Riding Life Like You Stole It - Rise Up Story with Nicky Herringshaw

Sometimes life doesn't fall apart because you've failed.

Sometimes it falls apart because you've abandoned yourself.

In this deeply honest Rise Up Story, Vicky Ross is joined by physiotherapist and mind-body practitioner Nicky Herringshaw, whose life looked successful from the outside but quietly felt empty on the inside.

From the monotony of early motherhood to discovering betrayal, Nikki shares the moment she realised she had been living everyone else's version of her life—and what it took to come home to herself.

Together they explore:

• Why your body often speaks before your mind is ready to listen.
 • Healing after infidelity and divorce without becoming bitter.
 • The surprising power of understanding someone's story without excusing their behaviour.
 • Why meditation isn't about escaping life—it's about returning to yourself.
 • The relationship between physical symptoms, emotions and unconscious beliefs.
 • Letting go of people-pleasing and learning to trust your own intuition.
 • The freedom that comes from upgrading not only your future—but the story you tell yourself about your past.

Drawing on more than 24 years as a physiotherapist, Nikki explains how she combines Women's Health Physiotherapy with Havening, PSYCH-K®, NLP and Cranio-Sacral Therapy to help people reconnect mind, body and soul through a truly holistic approach. 

If you've ever found yourself asking, "Is this really my life?" this conversation will remind you that your greatest breakthrough often begins with your greatest awakening.

Connect with Nicky Herringshaw

If Nikki's approach resonates with you and you'd like to learn more about her work or book an appointment, visit Total Health Physiotherapy (www.totalhealthphysiotherapy.com) , where you'll find information about her holistic physiotherapy, women's health services and coaching. 

If this episode spoke to you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who might need to hear it. Your support helps more people discover these Rise Up Stories.

Transcript

Welcome And Why These Stories Matter

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi, and welcome back to the Rise Up Stories. My name is Vicky Ross, and I'm your host. And today I have got the lovely Nikki Herring Shaw. Now, because I always tell you how I know the people that I interview and stories we share with you. If you remember, we've got the podcast with Charlotte, who was told she had six weeks to live but was given a doctor's appointment seven weeks later. Charlotte has gone, as you know, and she's created the alchemy of being, and then she put a whole lot of alchemists together. Of me being one, Ben Barnard, who's the other person I've interviewed, is another. And here we have the lovely Nikki Herring Shaw as one of the alchemists. And I've had the pleasure of meeting Nikki through Charlotte, and she is an absolute, absolute delight, as well as wealth of information, talent, skill, and a stunning rise-up story. And again, I do appreciate that none of these stories are original because we are all living through these stories in life. We've all gone through some part of everybody's story we can own. But for my listeners, these stories are here if you are in that downward spiral in life, that things are not working out. And my hope and what I want to bring to the world is to hear a story of somebody else who also went through what you're going through, and to find that inspiration in their story, and to rise up and fight for your life and claim your life and be free. So, ladies and gentlemen, let's listen to Nikki's story. So, Nikki, before we even start with your story, tell us a little bit about yourself. You you you tell my listeners a little bit about you.

From Physio To Mind Body Soul Work

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Okay, well, first of all, thank you very much for having me on your on your podcast. It's a great honor. So a little bit about me. So by trade, I'm a physiotherapist, and after several or eight years of that, I decided that there had to be more to helping people than just physio. So I really started looking at the mind and and and sort of training in extra things like NLP, craniopsychotherapy, haven't you? So looking at how the mind affected the body, but really the soul as well. So that's I kind of went off on lots of different tangents.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

And once I escaped the NHS, that really took on and and that is something that I absolutely loved about you because I I, of course, entered from years and years back. I came in from the spiritual side, but then of course it was like, okay, so as souls, spirits, energy, we've chosen to come into a life to do something, but how how does that all manifest and what can we do? So then, of course, I went down the mind route.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

What I saw very, very early, and this is what I loved about the conversation that we had when we first met, is that you you can't just work on the spirit, you can't just work on the mind, you can't just work on the body because we're an integrated, sophisticated, multi-layered, complex system. We are to lose and we have to look at all. So you went, you started off with the body and realized okay, I can I can do all the things I do on the body, but it doesn't fix if the mind doesn't fix, and if the soul doesn't know, I mean, I had to unlearn huge amounts in my training because I've been trained in a very sort of Western British way, which is is is very narrow and really doesn't take account of the fact that there is a there that it's a soul having a human experience and it was just looking just at the vessel of the body and and and these people, and you can look in their eyes and that you could see well, no one's being listened to.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

And especially if you're female, that's another story. And so I, you know, I I really started to and I could feel what they were they were saying to me as well. And I was like, I gotta do something with this. This is just and I nearly quit physio. I mean, I actually went off to New Zealand because I was like, I gotta get away from all this and I gotta do this differently. And so I worked in New Zealand for a while, and that's where I came across cranial sacred therapy, and that really spun everything on its head for me and was uncomfortable because you know, back then I was like, Oh, this is all a bit woo-woo. As against all your strict British kind of I was like, where are the randomized control trials? Where's the proof? Where's the evidence? And I was like, it's sitting right in front of me. I've just made it happen, but you know, I need a piece of paper to say that it's true. Um, so I really had to challenge, yeah. There was I mean, my my let's just say my thinking was a little narrow back then, and my ego was large, but I was in my 20s, so you know.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

So we've also talked about, and one of the the main reasons that we've got you here, because I I could talk to you, and I think we should bring you back so we can talk about the whole connection of body, mind, and spirit from the work that you do, because it's fascinating. I I always say to my membership people that as a spirit energy soul, whatever you want to call yourself, you were given a vessel, like you said, it's the body, you were given this body, and your one job is to take care of the body, take care of this human. We've been we're giving you this human so that you can express yourself, take care of the human. And so many of us, well, I guess I don't want to blame anyone. We're not taught to think about our thinking, we're not taught to understand how we function, we're not taught to know who we are.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Yeah, as as someone said, we we we write it like we stole it.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

It's not true, we ride it like we stole it. This is going to be something that I'm gonna quote you, Nikki, because I love it. We ride it like we stole it. Oh my god, that is brilliant. Yeah, rather than taking it for a nice cruise and and looking after it and maintaining it,

When The Perfect Life Feels Wrong

SPEAKER_00 6:10

oiling it up, cleaning it up. No, we ride it like we stole it. Oh my god, that's brilliant. So, like I said, everybody that comes first to these rise up stories has a story. You've got a story, you've got a really nice, well, you've got a very typical but very strong story. So I don't know where we begin with your story, but let's begin with your story.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Okay, so so I to put it into perspective, I got married in 2012, and then I had my two daughters, amazing little ladies, in 2014, 2016. And I think that we got into about 2018, 2019, and I was going, I mean, things weren't great for me. There was hormonal stuff going on, and like when you said things were not great for you, what do you mean with well? So I was not feeling like myself at all. I really didn't recognize myself at all. I'd lost, I was always, I I mean, I spent my 20s backpacking around the world. I was a free spirit, and and I think I found actually I I had it in my head because it had been taught to me that marriage and children and the house, you know, all these things that we should want and desire and have. And so I was like, right, this is this is what will happen. And I think I woke up on like my 29th birthday and went, I must procreate yeah. And within that, I you know, I I met my then husband like quite soon after that, and and and he seemed to tick a lot of well most of the boxes. I ignored a few things, which I really shouldn't have. I knew some stuff in my gut that probably I should have listened to a little bit more. But at the time I was like, no, no, this is exciting, and I want to get married, and I want to have children, and you know, and I'm coming up to 30, and uh and so on I come.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

And you know, Mary, I'm laughing because when I I got married the first time, I had all of that, and there was so many signs to say, stop, don't go, don't, don't, don't, don't. And everybody was saying, Oh, it's just bridal nerves. And I'm like, no, my body knew, my soul knew, and I didn't know to listen. Yeah. I mean, so ignored.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

I think one of the problems was my, you know, my husband, he was he was one of the first people. It turns out I probably have ADHD, and so does he. And for the first time, I met someone who got me on a level, and he still to this day knows me on a level better than anybody else.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Um and so it was fun to have this reflected back to me. And I was just like, let's go. This is this is all excitement, and he was this very optimistic, exciting person. So it just all felt great. But again, ignored some of the maybe more self-serving uh things that went on. And so we we got married, we had kids, and then I think uh the motherhood is so very difficult in those early years, and it was so monotonous with hormones that were going all over the place, which really kicked off my ADHD side of things. Um I was lost and I felt dreadful. I was crying a lot and I didn't know why. And I just remembered this moment. Must be too much information. I was sat on the toilet and my husband was brushing his teeth, and I just looked at him and I went, God, is this it? Is this how it's gonna be? Always. And I've learned since then, I should not say too much out loud because the universe really listens to me. And I said, something's gotta change. I can't keep going like this, something's gotta change. And then

Infidelity Shock And Trying To Fix It

SPEAKER_01 10:00

within a matter of months, I found out that there had been some significant extracurricular activity on his behalf. And in that moment, like you know, in the films, like when they suddenly some big news and it goes zoom, and like suddenly, like the focus is the whole world disappears, and it's just that moment that happened, and I was terrified and scared and in total shock. And for the next, you know, few months, I was like, right, because I knew my NLP, and I was like, right, we're gonna make this work, this could be the making of us, and all of this, and on and on I went, and because I was prepared to fight, and I didn't want to give up at that point because of all sorts of background stuff of like I will have failed, I can't do this to the children. I think I had in my back of my head every time I'd ever listened to a a celebrity talk about why they had gone off the rails and everything all gone wrong. It always started with my parents got divorced when I was a child, and I was like, it's gonna screw up my kids, I can't do this. And so I went all in on myself. I mean, I did all sorts of amazing personal development stuff, and I was like, This is gonna be it, this is gonna be it, but there was absolutely nothing on the other side, and it was when my friend turned around to me, really good friend, and she was really blunt with me, and she said, I was like, I've got to make this work somehow. I've got to make this work somehow. And she's like, I can't pretend that that is gonna be the best thing for you.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

And I was like, Oh, you're gonna say, What are you saying that I shouldn't save my marriage?

SPEAKER_01 11:48

She went, I don't think that will be what is best for you and the children.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

And I was like, How dare you?

SPEAKER_01 11:56

God bless this woman. Anyway, and she was she was really like a good mirror to me and she for me, and she held up, she held me up and sort of said, you know, how about? And I knew, I knew deep in my soul, within a week of me finding out about the the affairs, I had written to him going, you know what? We are amazing as parents together, let's do this as a cracking team, but we are not great as husband and wife.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

And my soul wrote that letter, it was an amazing letter, honestly. To this day, I'm still very impressed by that letter. But then my my humanness and my brain caught up, and then that's when it all went a bit wrong. So I went over time, and and you know, I was still trying to fight and this, that, and the other. And then I was so done in. I was I was just telling you before we came on here that there was a walk home from the school run, and I was just felt so broken, and I just slumped down on the side of a roof and just started bawling my eyes out, and I couldn't stop. And this poor bloke walked past, and uh he was he was kind of going, What can I do to help? I was like, No, leave me. I was like, I know I've got this, this is my realization.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

What made you slump down? So obviously, there must have been a fear, a thought, a sadness, something something must have happened in that moment where you slumped on and you balled out. What what was it?

SPEAKER_01 13:17

It was it was this sense of utter defeat and acceptance that this really wasn't going to change for all the efforts. Yeah, for all the effort I was gonna put in, I was still not divorced. I mean, we were still not going through the divorce process at this point.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

I was just like, I I can't fight this for two of us, I can only fight this for us together if we're jointly in and we both want this, and only one of us wanted it. And I'm so used to with my job being able to fix things, yeah, and I'm incredibly resourceful, and I knew my MLP, I knew how to think, I knew how to not spiral. I repeatedly put myself in his shoes so I could understand why he actually did it in the first place. I mean, I went back through his childhood, I sat in his shoes and I was like, yeah, there's plenty there. There's plenty there. I understand,

The Pavement Breakdown And Acceptance

SPEAKER_01 14:20

and actually the role models and all of this.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

So, can I ask you, because this is something that I have done, and it's something that a lot of therapy promotes, and I've seen and heard a lot of people do it, where it's the right thing to go down the rabbit hole of what's happened to try and get understanding, to bring understanding to a situation like why would somebody say that? Let's go back and let's look at their childhood, let's look at their parents, let's look at so I I had a very narcissistic dad, and you know, my whole life I was working towards trying to get him to love me, to be proud of me, and to tell me. And my his friends would say, Of course he loves you. He's so proud of you. And I said, He's never told me, he's never given me a hug, he's never said to me, I love you. He's never said, Vicki, I'm proud of you. Ever. Now I have gone, I did exactly that. I went back to understand what is it that stops him, or is it that he's not capable of loving me, or and to be honest, it doesn't matter how much information and analysis I've done on him and then us, it didn't change how I felt inside because I didn't change.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Yes, but but for so for me, by going back and I could understand it, and and the thing is I could then maybe this is my empathic side, but I could feel it as him, and therefore I could see him, I took away the roles and the titles and saw him as the individual soul on his soul journey. And I so I could get to a point of understanding why he did what he did. It's not an excuse, but it is an explanation, and therefore, because I could understand it, it didn't it didn't take away the pain it had caused me, but I did understand why it happened, it wasn't just this random act of meanness and and and betrayal and this, that, and the other. It had a story, and therefore I could move to a point of acceptance, and then I forgave him.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Yeah, because I do think fundamentally nobody's really born mean and horrible. I mean, I know that scientifically they say there's like three percent or something small where people are actually they're not born with the right gene something expression. But for the rest of us, is we hurt.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Yeah, 100%. And I could see that hurt boy. I can still see the hurt boy, but you you know, was something else my friend said to me, have to upgrade the avatar you have of him. Like we all have an avatar of everyone around us, right? And she said, You have for all the good that you see in him, because I could see so much good. And she's like, You also have to upgrade the avatar to include the fact that he will cheat on his wife, and he is prepared to walk away from a marriage

Compassion For Self And Healing Triggers

SPEAKER_01 17:25

and a family unit. I mean, he was not in his eyes, he wasn't working walking away from the girls, he didn't seem to understand that that's us together making the family.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

It's a package deal.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

It's a package deal, package deal indeed. And you know, and he's maintained being a he's a great dad, but he, you know, I had to upgrade the fact that he will continue to self-serve and his needs will be put above mine and the family unit on a greater or lesser extent, and that is also a reality, as well as him being actually someone he has got big heart, he is very kind in many ways, and this, that, and the other. But it includes this big big area, and I and when I accepted that and I went, well, therefore, if I keep fighting for that, then I'm giving up on myself. I'm saying that's good enough for me, and that. And I remember sitting in front, I sat myself down and I was staring at myself in front of the mirror, having a chat to myself, and I was like, This is it, Nikki. You're gonna walk downstairs and you're gonna apply for your divorce. There is nothing else to be done. You have done everything you can, you can be really proud of yourself because I was really, I had really put a lot of effort in, and I knew I had literally turned over every stone. I mean, I had put serious effort in.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

You did literally, you sat on the pavement and you turned those stones while some stranger was going on you okay. So you you'd done that. You'd done that ugly. Did you say it was a snotty cry, the ugly crying on the pavement?

SPEAKER_01 19:01

So snotty, and and it was I didn't know I didn't know back then how much pain I could feel, and I didn't know I could survive it, and now I do. Oh the best to walk around holding onto my heart.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

And it is, it is that I know that feeling where you think this can never change. That this is gonna kill you. And and and it's because you we haven't had the experience of surviving that to have the wisdom that that brings to know that this two shall pass. It's shitty and it's sore and it hurts, and there's lots of snot and tears and all that, but we survive it. But a lot of us, especially first time around, and you know what?

SPEAKER_01 19:52

It also highlighted to me I have I I am so blessed. I have had such a beautiful life, and I had really been brought up in a very innocent way, very protected way, a bit too protected potentially, and I hadn't experienced anything that was particularly bad before. I'd had a few little heartbreaks, but they were little, you know, little guys. So I didn't know my potential. And actually, now on reflection, I'm like, that was really crap, but I knew I could do, I now know, I know I can handle a lot more than that as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Now I've got me. When when I teach and when I've taught resilience to a group, I ask everybody to think of a moment where life was so shit. So for me it was the pivoting point in Australia. For you it was, I don't know if it was I sat on the pavement or whatever it was. But you know, there is that thing, and then to think about it and to go, you survived that because you're sitting here today. So what's the phrase that you can use that when things go bad in life, you say, you know what, I survived Australia, and therefore I'll survive everything.

Freedom Through Surrender And Letting Go

SPEAKER_00 21:01

You know, you you we we we are so good at forgetting how super powerful we are, and that we are so resourceful and so resilient, and we forget, and and I get people to to make up a little sentence that when they feel really, really bad, they go, Oh, hold on, hold on. I survived Australia, so I'm okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

I mean, my I guess I I literally survived a broken heart. I mean, I was holding on to that heart, literally, physically holding on to it. And yeah, and I my heart is I can't remember what is the name of those um that Japanese thing with the broken bowl and they fix it with the gold. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

That one I'll tell you in a minute.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

I know that now. Like I had everything burst open and and and I I healed me with with help, don't get me wrong, with an awful lot of help. From some amazing human beings. You can only have that help because you're amazing. But I I know a yeah, I know a depth and a strength in me now because of it. And what was also true is some of it I couldn't hide it from my kids. And they watched me at times where I really broke down. And I I I just couldn't not. And I tried to stop a lot of them seeing a lot of it. But they have watched me as two females rebuild myself and be strong. And now run a very successful business and love deeply, laugh a lot. That's the one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

Kitsu kitsugi. It's a century old Japanese art of repairing broken pottery. You survived kitsugi.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

There you go. We're gonna have to learn that word, right? We will have to learn that word. Not rolling off the tongue just yet.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Not as yet.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

But yeah, so and I, you know, now I know that I also see when I when I work with people, I'm like, they're going through something pretty bad, and I'm like, great, I'm here for you, but crack on, this is the one.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

You can see it on their face, you can hear it in their voice. It's and it's interesting how we think that we are fooling everybody. We're fooling no one. No one. Oh, no one. Everybody knows but us.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I I mean, I there were so many warning shots for me that I was really not doing very well in the first place before this happened. Like I'd cut all my hair off and bleached it white and stuck I fake lashes on. This, I mean, this is not me for any no one's met me, but you know, I'm sat here in a in a hoodie and and and you know, I'm always in workout gear and or backpacking somewhere doing something. So to to do that was was me screaming. Yeah, really.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

And no one say when a woman cuts her hair. They always say when a woman cuts her hair, there's something going on.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

Oh yeah, and I literally bleached it white, white, white, white, white. Yeah, it was an interesting look.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

So you had a moment where you went, this is not working, I'm gonna go downstairs and I'm gonna uh go and apply for my divorce.

Safety And Trusting Yourself Again

SPEAKER_00 24:25

And I did, and I sat there and and I'm guessing it it it didn't get a lot easier in the beginning, did it?

SPEAKER_01 24:35

No, I mean, but by the time I mean I found out in the May 2019, and I didn't apply for that divorce until a year and a bit later. Like I had really given it a long go, and I was so actually by that point, the application it felt easier. Obviously, then the divorce process isn't pretty. I mean, it always the money is always the one. You start to see the real colours of people when it comes to money, and um I keep getting quite disappointed about how undervalued mothers are and the role and etc. That's a whole nother podcast. I could go on and get all feminist on that. Um, but yeah, so I've had to, I've had to, I've become a lot braver and more courageous. And what I've also done is I've started rocking the boat where I I was brought up in a way. I remember my mum sitting me down once, going, Well, you know, in our family, we kind of sail through the middle of life. We have no great highs, no great lows. We're like pretty constant, like it was this great thing. And I was like, afterwards, I was like, oh no, no, no, no, no. Now I'd felt how low I could go. I was also like, oh, I can go all the way to the top now, more than I ever knew is possible. And I started to stop becoming so amenable. And now I'm in my 40s, I'm really trying to rock the being a more awkward woman. Wonderful. Uh, stopping the people pleasing and the things like that. I mean, I'm I've still in recovery for people pleasing, but I'm quite a long way into it now.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Isn't it interesting that it and you know, Dr. Jo says it, you know, he says that normally takes a crisis for people to take that depth, deep breath and stick back and go, no, that's not gonna happen. I mean, some people, the crisis kills them in one way or another. But for people to bring change, it usually takes a crisis, whether it's a physical crisis or relationship crisis, financial crisis, redundancy, business, it's a crisis, and it brings you back to go, oh, and then we we do the work and we constantly do the work and we rise and we become the best version of ourselves. And wouldn't it be nice if we would get taught these

Peace Over Noise And Life After Divorce

SPEAKER_00 27:00

things? Like you've got an opportunity to teach your girls things that you were never taught. Not to say that your parents got it wrong, they didn't get it wrong because your parents could only teach you what they knew. 100%. So this is not the the blame game because God forbid that we go into the blame game. No, we're not doing that. I'm grateful for everything that's ever happened in my life because everything anyone said because it it wasn't. To make you who you are today. Absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

But I think um I was reflecting, having again listening to one of your podcasts the other day, and talk you were talking about meditation and that, and it's really that quietness to be able to hear that inner voice. And this is the problem. I think when you know, when Dr. Joe says that about well, why why do we even need to go there? We live such a fast life all the time. And I say it to my clients and about me and about them that sometimes we get too human, and we're so up in our our logical head thinking space that we're not ever dropping into our heart and our gut because we're never quiet enough to like how long has it taken us to try and do this podcast right? Because I'm like here, there, and everywhere. And finding those quiet moments when you can hear the voice is is can be a challenge. I mean, I I fortunately, whenever I do craniosacral therapy, I'm sitting in that space for hours and it's delightful. So, but finding that place when you are in that busy, hectic, go, go, go world is hard. And I think it's hear ourselves more if we could.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

I mean, I I've been meditating for years, and in the beginning it would be part of my to-do list, you know. I need to meditate, and then something would feel more important, and then I'd go, Well, it's okay, I'll meditate later, and then later it didn't happen. It's okay, it's okay. So it doesn't matter if I if I missed a day or a week or a month, and then six months later I'm like, why's my life shit? Oh shit, I haven't meditated for six months. Oh, I've got to go back on my to-do list, and then I d I don't know when when it happened, where suddenly my meditation didn't feel like a therapy or a healing or a oh, let me just relax, let me quite. It didn't feel like that anymore, but it felt like a coming home. And then I thought, why would I ever not do this? Yeah, why would I not purposefully do give myself the time to just be with myself? Yeah, because I've

Closing Thanks And How To Connect

SPEAKER_00 29:40

just met a part of me that is exquisite.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Oh, I love it. And and do you know what? One of the joys of say the joys of period, I don't know if I should say that word, but of divorce is my children go to their dad dad every other weekend, and on those weekends I am quiet. Honestly, I probably could write up three or four business proposals in that time. I could solve most of the world's problems, I can figure out everything that's going on with me, because it's quiet.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Well, the thing is, you see, it's amazing. When you you know, if you look at what the Buddhists will say, is that all suffering comes from the relationship you have with people and places.

unknown 30:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

You know, so it's either the relationship and and it's it's a suffering, not that it's bad, that the relationship you have with your children because you can't do what you want. You have to cook or you have to do this, or you have whereas if you're on your own, you don't have that, and therefore you can do what you want, you can eat when you want. And I talked about it, I talk about it a lot with my members and all that. When I used to fly for South African Airways, my biggest joy was when I sat on that jump seat and we were like ready for takeoff, and I would feel that aeroplane going. And having sat in the cockpit for most of my flights, dare I say, it was before 9-11, they they do this thing where they reach V1. V1 is like, okay, now we have to take off because we're going so fast we cannot stop. So if something happens, they have to pull. So they go V1 when it reaches that speed, and then they go rotate and they pull back those things, and the aeroplane lifts. And it's the most exhilarating feeling for me, because in those days, especially, in that moment where that aeroplane's wheels lifted off my world and everything that it attached me to was gone.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

And there was no mobile phones, we had no smartphone, we had no phones. So I would go, for instance, you know, for a 10-day flight to the Far East, we would, oh, after two, three-hour flight, have to go to Mauritius and sit for one day and and look at the sea because we're so tired. Awful. And then and then when we were rejuvenated, we would get back on the flight and we would go six hours or whatever the flight time was to Singapore and sit there for three days and go shop and do whatever we did. And then we went to Hong Kong and we did some more shopping, and then we would come back to Mauritius because oh my god, we're so tired from the shopping. And then we would eventually come home ten days later. But for those ten days, I did what I wanted, when I wanted, who I wanted, ate it, ate when I wanted, didn't eat. And it was it was that taste of freedom, which I think that's why my work always eludes towards freedom and helping people create a life that's lived on their terms. And this is why I love the podcast stories, the rise up stories, because I get to hear how people through adversity made the choice to rise up and free themselves. Yeah. To become who they really want to be. And it is a journey. It is a journey.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

Oh, it's a hell of a journey. And I have to say, you know, now my like the freedom comes in the in your thinking, right? And you know, and and sometimes I catch myself, and and I, you know, we're never perfect, are we? There's no such thing.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

The human the human body has I was reading a book, sorry. Tricky little number. But but I was reading the book that's say you think you're in control of life and you try and control your life, which is part of the suffering, and you're actually in control of nothing. Take your body, the body, the human that you were given, and you're looking after, you think you can control it. Don't feed it. See what happens after a while. Don't give it water, see what happens, or don't take it to the toilet when the body wants to go. The body will eventually go to the toilet anyway. You've got no control. Yeah, no, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

It's surrender interesting concept. The the whole do you know what always comes to mind when I when I try and say to my client, I re I remember this moment when I just had to go right, universe. I trust you're in control.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

Surrender.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

Surrender, crack on, I know you've got my highest good. And it had, I mean, I love the human being that I am now, and my ability to express my soul in the way that I do now, that I wouldn't have dared to before when I was married, and all those unconscious kind of restrictions I'd put on myself and society, I'd allowed society to put on me, like that's just you know, all gone. And I try to say to my my clients, and I always have it in my head, you know, in the film Fight Club, yeah, and there's a scene where they're in the car and they have to take the hands off the steering wheel, they just put the seatbelt on, and they're like, hands off the wheel time, and that's always what goes on in my head, and it's just like, yeah, let's re-wheel this. I mean, it didn't go so well for them, they got a bit beat up, but it was fun. But it's about that kind of just hands off the wheel, stop trying to control. It never works when you try and microcontrol it. And and you know, I have been known to maybe do that once or twice in my life.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

You and the rest of the world, we all we all control freaks until we realize that we've got no control. And when we let go, that's when we have freedom and life happens.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Yeah, that's I mean, I still try and control things, but then I I let go quicker. So yeah it's that realization, and I think you know, no one's perfect. You like I think you were talking about the therapist shame the other day, weren't you? And we all have that. We're like, Whoa people are coming to us. Who am I to tell them if I do this still? And it's just like all human, like, and and this deep compassion for yourself is what I would really say now. Like, I say to people, be hideously compassionate with yourself, hideously compassionate, and that voice we have, especially as women, man, we have a voice, don't we? That's like how we look, how it's just it's just crap, all of it, and and just that compassion, if you can bring that in and go, actually, I'm pretty proud of what I've just done. And what it boils down to, I think what it gets to, if if we go with the basics, it's Maslow's hierarchy, isn't it? Everything comes down to safety.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

And you know, you can try and create a safe environment to be around and this, that, and the other. But if you don't feel safe with yourself, if you don't know you've got your own back, that's where you need to do the work.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

I always say that the biggest thing that anybody can develop or should develop, uh and and I say should without it being like, okay, is a trust in self, that no matter what happens, no matter what happens, you'll be okay. Yeah. It might not be the ideal thing, like you've grown up that by the age of 40 or 50 or 60, you should have achieved this and ticked this box and have this picket fence and that car. So it might not fit that package, but you'll be okay. And if you can trust that no matter what happens, you'll be okay, then suddenly you don't feel so vulnerable and so you know, you you know that you are safe because and that comes back down to like spiritual as well, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 37:12

It's it's knowing you can trust your gut, but then also psychologically can trust your thinking. Yeah, and know enough about your thinking, and you've now got some tools. Like I think I thank God every day for the NLP. Yeah, that saved me during my divorce.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

It really is. It's like you say, it's like that, even if the worst thing, even if you get it completely wrong, so you make a wrong decision. So you you kind of go, I trust the process of life, I trust myself, and you make a decision, and it goes massively wrong. If you can still trust that in in that wrong decision making, everything is perfectly in place and everything lines up and you can trust the process and you can trust yourself, you'll be fine. Yeah, yeah. Maybe uncomfortable, a little bit uncomfortable, but you'll be fine.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Yeah, and getting used to being uncomfortable is one of the best resilience tools, isn't it? Sit in the discomfort and figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

Yeah, yeah. And the thing is, I think, you know, and if you think about it, again, I've done a lot of this work with myself and with a lot of people. And the biggest fear that everybody kind of drives is like, what's gonna happen to me? And I'm going, okay, so what will happen to you? Tell me, what's the worst case scenario? So we talk about worst case scenario, and I said, So what's the problem with that? And they go, well, what's everybody gonna think of me? And I said, Who's everybody? They said, Well, everybody. And I said, the people that love you will be there to support you and help you and stand with you. And the people that don't love you, why do you care what they think anyway? Because they don't care about you anyway. Yeah, why why are you putting so much energy in people that don't care about you? And why are you putting so much energy in the opinion of people that don't even know you exist? Yeah. Everybody's you know what?

SPEAKER_01 39:02

I remember that right at the start of when our marriage broke down. I was hell-bent on making sure everyone I knew knew why. I needed them to me. It wasn't me, it was him. He did it, and and uh I was so and and you know, I I just I watched a friend go through the same thing, and she was trying to do the same thing. I was like, it's none of your business what they think, none of your business at all what they think. And it doesn't matter what you know about yourself in your heart, that's all that matters.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Yeah, yeah. There we go. Sorry, our time my alarm going off there. So Nikki, what what has been the biggest gift that all of this? I mean, you you've basically already said it, but let's just summarize it all. The biggest gift that your hardship brought you, the biggest gift that rising up has given you, that today you live with.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Do you know what? It broke the illusion of what life should be, all this marriage, house, kids, blah blah blah blah blah, and all the societal noise, and it let me step back and go, this is a twaddle, isn't it? And let me listen to what I actually wanted. And it's actually a very simple, quite quiet, peaceful life where I help people because it's just the best gift ever. And it let me free up my own thinking and free up my heart and let me be really nice and kind and compassionate towards myself, and therefore that ripples out to everybody.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

So well, you know, I always say it with people that the if you yeah, when when I've done it, uh when I've done when I used to do a lot of leadership training, I used to say to them, Have you ever had a bad boss, horrible boss? And everyone's like, Oh yeah, you know, everybody's had a horrible boss. I said, And what was it like to be around them and work for them and you know, level of loyalty? No, it's all zero. You know, there's no loyalty, they couldn't wait to get away, and they were glad when they did. And I said, And what about when you were with a happy boss, uh a good boss? The best. So I've always said your your job is to look after the human that you were given. Yeah, and part of looking after the human is to find in yourself the love and the peace and the joy. Peace. Because when you Yeah, because when I got my peace. That's it. And and and then you start to realize how the interference of your peace is all the outside noise. And when you see it for what it is, and then you see it as you know, Katie Byron says something very, very profound, and I use it a lot more than you know, I say it more. So she talks about there's a there's a program that she does that's called Mothers and Daughters, and she talks in about the four questions that she does and all that. And in one of those moments, she said that until you have learned the lesson and stop the reactiveness that your mother creates in you, your mother's job is to keep pushing that button. It's her job. You bring you bring the people into your life that will push buttons so that you can stop and look at yourself. And okay, there's a wound that somebody's poking, and as long as there's a wound, there's going to be pain, there's going to be hurt, and that's my job is to heal that. Because once it's healed, that button cannot be pressed because it doesn't exist. So this is what you know when you realize that somebody can say or do or be something that hurts you, it's not their problem. You've got you've got the wound and you've got the button that they're pressing, and your job, part of looking after the human, is to release that pain. Release that it's it's a perception, by the way, that we have. Because as energy, as spirit beings, we can only be perfect and complete. We are never broken. The brokenness, if you think about all that you've gone through, is just an illusion, a perception that there's something missing, something faulty, something wrong with you, when actually the job is to realize you're okay. You're in. That's it.

unknown 43:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

That is exactly it. And that brings the joy and the peace because you don't need something on the outside.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

So much peace. And I think, you know, now, you know, we we will always have the odd trigger. But now when the triggers happen, I'm going, Oh, interesting. Why are we getting triggered over that? Something new to play. Something to work on. And I and I see it for what it is. And um interesting. It's just that but the the peace I have and the contentment I have in in my heart now is so beautiful. I mean I would never ever put myself now in a place where that starts to get under any duress because I'm like, no, I'm not in it.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

Once you have that, if like I say to my girls, you're now here at this level, whatever that level is. And if you meet somebody, they have to meet you at the same level or higher. They can't be lower because you can't go down again. Not with the knowledge and the experience that you've got. And that's a gift, because you'll never give that away. You could never give that away. It's too precious.

SPEAKER_01 44:49

No, no. I mean, it would just be the ultimate betrayal to self, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_00 44:54

And and and here's the interesting part is that I've seen people recover from bad events, divorces, breakups, whatever it is. But they they've recovered, they haven't healed, and therefore they're still looking for a different, I say different to the inverted breakers, person to now fulfill what they are missing in themselves. And this is why they'll end up having yet another relationship. And I always talk about, you know, all they're doing, and and this is true for all the kind of problems that we have, is you bring in an upgraded version of the same problem until you heal it, until you can go I see it, I'm aware of it, you know, I I'm I I'm I I can observe myself having the human reaction, and I know I'm okay. I know it doesn't define me.

SPEAKER_01 45:49

And it the thing is, I think people a lot of people think that that is quite a scary process, but it's finding out a brand new skill set that once you've got it, you've got it for life. And it that's such a gift. Such a gift.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

Well, it brings the peace, it brings that. And and it's interesting, you know. Um I was telling my group, I think I was telling you that I've taken my social media off my phone. Um and I was worried in the beginning, like, will I be okay? And it's it's absolutely wonderful. I don't really know what the hell's going on in the world. Um I I've always had a belief that if something really important is happening that I need to know, somebody will tell me. Come across the wireless. Yeah. But for the rest, there's just I'm able to sit with myself.

SPEAKER_02 46:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

I think I'm inspired. I think I'm gonna do the same. It's so good. It's honestly and and for me, the biggest thing was waking up and going to sleep. I would just have a quick look. You know, when I wake up, oh, let me quick look. It it was just like the most automated thing. And I used to think, what happened to the days where we didn't have telephones? We didn't wake up with that. I had one of those where you had to slam it to to to uh stop the the alarm going off. Yeah. Um and and in order to get up, I would put it on the other end of my bedroom so that I couldn't I wouldn't miss a flight. I had to get out of bed to switch it off, otherwise it was pam, pam, pam, going off. But we we didn't have the the distraction from ourselves. And I think there's something to be said, especially when you reach in the space where you've got to meet who you are and you like that.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

Your nervous system cannot regulate in with that constant noise. No, no.

SPEAKER_00 47:37

Nikki, it was absolutely fabulous, and I do want to bring you back at some time in the future because I'd like to talk more about what you see when you work with people's bodies. I know that there's a lot of your wisdom that came from your physio that you've now combined it with your sacred cranial and all the other stuff that you do, and all you know, I I know you do some some magic, and I would love to have it.

SPEAKER_01 48:04

You know, I need to change it to that. It's cranio sacral, but so many people have said sacred cranial, and I'm like, that is better actually. It is sacred what I do.

SPEAKER_00 48:13

You can have it. I'll give it to you. It is so yeah. So I would like to have a conversation about what you see in people and and what does it mean? I love that. How do we release that? So we're gonna bring you back at some point in the in the near future. Perfect. Nikki, thank you so so much. I'm looking forward to having me. And for our listeners, thank you again for being part of this podcast. If it's something that you enjoyed, loved, needed to hear, know somebody that needs to hear it, please support the show, share it, subscribe so you don't miss any new episodes. And if you want to explore more of this kind of work, there'll be details in the podcast notes, episode notes, about how to get in touch with Nikki and what she does. She's based just outside London. In Surrey. In Surrey, there we go. She's based in Surrey, so you will have all the information for her, but also if you want to do any work with me, there'll be the show notes at the bottom. And of course, just to let you know, if you don't know, that I do run a membership where we do we eat, breathe, and sleep. No, it's not that obsessive, but we do a lot of personal development. So if you want to or if you've entered into the world of personal development and don't really know where to go, or just want something, a community, where we talk about all these things in a very loose and yet very deep way, do have a look at my membership and come and join us and have some fun. And for the rest, I wish you a good week, whatever you're doing, and here's to your success.