How We Learn to Matter Too with Lois Jackson

What happens when you spend so long supporting everyone else that you begin to lose sight of yourself?

In this episode of A Thought I Kept, I talk to coach and charity co-founder Lois Jackson about caregiving, identity, emotional wellbeing and learning to matter in your own life too.

In 2017, Lois’s fiancé, former professional rugby player Ed Jackson, suffered a life-changing spinal cord injury. Lois threw herself into supporting his recovery, repeatedly telling herself: “It’s not about me.” Her thought for this episode turns that belief around: “It is about me.”

We talk about what it means to care for others without losing yourself, the pressure of being “the strong one”, and why acknowledging your own emotions and needs can feel so vulnerable. Lois shares how honesty helped her reconnect with herself and her relationship, and what she has learned about self-trust, identity, boundaries and finding your way forward when life changes unexpectedly.

We also explore trauma and recovery, grief, hope, the healing power of nature and community, and why progress is often measured in millimetres rather than mountains. This is a conversation about the people who hold everything together, the gap between being fine and feeling fulfilled, and the possibility of caring deeply for others while making space for yourself too.

If you have ever wondered where you have gone in your own life, this conversation might offer a gentle reminder: perhaps it gets to be about you too.

Lois Jackson is a resilience and identity coach who works with people who've spent a long time being everything to everyone and are quietly wondering who they actually are underneath all of it.

With an ICF certification and an NLP Practitioner qualification she brings genuine depth to the work. But what she brings more than anything is lived experience of caring, of losing, of rebuilding, and of learning, later than she'd like to admit, that she was also allowed to be in the story.

Lois co-founded Millimetres 2 Mountains with her husband Ed, a charity that helps people discover what they're capable of through outdoor challenge and community. Which tells you something about how she thinks identity is best rebuilt: not just in a therapy room, but moving through something hard, preferably with good people and a decent view.

Lois’s website | M2M Website | Instagram

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hi, and welcome to A Thought I Kept. I'm your host, Claire Fitzsimmons. Each week I ask a guest the same question. And that is, what is the one thought that you have kept? Out of all the ideas, what is the thing that really stayed with you? My guest today brings something that I think applies to so many of us. It's something that I know that I needed to be reminded of, and it's something that can be so life-changing when we get to realize that we need that in our own lives. I'm so thrilled to uh introduce today's guest to you. I am talking to Lois Jackson. Lois is a coach, an adventurer, and the co-founder of this extraordinary charity, Millimeters to Mountains, that helps people facing adversity reconnect with themselves through challenge and nature and community. Lois specializes in supporting the supporters. Those people who spend so much of their lives holding everyone else up so that they don't lose sight of themselves in the process. What I love about Lois is this combination of honesty and optimism that she brings to really difficult subjects. Lois has been through extraordinary circumstances. In 2017, her fiance, the rugby player at Jackson, suffered a life-changing spinal cord injury that altered the course of both their lives. It's a journey that is so beautifully recorded in the documentary, The Mountain Within Me, that I highly recommend that you watch. It's such an incredible story and it's incredibly moving. And it really does show the support and the love and the connection that Ed and Lois have for one another. Alongside supporting Ed's remarkable recovery, Lois has also navigated family illness, grief, uncertainty, and all the really complicated emotions that come with being the person that everybody does rely on. And yet, when I think about Lois, I don't think of adversity, I think about adventure, I think about mountains and long walks, and possibility and laughter, curiosity, and a determination to keep finding joy, even when life becomes difficult. Her work does remind us that resilience isn't simply about enduring hard things, it's also about staying connected to ourselves, to other people, and to the things that really do make us feel alive. So we talk about trauma and recovery, supporting loved ones without disappearing in the process, the healing power of nature, why joy matters so so much, and what Lois has learned from helping people find their way back to themselves. I think there's so much that you can take away from the conversation today, particularly thought that Lois is bringing, and I really hope that you enjoy it. Thank you so much for being on the show. Welcome to the podcast. It is so nice to meet you and to have you here today.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here. I'm really excited to have you here. How are you doing today? I'm good. I just had my hair done, which just is the best bit of self-love you can ever do, isn't it? And my hairdresser's amazing. He's always just the happiest person. So I'm in a really good mood after a 10-day walking event down with our charity, which is also always quite emotionally draining. I felt like I needed to put something back into myself this week. So I'm feeling great.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Your walk looked extraordinary. So you were walking for 10, there was a 10 days along the coast.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

We've been doing this walk for about six years now, every year, same same dates, May, June, and it's got so much bigger. So this year we average around 20, 25 people a day, and everybody's gone through some kind of physical or mental trauma. Something big has happened in their lives that's thrown them off course. And yeah, we get them together, get them connected to other people that have been through something similar, so they get it, and we just create this nice safe environment down on the coast path, just walking and talking and yeah, having lots of fun. Yeah, and we do some like nice coaching questions as we walk as well. Everybody just loves it, but yeah, I suppose it's a long event to be holding space for people. So I do always come away from it being like, whoa, that was like heavy but incredible.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Imagine when you arrive at a walk like that, it's really about building that trust and that safety and that connection. But by day 10, you have covered so much ground and really been with people through that walk, also through their stories in their trauma. I know that you do this for your job, in a sense, is holding space for people. But how do you take care of yourself as you do that?

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Great question. Yeah, so I've learned through the years to lean on people to delegate. This year was a little bit different because I actually ruptured my Achilles in March. So I couldn't do all of the days of walking, which was actually a good test for us and the charity because we really focused on our volunteer recruitment. So we had other coaches who I briefed beforehand and they would do a lot of the live coaching elements on the walk, and then I'd be there at the start, at the end, and in the evenings, because it's not we do the walk, but then everybody goes for food afterwards, and people are camping, so it's a really unique event. Um, and yeah, not everybody comes for the full 10 days, so people might come for the first two days, the last two days, the middle, which is nice because you get different injections of energy, but yeah, I think delegation, and I actually did joke to them when I was on the walk. I was like, I've just starved myself of people for two or three days before the event so that I'm just ready to give energy and receive energy.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

That's just a great idea that you can anticipate that you're going to go into the space of just being very peopled out. So you have to remove people from you immediately. So you had this Achilles heel injury. Yeah. You had to really shift how you move through the world in a sense. How is that like for you to rest and take care and do those things for yourself?

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Let's just say I've learned a lot about myself in this period. It's quite ironic, isn't it? I run a charity for people that have physical limitations, and my husband Ed's got a spinal cord injury, so I'm very aware of how these injuries can affect you, and very aware that mentally it was, it's majority mental. So when this happened, I was like, I've got the toolkit, I know what I'm doing. And of course, when it's tested to yourself, it's so different, and it's given me a whole new level of empathy for Ed, for the beneficiaries I work with, and just a greater understanding of kind of how when it's more how the when the things that you use as coping mechanisms are taken away from you than what are you faced with. And I do a lot of work around identity with my clients, and I really had to face that because I think I am known as the fit one, the exercise one, the mountain girl, like outdoorsy. And then I suddenly couldn't do any of those things, and it yeah, it really tested me to kind of sit with my own thoughts and think about how else I can not let my stress cup get too full. Really had to reframe ways of coping when life's constantly throwing you chaos, isn't it? Yeah, it's definitely feeling tricky, but I always like to face these things as a bit of analysis. These things are happening, you're like, Oh, why did I think like that? And how how can I work myself out of this one? But yeah, I think one of the hardest things is really finding that self-love and time for yourself, like I said, about getting my hair done, things like that, just to after myself through this, I think has been really important, and also just having a little bit of a plan. I wasn't very good when that was taken away from me at the beginning of like at least tendon rupture. But now that I've got my physio and I've got my gym routine, I'm kind of like working my way through it day by day, which has been very helpful for the mind, I think.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Have you always had that way of approaching a problem? It almost sounds like there's like a distance from it, and you analyze it and you figure out what you're saying to yourself and what you need, and then there's a plan. Have you always had that approach to those things?

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, and it has been very useful for me to think about problems like that for sure. With like when Ed had his accident, I think in that initial period afterwards, even this bubble, and you're working it out and you're just focusing day by day. What little bit of progress can you see? But it's funny, actually, going through my Achilles, and I've got a few my father passed away late last year, and my mum has this cancer diagnosis, which we're working through at the moment, so there's a lot of heaviness at the moment, and I'm starting to feel that you can't just work yourself out of it sometimes, and sometimes you just need to sit and be and let the feelings come and just relinquish that control. So I think it is a balance. Like, I I don't ever I think I'm naturally quite optimistic, so I never sit in that for too long because it's not very nice just to sit in it, but I have definitely got better at just letting it be and letting those emotions come and work themselves out because otherwise I think they just they'll build up, won't they? Yeah, so yeah, we it's a good thing, but also I'm learning to lean into the other side as well.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

It's such a hard practice, isn't it? I think I believe for a very long time there's always something to be done or to do. And similarly, I think it was around loss for me when I realized there isn't a doing there, there's like a sort of being aspect to it, and there's something about sitting with something deeply uncomfortable and just really figuring out like what do I really feel about this, and what do I really think about this, and what has really shifted for me, and just being in it and not wanting to move as quickly as possible away from it and make it all better. And that for me was a practice that really did come out of loss as well, and some of that chaos where it's been something unexpected or unwelcome that has forced this stop and this kind of recognition that there's a different way to be sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Yeah, totally. I think it's difficult to choose it sometimes, isn't it, when it's completely the opposite of what you actually used to on your personality-wise, but when it's forced upon you, you don't have any choice, and you so you have to face it. And then by explaining this to a lot of the beneficiaries who work with the charity that sometimes the hardest things that you go through is the thing that will change you for the best in the long term, and actually we'll share one of the beneficiaries shared something beautiful after the walk, and he compared our the charity to collateral beauty, and looking at sometimes that is exactly that the beauty can come from the darkest situation, and I just loved it. I was like, Oh my god, yes, and that's what we really try and teach the beneficiaries and get them to try to reframe their situation to see the good things that have come out of it, and often they'll stand there and they'll say, I wouldn't have met anybody from M2M, I wouldn't have couldn't have gone gone any of these walks, wouldn't be doing any of those things if that really negative thing hadn't happened to me. And once you start seeing those kind of bits of light from it, it then no longer looks like the such a negative situation, and then your whole kind of mentality and often we even see their physical progress will then change once they start to see it from a different place because that body-mind connection is so strong, isn't it? And you've got to be in a good mindset to be able to get the body to come along with it.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

That's such a beautiful expression. What a what an amazing thing to say and to offer to you. It's just gorgeous. So every week on the podcast, I ask guests about the one thought that they've kept, and I'm curious about what that has been for you. What is the thought that you've held on to?

SPEAKER_02 13:24

God, I've got so many, and it was really difficult to choose. Yeah, and I went between two, but maybe we'll talk about both of them. But yeah, the one I wanted to bring was so during Ed's recovery, how I explained it just now, I threw myself into care remote, and it came very naturally to me, to be honest. I didn't, I don't remember particularly thinking that I had to do it. It wasn't even a strain, it just was something that I did, and that's booking appointments, driving in places, speaking to doctors, all of those things. And I think during that process, people would ask me how I am. Of course, people check in, and I just kept on saying, It's not about me, it's asking Ed's okay. I need to look after Ed, they need to look after Ed. And actually, if I look back, I probably was like this a lot of my life, even in a team environment. I was very much a team player when I looked after my dad lived for a with us for a couple of years whilst he was really unwell, and I that just again just happened, and I didn't really think about it. And I've always just said that it's not about me, and then I finally, you know, realize that it is it is about me, and actually that whole thing of you need to put your own oxygen mask on first before you then throw yourself into helping other people. Yeah, I think you can only last in that headspace for so long, and then there might be a bit of a break.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

I think when I realize it is about me and I need to focus on who I am, what I want, and work towards that, then actually the people around me that are that I'm helping are gonna be happier too. Because especially in Ed's recovery, in Ed's recovery, he was worried about how I was the whole time and that I was okay. You you do this and you don't communicate those things because you're both in such a stressful time. But yeah, I think you've got to just put that time in to yourself whilst you're looking after others, and I you know what? I think there's a lot of people in this situation now who might have young kids, elderly parents, and you're just constantly giving, giving. And yeah, you just gotta put that time into yourself, even if it's small acts of kindness, it'll make you a happier person.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

What was the moment do you think for you that it really landed that idea that you were like, oh, okay, something has to change because if it doesn't, something is gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

There was a time when I think it was probably about two years after Ed's accident, and like life had gone completely back to normal. I say back to normal, as in like we were meant to be living a normal life, but life was not normal. Ed was living with this spinal cord injury, we were dealing with kind of bladder, bowel issues, sexual function issues, movement, all of these things, and he didn't have his job anymore. His rugby career had stopped because of the spinal cord injury, and we were just figuring out what we wanted to do next. Probably just about thought about the charity, but yeah, I'd say like Ed had thrown himself massively into trying to find success or progress, probably after losing so much. And for ages, I definitely I just realized that life had changed so much, Ed had changed so much, he changed physically, he'd changed psychologically, but I was still stuck in old Lois, and I didn't know what this new life entailed, but I just kept pushing my feelings to the back of my mind, and I think our relationship had been put under a lot of strain, and I didn't really notice it, and I probably wasn't being honest with how I felt, and I suddenly just got to the point where like I just was like I need to be honest with him, and at the time as well, our like sexual chemistry had been affected, and I just needed to be honest with that. So I had these chats with Ed, and he took it well, and I saw like a relationship counsellor and just put it all on the table, and it was so scary saying those things, but I realized that actually, if I hadn't said them, then I'm not sure what would have happened to our relationship. Um, because I and that's one of the biggest things I've learned from it is like honesty is so important, um, and being aware of your own feelings and your own wants and needs, okay and good, and to be able to communicate that with a partner and loves me so dearly, and I love him, and we just decided to have those honest conversations and promise to do that, and it's almost like our relationship got born again, and I think it was just the it's such a big part of how strong we are now was that we were able to re-look at it, and I remember at the time it just I just didn't feel like my my feelings were relevant or putting anything into myself was relevant, but yeah, now I've gone to set up my own business, I'm like leading the charity, and I've been able to put myself first a little bit more in in everything, so yeah, I think that was the moment.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

What do you think the fear was in that for you? What is the fear do you think that because it applies to that moment for you? But I also imagine you're right, there are so many people that are caring for someone or supporting others that similarly may be thinking, Where am I why am I in this? Where am I in my story? What am I even feeling? And there is that sort of apprehension about even saying that to ourselves and even saying those words out loud to another person. So, for you, what do you think that fear was around?

SPEAKER_02 19:12

I mean, there's a huge fear about hurting Ed's feelings, which again leans into who I am, because yeah, I just I was trying to understand them myself. I do feel like when you suppress feelings, they just get you can't do it. You can't keep suppressing, it'll just come out. And it actually makes it just it makes it worse, and that's why I do I think therapy is so good that you can just say these things out loud and you suddenly can then see them from a different light and understand them. I think it's important to to talk them out to see them so that you can understand them, and then I think there is a way to say it as well because if I just blurted it out with how it probably enters my head, then it's not gonna land so well. But that that timing and understanding that we me and Ed were had with those that those discussions was really relevant to the success of it, I think. I think I was worried about Ed's feelings, I was worried about losing him through it. Yeah, I think that's it. I think that those were like my main fears. I guess there's also maybe a fear around not being strong enough to get through it. Because I've always been the strong one and always been able to handle everything, and then I suddenly was like, oh shit, I might not be able to. And that's another thing I learned is you don't have to be the strong one all the time. And the strong one can actually look very different. The strong one is the person that's vulnerable and honest, and flipping that on its head as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

You now support people through this. This is what you focus on in your coaching practice. Like people who make space for others in their various ways. Why do you think it was important for you to do that work and not just acknowledge it to yourself that it can be about me, but also bring that into a wider coaching practice?

SPEAKER_02 21:13

I think because I just see the importance of it so much, because I see like even explaining that moment to you where I had that honest conversation and that I decided to put myself first, I can see that if I hadn't, that could have led to my life changing so significantly in a way that I actually don't think I wanted. So I just would love to be able to be somebody that if anybody else is going through something similar and they're trying to make sense of those thoughts in their own heads that if I can just be that person to to create that safety for them, to talk it through and kind of help them figure out I think there is important. I I had to do that work and I saw the benefits of just really. having that awareness of who I was and like me and Ed talk about this as well, like who you are without all of the things that you do to create that like self-love within you, because then I think you're gonna be much clearer on where you want to go and be able to go and do it as well. And then that again leads to feeling good and feeling happy. So yeah, I saw it within my own journey and I really didn't want anybody else to go through what I went through.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

You've talked about I realized that there's a gap between being fine and being fulfilled. And so many of us live in fine. When you think about like how to move away from that like I'm not feeling my feelings and I'm not thinking about what I want and I'm helping everybody else like what's something that can help somebody start to move to a position that they've realized that their lives can actually be more about them again.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

Yeah so I think one of the biggest bit of work that I do with my clients and I did myself is understanding your values so it's a really good starting point. Because I don't think and I think there are so many people out there you and I have dived into this personal development space so much and it feels quite normal to us but actually there's I think there are lots of people out there who don't really know who they are or some names and values and they wouldn't know we wouldn't know where to start. I think without that basic understanding of kind of what drives you, what makes you excited what do you not like? So then you're aware of that and when decisions come your way you feel much more connected to your intuition to be able to make make the right one and then you're not going to get yourself in those situations where you don't feel fulfilled. There's so many elements that come within that as well and I think one of the other ones that me and Ed live by is mood follows action. So just trying to get that confidence to be able to make some really small steps to yeah to work towards what you want but you can't really start doing that until you know who you are. So that's probably the biggest bit of work.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Yeah and that's the anchor isn't it that value piece I didn't even know there were things like values for a very long time. So I used to think that values were things that companies had. And there is something when you do start doing some of this work and you realize they're we're unanchored in our own ways because we don't know so much about ourselves. Like we're so sometimes we can be like so much looking outward and values can be such a great way of being like okay what really matters to me and even asking that question like what matters to me is huge. And you also said something else about there are these really small steps and that's something that is built so much into your not for profit work but this idea of the millimeters to mountains I love that so much because so often I think that narrative is something that it's like the big transformation very quickly in these big leaps.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

Why do you think it's so important that you talk about the slow and the steady and that you get there but you might get there in in a different way yeah I guess I first saw it hugely within Ed's recovery because you couldn't do the big leaps. So that's when we first realised how important those tiny bits of progress are and recognizing them. I even remember when he was doing all his physio and we'd take loads of photos and videos because you can't see the progress if every day it's so small but once you look back at those photos and you're like oh my god a week ago you can even lift move your finger that much or wiggle your toe and so you realize and then that's the evidence isn't it that you are doing it and it's once you have that evidence it's then you can be like okay I am capable so those little bits of pushing yourselves out yourself out of your comfort zone slightly to be able to see that progress I think it's just it's innate in us as human beings to to want to see that so yeah I do think that is a huge that is one of our kind of values within the charity is that progress and of course we also explain you can go backwards and that's okay as well like it's it might happen but you've still gained that you've gained that evidence and so you can find it back again. And yeah I think if you've got a good support network around you helping you do that too that's that is also huge.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

That's such an important piece. I really came to understand that when I so when I watched the documentary but also looking at some of your work that connection piece is so important that idea about who we're with and who surrounds us and how we're in relationship and how that does or doesn't impact our progress and there I think there's a moment that was shared that there were other people in similar situation to Ed who they didn't have visitors in the hospital ward or they're doing the work alone or there was no support network around them. And that really struck me as I as as I came to know more about your story about how important it has been that you have people around you and I suppose my question from that is what is the importance of connection and just being together in how we recover from trauma and how we actually move through anything probably yeah it's I think it's the most important thing.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

I think it gives we talk a lot about purpose in our charity as well and of course you can think of purpose as something big that drives you the charity might be my purpose and that was definitely build over a number of years but really the people are like and the connection that you make with those people and having something to get better for is the biggest driver that you can have and people or something and I just want to share so one of Ed's physios he's in the film Pete and he's an incredible guy and he came to speak at one of our beneficiary events the other weekend and he did this very motivational speech in which the whole room started crying their eyes out explained that he gets a lot of people coming knocking on his door and saying Pete will you get me to walk again and his first thing that he says is I can get you walking again but you've got to know where you're walking to and I think and it just hit us all and I was like it's so true I think that's what we really try and instill in the beneficiaries is okay where are you walking to who are you walking to what are you getting better for because that's the goalpost isn't it and once you figure that out then that whole holistic recovery journey will be on its way but yeah I think and do you know what you you touched on it there are so many people out there which are going through things alone and isolation is huge at the moment isn't it even though we've got all our phones and social media and much connection but not the physical and deep connection of people really understanding you and you feeling like you are safe and in a non non-judgmental space. You can just be who you are like we love in the tarot we love being weirdos you've got you you've got a you and me and um my my colleague Kimberly will try and just be fun and silly and go back to being a bit childish because life is blooming serious especially for these people who've had strokes major traumas spinal cord injuries like it can feel so depressing but I'd like it's one of the biggest things that I try and do is bring a bit of light to people's life and a bit of fun a bit of joy and I just think people in connection is the best way to do that right yeah and that yeah that's really also struck me about your work is like there is so much humor there.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

Like you're so funny and like there's a lightness and a joy in it which is maybe not what someone would traditionally expect for someone talking about like adversity or talking about trauma. And it's so important that there is that humor because that's the thing that gets us through it. And it feels yes there are the kind of perceived negative emotions that we do move through with trauma and recovery but we also really need those like perceived positive emotions like the joy and the gratitude and love and connection and what have those things come to mean to you like when you think about the importance of play and the importance of joy and the importance of I don't know having laugh with somebody who mm is in a really tricky difficult life changing situation.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

Yeah I think I I was always quite confused on whether it was a good thing at first now I can 100% say that it is but you're right it's not traditional it's it's normally a very serious topic and but and it is but honestly from working with these people I remember Ed saying you just want people to treat you normally to be honest. Like you you just want the piss taking and the silliness to come back in that that same weekend that Pete delivered that we had the most amazing weekend we did loads of we did axe throwing we did some equine therapy we did like live coaching chats yoga lots of stuff but on the final day we did circle and I got everybody to say what their highlight was what they've learned about themselves and this one guy who'd had a really serious stroke so his speech is affected and physicality is affected as well and he was tearing up while sharing this and he said I just absolutely love that on day one Ed didn't even know me that well and he just took the piss out of me and he was honestly crying no one has taken the vessel the mick out of me for three years and it's you know in a nice it's not like bullying it's in a nice nice like fun friendly way and I was like oh my god yeah it's so true you just want to want that normality again and obviously you've got to have the right tone and the right relationship with that person to be able to do it but yeah people come away from our events feeling joy again for me that's so important and we go deep but we bring the light and I just I think that mix is a really good recipe for the people that we work with.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

I think that's been one of the main threads through this podcast that I've really noticed people who have really brought the darkness and also moving towards a lightness to get through it and that joy and kind of joy can exist in desperation. It's been really fascinating. It's something that the two can coexist and there was a wonderful person who came on the show Dr. Mary Catherine Macdonald who wrote a book called The Joy Reset and it's all about how joy can help us move through trauma. It's so fascinating. And so instinctively you knew there was something in this for you but there's some really fascinating science that's now backing up that says the two do need and support one another and that they can coexist and I think it's really interesting that's been one of the kind of the through lines through the show unintentionally which has been both yeah totally I'll have to share that out the joy rates there. Okay so let's do this we have this segment that that makes it sound really posh that it's a segment that it's just so it's just some words that I prepared and the idea is just to see what comes up for you. So there's no right answer. It's just a bit more playful and just to see because there is so much that I could talk to you about and ask you about like you there's so much that you're doing that let's see what comes up with these things. So the first word I have is adventure like I love this idea about adventure and I'm just wondering what that is for you now.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

Hmm now is a good point there isn't it because it's changed somewhat I think adventure to be honest I do associate it with the outdoors. For me though like different to Ed because I think he would go very like mountaineering hard tough challenge whereas for me adventure is like more around the fun and the play of just hiking and exploring and you might go out for the day and not quite know where you're gonna end up and not have a plan and I love that part about adventure that you can just go and have a go and see what you're capable of.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

And nature is such an important part of your work isn't it it's like your charity but also there is something about the amazing things that can happen when you're walking and talking with someone just what that opens up for us is just incredible.

SPEAKER_02 35:21

Yeah and yeah I think oh my god I couldn't talk about nature for another podcast I'm sure but yeah the benefits are huge I think there's also the element of being around big nature and feeling like your problems aren't as big as you think they are because you're surrounded by this huge mountain and you're like oh my god no that's big I'm small my thoughts are even smaller so why am I letting them take control of my mind and then yeah most of mine and Ed's best chats business chats charity chats deep personal chats have been walking side by side in nature so yeah and it's probably been the one of the hardest things for me not to have with my Achilles rupture and like this weekend we're both going out to our favourite place Chamony just for two, three nights and I'm gonna try going to look at nature differently I can get amongst it there. I don't have to be hiking a really long trail I'm very excited to just look up at the mountains and realise all those things that I just said.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Yeah there's something about the aura of it isn't there just that sense of scale and the wonder of it and then equally I've also had some of my most memorable chats walking and talking to somebody there is something that feels less maybe threatening more connecting there's something about that isn't there that is just so magical totally so my next word for you then is rest.

SPEAKER_02 36:47

What's that?

SPEAKER_00 36:48

Can you define that I don't know what that word is rest is so hard isn't it because it's something that I guess if you are someone who is always holding space for other people it can feel like there is no rest or there's only rest in service of them returning to that other person.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

Yeah I think so I think everybody's rest does look different. Yeah and I actually had this chat with somebody this morning about everybody has to sit and meditate and rest. That of course I would definitely endorse meditation or some kind of tree bathing or qigong or something where the mind is just empty but I learned to do that walking slowly through a woods and thinking about what I can smell what I can see what I can taste and tapping into my senses. That works really well for me so not everybody's rest has to look the same I don't think some people love lying on the sofa watching TV. I'm not very good at that so but I I do I love reading that's definitely one of the ways that I rest I think Ed and I went away for three months in December January and February just gone and that felt like rest we were away from the chaos of home on the other side of the world and it did it we felt like we had time again. So yeah I can do it it's not it doesn't come as naturally to me but yeah I've definitely got better but I'm still very much looking forward to going for a walk and doing my version of Beth Rest.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

I think that's such an important realization because I for a long time I wondered why I couldn't rest because rest in my mind was I should be meditating and I couldn't meditate. And someone really helped me understand that rest in a sense can still be movement and it can still just be it's just a different way of nourishing yourself and you can choose something a little bit more active than I think I was I thought I could choose and that really helped me because I was like wow that version of rest like I hate doing nothing that makes me feel deeply uncomfortable. But it doesn't have to be nothingness it's just an another like a different kind of practice for a moment that nourishes you in a different way I totally agree.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

In other words if you just keep comparing yourself to that then you just beat yourself up don't you and then you end up feeling more stressed. So what for it okay let's maybe for our last one I think maybe we'll do hope because hope is something that I feel like lives in your story and I wonder what hope has come to mean to you oh that's such a lovely word isn't it I think without hope where does that get you I remember actually people saying to Ed do you want to give people false hope with their recovery days we speak to a lot of people what they're going through and people often lean on you to know what's what their outcome might be and we definitely don't give any kind of medical diagnoses but we do say we do really try and believe in people and what they're capable of and I remember thinking of that version of false hope but what is false hope because without any kind of hope there's nothing is there. What are you gonna get better for so it's surely it's better to have some kind of hope and I think there's a difference between expectation and hope because I think some people that we work with expect to get better and expect to get back to where they were before which once you start thinking like that and it doesn't happen then that can be really damaging but if you're hopeful that things will improve then you are much more likely to be able to be in a more positive mindset to work towards getting better or Ed's doing some work on his new book at the moment it's all about luck and whether you can make your own luck and we believe if you do believe that things will get better then you're much more likely to see opportunities to be able to get better. So if you don't believe it then you're just gonna shut off and you're not gonna look for it. So it's better to have that hope than not.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

Yes yeah hope is so important isn't it and keeping that in some form really shifts the mindset doesn't it and helps us so much.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

Okay let's come back to your thought then that it is about you how do you hold on to that like how do you hope that you'll remember that now I honestly I think it's always gonna be a reminder for me and I'm glad that it is my thought because I need to stay on top of it and I can feel it though like I I it shifts all the time and of course you don't have to be selfish with this right I'm always gonna be that person who falls into the caring role I think but I am much more aware of my boundaries putting myself first with things and it's made me much much happier by doing that and made Ed happier only a positive thing and yeah I'd love to just support other people they're going through that if anything traumatics happened they're struggling to to to see themselves then yeah I would love to help everybody doing that.

SPEAKER_00 42:21

Alright I just think this has just been such an important one it's such an important thought for anybody to keep and you're right it's not about it's not about being selfish or feeling guilty for it. It's about just being able to matter again and tell our stories and have a story that we're unfolding as well. What do you think is next for you and your story?

SPEAKER_02 42:43

Wow I we Ed and I just went through some IBF so we've got seven embryos on ice so I need to decide when to put it to the embryo yeah do the embryos and become a mother hopefully which is terrifying but also really exciting I think the way mine and Ed's lives are we're we love adventure we love travel we're never really in the same place. Again maybe this will be a bit of forced rest for me I say rest restit forced staying in one place yeah so that's gonna be the next thing on the cards which will be hopefully beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

But yeah very exciting yeah and you've been really open about your fertility journey as well which has been such a kindness that I think again and again that I've seen your work you share your story and there's a real vulnerability in it but there's a real connection in it and there's a real joy as well as well.

SPEAKER_02 43:42

I think it's just so important to share these stories if I don't expect everybody to share them but it it's helped me looking at other people's stories if I could help any more people and I recently had a couple come up to me and tell me that they'd watched my videos in the most random place down in Devon and they said that it helped them so much from like knowledge to just understanding emotions with it. So that really made me think god it's worth it and you never know who's listening do you so yeah I know you never know you never know who's gonna walk away with this thought and that will be their thought I really love that.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for sharing your thought and all the space that you make for other people and I love that you got went to the hairdresser. That feels very important. That's a great place to start. So I'm glad that this is a little piece of your self-care in your day.

SPEAKER_02 44:34

Yeah thank you so much Claire.

SPEAKER_00 44:36

Thanks for being here thank you so much for listening. One of the things that I have been thinking about since talking to Lois is this idea that we don't have to wait until everyone else is okay before we allow ourselves to matter to and that caring for other people and caring for ourselves they're not competing priorities. Even their life and our culture can often make them feel that way. As always I'd really love to know if today's thought is one that you will keep share or perhaps even let go of that it is about me. That feels like such an important one right now. If you'd like to learn more about Lois and her work you'll find all the links in the show notes including the Millimeters to Mountains Foundation and a coaching work for people who do hold space for others and need something for ourselves too. If today's conversation was helpful then do come over to if loss.here you'll find out more details about our work over there including our coaching programs, the workshops our new book which we're very very proud of thank you as always for being here. If you enjoyed these episodes then please do rate review subscribe or even share them that really helps the podcast to grow I will see you next Monday for another thought that one of my guests has kept and that maybe you will want to hopefully you'll want to keep it too bye for now