“Put Yourself in the Queue First” — Nicky Marshall

What happens when you spend so much of your life helping, caring for and making a difference to other people that you forget to include yourself?

My guest this week is Nicky Marshall — speaker, mentor, publisher, wellbeing facilitator and author of No One Is Coming to Save You. Nicky’s thought kept is: “To make a difference in this life, I had to put myself in the queue first.”

It’s a thought she came to through experience. After surviving a coercive relationship in her twenties, Nicky had a disabling stroke at 40 following a scuba diving accident. Her recovery took three years and required her to reconsider what resilience really looks like, how much we can ask of ourselves, and what happens when we stop waiting until everything else is done before tending to our own needs.

We talk about the difference between resilience and simply pushing through, why we so often look outside ourselves for the next person, programme or quick fix to make us feel better, and how we can begin to hear what we actually need. We also explore burnout and the small signals our bodies send us before they have to shout, people-pleasing, self-trust, learning to say no, and Nicky’s beautifully practical ways of putting herself back into her own day.

And we go somewhere else too: into spirituality, tarot, intuition, vision boards and the idea that perhaps what we are seeking might also be seeking us. Nicky talks about discovering paganism in her twenties, reconnecting with intuition and finding her own way of holding spirituality alongside a very busy, entrepreneurial life.

I loved where this conversation eventually landed: not on achieving some perfect state of balance, but on bounce. The possibility that our energy will change, life will change, we will sometimes lose ourselves a little — and we can learn how to come back.

If you’re someone who is very good at knowing what everybody else needs but finds it harder to put yourself into the equation, this conversation is for you.

In this episode, we talk about: self-care and putting yourself first; burnout and recognising your own warning signs; resilience after a major life change; self-reliance and asking for help; people-pleasing and saying no; intuition and self-trust; spirituality, tarot and paganism; vision boards and creating a life that actually feels like yours; and what it means to rediscover your bounce.

Books mentioned in this episode

No One Is Coming to Save You — Nicky Marshall
How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body — Dr David R. Hamilton
A Witch Alone — Marian Green
Tabby Turns the Tables — Nicky Marshall
If Lost, Start Here: Wellbeing for the Anxious, Disconnected or Uncertain — Claire Fitzsimmons & Amanda Sheeren

Listen next

Nicky’s book No One Is Coming to Save You makes an interesting companion to my earlier conversation with Edwina Jenner, whose thought kept was also “No one is coming to save you.” Two women, the same words, and different ways of exploring what they might ask of us.

Find Nicky

Nicky is an award winning, international speaker and best-selling author, born in Bath and now living in South Glos. Nicky is a mentor, workplace facilitator and keynote speaker, inspiring people to discover their own brand of Bounce. She has helped thousands through her books and keynotes, wellbeing and leadership development in the workplace. Nicky is also Editor In Chief at Discover Your Bounce Publishing, helping budding authors to write and publish their books.

Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Website | Substack | Writing Courses | Reclaim Live

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of A Thought I Kept, a weekly podcast where we explore the ideas that stayed when so many others just didn't. I'm Claire Fitzsimmons, well-being writer, coach, and co-founder of If Lost Art Here, and each Monday I sit down with somebody and ask them about the thought that they kept. Whether it's a line from a book they picked up a decade ago, something their grand said when they were seven years old and playing the piano, or even something taken from a podcast conversation like this one. They are always fascinating, unexpected, and deeply meaningful. I had an inkling that I would really enjoy talking to this week's guest. My guest is Nikki Marshall. Nikki is a speaker, a mentor, a publisher, a well-being facilitator, and the author of the book No One Is Coming to Save You. And probably that title alone feels like enough of a reason to talk to her on the podcast. What I loved about talking to Nikki is that she brings a reality to all this talk of well-being and self-help and feeling better and finding ourselves. Nikki survived a coercive relationship in her 20s, recovered from a disabling stroke, age 40. She has navigated periods of stress and burnout. She has come to understand her neurodivergence in midlife. There has been reinvention and there has been self-doubt. And all the messy pivots that happen when life refuses to stay neat and tidy. So as you begin your week, whether you are listening on a walk, you're in the kitchen, you're on your commute, you're even hiding from your inbox for 10 minutes, let me know whether this is a thought that you might want to keep, share, or even forget. Here's my episode with Nikki. Hi and welcome, Nikki, to the podcast. Oh, thank you. Thank you for inviting me. How are you doing? So we're recording this on a Friday afternoon. How are you arriving in this conversation today?

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Yeah, really calm and happy, I think. So I was traveling for five weeks, so sort of working and traveling around Southeast Asia, which was lovely. And then I came back and went straight into busy to kind of catch up. And I think I've reintegrated into my life. And so this morning I had a couple of dance classes, and I feel like it's a nice Friday afternoon vibe now. So I'm ending this week a lot more relaxed than I was at the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

How long does that take you to reintegrate and come back into life here?

SPEAKER_00 3:02

So we started off doing three-week trips, then it was four-week trips. I had to build up to it. But with a five-week trip, I found on week three I was totally relaxed while we were away. And as I say, I was I was working while we were away as well, not as much as a normal week. And normally it takes me a few days to get in, but I I think it has taken me nearly two weeks to properly get back on the time zone, stop waking up crazy early, remember what I do.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Um, I'm gonna do something a little bit different with you this week. We're gonna do a little bit of an experiment, which is that I spoke to Edwina Jenner earlier in the season, and she brought a thought, which is no one is coming to save you. And you have written a book called No One Is Coming to Save You. And if you're listening to this, you won't see this, but I'm holding up this gorgeous book at the screen. What has that thought come to mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Uh I wrote the book September, so about 18 months ago, and I'd been uh thinking about writing it for about a year before that, and then I thought I would actually get on with it. So I wrote it again travelling through the south of France. So I wrote it in 28 days, but I think the 28 days was a culmination of a lot of thinking because I remember seeing a news thing, and it was where interest rates were going up, and everyone was saying, Well, the government need to subsidize our mortgages. And I was thinking, well, when our mortgage rate went up to I think it was 15.4 at its peak, we just doubled down and thought about ways we could save ourselves. Obviously, I didn't have the language for that then. Um, and I just thought, actually, if we have self-reliance, because we talk about resilience, everyone says about resilience, you need to be resilient. And I think some people think it's about pushing through and striving and crushing it. Whereas my self-reliance would be, okay, things happen for sure. Life can throw us something. I've had quite a lot of curveballs over the years. But if we go straight to who's going to help me, we get their version of what is going to help us, not what we actually need. So, how many times have you said to someone, Oh, I really need something, and they're like, Oh, you should try this, let's do that. And you're thinking, No, that's not what I meant. Um, you know, you should try lavender or whatever it is. So I thought if we can actually stop, tune into our own instincts, intuition, use some of our own techniques to center ourselves, you know, feet on the floor, take a breath, and stop and give ourselves just a little bit of time, even 30 seconds, then actually we will know what we need. And then we can go out and ask for help. You know, I'm not saying never ask anyone, but tune in to what you need first. I've seen so many people when they lose their energy or they lose their confidence and they go out and they buy a new program or they do a new thing, they work with a coach, for example, and then they don't get what they actually need. Whereas if you stop and think about it, solve some of the things yourself and then go and find what you need. That I think it it gives you the rewards.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

And you might not need anything, you might not need anyone, you might just need a nap. I mean, I do think this is something that we shared and that we connect on this idea that often when we think about well-being and we are trying to save ourselves in some capacity, we have a tendency to look externally for people and things to save us within that context. We're looking for another guru, we're looking for another course, we're looking for more advice. What have you come to understand about why we do that? Why are we looking outside of ourselves so often?

SPEAKER_00 6:52

I think some of it is being busy. When you're trying to juggle all of the things we we've got very used to trying to juggle, and also the noise around us when we get a message from someone, is it on Messenger or a text or a WhatsApp or an email or a phone call or a there's just this information and also social media? People are every day you're being told, well, this will make your hair shinier, this will do this for you, this will do that for you. There's offers everywhere. So when we're really busy and we're depleted in energy, we look for that quick fix, and our brains are wired, aren't they? Our brains are lazy, our brains are wired for the quick fix, you know, the fight or flight, I'm going to run away, I'm going to fight you because I'm completely overwhelmed. So I think, you know, we have to give ourselves a break because it life has got really busy, life has changed, and our brain hasn't really caught up. But we have this thing called a body and a heart. And if we breathe, we can tune into the now. I find myself leaning forward sometimes because I'm trying to get to the next thing or the next whatever. And then I kind of have to sit myself back in my spine and breathe. And at that point, I go, Oh, yeah, I have eight levels of anatomy and physiology. I might well know what's best for my well-being, rather than going to someone and going, Oh, I just need to buy, like you say, the the latest shiny object, whatever that might be.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Yeah, and it is so much in our bodies, isn't it? That knowledge and that information. It's funny you said that because I often find myself doing the leaning in. And part of that I wonder, and I thought about this. I was like, why do I do this? Why am I like just on top of you? In a podcast conversation. And part of that I think is just really wanting to be in it, almost immersive. And also I think there is something about really struggling to relax in a sense, like really struggling to to me, the leaning back is like this doesn't maybe I have associations of like it feels a bit more passive than it should. And it's not passive, it's resting and it's relaxed, but there is something of like letting that heightened anxiety feeling that kind of keeps me in something, letting that go away and being like, okay, now I get to be here in a more relaxed way and lean back. But it can feel I think in a moment that there is so much busyness and so much overwhelm, but maybe I'm just speaking to my experience when we're in like try, being just in B is so hard.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Yes, it really is. And there's a difference. I think leaning in when you're having a lovely conversation and leaning in when you're connected to someone, I think that is we're here, we agree, we're we're totally in it. I think that's really good. Leaning forward when you're driving your car and not actually sitting on your car seat. I think at that point you go, you know, or watching TV. I watch TV and I find myself sitting forward. I'm like, what am I doing? And then I have to like consciously kind of lean back and get back into my body. But yeah, we life is is changing, everything is faster, bigger, you know, we can distract ourselves 24-7. But actually, you know, we talk about embodied wisdom, which is in body. And so if we are in our body, it just gives us the ability to do so much more. So yeah, the book isn't about I talk about, you know, if you can, you don't have to be on a mountaintop eat eating berries and meditating to find calm. You know, we should be able to find calm on a busy Saturday morning. We've talked about nature, but just things that make us laugh, like you say, taking a breath and noticing, looking up and going, oh, that cloud looks like a bear. Whatever it is, it doesn't have to take hours and hours to get into our kind of self-reliance or into that lovely, like you say, that Friday afternoon state. We can bring that up anywhere. I think. I think I don't always do it. I am very much a work in progress. Well, all the work in progress is okay. Yeah, that's the ideal.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Was that a moment that you felt like you looked to be saved, but then you had to save yourself?

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Yes. Through my book, you will see all of the times when I I should have saved myself and I didn't. And it's it's almost 2020 hindsight. You go, oh, oh look at that. Yeah, I think the biggest is in my story when I was 40, I had a stroke after a scuba diving off to up in the bones, so too much nitrogen in my body and my brain. And when I track back, I I should never have, I should never have been there on that day. I should never have done the dive that pushed me over the edge. But we all we all strive, don't we? I should have just said, actually, I'm just gonna sit on the shore, read a book, or I'm gonna go back to the campsite and have a nap. Uh, but we go, oh, it'll be okay, oh, it'll be okay. And in life we do that. So very much so. But sometimes we we don't know that's the moment, we don't know that's the thing. Like I knew I'd been pushing it for three months, but I always thought, oh, I'll do this and then I'll relax, or I'll do this and then I'll get some help, or do this and then, you know, so I was kind of bargaining with myself and I ran out of chips that day. But I don't wish that had happened, obviously. But if that hadn't have happened when I was 40, I wouldn't have. It was funny, I went for a tarot reading a few months before. I mean, I read the tarot, but I always like to go on my birthday and have a reading from someone else. And I went and this guy said to me that what you've accomplished in the first 40 years of your life is nothing compared to what you will accomplish in the next 40 years. And I just started a new business. I was like, oh yeah, I know exactly what that is, put it in a box, thought it was great. And after I had the stroke, I was like, You are kidding me, this isn't what I had in mind. How am I gonna do that? But actually, he was right, he was right in in so many ways. So when we do save ourselves, even if it is after a big learning, it's amazing what we can then achieve.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

I remember you telling me about the story and then reading about it in your book as well. It is the most extraordinary shift in your life, and as you said, you had this it sounds like you had this idea about where your narrative was going during the tarot reading. My next 40 years will look like. And even at the moment that you're going for the swim, there is no sense that things are going to shift for you. So you had this moment in a sense, as it does happen to us, kind of imposed on you, that became this interruption in your life. And you do talk in the book about how like there are days when you're lying in a dark room, you're not moving, you lose some capacity to move, to speak, to be physically in your life. And I'm really, really interested in this idea about resilience because I think sometimes outwardly we think about resilience, and it's sort of this, you know, this filmic moment, you know, the getting off the bed and off you go in the montage moment. And I'm really interested in what it really looks like and how you do move forwards, but you do so as a messy human who is feeling all the feelings. How did you find ways to get through that period to shift your life? Because you'd very dramatically shifted your life, and to keep going when the doctors are not giving you the information that you hope they will be giving you, or the hopeful prognosis. How did you find it in yourself to keep saving yourself again and again?

SPEAKER_00 14:40

That's a really good question, and I can't give there wasn't a magic moment. It didn't just suddenly, like you say, there wasn't like the light bulb and the clouds cleared, and I walked off into the sunset, and that didn't happen because I obviously had the stroke, and at that point, I at that point, as you say, the diagnosis was how you are in 18 months is how you'll be forever, you'll never dive again, and you might as well give up your business. So at that moment, my mum was crying in the room with me, and when my mum cried, I know that's serious because she's the strong stuff I come from. So I was like, Oh my god, oh no, must be bad. We went home. I literally we have blackout blinds, I pulled the blinds, stayed in the dark, mum made me cups of tea, and I sat on the floor. And when Phil came home that night, I said, I'm done. I'm done. And he was like, Okay, you know, what what do you need? And he fed me. And then the next day my mum came again and we sat and I sat in the dark and I was done. And then I thought I'd just give up. My business was 12 weeks old at that point, I'll just give up the business. But my daughter was running it in my absence. She'd was there to cover while I was away for the weekend and just stayed. And she was running it, and it was being okay, it was okay, but I thought that can't happen longer term, I'm done. And then on the third day, I there was just this little I've always been stubborn at school, I've always been stubborn. People used to label that on me as if it was a bad thing. I've come to celebrate that. On the third day, I was like, really, really, that can't be it. I have A levels in anatomy and physiology, I have seen with holistic therapy how the body can recover from all sorts of things. You know, I've been part of people's cancer journey where they've used Reiki to kind of boost themselves, I've you know, helped people relieve their migraines, I've done all these things, and I know the body renews itself. So I was like, I just need, I just need to find out how. I just need to understand this, and I am bloody well not giving up my business with the thought in the afternoon. And so I came home that night and I said, I'm gonna dive again. And he went, Cool, how are you gonna do that? I went, I don't know, I don't know. He went, okay, and that was it. So there was no magical moment, and I didn't know if I was gonna dive again, and it wasn't about the diving. If I was diving, I was well. That was the thing, but I kind of used the used the diving, so I looked well into neuroscience as a guy called Dr. David Hamilton, and he's written a book, How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body, and I read that as my Bible, and I read, I'm just gonna use that then. And I started telling everyone that I was feeling better way before I actually was. I did do some radical things, like you say, I cut, I reduced the wine I was drinking at the time because it was a very sociable, I was part of a club that you know we used to go diving and then we would have a few drinks, so I I had got into that. I think I was perimenopausal at the time and not really knowing that that was happening. I I realized that kind of much later. I went to the GP, my blood pressure was too high, my cholesterol was too high, which was they think what had caused the stroke in the first place, because then I went diving with a very not well body. So I went on blood pressure medication, I refused the cholesterol medication. I was like, I'm gonna change my diet, bear with me. I hired a personal trainer that was an ex-marine, never do that, it's ridiculous. That was the one thing I look back, like, what was I thinking? I could have just taken up yoga, you know. But he gave me my trust back in myself, you know. He would challenge me to do things, he never saw that my body was weak. He's like, I think you can do that. Oh no, because you know, he's like, see where you go. And then I'd lift some crazy weight and go, Oh. So it it was a three-year recovery, but it was done in baby steps. And when I finally went back to the GP that had helped me on Lundy when I was first done well, and she said, Where's your blood pressure? And I said, you know, 120 over 80, she said, here's your diving medical. And at that point, I I knew that it it worked, but it as sometimes we don't get the instant, we don't get the instant payoff. And I think that just to finally add to that, I think some people think resilience is driving through no matter what, and keeping going no matter what. But the amount of people I have spoken to since that know the I'm done moment, they get to it's that I'm done, and you think that's it, but yeah, you almost have to quit it to find out what's next. And actually that does lead into the thought that I kept.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Oh, yes, Nikki, what is the thought that you've kept?

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Yeah, we yes, we'll get into that because I have always tried to make a difference, you know. Whenever when I was younger, I've always tried to help people when I worked, I was into customer service, and I always tried to help people, and then when I started in my business, it was to make a difference. That was my thought, and so I was helping people, and I was helping everyone, but I wasn't looking after myself first, and then post-stroke, I was like, Oh, I need to make a difference to myself, and from that I can then make a difference to all the other people, to my husband, to my family, my children, my parents, to my friends, to my customers, to the stranger in the street that I hold the door open for, all those things ripple. So I am making a difference every single day. But I'm making a difference to my own life, and that has to come first, because otherwise it's not sustainable. I'd forgotten the really important thing, you know, that you can't give from an empty cup and put your own oxygen mask on first and all the things we hear as sound bites. I'd ignored those.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

When did you realize that you wanted to make a difference? When did you realize that was important to you? Because you have been, I did want to bring this up. You're very open about your experiences. You share what you've been through, what you've learned, what you've understood. And I am curious about where that need comes from. I've been thinking about this with your work. Where does that need to make a difference come from?

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Yeah, sometimes my mum will say, You're so driven, I don't know where that comes from. She's like, We've, you know, in our family, we haven't had the women in our family have worked really hard, but not professionally, not really pushed it. The kind of studying and the qualifying and the going for things and the that kind of entrepreneurial thing. My daughter said to me, said to me this morning, you think of a way to monetize anything. Well, like, yeah, yeah, probably would these days, you know. So I come from, I think unconsciously, I've always helped other people and I've always been a people pleaser. And I early days wouldn't interrupt the status quo and I would stay quiet, which probably wasn't necessarily a healthy thing. But in my first marriage, it wasn't safe to have a voice, so I can see. Why I kept quiet. And then post-divorce, yeah, the through the holistic therapies and the early days of businesses, I put the need to help other people into a professional realm. And I think I've always been very empathic. So when I see people struggling, I always want to do something. So yeah, I think it was in the entrepreneurial space. I could put that, I want to make a difference into a kind of vocation and a mission. But I think it's been, like you say, post-stroke, I've I looked back and realised I was running a business and I was trying to help everyone all the time. My daughter would say, you know, people turn up in the morning and they could sit here all day and you would help them all day, and even if you were depleted. So yeah, it's taken a long time to unpack that into where it is now. But I think I am a lot better at putting myself in the that front the front of the key.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

What does that look like on a kind of day-to-day basis? Because I think this is a question that we often have as women. We are so clear about what everybody else needs. And certainly the women that I work with, there is often a question, Mark, about where they get to show up in their own lives still. Because there's so much invisible labor, invisible emotional labor, there's so much that they're holding. And there is this question of but if not me, who? When? How? Like how do I even do that? So I guess the first bit is getting to the awareness. You are allowed to put yourself first. You are allowed to spend time on yourself. And I even was thinking about this today. I go swimming in the morning sometimes. And I had something afterwards. I give myself a certain number of lengths to do. And I was thinking about cutting short my swim because I had so much to do. And I had to tell myself, I am allowed to take this time to go swimming because I know that it really helps me show up for the people I work with. It helps me be a better creative person, it helps in so many ways. And even knowing that, I was thinking about cutting it short because I don't possibly have the time to spend on myself. So I guess the question is coming to awareness that you need to look after yourself and then how you then find ways to honour that.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Yeah, I think over the years, as you say, we we look after so many people as women, as mothers. I from my understanding, I'm not a man, I don't know how they think, but my understanding from the men that have been in my life, the people I know, when, for example, when a man goes to work, he's in work mode, so he can leave whatever at the door and go into that work mode. And men seem to be able to compact compartmentalise everything else while they're at work. Whereas all the women I know, and I know, you know, I was a company accountant of a three million turnover business, office in the corner, at my most busy times, my brain also checks on I wonder how the kids are doing, and I wonder I need to remember that. Or, you know, I don't think we it isn't multitasking necessarily, but we still carry those those people, those thoughts. And so I think it is really difficult, like you say, at the end of the day, have having checked in and made sure everyone is okay, and you know, as you get older, you might have children at home, you might have some children away, you might have parents that are getting older that maybe rely on you for some things. You know, the juggle is is real, and so we get very used to just giving everything to everyone else. So I have 10 minutes in the morning where I make a coffee and I stand by the back door and I look out, or I go outside if it's not raining because I'm a big chicken, I don't know when it's raining, but I have 10 minutes and just have tune in, look out the window, look up, do all of those things, and I try and do that every day. The days when I don't do that, my brain is a lot busier, and then I try and just keep checking in and I try and put things in my diary that that kind of roots that, and now my children have left home. There's Phil and I in the house, so I can please myself, but I have lots of people around me that I love to support checking with parents, kids, grandkids, friends. So I still do support other people, but I do, like you say, that the swim for you on a Friday morning I go to two ballet cloths, uh ballet and a zumber cloth, and that's my I don't always get there, but I get there as many times as I can, and I try and just have little things through the week that that bring me back, that bring me back to me. Like you say, I don't always get it right, but if I do find that my energy is lower, or sometimes you feel like you might be fighting off, have a bit of a sore throat, or I'm a bit achy or something, a bit of headache, then I do try and halve my diary the next week. I try and be strict with myself, and I will do that. I'll do half of what I tell myself I can do. And then on other weeks I can do all of the things and juggle all of the balls, and at the end of the week I go, wow, look, this happened. We are organic beings. Sometimes we have more energy than others. Sometimes things have happened to us over a few weeks, and we need to recuperate from that. Someone said about the nature. Nature has a rest in winter, and we think we don't need that, we can just run around all the time. But it might not be seasonally, it could be hourly. And if I'm in the middle of the day and I'm feeling exhausted, as if I have 20 minutes in my diary, I might not necessarily sleep, but I if I'm at home, I will go and lie under the J V for 20 minutes. And yeah, that checking in, that listening. My body gave me a really big message. I don't want a really big one anymore. I like listening to the nudges.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Yes, and now you know what those nudges are. Like, do you have a sense of what those signs of stress would be for you? Because sometimes when we're thinking about burnout and when we're we're fatigued in our bones and we're at capacity, it's knowing what we're looking for. So, what what have you come to learn about what those signs are that we're in the too-muchness of it? The stress has gone from a healthy version that kind of keeps us moving to one that is just gonna do nasty things to our bodies and our minds and our lives.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Yeah, people talk about mind, body, spirit, and I think that or I've noticed for myself that if my spirits drop, I start being a bit grumpy, which is which is not me. It takes a lot, it takes a lot to make me grumpy, but I'll find sometimes my phone will ping and I'm like, oh what?

unknown 28:55

What?

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Oh, oh, that's interesting, or I'll be grumpy, I'll lose my temper in the car, or something will happen. I'm like, oh okay. And then my mind starts being negative. Oh, I bet that won't happen, or oh, I've got so much to do, and I'm like, oh, okay. So there are kind of two fail safes, but if I don't notice those, then it goes to my body. So I get my shoulders will be like bullets, or I'll get this kind of tension headache, and we're talking cards about a tail. Those are my tail, and if I ignore my shoulders, then it goes to my hips. If I ignore my hips, oh no, yeah, I don't usually do that because sometimes my shoulder will go into spasm or something, and I'm like, okay, I really need to stop myself now. Yeah, but I do think it goes from our spirits to our mental state and then our body. But obviously, if we've done something to injure our body, then I think it goes the other way too.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Can we talk for a moment about spirituality? Because I'm I'm really interested in in this about you. You have this really fascinating combination of you run, is it three businesses? You have written multiple books, you have been an inspirational speaker, you've worked with thousands of people. There is a sense of you that I get of busy and on it and entrepreneurial. And I don't think this is an opposition because there's also the spiritual side of you. And I my sense is that it's very much integrated, it's very much in the same space. But I am really curious about what it has come to mean to you to be a soulful woman. What does spirituality offer you now? And how do you work with it?

SPEAKER_00 30:39

Yeah, I think I found my spirituality when I was 27. So I went to a Church of England school, I grew up a Christian, but I would always go to church and wonder what I'd missed. Everyone else seemed to be really happy, and I got nothing. I just in that place, I couldn't feel that spirit of what everyone else seemed to be feeling. I just thought I'd missed something. And then when I was 27, I went for a tarot reading, and she said to me, Why aren't you reading your own cards? I said, Because I don't read cards, I work in a bank and I'm trained to be an accountant. And she said, That's what you do, that's not who you are. I was like, Oh. And so I worked with her for over weeks, got to read the tarot, but she had very pagan beliefs and let me a few books. And I read A Witch Alone by Marian Green and went, I do all of this. I wouldn't have known that was what paganism was, but it's like I talked to trees and birds, and there were so many things in this book, and I realized that I was writing with the moon, I was writing different things on the moon cycles, and I had no idea that's what I was doing. And so there was kind of this awakening in me, and I didn't know how to really to communicate that over the years. And so I would say I'm a pagan, I have studied with shamans, I've studied with druids, but then when I go to Muslim countries, the call to just take me somewhere. When I go back into a Christian church, I feel it, I feel amazing. So I don't think it matters where your access point is, and it might not be any form of religion, it could just be outside. Someone talked about thin spaces when you're on top of a mountain or there's these beautiful places, and they reckon that's closer to source energy. So I think I found my access point. And so, yeah, when I do go away, I always look at just been to Southeast Asia and just understanding more about the Buddhist culture, and yeah, I think that's where I get my feed from. And I think when I forget to connect with that, life gets harder. When I am connected to that, I find oh, I've had so many synchronicities and so many things happen. And yeah, I know I can't I can't not believe in it. I know that's double negative, but yeah, just that connection, it's given me a capacity for things. And I think so many people say, Oh, you know, well, you can't have it all. I I think we can, but I think we can have our version of having it all. You know, your version might not be being on a stage in public speaking, or it or it might be, or your version might be, you know, turning up at the school gate with a smile on your face. I remember years ago getting in the car with the kids and going, Oh, we're late, we need to do better. And I remember thinking, Oh, this is this is all they're gonna remember when they're older. And so I started just making a joke, or I blessed that. I used to say to them, someone parted. And they'd be like, Yeah. And then we'd all start laughing, and I go, All right, so you can change the energy in things. So you don't have to be the perfect, whatever, you have to be your version of what that is. And wouldn't it be great if we could all just take space in the way that felt right for us?

SPEAKER_01 33:55

I'm wondering whether anything alarmed you about when you came to realize that you had this spiritual connection and whether there was something in that that you recognized and you wholly embraced, or whether there was something a little bit unnerving or disconcerting about it. Like how did you receive that the feed of it and the connection to it?

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Certainly the the intuitive side. So I wrote a book, it's on Amazon called Tabby Turns Tables, and it's a fiction book. But I'll I'll leave the reader to see how much of that book they actually think happens, happened to me. Because yeah, I wanted to change my life, and I was in a very unhappy place. I was very controlled in my first marriage and didn't really know how to get out of that. And the the kind of paganism and the the tarot and everything came at the right time, and so I started thinking that I would I would do some spells to to change my environment, thinking that I could magically change where I was and what what was happening. Yeah, I might have invoked or welcomed into my life the element of water. Uh I flooded the washing machine, I cracked our aquarium cracked. We had no fish were harmed, but uh a six-foot tank cracked, and we had to rescue all the fish.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

Oh no, and what else did I?

SPEAKER_00 35:23

I did something else to do with water. There was another crazy one. When I was working on the element of fire, I literally blew all the fuses in our house, the iron went bang. Yeah. There were those moments, and the intuition, I my I look back now, my tutor was amazing. She taught me how to close it all down and close it off before I opened it up. Because suddenly, if you know something about everyone you meet, you don't want to know something about everyone you meet. I would suddenly know something, or I'd be feeling whatever someone else was feeling, and so you need to know how to close that off. I used to run mind, body, spirit events at one point, and I went to an event, and this guy said, Oh, I need to work with you. You know, your energy's so closed. And I went, Good. And what's up? And he said, Oh no, I'm in a room with 200 people and crystals and tarot cards and everything. I don't want my energies to be open because I'll be picking up on everything. So, you know, because if you are empathic, you need to know how to control it, how to close yourself off from everyone. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

Why do you think we're so interested in spirituality now? I've really noticed a shift. I think you said somewhere that you used to go to mind body spirit events and they were felt very niche. And now there are crystals that we look to. There are tarot cards in multiple versions. My daughter got a version of a tarot set from this high street store. It is around in ways it never used to be around. Why do you think we're so interested now in tarot crystals, Reiki, spells, moon cycles? Like it's it's around us in a very, very different way than it used to be.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

Yeah, it really is. I mean, if you Google anything to astrology, Red Magazine, or Grapsia, those those kind of things will come up. Yeah, Mike, this is just my own theory, is that all our ancestors just knew this stuff. It was just instinctive. They were connected to the land, they lived on their instincts, their intuition, they knew that it was going to be a bad winter from how the summer went, you know, they had this innate knowledge. And then we, the advent of technology and uh cars and different workplaces and the busyness that that we've talked about, you know, we've embraced all of the shiny things. Computers were invented to save us from doing some things so we could have more leisure time. And how many people do you see attached to their laptop when they're on holiday, or you know, me, me included sometimes. So I think we we know we lost our connection somewhere, and then we looked for the quickest route back. I wrote an article years ago from a magazine called saying how much does an angel weigh? And it was about on my journey, when I was learning, I started trying to connect to the spiritual side of me through I would buy a crystal or some fairy lights or a Buddha or some incense or and then went out and looked around my house and I was like, look at all this stuff. And actually, all I need to do is take a breath. I don't need any of these things. So I think when we're really busy, we look for the thing because and I used to see it at events, people would look at all the things they'd wander around going, is this gonna make me happy? Is this gonna make me happy? And I used to call it the three Ps. They would pick it up, they would put it, put it down, and then they would push off. Because they wouldn't, they didn't know what it was, and they realized that probably it was none of those things, or they'd walk away with armful of some of those things, and actually you make you happy, and you you tune in to your own intuition and you know, really. Most things people come for a tarot reading, but they know what they need. I never tell people, Oh, you should do this. I go, cards are saying, here's the energy, but what do you think? Are these cards really summing up how you really feel? And they're like, Yeah, we know, we know really.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

There's a lovely circularity in that, isn't it? We started talking about no one is coming to save you, and that idea that sometimes it's that pause and that breath and that connection to self that is just enough, like just to get the information and to know what you think and what you're really feeling. I have these words for you that I wonder whether we might do, and I wanted to bring this in now because one of the words was about it was about truth. And I suppose that kind of fits in with this a little bit because it's like to me anyway, the reason that I find that an interesting word in this context, the context of like ourselves and how we connect with ourselves is how we find what is true to ourselves. And so I'm just curious about what truth has come to mean to you.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Yeah, I think like you say asking yourself, is that true? But also, is that true for me? Sometimes people will talk about um, I don't know, politics or in the workplace or whatever it is. And I remember years ago, someone said to me, we were on about, I think it was during the recession, and someone said to me, You should just say, I create my own economy. I create my own economy. And I it really, you know, sometimes things really stick, and I thought, I'm gonna use that, I'm gonna use that. And so I do create my own economy. So, yes, there are economic factors around me, but whether I buy a cup of tea or not, whether I do a certain amount of work or not, whether I you know spend money, earn money, there there are a lot of choices that I have within that wider, that wider economy. So I try and I create my own economy, I create my own health. And when you say I, you put it, you give yourself your power back. So, like you say, is that true? And is that is that true for me? I think because sometimes I will tell myself stuff and then I have to stop and go, that's not true, is it? I'm so busy, I don't have an hour a minute to myself. That's not true, is it? Because you don't have the children at home anymore, you're no longer doing two school runs a day, you're no longer filling the fridge and running people around. So that's not true.

SPEAKER_01 41:35

It's one of my favorite questions is is it true? I love it so much because it cuts through all those beliefs. Like sometimes there's a moment of wait, where is this coming from? Why do I even believe this? And once you go down that and you start unraveling, that in itself can be fascinating. Okay, my second word for you is around vision. I know you are someone who likes a vision board and that you like thinking about having a vision. Why do you think that word, that idea is so important to you?

SPEAKER_00 42:01

Again, I talked about I can get very caught up in the day-to-day and the busy. I have ADHD, my brain is wired that way. I've learned to love it, but sometimes it doesn't do me any favors. Having the vision is a bit like looking up or taking a step back. And I think having a vision board, I remember years ago, I went on a course, I learned about vision boards, I put a vision board, and back then it was, you know, a lovely house and a car and a and a this and it was stuff. And I remember seeing this really big house, and I wanted, you know, a house and the swimming pool. I thought it's brilliant. And then I thought, oh wait, no, do I want the house or do I just want to spend time in lovely places that have a swimming pool? Because if I have the house and the pool, then I have to be earning a certain amount of money, then I have to sustain that. You know, it's a bit like we construct a life and then we have to pay for it. And we're like, do I really need these things? Yeah. So I thought, actually, I just want to spend time in nice places. So having a vision board helps me work out how I want to be spending time and where. But also when you have a vision that is a stretch for you, whether it's the law of attraction manifesting, whether it's the reticular activating system in your brain, if you want to use the science, you know, whichever way makes sense to you, I think it gives us something else to wish for. And I think it I say about bringing in the magic, whatever, whether it's you creating your own magic or or magic, or but when I start talking in a certain way, I then start seeing things. And someone said to me, you know, what if whatever you are you are seeking is also seeking you? So again, you might get into the quantum physics side of it. I don't need to know how it works, but I know when I put things out there and say, Right, I am going to do this, or when I do this, this is going to happen, and then something will happen, and people will go, Isn't that interesting that you said that and then that happened? All right, I know, it's interesting, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 43:57

The thing that I love about that is that I always Think of myself as a seeker. I have never thought about something seeking me in return. I really like that. Okay, my last word for you is a word that I associate with you, I think lots of people do, and that is bounce. Nikki, why bounce? Oh, why bounce?

SPEAKER_00 44:18

Yeah, yeah, the Queen of Bounce, Tigger, you know, bouncy lady, I've had so many names over the years. All nice, which is which is good. So when I after I had the stroke, I you know, I I needed to take some time, I needed to look after myself, and I definitely was not bouncy for a while. And then as I started to get better, I started to have more energy and I started to feel better. And I always say that sometimes when we're feeling energetic, when things have shifted in our energy, people don't necessarily know what that is. They'll go, have you had a haircut? Or is that a new top? Or you go for an interview? You know, they'll say things because they realise that your energy's changed, but they don't really know how. So I was going to networking meetings, and there was a group that I used to meet, you know, every other week, and I carried on doing that. No matter what was sort of going on for me, I would always turn up. And then at one point, yeah, someone said to me, Oh, you look really bouncy today. And I said, Yeah, I've discovered my bounce, and I still didn't connect that. And then it was a while afterwards, I was like, Oh, actually, yeah, that's the next, that's the next thing. And so discovering our bounce, bouncing back, yeah, and I think just what was it? I said bounces, if you find balance in your life, if you can overcome at least one thing that's holding you back, if you can understand what makes you tick, if you can nurture yourself, if you can choose and say yes and no in all the right places, then you end up energized. And so that was part of the the kind of thing. And but I think it's a really great way of kind of giving of ourselves. We can lose our bounds, but we can get it back if we can look after ourselves a little bit. And yeah, saying no, saying no is liberating. I never used to say it, but now I say no for all sorts of things.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

That makes me think about actually one of the words that I struggle with is is balance, and there's something about balance that I like because it acknowledges that we're constantly in movement in a sense that we're going, it goes down, it goes up, there is a fluidity, there is an energy to it. I like the sense that it's like slightly more dynamic when we think about what our state is and how we can occupy that state. I would like Nikki to end here, which is to come back to your thought. So we've talked about no one is coming to save you, but I want to come back to your thought, which was about making a difference, and then also looking after yourself so that you can make a difference. It sounds like you live by this, but how do you continue to hold on to it? Like how do you hope you will continue to hold on to it?

SPEAKER_00 46:52

Yeah, I yeah, I've been thinking about that. Like Sharon and I in we have the publishing business, and we've always said we want to run it, and if someone offered to buy it, we want to just be so happy doing what we're doing that we wouldn't want to sell it, and we just we so we'll carry on till it stops making us happy. That's the kind of publishing thing, and I love I just get so excited, and I think while I continue to be excited by stuff, when I'm not excited by something, I do tend to stop doing it. I'm quite good at that. So I don't know, but you know, my parents were 82 and 85 when they closed their business, so I might go till then, but I but I might not. And if I don't help people in a business sense, I probably would do sitting and doing nothing is not in my is not in my nature. So whether that would be volunteering or I don't know, but I just like the fact that I don't know. I'm a tarot reader, I use my cards, but I do it for about the next six months. I'm okay with not knowing, and I think that again, that's that's self-trusting, isn't it? Yeah I'm okay with not knowing. I I just hope that the universe continues to delight me the way it has in the last you know 56 years. And so yeah, I don't know what's next. I think there is more. I think I love people, I will always work with people in some capacity. Yeah, I'm just curious as to what happens next, but I think there will be more books. There will be more books because it it's just I think intrinsic in what I do, and I would like you know to to write a little bit more. I've got a sub stack I haven't really been writing in. There is a podcast probably attached to that's going to be coming out. The work I do in Reclaim, that sort of spiritual side of helping people, helping people to remember, you know, it's not something I do, it's just having those conversations, a bit like with a coaching conversation, your your that sort of self-actualization for people. Sometimes we need a bit of a guide and a bit of a nudge. There will definitely be more travel, Claire, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

I love the picture that you're painting. You said that someone had mentioned that your next 40 years will be better than your first 40 years. And I can see it. Like as somebody who similarly likes Vision, I quite like the future tense, there is something there that just feels so exciting and rich. Um thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and your insights and your warmth. It's lovely to spend time in your company. So thank you. Oh, this has been lovely, Claire. Thank you so much. You can find out all about Nikki in the show notes. I've added details about her Substack, her community, her books, her website, her socials. There's so many different ways to connect and work with and just be in the world of Nikki. I am really curious about whether you will keep hold of this week's thought. So just to remind you that to make a difference in this life, I had to put myself in the queue first. We do talk about a thought that another guest brought, No one is coming to save you. That is an episode that is a really interesting counterpoint to this. They I think will be really fascinating companion lessons. That was a conversation I had with Edwina Jenner. Do go to that one next if you're curious about what some of the ideas here could mean to you. If this conversation did stay with you, I would love it if you could share it with someone else who might be curious about it, or might need it too. And that's not just because podcasts needs growth or because the algorithm demands it, although that's nice too, but also I do believe that sometimes a thought at the right moment can make somebody feel a little bit less alone in their own mind or their own life, or in their marriage, or in their work, or wherever they find themselves. If listening to this episode brought up something for you, if you're feeling emotionally tangled or burnt out or lost or overwhelmed about where you are and what comes next, you can find me over at if loss art here, where I offer one-to-one coaching sessions and support people as they do try to find their way back to themselves, or something that matters, or something needed and necessary. It changes what that is for people. But take a look. And a new note before I go. I am so excited to share this with you. It's a well-being journal and it's kind of a pot guidebook, it's very interactive, it's all about exploration and curiosity and creating a more creative way to well. It's also called If Lost Ot Here, and you can find details about how to get your copy in the show notes. I really hope you'll enjoy it. Do take a look. So I will see you, speak to you next week, next Monday, with another thought that one of my guests has kept, and you might want to as well. Bye for now.