I'm helping other people, but it's like. It's like I've given myself permission to show up authentically. I don't need to wear makeup, I don't need to, you know, follow conventional rules. I just show up as myself and that learning that I'm giving myself permission to be me and anybody who doesn't resonate with me, that's fine. I don't have an issue with it. You'll find somebody that you do resonate with and I'll attract people that do resonate with me.
Speaker 2:And, Vivian, I just want to say not only are you beautiful outside, but you are such a beautiful, kind soul on the inside as well, and I just wish that your podcast just gets huge and everybody listens to it, because I want everybody to be able to look in the mirror and just say the words I love you to yourself. And because so many people can't do it. So many people can't do it or can't even look themselves in the mirror or can't name nice things that they love about themselves Because, you know, people have told them that they don't fit a societal norm, or people have given them those like degrading words throughout their lives as they've grown up, or anything like that, and I just think it's such a beautiful thing that you're doing, because if everybody in the world could just come up with love and that's what you were saying like there's so many beautiful souls, there's more kind, genuine beautiful souls in the world than there are evil ones.
Speaker 2:I don't watch the news anymore and I kind of know what happens, because it filters in, but I don't watch the news anymore and ultimately, what you're putting out is a reflection of what you get back.
Speaker 2:So if you are negative all the time on social media or you're following certain things, the algorithms pick it up and then start sending you all those things and then you get into that mental spiral. So I have managed to cultivate my social media. So it's all positive quotes and lovely stuff and things like that, and it sounds a little bit like oh, there are massive things going on in the world right now and I am not naive to them and I have friends who are affected by them. But I cannot support my friends if I cannot support myself. And so it's super important to give yourself permission to show up as you are, to give yourself permission to take time to experience the emotions and, like you said, to use them as your strength, and only then can you kind of hold space for other people and for what they're going through without you being affected by it. And so, yeah, I just want to send out love and peace to the world.
Speaker 1:We do it by starting with working on ourselves. It has to first start with us. We have to believe that we have it in us to love ourselves internally. So by us loving ourselves and creating that positive energy within us, then we're able to bring that out. So if we all just give kindness to one another, just a simple gesture of kindness goes such a long way. You know, maybe somebody's never heard that they're beautiful In just a simple act of you saying, wow, your hair looks amazing today, or your outfit's on fire, or your smile, your glowing, just simple little acts go such a long way, because they probably haven't heard that. And then they feel so good about themselves for hearing that. Then they're able to deliver that same energy to somebody else and that's a beautiful cycle to keep going and going.
Speaker 2:And it has that ripple effect as well.
Speaker 1:Exactly Because if you say words of hatred and somebody hears it then again, then the other person's going to say it to the other and to the other. So it's time to stop that cycle and start delivering kind words to each other, love to each other. You know, and it's okay. We are all entitled to have not a good day, because we're humans. We're going to have days that are not our best days, and that's okay. But it's how you interact with other people that it's important for you to know that feel your feelings, acknowledge your feelings, but don't take them out on anybody. People really are there to support you and help you in a genuine way.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love this. This is awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my heart. I connect with my heart. So, as I've been told, but I mean, I also want to mention one thing that you didn't mention and I think it's important to be that people know this so, through Debbie's journey, she not only is becoming a life coach, but she's also creating her own podcast. I am, and she did not mention that, and I feel that it's important for people to know this, and it's following the joy, and so she's gonna. You know she's working on it and it's gonna. It's in the works, but it's gonna be amazing, and her mission for it is just to create happiness for everybody by you finding your true self, and I'm so excited for it as well, and I wanted to make sure that people knew that you're developing a podcast as well. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I appreciate you and thank you for coming here and being vulnerable with us and sharing your story with us, because I know you will bring so much joy and happiness to many people out there who are listening. Love you, love you and thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for taking your time and connecting with me on this beautiful journey of life. Please subscribe and review, and don't forget to follow so you don't miss out on any of these amazing and empowering episodes. Always remember you matter. If nobody has told you today, I am here to tell you that you are enough, you are worthy and you are deserving of the best. Every day that you wake up, I want you to take one moment and just look at yourself in the mirror and know that the person staring back at you is so proud of you and loves you beyond measures. You are a true warrior.