Ep #119 - Intrusive Thoughts and Big Feelings with Emmie Fulton

I absolutely LOVED this conversation.

In this episode, I’m joined by my friend, psychologist, solo mum of three and creator of Hero Cards, Emmie Fulton, for a gorgeous conversation about intrusive thoughts, big feelings and the emotional tools our children need long before adulthood. 

And yes, we go there. We shared our intrusive thoughts (you have them too and they're normal btw). We felt uncomfortable. It was freeing. If you listen, it will be freeing for you too. 

Emmie shares how her work in the NHS, mental health, behavioural science and motherhood inspired her to create Hero Cards — a set of cards designed to help children understand what’s going on in their minds, recognise their feelings, and build emotional resilience in a simple, practical and accessible way.

We talk about why thoughts are not facts, why big feelings don’t mean something has gone wrong, and how we can support our children without needing to fix everything for them. We also explore perfectionism, people-pleasing, avoidance, anxiety, and the importance of helping children feel safe with the full human experience.

And as always, this conversation isn’t just for the kids. There is so much in here for us as grown-ups too.

If you’ve ever wanted your child to understand themselves better, feel less alone in their worries, or have tools to manage those big emotional moments, this episode is a beautiful place to start.

To get your own set of Hero Cards click here - https://www.loveherocards.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoractIgssvQnvaYUg8lceuLwgHGrdldPeDHBRdSybL6fxHOppZd

To follow Emmie & Hero Cards - https://www.instagram.com/loveherocards/?hl=en

You can also watch this episode on YouTube with Captions - https://www.youtube.com/@TheWorkingWomensLifeCoach

If you'd like to have a chat about how I can help you further, please don't hesitate to click here & book a time with me, I'd love to meet you.

You can also follow me on IG @NickyBevan_LifeCoach

Transcript

Nicky Bevan
Welcome, welcome, welcome, everyone, to this week's podcast. And I'm really excited for today's conversation, because I have a friend joining me, who we met a couple of years ago. When is it? A year ago, or a couple of years ago? It feels like I've known you for a while, and I can't quite believe it has actually taken us this long to get to this point. But I've got Emmy joining me today. I'm going to let Emmy introduce herself and tell you all about herself in a second, but I think she's incredible.

Emmie Fulton
Yes.

Nicky Bevan
And we're gonna be talking about a product that she has literally just launched on the market, which I think is gonna benefit you, and if you have kids, your kids too. But we have so much… we have such lovely conversations that this is just going to be delightful, even if we don't even mention hero cards. But we've mentioned hero cards now, so even if they don't come up, go and Google hero cards, but they will. So, Emmy, do you want to start by telling us who you are?

Emmie Fulton
Yes. Sick!
Nicky Bevan
Where you came from.
Emmie Fulton
Yep. Well, firstly, thank you for having me. This is such a delight. So my name is Emmy Fulton, and I am a psychologist and a mum of three. I have three daughters, identical twin girls, and an older one, 10 and 13. And I have had a kind of varied career, I guess. I've worked in lots of different areas. I worked in the NHS, in adult mental health services. I've also worked at universities doing research for Public Health England, and then more recently. I've worked for kind of organisations and corporates consulting on kind of behavioural science and behaviour change, health behaviour change. Always had a real passion for sort of mental health and wellbeing, especially from years of working in the NHS, seeing the kind of back end of it and so prevention. And now, yes, I wanted to create, I've always wanted to have my own business, and I decided in sort of lockdown, as many people did, to pivot and do something a little bit different, and having, I'm raising my kids on my own, so I felt I needed something that had that flexibility, so I wanted to create a product that I. sort of encompassed everything that I've ever done, I guess, um, my different hats and roles, um, in, in, yeah, in one thing, and that's what I'm, I'm launching now. So, so yes, new, new, uh, new learning curve.
Nicky Bevan
Yes. And this is the first time doing a podcast interview, isn't it? So…
Emmie Fulton
Absolutely. My first one. Very excited. Thank you.
Nicky Bevan
Hello, Kim! Thank you for letting me be the one to bring you into the podcasting world.
Emmie Fulton
I feel in very safe hands, so this is, yeah, it's a pleasure.
Nicky Bevan
Lovely. Yes, I don't intend to make it a miserable experience, anyway.
Emmie Fulton
No, knowing you, Nikki, I knew that wouldn't happen. It would be wonderfully enjoyable.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah, yeah. And it was, it was funny because before we came on, just before I hit record, we were talking about, um, life not being perfect, weren't we? And how actually, um, you know, we've, we haven't shown up today looking polished and perfect and. with all the makeup, because actually, one of the things that I love is that we embrace our imperfections. Life is not supposed to be perfect, and neither ever is that our goal.
Emmie Fulton
Yes, no, absolutely. Um, I believe in that so wholeheartedly. It's one of the wonderful things as I get older, you sort of care less, don't you? And there's that sense of… and there's a relief in that. I think, you know, in my 20s, I would have been, yeah, spending hours doing the makeup, but now…
Nicky Bevan
Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
you know, I can survive and feel quite empowered without having to go down that route, and it's a big thing with my kids, we're always talking about, you know, there's no such thing as perfect, everyone makes mistakes, and that's definitely a big part of what I'm trying to do with my work and my home life.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. I love it. Sue, let's talk a little bit about hero cards. Tell us what they are, and what… like, the journey that inspired you specifically to create them.
Emmie Fulton
Yes, so basically, in a nutshell, hero cards are everything that I used to teach to adult patients in the NHS adapted for children. And for years, I thought, why are we not teaching this to kids? So basically, I had patients coming to see me with. 10, 20, 30, 40 years of patterns of thinking and coping that weren't serving them. And when we would then look at alternative ways to think and to cope, they'd always say, why has no one taught me this before? You know, I should have learned this years ago. And, you know, it made me feel that, you know, this is so important that children learn this. There's fantastic stuff out there now for children, and there has been in the last 20 years. Gosh, I've been working for 25 years now in this field. We've moved on leaps and bounds with kind of emotional awareness and literacy and mindfulness and stress management and all that stuff, which is great. But I've never seen anything that goes deeper that really gets to the underlying kind of stuff around how you think and. And mindsets and because it affects everything, every part of a child and all of our lives, you know, the way we think is how we feel and what we do. They're all interlinked. And so, yeah, I just wanted to put all of that to package it up in a way that kids would find engaging and enjoyable. So they're super sized cards that kids can use on their own or with help from parents or teachers. But it's all very simple. They just choose a colour and they pick a hero.
Nicky Bevan
Yep. Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
They take that hero on some kind of unusual adventure where the hero will experience some kind of everyday life challenge. So things like loss, anxiety, frustration, anger, jealousy. And then there are emotion cards to explore. So what does that child think? The hero might be feeling, and there's no right or wrong answer there, because we all experience life in different ways and have different emotions, but kids are encouraged to think what might they notice in their body, what might be running through their mind, um… how might they feel, as they learn about different emotions. And then we have the power stealers, and these are the things that we all do, adults included, to cope, because no one gave us an alternative when we were younger. So that's things like distraction, avoidance, people-pleasing, perfectionism, worrying, using humor, there's 10 of those.
Nicky Bevan
Yes.
Emmie Fulton
And we're not trying to demonise those at all. They can help us to begin with, but they're obviously not so great in the long term. They don't sort the problem and they often come with more problems. So it's helping kids be aware of when they might be doing those. And then the most important thing is the fifth card, which are the superpowers, and they are the alternative. So what can we do instead? And this is things for mind, things for body, things for action, all science-based, so bits of cognitive behavioral therapy, but other techniques as well, all adapted for children. So that's, yeah, basically.
Nicky Bevan
Yep. So good.
Emmie Fulton
It's in a nutshell.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah, I love, I love it so much because you're right. Like when I, when I take my clients through the process of looking at their emotions and I'm like, where in your body do you feel it? Is it hot? Is it cold, fast? And so just that process of looking at it takes away its power.
Emmie Fulton
Yes.
Nicky Bevan
But there's… there's this element of confusion on people's faces. They're like, what… what do you mean, where do I feel it in my body? Because no one actually tells us.
Emmie Fulton
No, no, yes.
Nicky Bevan
No one tells us that our emotions are harmless, either. We all think we feel anxious, we feel self-doubt, we feel guilt, dread, anxiety, like, all the feelings, embarrassment. We're like, oh my god, something's gone wrong, we have to get rid of it. And we're like, no, actually.
Emmie Fulton
Yes. Quick, get rid of it.
Nicky Bevan
Once upon a time, it probably had an evolutionary requirement, it kept us alive.
Emmie Fulton
Yep.
Nicky Bevan
Only this email, this conversation, this putting your hand up at school or in a meeting isn't actually going to kill you, so that kind of. Primal instinct doesn't need to keep running the show.
Emmie Fulton
No, exactly. And yeah, that's a big part of it that emotions are, all emotions are okay. All emotions are normal. It's what you do with the emotion that matters. And you've got a choice there. And that can be really hard because people think, no, I don't, I don't have a choice.
Nicky Bevan
Yep. Yep.
Emmie Fulton
this thing happened, this person was rude to me, I got angry, you know, and it is hard, it's hard to take that beat in between, you know, and I know that as a parent, you know, there's times when I've reacted before I even realize it, and it's difficult, but it takes practice, and slowly you can just take that little step back.
Nicky Bevan
Yep. Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
And just think, okay, there's something else I could do right now or something else I could think right now that's going to be, you know, a little bit more helpful maybe. In fact, I've just been creating some stuff today and thinking about this, you know, this idea that thoughts feel so powerful and strong. We assume they're facts, you know.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
Very, very strong thought. My friend didn't call me. They must not like me anymore. Or they're selfish. And it will do that. We jump to those conclusions because of the evolutionary aspect of trying to keep us safe and alive and connected in the community.
Nicky Bevan
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Emmie Fulton
It makes sense. But yeah, sometimes our brains aren't. aren't helping us, so it's just being able to be aware of the thought. So there's a superpower in Hero Cards called Thought Catch, so that's just teaching children to just be aware of them, because how many of us actually go about our day-to-day life and have no idea what's going on in our heads? You know, thoughts are an.
Nicky Bevan
And. Yep.
Emmie Fulton
So that helps kids just be aware of their thoughts. And then thought swap is just that simple thing of, is there another way of looking at this? What's the evidence for that thought? Is there another more helpful, balanced thought that I could have? And it takes practice.
Nicky Bevan
Yep. And.
Emmie Fulton
sort of lots and lots of positive thoughts, because our brains, we can't trick our brains, we can't, you know, um, and sometimes the thought is, is right, and then there's something else we can do. We can accept the thought, and there's a different, we have, um, a different superpower for that too, but yes, um.
Nicky Bevan
Yep.
Emmie Fulton
I think what you said about taking away a bit of the power, a bit of the strength of that thought, you know, we might not fully change it, but we just take the spotlight off it a little bit, and that can be so powerful.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah. Yeah, it really, and I don't think until you experience that pause. And that shift… I don't think people realize how fucking powerful it actually is.
Emmie Fulton
Yeah, no. I mean, I didn't, until my training actually, when I did my CT training, I remember the simple thing of just, what would you say to a friend in this situation? I know that's quite a well-known sort of technique to suggest to people, but I do that now in my everyday life.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Emmie Fulton
And it is so powerful, because I'll realize how unfair I'm being on myself, how when something goes wrong, I'm attributing it to personal reasons, it's my fault, whereas if it was a friend, I'd be telling them, no, no, no, it's the situation, or it's this, or, you know, of course you can't be blamed, you know, so you, yeah, it just shifts that.
Nicky Bevan
Yes. Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
perspective, and you kind of, I don't know, you sort of take yourself out of the emotion of the situation, you can be a bit more…
Nicky Bevan
Yep.
Emmie Fulton
bit more logical, but um… yeah, it's not always easy, and I think one of the things I talk about in HeroCards is sometimes we do just need to calm our nervous systems first, because when we're heightened, it's really hard, we're gonna jump to conclusions, we're gonna… all the cognitive biases are gonna kick in, we're going to.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah. Yes. Absolutely.
Emmie Fulton
you know, do the old patterns, and that's, you know, myself included, that's okay, that's normal, but when we've had a chance to calm, then we can, yeah. perhaps just shift a little bit and think of things in a slightly different way. This so far.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah. It is so powerful. And also, what I've found myself doing more and more recently, and to begin with, this felt really weird. Like, honestly, as I started to do it, I was like, oh, this is cringey. but I've got used to it now, and it feels so good, is I praise myself.
Emmie Fulton
Yeah, yeah.
Nicky Bevan
So, like, when my brain comes up with an idea. I'm like, oh, thanks for that brain.
Emmie Fulton
Yes, yes, I love that. Yes.
Nicky Bevan
You know, or if I've got up and I've actually got myself out of bed and taken myself off on a walk, I will then go. Is that the key?
Emmie Fulton
Yeah, yeah.
Nicky Bevan
Like, not in a… not in a sake patronage, but in a… well, you know, that was great, well done.
Emmie Fulton
Yes. And if you're getting a benefit from that and actually seeing that that's true, then you're not sort of trying to, it's not like the affirmations in front of the mirror where you sort of think I'm telling myself I'm amazing, but I don't really believe it. So that doesn't really work. It's something that's realistic.
Nicky Bevan
You know, be. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
as soon as you get that reward as well in the brain, a little neurotransmitter reward, then that motivates you to want to keep doing it. So, a nice little habit that kicks in that's, yeah, like a gratitude exercise, it's…
Nicky Bevan
Yep. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. And it just…
Emmie Fulton
You're recording.
Nicky Bevan
Just makes you feel a bit better.
Emmie Fulton
Yeah, yeah. I love that idea. Yeah. I feel that now, Nikki. I'm just going to write that down.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah, yeah, but it is… Yeah, right about that. But what I love about what you're saying is the word practice. Practice. Practice. This isn't… I love it… Yoda says this, doesn't he, in Star Wars? There's no try, there's just do, or something like that.
Emmie Fulton
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yes.
Nicky Bevan
He says something like that. Because a lot of people that would say, oh yeah, I'll try that, but when you… as if that's just gonna take… you've got an excuse then, oh, it didn't work the first time I tried it. This is not… these skills, and they are skills that no one taught us, that we all get to learn.
Emmie Fulton
Yeah, that sounds good. Yep.
Nicky Bevan
But will only be of benefit should you practice it.
Emmie Fulton
Yes, absolutely.
Nicky Bevan
And it is exactly that. It is a practice of… recognizing, oh, okay, I could have been kinder, or I could have, you know, not have reacted, or I could have just… that… if I'd have given myself that time to pause and breathe. Like, that really is our control point, I think.
Emmie Fulton
Yes.
Nicky Bevan
And I think, then, it's not that you're necessarily not gonna choose anger, I'm just thinking, like, um… Dealing with my teenage boys, they tend to take their socks off. The socks land on the floor. They do not move them for days unless I move them. Now, I get frustrated with this, right? So, and especially just before my period, if I'm premenstrual. I have no tolerance. So… but it's not then that I don't… become frustrated is that I don't choose to behave from that frustration. And having that moment to pause, take a breath.
Emmie Fulton
Yes, yes.
Nicky Bevan
own that you're frustrated. Like you said, I don't think this is always about being positive. I'm like, no, no, no. Being a minimalist, I don't like the socks being on the fucking floor for days.
Emmie Fulton
Yep.
Nicky Bevan
Taking that breath, but from there going, right.
Emmie Fulton
Yep.
Nicky Bevan
Gorgeous teenagers.
Emmie Fulton
Yep.
Nicky Bevan
Now please pick up your socks. Like, get off your screens, pick up your socks, or there's going to be a consequence. That's acting from a calmness. I haven't got rid of the frustration, but I'm acting from a calmness. Whereas if I'd have said exactly the same words from frustration, it just blows everything up and makes it more dramatic.
Emmie Fulton
Yes, yes. Yes, no, I think that's absolutely right. And yeah, so you're not saying I can't have this emotion, I've got to stifle this frustration because all emotions are normal and okay and need to come out. But yeah, it's just taking the heat out of that moment and choosing.
Nicky Bevan
Yes.
Emmie Fulton
a reaction that you know is not going to create further problems down the line. And it's not easy. It's not easy. You know, I sometimes feel like, you know, I've reacted before I realize it, but it's like going back to what you just said, that practice, you know, it's a cliche, but you wouldn't go to the gym and expect to lift a weight immediately and then see a massive muscle. Same with the brain. We are creating new pathways and new habits, new ways of thinking. And that's going to take time to do. But being compassionate towards ourselves and.
Nicky Bevan
Exactly.
Emmie Fulton
you know, just learning from each situation. It's a bit of trial and error, isn't it? I mean, I have… with my children, I've had to work out, okay, that didn't work, next time I'll try something else, and little things that'll diffuse it, um, and yeah, um…
Nicky Bevan
Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
Yeah, I think, yeah, practice.
Nicky Bevan
And then you do something that works for one, and then you do it again for the other, and it just didn't work for the other. So you're like, oh!
Emmie Fulton
Yeah. Or it worked last week and now it doesn't work. And yeah, I mean, it's just a constant state of, and I've, you know, I've learned with my children, it's, I wrote an article recently about, you know, the fact that being a psychologist, I thought, well, I'm going to have more of an idea. Nope. Absolutely clear. Um, and it has, it's just been a case of, you know, all the textbooks in the world aren't gonna perhaps be right for me in that moment, and my children in that moment, and whatever they're feeling, so yeah, it's, um…
Nicky Bevan
Yep. Yep. Yes.
Emmie Fulton
The most important thing for me is not beating myself up and having that guilt when I do, you know, not responding the way I'd hoped to, but working out, okay, what was going on. And I think one of the big things is, you know, we spend so much time trying to change what's in our environment and try to prevent the things that cause stress. And we can't, can we? We can't control those things. What we can control is what's in here.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah. Yep.
Emmie Fulton
And actually, if we spent the same amount of time being the architects of this as opposed to the environment, you know, yeah, that's what it's all about.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah. And for those of you that are listening, not watching, Emmy was pointing to her head and her brain when she was saying this.
Emmie Fulton
Oh, yes. Sorry. Yeah. This is the newbie on the podcast learning.
Nicky Bevan
That's fine. It's fine. Right, so I would really love, and I think… This is going to be uncomfortable possibly for both of us and and it may be really uncomfortable for everybody listening. I really and I'm going to invite us to all to lean into that discomfort because I think if we have this open conversation. It's gonna actually free so many people. And that's intrusive thoughts.
Emmie Fulton
Yep.
Nicky Bevan
Which… We all have… That nobody talks about because we find them so fucked up.
Emmie Fulton
Okay.
Nicky Bevan
But then we think it's just us having that intrusive thought. And so, because no one talks about it. No one realizes every everybody's doing having them.
Emmie Fulton
Yes, yes.
Nicky Bevan
And I… there's one… there's a… there's a thought that I… I have quite often, actually, and it's when I'm driving, and I'll be driving along, and the birds will be singing, and then all of a sudden, my brain will go off to, um… I think I shared this when we were chatting on your sofa a couple of weeks… Gosh, months ago now, actually. Um… My brain goes off to this scenario where my two boys are being held hostage by a terrorist. And. The terrorist is gonna shoot one of them. And I have to decide which one they're gonna shoot. And I'm so… and I'm driving longer, and… or… or the other one I have quite often is… well, if that lorry just totally wiped me out, and I didn't come back home, what would Blue do? That's my youngest. And then it goes off into this scenario of how he would, you know, after a while, he'd get confused, and then he'd be like, well, where's Mum? And then… and then he'd have to wait for Dad. And you just, like… You know, or I'm trying to think of another example. Where you have, like, a sexual thought about something that would… like, an uncle, or a…
Emmie Fulton
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.
Nicky Bevan
a teacher, or I'm just trying to think of… I'm just trying to come up with an example, but my brain's not giving me one at the moment, probably because it's too scared to
Emmie Fulton
Yes, yeah, yeah.
Nicky Bevan
Thank you, brain, for keeping me safe. But yeah, let's talk about that, because I know that that has come up in your practice over your experience.
Emmie Fulton
Yep.
Nicky Bevan
And yeah, do you wanna… do you wanna… should we get into that uncomfortable conversation of intrusive thoughts?
Emmie Fulton
Yes. Yes, I'm so glad that you've raised this because it's frustrated me for years. And again, I think that this should be taught to children. I saw so many patients that had had years and years of shame and anxiety and depression because of thoughts that are totally normal. We all have intrusive thoughts. There was a famous study done years ago, and I actually used to print out the results of this and give it to patients to prove this, where they asked a large number of members of the general public to anonymously.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
tick yes to whether or not they'd had a whole series of different intrusive thoughts. And it ranged from having sex with your dad or stabbing your partner, all sorts of, you know, what we all agree are horrendous thoughts, things that we'd never do, but we think that because we've had the thought, we give it meaning. We think, does that mean because I've had the thought.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah. Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
I actually want to do it or would do it. Even if I didn't mean to do it, would I feel a compulsion to do it? Oh God, what does that say about me? I'm sick, I'm a bad person, there's something wrong with me. But actually, when they did this survey, it came back to show, and this was thousands of people, that everybody has had all of these thoughts.
Nicky Bevan
Yes. Yeah. Yes.
Emmie Fulton
It's normal. It's common. We all have them. And as soon as you learn that, it was a huge relief of, like, you know, okay. And the difference is between, you know, um, most of us and people that would then end up with. form of OCD, intrusive thoughts, and end up coming to see me would be the meaning that they attach to it. So they would think, I've had that thought, that means either there's something seriously wrong with me, oh my god, or what if I actually do something? So the thing of driving, often people would say, I'm driving down the motorway, I just had this thought of I'll just suddenly rear and cause a massive crash.
Nicky Bevan
Yes. Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
And then that fear, will I just do it? Am I about to do it? Or looking up a… going along a cliffside. In fact, I remember going on a walk in Devon years ago, and this woman was, uh… we were walking down, it was quite a steep, sort of, um…
Nicky Bevan
Yeah. Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
Cliff walked down to the beach, and she was clinging to this rock, and her husband was saying, can you help her? I don't know what's. And I said, okay, yeah, actually, I'm a psychologist, I can see if I can help her, you know, what's going on. Um, and it wasn't that she thought she was going to slip. She could see there was a path, you know, and actually she could very… like everybody else, she could happily walk, but she thought she might just jump. So the thought, will I just throw myself off? And obviously she wasn't going to do that, but the possibility, the notion that she could meant that she was clinging to this rock with this fear that she would just, and she had no suicidal ideation or any thoughts or anything, but there was that fear. So yeah, so for some people, if that becomes, I had a patient years ago who had the intrusive thought.
Nicky Bevan
Yep. Yeah. Yep.
Emmie Fulton
that he could put his baby in the bin. So, as a result of that, he stopped going out, because he might see a bin, because he thought, what if I actually do that? Um, he had to get rid of all the bins in his house. Obviously, he loved his baby desperately. He'd never have done it, but the notion…
Nicky Bevan
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Emmie Fulton
had had the thought, he thought that meant that on some weird level he might do it.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
I'd say to people, quite the opposite. If you're worried about the thought, it just shows what a wonderful, empathic, compassionate person you are, and we all have them. But most people go, ugh, that was a horrible thought, move on. You know, that was very nice. And obviously, it can also get to the stage where, for people.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah. Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
You know, that thought just won't stop coming because we can't control thoughts. If you try not to have a thought, there's the famous experiment I used to do with my patients where I'd say in the next minute, try not to think about a pink elephant. Do you think you can? And they'll start by thinking, yeah, I cannot think of a pink elephant. And then obviously they're just const.
Nicky Bevan
Yes.
Emmie Fulton
And I'd say, had you thought of pink elephants at all this morning before I mentioned it? No. Okay, but as soon as you try not to have a thought, you can't stop. So I do the same thing, you know, if you had a horrendous thought like you did in the car, trying to have that thought is going to keep coming, and obviously that's going to make you.
Nicky Bevan
Yep.
Emmie Fulton
really anxious. So, then there are other techniques you can use to help, um, to… to kind of diffuse it, and sometimes it is actually almost like a form of… PTSD, where you have to almost tell the story in your mind of how things will be okay, how it will, you know, the story will go in a different… it won't be the horror movie that you've created in your mind, but yes.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah, and…
Emmie Fulton
I wish we taught children the fact that, or young people, that this is… normal, and I'm going to be including it in our teen edition of the cards, because, yeah, I had patients coming to see me. And the relief when I said oh that's just totally normal because not anyone like you said the shame you know they hadn't so yeah very important.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
Graham Wilson.
Nicky Bevan
is really interesting, because I… as you were saying then, especially about the stabbing, yeah, the… the amount of times that my brain has just gone, what would it be like to get that knife and just push it into that body? And I'm like…
Emmie Fulton
Yeah.
Nicky Bevan
Let's not go there! Like, you just… like, it's… it's… it's kind of crazy, isn't it? And this is why… this is why I've… I've chosen and then practiced finding the brain really funny, because… Like, and, and, and why I get my clients to name their, that sort of void, that primitive part of their brain, it's not quite that basic, but, like, so I'm like, oh, look at Sue, like, thinking those, Sue's my primal brain, and I'm like, oh, you know, and especially when she starts judging people, like, if I'm driving down the road, and then I look across, and then I see, like, I hear in my head, oh my.
Emmie Fulton
Yeah, I love it. Yep.
Nicky Bevan
God, what is she wearing? And then I'm like, hang on a minute, Nikki…
Emmie Fulton
Yeah.
Nicky Bevan
does not want to be that person. Like, I don't. I don't I I I think fair fucking play, wear everything that you wanna wear and be proud of it.
Emmie Fulton
No.
Nicky Bevan
You know, but, um, but that brain, that part of us that we actually don't get to control. What we do get to control is how, like you say, what meaning, how attached we get, how much we can… we then choose to believe that thought or that sentence when it appears.
Emmie Fulton
Yes. How much we put it on a pedestal with a massive spotlight on it, and go, that must be the truth, because it feels… you know, and I think so often, we'll have an emotional reaction, and we think that because we've had that emotional reaction, something must be seriously wrong, because of the… our body's gone into red alert.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
Uh, therefore, there must be something bad happening, but yeah, it's that… it's the old, uh, another cliche of the burnt toast fire alarm going off. Sometimes our bodies, because they were designed to keep us alive, they go off when they don't need to. So, sometimes we get things wrong, and, you know, that's because we're processing.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah. Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
Thousands and thousands of pieces of information every day. And so our brain has to make shortcuts because there's too much to process. We haven't evolved in 200,000 years. We've still got the same kind of brain that we had when there wasn't the vast amounts of information to be processed because of needing to make so many shortcuts.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah. Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
we inevitably make mistakes. So if we talk about our brains, like you say, as separate to us, mine's called Betty, by the way, uh, Matrix and Ettie, so I think of them together as Betty. Um, Betty sounds quite sort of sweet and comical, so somehow I can, you know.
Nicky Bevan
Yep. Ah, love it. Hmm.
Emmie Fulton
Somehow, she seems cuddly even when she's being annoying and not serving me. Or I did hear, I think it was Julia Samuel, the psychotherapist, called it the shitty committee in your brain. I like that one as well, shitty committee. Yeah, just that ability to be able to sort of say.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah. Yes.
Emmie Fulton
okay, you… I don't quite… I don't… sure, I agree with that. That's not who I am, or that's maybe not the correct thought, but it's understandable you were designed to keep me safe. And as soon as you get how the brain works and how it's doing it, you know, we are designed to focus on the negative because we need to, because that's what keeps us safe and. But in the community, our brains are designed to be that way. Then, yeah, it takes away that self-blame. I worked for years in services supporting people before having bariatric surgery and people that were looking to lose weight. So it was sort of CBT for.
Nicky Bevan
Yes.
Emmie Fulton
weight loss and one of the big things I used to say is let's stop talking about willpower and self-control because that's all blame, that's all, it's my fault, it's my fault. But actually your brain is very powerfully designed to want quick rewards because there was a time with no food.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
So you could go days without any food. So your brain is designed to want you to have high calorie food. It's not your fault. This is your physiology. This is the way we were designed. So stop with the self-control willpower. Let's just work out why our brain's doing that and how we can.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Emmie Fulton
bypass it and create a new, you know, way of, um, doing things that, that doesn't lead to that. But yeah, um, I love the idea of Sue and Betty getting together.
Nicky Bevan
Sue and Betty, the shitty committee.
Emmie Fulton
Maybe like over a cocktail. Yeah, yeah, it's part of the shitty committee. Yeah.
Nicky Bevan
They get together and fuel each other. Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
Yes, yeah.
Nicky Bevan
So, I'm curious, Emmy, um… Your… the next edition of Hero Cards will be for teens. What's…
Emmie Fulton
Hmm.
Nicky Bevan
What would be the difference… I mean, obviously, visually, a teen is going to be attracted to something different to a small child, but is there a diff… I'm just curious about whether there's a difference in… Development terminology, like what would be the difference?
Emmie Fulton
Yeah. Oh, there's huge differences. I mean, first of all, I'm very aware that a lot of teenagers will just be like, no. I mean, I have a teenager, so I'm, you know, aware that the idea of this may not appeal and that's okay. But we have been surprised by how many teenagers have actually been using the original Hero Cards, which is aimed sort of up to kind of 12. and have found it really helpful. So I think this is all part and parcel of the same conversation, that the more we talk about these things, hopefully the more it's normalized, that it's okay, and you know, and maybe it's something that is on the shelf and gets kind of prodded a few times and ignored and eventually comes out. The main difference with the teen version, so it'll have largely the same kind of format with stories, but each of the stories will be very relatable. We're going to have teenagers help us design the whole thing so they can tell us that's boring, that's like not how I feel or, you know, realistic. And all of the stories will be things that teens can relate to. So we've got.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
stuff on identity, on body image, on exam and school pressures, on friendship pressures, on intrusive thoughts, and the fact that they're normal. All 10 of the stories will be something that, in my experience, and I've had a lot of experts who've helped me in the development of this, so we've had childhood counsellors.
Nicky Bevan
Yep.
Emmie Fulton
And we will be testing these as we did the original hero cards. We tested with 50 families. We will test this with teens to make sure it lands well and that we've hopefully encompassed 10 of the sort of key things that are really, you know, making life tough for them right now. And then, obviously, it'll be adapted so that it's not… it's for the… at the right level, you know, so that the… the version we've got at the moment is, you know, um…
Nicky Bevan
Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
appealing to kids, um, so we will make it. Um, yeah, and the idea is that all of the superpowers. you know, there's 10, even if only one or two resonate for a teenager, and they use only one, I see that as a huge win. So, you know, we will make them very powerful. This is very different to the other softwares out there. This isn't, you know.
Nicky Bevan
Yes. Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
gratitude journals. This is really, you know, science-based tools that are usually reserved for therapy, but now for the home, because there's no reason why they can't be. It's one of my bugbears, this idea that all of these techniques, you have to be a psychologist to deliver them. It's absolute rubbish.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
And also, you know, you need to be, um, an adult to understand this stuff.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
CBT can be beneficial for children as young as five. And yes, some of the concepts will be a little bit abstract for some children, but HeroCast doesn't have an expiry date. So the idea is even if it doesn't quite land right now, it, you know, come back to it in a year or so's time. And we've got different levels. We've got like sort of basic level for kids and then slightly more advanced because the idea of thoughts in of itself is quite abstract, isn't it, for some kids. But that's okay. And I talk about something called the landing effect, this idea that if we plant the seeds of these conversations now.
Nicky Bevan
You know.
Emmie Fulton
even the idea of your thoughts not being facts, then that can be built on in the teenage years, so that it's not a new idea. It's something that, you know, um, so yeah, that's, that's, that's the kind of…
Nicky Bevan
Yes.
Emmie Fulton
The idea around it.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah, exciting. I'm excited for you. So what was it like being a solo parent to neurodiverse girls?
Emmie Fulton
Thank you.
Nicky Bevan
And then setting up your business, like, what was that journey like?
Emmie Fulton
Oh, goodness me, yes. Ask me in a few years, and I'll probably be able to, um… It has been… well, actually, it's… it's been a blessing for me, having this business, because I think…
Nicky Bevan
Or is like, still doing it.
Emmie Fulton
I love it. It doesn't feel like work. It's a passion. It's a hobby. Well, it's not now. It's a real business. But it's so lovely to be doing something that I love and enjoy and really believe in and think can make a real difference. So actually, it has been a nice…
Nicky Bevan
Yes. Yep.
Emmie Fulton
sort of a goal. I had a lot of patients over years actually who would come to see me and I'd often feel as though actually what they were lacking, I never say this, you know, we obviously would explore it together, but I'd often think, I wonder if actually what they're lacking in their life right now more than anything is meaning. and something they're working towards, and a sense of achievement. Um, there's a great book, which I'm sure many of your listeners will have heard of, um, Man's Search for Meaning, uh, Vik… Logotherapy, so his entire… he was a psychiatrist, he was at, um, in the concentration camps.
Nicky Bevan
Yes. Oh, Viktor Frankl, so powerful.
Emmie Fulton
he learned that people that were living longer of the prisoners were those that still had a goal. He would smuggle in bits of paper and encourage them to, you know, keep writing and keep working on… And he believes that, you know, having meaning, having something that you're working towards is hugely beneficial for your mental health. And for me. certainly when I had low moments of parenting, because I was, you know, gosh, I started parenting on my own when my twins were 18 months old and my eldest was 4, so I was on my own.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah. Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
Um, and yeah, this gave me something that I was building towards, and so it was really therapeutic for me, um, to have that. It's been… it's a lot, it's a juggle, and I am definitely always saying to friends, you know, you can't… you can't be the perfect mum, the perfect business person, I just have to…
Nicky Bevan
Yes.
Emmie Fulton
do what I can, but that's been the big thing, and one of the things I used to say to patients, and I learned, you know, I learned so much for myself from my training, um, you know, being good enough. Don't have to be perfect, just being good enough, and, you know, um…
Nicky Bevan
Yep. Yes.
Emmie Fulton
and letting myself off the hook. I just think the kindness thing, the self-kindness thing, and I hope that the children get that from Hero Cards more than anything else.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah, huh.
Emmie Fulton
Because negative thoughts and worries, you know, that impacts everything in your life.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
Yeah, learn new ways of thinking. It affects everything in a way.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah. Oh, my gosh, that's a beautiful one to end on. I love that. Is there anything, Emmy, that we haven't talked about that you think is relevant? Ooh…
Emmie Fulton
Ooh, question. Ooh, um. I mean, I just love that there's a conversation about this, because I think that well-being, obviously, is a huge machine now that it wasn't, you know, when I was… I mean, gosh, I was in clinical practice, you know, 15 years ago, and that's brilliant. I love that it is. I love that we're talking about these things. I love that my kids come home when they're doing stuff in school. But yeah, I just think that this idea of what's going on in your head, because I think stress management and mindfulness and gratitude, all of that type of stuff is wonderful and very powerful. But if you're not changing what's going on here, you're never really getting to the nitty gritty of the problem. You're dealing with symptoms, you're dealing with the cause.
Nicky Bevan
Yep. Yes.
Emmie Fulton
And so, you know, I just think that that is so, so important, and I don't see that talked about. And there is this idea of, oh, you know, that's either you can't do it, you can't change the way you think, or that you've got to, you know, have years of therapy, and you just don't. Simple practices like just journaling your thoughts.
Nicky Bevan
Yep. You know.
Emmie Fulton
I have a little thing that I do. I talk to myself in the car out loud. I know I've admitted that to lots of people. Brilliant. I talk to myself out loud as if I'm talking to a friend. If I just need to stop out because talking about it, I often think, oh, now I understand because I said it out loud or right.
Nicky Bevan
Yep. Yep. Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
Uses a different part of your brain, so you can make sense of what's going in your head just by writing it. So I'll write sometimes reams or just bullet points of what's going on, because it's spaghetti in my head until I get it out, and then I can look at it more objectively. But I also have a little acronym that I use, um.
Nicky Bevan
Yep.
Emmie Fulton
that's thinking, feeling, hoping, dreaming. So at any given point when I'm driving around, I'll think, what am I thinking right now? What am I feeling right now? What am I hoping for today? What's the kind of… what kind of day do I want to have? What do I want to feel and achieve, maybe? And what am I dreaming? What's the long-term thing? And it just keeps me on track. And it might be simple things like, I don't know, I want to…
Nicky Bevan
Yeah, then.
Emmie Fulton
arrange a nice trip away camping with my kids, or I want to, you know, it doesn't have to be big things. But yeah, it just gives me that little bit of jumping out of the rat race hamster wheel, and just being able to look back on my life as if I'm looking externally at a movie, and think, yeah, oh, actually, that's not in alignment with. who I want to be today, or what I want to achieve, let's do less of that, and, you know, let's not people-please and say yes to everything, let's do this. So yeah, I think, um, I just love that we're having a conversation about this, and I think a lot of people think, well, how do you change.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah, and… Yes.
Emmie Fulton
First of all, it's awareness, definitely. That's step one. And then it's just practicing. Is there another way of looking at it? What's the evidence for those thoughts? What would I say to a friend in this situation? And you don't have to 100%.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
Stop believing the original belief, and wholly believe the other one, but if you're giving it a little bit less power, it can eventually, with practice, like you say.
Nicky Bevan
Yep.
Emmie Fulton
Make a real change to.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah…
Emmie Fulton
How you think.
Nicky Bevan
It really can. One of my favourite questions as well, that I ask myself all the time now, because I used to try and argue with that, like, the shitty thoughts, or… the self-doubt, and I used to try and get rid of it. And now I just go, okay, well, if that wasn't true. What would I do differently?
Emmie Fulton
Yes, I love that.
Nicky Bevan
So, and it's close for everything. It's like, oh, I don't know how to cook a flapjack. Okay, well, if that wasn't true, what would I do differently? Well, I'd ask, you know, Google or Pinterest or now ChatGPT because that, do you mean? Or I'd phone my friend or I would.
Emmie Fulton
Yes. Yes.
Nicky Bevan
you know, I would put my hand up, or I would… I would just start a conversation, or I would go and try something. Like, and… and so then you just go and do it. So then you're not… you're not getting rid of the thought, you're not engaging with the thought, you're just going.
Emmie Fulton
Yes.
Nicky Bevan
You're just questioning, if that wasn't true, what are my… what would I do differently, or what would be my options? Okay, let's go and try that.
Emmie Fulton
I love that, and that kind of relates, actually, to… I've got two points I'd love to make based on that. So the first is this idea, so with cognitive behavioural therapy, and I don't, by the way, believe that this is the panacea of all ills, it's one tool. It doesn't work for everything, but it can be very beneficial, and for anyone who doesn't know what it is, it's just this.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah, thank you. Yep.
Emmie Fulton
um, our thoughts and what we do, our behaviours, affect how we feel, and vice versa. Um, it's a very simple concept. The idea with the cognitive, so the thoughts, bits, sometimes…
Nicky Bevan
Yep.
Emmie Fulton
we can't, you know, our thoughts aren't going to shift until we do something different. And it's interesting, I had a teacher when I was doing my training, and she said, actually, I feel like I could go around in circles with patients with the cognitive bit, and they'll never really change the way they're thinking until they do something different.
Nicky Bevan
Yes.
Emmie Fulton
And the change in what they're doing then changes the way they think. We think, we've sold this idea that we act based on our thoughts, but often it's the other way around. We create thoughts based on what we're doing. So often I'll say to people, the most important thing you can do is do something different and then you'll feel different.
Nicky Bevan
Yes. Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
sometimes the thinking bit isn't making you feel any better. Changing the way you think doesn't always change how you're feeling. It's the doing that will do that. And then the other point I wanted to make was just this idea that sometimes, you know.
Nicky Bevan
Yep. Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
the reality is that something rubbish is happening, and we can't think of it in a more positive way, and we can't… and then it's about acceptance. There's something called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Act, which I've incorporated into one of the superpowers called Leaves on a Stream, which is quite a well-known, um…
Nicky Bevan
Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
tool, and it's just this idea of being able to observe that thought.
Nicky Bevan
Yes.
Emmie Fulton
So that's okay, that thought's there. I'm not going to try and not have, you know, get rid of that thought, but I'm also not going to pick it up and look at it. So imagine leaves going, passing you, floating down a stream. I can see it's there, that's okay, but I'm not going to pick it up and look at it. I'm just going to let it go.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
Or balloons floating off into sky, feathers, whatever analogy you want to imagine. Just that idea that sometimes maybe that thought is true, but we don't want to go in a spiral of, you know, giving it too much of our attention that it keeps us, our energy down. So it's being able to let it go as well. Yeah.
Nicky Bevan
You know. Yeah. Yeah.
Emmie Fulton
I think.
Nicky Bevan
I always think grief is a perfect example of that one. Like, if you… if you are experiencing a bereavement, and you have the thought, I miss them, I'm never gonna see them again. and you feel sad, I don't think it's appropriate to try and change that thought. Like, that seems totally unethical to me. It's like, if you love someone, you want to have, I will miss them. You want to have that thought.
Emmie Fulton
No, gosh… Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Nicky Bevan
So then it's not a thinking thing, it's a feeling thing, and then learning how to just sit with that emotion and not frightened of it, or not, you know, try and get rid of it, is so much more powerful than… than… You know, so I think it is interesting, isn't it? Because people think, oh… I can just change my thoughts, and then I'm always gonna change it to something positive, and I don't think that… that just is not… the goal. It's just not the goal. Sometimes, but sometimes not.
Emmie Fulton
No, no, no. No, absolutely. No, no, and there's also this idea, I know people talk about sort of toxic positivity, I'm not sure if I like that term, but it's not changing negative thoughts into positive thoughts, it's changing them into slightly more balanced, helpful ones that, you know, so it might not be an extreme shift, it's just…
Nicky Bevan
Yes.
Emmie Fulton
you know, they didn't call me, rather than jumping to the conclusion that's because they don't care, they don't like me anymore, it's okay, they've got a lot going on right now. You know, I forgot to call someone, it wasn't because I didn't like them, I just forgot, you know, it's okay. So it's just that little shift in thinking, is there another way? Yeah, actually, I guess there's that.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah, thank you. Yep.
Emmie Fulton
And it doesn't… it doesn't take all the heat off the original thought, but it… it just… that curiosity, it just takes a little bit of that off, and it's, yeah, so powerful.
Nicky Bevan
Yeah, so good. So you're good. Well, I'm really excited because I get to see you in person on Friday.
Emmie Fulton
Yay!
Nicky Bevan
So it's not like I'm saying goodbye forever.
Emmie Fulton
Always has such good energy, Nikki. Love being around you. It's like a top of sunshine. It's just… feel good.
Nicky Bevan
Oh, thank you. Yeah, it's going to be hot. Bring your fans. So I'm going to get to see you on Friday. But for everybody else listening, we will put Emmy's details below. We'll put a link to the hero card so you can go and buy your family.
Emmie Fulton
Oh, goodness, right? Hmmm…
Nicky Bevan
And you'll probably learn a lot more from it than you… just as much as your kids. Um… So we'll put a link to that so you can follow Emmy, and you can look up Hero Cards if you want to make that investment. Um, so it just leaves me to say thank you so much! This was such a lovely way to start my day!
Emmie Fulton
Oh, thank you, Nikki. It's been so enjoyable. I mean, we could chat all day, but it's been lovely to… so, yes, important things to talk about, and thank you for having me.
Nicky Bevan
We could, yes. Yeah, you are very welcome. 
And everybody else, I'll see you next week. 
Bye.