Can a Neck Adjustment Cause a Stroke? Her Survival and Healing Story!

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Medical trauma! What happens when a routine visit for neck pain leads to a life-changing stroke? In this episode, Nikki shares the full story of how a medical treatment triggered a vertebral artery dissection, leading to a brain stroke, years of chronic pain, long-term medication use, and a breaking point that forced her to take control of her healing journey.

This conversation answers the questions many people silently ask:
• Can neck manipulation cause a stroke?
• What happens when doctors run out of answers?
• How do you heal after years of chronic pain and medications?
• What does it actually mean to “take your power back”?

After 15 years in pain clinics and on heavy medications, Nikki chose a different path. She shares how she slowly weaned off medications, explored holistic health, rebuilt her identity, and learned to live with chronic pain while creating a meaningful and empowered life.

This episode explores medical trauma, patient advocacy, chronic pain recovery, meditation, nutrition, and the mindset shift required to reclaim your life.

Chapters / Timestamps

00:00 – Introduction to Nikki’s story
02:00 – The appointment that changed everything
05:30 – The stroke in the bathtub
09:00 – Hospitalization and lack of answers
12:00 – 15 years in pain clinics and medication cycles
16:30 – Feeling dismissed and searching for real help
19:00 – The breaking point and decision to take her power back
22:00 – Weaning off medications and detox journey
25:00 – Nutrition, juicing, and holistic healing
28:30 – Meditation and rebuilding mental health
32:00 – Learning to live with chronic pain
35:00 – Gratitude, mindset, and body relationship
38:00 – Helping others and sharing her story

Get in touch with Nikki: 
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Website - https://www.nikkihillhouse.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikki-hillhouse-a6b25529b/

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stroke after neck manipulation, vertebral artery dissection, chronic pain recovery, medical trauma recovery, weaning off pain medication, holistic healing journey, meditation for healing, patient advocacy, trauma recovery story, health empowerment, mental health, trauma journey

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I want to welcome everybody. Um, and I want to introduce everyone to Nikki Hill House. She's got an amazing story. Her journey has been, I I don't think I've ever heard anything like this before. So I'm excited for everybody to meet her and how she has overcome everything she's been through for the past, I don't know, 15, 20 years, I would say. So welcome to Trauma Rock Stars, Nikki. I'm so excited to have you on. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me, Tracy. It's wonderful to be here. Of course. And you know, when we talked and you were telling me what happened to you, I was uh kind of speechless. I mean, because it you just don't expect things like this to happen, um, especially to the magnitude of what happened with you. So, do you want to just talk a little bit about your story and what led up to what had happened with your doctor?

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Yeah, of course. Sure. I'm 57 now, 57 years young, shall we say? Yes. And I was 31. I went to the doctor because I struggled with a little bit of neck pain and headache. And the doctor said, you know, take some in the UK it's called paracetamol. Is it Tylenol or something?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Tylenol.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Yeah, something like that. You know, it'll ease off. He said, You've you've basically he called it a tortoise of the neck. You've you've twisted it quickly, you know, it it'll be fine in a few days. So yeah, went to work, did all my usual things, and it was just not getting any better. And a friend of mine who was seeing an osteopath for his back pain said, Why don't you come along? And this was probably about three days after seeing the doctor. He said, Why don't you come along and come and have a word and have an appointment? And so we scheduled all that. So I went along and had an appointment and um answered the questions, got down on the treatment couch, and I was in a lot of pain anyway with my head and neck, but she was pushing down a lot on the top of my head, and it was excruciating. I was the tears were coming because it was so painful, and I was just thinking, you know, well, no pain, no gain. You know, she knows what she's doing. I'm gonna trust I was brought up to trust people in white coats, trust the professionals, and it was just really a lot, and I was in a lot of pain when I went home. And that evening, um, the pain was just not subsiding at all, and I couldn't sleep. So the following morning I ran a bath and because I thought, you know, this you know, it's that thing, isn't it? It's that comfort thing, run a bubble bath, see if I can just soak myself back in my shoulder and get my headache, you know, like this. I'd probably been in the bath, I don't know, maybe 10-15 minutes. And uh did another word to describe it is I suffered a deep brain stroke in the bath.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Um you were alone, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:38

I was alone, yes. Yeah. My ex-husband at the time was in the military, so he was serbian in Bosnia. And my son was a teenager and he was uh rollerblading and out with his race. Yeah, it was a Saturday morning about 11am, you know, as you do. And um, so I was just like stuck in this bath going, what the hell's going on? And I couldn't move the right side of my arm, couldn't move the right side of my body. My breath was getting shallow, I was finding it hard to, you know, verbalise, trying to get words out. And I remember reaching over, trying to unplug the the bath I couldn't reach over to unplug the stopper in the bath to drain the bath to get out. I couldn't get out anyway. I sat there for I don't know how long it was, but I I knew I was really cold, I was shivering because the water had become so cold. But I don't know how I did it. I managed to sort of push myself up on the other side and swing myself over and sort of onto the toilet seat and onto the floor in a way. And then I sort of half crawled to the to the bedroom where there was a telephone, and I didn't phone an ambulance. I don't know why I didn't. I phoned a friend and I just said, I don't know what's going on, but and I think he could tell something wasn't right because my words were slurring and I wasn't making much sense. So yes, that was the beginning of my, let's just say, a very profound wake-up call.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

You were just so the audience listening, you were you went to a chiropractor to have an adjustment.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

I went to um an osteopath. It was an osteopath.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

An osteopath okay. To to adjust and manipul manipulate the pain in your neck of some sort.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Yeah, I mean, I didn't know what to expect, you know. She was like manipulating away and pushing on my skull and things like this. And what I do know now is that the maneuver that she performed was called a high velocity thrust, and you're not allowed to do it anymore. And it's a bit like having Jenga, you know, in the game Jenga. Yeah. And you push it through and there's there'll still be stained. So she was trying to manipulate, push through something on the vertebrae, you know, the neck. And uh and what she actually did was she punctured the main artery as she'd done that. And because I had inflammation in the neck, because of the neck pain, that was already sort of swollen with like the inflammation, it wasn't something that she should have done. Well, I didn't know that because I didn't know what she was doing, you know. So but I do know that it's illegal now for chiropractors and osteopaths to to do that manoeuvre.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

And it caused you to have a stroke.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Yeah, it's called a a vertebral artery dissection that I had, yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

So you call a friend, yeah, I don't know how you were able to do that. Did your friend come over or did they call 911 for you?

SPEAKER_01 5:11

My friend came over, and what had actually happened was, you know, the funny thing is I've literally just written my book, which is about to be published, and it's it's I'm reminded of like the whole going through the whole scenario again. And I needed the bathroom, and I'm sitting half naked on this bed, going freezing, going, I need to get to the toilet, I need to wait. So I managed to sort of stumble, hold on to the walls and get myself back. I was very disigned, disorientated. And I got back to the bathroom and um managed to go in there to the toilet. Yeah, it it was I think it's just a natural instinct, isn't it? You need the toilet, and I was just sort of swaying around and I I managed to find my bearings to get back to the to the bathroom. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

And then you you ended up being admitted and you were in the hospital for weeks, correct? I was I was probably in there for about two or three weeks.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

I don't think it was too long. I think it was about two and a half weeks, about two and a half weeks I was in there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Yeah. So n okay. I know we were so much more advanced now than we were when this happened. We know so much more now. But you you were kind of like treated in a pain kit clinic, weren't you? They never really got down to the root of the problem initially, right? I was basically sent at hospital.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Nobody would touch me, no physiotherapy would touch me because they were too frightened to because they found out, you know, you know, that they were never allowed to say what had actually happened. But, you know, the the notes that were going back, what happened previously, because even the consultant said to me, What happened what's been going on? And when I mentioned I went to an osteopath and his eyes just widened, like, what? And this was like 18 hours previously, and you could see him just putting the puzzle pieces together, and I was like, But tell me that that treatment has caused me to be sitting in this bed right now or laid in this bed. But I was just so I think because I was quite young, um, I'm starting to heal quite, you know, the to the extent that they were like, okay, you can go home now. But I had so much pain, and there was nobody to help me with physio to do the exercises. I was basically told to do it on my own because no one would want to touch me. This was a thing because illegal things were too frightened to.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

So when did you start to heal yourself? Because I know that you you were in pain for a long time. Um 15 years, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 7:35

I spent 15 years in and at the pain clinic, and I just want to say to everyone listening now, I still live with pain. I just deal with it and I calmly coexist with it. It's obviously nothing compared to how it was then. Um but I spent 15 years um go to doctors who don't know what to do with me. So then I got referred on to pain clinics, and I always remember being called the complex case. Another drug, another drug. That doesn't work, that doesn't work. And I remember one doctor saying, um, just because that tricyclic drug hasn't worked, we've got 13 other ones we can try you on. So what? And um yeah, and even the amount of morphine that I was taking, I was told, Oh, patients climb, Mount Kiliman, Jaro, you're absolutely fine driving a car and going to work and doing all this. And I was like, What? Yeah, yeah, it got to fifty it was 15 years, and I just got to a stage that I didn't recognise myself. I did not recognise the woman in the mirror. I thought, Who am I? And I spent weekends in bed. I I was working um as an auxiliary nurse in the hospitals, and after my shifts, I spent the weekend in bed taking more and more pain relief. I just I didn't go out. Every time friends asked me to go out or parties or weddings or invitations, I was just depleted, I had nothing left.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

My coffee was. And you worked in healthcare.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Yeah, and I worked in healthcare, yeah. Yeah. And I just, yeah, I my sort of pivotal moment, shall we say. I was sitting in the bed one morning and my usual routine was my all my pills on the side table. My partner would bring me in a cup of coffee and I'd heat my heat cushion up for my neck and I'd take all the pills. And I knew it would take about 40 minutes for everything to kick in. And I used to have my little mirror there in my makeup bag, and I'd put my face on for the day and wait for the pills to kick in. And I remember closing my eyes, I was just doing some breathing, and I just thought, I can't do this. I just can't do this anymore. You know, if it means I've got to check out of this world, then because I've had enough, I had nothing left to give nothing left to give. And it was in probably within about a couple of moments, I sort of heard and saw the word power, and I can't really explain it. It wasn't like I was hearing voices, it was in my mind's eye. Power. And I was like, what the hell? Power? Because I did not feel powerful at all. Yeah. And I sat with it for a while, and my tablets kicked in, and I drank my cup of coffee, and I just sat there for quite a while and I was trying to meditate and do a bit of breath work. And I and it just sort of came to me like they say the light bulb moment, it was like that, and I meant, that's what you've got to do. You need to take your power back. You've been giving your power away to these doctors and hospitals and clinics for all these years. You need to take care of yourself and find another way to heal. And that's when I went on my own health and wellness holistic journey, shall we call it?

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Yeah. Did you had to uh during this whole time uh felt I mean, I'm trying to be the devil's advocate here because I too work in healthcare as well. But I, you know, I think the doctor's intentions are they do want to help you, but you had to have felt gaslit a lot too by them. It's just another pill, another pill. Like nobody was kind of taking the bull by the horns and saying, let's get to the root of the problem and help you. It was, it was, I just felt like I was like, who's next?

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Clipboard, right? Patient search, right? What are we taking? What are we doing now? What are we taking now? Right, does it work? Let's try another one. And I remember for so long asking if I could speak to like a psychologist or a counselor or someone. And they were saying, but why? And I was like, Well, surely my mental health must be affected by everything that's going on. And I remember when I went in, I eventually got to see some lady that was there. And I still remember to this day, and I went in, and you know, she's doing the sud scale. Do you know if anyone doesn't know what sud scale is, you know, you're marking you, scale of one, zero to ten. Yeah. You you understand, Tracy, yeah, what it all means. You know, how are you feeling? You know, how's your week been? And are you feeling feeling uh low dress, things like this? So I'd filled it all in and then she looked at me and she said, Well, you look absolutely fine. She says, I don't think you need any treatment, you look absolutely fine.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

It's okay, you know. You're okay. What's the matter?

SPEAKER_01 11:48

And everything's going on. I know. Yeah. And I had to this that was a pattern for me all the time. No one would listen to what I had to say. There was never any other if I ever talked about acupuncture or meditation or yoga or anything, it sort of got poo-pooed because way back then it wasn't and mindfulness and stuff, it was all like, what? It's a bit woo-woo. Yeah. It was almost being like I felt like I was being dismissed. Yeah, gaslit. Yes. Dismissed, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

And I know when we when you were telling me about this, I know you said like you never press charges or anything against the doctor or anything like that, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Yeah, because it's um it was an osteopath and it was very difficult to they said if that was a doctor, it'd be a bit easier, you could sue, and things like this, and it started to get quite complicated. You know, and I just thought, well, no amount of like money or some sort of compensation is going to take back what happened to me. Um, so I I went on my own journey of like forgiveness as well. Because I think when you hang on to bitterness and anger, yeah, the forgiveness part is you need to forgive when you so it's not forgiving the other person, it's forgiving yourself as well. The part of the world. Right. Because if I hadn't gone there that day, that wouldn't have happened and I wouldn't be sitting here talk talking about it now. So it's we have to take responsibility for our actions as well.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Yeah, you know, I don't know if I told you when we were talking before, but I the last time I was at a in here, it was a chiropractor. It wasn't an osteopath, but it was a chiropractor, and I went, I always used to love going to get adjusted and my back and everything. While he adjusted me, and he was a very large man. So him adjusting me, it didn't take much for him to adjust me. And when I when I went and got an adjustment, I knew something felt wrong the second that he adjusted my neck. I ended up having one of the worst ear infections of my entire life. It triggered a horrible, horrible inner ear infection. Yeah. Yeah, and I and it was awful. It lasted for weeks. It was awful. And I went, you know, went to the doctor, got on medication, everything. And I've been doing so much more research since then. And it's very dangerous to let them adjust your neck. It's like even orthopedic doctors will say, let them adjust your spine, let them get your spine aligned and everything, but don't let them touch your neck. And I will never ever let them touch my neck again, ever. And you know, what would and I know there's people out there that, you know, I'm not saying all this is all, you know, all osteos or all chiropractors. Our experience that you and I just went through, yours was much, much a thousand times worse than mine. But when you got that, that information to take your power back when that came to you. So what when you let that marinate, and you're probably like, where do I start? Like, where did you start with it?

SPEAKER_01 14:50

I literally became a detective and I went down the rabbit hole of nutrition was the first thing I did. I started to look at an alkaline diet because I knew that the pain I was having in my body was caused through inflammation. And I thought, if I could, if I could implement a diet that wasn't so acidic, um, so the first thing I did was I bought a juice machine and I juiced and I became vegan for about a year. And I cut out meat and sugar and everything, and I just like, you know, I just did what I could, you know, it was that, it was like taking the first steps, and then um just different modalities, you know. I went to acupuncture, acupuncture was just amazing for me as well. Yoga, started doing some really gentle yoga, and so it was implementing all these, and I'd always been interested in holistic, you know, treatment, but because I was so um almost indoctrinated into the system that I went along with everything that was like, take this pill, take that pill, this will be fine, this will be fine. Before you know it, you it's snowballs and snowballs. Um so it was really just looking at my body as a whole, is in like this is the physical part of me, but there's a mind, body, and spirit. So I need to nurture my well-being through the way of my emotions. Let's see what's going on up here, let's heal all the internal wounds, all the trauma. Let's do all that along with the health eating and acupuncture, EFT and everything. Yeah, that's my proof.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

So it it had to have been very overwhelming because you don't you really don't know where to start. And we put so much trust in medical professionals, but again, they don't have all the answers. And as you know, they can actually make things worse. And I say all the time, you have to be your own advocate. But when you're in so much pain, how did you find that strength? Because you can't think straight. I'm sure you weren't sleeping, you know, which when you don't get quality sleep, it affects everything in your life. You know, how did you find the day-to-day strength? Was it just baby steps? It was it was literally baby steps.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

It was baby steps because I I remember when I used to come in from a shift at the hospital, and I would I remember my son saying to me, Mom, why do you have to have a drink of brandy every night? And that was my go-to, like I have to have my pills and my brandy, everything to just numb it, just to see if I could get a couple of hours' sleep. And I knew it wasn't doing me any good. Of course it wasn't, but I knew that that was the only way I was gonna get a few hours' sleep. Um, it was baby steps, one step at a time, and every time I was like taking steps forward, I felt like I was going backwards. Because it's just it's when you I think when I made that decision, I thought, right, there's no going back on this now. You know, this it it's I knew it wasn't gonna be overnight. I knew it would take a while. It took me about five years, I think, five, six years altogether to wean off all my meds. And I did it myself. I didn't have any medical help, I didn't have anybody help me. I just did it very, very, very slowly, very, very slowly. Um, and then of course you've got the side effects from coming off all the meds as well. And I don't know, I just think I I I think I knew that I deserved a quality of life, whatever that meant. Had to be better. I suppose I looked at it like this if I'm living with pain and this is what has to this is what's happened now, this is my purpose, this is my sole contract, this was maybe meant to happen to me, who knows? Maybe I can still live in this body and have quite a good life and be quite comfortable without all the pills, without all the doctors, without all the interventions. Um, yeah, and I think my confidence started to grow. As soon as I started, I think morphine was the first um drug that I weaned off slowly. And I started to get a bit more confidence and I started to go out again. I started to look in the mirror and like what I looked, I thought, oh, you know, I started to sort of um it was all about growth and I started to rediscover myself and and it was all about changing my relationship with my body because I was kept looking at it as broken and defeated me, and it was this and it was that, and when I started to nurture it and care for it and say, You're amazing, body, you've had my back this whole time, you know, thank you, and be appreciative and be grateful. And gratitude was a big thing. That was a big thing every day, having my my gratitude moments and writing it down. Um, yeah, because we do when something's not working right in our body, what's the first thing we do? We bereft it, we have a go at it. And then so I did the opposite. I befriended it. I started to befriend my body and change my relationship with it, you know. How you would with a friend or, you know, be your best friend sort of thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Maybe concentrate more on the things that are working, and you know, it's so funny you're mentioning gratitude because just you know, yesterday I was taking my dog for a walk just around the neighborhood, and I was just like, Thank you for these legs that I'm able to walk him, you know, and walk down the street. And it's just those simple little things. And you when you started taking this back, I've got an interesting question for you. And um, weaning yourself all of those meds, it obviously takes a lot of time. Do you think juicing helped you with that? Because I know juicing is so important with like getting the heavy metals out of your body and everything, which is loaded in medications.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Yeah, definitely. Because I went I actually went to a juice detox retreat, and that's when I started to enough. And I actually went along to one anyway, because um, I started with meditation was like a big um yeah, a big thing for me. And I went along to this retreat with my mentor at the time and who was who was hosting the retreat, and and it was a juice retreat and it was hardcore, it was full-on hardcore. And I remember one of the doctors saying to me, you know, your body's gonna take time, your liver it needs time to process. And I really struggled, and I was really mentally and physically like in a bad way because I was detoxing off the tablets. I was still on other stuff at the time, but my liver and my kidneys, everything needed time to completely get flushed out because think of all that poison, steep years of all that poison put into my body. It was just, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

How long do you think it took before you were completely like cleansed out of it?

SPEAKER_01 21:11

It's hard to say, isn't it? It's hard. I didn't really sort of I'm very much sort of in the present moment and I just go with the flow and see what happens. I'd probably say it was a good five years, you know, of the juicing nails and changing my diet. I went back to eating, actually, it was that doctor that said to me the juice retreat, he said, You can't be a vegan. He said you need to start bridging bringing a little bit of meat and a little bit of cheese into your diet because he'd he'd done all the tests on mean things, and he's saying it's good what you're doing for a short period of time, but you now need to build your strength up and you need to eat a diet like XY and Z.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Yeah. To make sure you're getting enough protein and the dairy that you need, the calcium that's in the dairy. You know, it's funny 'cause um I follow do you I follow the medical medium. Do you follow? Anthony on Instagram. And he's he's incredible. You know, he's he, you know, basically put celery juicing on the map, you know. But it's so I I never realized, and this is until recently, that everything you put in your mouth, every pill, aspirin, Tylenol, everything uh prescription drug medication has to pass through your liver. And I I don't think I ever it obviously makes sense, but I don't think I ever really listened to that. And I'm so like, it's gotta do permanent damage to your liver, especially when you're when you're taking all these medications for so many years. And like you said, you had to detox yourself because you needed to clean out like those organs. And I don't when I first realized that, like now I'm like, can you give me a cream or a patch? Because I don't want to take any pills anymore because it all passes through your liver, any kind of pill you take, and it's so scary what it does. And you hear people that like they need these liver transplants and and they don't have cirrhosis, that they need a liver transplant. And it's like, okay, well, I wonder why.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

And what did we do years ago before the pharmaceuticals came in? What do the shamans do? What do you know, what do the plant medicine what did they do? You know, they they didn't go into the local pharmacy and yeah, grab a prescription and and walk away with a bag of pills and take three a day and do this. You know, they looked at plants, they looked at what mother nature was growing. And I think we're we are starting to come back to that again. But we can go right down a rabbit hole with that one, but you know, because soil's so depleted and you know, with our nutrients now and things like this.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

So it's well, and there's people like Anthony that can give more you we're so much more informed. Yes, we're so much more informed now. Like we have platforms like this that we can talk about. Do you still juice every day? I had celery juice this morning.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

Did you? And I don't have anything else. I'm a big I do a lot of fasting as well. I do a lot of fasting. And celery if I have celery juice, I don't do every morning celery juice, but when I do do celery juice, I don't have anything else for an hour. And I might have another juice, maybe like a beetroot and a carrot or something. Later. And then later I'll have like food, food, you know.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

I think um, I think it's good that people are listening to this because you know, when you were talking about your very first step was you just bought a juicer. You're like, I'm just gonna do it, I'm just gonna start with that. It's just a little tiny step in the right direction. And you were meditating, and you know, and and I basically every episode we talk about meditation on the show. And I I just want to tell people, and Nikki can back me on this. If you're looking for answers, you will get them if you meditate. The answers will come to you. It might take time, and you might not get all the answers that you need, but you will get answers through meditation. And are you still an actively meditating? Yeah, I'm a meditation teacher. Well, let's talk. I want to talk about what you're doing and what you're what you are offering to the world. And I want to talk about your book because I know last we talked, you were writing a memoir. So let's tell the world, you know, what you're doing to help out to help all of us.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

They have all these questions. I do know everything, all the tools and techniques that I implemented into my journey. And I keep saying to people now, even I'm still on my journey, there's no end to it. We always are. Um, so I teach meditation, breath work, um, I'm a trauma therapist coach, I I run wellness retreats, I do a little bit of everything, I'm a writer, I'm a speaker. Um, I have literally just put in my second draft for my memoir, which is due out in May. Um, because I want people to pick up my book and go, oh my goodness, there's hope for me. And it doesn't mean that you've had a stroke or anything, major illness. How strong and gregarious we can be as people, if we can have hope and we can make our own choices and our own decisions, it all comes back to being proactive and making your own choices and decisions because that's where your power comes from. You know, it's disempowering if you listen to do this, do this, do this. You can research things, you can listen to juice experts and the social media everywhere now, isn't there? And what the best thing to do, but your body's so wise it knows what to do. So back to meditation, if you're quiet enough to listen, listen to that inner whisper, the voice will be going, your mind will be going, the ego will be going, it'll be drifting off into stories and telling you what you've got to make for dinner tonight, and all these different things. Yeah, it is. If you actually sit and listen, just listen and observe the thoughts as they're coming and they're going. This is where the clarity comes through. And it's just listen to these when I say listen, I mean listen. Really listen to the inner whisper because we all do it. Our intuition, we know what to do. You know, we all we've all got the key to help ourselves. It's only because we get distracted by outside influence and by all our stories and all our experiences that mount up and mount up, and and we get so conditioned to things that we we forget to come back to who we truly are underneath all of those layers. So yeah, so I do all my coaching and all my stuff, and yeah, I'm just there to help to educate others to see there's a different way as well.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Yeah, and and meditation's tough. Really, it's you know, even the best meditators in the world get frustrated. It's it's can be challenging. And I'm finding it the when you don't try so hard and you ask like subconsciously, like or can't, you know, just to whisp a slight whisper what you need or what you want, it'll come to you. But you you have to not. I think the key is just really relaxing and not trying so hard, like and not work because it will eventually it's not gonna come right away. It might. Some people might get a download of information immediately, which is wonderful. Good for you. But that didn't happen with me. It took quite a while before I started getting some answers.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

It's like consistency is key, isn't it? Like you wouldn't go to the gym, you wouldn't expect to pick up some dumbbells and have these like bulging biceps in two weeks' time, would you? You know, it you have to like build up a consistency, a pattern, a routine all the time. And meditation's not all about sitting in your your little lotus position and with your exactly of incense and everything. It could be walking, just taking in the the the environment around you, just noticing nature, you know, washing the dishes up, having a shower.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

You know, there's times that's all I've got time is in the shower to do a quick meditation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

That's your meditate that you're meditating there, you're just being in the moment, just be walking and just observing what's happening and just you know, and be mindful with it, feel the soap on your skin and the water, or if you're walking, just feel your feet on the floor and taking the smells around you, and if it's sunny, you know, feel sunny. That's all meditation as well.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

It's living in the moment and the gratitude. I think it's the like you said, like sometimes I only have time to in the shower. I've only got maybe a minute, but I'm like, thank you for this warm water, thank you for the water, period. That I have clean water to, you know, um, it can be that simple to start because I don't want people to think like it's super overwhelming, but it can be frustrating. Like, what did you how did you word at practice?

SPEAKER_01 29:42

I'd say to people, you know, someone's struggling right now and they're going, I've got nothing to be grateful for. My life is really, really bad at the moment. Focus, we we hone in, we focus on what's not going right for us. Right. We don't tend to focus on what's going well. And if someone says, Well, there's nothing going well for me right now, and you'd be like, Have you got a roof over your head? Have you got food in the fridge? And I know it's the most basic things. That's just like being grateful for that. And I would say, you know, to get just maybe five minutes a day of meditation, just take yourself somewhere to wherever you are in the house, or you know, if to a park if you're outside and just sit and be with yourself. A lot of people are uncomfortable, they get really uncomfortable, you know, with their own sensations and their own feelings because sometimes we don't like what comes up. The only way we heal ourselves, we've heard it before so many times, is you need to feel it to heal it. Sometimes it's very uncomfortable. But you need to allow the sensations, the emotions, everything to move through you because they're just it's just energy and motion. Just allow the thoughts to come, the emotions to come, and yeah, and then just move on with your day. It's it's you don't have to like fixate on I've got to do this for 30, 40 minutes, just five minutes.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Everyone's got five minutes. Everyone if you say you've not got five minutes, then you know.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Yeah, there's there's sometimes in the morning I'll wake up and I'll I'll just meditate in bed. You don't, like you said, you don't have to be in a perfect sitting position. There's no rules. Like you can make you make the rules for what works for you. And just start, just start.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Just start, and even like you say, when you when you get up in the mor before you actually get up in the morning, just focus on your breath. Just just listen to the sound of your breath as it comes and it goes. Just pay attention to where your body's your hands, your feet on the mattress, everything. That's all meditative as well. You know, just paying attention to your being in your body. Meditation's all about being in your body. When you're getting caught up in busy mind and thoughts, you're you're up in this, you're up in this thing. The whole point is to get back down into this, tuning in back into your body.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Yeah, you know, I it's so funny because I'm at the point now. I can literally lower my blood pressure just with my breath work. I can do a before and after, take my pressure, do before and then do my breath work, and it'll be drastically down. And I'm able to do that. Like my I've even talked to my doctor about it. They're like, I wish more people and and anybody that's listening to this, we're not telling you to stop taking your medications. There's certain medications that people need to survive, you know. Blood pressure is one of them. You know, there are certain medications that people you do need certain things to survive if you're, you know, diabetic and things like that. But think about you know, to have a have be your ad own advocate, have conversations with your doctor, let him know what your goals are. If your goals are you want to get on as few meds as possible, then you need to, you gotta have a friend of mine like your doctors, whether you're seeing a naturopathic provider, osteo, meta md, whatever, they work for you. Even though there are these really smart people, they went to medical school, they've got this initial, they end it at the end of the day, work for you. So you come up with a plan with them that works. Like you need to drive the bus for what your goals are. And if they can't meet you halfway with that and be on board with you, then you need to find somebody who will. Yeah. Um, but it's it's so, you know, I've I've worked with physicians, you know, my whole career and stuff. And you have to realize, I think people go in there and think, well, they're the boss, they're in charge, whatever they say goes, but no, you you are actually in charge of your own life and your own body, and you need to come up with a plan. And if if they're not willing to work with you with your goals and have something that makes sense, then you need to find somebody who will. And there are there are people out there who will. Because it's your body at the end of the day, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 33:46

You you make you make the decisions. It's very disempowering if if you go away with a prescription and you're told you've got X, Y, and Z. I mean, I'm all about mind-body connection. Someone's gone to the doctors and they're like, oh yeah, and yeah, you've got those pains, you're you've got arthritis. That's what it is. You're at an age, you've got arthritis. You've just been given a label for a collection of symptoms. You've not been told how you're going to get to the root of that. You know, you've got a certain age, you know, this is what's happening now, this is what's going on in the body. But nobody ever asks, but why? Why is my body creating these symptoms in the first place? Your body's not against you. Your body will work in harmony if you're putting the right fuel in it, if your thoughts that you're thinking, the people you hang around with, you know, it's everything. It plays a massive part in your your whole lifestyle, everything. Um, so you have to be willing to like, yeah, participate in it in the way of going, I don't know about this. Do you know what? Let me just go away and do a little bit of research. Let me just let me just see if I can. I mean, doctors should say, but you can't do juicing, you can't do this, this, and this. This is not gonna help with cholesterol, this is not gonna help with that. I had one doctor, actually, I remember this, in Oxfordshire when I lived a few years ago, quite a few years ago. And my cholesterol was high, a little bit high, and he wanted to put me on statins, which I refused. And his actual words were, it's because of your age and you can eat whatever you want. Don't worry, you can have cream, you can have cakes, you can have whatever you want. Just take these tablets. And I was like, Are you for real? Are you really for real? And because they were little, and I thought, no, no, no, no, no, I am not gonna listen to that. I am not going to take, you know, because you're just seeing me as a statistic. You've now turned 50, estuar cholesterol's a bit high, that's normal for your age. And what you need to do is now take these drugs and you can just eat and drink whatever you want. And I just thought some people will do that because it's like a quick they think it's a quick fix.

SPEAKER_02 35:43

Right.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

You're not getting, you're putting a band-aid on, you're not getting to what's under it. It's almost like cutting the top of the weeds, you know, you're cutting the tops off, you're not actually getting the weeds up, are you? So we need to get down, dig deep down to those weeds, to the root, and figure out how are we going to resolve this?

SPEAKER_00 36:01

Yeah. Do you yeah, do you have days now where where the pain, because I know you said you're you're always in pain, the pain's worse than others? Like, does the weather contribute to that? Weather, or if I'm going through a stressful time.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Stress. Very in tune with my body, and I know when something's not right, you know, like I lost my dad a few months ago, and I know grief is all about the lungs and all these different things. And when I say to people, they're like, you know, oh, your hip, you know, I've got a hip pain, I said, that's all but do you feel like you're not progressing forward in life? What? Back pain, lower back pain is all about not being supported, knees are about support. So I tend to look at all that. So if I'm having quite a sort of a bit of a pain flare up, I'm like, right, what's going on for me right now? And I will journal and I'll you know, ask myself the questions, right, what's going on? And then I can sort of like pick it apart and go, ah, you have been quite through stressful stuff late. There's all this stuff going on in your life, you're doing all this, you know, your mind and body, they're just working in sync with each other, being over stressed. So what it's doing is creating these symptoms in the body and it's giving you giving you some sensations, I like to call them sensations, sensations to listen. The whole point is it's doing this, so you will listen. I'm gonna give you sensations because you're not sleeping very well at the minute, or you've been overworking, you need to take care of yourself a bit more. So the body's always talking to you, you so it's yeah, if you just sit down and listen to your body, ask it a few questions, it'll have the answer.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

Right. It's funny you mentioned stress because stress is a huge part of it. And you you also mentioned socially, you know, who how how has that helped you with your social interactions and who you choose to be around and who has access to you, you know?

SPEAKER_01 37:49

You want to be around people that lift you up, that energies lift you up and they support you. When you're in a in a as I'd call a toxic environment and you have even family members and friends that think they know better and they can be quite cons condescending and judgmental and they mean no harm by it, it's not a good, it's not good because we're we're energetic beings, it's not good for you to be around. Whereas what is it like if you go into a room and there's friends and you have a lovely time and you feel good, don't you? Do you go into a situation or even with family members, you come away feeling oh, really deflated and really what do you think that's doing to your nervous system? It's not good, is it? You know, so it's yeah, it's I think we say pick and choose your friends wisely, because I think we go through stages in life that we meet people at a certain time in our life, and sometimes we just have to drift away because it's nice to be in a supportive environment and people that will lift you up and you lift them up as well because um it's not nice to be surrounded by. Sometimes it's difficult, but you get to choose as well. You get to choose if um, for instance, say someone's invited you to a party or a a social occasion and you go, I don't really want to go, listen to your body. If your body's going, no, oh, whoa, I don't want to go to that, um, and you know that you're gonna go there just because to keep somebody happy. Now, what about your boundaries? Boundaries have to come into this. If you're talking about your mental, your physical and your emotional well-being, yeah, then you have to have boundaries. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

I think, I think it took me a really long time to listen to your body's constantly giving you messages and cues, and it took me a really long time. And now pay attention. Even when the phone rings, whoever's calling you, does that make you happy or does it make you stressed when you're in somebody's presence? Like that energy that they're put, is it making you happy or are you crunching up? Are you getting tense? Like for years, you know, we all do. We all are around people that cause us unnecessary stress, subconscious stress that is putting on our bodies that we don't even realize. And once you start paying attention to that and like starting a whole new relationship with what your body's telling you, open, it's wild how quickly things start to shift.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

Yeah, yeah. And you can be near people that maybe, because we have people in our lives that press our buttons. But when you have the tools to go, aha, I know it's not me, it's them, and you can see that you're just attached. It's like conflict happens because you're attached to someone maybe saying something different to what you expected them to say. But it's like no person, no place, and no event has got any, you know, on how we feel. It it's our mind will come up with a reason behind it, you know. So we could oh it's because she said this and he does this and he does that. But that's just who they are. Can you let that just bounce off you? Can you let that just sort of bounce off you and go, I'm not gonna let that affect me because we let other people's what affect us and we take that into our energy field. And um, how many times has somebody said something and you go home and you're like, No, I don't agree with that. That's not good. That person's forgotten about it, they've they've moved on with something, but you're holding on to it. That you're holding on to that tension in the body because you didn't agree with what somebody said or did, and let it go, let it go.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Yeah, it's so and once you get get used to doing that, once you realize the impact it's having on you and that you take your power back, like you said, power, just really things start shifting naturally for you. Yeah, do you like somebody if somebody's listening to this? Because I think you're it's gonna resonate with there's so many people who have had it with healthcare, have had it with their providers, don't know where to start, want to shift and change in their life, but it just seems so overwhelming, you know. It's just because there could be so many different layers depending on what's going on with somebody. Um, and they want to reach out to you, Nikki. Like, how would you start with somebody like that? That maybe they're just really lost, maybe they don't even realize how lost they are. They just know that they're it's their life is off. It's not happening the way they want it to be lived. I'd probably ask them, what's your why?

SPEAKER_01 42:11

Why do you want if this is how you're living your life right now, why do you want to change it? Why do you want things to be different? What is it that you could implement? What can you do right now in this moment today, then the next hour, that you could something that you could do that you could start to change that? What's one little thing, you know? And and things that get overlooked as well is things like we must have talked about gratitude, joy. You know, people say, What do you what's joy? I haven't got time for all this, I've got time to look, you know. If we start implementing, it's not always about coaching and therapy and everything else. It's taking these little things like how much water have you had to drink today? Yeah, how much rest have you had? Have you had five minutes to yourself to put on your favourite song, have a bit of a dance, whatever you want to do? Add some of your favourite, you know, I eat chocolate, I eat cake, I eat, you know, I don't deprive myself of things. And I would say to people, when you're in that state of like, oh, I d I genuinely don't know how I'm gonna move forward. I just don't know how I'm gonna how how do I even move forward? Say yourself like you're sitting in a, you know, a well. You know the wells that you have, you know, a well under the water. And imagine you've got runs in that well, there's all these little ledges, little seats, and it goes all the way up to the top. Where do you want to see? So when you look up there, there's the light up there that you want to be out of that well, don't you want to be up there? There's the steps. There's a little rope, there's a little step, and you can just keep getting yourself up there to get to it. Or do you want to just keep sitting at the bottom? How much is your life worth that you want to get up and out of that well? And it's not happening like I'm not saying go and do all these amazing ah, and you'll just be skipping through the daisies. It's not that. Right. Little things like um, like I said, how much water are you drinking? What's your diet like? And then a lot of people don't see that what. They eat affects your mental health as well. If you're just eating beige foods and carbohydrates all the time and you're not having fruit and vegetables, it really does affect your cells or your brain and how your your mental health is. So there's lots of parts. I just want I'd say, why? Why do you want to make a change? What's your dream? What's your goal? What what's your dream? What's your desire? What's your heart's highest hope? What do you want more than anything else? And how do you think you're going to start to you know move move forward? Just one little thing that you could do right now today that will help you to because you've got you've got to take action yourself. When I say this, I don't mean it in a flippant way. No one's coming to rescue you on a white charge. You know, it would be wonderful if everyone the c someone's coming, they're coming to rescue me to take me off to whatever land. It doesn't work. We have got to be willing to put that work in ourselves. And it's not easy. It's not easy, but it's worth it. We've got to be willing to see that this is where I am here. This is where I'd like to be over here. Am I willing to take those steps? Am I gonna keep looking in the rear view mirror? Because that takes my eyes off the path ahead, or am I gonna just keep moving forward? Every little step. My favourite song is Whitney Houston Step by Step.

SPEAKER_00 45:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

And I pop that on all the time. If I'm having a bit of a hungry day, right, that goes on and I'm like this going step by step, bit by bit, day by day, you know, steps is how we get, you know, further. Yeah, it's a very winded way of asking.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

No, no, it makes total sense because it it and it is it's very motivating to hear you describe it like that. Can you share with the listeners how they can get a hold of you? And I'll also include it all in our s in our show notes.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

Yeah, you can contact me via my website or my email, and it's just under my name, Nikki Hillhouse. So nikkihillhouse.com or info at Nikki Hillhouse.com. So if you just Google my name, it'll come up and you can click on my website and my email address and everything will be on there. Yeah. And the book is out when in May? I think it's the 19. I think we're planning on the ebook the 19th and the paperback the second of June.

SPEAKER_00 46:12

Wonderful. Oh, that's so and do what's do you have the name of it yet? Can you share it? Yes, it's called Beyond the Mirror from Stroke to Softburn. Beyond the mirror. Beyond the mirror. Yeah. Love it.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

It's all about um who are we behind that mirror that we look in. And when you we first were chatting, Tracy, do you remember when I was saying about when I was sitting in bed, I didn't even recognise myself anymore. That's in that mirror. Yes. It's like, who are we beyond? There's a little that it's how people would, you know, we all have a different way of, you know, how we might perceive it, but who are you beyond that mirror? You're not just this hair and body and everything, you know, you're right. Your real true self is a lot more than what you're looking at in that mirror. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

More than you even realize. Yes. There's gonna be parts of you that you never even realized that was a part of you, and it's it's amazing because you you're almost rediscovering yourself.

SPEAKER_02 47:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

Nikki, this has been thank you so so much for sharing your journey. And you are so comforting to talk to. And I think this is gonna resonate with some people. So I hope they reach out to try and see if you could maybe help them along the way in their journey because there's nothing wrong. You don't have to do it alone. There's there's people like Nikki out there that can help you get get past that. So don't be scared, get the help that way, you know, it'll help because you can introduce things that they weren't even thinking of.

SPEAKER_01 47:41

Yeah, and don't do it how I did it. I did it the hard way. That's why I'm so passionate about it, because it's like I um I walk my talk, you know. I've been there, I've done it, and um I I did it a very, very long way, and I didn't ask for help. I would never reach out to anyone um because it I think it was just my conditioning, the way we had strong women in the family, you know, you you get on with it, you're strong, and it's like, and when I did the work on myself and I could see the unhealthy beliefs around that, it's like, do you know what? It's okay to ask for help. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's okay to say I'm struggling right now. Do you know what? I'm having a bad day. I just need someone to talk to. And that's the only way they that we heal is a collective and humanity is being together and helping one another.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

Well, thank you so much. You are a trauma rock star. I mean, you pulled yourself out of this, got your life back. You changed, you even said you know, you didn't even recognize yourself in the mirror at one point, and you're back, and you bring so much wisdom to all of us and inspiration. So, thank you so much for sharing your journey. Oh no, you're very welcome.

SPEAKER_01 48:47

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 48:48

I know, and for everybody listening, please be your own advocate. Please listen, you're not alone. There's people out there that could help you reach out to Nikki. I want to hear where you are in your healing journey. Please comment below um so that way we can engage with you and and talk to you and be there to support each other. That's why we're doing this. We're building this community. So thank you so, so much.

SPEAKER_01 49:11

Have a wonderful day, everyone. Thank you so much for inviting me, Tracy. It's been a pleasure. Thanks, Nikki.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

The content on this podcast revolves around personal life experiences and is meant to serve as a learning tool. I am not a certified therapist or medical expert. This podcast doesn't offer medical, psychological, or professional advice. If you're curious about your mental or physical well being, feel free to reach out to a licensed healthcare professional for assistance.