What a Wonky Carrot Taught Me About Starting Over in Life- Rise Up Story with Will Thomas

What happens when the life you carefully built — the relationship, the identity, the sense of security — is ripped away all at once?

My guest today is Will Thomas: coach, hypnotherapist, academic, author, and one of the most quietly extraordinary humans I know. And in this conversation, he does something brave — he tells the truth.

Will's story begins in 1970s London, where growing up different meant learning to keep secrets. It winds through the happiest day of his life, a cycling accident that stole his short-term memory for a year, a marriage unravelling, a devastating betrayal — and a strange moment of calm in the middle of all of it, where a voice simply said: "Everything unfolds perfectly."

And then there was the wonky carrot.

Found in a greengrocer's during one of his hardest weeks, this misshapen, ridiculous-looking vegetable made him laugh — and then made him soup — and eventually became the seed of an entire philosophy: the perfectly wonky life.

In this episode, Will shares his STICKA framework — the six principles that helped him rebuild self-trust from the ground up: Spiritual silence, Trust, Intuition, Creativity, Knowledge, and Agility. We also talk about the very real shame of being a therapist who hits rock bottom, the difference between intuition and ego chatter, and why your emotions really are like two-year-olds who will not be ignored.

If you've ever had the life you planned fall apart — and wondered whether you could trust yourself to find the way through — this one is for you.

To see more of Will Thoma's work, follow this link. 

50% discount on Will’s Perfectly Wonky Life Course for Rise Up followers with ‘Spring26’ discount code applied at checkout:  https://willthomascoaching.com/products/the-perfectly-wonky-life-introductory-course

Valid until 30th April 

Transcript

Welcome And Friendship Backstory

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hi, and welcome back to Rise Up Podcast. Today it's a Rise Up story again with my fabulous, wonderful, amazing friend Will Thomas. Will Thomas and I go back to 2007. We both studied to become instructors of hypnotherapy with performance partnership. And I'll never forget walking into this classroom. I didn't know anybody, and there was this one person just looking at me. And I went and I said hello. And here we still are having beautiful, wonderful conversations. He's a breath of comfort, never mind fresh air. He's a breath of comfort and love and trust and acceptance. And he's just one of the most amazing people that I've come across. And I'm so grateful that he's my friend. So, for all of you listeners, I would like to introduce you to Will Thomas to this story.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Hi, Vicki. Thank you so much for inviting me, and thank you for that beautiful introduction. I I assure you it's as a mutual reflection of how I feel about you two. And it's great that we're yeah, we're still in each other's lives all this time ahead. And yeah, it's great. Thanks for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

It's nearly 20 years. Next next year, it's 20 years. We're 19 and a half years in. That's wild. It is, it is. So, Will, tell us a little bit about you and your life and your you know, your your short story, because I know we're going to focus today on one very specific rise-up story, but just tell us a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Okay, so in the present day, I live in a beautiful place called Mulvern. Feel very lucky to live here. It's growing up, I always wanted to live with with a mountain behind me that I could walk or run up every day. And it's not quite a mountain here in the Melbourne Hills, but it's almost, and that it fills me with joy every day. I have a little dog called Dory. She's a Tibetan terrier, so she's of the mountains and she loves going for sniffs and walks. So I I work as a coach, an executive coach, as a life coach, as a therapist, a hypnotherapist, using EFT, which we'll maybe touch on later, because it's been a quite a pivotal thing in my life. And I also uh I'm also an academic. I I work at a university part-time, and I love writing. I've I've written books over the years, various topics, both fiction, form of poetry and non-fiction. And a key part of my life has always been contribution. So I think even the the the writing has an element of what does it contribute? Yeah. So yeah, and I have a lovely partner, James, and we we are adventurers. We love going out in the wild in our kayak and uh climbing hills.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

I I've seen some crazy photographs from the two of you. Uh being having grown up, because I'm not South African, but having grown up in South Africa, we used to do a lot of camping. And we have perfect location, scenes, and weather. And then I see the two of you going

Will’s Life And Work Today

SPEAKER_01 3:40

up in Scotland, God knows where, in Wales, camping in torrential rain, and you're sitting inside your tent, and I'm like, how is this fun? So I'm always amazed. I'm amazed at how how the two of you embrace outdoor adventures and all of that kind of stuff. It's just beautiful to see.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Yeah. Well, there's you know, the the uh old adage, there's no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong kind of activities.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

And the wrong clothes. The wrong clothes.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Yeah, that's what we we will normally say. I think that was uh the economy said bad weather, just wrong clothes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

So, Will, um, like I said, we we we need to bring you back over and over again because you've got so much to contribute, and I know that you are the person that loves to give. And just to to let everybody know, I've written two books thanks to Will. Will Will had, but I think at the time that I wrote my first book, I think Will had written 14, and I think six or seven were already bestsellers. So I went to Will and I said, please help me, because I was just doing so badly, and he's just a fabulous author coach. So if anybody's listening to this and thinking, How do I do this? I'd I'd I'd point you to Will. Now, this is a rise up story, and I know that you walk the talk. I know from knowing you that you use what you've learned and who you are to rise up and actually be the Phoenix rising up. So we we're gonna talk about one of those stories because, like most people in life, there's quite a bit of stuff happening in everybody's life, and there's one particular one that I admire you for because I know how difficult it was for you at the time. So, do you want to start with that?

Growing Up Different And Hiding

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Yeah. I guess a a very short backdrop to that is I I grew up in London in the 70s and eighties at a time when being different wasn't okay. So from probably the age of nine, I had this multiple layers of levels of of understanding that I was different to pretty much every kid around me. And you know, one of those differences was just I really have this um empathy that I I find really difficult to manage, and I've learned over years how to manage it much better, but I I just felt other people's pain a lot, and I also growing up realized that not everyone was like that, and because of that empathy, I think I I ended up being pushed around a lot. I didn't stand up for myself, and I was making excuses a lot for other people's what I would now class as as not great behaviour, but also I was harbouring a secret, which back then, I mean thankfully now in the UK, it's being gay is is kind of in many regards normal and okay, and more able to you can live a life now with less pressure and less secrecy than you you had to do back then. But you somehow carry that, you know, when you've lived that you you carry that with you. So when I eventually escaped from this very homophobic kind of environment at home and got away from home, and eventually I met this lovely man, and eventually we we but we built a life together. It was a life that was in secret a lot of the time because I was in a career path at the time where it just, you know, it would have been career suicide to be open, yeah, to come out. And we eventually the opportunity to have a civil partnership arrived because the change in the law, and it was honestly the happiest day of my life when the the kind of culmination of having come out to my family, having helped my, you know, having a built a life where we had some kind of authenticity, and there we were together celebrating our our relationship and our life together. It was so much more than just the celebration of our our relationship and our love, it was also the kind of almost the summation of everything that we I had had to struggle through, and many people in in a similar situation.

The Crash And Memory Loss

SPEAKER_00 8:35

So when a few years later I I had this, I was cycling through Mulvern one day, minding my own business, going to the gym, and car came up behind me and knocked me off my bicycle. I flew into a parked car and had a head injury which wiped out my short-term memory for round about a year.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Um, and initially, I mean it sounds horrific, but initially it was blissful. You know, we all try to achieve this mindful state and uh, you know, of not having invasive thoughts. So yeah, a mind that can't remember what just happened, let alone what happened, you know, a few weeks or months or days ago, it is a really weirdly blissful state. But then as the memory starts to come back and the cognitive function starts to come back, I start to realise what could have happened and that I've got a long recovery. And in the midst of all this, things are not going well with me and my my former husband. And be known to me, there was an affair, he was having an affair with someone else. I didn't find this out at the time. But it became, as I got stronger and recovered from this injury, it it became clear that this had been going on a long time, and also that the very fabric of what I'll now call the sticking plaster that this relationship was was was coming apart. You know, the elastoplasty piece was was deconstructing, and I was unraveling, and I was unraveling uh at a more of a level than just my my marriage is breaking up. So that that began the yeah, that kind of descent into yeah, a a spaghetti of really difficult emotion.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

And and can I ask you unraveling, and and I'm asking because I've gone through something not the same, but I've gone through an unraveling sort of uh experience. And the thing that I was kind of questioning myself all the time is this, how can this be happening to me? I'm the one that's teaching people and supporting people, and I'm giving lessons, and I know so much about it, and I'm unraveling, and I I'm I'm you know, all the things that I know and teach are now happening to me, and I feel out of control. Did you have that kind of feeling as well?

SPEAKER_00 11:12

It's just that's really interesting. Yeah, I would I would say that there's a kind of we call it therapist shame that comes with you can't be human because you're doing this, there's no ways these things happen to you. Yeah, it's really interesting. That's a really interesting uh yeah, a kind of a kind of other layer of I should be able to manage this, I should be able to sort this out. And what's interesting about that that though is I think there is this kind of shock phase, which I can look back now and see. And I had this bizarre moment one day.

Divorce Unravelling And Inner Wisdom

SPEAKER_00 11:55

It was like I can remember it was around this time of year, it was around sort of when we're recording this in in an April kind of time, and the the weather was just getting better. And I sat at the kitchen table one day, and I had this sudden realization that the couples therapy that we'd been doing together wasn't working, that this was the only direction this was going in, was live either carrying on, rumbling along in this really uncomfortable relationship, or I had to make the move because my my ex-partner had a history of not taking charge and not taking responsibility and voiding. So it was me that had to do this, and it was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. But there was this weird moment which I I've written about, and where I sat at the kitchen table and this wave of unimaginably indescribable level of emotion came over me, and then I experienced what what I've read about before, and people say I was beside myself, and I there was a part of me that I now realize was a really wise part of me that rose up out of me, and it it kind of floated above, and I remember it being above and to the right, and it just said in this really, really calm voice, everything unfolds perfectly.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

And I was I had a WTF moment with this thing, and I was kind of conversing with it because I was it was literally, you know, in bits on on lens across the kitchen table. Everything unfolds perfectly, and I I wanted to shout at it, and I think I probably did, and say, How can this be perfect? But you know what? As the years have gone by, it realised that that deep wise part of me was right. Because that deep wise part of me has realized that that was a sticking plaster, and the work I've done, the depth of work that I've done on myself, in you know what you described earlier, this rise up moment, it's messy, it's uncomfortable, there's tears, there's snot, there's there's you know, there's every every possible emotion that you can imagine, and the mixed and blended, like some sort of you know, weird pharaoh and ball colour chart that nobody would want on their walls. It it's really messy. But and and I think you know, coming back to that point you're making about you know being a a therapist, being a a coach and a counsellor, and and I can't deal with this. Well, you know, in that moment, who can? In that moment when one's world unravels, who can deal with it? But that is important to feel yes, important to feel that, and it it's it led me to from that moment, and you talk about a rise up moment, there was a sequence of different types of events that happen around that time that just pivoted me into a place of okay, accept what's here, just be at peace at some level, be at peace with what's here, and now get in touch, be in touch with who you are, who I truly am, that really deep sense of my values and my spiritual core, and act going forward out of that. So it's this really bizarre moment of almost collapse, but then this emergence of something that's so deeply authentic to self. And once once I'd realized that, once I'd seen that, there was no going back. And actually, it yeah, it's this, you know, that kind of lowest point, and then that realization.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

And and I think you and I see this a lot, and it's a lot of the work that we do, is that that feeling that it's a very, very tender and vulnerable feeling that you kind of think that you're not going to survive this. And what I see a lot in my clients is that they they get too scared to actually go into it and touch it and feel it and emerge out of it, and therefore they suppress and they hold back, and they either mask with themselves or they just mask using substances like alcohol or whatever it is, and and kind of recover. And I say this in inverted brackets because there's not really recovery, because it it comes back, it comes what hasn't been dealt with in that vulnerable moment comes back to bite you in the ass. And so, as I'm listening to you, my question is is well what specifically, or I don't know if there's anything specific, or what did you do in order to go, right? This is happening. I'm taking it in, I'm gonna go. I mean, you know, when we when we go through crisis and then we have to rise up, we none of us have got the training. It's never happened before in our lives, and we don't have the training. How did you do it? How did you know that you needed to trust that part of you that was so vulnerable and it's so scary? And you've got therapist shame, which I've experienced massively, you know, which is like this can't be happening to me. You know, it can happen to anybody other than not me. And then it does, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

And that's a I I think that's a really multi-layered

Feeling Emotions And Finding Support

SPEAKER_00 17:35

uh thing, what the response to that. But I I think I think first of all, it was really important to, and I don't know how I did this, or I don't know how I knew this at the time, but just to trust that being in space and quiet and allowing myself to experience whatever this was would bring something positive, and it absolutely did. And I think also seeking support, yeah, and I am you know very blessed that uh I have some wonderful people in my life, very few friends, but they're friends who I can absolutely rely on and count on, and you're one of those, Vicky. And you know, I think you know one of the layers to that uh that response and that recovery is that you were such an exquisite listener. And I I think sometimes you know, sometimes I think it on the on the other side of it, if if we feel if we feel for the person we're supporting, if we are the supporter, if we are the person someone's leaning into, somehow we feel like we have to fix it. I think it's a natural human instinct sometimes to feel we've got to fix it, we've got to offer something, we've got to problem solve, we've got to rescue, and that that's it. But actually, in that moment, it that just that pure exquisite uh listening, that space for someone just to say this is how it is, is so important. And I think I was blessed to have that with you and and uh and with my sister and and with a with a number of other people as well, and and in and out of different types of therapy, and and it's so so interesting. I learned so many different approaches to therapy change over time, and uh and I think because you know who knows what's the right thing at the right time. There's there's a strange eclectic process, no, not eclectic kind of yeah, intuitive process around this is what I feel drawn to at this time.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

And and I think this is what confuses people in the sense that they'll try some form of therapy and it doesn't work. And then they kind of go, therapy doesn't work for me, rather than this type of therapy didn't work. Because, like you, I did lots of things in my life where you know, when I thought, oh, this is great, this is like the bee's knees, this is everything, and I went 600% in, became an expert, like really an expert in everything, only to then come across some of my clients that it just didn't work. And then you think, okay, so if this doesn't work, something there must be something else, and then you find the the next thing and the next thing. So again, I I'm hoping that that when somebody's listening to this and they are in that dark space, is that if they've tried something that's not helping them to just go look for something totally different and and find it. But but you said something that I think is I would I would love to say it's the starting point, but I think it's a it's it's a it's the second step. And you said that I started to accept my circumstances, but I think before the acceptance is we have to have an awareness of the this is what I'm feeling, this is what's happening to me, this is how I'm reacting, this is how I feel, like I'm not coping. Now I can accept that and be absolutely petrified because if I accept that, I guess for me it was if I accept this, this might never change. This was my biggest fear that the acceptance would make what is going on it's okay, and therefore it it doesn't have to change, and that was my fear.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

That's that's interesting, yeah. I and I I can relate to that. And I don't I can't honestly say how we got past that. Maybe it was listening to other people talking. So I think, you know, things like this podcast that you put out are really important. It's our own journey, it's our own process when when difficult things happen in our lives. But listening to other people and being able to pick out what might be a next step for for us is really important. And that so aligns with what you've just said about, you know, that kind of thought of therapy doesn't work. Well, it it I've found some therapy I've worked with, or some therapists haven't been quite right, but that willingness to keep going and try something else has been really, really potent. But you've just you've just really pulled out something that I haven't realized until now for me, which is that the importance of trusting that however scary and difficult and overwhelming the emotions will be, they won't go on forever.

unknown 23:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

And it's and actually it's something that's a connection I've made with something you said to me all those years ago, which is, and this too shall pass, you know, it hasn't come to stay. Um and and it might pass in cycles and it might it might revisit, but almost it's different. And I I think from my earlier life, one of the things I learned, well, I I had a would now have been diagnosed with depression, I think, in my twenties when I was first dealing with the whole coming out process. And a lot of that was because I didn't feel, it didn't allow myself to feel, and so it went in deep and it stayed in, and it will always find a way to express itself, and it expressed itself in physical illness and it expressed itself in this retreat from the world and this very anxious process of trying to keep suppressed stuff. So I think safe places, safe people, safe environments to enable yourself to have that space to feel are so important. And I I feel this particularly I I work with a lot of people from the LGBTQ plus um community in my in my practice, but I find particularly with men, um, there's so many hidden messages to men about emotions and and about not expressing emotions and about these weird ideas of weakness. And I and I do wonder if, you know, for me growing up, my dad was constantly saying, Don't cry, don't be weak, stand up for yourself, you know, and and bless him, he had a lot of strength, but he he could also be quite an aggressive man in the way that he put ideas across. And I I something inside me always has said, if you want to cry, cry. And so I did, and I have done, and I think honestly, letting that emotion out has been an important part of recovery.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

I I always describe emotions to my my clients, my class. Think about them as like two-year-olds that are going, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, and you go, mommy's busy, mommy, mommy. They don't stop. They will throw a tamper tantrum, they will do all sorts of things, they they will cause disruption because what they want is attention. And I say that emotions are the same. If it's coming up, it's time. It's time to sit down on the floor, stop everything, pause, and go, okay, what are you about? Why are you coming into my life right now? Why are you demanding so much attention? Because suppressed emotions, they will, like you said earlier, and we both have seen this, experienced it, comes out in all sorts of places.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

And that that's interesting. I I think one of the things I learned to do at the time was to also have a dialogue with emotion and with the parts of me, because I had to work during some of this period because there was a financial disaster going on at the same time with this divorce.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Yeah, it was on all levels.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Yeah, yeah. I mean it it you know, it affects so so many things. But yeah, there was this necessity to be able to say, I see you, I hear you, I know that you have needs. This is to my emotions and to the parts of me that are expressing these emotions. And we will check in with this, and I would give it a date and a time. Because right now I need I'm here in this situation, you know, to support others. And I was a trainer, you know, I did a lot of training at the time, and and so I'd have to go into groups of people and be duh and uh, you know, and make sure that they had a great learning experience. And I am so proud of how I managed to do that during that that kind of meltdown period uh after the the well during and after the divorce. But yeah, that ability to say, we will check in with this, we will give this space. And on the occasions I learned that when I broke my promise to my parts and my emotions, boy, did they come back.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

For the vengeance. Oh, they are truly like toddlers, you know, and you and you've got to stay with it. I I I did a lot of that kind of stuff when I was still living in South Africa, where I used to write out dialogues, so it would be like anger, and anger would say hello, and I'm going, What are you back here for? He says, Well, you invited me and get us, and I would write these dialogues, and it's so interesting how many years later that I've still got the one book where I used to do these exercises and read these dialogues. Wow, cathartic, like you totally, you know, things about yourself that you don't know. Because something that you and I talk about a lot is that the one thing that is the most valuable thing for us to know is how to understand ourselves, to know who we are, to understand our thinking, and it's the one thing we don't get taught in school on what what are emotions? Why is this coming up? What can I do about it? How can I pause? How can I step back? How do I rise? What is acceptance? What does acceptance mean? If I forgive somebody, does that mean that it's okay that they did this bad thing? You know, all this kind of stuff that my clients come to me, and when I explain things, they go, Why don't they teach this to us at school? So I I know that a lot of things have come out of your rise up, but there is something that happened to the green grocers that has started an amazing program that you run. Can you talk to me a little bit more? Yes.

The Greengrocer Carrot Turning Point

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Because I I love that story.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

Yeah, yeah, there's there's an interesting moment. I I'm trying to place it in time. I think it it was there was a separation from my ex-husband, a physical, you know, we we we moved apart. And then there was a period of time when it became really clear that he had a really clever lawyer and lots of financial capacity to engage that lawyer, and I didn't. And I gradually the the next sort of wave of catastrophe after accepting that relationship was over was that I was gonna lose pretty much everything that I'd built up. And we had a really good life in terms of the you know, the material trappings of life, and and sure enough, you know, through some clever lawyerness, I did. So there was a moment I I I didn't it was when I wasn't working very much, and I I couldn't afford to eat. And so I would go to these kind of small greengrocer shops and I'd find the sort of last remnants of things, the really dodgy-looking vegetables that nobody would buy. And I went to this greengrocers in a a a town not far away from here, and and I there was I was in this greengrocer's and there's this box of sort of dodgy-looking wonky vegetables, and there was this carrot, and it it was for those of a certain age who grew up in the UK, you might remember there was a programme called That's Life run by Esther Ranson, and they used to have a parade of unusual vegetables, most of which look sort of vaguely suggestive and rude. And it was one of those kind of vegetables. It was a carrot. So I bought this carrot and I went to the the desk, and the guy at the desk and I had this giggle about this carrot. No words were exchanged, just this like that's a really weird carrot kind of look. And it was what was weird is it it was like a it was like a a little person with a little tufty bit at the top where the leaves had been cut off. It had two legs and then it had this this it had this winky, it had this really long like piece that was growing out, and the there was a root hair on the end of this, so it also looked like it was peeing. And and I hadn't, I can't remember at that point the last time I'd smiled. And I went home having smiled with the greengrocer, and I made with that and a couple of sprouts, I made this delicious soup. But as I was preparing the soup, I just couldn't stop giggling about this this weird wonky vegetable thing. And unbeknown to me, it was planting a seed because it was a very pivotal sort of transition moment. And and as I was eating that's that soup, I thought things ain't that bad, you know. If I can go to the greengrocers, have a giggle and make a delicious soup from practically nothing, then there's hope, there's possibility, and it it kickstarted, I think, now a lot of creativity. It's kick-started me painting. Now I'm not an artist by any stretch of imagination, but I love colour and I love form and I love shape, and I experimented with that. And it was a good few years afterwards that I got the idea for what I now call the perfectly wonky life. Because I look back at that carrot moment about the wonky vegetable, and and I I realized that there are so many people that are sold this wild idea that we live a linear life. That you know, we we're born, we we have a great childhood, great education, we get we get a great job, we we maybe get married, we have a family, and it's all great kids, great. Great kids, yeah, great house, yeah, yeah. And then you retire with a great pension, a great pension, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you live happily ever after, whatever that is. Sold the linear life. And I realised it, you know, at that time that there's so many of us don't have that kind of life, and naturally we live a wonky life compared to this ethereal dream that we're all sold. You know, there's all sorts of interesting theories around that dream, and you know, how kind of Western-centric it is, and how how driven by commercialism and so forth. But what I realized was that a perfectly wonky life is also a great thing. But we can take a wonky life and we can find the value in it, we can find the opportunities in it, and that's absolutely what from that kind of point in time on, it wasn't a sudden thing, but that I started to realize that yeah, we we can build a perfectly wonky life. So I built a course and it's got in it lots of tools. And I say right at the beginning of the course, you know, it's you know, adopt it, adapt it, put it aside. It just like we've talked about here, tools and experiences and approaches and ideas come to us at come into our lives at different points in that journey of re renewal and recovery. And so, you know, we we need different things at different times. So, yeah, that was the that was the how the greengrocers, greengrocering experience led to the birth of a what I call a movement, the perfectly wonky life movement, which is supporting people to embrace your wonkiness, uh, and don't be shameful about, you know, because there's a lot of shame around, you know, say a relationship breaking up or things we feel we should have done differently. Yeah, accept where we are and embrace the opportunities.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

I always say to people that the only reason that there's this this dissatisfaction is because we are taught and we are told, like you said, this is how the perfect life is, and then we compare ourselves to everybody else. But the truth is, nobody on the whole planet out of eight billion people, nobody is living your life. Nobody has your desires, uh, your dreams, your purpose. There isn't another person that has exactly who you are, so there is nothing to compare, no race, no, no, no, there's no race that we're running and that we have to like who's gonna get there first because they've got a different path. And it's so it's fascinating to me to see how people will evaluate themselves through what other people are doing and they don't know these people. So I love your course because your course does allow people to just go, me. It's me. Let me let me see me and love me and be more of me and be unapologetically me. Because we are we are taught that if we don't measure to the to the list, that I don't even know who made that list, but anyway, that list the list of of the perfect life. If we don't measure to that, then you're not good enough. And that of course is like one of our deepest fears and phobias, and sure because we know it's rejection and it's our biggest phobia. We know that if we get rejected, we don't get love. Somewhere deep inside of us, in the wisdom that we've got, we know that without love we can't survive.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

So it's and that's that grows that sense of or need for belonging. Yeah. Um, but also it's a belonging with and to what and whom. And I think all when I said earlier, it's almost a throwaway line, I have very few friends, but I can really count on them. I would say all I mean this in the kindest possible way, all my friends are pretty wonky.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Well, you know, John Lavelle from from the Society of NLP always used to say, Your true friends are the ones that you can call at three o'clock in the morning and say, Meet me here, bring a spade, and they'll be there and they won't ask questions. So I'll call them spade friends. So if you've got a spade friend, they won't ask questions, I'll just go where you want me to meet you, I'll be there. I'm bringing I'll bring two spades. Then then you know that they're a friend. Yeah, yeah. Well, before we go, obviously, you know who you are and how people can reach you will be in the notes. You came up with something very cute, very apt. We've got a bit of time, and it's about dump dumpy a sticker or be a sticker.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Be a sticker, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Yeah, sticker. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

Be a sticker.

The STICKA Framework For Resilience

SPEAKER_01 38:10

Tell me tell me what a sticker is.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

I love I love playing with words and ideas and and frames of things. And yeah, it just came to me this morning when I was just reflecting on what what we might talk about today. And uh so a sticker, S-T-I-C-K-A. So I'm being a slightly poetic with the the language there. This idea of sticking at things and stickability, I I think is kind of important in in this journey of navigating through a wonky life. And I think to the sticker, it is some of the things that I've personally found very helpful, and I think some of my clients have over time. And that the S is for spiritual silence and space. And I don't mean that in a sort of religious kind of observance kind of sense, but giving yourself space to check in and notice what's going on, what's happening in your internal environment, what are you feeling, what are the those felt somatic mm sensations in the body. And like you were doing earlier around emotions, you were asking questions. What is this? You know, this toddler, if it's a toddler that's that's the part that's that's shown up, what does it need? And befriending those parts of ourselves, rather than seeing them as enemies or as conflicting parts, see them as contributors to a story, to an awareness. Trust is the T of sticker. And I think I would say my my trust in in the exit from that relationship was obliterated. I I found it and have found it very difficult to to trust again. But what do you know the thing that was most apparent there when I came out of that was I had not trusted myself. And the trust with self it has grown inordinately in the last decade and a half. And that's that's roots, though you're trusting yourself, your trust in listening to what's going on with you and being curious about that, not being fearful, but being curious. I, you know, see the opposite of fear being curiosity in a way, in that if we can be curious about things, we're we're almost playful in inquiring about what that is. So I think that building that trust with yourself and that links to the next one, intuition, yeah. Uh trusting, listening, what and learning to differentiate inside yourself between what is intuition, what is that kind of deep wisdom that's coming through, that deep sense of knowing, what's just chatter, self-talk that's just uh noise, and ego talk because ego can be quite aggressive and like what are you doing and you're an idiot?

SPEAKER_01 41:07

And that's definitely not spiritual.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

No, no, and and for many people it's fear-based and it's power-based, and it it's it's about wanting wanting control in a life, which you know is a natural human thing. But so that that checking in an intuition, wisdom, spiritual kind of guidance, it has its own quality. And I I think understanding what is the somatic sense, that felt sense, the sensations in the body, the awarenesses, the aura, if you like, of how does this whole thing feel when I know deeply I'm checking in with something that's wise rather than something that's grabbing or grasping. Nice. Creativity, creativity has absolutely saved me. And I I don't think creativity is a particular thing. You know, it's not painting a picture or making a spoon or you know, or crocheting a shawl. It's it's it's more of an essence, it's a way of being, and you can apply it to all sorts of things. And I've definitely applied it to you know some of the courses I've developed, some of the approaches and and tools that I've I've grown, but also just creativity. You know, my garden is is the things in my garden that are wooden are painted in a brilliant pink and a and a sky blue, because those are colours that came to me in that that re-emergence experience, and I just love them, and and that that colour is part of that creativity. So yeah, not don't be tied to a particular activity around creativity, but get in touch with that because it it gets you in touch with your authentic self. Creativity is you, it's and and and and be not afraid of the word creativity, be curious about it, and what's your expression of creating, and then knowledge and skills is the K of Sticker, which is just keep learning, you know. And I I think that also has saved me is to continue to grow and learn and be curious about what's available, what's out there, what might work, try stuff, and sometimes it doesn't work, like you said, try something else. Um and and lastly is the agility, which is that flexibility, and that comes with acceptance. You know, feel the emotions, find a way to accept the reality, but that doesn't mean passively accepting it. Accept the reality that you are faced with, and then work out how you will act on that reality in a way that is authentically right for you. So you're in line with your values. So you don't you don't act in a way that Is going to make you feel uncomfortable because it crosses your values, but you're being true to yourself in the way that you respond to whatever challenges you face. And I think I think that I've arrived at a place in my life now where I feel I do that most of the time. And that is a combination of those elements of sticker. And I still mess up. And I still get it wrong. And I still think, oh, why did I do or say that? But I'm compassionate with myself and I'll check in. And what what was that about? And what can I heal there? And what might be a helpful way to work with that? So I think, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

Can I also just say that yes, that some of the time it's it's a it's a great opportunity to reflect and heal and grow. And sometimes we just do dumb shit and we just gotta be like, oh, okay, stop doing that. I went wrong, I didn't follow.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

Yeah. And I think I maybe I add a another K, so it's sticky to this, which would be kindness, kindness to others and kindness to self. Because I think, yeah, we mess up, we we do things, we are uh a plethora of all these parts of us that have broken away at various points of trauma in our life, and we can work with that. Yeah, Virginia Satia, who is is just such a positive inspiration uh as a a therapist and a a wise person, talk talked about parts parties and having this party where you for people that are listening, what is a parts party?

Parts Party And Closing Reflections

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Yeah, okay, so a part so there's uh there are various traditions of coaching and therapy which invite us to identify and label parts of ourselves, and these parts, the theory goes that these are parts that break away from the core of us at points where we need some kind of support for survival. And so we might have a part that is that toddler, you know, that's that's a very childlike part of us, but has to scream because there are unmet needs. We might have a part of us that's very protective and will shut us down and keep us safe by making us more invisible. And there are parts of us that that can deal with challenges or parts that come in and and will, you know, lift the corner of the car.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

And I guess, you know, I do think that people know this unconsciously because we use it in language, you know, we will say, for instance, in a conversation, there's a part of me that agrees with this. So we actually say it. Or there's a part of me that feels this way, there's a part of me that's conflicted. Yeah. Um so we we we know, yeah. Okay, so there's a parts party.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

Yeah, so Satya in invited the idea of instead of seeing these parts as conflicting entities within us that are always having spats and conversations and doing one thing when another one wants to do something else, we invite them to the party and we start to look at them as having both light and shadow, and they have gifts that they can offer us, and they have sometimes they they stimulate behaviors that are uh maybe not helpful. But by building a relationship with those parts, we can utilize their gifts and we can minimize the negative impacts they sometimes have. But the beautiful thing about that as well is the more they come together and the more the work together, the more unified and the more whole they and us we become. So there is a beautiful, it's almost a stepping stone, I think, the parts party to a more unified self and a more unified sense of how we show up in the world, how we respond, and how in my value system, how we contribute, yeah. You know, how how we we we leave moment by moment a mark in the world that makes the world a happier place for everybody, and goodness knows the world needs that right now.

SPEAKER_01 48:24

Well, that's an understatement, but uh it it's like what you and I've all often talk, you've got to start with self. You've got to start with yourself and stop thinking about what's happening outside of this ourselves and our world. Uh stop trying to think that you can control because you can't control anything. Get back to you and heal you. Sure.

Share, Connect, And Sign Off

SPEAKER_01 48:48

Well, wow, we've gone way over time, but it's been such a wonderful, wonderful podcast episode with you, and we're definitely gonna get you back here. Like I said earlier on, the how people can get in touch with you and engage with your products will be all in the show notes. All I can say from the bottom of my heart, other than this was just such a pleasure, is such a deep, heartfelt thank you for sharing, contributing in the most beautiful way that you always do, and for being part of my world and part of now everybody else who's listening's world.

SPEAKER_00 49:25

Oh, thank you, Vicky. And just again, just reflecting all of that to you as well. I'm just so grateful that you're putting this out into the world for people. It's uh it's rich and it's important. Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 49:40

So, for my listeners, if you think that there was something that someone that you know needs to hear, Will's wisdom, please share this podcast with them. Whether you do it quietly or loudly, that will be fine with me. And if you want to know more ways of how to work with me or how to be part of my community, I've got a beautiful membership, I do retreats, I do all sorts of things. Um, those details are also in the show notes for you to access. And for the rest, I'll wish you well, I wish you a good week, and hears to your success.