Piece Of Mind Podcast

Ep 17: Nikki Heyder on The Power of Compassion in Healing

• Ashley Badman

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In this episode, we explore the transformative power of self-compassion and how it can lead to profound personal growth.

We discuss the importance of understanding our inner critics, the roots of self-judgment, and how embracing our imperfections helps us live authentically and unapologetically.

• Differentiation between psychology and psychotherapy
• Nikki's transition from nutrition to compassion-focused therapy
• The power of self-compassion in healing from emotional trauma
• Misunderstanding compassion as toxic positivity
• Importance of action-oriented approaches in therapy
• Navigating memories and emotions linked to childhood experiences
• Recognising protective mechanisms and easing self-judgment
• The need for compassionate communities in personal growth
• Embracing imperfection as a strength for genuine living
• Nikki's dreams for future work in collective healing efforts

Follow along on Instagram:
Piece Of Mind Podcast
Personal Page: ashleybadman_
Business Page: builtfor.better
Nikki's Page: nikki.heyder

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Peace of Mind the podcast. This is all about piecing together the parts of your mind so that you can live a life that is authentic, unapologetic and actually fulfilling. I'm your host, ashley Badman, and I'm here to help you get real with yourself, embrace who you truly are and unleash your fullest potential. Get ready for a no bullshit, straight talk and a little chaos, because I'm here to give you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. So let's go. Welcome back to the Peace of Mind podcast.

Speaker 1:

Today, we have an absolutely incredible guest. I have deliberately and intentionally and specifically asked this person to come on to speak about a very specific topic, because she is the best at this topic. You guys are going to love this conversation. You're going to take so much away from it. I actually know this person, can I say personally, if I haven't actually met you in real life, I feel like I know you personally and I was a part of Nikki. We'll introduce you in a second but Nikki's compassion focused coaching group, which, of course, makes sense of why I've asked her to come on here and talk about all things compassion and why it is so, so important. So welcome, nikki. Let's start it off with you just telling us who you are for people who don't know.

Speaker 2:

Sure. Thank you so much for having me. So, for those that don't know, my name is Nikki Nikki Hayter. I live in Bali, in Indonesia. I am a psychotherapist. I'm also I've been a yoga teacher for nearly a decade now. I'm also a coach and I work a lot with women and men and wellness practitioners and coaches from all different walks of life around so many different issues, mainly around things like self-worth and perfectionism and imposter syndrome, but all through a lens of compassion. I'm a mother and a wife. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And owner of a cat who eats your headphones.

Speaker 2:

Yes and yes, I don't have any headphones today because we have a kitten who we rescued off the side of the road about three months ago and he is just obsessed with eating. The headphone bit off the cord, and I've gone through three of them now, so it's been incredibly frustrating.

Speaker 1:

Oh bless, I didn't know it was a rescue. That makes my heart. I know, I know I already have two things that I'm like desperate to know. The first thing is can you give a little like brief rundown on the difference between, like psychology and psychotherapy, just for people who are just like, what is the difference? Why those words different are the same thing. Can you kind of tell us what the difference actually is?

Speaker 2:

so psychology I mean psychotherapy, isotherapy is therapy of the psyche, it's a therapy of the mind, but it's a little different to someone who is a psychologist. So a psychotherapist is someone who is oftentimes also known as a counselor, so you can do it like someone who practices talk therapy. But I'm not a psychologist in the sense of I haven't done my training in psychology to become a psychologist. I don't conduct assessment, for example, on mental health disorder or illness. I don't work within government bodies, for example, and the type of study that I've done, which is my master's in counseling psychology, is very much around the therapeutic approach of working with the psyche through talk therapy.

Speaker 2:

So I guess that's the best way that I can explain it is that a counselor or a psychotherapist is very much around the cognitive, the talking, the understanding of a person's situation, rather than the assessing, the statistical side of things or even on a community base. It's different to social work, it's different to psychology, it's different to psychiatry and, yeah, it's more kind of I guess tending to the person in that kind of talking kind of way I guess is the best way I can explain it. And then, depending on what you've studied and the way that you've learned. People obviously specialize in different areas. So you can do your psychotherapy training as a counselor, for example, and then people may specialize from there in like addiction psychotherapy or compassion focused psychotherapy or specifically CBT you know interventions, for example. So people will be psychotherapists but also have different areas of specialty that they work with.

Speaker 1:

That is the best explanation ever, because I feel like sometimes that can be so confusing and it's hard to differentiate, and I feel like that makes it so clear and so easy. You also first you started with studying nutrition. Was that correct? You started with nutrition. What made you shift from nutrition? Because did you become a nutritionist, did you work in the nutrition space? And then I did Okay.

Speaker 2:

I was a clinical nutritionist for about seven years actually. So I actually did a diploma in nutritional counseling first, which is counseling specifically around nutritional issues such as disordered eating and stress-related nutritional problems such as digestive disorders and things like that. I loved that so much that I went to do my bachelor in health science and then, when I finished that, I worked as a clinical nutritionist with my own practice in Australia for quite a few years and I treated patients and clients who mainly fell into those categories, so they were coming to me with, like digestive disorders, so anything from you know, really bad bloating, irritable bowel syndrome, painful digestive symptoms, inflammatory conditions, conditions either whether that be in their bowels or on their skin or in some other part of their body, um, as well as disordered eating. So I and it wasn't by choice, it just happened to be what I guess I was attracting um, I ended up working with a lot of women who had issues around food, like the emotion. Food was used as an emotional tool. So whether that be a tool for control, restriction, indulgence, to help navigate big emotions such as grief or sadness or anxiety, and basically the more I worked within this space, you know, obviously, as a nutritionist.

Speaker 2:

For those who don't know. You learn how to assess a person's dietary intake, you learn how to assess through different pathology reports and things like that. You learn to understand someone's unique composition, and you can help a person to remedy what's going on from them by tending to their lifestyle, their diet and using supplementation to help them find relief. And so that's what I would be doing. But I would always come to this point where I would be like hmm, you know, there's more, there's something else going on here.

Speaker 2:

There's something happening that's on a mental level and it's very much something that is maybe the root cause for a lot of these things. Like, why, why are these people not able to manage their stress? Like, or why does this person feel like they need to indulge in food in this way in order to compensate for this? Like, why do they have a fear of this emotion? And so that kind of sparked my curiosity around around the psychology of it, so around the thinking of it, the way that what's happening behind the scenes, what's happening in the scenes, what's happening in the unconscious, in the subconscious, and so then I pursued my postgraduate studies in counseling psychology and then I did a further year and a half long training with Dr Gabor Mate and his Compassion Inquiry Practitioner Program, and so then I kind of fused yoga, my background in nutrition and counseling talk therapy all together to try to understand what was driving a lot of these things.

Speaker 2:

So primarily this inability to regulate stress and the second thing being the feeling of shame around, like us being humans. Like why am I? Why do I always feel like I'm not good enough? Like, why am I scared of my emotions? Why am I not allowed to be sad? Or why do I feel so afraid to use my voice? You know all of these types of questions that were coming up as a nutritionist, but I wasn't qualified to talk to them about these things yet.

Speaker 1:

Oh my God. So basically, what we're taking away from this is that you know a lot and you have had a very long journey to, I guess, get to where you are, but each piece played a very crucial and amazing role. Even more recently, I've seen and I've actually reached out to you about this on your Instagram I've seen you recently talking about you know omega-3s and things like that with nutrition and mental health. So it's like all of those puzzle pieces and all those you know steps and things that you did to get to where you are. They're all still playing a role now but, holy shit, not to lie but like as you're talking, I'm like wow, I have always been very impressed by you. You do know this. You're always someone that I've quite, like, I've looked up to, which is why I want to learn from you.

Speaker 1:

This is the second time I've had you on the podcast. We chat outside of the podcast, outside of you know you teaching me and things like that on social media, and I'm so grateful for that. But listening to everything that you have done and the dedication and the time and the learning that you have done to be able to be of service to other people, to be able to help people like honestly, that is absolutely insanely amazing and I think we should. I feel so grateful for people like you like. Like this is what it takes when people are helping others and we're creating change in the world. It takes someone who has dedicated their life and hours and years to being the best that they can to help others, and I think that that is incredibly cool. Also, I want to share something with you. I am actually, in February, going to see a live talk by. I cannot pronounce his name and I don't want to wreck it. Thank, you.

Speaker 1:

Yes, talk by the. I cannot pronounce his name and I don't want to wreck it. Yes, I'm going to see a talk by him in Queensland, so I'm really really excited about it, and I was like, oh, I should tell Nikki that because she'll think it's really cool. This is epic. Okay, I feel like this is a perfect segue, given that we now know everything you did to get to where you are. I would love to know, because obviously, compassion is a big part of your life and you are dedicating your life to teaching that to others. How was your life different before you started having compassion for yourself?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, great question, I think you know, for anyone who's listening to this, who works within the space of holding space for others, whether you be a coach, whether you be a therapist, whether you be a nutritionist, whatever it is, it doesn't matter Whether you be a hairdresser. Hairdressers also hold space, right. So do personal trainers.

Speaker 1:

They really do, they really do it's amazing.

Speaker 2:

You know it's really about. You know, I think oftentimes what you may notice is that you will find that you attract people who have had similar issues to what you have had. It's very much this concept of like the wounded healer type archetype, right, and it's very much around this. You know, you often attract what you've been through yourself, and I say that because it's always interesting. Whenever I have healed or overcome or I'm healing something within my own journey, I tend to also be able to support people in a deeper way.

Speaker 2:

And what I work with with others, what I said earlier, like perfectionism, self-worth issues, shame they were all the things that I navigated as well, and I still do to some extent. You know I very much have a strong inner perfectionist. You know I was very much attached to my should statements I should be like this, I should live like this, I should look like this, I should have this in order to be successful. I'm a highly sensitive person, so I do have sensory processing sensitivity, which makes me deeply empathic, but also deeply emotional sensitivity, which makes me deeply empathic but also deeply emotional. I'm a hopeless romantic. For example, I like softy love songs, I like country music, I like all of these things that, like, I used to really hide away from the world when I was younger because it was seen as being like lame or stupid or whatever it might be.

Speaker 2:

I used to often get teary about things or be really deeply affected by things as a child and you know that wasn't well received when I was growing up. It wasn't understood by my family and I was often teased for being sensitive, for being, you know, for making a big deal about things. For, yeah, it was just, I was always kind of. You know, I was loved, but that part of me was not well tolerated, let's put it that way. And so when that happens, there's all of these beliefs that come with it, mainly these beliefs of like wow, like how I am is wrong or bad in some way, or I'm like different or I'm misunderstood or I don't belong. You know is a very common one as well.

Speaker 2:

That I have felt for a long time, even in business, and so the practice of self-compassion. It really I was really drawn to it. I think, being highly sensitive and being deeply empathic, it's in my nature to want to have this part of me that is so kind and loving and, in its unhealthy expression, it looks like people-pleasing, which is one of my other characteristics, one of my other coping mechanisms, and compassion has really helped me to soften these two extremes the extreme of perfectionism and the extreme of people pleasing and to understand them through the lens of acceptance, which is what compassion is all about. And so I would be lying if I told you that my people pleasing tendencies have completely gone, and I would be lying if I told you that I wasn't still a perfectionist in many ways. But what compassion does is it helps me to not be so edgy within those areas, to notice when I'm there and to be able to understand why I have these coping mechanisms.

Speaker 2:

And in that softness and in that ability to meet myself with understanding and kindness, it's much easier to shift out of those states and to come back to who I actually want to be, rather than either getting caught up in it and feeling out of control in it, or letting it lead my life or what I used to do, which would be getting angry at myself about it, like why are you like this? What's wrong with you? Oh, you're such a pushover, you're so weak, or you're so this, or you're so that, or try harder. You're not doing good enough, like that type of voice in my mind was so much stronger in the past, and now it's more like a noticing, like, oh, here's this part of you that used to keep you safe. It's coming up now because you're feeling vulnerable. It's normal that it's there. Let's give it some love and let's just check in with our values and is this how we want to deal with the situation? And, if not, can we shift? And so it's very much just this, like mother energy of come on, let's go over here now, and it's soft and it's kind, but it's also strong.

Speaker 2:

I think a lot of people, um, they can misinterpret compassion for like toxic positivity, or they can feel like you're. By being compassionate, you're like giving yourself just all this. I don't know, it can be like bubble wrapping a situation, but compassion has an element to it that's very, I like to say, like mother bear energy. It's loving, but it's strong. And it's very much like I know. I know your potential, I know what's good for you and I'm going to push you in that direction, but in a way that is kind, not in a way that is critical wow, I love that.

Speaker 1:

I what I love there that you said so much, because I feel like that's going to be really impactful for everyone and it's something that has impacted me so much as well as when I first started really really working on myself and realizing, when you speak, it's so funny because I'm listening to you being like are we the same person? Like all of the things that you're saying? I'm like I'm also a highly sensitive person and a perfectionist. I'm like all the same things are just hilarious. But I do remember when I was like I really do want to work on these things. I want to work on, you know, having boundaries and not always feeling like I need to be what everybody else wants me to be, because I started making very big life decisions based off of how happy it would make others. And that's where people pleasing becomes not just oh, you're just saying yes and you're trying to make others happy. It's like you're altering your whole life based on other people. Um, and being a perfectionist is obviously obviously so limiting and so paralyzing. So I did want to really work on those things. And something you said there was really important it's that it doesn't just go.

Speaker 1:

I think sometimes we can be led into this false idea that you know you're going to sign up to a coach or see a psychologist or psychotherapist or anybody and you're going to stop being a people pleaser and you're going to like never people please again or you're going to never feel like a perfectionist again. And I think we put this unrealistic expectation on ourselves and I remember in the earlier days feeling completely disheartened when you know I would try and do something in my business that felt like really big or really edgy or really scary, and I found myself being that perfectionist again because I was doing something new and a bigger goal, when really it's that realization that those things will still be there and they may still pop up, but they may be a little bit quieter. But the difference is, is how you treat yourself in that that. Are you really mean to yourself or harsh to yourself, or can you understand why it's there, have that kindness for yourself but then also have that kind of push to be like, but do it anyway, don't let it stop. You still do the thing and and I like that you said there's that balance.

Speaker 1:

It's not compassion, where you're just like, oh, I'm just really kind to myself all the time and never do anything and never get anything done. It's that. I know that you are always made for more. I know that you can do this and I'm going to help you get to that position, so I really love that. I would love for you to kind of explain because I do think people do get compassion mixed up a little bit with complacency, and I've had people say that before where they're like oh I'm just being really kind to myself, but now I'm getting absolutely like nothing done. Can you describe to us what compassion really is and what that looks like and what it's not? Can you run through that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, for sure. And it's interesting what you say, because compassion, it has a big element of acceptance, right, and when people lean into acceptance, they can become complacent because they're missing, like the next step. So I think it and, coming back to this, like mother bear energy, it's like, okay, we can be kind, and then that kindness acts as like an excuse to not do right, there still needs to be the compassion of I'm going to validate you. So compassion derives from the word compati, the Latin word compati, and that means to suffer with. It means to be like in the trenches with, to meet someone for where they're at in their human experience.

Speaker 2:

So it's not for me to deny, avoid, dismiss, distract or or, yeah, like, meet my emotions or my situation with toxic positivity, right, if I'm doing any of those things, then I'm not accepting my reality. Accepting my reality is really important because it means that I can make a decision that is founded in what's happening right now, in the in the here and now. And if I'm not doing that, then I'm ignoring my life, right? So people often like maybe they can get to this point, but then they may go from there into a space of like victim mentality or into being a feeling of hopelessness or depression or helplessness, like, oh well, I've accepted this and now I can't do anything about it, accepted this and now I can't do anything about it. And this is where we have to draw on, like our inner courageousness, our higher self, if you will, that mama bear energy that knows our potential and our willingness to change. So I think, with all self-help, with all development and this is an issue I see a lot is with so much, I guess, information on social media, so much pop psychology, so much, um, you know, insta therapy, so many self-help books they're all amazing because they enhance our knowledge, but without the willingness to take action, people just become kind of like self-help junkies where they just know all the jargon and they don't do all the things, and so real change comes from having a willingness, and so it's often that piece, I would say, that's missing.

Speaker 2:

It's not compassion, is not toxic positivity, it's not sympathy, it's not like victim oh, poor me, poor me and it's not like chin up like everything's gonna be fine. Sometimes things are not fine and that is like meeting ourselves in the trenches. This is not fine. I am struggling right now. This is really hard for me right now and I am feeling anxious. And then the willingness, the courage to be like, okay, I'm in it, I'm seeing it for what it is, what are my options and which one feels like the right thing for me to do and how can I take just one step forward. And it's that kind of energy that we want, that that is compassion. It's like, okay, I'm going to hold your hand and we're going to do this together. I know it's hard and I know it's tough, but we're going to move in this direction. And this direction is the right direction because it's taking and accepting life for what it is right now even though it feels like shit.

Speaker 1:

I feel like we need to do like a mic drop moment after that, like I could see you getting so lit up and so passionate, and I'm like fucking, like you can't even see us, which is so funny, but as she's talking, I'm like doing like a silent clap. I'm like fuck your girl. Like this is like I was, like I love that so much because that is the most valid thing ever. I feel like it's one thing which is a very important thing obviously to learn and to understand and to have that awareness, and we're so lucky that there's so much information out there. But at the same time, we are kind of under this like illusion that the more that we know, the better our life is going to be, without actually ever having to take that action. We're like, oh, I know I'm a people pleaser now and I know what being a people pleaser looks like and I know why I do it. And we have all this information and it's like that point is great.

Speaker 1:

If you have gotten to that point, like fucking hats off to you. To accept, like to kind of acknowledge parts of you that you maybe don't want to acknowledge is amazing. But then it's like it's not the book and it's not the podcast, and it's not the Instagram post that's teaching you about these things that's going to change your life. It's. It's the, the taking action, the courage, the bravery to choose differently, and that's the super uncomfortable part. That's the part that makes us be like, oh, like. Every part of us will want to make an excuse as to why not, and you know that's the role of our brain and things.

Speaker 1:

But I was like, yes, the action, but also have compassion for yourself. That the action is hard, like it's not like walk in the park, it is hard, like that's the hard part but also the most necessary part to the whole process, which sucks like thank you, universe, yeah, and it gets you know, and it gets easier and easier the more that you do it.

Speaker 2:

But, um, it's, it's meeting yourself with compassion in those hard parts, like you said, that enables us to like be brave enough to do the next action step and the next action step, because your brain just needs more evidence that you can do it, and so so, if you can do it once, you can do it again, you can do it again, you can do it again. But it's about saying like yes, this isn't going to be a walk in the park. Like this is not easy, because we've spent our lives, our entire system, our entire nervous system, our entire brain is wired to be like this and now we're trying to do like this. Of course, it's not going to want to do that, and also, is that the thing that we know intuitively that we really want, that aligns to this highest version of ourselves and the person we want to be. Yes, okay, so like, let's go down that route, because inevitably, that's going to create our overall feeling of like, purpose and meaning in this life.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and the thing that really helped me, I think, with being able to have compassion because I really lacked any compassion for myself was the understanding that the things that I was doing, that I was getting frustrated with myself for doing because they were quite limiting to my life and to the version of myself I knew that I really wanted to be was the recognition that those things were protective mechanisms.

Speaker 1:

They were, you know, the people pleasing, the saying yes, the wanting everything to be perfect. I was actually trying to protect myself from something, whether that be you know, a fear of failure if I just got it perfect and I got it right, or whether it was, you know, someone not hating me, I really had this fear of abandonment. So I feel like people pleasing kind of was ensuring that that didn't happen and realizing like holy shit, I'm not doing this because, like you said, I'm a pushover or I'm any of these bad things. I'm actually just trying to keep myself safe as a human being, like I'm actually doing my job. Only now I kind of have to take the steps and the action, which is the uncomfortable part, to move out of that. But I feel like knowing that it was like this protective mechanism helped me stop shaming myself for it. Does that like? Does that?

Speaker 2:

make sense absolutely, and I think that's often the missing piece. Ash is like a lot of people, of people, when they're like well, what am I being compassionate for? You're being compassionate for the fact that, like you developed this behavior and this belief because it was something that once kept you safe and attached. And so it's like don't make it bad, don't make it wrong. You know, don't get angry at it. It served a purpose. It wouldn't be there unless it serves some sort of a purpose at some stage in your life. So you have to recognize how it's trying to protect you. Like you said, it's like I don't want to be abandoned, so I'm going to tell myself not to do this thing so that I don't, or I'm going to tell myself to not have boundaries so that I won't.

Speaker 2:

You know, yesterday I was really struggling with feelings of imposter syndrome, which come up for me a lot still.

Speaker 2:

You know, despite me having studied so much and having a successful business and all of this stuff, I still feel imposter syndrome because I still have perfectionistic tendencies and because I care about my work a lot, and so these feelings were really rampant for me yesterday.

Speaker 2:

And you know, my business is going through a lot of change and a lot of growth, and you know it's also a way that I don't have to like.

Speaker 2:

If I listen to that, I get to stay small, right, I get to stay safe in you know, I get things to remain how they are.

Speaker 2:

So if I listen to that voice that tells me I can't, or compares me to everybody else or says that, like I'll never be like that, or my voice doesn't matter or what I say isn't interesting, then I get to just remain where I am, and where I am is safe, because that's what I've known so far in my business, and where I want to go is unsafe to my nervous system, because it requires me to step even more outside of my perfectionistic tendencies, to be even more who I authentically am, to share my opinions more unapologetically, and that's really scary.

Speaker 2:

And everything in my system says, well, no, don't do that, because once upon a time when you did that, you used to get in trouble. So why would you do that now? And so it's a real battle of being like but I could just stay here or I could go there, I could stay here, I could go there, and to recognize that it's just trying to protect you. And then that's where the compassion comes in, that's where the empathy comes in, I understand, and also whatever it is that we want to go.

Speaker 1:

I actually love that you shared that story. I love hearing from people like how you're actually feeling in the moment, because I think it's really interesting for people to understand. You know, it's easy to see people, especially on social media, even to look at yourself, like, look at you on social media, look at your qualifications, all the things, and then to hear, oh, you still have these, these moments of doubting yourself. I think can be quite I don't know. It's just quite reassuring that you're not alone and no matter where you kind of are in your journey, you're still going to have these moments.

Speaker 1:

I actually shared something called my story on my new business page, a built for better page, and I shared on there that I have this belief and I've carried it with me for so long and for so many different reasons that it's it about, but I've just believed that I'm not likable. Like I'm not a likable person, I'm just like it's such an annoying, it's such an annoying belief and it's like, no matter how much my partner tells me, like you are super likable or like you know, people try and reassure you. It's like that belief is so cemented into my being because as a child I went through a lot of trauma and then I got bullied in primary school and then I had the workplace bullying in the police. Like that belief has just been solidified in so many phases of my life that it's really, it's really holding on. There and someone replied to the story and was like wow, ash, you would never know that you feel that way. We love you, we think you're great, and said all these nice things which I'm obviously super appreciative of. But what I replied to her it's I just said to her I have the belief, but the thing I don't I don't want you to feel that you need to reassure me or any of those different things.

Speaker 1:

What I would love for you to see is that I have this belief that I'm not likable and I show up every single day and put myself out there and I post still and I get on my stories and I, like you know, put myself out there in really big ways with this belief, sometimes very loud. So if there's anything that I want people to see from that, it's not that you need to like, have the reassurance or I have to convince myself I'm likable. It's that I can have that belief, and sometimes it's quiet and sometimes it pops its head up again and I'll just keep do. I'll keep pushing myself. And when I do push myself it's not easy, like sometimes I'm like, oh my god, I want to vomit and I get an upset tummy and I feel really scared.

Speaker 1:

But I think that's what's cool for people to see. You say that you had that feeling of imposter syndrome and me feeling like I'm just not likable. But we're still here and we're still doing the thing and it's like even these everyday small actions that don't feel big, they're kind of telling that belief that it's like we get why you're here, but you're not going to run the show today, you're not running it today.

Speaker 2:

No, no, exactly, you're not running it today and you know this is also the, I guess, the foundations of what we would call like parts work therapy. You know, for those that are interested in you know what we're talking about. We're talking about different parts of ourselves, different sub personalities that exist within an entire psyche, and it's really interesting to be able to break down yourself into different parts, to understand that. There is this inner child part of you that feels like no one likes you. There is the inner critical part of you that wants to protect the inner child that tells you know that is really mean to you, to make sure that she doesn't get hurt. There's the part of you that is compassionate and is higher and wiser and, you know, creative and curious and all of these things. And it's like, how do these parts all interact?

Speaker 2:

And I think that's one of the most, one of the most beneficial things of doing work with compassion. Or, if people listening want to know, like, how do I become more compassionate? Finding a therapist or a coach that understands parts work and it doesn't have to be through the IFS model, it can just be understanding this concept in general. It's really helpful to dissect yourself, if you will, into different parts and to recognize each of their different beliefs and behaviors and coping mechanisms and why they're there. Because it just means that you become a better communicator with each of them. You're able to be more compassionate to each of them because you understand them a lot more.

Speaker 1:

I wasn't going to ask this, but now I'm interested to hear your perspective on it and I think it will be beneficial. Obviously, I've just said, oh, I didn't feel likable because of this, this and this, and I was able to rattle off a few things that have happened in my life that have caused that. For people that have beliefs maybe similar to that, I'm not likable, I'm not worthy, I'm not enough or whatever it is, but they have no idea why that is present. They can't pinpoint a moment in their life when they started to believe that or why, but they really want to work on themselves. What would you say to people who don't know why they have these thoughts or the way that they are, but would like to work on them? Do you think they need to know why?

Speaker 2:

Or do you think that they can continue to work on them without having that knowing of why it's there? I mean, I think sometimes the knowing of why it's there helps with the dialogue of compassion, in the sense of like it's a lot more helpful with validation. But for some people who've experienced a lot of trauma, it can really impact the part of the brain that stores explicit memory. So it can be really hard for us to remember what happened to us. And in those instances I think it's important to understand something called your implicit memory, which is the memory that is stored in your muscles and your cells and your nervous system, and so it's really to. Sometimes you don't have to know the exact story, but you have to accept that this is a part of you. So something happened. And even if we don't have the explicit details, even by simply asking ourselves okay, I know that when I was this old, you know I was living in this type of situation, I know that this was going on and this was going on A question we can ask ourselves is like okay, well, what would any five-year-old in that situation think about themselves? You know, we don't have to remember exactly us, but being humans and understanding each other and understanding emotion, we can have a pretty good understanding of like. Okay, I don't know everything, but I can kind of assume what any five-year-old would have felt then, and therefore I can bring some compassion to the fact that, of course, they felt like they weren't likable or of course, they felt like they didn't belong, and so it's.

Speaker 2:

We're still able to find that, that piece of compassion towards ourselves, even if the explicit memory doesn't exist. So there's definitely. You can still definitely work on yourself and heal these parts of you, even if the memory isn't necessarily there. And what you may find and I see this a lot with the clients I work with is clients that come to me who are like I don't remember everything from my childhood. What actually tends to happen as we start to work together and as they feel safer and safer in their bodies, as they start to practice more compassion through both somatic and cognitive work, is that the memories come, and the memories come because they feel safe. Yeah, so it's just an interesting thing to actually like notice is that you know, our minds can repress and suppress things because it is painful and we're not at capacity to be able to deal with those things. But when we do have more capacity, when we do have more tolerance, more compassion, more safety, we're able to remember them, and we're able to remember them with more compassion.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So what would you say to somebody who, when you just said that then you're like, you know, once you feel safe in your body and the memories can come back and all those different things. What would you say to somebody who is, I guess, in the mindset or mind frame that well, I, why would I want to remember things that have happened in my life that aren't good? Why would I? I would rather ignore them, avoid them, pretend they didn't happen, move on with my life?

Speaker 1:

That kind of attitude of like I'm just going to move forward, I don't want to. I'd never want to look at it or come again. Or they're scared or they have fear over, like, what they may remember or what may have happened to them, but they still have things in their life that they do that isn't beneficial to them. Maybe they scroll a lot on social media or drink a lot of alcohol or do you know, recreational drugs, drugs or something like that, to kind of like make themselves feel good, but they don't want to, like look at their memories. What would you say to someone who may have that fear?

Speaker 2:

I mean, I would say to them what's the cost of inaction? So, like you know, if you're happy with being where you are and you're happy with these unhealthy coping mechanisms and you want, you genuinely think that, yeah, this is the way I want to like live my life and this is what I think is best for me, then continue Like, once again, I think that there needs to be a willingness from people. It's really hard to work because I've worked a lot within the space of drug and alcohol addiction. It's where I did like. My initial clinical training was in drug and alcohol rehab and if you're working with someone who's an addict, for example, who's not willing, they're not willing, you know, and it's going to be hard and it's highly likely that they will relapse more. But when you meet somebody who realizes I don't want to live like this anymore, and now, even if it's 1% willingness, 1%, we can work with the 1% and that 1% can become greater and greater and greater and this person can feel more and more inclined to realize that by exploring our past and a lot of people have this misunderstanding, I think with psychology and with psychotherapy it's like oh, you know this big eye roll of like, oh, I don't want to have to, like you know, look at my childhood again. I don't want to have to go there. You're not going there to live there again. You're going there to collect data, to be able to understand why you have the coping mechanisms that you have. Now. The more understanding you have, the more compassionate we can be and the more you can like. Humans are meaning-making machines. We make meaning out of everything. So if we don't have the information, we're making meaning on false insights, and so when we have the right information, it's so much easier to be compassionate towards ourselves. So I think that's, you know, I, I think that's really, really important for people to understand. Um, and I don't want to look at my childhood or I don't want to go there. You know, it's kind of like this analogy of the elephant in the room Like you're going to keep bumping into it in different ways.

Speaker 2:

I, you know, I like to say to my clients sometimes, you know you imagining that you have this like big, say you have you're swimming in a pool and you have a big beach ball in the pool and the beach ball like keeps getting in your way and so you try to push the beach ball down under the water, right. So you try to avoid it, you're suppressing it, you're denying it, you're pushing it down. But it takes a lot of energy to hold that under the water. You're using all of your strength to keep it down, keep it down, keep it down. And then all of a sudden it pops up, right and it hits you in the face and you're like, oh, this damn ball, I've got to push it down again.

Speaker 2:

And you know, it's kind of what we're doing with drugs and alcohol and online shopping and scrolling on social media and binge eating and like all of this stuff that we do.

Speaker 2:

We're like suppressing the ball, pushing the ball down, pushing the ball down. But what happens when we just let the ball be there and accept the ball is in the pool? Yeah, I'm just accepting it's there. This ball is in the pool and this ball can sometimes be annoying and sometimes it gets in my way and I'm just going to acknowledge that it's a part of the pool and I'm going to learn how to swim with the ball. I'm going to learn how to swim around it and with it and acknowledge that it's there and, you know, be okay with it being here, and that is the experience of working on yourself. This pain is not going to like. We can't turn back the clock, but we can accept that it's a part of your life. We can accept that it's a part of your experience and we can learn to swim with the pain. We can learn to be with it and that is, I think, deeply healing in itself.

Speaker 1:

That is the best analogy ever. I'm like I've lost every train of thought that I was actually thinking to ask you, cause I was like I was just staring at you like yes, this is such a. That is actually. That is a brilliant analogy. I absolutely love that. I'm going to turn that into a reel and post it everywhere that I absolutely can, cause I think that that that is so good because I just see that so often. That's why I ended up asking you that question, cause I really wanted to know your thoughts on that.

Speaker 1:

For people they can be like why would I want to look at something that possibly hurt me or didn't make me feel good? And it's like by suppressing it and masking it, you're not benefiting yourself, even though you may feel like you're benefiting yourself. You're just letting it run the show. You're letting it make decisions in your life on autopilot. And while sometimes looking at it is hard like I'm not going to deny, as someone who went through a lot of trauma as a child and you know I didn't want to look at it I used to like I used to make jokes about my childhood trauma. I'd be like, remember when my dad like abandoned me and tried to get a DNA test, ha ha ha. And I'd like joke about like it's actually not funny at all, but I would like literally joke about it and then be like I always would say I'm fine. Like I'd always make a joke about my childhood like something domestic violence or something really horrific that I'd seen. I'd be like but look at me, I'm fine. And like I'd literally joke about it. But it's like.

Speaker 1:

No, you were a people pleaser. You struggled to make decisions. You were a perfectionist Like there was. So you were in a relationship that was completely toxic.

Speaker 1:

Like there were so many things in my life that were, you know, being run on autopilot by all of these things that have happened in my childhood and whilst looking at them and really remembering and realizing what I'd gone through wasn't super pleasant, it wasn't super nice.

Speaker 1:

It has set me free. Like there is no way in heck I would be here now. I would have never quit the police, I wouldn't be the mum that I am today, I wouldn't be in the relationship that I'm in today if I wasn't willing to look at that and sit with that and be okay with being uncomfortable, be okay that it made me feel hurt or made me feel sad and I would rather have had that moment of, like you know, sadness or anger. I felt anger that's another one that I think is really important. I felt angry, like I felt angry for what had happened in my childhood. I felt anger for, like, not getting the childhood that other people maybe had gotten. And I went through all of that, that wave of emotions. But if I didn't let myself sit in that uncomfortable moment, my whole life would be uncomfortable.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, I'm so glad that I asked you, that that was such a brilliant thought. And I think also just one more kind of point there like I know, ash, that you're studying psychology and you've also got your background in coaching, and I guess, just to this point of like psychotherapy and coaching and all of these things, I think sometimes and this is what I notice, and this is really dependent upon the therapist and the individual but I think sometimes what can happen is that in a clinical setting, sometimes when people are talking about their childhood, you know, within a psychological space or within a psychotherapy or, you know, with a psychologist, sometimes there can be an opening, like as in an exploration of the childhood, and then nothing and yeah, so this is where there can be a problem, and I think this is where a lot of people can be anti psychology, but they can feel like it's not helpful. And I guess I just wanted to speak to this because I think what's really important and this is just a personal opinion from working with, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people is that people need the follow-up, and this is where I think you know solutions-focused therapy, which is a form of psychotherapy, coaching as another example, things that are action-orientated. It's still really important to be able to uncover what's there, but then to be able to apply this compassionate understanding of it and then what? And that kind of follow through I think is really important, because this is where I see a lot of people getting stuck. They're like I talked about it and talked about it and talked about it and talked about it and then nothing happened.

Speaker 2:

I didn't know what to do with all the stuff that came up. And you know, I think there's lots of like you know pros and cons for somatic work and and you know psychology and counseling and that people have opinions about everything. But I think, all in all, there needs to be this let's address what happened through the lens of compassion and understanding and then let's look at where do we want to go and support these and support whoever it is with that forward motion, so that they don't feel like they've just opened Pandora's box and they're just sitting there. That's also yeah, that can feel. I just wanted to talk to that because I know some people who might be listening might be like well, I went and saw a psychologist and all that came up for me was all this stuff, and then I didn't know what to do and I felt worse and then I was traumatized.

Speaker 1:

I'm really traumatized. No, I agree, I agree, I'm so, I'm so happy. You actually said that I've actually had a um psychologist who had finished her degree come on the podcast and we spoke about this as well and she was in absolute agreeance. She ultimately has become a coach and not gone down the traditional psychology route for the literally basically the exact same reason in the, in that you know, going and seeing someone, maybe if you can get into their office once a month or once a fortnight, you speak for an hour and then off on your own and what, if you've like spent that whole hour opening up your whole childhood and they're like okay, session over, you're not allowed to contact me in between. It's just like that's really hard and I think that that's something for myself, obviously being a coach first and then going and studying psychology.

Speaker 1:

I now that I'm doing the degree and I'm like obviously right at the start and I did chat to you about this briefly, how I'm not enjoying it at all. But it's like I am so, so glad that I did coaching first. I didn't like finish like school, go to uni. So glad that I did coaching first. I didn't like finish like school, go to uni, become a psychologist all those different things. I'm so glad I became a coach first and did different courses and certifications, specifically your compassion focused certification, which was absolutely brilliant Everyone recommendation for sure. But I'm so glad that I did that because I can definitely see how coaching someone and helping them through those next step and being available to them after the you know call and things like that is so, so impactful. And I definitely get why there is this stigma around. Why would I go fucking talk to someone for one hour, tell them my worst shit that ever happened to me and then be like get out of the room until you can fit into your next appointment? Of course that would feel really daunting and and scary, and obviously different things benefit different people, but it is good that there are different options for people, that that's not the only way that you can work on yourself now. Definitely, definitely so.

Speaker 1:

My next thing that I would love for you to talk about, because you have kind of talked about like shame and all those different things. We haven't gone into it a lot, but why do you think then obviously we've talked about why compassion is so important why do you think, as humans, that we struggle with compassion, so much for ourselves, because I like, since doing your certification, I see it so much now, like how we are our own worst enemy and how we speak to ourselves and how we think and the limitations that we put in ourselves and just how harsh we are. Why do you think that is and what do you think contributes to people? And I specifically work with women, so I see in women a lot um, having a very loud inner critic, not just about who they are, but what their body looks like, the aging, like I'm getting old, like it, just like everything. We criticize ourselves about everything. Why do you think that is?

Speaker 2:

I think, like for me, it comes down to the very primal um desire to be connected and to belong. You know, I think at the heart of it we're all. We're still animals, we're still mammals and we still very much our nervous system is wired for safety right. So I think it's important to understand. Number one we want to survive like we want to live. Number two we are pack animals, you know, like we thrive in a pack, in a tribe, in a herd, and so connection is really important. And from birth we require connection, otherwise we die. And so we long for that throughout our lives.

Speaker 2:

And what happens over the course of our lives is that any threat to our connection is then met with or develops a belief that helps to keep us safe and attached, and especially in childhood. And it's not because there's something wrong with the child, it's because the child's brain is not. You know, your brain doesn't properly develop until you're fully develop, until you're about 28. So a child's brain is very much in its very early phases of development and the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is responsible for logical, rational thinking and impulse control and all of these things that hasn't integrated, it hasn't fully developed. And so you know, as children, we make meaning from a very emotional, egocentric kind of place. And so you know, as children, we make meaning from a very emotional, egocentric kind of place. And so if you think about it very objectively, you really zoom out of the picture like number one we want to survive as a species. Number two we're wired for connection. Number three our developing brains don't know any better. And you put all those three things together, it just makes a lot of sense that, of course, we develop these beliefs right.

Speaker 2:

And then, as we get older, and unfortunately, we then enter into a society that is driven by societal trends or societal beliefs, or collective beliefs right Of who you should be in order to fit in. And then we want to fit into that. So like we leave or we detach a little bit more from our immediate home environment. As children we enter into high school, for example, and then our friends become more important maybe than our family, because we want to fit into our friend group, or we want the boy to like us, or we want whatever. We want these like little things of connection that we think are important at that time for our survival. And so then we see that you know, lucy over there is really popular and she dresses like this. So maybe if I dress like Lucy then I will also get that. And maybe if I do this with, maybe if I kiss Tom, even though I don't want to kiss Tom that will make me popular.

Speaker 2:

And so we start sacrificing ourselves and we start changing who we are in this bid to be loved, in this bid to be accepted, and I think we don't really realize that until we're really conscious of it.

Speaker 2:

It's just this thing that drives us internally and it's just this very animalistic thing of like. I know that when I was born, if no one had held me, if no one had picked me up, if no one had connected with me, I would have died. And that survival instinct, that need for connection, still resides within each and every one of us today and it's what fuels a lot of these types of behaviors and a lot of the time we forget that we are adults now who have choice, who have this, who have that and who can actually change right. We still live from this place of like. Oh my God, I need to be loved, I need to be accepted, I need to be connected. From this place of like oh my God, I need to be loved, I need to be accepted, I need to be connected. We can actually shift a lot of that as adults, but as children, it's very understandable that this is like what happens, and this is why there has to be almost like an unlearning process when we get older.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that kind of makes me. As I'm listening to that, I'm like I feel so sad for teenage me. Oh, I'm a teenage girl like how rough.

Speaker 2:

It's so rough, oh, so hard, so hard. I work um with um. I have some teen clients. I work with teens from the age of like 15 to 18 or 19 um and, as you know part of my practice and you know oftentimes the things that come up in our sessions I just my heart goes to them Like I remember how hard it was to be a teenager. It's so hard because you're like you're you're not an adult yet, but you're not a child. You've got all these hormones going through your body. You want so much to fit into a different kind of scene outside of your family. It's like you know it's, it's just so stressful, it's so stressful.

Speaker 1:

I have a my daughter's turning 13 next month. Like I'm, it's stressful for me because I'm like I know what you're about to go through and I know these are going to be some weird years for you, but also it's like I'm obviously going to do the best that I can to support her, whilst equally knowing that this is her journey and I kind of have to accept this as her journey. It's it's weird as a parent, cause your her journey it's. It's weird as a parent because your, your biggest thing as a parent is like you, I want to protect you. I want to protect you from ever feeling hurt, from ever questioning yourself, from ever doubting yourself. Like I want you to just be this little girl who you know, that that innocence. But I know that we're about to go through a bit of a journey and even just like so she turns 13 at the end of next month.

Speaker 1:

She's a leap year baby, which is adorable, um, but just noticing small little things with her now of like caring about her appearance, a lot more caring about, like you know, she just asked if she could borrow my like these cute little sunglasses and like put some on and looks in the mirror and like hair trends, like the slick back hair that's really happening at the moment. She's starting to slick back her hair and like it's such a weird transition for a mum to see that looks like you, you didn't care about any, like you were like a kid and you're playing in the dirt and the ground and now you're slicking back your hair because it's a trend. Like I just like, I'm like okay, like we're going on a journey right now, um, but I I'm like, oh, I just have to do the best I can. I, I guess, and understand what she's going through at the moment and how she's developing and all those different things. But like please pray for me. She's a good kid, I'm sure it will be fine.

Speaker 2:

It's just like, oh, it will just and this is the compassion piece, ash is that like we need to accept that this is the way it is. You know, like this is the compassion piece like we can't we can't protect them so much that these things never happen. Like we're wired this way. So it's a big part of the acceptance piece is accepting that this is going to be something that happens. It's going to go this way and that's okay and all we can do is to be here as a safe place to land, you know, whenever they need us, and that's that's the best that we can do right and I'm very grateful again for like the work that I have done on myself so that I can hopefully provide her the safest space possible.

Speaker 1:

And you know, be aware of my own, my own shit, so I don't like accidentally project that onto her. My final question for you is a bit of a personal one. I would love to know for Nikki what are your big dreams, goals, aspirations and, like just saying them out loud, what she's hiding from the camera? She's like okay, okay, bye, podcast over, I don't want to do this part what are your biggest wildest, keeping in mind everyone, let's also. Nikki just recently wrote like a book, like an actual book, like a, and she's an author. She's an author now, so that's actually wild. Um, but what do you? What do you if you had, like you know, no limits your biggest dreams? What do you want for your, for yourself, your life and your business?

Speaker 2:

Um. So I think something I would really love to do is to start working more um in collectives as in I would. Actually, I used to do a lot of public speaking when I worked as a nutritionist. Um, interestingly enough, I used to do a lot of big talks and I used to speak in front of like hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of people around wellness and you know. And, yeah, I was like think back to that 20 something year old version of me and I'm like, wow, that's so brave of you, that's really brave in the public realm and to do more talks, whether they be corporate, whether they be at events, whether they be, yeah, I would really love to have more of a, I guess, a public space to be able to support a collective.

Speaker 2:

I've worked for many, many years on a one-to-one level and I love my one-to-one work, but I really also am moving into this idea of, you know, wanting to support more collective groups, so leaning more into running retreats here in Bali, doing more public speaking. I would love to do more international public speaking and I would actually love to write a second book eventually once I've kind of like grasped it myself around my own kind of understanding of manifestation through the lens of compassion and through the lens of self-worth and all of these things. How do we bring into our lives the things that we really desire when we are fully connected to our higher selves? So a second book possibly in the years to come.

Speaker 1:

Oh my God, these goals are amazing. Also, we have to get you back on here to talk about manifestation. For sure. We need to pick your brain about manifestation and how we make that happen and bring that into our lives, because I find it so fascinating and so interesting. I honestly cannot thank you enough for coming on the podcast again. That was such an incredible conversation like.

Speaker 1:

I really genuinely think people are going to get so much out of that, and I can see why compassion is something that you are deeply, deeply passionate about, because it is so, so impactful.

Speaker 1:

You have impacted my get so much out of that and I can see why compassion is something that you are deeply, deeply passionate about, because it is so, so impactful. You've impacted my life so much with your passion for compassion and you've introduced that to me and it's something now that I think about on a daily basis for myself, for my life, for my clients and absolutely everything. So you've impacted me so much and I'm sure that anyone who listened to this is going to be incredibly impacted. I know you came on my podcast before and someone actually mentioned it to me the other day that they remember the episode and you know that's how they first started following you and things like that. So I think that's really cool and, although we're a small podcast, if anyone that is new to your world gets to then go follow you and learn from you and be inspired by you, I think that that's really really cool and I'm so grateful to play a role in that. Thanks so much for having me.